In communism is everything "free," and can be taken without having to have worked?

[Grayson Walker]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.I think in the big picture, humans with modern means can produce more than they can really consume. So in a situation of abundance and cooperative production, it would become practically difficult to actually quantify what each individual "deserves". Take water use in homes today... People might give you shit if you waste water just on principle... But also no one is keeping tabs on how many glasses of tap water you use at your friends house because it's reliably available.

In smaller and more egalitarian societies, most people did more or less contribute what they could and got back what they more or less needed. Given relative stability, no one cared if you made baskets but the other people made boats because both were needed for fishing. If people were lazy or selfish about it, they weren't given less food, they were just given extra shit (people shamed them for their selfishness).

I don't think there's much in the way of a "human nature" (beyond some very basic things... Like generally wanting to survive, etc) but I think there is a tendency to be keenly aware of "fairness" and to resent someone taking advantage of others. I think this is how people in a fully communist society would handle this sort of thing. Since there would be no class divide where you need to work so someone else can get rich (which is why there are legal and social and material mechanisms to make people work), shaming and just custom would be enough to ensure that people are contributing. In a transitional era, things would probably be different and some account might be deemed necessary and useful by most people, but given relative stability and a post-class society, this kind of formality would be useless and redundant in my view.

[exeexe]

In communism things are free but you must work as a slave to what people demand of you.

In socialism it can be like this "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism#Notable_libertarian_socialis t_tendencies

[tuwix]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.

In the same "Critique of the Gotha Programme" is written:

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

It means that must be abundance of goods and services ("and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly") to choose whatever occupation one needs. Everyone does something. But the difference in present capitalism and higher phase of communism is that in capitalism you must do things that are needed for market and capitalists. But only when there is no (mostly artificial in capitalism) scarcity of goods and services, only then can everyone get goods and services regardless what s/he does.

[bcbm]

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work.

i don't think its a coincidence the protestant work ethic that capitalism was built on had to be forced on workers at gunpoint, more or less.


Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?

'to each according to their need.' man is a laboring animal; we like to do productive things. even the simplest task like washing some dishes produces endorphins and makes us feel better. most people are not going to shirk off all productive labor and doing a good job will be its own reward. those who still want to leech are free to, but they'll likely be ostracized pretty quickly and find it difficult to be social in any meaningful sense. 'the dispossessed' by ursula k leguin, while a sci fi novel, is probably the best imagining of this i have seen.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.

Good question! What it really boils down to is this: the goal of communism is not to make everything free and pay part-time lifeguards the same wage as a coal miner worming twelve hours a day, every day. Communism seeks to change the very way goods and services are distributed and produced so that money itself becomes obsolete. Think about it: the very purpose of money is to ration, to distribute goods to people in a limited way through fixed exchange rates, because supply is limited. Everyone knows that as supply of something goes up, its price goes down. So, if we were able to produce a trillion computers tomorrow, each computer would have virtually no cost. And it wouldn't be because people were leaching, or because lazy people were being rewarded for doing nothing. No, it's more complicated. Nobody would need to buy the computer because there would be so many that it would become essentially free.

This is what communism really means: increasing productivity so much that there is plenty of everything, and everyone can take all that they need to be happy with no limitations on consumption.

Does this sound idealistic and far-fetched? It is. Most people on this site know that as awesome as a communistic society would be, it's probably hundreds of years away, at best (no reason not to look forward to it though!):laugh:

Instead, we want to build a socialist society, which will hopefully eventually transition to communism. Socialism is not a synonym for communism--it's very different. Under socialism, there would still be some form of government. Monetary systems, or systems similar to money, would continue to exist. Also, people would be rewarded for their work according to a combination of their individual needs *and* their contribution to society. The main difference with capitalism is that these differences would be fair. We would realize that we need garbage workers just as much as we need doctors. Without either, we'd all get sick and die. So we'd narrow the gap between how they are treated dramatically.

Which brings me to my last word: how do you accurately measure contribution to society? Seriously. For example, most of us think firefighters contribute more than construction workers. But what if you found out that that worker left work once every couple weeks to donate blood, saving three people each time. Then, he went home and took his grandkids on a trip with him. He brought them to volunteer in a local soup kitchen. Together, they fed hundreds of homeless people in a single day. Then, he read a science fiction story to them before they went to bed. One of those kids was inspired, grew up to become a scientist, and invented a vaccine for a deadly disease, stopping a pandemic in the entire country.

Directly and indirectly, over the course of his life, that one worker saved hundreds of peole from severe blood loss, thousands from malnutrition, and millions from death.

Under the capitalist system, that man would be paid as little as $7.25 an hour just because he didn't go to college. Ask yourself: is that right? Is he getting what he really deserves?

[consuming negativity]

Good question! What it really boils down to is this: the goal of communism is not to make everything free and pay part-time lifeguards the same wage as a coal miner worming twelve hours a day, every day. Communism seeks to change the very way goods and services are distributed and produced so that money itself becomes obsolete. Think about it: the very purpose of money is to ration, to distribute goods to people in a limited way through fixed exchange rates, because supply is limited. Everyone knows that as supply of something goes up, its price goes down. So, if we were able to produce a trillion computers tomorrow, each computer would have virtually no cost. And it wouldn't be because people were leaching, or because lazy people were being rewarded for doing nothing. No, it's more complicated. Nobody would need to buy the computer because there would be so many that it would become essentially free.

This is what communism really means: increasing productivity so much that there is plenty of everything, and everyone can take all that they need to be happy with no limitations on consumption.

Does this sound idealistic and far-fetched? It is. Most people on this site know that as awesome as a communistic society would be, it's probably hundreds of years away, at best (no reason not to look forward to it though!):laugh:

Instead, we want to build a socialist society, which will hopefully eventually transition to communism. Socialism is not a synonym for communism--it's very different. Under socialism, there would still be some form of government. Monetary systems, or systems similar to money, would continue to exist. Also, people would be rewarded for their work according to a combination of their individual needs *and* their contribution to society. The main difference with capitalism is that these differences would be fair. We would realize that we need garbage workers just as much as we need doctors. Without either, we'd all get sick and die. So we'd narrow the gap between how they are treated dramatically.

Which brings me to my last word: how do you accurately measure contribution to society? Seriously. For example, most of us think firefighters contribute more than construction workers. But what if you found out that that worker left work once every couple weeks to donate blood, saving three people each time. Then, he went home and took his grandkids on a trip with him. He brought them to volunteer in a local soup kitchen. Together, they fed hundreds of homeless people in a single day. Then, he read a science fiction story to them before they went to bed. One of those kids was inspired, grew up to become a scientist, and invented a vaccine for a deadly disease, stopping a pandemic in the entire country.

Directly and indirectly, over the course of his life, that one worker saved hundreds of peole from severe blood loss, thousands from malnutrition, and millions from death.

Under the capitalist system, that man would be paid as little as $7.25 an hour just because he didn't go to college. Ask yourself: is that right? Is he getting what he really deserves?

"We" think communism is idealistic and want a "socialist" (welfare capitalist state) government for hundreds of years? Speak for yourself. Much of that post was nonsense and I'm not sure where it is even coming from.

[(A)]

"We" think communism is idealistic and want a "socialist" (welfare capitalist state) government for hundreds of years? Speak for yourself. Much of that post was nonsense and I'm not sure where it is even coming from.

Communism Is the ideal end result of human socal evolution where people have cast off classes and money and all forms of exploitation.

Socialism is the step after capitalism where all people start to make the transition. It could and I think will take many of generations to go from the first step to the point where the state dissolves.

Problem is there are many opinions on how to get to socialism and then what it will look like after.

[consuming negativity]

Communism Is the ideal end result of human socal evolution where people have cast off classes and money and all forms of exploitation.

Socialism is the step after capitalism where all people start to make the transition. It could and I think will take many of generations to go from the first step to the point where the state dissolves.

Problem is there are many opinions on how to get to socialism and then what it will look like after.

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. Moreover, what you're arguing is not at all the opinion of the vast majority of users on this forum. All of the anarchists and most of the Marxists would strongly disagree with what you've said.

[Comrade Jacob]

Communism Is the ideal

Something being ideal (meaning preferable) and something being idealist are two different things.

[(A)]

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. Moreover, what you're arguing is not at all the opinion of the vast majority of users on this forum. All of the anarchists and most of the Marxists would strongly disagree with what you've said.


In the Marxist understanding, communism is the endpoint of human social evolution which will inevitably come into fruition through economic and social advances in socialism. Socialism, being the new order established after the demise of capitalism, is herein characterized by the working class having state power and undertaking the process of abolishing capitalist property and economic relations and establishing social (i.e. public, collective) ownership and management of society's political, economic, and cultural institutions. In accordance with the socialized processes of production, appropriation also becomes socialized as goods and services become consumed on a social basis with free access for the individual. Communism becomes fully realized when the distinction between classes is no longer possible and therefore the state, which has been used as an instrument of class dictatorship, no longer exists. In the communist economy, production and consumption are fully socialized, and the processes for which are advanced into maximized automation, efficiency, and recycling. This results in the end of individual money calculation, hence relationships between individuals being based on free association and free access to all goods and services according to need.

I have bad reading comprehension; where was I wrong?

[consuming negativity]

I have bad reading comprehension; where was I wrong?
Sorry bud, but Engels trumps Wikipedia. You should check this out: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

Something being ideal (meaning preferable) and something being idealist are two different things.

I'm sorry; I meant to say ideal, not idealistic. I tyed that block at 2:00 in the morning, half asleep, so some of it is a bit incoherent and even inaccurate.

I did not mean to imply that communism is unrealistic or never going to happen. I just meant that it isn't going to happen tomorrow, and that a lot of people here (not "most," I shouldn't have said that) think that we will transition there from socialism.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

Also, when I said "government," I primarily meant local communes and worker councils, not a federal welfare state.

[(A)]

Sorry bud, but Engels trumps Wikipedia. You should check this out: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

"I'm not your buddy, friend." (please get the joke)

It has been 119 years since Engels Died. Definitions tend to change slightly over time don't they?


“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.”

If Engels trumps Wiki dose Marx trump Engels?

[exeexe]

Everyone knows that as supply of something goes up, its price goes down. So, if we were able to produce a trillion computers tomorrow, each computer would have virtually no cost.?
Why is it then that fiat money is not free?

[Creative Destruction]

Why is it then that fiat money is not free?

Because it is legal tender and is backed by the force of law. It is also illegal to counterfeit money. Due to these limitations, there is a limited supply of fiat money. How one goes about getting it is defined by the law and the economy.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.

Define 'hard work' or 'harder work'?! This is silly, do you only mean manual labor? Labor which is risky? Sophisticated and intellectual work? Not only this but this sort of attitude punishes those whom simply can't work for physical or psychological or chronological issues. We actually have a surplus of resources and there is no logical reason as to why in light of this fact we can't live in a free society and do away with this fetishizing and worship of 'work.' In fact, in modern times, we work too much and literally, work for the sake of working, a lot of pointless exertion and so on. Or we have the technology to replace human workers but within the context of the capitalist mode of production this would be way shitty.

[Grayson Walker]

I get your points - socialist production will bring about such a surplus that each can take according to their needs irrespective of what they produce. I have many problems with this idea:
Firstly, I know communism seeks to eliminate the division of labor. Why? This would destroy expertise in different jobs. Does this mean a man who was a garbage collector yesterday can be a neurosurgeon today, despite having no experience? Or will jobs be like they are now: if you aren't educated in the subject you can't work there. To me, the latter seems much more plausible. Destruction of the division of labor would be a disaster. The only thing I feel we must do is equalize it more.
Secondly, I hate to sound like a bourgeois apologist, but it's true that incentives play a large part in hard work. You don't work, you don't eat; this is not necessarily anti-socialist.
Thirdly, our earth cannot support a superabundance. Our environment is on the brink of destruction; making everything "free" is going to absolutely destroy it.

I am not saying this society will not happen but I believe it is not plausible. If you were, however, to implement a kind of labor credit system to replace money (it is not money; not exchangeable just a means of proof that you have contributed so-and-so hours of this kind of work, so you can take this much). To me, this is not anti-socialist. Leave me your thoughts and critiques.

[consuming negativity]

"I'm not your buddy, friend." (please get the joke)

It has been 119 years since Engels Died. Definitions tend to change slightly over time don't they?


“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.”[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]If Engels trumps Wiki dose Marx trump Engels?

Not only does this not change the fact that you were wrong earlier, but your quoting that like this out of context is precisely what Marx is speaking of there. I quoted Engels not because I sought to make an appeal to authority, but because he and Marx were integral to the development of communism and so he is an authoritative source for information regarding the thoughts /that were his/. Quoting Marx to shill against the correct definitions of concepts he helped to create is exactly what he is railing against in the passage you quoted.

[(A)]

But did you get the joke?

Take the USSR for example. A revolution to bring about the end of capatalsim in Russia lead to a state called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Lead by the Communist party in the hopes of bring Communism to reality. Why then did they not call it the Union of Soviet Communist Republics?

Because they had not achieved communism. They had only managed to create a state who's intent was to reach communism.

I am arguing that while there is a state, while there is money and while there are classes then you are still in the phase of socialism between capitalism and communism. A phase who's goals are communist.
Yes
"Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat." but the end result of a Socialist state is Communism
I.E. The communist party's goal is to reach Communism

Socialism is just a step along the journey.

[consuming negativity]

But did you get the joke?

Take the USSR for example. A revolution to bring about the end of capatalsim in Russia lead to a state called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Lead by the Communist party in the hopes of bring Communism to reality. Why then did they not call it the Union of Soviet Communist Republics?

Because they had not achieved communism. They had only managed to create a state who's intent was to reach communism.

I am arguing that while there is a state, while there is money and while there are classes then you are still in the phase of socialism between capitalism and communism. A phase who's goals are communist.
Yes but the end result of a Socialist state is Communism
I.E. The communist party's goal is to reach Communism

Socialism is just a step along the journey.

No. Communism is not a goal, and we are not on a journey. We already established this. Communism is the reality that the material conditions and internal contradictions within the capitalist mode of production will result in the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat, resulting in our control of society which will abolish class distinctions.

Nor does calling your government "socialist" create a state of socialism in the territories it controls. Similar to how being a people's republic doesn't make you one, or how being a democratic republic doesn't actually mean the people legislate through democratic processes. In fact, they are often if not always precluded from doing so.

[bropasaran]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.
It should be noted that Marx was a technological utopianist, he thought that the communism was possible only when economic structure has developed so much that work it no longer necessary. Anarchist Communist, on the other hand, think that communism is possible now, as it was always possible.

Can a system work if everything is "free"? Well, strictly speaking, it's not free. Nothing is specifically charged, but the principle is not "To each according to his needs" - it's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

Here's what Kropotkin says:


"But the danger," they say, "will come from that minority of loafers who will not work, and will not have regular habits in spite of excellent conditions that make work pleasant." ...

We are going to examine the objection, and see if there is any truth in it.

To begin with, Is it not evident that if a society, founded on the principle of free work, were really menaced by loafers, it could protect itself without an authoritarian organization and without having recourse to wagedom?

Let us take a group of volunteers, combining for some particular enterprise. Having its success at heart, they all work with a will, save one of the associates, who is frequently absent from his post. Must they on his account dissolve the group, elect a president to impose fines, or maybe distribute markers for work done, as is customary in the Academy? It is evident that neither the one nor the other will be done, but that some day the comrade who imperils their enterprise will be told: "Friend, we should like to work with you; but as you are often absent from your post, and you do your work negligently, we must part. Go and find other comrades who will put up with your indifference!" ...

Take, for example, an association stipulating that each of its members should carry out the following contract: "We undertake to give you the use of our houses, stores, streets, means of transport, schools, museums, etc., on condition that, from twenty to forty-five or fifty years of age, you consecrate four or five hours a day to some work recognized as necessary to existence. Choose yourself the producing groups which you wish to join, or organize a new group, provided that it will undertake to produce necessaries. And as for the remainder of your time, combine together with those you like for recreation, art, or science, according to the bent of your taste.

Twelve or fifteen hundred hours of work a year, in a group producing food, clothes, or houses, or employed in public health, transport, etc., is all we ask of you. For this work we guarantee to you all that these groups produce or will produce. But if not one, of the thousands of groups of our federation, will receive you, whatever be their motive; if you are absolutely incapable of producing anything useful, or if you refuse to do it, then live like an isolated man or like an invalid. If we are rich enough to give you the necessaries of life we shall be delighted to give them to you. You are a man, and you have the right to live. But as you wish to live under special conditions, and leave the ranks, it is more than probable that you will suffer for it in your daily relations with other citizens. You will be looked upon as a ghost of bourgeois society, unless some friends of yours, discovering you to be a talent, kindly free you from all moral obligation towards society by doing necessary work for you.

And lastly, if it does not please you, go and look for other conditions else where in the wide world, or else seek adherents and organize with them on novel principles. We prefer our own."

That is what could be done in a communal society in order to turn away sluggards if they became too numerous.

Or as Makhno shortly put it:


That is the very point that our splendid anarchist principle is making. It proposes that every individual be supplied in proportion to their needs, provided that every individual places their powers and faculties in the service of society and not that he serve it not at all.

An exception will be made for the children, the elderly, the sick and the infirm. Rightly, society will excuse all such persons from the duty of labour, without denying them their entitlement to have all their needs met.

The moral sensibilities of the workers is deeply outraged by the principle of taking from society according to one's needs, while giving to it according to one's mood or not at all; workers have suffered too long from the application of that absurd principle and that is why they are unbending on this point. Our feeling for justice and logic is also outraged at this principle.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

It should be noted that Marx was a technological utopianist, he thought that the communism was possible only when economic structure has developed so much that work it no longer necessary.
Could you please refer me to a work in which Marx says this?

[(A)]

No.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/b12b7ac0fb/i-m-not-your-buddy-friend

[consuming negativity]

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/b12b7ac0fb/i-m-not-your-buddy-friend

I know the "joke", I was ignoring it because it's older than the sky. The "no" was directed at your argument, which was an insistence on points I had already argued against.

[bropasaran]

Could you please refer me to a work in which Marx says this?
E.g. in the very work OP mentions he says:

Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly - only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

E.g. in the very work OP mentions he says:

Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly - only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Which is pretty much the opposite of what you claim Marx is saying. The paragraph concerns the transition into the higher phase of communist society, and technological development is not the only (or the most important) criterion.

Also it's always hilarious to see "anarchists" arguing for forced "work or starve" labour.

[bropasaran]

Which is pretty much the opposite of what you claim Marx is saying.
He says that communism is possible when the technology and thus economy develops, and wealth flows abundantly, so as that people no longer have to work in order to live, but simply want to work, like a hobby, and be able to "hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic".


Also it's always hilarious to see "anarchists" arguing for forced "work or starve" labour.
It's- "if you're able to work, don't live off other people's labor", because, like, that's what oppressors and exploiters are doing to workers throughout the whole history.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

He says that communism is possible when the technology and thus economy develops, and wealth flows abundantly, so as that people no longer have to work in order to live, but simply want to work, like a hobby, and be able to "hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic".

Or, you know, when social relations change so that work as such is abolished and labour becomes the free expression of human creativity and tendency toward practical engagement with the material environment. All of this is possible given the present technological level, but obviously we do not live in communism.


It's- "if you're able to work, don't live off other people's labor", because, like, that's what oppressors and exploiters are doing to workers throughout the whole history.

Yes, other people own "their" labour so don't you dare "steal" it, this isn't anarchism but petty-bourgeois envy toward the bourgeoisie. We want everyone to have the freedom to not work, like the bourgeoisie, we certainly don't want to enslave everyone to some fucked-up Protestant work ethic in a system of small cooperatives.

[bropasaran]

Or, you know, when social relations change so that...
According to Marx "men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces" meaning, as I said, he thought that social relations cannot change into communistic ones until technology advances that much to make work unnecessary.


Yes, other people own "their" labour so don't you dare "steal" it
Something like that is the basic socialist critique of capitalism. Without the labor theory of property/ possession developed by Hodgskin/ Proudhon, you don't have a reason to be an anti-capitalist and a socialist. If you were to think you have one, that would just mean that you are ignorant of what socialism is.


this isn't anarchism but petty-bourgeois envy toward the bourgeoisie.
"Petty-bourgeois" is just a meaningless label used by state-capitalists to try and portray anarchist, who want to abolish all oppression and exploitation, as capitalist, and take focus of the fact that they themselves are capitalist who advocate oppression and exploitation by the state apparatus (or the tyranny of majority).


We want everyone to have the freedom to not work, like the bourgeoisie
That utopia is only possible, as Marx said, if technology makes work obsolete. The logical conclusion of that theory is- fuck labor struggles, let's concentrate on inventing the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Firstly, I know communism seeks to eliminate the division of labor. Why? This would destroy expertise in different jobs. Does this mean a man who was a garbage collector yesterday can be a neurosurgeon today, despite having no experience? Or will jobs be like they are now: if you aren't educated in the subject you can't work there. To me, the latter seems much more plausible. Destruction of the division of labor would be a disaster. The only thing I feel we must do is equalize it more.the division of labor in capitalism has nothing to do with skilled knowledge, in fact it is geared towards the opposite: breaking tasks and craft into smaller bits in order to divide labor by the cost of labor power. So manufacturing, for example, is taylorized so that instead of the expensive labor of machinists, you can separate out planning and doing and have cheap labor perform the doing by making the task mechanical and repetitive. Capitalism creates it own labor force and therefore creates skilled and unskilled laborers. There is nothing absolute about this, it's just effective for capitalism.

There are potential abstract benefits to breaking up tasks and having a division of doing and planning that I'm sure people will use, but it will not take the form it does today, because the way labor is organized today is based solely on coercion of laborers and making profits. In fact the way capitalism organizes labor is a fetter on taking advantage of simpler ways of producing because rather than being used to free labor of labor, it chains the laborer to a lot of doing bullshit and not being able to use their creativity or develop skills.

If anyone can take out the trash (something that creates more efficiency and wealth to the economy than being a surgeon) then surgeons can take out the trash or divide up that task to make it easy on themselves. The only reason there are specific trash-people is because it makes sense from a profit standpoint.


Secondly, I hate to sound like a bourgeois apologist, but it's true that incentives play a large part in hard work. You don't work, you don't eat; this is not necessarily anti-socialist.any society requires some work in order for people to sustain themselves. The question is, how is that organize and who controls that organization and benefits from that particular form? In capitalism, since we work just to survive whereas for the capitalists we work to multiply the wealth and power of those capitalists, they want to ensure we work profitably for them. In a society where work helps enrich everyone, then doing work will be motivated by interest of the people doing it but more generally it will be part of the social deal, custom. You like having food in the local communal kitchen or restaurant? Then you know that you will also need to do some community chores at some point if you like running water or electricity or trash not piling up in front of your door.


Thirdly, our earth cannot support a superabundance. Our environment is on the brink of destruction; making everything "free" is going to absolutely destroy it.capitalism is based on rapid and competitive accumulation. Sustainability is impossible in capitalism because it would be counter to all the tendencies of the system. An economy that has been democratized and is organized around what people want to use, can be much more sustainable since the people who control production also have to live with the consequences. Loggers would not choose to clear cut a Forrest when they could farm it and have sustainability in the long run. Fishermen in more egalitarian societies had customs designed to prevent overfishing because it would be better to be able to still get fish in the next season. Capital just takes everything it can as long as it is profitable and when the nets have scooped up all the baby fish so that the next year there won't be any more fish, that capital is just reinvested in another lake or into producing light bulbs or whatever else happens to seem profitable.

[exeexe]

Because it is legal tender and is backed by the force of law. It is also illegal to counterfeit money. Due to these limitations, there is a limited supply of fiat money. How one goes about getting it is defined by the law and the economy.
Thx but then what about bitcoin?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

According to Marx "men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces" meaning, as I said, he thought that social relations cannot change into communistic ones until technology advances that much to make work unnecessary.

No, it most definitely does not mean that. Labour will be necessary in communism as well - even if we have vast vats of nanobots manufacturing everything (or something - I leave the details to SF writers), someone will have to expend their labour-power to program and oversee those vats.

And that modes of production correspond to stages in the development of the productive forces does not mean that whenever the productive forces advance, the mode of production changes, just like that. The development of the productive forces provides the preconditions for a change in the mode of production, but these changes are the result of social conflict.


Something like that is the basic socialist critique of capitalism. Without the labor theory of property/ possession developed by Hodgskin/ Proudhon, you don't have a reason to be an anti-capitalist and a socialist. If you were to think you have one, that would just mean that you are ignorant of what socialism is.

Yeah, you can repeat that claim as much as you like, it still won't be true. No one cares about "legitimate property" except for people whose only political engagement is on the Internet. Proudhonism died out a long time ago, and it wasn't by accident.

But sure, keep advertising the fact that you're basically a mutualist.


"Petty-bourgeois" is just a meaningless label used by state-capitalists to try and portray anarchist, who want to abolish all oppression and exploitation, as capitalist, and take focus of the fact that they themselves are capitalist who advocate oppression and exploitation by the state apparatus (or the tyranny of majority).

Oh, sure, how could I forget, the petty business owner is a worker, and forcing everyone to work is the abolition of all oppression and exploitation. Sometimes I wonder if even you believe this nonsense, then I realise people are capable of believing any old nonsense.


That utopia is only possible, as Marx said, if technology makes work obsolete. The logical conclusion of that theory is- fuck labor struggles, let's concentrate on inventing the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek)

Look who's talking about labour struggles. If the workers of a small business acted against their employer, you would probably be on the side of the employer. And since you don't seem to have noticed it the first time: the technological prerequisites for the higher phase of communist society already exist.

[bropasaran]

No, it most definitely does not mean that.
Marx is pretty clear- communism is possible only when labor ceases to be necessary and becomes simply a want, a desire, a hobby.


The development of the productive forces provides the preconditions for a change in the mode of production, but these changes are the result of social conflict.No, sorry, Marx says the opposite- it's the technological development that produces the social conflict.

"At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production ... Then begins an era of social revolution."

"Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist. "

"new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself."

"it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture"


Yeah, you can repeat that claim as much as you like, it still won't be true.Socialism is a term coined for the movement that came out the Cooperative Movement; which advocated that all bosses be abolished and all workplaces be controled by workers as equals, as "comrades" or on latin "socia", and was firsly used in the Cooperative Magazine in 1827. The first thinker to cristalize the theory of the this radical labor movement was Thomas Hodgskin in his 1824 work Labor Defended. You being ignorant about when socialism came into being and what is it- that's your problem, not mine.


Proudhonism died out a long time ago, and it wasn't by accident.No, it wasn't by accident, it was because of convergence of USA and USSR, the two most powerful countries in the world, both capitalist, conducting propaganda for decades that USSR was socialism and that Marxism is not only connected to socialism, but identical to it.


But sure, keep advertising the fact that you're basically a mutualist.I am not, but at least mutualism is a socialist theory, not a viable one, but a socialist one, on the other hand, marxism is an non-socialist theory, and authoriatiran marxism (meaning any leninism, including trotskyism) is anti-workers and anti-socialist. Proudhon was indispensible in refining the labor theory on which socialist criticism of capitalism (and any other class society) is based on, and on which the socialist framework for organization of society is based on; and he was indispensible in binding the socialist economic labor theory with the broader libertarian theory. As oppossed to him, Marx wrote confused, irrational and useless lectures on economy, and held technological utopianist and authoritarian views, which are not only not irrelevant to workers' emancipation, but potentially* contrary to it.

* and effectively, as in every single case where leninist came into power.


Oh, sure, how could I forget, the petty business owner is a workerPetty business owner is not a term, it is a vague phrase that means nothing until you define what you mean by it. Does it mean an artisan? A self-employed IT developer? Workers in a coop? If they don't oppress or exploit anyone, then yes, those are all workers. Does it mean an employer with a small number of employees? Then, no, he's not a worker, he's an exploiter.


and forcing everyone to work is the abolition of all oppression and exploitation. That's what Lenin and Trotsky thought, not me.


Look who's talking about labour struggles. If the workers of a small business acted against their employer, you would probably be on the side of the employer.The entire point of basically all my writing on this forum is that we should abolish all bosses and exploiters, and the irony is that you have the face to babble idiocies like this when it is you worship Marx- the guy who thought that communism is impossible until we reach techno-utopia, and until then we should all be wage-slaves of the state, and who thought that no work that is done by multiple people can be done without a boss; and worship Lenin and Trorsky- people who destroyed the russian revolution with their octobar coup, who persecuted and destroted not only socialists but also even moderate state-capitalists and who instituted a brutal state-capitalist system that enslaved the working people of those countries.

[exeexe]

No one cares about "legitimate property" except for people whose only political engagement is on the Internet. Proudhonism died out a long time ago, and it wasn't by accident.
Its funny you would use this argument. When was the last time we saw communism? Never despite through history there has been several opportunities where the idea of communism received overwhelming support from the population, yet every time the so called high ranking party members where more concerned about power grabbing than revolutionary gains. And wherever revolutionary gains was indeed achieved by anarchist organisation it was destroyed by marxist partyism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank

[(A)]

The "no" was directed at your argument, which was an insistence on points I had already argued against.

Hence the Debate continues anew.


"The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production – the factories, machines, land, etc. – and make them private property.... Marx shows the course of development of communist society....which [firstly] consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not [yet] according to needs)."
"But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by marx the "first", or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word "communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism."
Vladimir Lenin
The State and Revolution (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm)
Chpt. 5: The first phase of Communist Society (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3)

So altering my argument slightly and conceding that; Yes Communism can also be seen as the first step (Socialism) to make a communist state and not just the final product such as Lenin and the Communist party attempted to do. They called themselves communists and where attempting to achieve "complete communism."

[consuming negativity]

Hence the Debate continues anew.

Vladimir Lenin
The State and Revolution (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm)
Chpt. 5: The first phase of Communist Society (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3)

So altering my argument slightly and conceding that; Yes Communism can also be seen as the first step (Socialism) to make a communist state and not just the final product such as Lenin and the Communist party attempted to do. They called themselves communists and where attempting to achieve "complete communism."

http://greatmomentsinleftism.blogspot.com/2013/10/original-source.html?m=0

Sorry, I had to. :lol:

It is difficult to scan through texts and make good arguments while on a phone, but Lenin more or less butchered Marx's writing there. Low and high communism are just other words for the initial and later stages of proletarian dictatorship, and by stages I don't mean clean cut stages but a general recognition that economic relations will take two similar but distinct forms according to a communist conception of the future based in historical materialism. It isn't really that it is even wrong so much as it makes things confusing and obfuscates the concepts to a point where I find it detrimental to understanding. Communists are simply socialists who subscribe to the scientific (falsifiable) theories of socialism in juxtaposition to the idealistic or unfalsifiable earlier conceptions of socialism.

[Five Year Plan]

Marx is pretty clear- communism is possible only when labor ceases to be necessary and becomes simply a want, a desire, a hobby.

Please provide this quote, including some of its context, so we can judge for ourselves what Marx is saying. I have a pretty good idea which quote you are invoking here, but I don't want to be accused of jumping to conclusions unfairly.


No, sorry, Marx says the opposite- it's the technological development that produces the social conflict.

In light of the fact that you argue that Marx wrote that revolution was possible solely through bourgeois parliamentarism, I don't place much stock in anything you say about what Marx supposedly did or did not say. Marx is pretty clear in his famous Preface to the Critique of Political Economy that changes in forces of production exert pressure to create new relations, which then cause political struggle that has the potential unleash even greater productive forces. The relationship, not surprisingly, is dialectical.


"At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production ... Then begins an era of social revolution."

Yes, social revolution occurs when relations of production attendant to new forces of production come into conflict with older legal relations that were appropriate to older production relations. Exactly what 870 and I have been saying. This is Mickey Mouse level Marxism. Not complicated.


The entire point of basically all my writing on this forum is that we should abolish all bosses and exploiters, and the irony is that you have the face to babble idiocies like this when it is you worship Marx- the guy who thought that communism is impossible until we reach techno-utopia, and until then we should all be wage-slaves of the state, and who thought that no work that is done by multiple people can be done without a boss; and worship Lenin and Trorsky- people who destroyed the russian revolution with their octobar coup, who persecuted and destroted not only socialists but also even moderate state-capitalists and who instituted a brutal state-capitalist system that enslaved the working people of those countries.

You are a strange troll. In every thread you trash Marx, then go on to paste dozens of quotes from Marx in order to claim that everybody else isn't interpreting him right, but that it is you who really understands Marx. You think it's really, really important not to misrepresent Marx...because you think he was clueless?

[(A)]

It is difficult to scan through texts and make good arguments while on a phone, but Lenin more or less butchered Marx's writing there. Low and high communism are just other words for the initial and later stages of proletarian dictatorship, and by stages I don't mean clean cut stages but a general recognition that economic relations will take two similar but distinct forms according to a communist conception of the future based in historical materialism. It isn't really that it is even wrong so much as it makes things confusing and obfuscates the concepts to a point where I find it detrimental to understanding. Communists are simply socialists who subscribe to the scientific (falsifiable) theories of socialism in juxtaposition to the idealistic or unfalsifiable earlier conceptions of socialism.

Marx and Engels wrote in the Critique of the Gotha Programme


"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

Marx and Engels wrote little on Socialism in general.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Five Year Plan has already addressed your confusion regarding the development of the productive forces and social change - much obliged.


Socialism is a term coined for the movement that came out the Cooperative Movement; which advocated that all bosses be abolished and all workplaces be controled by workers as equals, as "comrades" or on latin "socia", and was firsly used in the Cooperative Magazine in 1827. The first thinker to cristalize the theory of the this radical labor movement was Thomas Hodgskin in his 1824 work Labor Defended. You being ignorant about when socialism came into being and what is it- that's your problem, not mine.

Actually, if I'm not mistaken the term "socialism" was first used by Saint-Simon, a utopian whose scheme was merely a highly regimented form of capitalism. That, however, is besides the point. Words do not have fixed meanings; the word "monitor", for example, originally referred to a type of ironclad warship, whose guns were of larger calibre and number than was usual for ironclads. This does not mean that the laptop I am typing on has a warship above its keyboard.

"Socialism" has meant a regimented capitalism, a decidedly un-regimented capitalism of petty cooperatives, and more - Marx and Engels alternately rejected and embraced the term. Now, however, in the year 2014, by "socialism" we mean nothing less than the movement which strives to socialise all of the means of production.

What you're talking about is something else entirely.


No, it wasn't by accident, it was because of convergence of USA and USSR, the two most powerful countries in the world, both capitalist, conducting propaganda for decades that USSR was socialism and that Marxism is not only connected to socialism, but identical to it.

And powerful they must have been indeed, since for them to have played any role in the end of Proudhonism as an actual movement, they needed some sort of time-travel technology at the very least. The last Proudhonists, the remnants of the Jura Federation, lost cohesion in the eighties of the nineteenth century.


I am not, but at least mutualism is a socialist theory, not a viable one, but a socialist one, on the other hand, marxism is an non-socialist theory, and authoriatiran marxism (meaning any leninism, including trotskyism) is anti-workers and anti-socialist. Proudhon was indispensible in refining the labor theory on which socialist criticism of capitalism (and any other class society) is based on, and on which the socialist framework for organization of society is based on; and he was indispensible in binding the socialist economic labor theory with the broader libertarian theory. As oppossed to him, Marx wrote confused, irrational and useless lectures on economy, and held technological utopianist and authoritarian views, which are not only not irrelevant to workers' emancipation, but potentially* contrary to it.

* and effectively, as in every single case where leninist came into power.

So much rhetoric, so little content. So tell us, how would you make sure that people do not "steal" the labour of others. Obviously the only way to ensure that is to calculate, in some sense, the amount of labour that "belongs" to each person, and then have people exchange that labour equally - x hours of labour for x hours of labour. Now, do you support this? And if so, how is it different from a market system?


Petty business owner is not a term, it is a vague phrase that means nothing until you define what you mean by it. Does it mean an artisan? A self-employed IT developer? Workers in a coop? If they don't oppress or exploit anyone, then yes, those are all workers. Does it mean an employer with a small number of employees? Then, no, he's not a worker, he's an exploiter.

In fact the term "petty business owner" means, oddly enough, the owner of a business, "petty" in the sense that he is forced to work if he is to remain on the market.


That's what Lenin and Trotsky thought, not me.

The entire point of basically all my writing on this forum is that we should abolish all bosses and exploiters, and the irony is that you have the face to babble idiocies like this when it is you worship Marx- the guy who thought that communism is impossible until we reach techno-utopia, and until then we should all be wage-slaves of the state, and who thought that no work that is done by multiple people can be done without a boss; and worship Lenin and Trorsky- people who destroyed the russian revolution with their octobar coup, who persecuted and destroted not only socialists but also even moderate state-capitalists and who instituted a brutal state-capitalist system that enslaved the working people of those countries.

"Octobar" - that's an interesting misspelling. One I would expect from someone from former Yugoslavia. As for "technological utopia", several people have pointed out that you don't know what you're talking about. And pray tell, what "Russian revolution" did the "octobar coup" destroy, the "revolution" that brought the world the Russian Provisional Government? Talk about discrediting yourself.

[consuming negativity]

Marx and Engels wrote in the Critique of the Gotha Programme



Marx and Engels wrote little on Socialism in general.

No. Marx wrote that in his critique of the Gotha programme. He also wrote this in The German Ideology;



[5. Development of the Productive Forces as a Material Premise of Communism]

This “alienation” (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an “intolerable” power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity “propertyless,” and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its development. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the “propertyless” mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones. Without this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterly precarious position of labour – power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limited satisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a secure source of life – presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus only existworld-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a “world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history.

Communism is for us not a*state of affairs*which is to be established, an*ideal*to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the*real*movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

So if the same person seemingly wrote two contradictory passages, there are two main possibilities to consider. The first is that Marx simply changed his mind. The second is that your analysis is lacking because it does not take Marx's later statements in the context of his previous ones. The reason Marx didn't write much about communism as a goal or state of affairs is because it wasn't ever intended as such, which is something he did write about numerous times. Communism is not a state of affairs to be achieved. We do not like Christians take our lumps in waiting for the divine revolution. No, we recognize as communists that the abolition of capitalism and private property will result from its internal contradictions.

[Creative Destruction]

Thx but then what about bitcoin?

Bitcoin isn't unlimited. It has a programmed limit, which is a replacement for the legal limit of fiat cash, which is why the price per Bitcoin has generally increased since its launch (and then drops when people find ways to hack the exchanges, then fraud ensues, etc.) It's getting harder and harder to "mine" Bitcoins, anyway. Some of the most advanced and expensive computer systems in the world are now dedicated solely to mining for the last few Bitcoins.

If Bitcoins were unlimited and easy to obtain, they'd be about as easy to obtain as monopoly money. But then the currency would be completely worthless as opposed to just being mostly useless. The Bitcoin limit and how many people are infusing cash into the system is what makes it valuable.

[bropasaran]

Please provide this quote, including some of its context, so we can judge for ourselves what Marx is saying. I have a pretty good idea which quote you are invoking here, but I don't want to be accused of jumping to conclusions unfairly.
I have already quoted the part from the Critique of the Gotha Program, and the phrase from German Ideology.


In light of the fact that you argue that Marx wrote that revolution was possible solely through bourgeois parliamentarism, I don't place much stock in anything you say about what Marx supposedly did or did not say.
Which only shows your that you have raised your ignorance of Marx to the point of dogma.


Marx is pretty clear in his famous Preface to the Critique of Political Economy ...

Yes, social revolution occurs when relations of production attendant to new forces of production come into conflict with older legal relations that were appropriate to older production relations.
Relations of production are the legal relations, that is- legal relations are the expression of the relations of production: "the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated"

Technology develops, it's stage of development comes into conflict with the relations of production that were the product of the previous stage of technological development, and that conflict produces new social conflict of introducing new relations of production, that is, a new mode of production.


ctually, if I'm not mistaken the term "socialism" was first used by Saint-Simon
No, he called his idea of a weird feudalistic-capitalist technocracy "industrialism".


That, however, is besides the point. Words do not have fixed meanings
They have etymology and history. And we are not talking here about any words, we are talking about word made to name ideas, ideas that are still advocated by people, and those people have every reason to object to distortions of terms of their ideas. Same is the word "democracy" which is falsely used for elective oligarchy, and with "libertarian", which is falsely used for laissez faire capitalism, and people who advocate democracy/ libertarianism in their etymologically correct / original meanings have every reason to object to such kidnapping of words.


So tell us, how would you make sure that people do not "steal" the labour of others.
When exploitation is abolished, that is achieved.


And pray tell, what "Russian revolution" did the "octobar coup" destroy, the "revolution" that brought the world the Russian Provisional Government?
No. The Revolution that started establishing workers' control over production, or achieved in establishing it, as in the Free Territory of Ukraine.

[Five Year Plan]

So I ask you for a quote, and you refuse to provide it? Is that how we're rolling now?

[bropasaran]

I have already given it.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Technology develops, it's stage of development comes into conflict with the relations of production that were the product of the previous stage of technological development, and that conflict produces new social conflict of introducing new relations of production, that is, a new mode of production.

The development of productive forces is not synonymous with technological development, although technological development is an important part of the development of productive forces. And "that conflict produces new social conflict of introducing new relations of production" is simply gibberish. You're trying to avoid coming to terms with the fact that development of the productive forces can not lead to new relations of production without social conflict, that is, without conscious political action by the revolutionary classes, and that no Marxist ever claimed otherwise.


No, he called his idea of a weird feudalistic-capitalist technocracy "industrialism".

That was the terminology Saint-Simon personally preferred. Other Saint-Simonians preferred the term "socialism". In fact I'm not sure if it was ever used by the good count himself, but the Saint-Simonian movement is the earliest movement that was called "socialist" by the members of the movement.


They have etymology and history. And we are not talking here about any words, we are talking about word made to name ideas, ideas that are still advocated by people, and those people have every reason to object to distortions of terms of their ideas. Same is the word "democracy" which is falsely used for elective oligarchy, and with "libertarian", which is falsely used for laissez faire capitalism, and people who advocate democracy/ libertarianism in their etymologically correct / original meanings have every reason to object to such kidnapping of words.

So I take it that, if I were to describe you as a "third-rate poster", you would find this objectionable because you do not have 60 to 80 naval guns? Somehow I doubt that. The way in which words are used changes through time. Socialisation of the means of production is what socialism means; if you use it in the "historical" sense (or rather what you think is the historical sense), then you are not talking about the same thing.

Also, good grief, are you people who talk about "oligarchies" irritating. Do you live in 19th century Argentina or a similar place? If so, well met, noble time traveler. If not, then in all likelihood you do not live in an oligarchy but a bourgeois democracy. Deal with it.


When exploitation is abolished, that is achieved.

Well isn't that nice. Now, would you kindly answer my question? How do you intend to make sure that no one is "stealing" someone else's labour? Would people buy things with "their" labour or not?


No. The Revolution that started establishing workers' control over production, or achieved in establishing it, as in the Free Territory of Ukraine.

So what class led this revolution, and what class was overthrown?

[bropasaran]

You're trying to avoid coming to terms with the fact that development of the productive forces can not lead to new relations of production without social conflict, that is, without conscious political action by the revolutionary classes, and that no Marxist ever claimed otherwise.
Which I nowhere claimed that he doesn't. In fact I have explicitly quoted when he mentions social conflict. You are rebutting a straw-man.


That was the terminology Saint-Simon personally preferred. Other Saint-Simonians preferred the term "socialism". In fact I'm not sure if it was ever used by the good count himself, but the Saint-Simonian movement is the earliest movement that was called "socialist" by the members of the movement.
Maybe it was called that by later followers, but that doesn't change the fact that the first recorded use of "socialism" was in the Cooperative Magazine in 1827, and was firstly accepted by the radical (labor theory/ workers' control) movement that came out of the cooperative movement, who started calling each other "comrades" because of it (socius- comrade). But, afaik, Saint-Simonians were called "socialist" firstly by Marxists, because Saint-Simonianism is the precursor to Marxism, both are technocratic ideologies opposed to workers' emancipation.


The way in which words are used changes through time.
Which doesn't that they don't matter. If they would not to matter laissezfairists could have started to use terms like "disasterism" or "fecalism", they wouldn't have to kidnap libertarianism and anarchism from anti-capitalists, so why did they? Because words matter. If they didn't matter state-capitalists would use terms like "Tyrannism" or "Monocracy" (this is actually a translation of Lenin's and Trotsky's terms for one-man-management ednonachalie/ ednolichie) but they instead hide behind words like socialism and communism which they kidnapped from the movement of workers' emancipation, why do they do that? Because words matter. Even today with the decades of propaganda that distorted the meaning of words and imbued them with various emotional content, still, socialism means to a lot of workers emancipation of the working people, like it meant originally- a society of comrades, society without bosses and exploiters.


If not, then in all likelihood you do not live in an oligarchy but a bourgeois democracy.
Oligarchy means rule by a small number of people. Democracy means rule of the people. It's obvious what we live in of the two.


How do you intend to make sure that no one is "stealing" someone else's labour?
By abolishing exploitation, which means abolishing bosses on the job and rentiers, including money-lenders; and also by abolishing oppression, which means abolishing all bosses.


So what class led this revolution, and what class was overthrown?
The working class led the revolution and overthrew the ruling class. Those are the only two classes.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Which I nowhere claimed that he doesn't. In fact I have explicitly quoted when he mentions social conflict. You are rebutting a straw-man.

Right...


That utopia is only possible, as Marx said, if technology makes work obsolete. The logical conclusion of that theory is- fuck labor struggles, let's concentrate on inventing the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Star_Trek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_%28Star_Trek))


Maybe it was called that by later followers, but that doesn't change the fact that the first recorded use of "socialism" was in the Cooperative Magazine in 1827, and was firstly accepted by the radical (labor theory/ workers' control) movement that came out of the cooperative movement, who started calling each other "comrades" because of it (socius- comrade). But, afaik, Saint-Simonians were called "socialist" firstly by Marxists, because Saint-Simonianism is the precursor to Marxism, both are technocratic ideologies opposed to workers' emancipation.

Which doesn't that they don't matter. If they would not to matter laissezfairists could have started to use terms like "disasterism" or "fecalism", they wouldn't have to kidnap libertarianism and anarchism from anti-capitalists, so why did they? Because words matter. If they didn't matter state-capitalists would use terms like "Tyrannism" or "Monocracy" (this is actually a translation of Lenin's and Trotsky's terms for one-man-management ednonachalie/ ednolichie) but they instead hide behind words like socialism and communism which they kidnapped from the movement of workers' emancipation, why do they do that? Because words matter. Even today with the decades of propaganda that distorted the meaning of words and imbued them with various emotional content, still, socialism means to a lot of workers emancipation of the working people, like it meant originally- a society of comrades, society without bosses and exploiters.

You still don't seem to get it. We don't care about your sob stories about how evil technocratic feudal state capitalist totalitarian Marxists "stole" "your" terms. Or "kidnapped" them, in fact. That is what the terms mean. Your co-op fetishism is not socialism as socialism is understood by the relevant human brains on the planet Earth in the year 2014.

Neither are fascists even if the PFR talked about workers' self-management at the Verona Congress. Although, given that Fabian, whose politics and style, including even the misspellings, you just happen to share, was a big fan of Strasser, maybe you think they were socialists as well.


Oligarchy means rule by a small number of people. Democracy means rule of the people. It's obvious what we live in of the two.

No, these words do not mean what you claim they mean, and anyone making an argument from etymology should be deeply ashamed of themselves. And yes, given that the legislature and the executive posts are elected and not appointed, inherited or given out according to a rotation scheme, it is obvious that we live in a democracy.


By abolishing exploitation, which means abolishing bosses on the job and rentiers, including money-lenders; and also by abolishing oppression, which means abolishing all bosses.

Cute, but you still haven't answered the question. Do you advocate that people purchase goods and services with "their" labour?


The working class led the revolution and overthrew the ruling class. Those are the only two classes.

Ah, of course, that is why the bourgeoisie still existed in Russia, because they had been overthrown.

Also, this isn't directly relevant to the previous points, but it should still be a laugh: can you explain how you are not the same as the "an"-cap trolls we get from time to time who go "GUISE BUT WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LIVE IN A CAPITALIST SOCIETY OUTSIDE YOUR COMMUNES SHOULDN'T THEY BE ALLOWED TO HAVE CAPITALISM"?

[human strike]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.

Communism eliminates capitalists by abolishing work and exchange. How does one measure how hard or how much someone works? It's not possible, except through exchange value. Say you spend a few hours cleaning your home, how much is that labour worth relative to a few hours in a power plant or performing music? What would you get in return? That's exchange value and is completely contrary to the logic of communism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Communism eliminates capitalists by abolishing work and exchange. How does one measure how hard or how much someone works? It's not possible, except through exchange value. Say you spend a few hours cleaning your home, how much is that labour worth relative to a few hours in a power plant or performing music? What would you get in return? That's exchange value and is completely contrary to the logic of communism.

Right, the main problem is that some people who call themselves "socialists" do not want to abolish the exchange of commodities, they want a "fair" exchange, where no one would "steal" "other people's" labour. Marx used to lampoon this as "Ricardian socialism", and it still shows up from time to time. We used to have a really nasty one on RevLeft back in the day who claimed that people who are unable to work are parasites and should live off charity.

Man, fuck forced labour, anyone who worships work is not a communist but a liberal at best.

[RedMaterialist]

I've read Marx, and recently is Gotha, and in it he states that "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in one form or another." i.e., you take as much as you've worker. More contribution = you can take more from the stockpile. However upon reading the forums, I see many have said that it is in fact that anyone can take whatever they want to without having to have worked.

In my opinion, this is ridiculous. I do not believe it's a bourgeois tendency to believe people should be rewarded for doing harder work. Communism is supposed to eliminate people who leech off of the fruits of the worker's labor without working; capitalists. So how is it a justification, or even socialistic to believe that people should take whatever they like regardless of how hard they've worked?
Please, tell me how much I'm misunderstanding if I am.

Marx also said, in the Gotha Programme that one of the characteristics of capitalism which will be retained in the transition period to communism is that pay for work will depend on the skill, strength, speed, etc. of the work being done. Society will provide schools, health care, old age pensions, etc. for those whose labor cannot pay for those things.

However, Marx goes on to say that after capitalism has been destroyed and replaced by communism, then production and distribution will be according to the famous formula, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." The wage system, wage-labor, and profit-surplus value will no longer exist as economic factors.

[Five Year Plan]

Marx also said, in the Gotha Programme that one of the characteristics of capitalism which will be retained in the transition period to communism is that pay for work will depend on the skill, strength, speed, etc. of the work being done. Society will provide schools, health care, old age pensions, etc. for those whose labor cannot pay for those things.

However, Marx goes on to say that after capitalism has been destroyed and replaced by communism, then production and distribution will be according to the famous formula, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." The wage system, wage-labor, and profit-surplus value will no longer exist as economic factors.

What you're describing as the "characteristics of capitalism that will be retained in the transition to communism" are actually characteristics Marx attributes to the lower phase of communism, and are only formally similar to capitalism ("equal pay for equal work"). The difference is that the amount of work necessary to produce a use value can now be determined with scientific precision in advance, and not left up to chaotic market exchanges. Wages, as such, no longer exist.

[Comrade #138672]

In communism things are free but you must work as a slave to what people demand of you.Work as a slave? :confused:

[exeexe]

The difference is that the amount of work necessary to produce a use value can now be determined with scientific precision in advance, and not left up to chaotic market exchanges. Wages, as such, no longer exist.
How? Can you give an example? Lets say you are controlling a mining operation and you cant predict how many minerals you will be mining the next month or something. Or do you have some hidden trick up your sleeve?
That problem would transfer all the way through the supply chain. You dont have enough minerals to produce enough circuit boards.
And then you wont have enough circuit boards to produce enough robots.

Well i guess you could have buffers, but that seems backwardish.

[exeexe]

Work as a slave? :confused:
Yes people call wage labor wage slavery because workers have no option but to work. Then it must equally also be true in a communist society that when you have no option but to work then its also slavery.
You can just go back to post #2 which got 11 thanks to get an example. It says:

shaming and just custom would be enough to ensure that people are contributing
And everyone knows that shaming means you will be isolated and have no friends so its very serious.
So in communism you would use punishment to make people work.

[Five Year Plan]

Yes people call wage labor wage slavery because workers have no option but to work. Then it must equally also be true in a communist society that when you have no option but to work then its also slavery.

You seem to be deeply confused. People call capitalism "wage slavery" not because "people have to work in order to eat," but because people are compelled to work on behalf of exploiters who extract surplus from the laborers.

[Five Year Plan]

How? Can you give an example? Lets say you are controlling a mining operation and you cant predict how many minerals you will be mining the next month or something. Or do you have some hidden trick up your sleeve?
That problem would transfer all the way through the supply chain. You dont have enough minerals to produce enough circuit boards.
And then you wont have enough circuit boards to produce enough robots.

Well i guess you could have buffers, but that seems backwardish.

You once again are demonstrating a profound ignorance of basic Marxist postulates you are trying to criticize. Every hour of labor will be remunerated equally, with exceptions made for jobs or skills that are deemed in the democratic planning process (in advance) to be exceptionally difficult to acquire or to perform, and perhaps for intensity measured on the basis of deviation from the average output of a person engaged in particular production process. This is different than capitalism, where a wage is determined by a series of planless, decentralized decisions between capitalists and workers regarding the setting of wage rates.

In the case of mining you invoke, a person would be compensated for the labor performed, not on the basis of the number of minerals found, which at any rate would be possible to determine in advance.

[exeexe]

In the case of mining you invoke, a person would be compensated for the labor performed, not on the basis of the number of minerals found, which at any rate would be possible to determine in advance.
But you said you could plan the use value. Now in my mind this means you can plan the amount of minerals mined.

[Five Year Plan]

But you said you could plan the use value. Now in my mind this means you can plan the amount of minerals mined.

Of course past data about X weight in mineral being extracted in X many labor hours can be used in future planning calculations, but the point is that there's no guarantee that the average will hold. It is an average after all, and the number of labor hours committed to that project being determined according to the average (with perhaps a little additional labor committed, if it is deemed vital to avoid any shortages), with the people involved in the extraction process being paid not on the basis of number of minerals extracted, but on the basis of number of hours worked, with the exceptions I mentioned perhaps coming into play.

[Comrade #138672]

Yes people call wage labor wage slavery because workers have no option but to work. Then it must equally also be true in a communist society that when you have no option but to work then its also slavery.
You can just go back to post #2 which got 11 thanks to get an example. It says:

And everyone knows that shaming means you will be isolated and have no friends so its very serious.
So in communism you would use punishment to make people work....Are you a troll?

[Ele'ill]

...Are you a troll?

No, their position that being a slave to production is still being a slave is one held by a lot of folks here

[Five Year Plan]

No, their position that being a slave to production is still being a slave is one held by a lot of folks here

We might as well agree that humans are "slaves" to their biology, e.g., having to expel waste on a daily basis, which takes time and leaves humans without a choice in the matter besides when exactly to do it (sometimes). I think this is spreading the word slave so diffusely, to cover so many different types of compulsion, that it transforms the word into something politically meaningless.

[consuming negativity]

The correct word is "coercion". Slaves are subject to coercion, but coerced persons are not necessarily slaves.

Having the ability to point a gun at someone and make them do something is, however, not fundamentally different from enacting a system of law through which you "own" that person. In the latter, you're getting other people to agree not to challenge your coercion of certain persons so long as you promise to do the same with certain other persons. But there is a difference between that and the modern day; under capitalism, a person is not legally required to do anything for anyone. However, in practice, you must choose a master or "boss" if you are not one yourself, and most people are subject to an amount of coercion in their lives that is fairly limiting.

Under proletarian dictatorship, there will still be some coercion: you'll never be able to completely get rid of it. However, the state apparatus will be destroyed and thus the types of semi-permanent or permanent class-based coercion of which slavery is only one are vastly limited if not completely abolished. Speaking of "capitalism" as "slavery" is as much for shock value as it is for pointing out the coercive nature of capitalism. The problem, of course, is that not everyone is so unintelligent as to take that comparison without thinking critically about it - especially given the relatively marginalized place communist thought holds in our society - and so it is decidedly useless in any debate-type situation.

[The Modern Prometheus]

But, afaik, Saint-Simonians were called "socialist" firstly by Marxists, because Saint-Simonianism is the precursor to Marxism, both are technocratic ideologies opposed to workers' emancipation.

From the little i have read from or about Saint Simon the only thing he seemed to have in common with Marx was that he also thought that scientific advancement would change society for the better. Other then that i don't think there are many similarities in ideology and i have certainly never heard anyone claim that Saint Simonism was a precursor to Marxism. Someone once did make the argument to me that Ricardian socialism was the precursor to Marxism and i thought that was one of the most baseless things i have heard but Simonism being a precursor to Marxism is even more baseless.

Simon was a technocrat of sorts but please explain how Marx was a Technocrat? Just because Marx was a fan of science does not mean he was a technocrat. Does that mean that only the Amish are Socialists? :rolleyes: . Also didn't Simon want to reform society through some kind of Christian unity and love and didn't many Saint Simonists end up becoming more religious? How the hell does that have anything to do with Socialism?

Marx believed that the industrialized working class where the most advanced of the working class and thus would be the driving force behind the revolution. That is not what Technocrats believe at all.

[Comrade #138672]

No, their position that being a slave to production is still being a slave is one held by a lot of folks hereYou mean the wage-slave, right? But, I think the poster was talking about the socialist mode of production as well, which seems rather absurd. Being a slave to "the demand of others" does not really seem like workers' emancipation to me. I am sure this position is not so popular here.

[RedMaterialist]

i don't think its a coincidence the protestant work ethic that capitalism was built on had to be forced on workers at gunpoint, more or less.



No, Max Weber had its backwards. It is Protestanism which is built on capitalism.

[Five Year Plan]

No, Max Weber had its backwards. It is Protestanism which is built on capitalism.

It was a dialectical relationship that emerged out of the crumbling feudal order.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm possibly in a minority on this site in thinking that 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' is a bargain between the individual and the collective (one that's at pretty good terms to the individual I reckon), rather than being a promise from all of us to one guy who's an asshat.

No, you don't have to work. No, we don't have to let you eat. It's that simple.

If you do work, then you are in a position to have all of your needs fulfilled. If you don't that's up to you.

This is unlike capitalism, where, if you do work, you are still massively defrauded in the process.

[Slavic]

I'm possibly in a minority on this site in thinking that 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' is a bargain between the individual and the collective (one that's at pretty good terms to the individual I reckon), rather than being a promise from all of us to one guy who's an asshat.

No, you don't have to work. No, we don't have to let you eat. It's that simple.

If you do work, then you are in a position to have all of your needs fulfilled. If you don't that's up to you.

This is unlike capitalism, where, if you do work, you are still massively defrauded in the process.

Im partial to this premise. Work or no work, I still think that everyone is entitled to food, housing, and medical care.

If during a time of scarcity and rationing, those who are able but willingly choose not to work should not be afforded rationed goods. Likewise a good shunning is in order.

[A Psychological Symphony]

The idea that someone who doesn't preform a service you find productive deserves to starve to death is disgusting. Everyone should be guaranteed the necessities for life, and only when luxuries are asked for should it be reasonable to demand that they labor first.

[adipocere12]

The idea that someone who doesn't preform a service you find productive deserves to starve to death is disgusting. Everyone should be guaranteed the necessities for life, and only when luxuries are asked for should it be reasonable to demand that they labor first.


What we have to remember as well, is that once full productive capacity is pointed at fulfilling those things the amount of actual work each would need to do to fulfil those necessities would be tiny.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[The Modern Prometheus]

The idea that someone who doesn't preform a service you find productive deserves to starve to death is disgusting. Everyone should be guaranteed the necessities for life, and only when luxuries are asked for should it be reasonable to demand that they labor first.

I fully agree with you on that. There is no reason why anyone should have to do without the essentials to live and exist in this world as there is more then enough wealth so that noone should have to starve, go homeless or die of treatable diseases. Now as for wants as opposed to needs the peoples needs should be looked after first and after that any surplus left over can go towards peoples wants.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm possibly in a minority on this site in thinking that 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' is a bargain between the individual and the collective (one that's at pretty good terms to the individual I reckon), rather than being a promise from all of us to one guy who's an asshat.

No, you don't have to work. No, we don't have to let you eat. It's that simple.

If you do work, then you are in a position to have all of your needs fulfilled. If you don't that's up to you.

This is unlike capitalism, where, if you do work, you are still massively defrauded in the process.

So, if you don't mind me asking, how is this any different from Ricardian "socialism" that Marx explicitly opposed? Work or starve - except we won't "defraud" you, which apparently means we'll give you "your share" of goods and so on.

Quite frankly, I think people who are sick with worry that someone, somewhere, is "profiting" from "their" work, are more inimical to socialism than those who want to eat without working. Because the socialist project is for people to eat without having to work, and to work because humans are creative.

Not to mention that in socialism, the socially-necessary expenditure of labour power needed to produce what the members of society want to consume will most likely plummet. And I don't think having a hundred people each take turns pushing a button on a CNC machine is a good way to organise production is such circumstances.

[Blake's Baby]

If we get to the point where we don't have to work, then, obviously, no bother.

Until we do, then, yeah, obviously, people need to work. Not because I think they should, but because it's working that makes stuff (inlcuding food, power etc). If people don't work, then we all starve to death in the dark.

[bropasaran]

Right...
I said that's the logical conclusion of that thesis, I didn't claim Marx made that logical conclusion. Marx wasn't really big on logic. On the other hand, I don't think that he saw labor struggles as something that is "good" and something that "should" happen, he on several occasions distanced himself from such prescriptive terminology, considering it "unscientific", and as far as I can see, he thought that the social conflict which is a catalyst of a revolution is caused by technological development, just as all conscious life in general.


That is what the terms mean.
No it does not. Words have histories and etymologies. Socialism means striving for emancipation of the working people, theoretically based on the labor theory. Later the word was started to be used incorrectly and the distorted and false meanings if became mainstream. Something being "official", mainstream, popular and customary doesn't make it right. Same with words democracy and libertarianism.


given that the legislature and the executive posts are elected and not appointed, inherited or given out according to a rotation scheme, it is obvious that we live in a democracy.
It's just elective oligarchy.


Do you advocate that people purchase goods and services with "their" labour?
I don't know what that means. To go directly to what I advocate, I advocate an anarchist society where I would like to see the main form of organization to be anarcho-communistic.


Ah, of course, that is why the bourgeoisie still existed in Russia, because they had been overthrown.
They didn't exist in the Free Territory of Ukraine. In Russia they did exist, they in fact ruled there. The red bourgeoisie, the state-capitalist oppressors and exploiters.


can you explain how you are not the same as the "an"-cap trolls we get from time to time who go "GUISE BUT WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LIVE IN A CAPITALIST SOCIETY OUTSIDE YOUR COMMUNES SHOULDN'T THEY BE ALLOWED TO HAVE CAPITALISM"
In that I'm against all established relations of domination and against all non-labor incomes, and thus automatically against all "capitalist acts between consenting adults" as Nozick called them.


From the little i have read from or about Saint Simon the only thing he seemed to have in common with Marx was that he also thought that scientific advancement would change society for the better.
And that both thought that the technocracts should rule the workers. Saint-Simon proposed a quasi-feudalisic structure where the workers would be the commoners, the entrepreneurial capitalists would take the position of landlords/ lower nobility, and the engeneers, intellectuals, managers and bureaucrats would have the position of something like a mix of priesthood and higher aristocracy. Marx was of course for nationalization and thus turning the workers into proletarians with state as their boss, and, as he said in the Capital Volume 3., held that it is impossible for there be any collective work done without managers commanding the workers, he basically saw the workers as incapable of self-management, which is of course the basis of genuine socialism.


Other then that i don't think there are many similarities in ideology and i have certainly never heard anyone claim that Saint Simonism was a precursor to Marxism
Really? I've seen it mentioned in many places. I can't not remember the titles of the books, but, e.g. Political Economy: A Comparative Approach, has a fairly standard line about Hegel and Saint-Simon being formative influences on Marx.


Someone once did make the argument to me that Ricardian socialism was the precursor to Marxism and i thought that was one of the most baseless things i have heard but Simonism being a precursor to Marxism is even more baseless.
"Ricardian" socialism, if by that is meant the original socialist thinkers- Hodgskin, Gray, Bray, Thompson, then no, they weren't really precursors to Marx (they were precursors to Proudhon), but if by that is meant Ricardian reformers such as Owen, Ravestone and Hall, yes, they in some measure were, being that Marx was influenced by Ricardo through them, whereas some of Lockean and Rousseauan (not Ricardian) ideas of those three thinkers were direct precursor to the mentioned four thinkers who firstly formulated socialism as a distinct theory of political economy. I don't see why would it be baseless, to me it's strange how you can fail to see similarities between Saint-Simon (and Fourier) and Marx.


Just because Marx was a fan of science does not mean he was a technocrat. Does that mean that only the Amish are Socialists?
Technocracy means rule of the experts- of scientists, managers, bureaucrats, intellectuals; the 'intellectual-managerial elite' as Bakunin called them. Or as he described the proposed marxist society- the rule of 'socialist savants', 'a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars'. Or as he says a bit more illustratively- a government of 'heads overflowing with brains'.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I said that's the logical conclusion of that thesis, I didn't claim Marx made that logical conclusion. Marx wasn't really big on logic.
You know Marx was a philosophy student in college, and was a member of the Young Hegelians, right? Formal and dialectical logic was his bread and butter. How do you fuck that up?

[bropasaran]

You actually made my point. Hegel is a great example of total irrationality, a prime example of continentalism, or the so-called continental "philosophy". And it's not that I'm trying to be dismissive, continental "philosophy" is itself explicitly anti-rational (in opposition to classical and analytic philosophy), because supposedly there are other ways to get truth (whatever forms of spirituality, will, faith, intuition, irrational forms of "logic" and "dialectics", meta-reductionisms like different historicisms, ecomicisms, social constructionisms, etc).

[RedWorker]

It is virtually impossible to not contribute anything to society. We are constantly doing it in many ways. Even a post on RevLeft may be considered a contribution to society because you may for example be teaching people things.

The problem is that in capitalism, the understanding of work seems to be tied to wage-labor. There is a difference between work and income, but it has become blurred in the current system.

Someone who writes, for instance, a computer program and releases it for free while gaining no income (perhaps does so regularly with multiple programs) may be contributing to society much more than certain persons engaged in certain types of wage-labor.

Who judges how much of a contribution something is? Is it even possible to judge it? In any case it would be too complex and uncomfortable to account for beyond immature conceptions of work or contribution to society as a "standard job".

Everyone wants to contribute to society - and is constantly doing so in many ways. The "lazy person" is a bourgeois myth.

I have never met someone who refuses to help someone else, spread his knowledge, teach others, etc. These are just basic human things which constitute basic contributions to society. It would be too hard to not regularly contribute in some way.

Let's put another example. What is the difference between regularly helping friends with computer problems and standing in an office 8 hours a day in a remote technical assistance job? The difference might be that the first is enjoyable and natural meanwhile the second is a typical example of wage-labor.

Kafka the writer said that his creative efforts were hampered by the fact that he had to take part in unenjoyable and useless wage-labor to survive, in a standard boring job which is almost no contribution at all. Meanwhile, his books are a contribution appreciated by millions of people.

And should someone really be denied basic goods like food and housing for "not working enough"?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If we get to the point where we don't have to work, then, obviously, no bother.

Until we do, then, yeah, obviously, people need to work. Not because I think they should, but because it's working that makes stuff (inlcuding food, power etc). If people don't work, then we all starve to death in the dark.

Alright, but you explicitly said that "to each according to his needs" - the norm of distribution in the higher phase of the communist society, where labour has become a want and not an odious necessity - is some sort of "work or starve contract".


I said that's the logical conclusion of that thesis, I didn't claim Marx made that logical conclusion. Marx wasn't really big on logic. On the other hand, I don't think that he saw labor struggles as something that is "good" and something that "should" happen, he on several occasions distanced himself from such prescriptive terminology, considering it "unscientific", and as far as I can see, he thought that the social conflict which is a catalyst of a revolution is caused by technological development, just as all conscious life in general.

Marx didn't concern himself with the moral rectitude of labour struggles, as he was a scientific political thinker, and not a priest. But he supported labour struggles throughout his life, and Marxism clearly implies that supporting labour struggles (by the proletariat, not by cops and similar creatures) is in the class interest of the proletariat.


No it does not. Words have histories and etymologies. Socialism means striving for emancipation of the working people, theoretically based on the labor theory. Later the word was started to be used incorrectly and the distorted and false meanings if became mainstream. Something being "official", mainstream, popular and customary doesn't make it right. Same with words democracy and libertarianism.

No, sorry, no matter how many times you say it, it still won't be true. Meaning is determined by use, there is no "true" meaning of words ordained by the lord God.


It's just elective oligarchy.

No, it isn't, and people who claim it is are a disease of the modern socialist movement (not that you qualify, of course), since the natural conclusion is that we must create a "real" democracy, with is idealistic guff with no class content whatsoever.


I don't know what that means. To go directly to what I advocate, I advocate an anarchist society where I would like to see the main form of organization to be anarcho-communistic.

You said that the labour that "belongs" to people shouldn't be "stolen". Well, how are you going to enforce that? Do you (as in - your "horizontalist" "commune" or whatever you people want to call yourselves) plan to give out some sort of labour-tokens for people to spend buying things, or how?


They didn't exist in the Free Territory of Ukraine. In Russia they did exist, they in fact ruled there. The red bourgeoisie, the state-capitalist oppressors and exploiters.

Nope, try again, the "Free" Territory was established after the October revolution. So, what "revolution" did the "October coup" destroy? It's alright, we have people on this site who praise the Czech Legions and the Mensheviks, so you probably won't be restricted for licking the boots of the Provisional Government, you'll just lose any credibility among revolutionary socialists. But happily for you, there is nothing to lose.


In that I'm against all established relations of domination and against all non-labor incomes, and thus automatically against all "capitalist acts between consenting adults" as Nozick called them.

M-hm, so you're not against "labour" incomes?



You actually made my point. Hegel is a great example of total irrationality, a prime example of continentalism, or the so-called continental "philosophy". And it's not that I'm trying to be dismissive, continental "philosophy" is itself explicitly anti-rational (in opposition to classical and analytic philosophy), because supposedly there are other ways to get truth (whatever forms of spirituality, will, faith, intuition, irrational forms of "logic" and "dialectics", meta-reductionisms like different historicisms, ecomicisms, social constructionisms, etc).

You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, do you? "Meta-reductionisms like different historicisms", good grief. Perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the thinkers you want to criticise instead of repeating talking points of bitter old right-wing positivists (who no one takes seriously anymore, except pop-sci writers).

And for that matter, Hegel precedes continental philosophy quite a bit. Lakatos and Putnam are just some of the "analytic" philosophers (the term doesn't really mean anything today) influenced by Hegel.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Impossible - a self-proclaimed anarchist, a fighter for working-class freedom, a vicious anti-Marxist and anti-authoritarian, denying legitimacy of all sorts of hierarchies and authorities - argues for letting people starve, because they don't want to work.

870 - an accused Trotskyist supporter of vicious, brutal and dictatorial state capitalist regimes, charged for being authoritarian and above all a Marxist (oh no) - argues for not letting the proletariat be starved to death due to their choice not to work.

If Plato is right and there is an ideal form of irony, then it obviously materialized itself in the form of this thread. Impossible, just give me a fucking break.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

really its at the point where i'm convinced revleft is actually the manifestation of a topsy-turvy demonic realm of madness and i'm actually having an extended nightmare from which I cannot wake. Or was that capitalist society?

If I might make a contribution to the thread (not one that hasn't been made before) I count myself as among those who support free-access communism (otherwise known as 'communism as far as I am aware.) Honestly arguing otherwise sets you in territory dangerously close to mandating work as a predicate to existence.

Considering that as a society we would not be 'working' nearly as much anyway (no more financial sector, no more bullshit jobs, no more happy meal toys or whatever shit we produce for the sake of production etcetera) and that work environment/practices would probably not be the onerous burdens they are now I can't imagine people suddenly becoming listless zombies threatened by a 4 hour day of relatively painless labour. Even presently, when almost everything is so patently crap, actual 'freeloaders' as kindly described for us in rags such as the Daily Mail are a tiny fraction even of people not in work.

Collectively, wouldn't a post-revolutionary society have broad enough shoulders to carry the weight of those unable or unwilling to work - probably without even noticing? All the arguments yet I've seen in favour of essentially forcing people to work are almost identical to the shit we're fed by the right-wing media and I wonder if unconsciously its informing peoples opinions on 'scroungers'

[bropasaran]

No, sorry, no matter how many times you say it, it still won't be true.
Ironic coming from you who support exactly this goebbelsian method of determining of what is the correct meaning of words. On the other hand, I have given arguments.


No, it isn't, and people who claim it is are a disease of the modern socialist movement
State-capitalists lying people state-capitalism is socialism are the disease of the modern labor movemet.


since the natural conclusion is that we must create a "real" democracy
The foundation of socialism is democracy in the workplace.


You said that the labour that "belongs" to people shouldn't be "stolen". Well, how are you going to enforce that?
By abolishing exploitation.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Ironic coming from you who support exactly this goebbelsian method of determining of what is the correct meaning of words. On the other hand, I have given arguments.

Good grief, do you even read the guff you write? This "Goebbelsian method" has been the generally-accepted account of how strings of sounds acquire meaning since the demise of theologically-inspired theories about some primordial, "true" language. Meaning is determined by use. Hence, in the nineteenth century the sounds "monitor" designated an ironclad warship with guns of large calibre for the time, and low freeboard, then as the use changed the requirement of low freeboard was dropped (with breastwork monitors) and finally, in the year 2014, the sounds "monitor" designate something else entirely.


State-capitalists lying people state-capitalism is socialism are the disease of the modern labor movemet.

Once again I can't but note the construction of the sentence. But anyway, you're just crying for attention at this stage.


The foundation of socialism is democracy in the workplace.

"Democracy in the workplace" is vague and, without class content, merely liberal. It is entirely possible to have "democracy in the workplace" with a market, money and private property, which happens to be exactly what you want and what no socialist wants.


By abolishing exploitation.

"But mister sir, how ever will your brandy-powered rocket fly to the Moon?"

"Why, by surpassing escape velocity for Earth, of course."

It's pretty much like that. I ask you to describe the mechanisms by which your "anarcho-communist" (I imagine that I would be extremely offended if I were an actual anarcho-communist) society (or rather federation) would prevent "people's" labour being "stolen", and you just repeat the same phrases over and over again. Is it that you don't want to admit that your "communism" involves markets and money?

Oh, and I'm still waiting, what "workers' revolution" did the "octobar [sic] coup" destroy?

[bropasaran]

This "Goebbelsian method" has been the generally-accepted account
The goebbelsian method is correct because of goebbelsian method. Bravo.


"Democracy in the workplace" is vague and, without class content, merely liberal.
You say something is vague and then call it "liberal". Bravo again.


I ask you to describe the mechanisms by which ... would prevent "people's" labour being "stolen"
Abolition of exploitation is the mechanism.


Oh, and I'm still waiting, what "workers' revolution" did the "octobar [sic] coup" destroy?
I replied in message #44 of this thread.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The goebbelsian method is correct because of goebbelsian method. Bravo.

So, Fabi-, I mean impossible, how do words acquire meaning, by the ordinance of the lord God, or perhaps some sort of Platonic form inherent in the sounds themselves? Is it incorrect to say that Great Britain is not a republic, since the English monarchy was called a "republic" in the thirteenth century?


You say something is vague and then call it "liberal". Bravo again.

Perhaps you should read the paragraph again.


Abolition of exploitation is the mechanism.

"Abolition of exploitation" is a phrase. What actual mechanisms would be in place to prevent "theft"? How would I be reassured that I'm receiving "my" share?


I replied in message #44 of this thread.

You replied by talking about the "Free" Territory, which postdated the October Revolution.

Your replies are getting less and less substantial, and to be honest I don't know what you're trying to do, Fabian, you were already thrown out two times at least.

[bropasaran]

"Abolition of exploitation" is a phrase.
I have explained multiple times it means abolition of bosses and rentiers.


You replied by talking about the "Free" Territory, which postdated the October Revolution.
Read it again.

[Five Year Plan]

I have explained multiple times it means abolition of bosses and rentiers.

And 870's point is that without the abolition of the underlying production relations, rooted as they are in value, competition, and the division of labor, your boss-less society is going to transform once more into a society with a new set of bosses and rentiers. For some reason, though, this idea just isn't clicking with you.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I have explained multiple times it means abolition of bosses and rentiers.

Yes, and the brandy rocket surpassing escape velocity means it's going faster than a certain number I can't recall now. I shall commit sepukku later for that transgression.

This still doesn't tell us anything, and is in fact inconsistent with your petit-bourgeois worry that in a post-revolutionary society people might "steal" "your" labour.


Read it again.

I did, and it still says the same thing. Yes, you mentioned the "Free" Territory as one example, but it was the only example you listed.

So - what do you think should happen to people who don't want to work, Fa-, I mean impossible. Cor, I keep making that mistake, I wonder why. Or to people who can't work? To the disabled, chronically depressed, drug users and so on?

[bropasaran]

This still doesn't tell us anything
Except what is socialism


with your petit-bourgeois worry
Petit-bourgeois is not a term, it's a meaningless signal label.


I did, and it still says the same thing. Yes, you mentioned the "Free" Territory as one example, but it was the only example you listed.
The Free Territory of Ukraine is mentioned in the second part of that sentence.


Fa-, I mean impossible. Cor, I keep making that mistake, I wonder why.
Because you're a lousy troll.


So - what do you think should happen to people who don't want to work, Or to people who can't work? To the disabled, chronically depressed, drug users and so on?
Read message #23 on this thread.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Except what is socialism

Again, note the peculiar sentence construction. As for "socialism", as we've already established you don't even grasp how the work is commonly used in the relevant milieu.


Petit-bourgeois is not a term, it's a meaningless signal label.

Except, of course, it has been demonstrated to you several times that there is nothing vague or meaningless about the term "petite bourgeoisie". Which you refuse to accept because you worship the independent artisan, a sad obsolete creature that socialists won't even have to abolish - capitalism will do that for us.


The Free Territory of Ukraine is mentioned in the second part of that sentence.

As the only example of the supposed revolution, which was precisely my point.


Because you're a lousy troll.

Or maybe because your ideas and writing style are absolutely bloody identical.


Read message #23 on this thread.

That's what Bakunin and Makhno said - I'm asking about your position. And neither quote addresses things like chronic depression, drug use and so on.

[bropasaran]

As for "socialism", as we've already established you don't even grasp how the work is commonly used in the relevant milieu.
Correctness is relevant, appeals to majority and what is customary are fallacies.


Except, of course, it has been demonstrated to you several times that there is nothing vague or meaningless about the term "petite bourgeoisie".
Nothing of the sorts has been done.


As the only example of the supposed revolution, which was precisely my point.
The first part of sentence mentions the a revolution not being the Free Territory of Ukraine, that was also destroyed by the state capitalists who came into power in the october coup.


hat's what Bakunin and Makhno said - I'm asking about your position.
Kropotkin and Makhno. And I agree with them.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Alright, so, let's keep this short and to the point: what do you think should be done to the chronically depressed and the drug users in your "socialist" federation?

[bropasaran]

There is no such thing as my "socialist" federation.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

There is no such thing as my "socialist" federation.

In "the" socialist federation of the future you advocate, or however you want to phrase it, now stop trying to dodge the question.

[bropasaran]

I don't have a concrete opinon on the question. Every commune itself will decide how to treat (as in nurse) those people.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't have a concrete opinon on the question. Every commune itself will decide how to treat (as in nurse) those people.

What does "nurse" mean, here?

[bropasaran]

Give medical and other attention to.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Give medical and other attention to.

What other attention? Would this be voluntarily or?

[Five Year Plan]

Apparently there is no such thing as "retirement" in impossible's little utopia either. Sounds like a great place.

[bropasaran]

Attention, care. Voluntary- meaning what?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Attention, care. Voluntary- meaning what?

Meaning they are free to refuse whatever "treatment" people like you have devised for them.

And 5YP is right - no retirement for people. Nice.

[bropasaran]

Meaning they are free to refuse whatever "treatment" people like you have devised for them.
I just said I don't have a concrete opinion, let alone a devised plan. But anyways, if you knew anything about anarchism you'd knew that anyone will have the right to refuse anything, the only rules will be- don't impose harm on other people or violate their possessions, don't oppress (establish relations of domination) and don't exploit (be a boss or a rentier).


And 5YP is right - no retirement for people. Nice.
Where?

[Zoroaster]

Apparently there is no such thing as "retirement" in impossible's little utopia either. Sounds like a great place.

Oh joy. Once again, the anarchists march to the battle cry of labour, and once again they shall repeat the mistakes of the past. Impossible, read some Paul Lafargue and his work "The Right to be Lazy".

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I just said I don't have a concrete opinion, let alone a devised plan. But anyways, if you knew anything about anarchism you'd knew that anyone will have the right to refuse anything, the only rules will be- don't impose harm on other people or violate their possessions, don't oppress (establish relations of domination) and don't exploit (be a boss or a rentier).

Yes, that's all nice, but you have people who claim that drug users oppress others by - wait for it - "stealing" "their" labour for "their" healthcare, and so on, and of course, you say that people are "free to" do this and that, but as we've seen, you have no problem with threatening them with starvation if they don't do what batko impossible wants. So, would drug users be threatened with starvation unless they get "treatment"?

Your constant chant of "I don't have a concrete opinion" isn't fooling anyone.


Where?

If everyone who is capable of work needs to work, people would have to work until they became disabled of old age or effort. Or perhaps they could save for old age, which brings us back to the problem that your little schemes could only work with money.

[bropasaran]

Yes, that's all nice, but you have people who claim that drug users oppress others by - wait for it - "stealing" "their" labour for "their" healthcare,
Some USA conservatives I suppose, which is irrelevant to anarchism.


you say that people are "free to" do this and that, but as we've seen, you have no problem with threatening them with starvation
I supposse that by your "logic" if I were to say to you- don't step into that open elevator shaft, you'll fall and be badly hurt or maybe die- I'm threatening you with death?


So, would drug users be threatened with starvation unless they get "treatment"?
No.


If everyone who is capable of work needs to work, people would have to work until they became disabled of old age or effort.
Read again the Kropotkin quote in the message #23, it mentions retirement.

[Blake's Baby]

Alright, but you explicitly said that "to each according to his needs" - the norm of distribution in the higher phase of the communist society, where labour has become a want and not an odious necessity - is some sort of "work or starve contract"...

Yeah. Do you think '...to each according to their work' is a slogan of some sort of 'socialist stage'?

If society can provide for everyone with no work, then no-one needs to work. If, however, society can only provide for everyone with work, then people need to work. It's not hard. A society of abundance doesn't necessarily necessarily mean a society in which no-one has to do anything.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Some USA conservatives I suppose, which is irrelevant to anarchism.

Sure, sure, that sort of thinking is largely irrelevant to modern anarchism, although it should be kept in mind that anarchists can and have been pretty odious moralists, Durruti for example. But Fabian-Sotionov, the only person on this planet of our who shared your particular, ah, political tendencies, was pretty clear that drug users need to be forced to stop taking drugs and seek "treatment" etc. etc.


I supposse that by your "logic" if I were to say to you- don't step into that open elevator shaft, you'll fall and be badly hurt or maybe die- I'm threatening you with death?

Except the analogy doesn't work at all, does it? In that scenario you have nothing to do with the other person's death. But if you actively prevent people from accessing the social product because they didn't preform "enough" labour, then yes, you have quite a lot to do with their death.


No.

So they would receive a part of the social product without working?


Read again the Kropotkin quote in the message #23, it mentions retirement.

Yes, and therefore contradict the entire "argument", just as Lassalle in his time used to talk about "the undiminished proceeds of labour" before diminishing them to cover administrative costs etc.


Yeah. Do you think '...to each according to their work' is a slogan of some sort of 'socialist stage'?

I think it's a rule that might be useful in the lowest phases of the communist society, but I don't think it's some sort of divine law, and in fact given the present state of the development of productive forces, it would probably not even be necessary if not for the probable destruction of the productive forces during the revolution and the civil war.


If society can provide for everyone with no work, then no-one needs to work. If, however, society can only provide for everyone with work, then people need to work. It's not hard. A society of abundance doesn't necessarily necessarily mean a society in which no-one has to do anything.

That's a very strange statement. Labour will always be necessary as labour is the only thing that allows humanity to change its environment, but this does not mean that everyone needs to labour, particularly since most people will probably want to labour (unless someone presses a gun against their backs and brigades them into some sort of labour detachment, that tends to kill enthusiasm for labour in most circumstances).

[bropasaran]

Sure, sure, that sort of thinking is largely irrelevant to modern anarchism, although it should be kept in mind that anarchists can and have been pretty odious moralists, Durruti for example.
Haven't heard about that, could you point me to some reading material about it?


Except the analogy doesn't work at all, does it? In that scenario you have nothing to do with the other person's death.
Exactly.


But if you actively prevent people from accessing the social product because they didn't preform "enough" labour, then yes, you have quite a lot to do with their death.
What about preventing capitalists from accessing the product of workers' work? With always allowing them to work, of course, being that property would be abolished and replaces by possession, and everyone will have access to the means of production.


So they would receive a part of the social product without working?
I think they would receive a part of the communal stock, sure.


Yes, and therefore contradict the entire "argument", just as Lassalle in his time used to talk about "the undiminished proceeds of labour" before diminishing them to cover administrative costs etc.
There are two problems with Marx' criticism of that phrase from the Gotha Program. "Undiminished" or "whole" fruits of labor isn't a colloquial phrase, but a technical term of socialist theory which could be said to be in the realm of legality, as Anton Menger pointed out, even though law itself would be of different kind then law as is it understood today as an act of the state. In this technical, legal meaning, "whole product of labor" means that in the sphere of production there is no alienation of labor and/ or assumed alientation of it's produce, and in sphere of circulation there is no acquisition based on permission of use of anything that is accepted to be property or possession of the lessor in question; which just means- that there is no exploitation. The second problem is that even if understood colloquially- there is still no fault in the phrase if we're talking about an anarchist society- there is no necessary diminishing of the produce, because there are no compulsory memberships in social structures and no compulsory redistributions.


unless someone presses a gun against their backs and brigades them into some sort of labour detachment
Or maybe, a "labor army"? http://www.pesgaming.com/images/smilies/ilovethis.gif

[Slavic]

TIME FRAMES, fuck do we need time frames and theoretical reference points with all this nonsense.

Since we are talking about Communism which doesn't exist, it helps to first state what stage, period, time frame, fluid motion, this Communism is existing.

Bar none, regardless of conditions, work or not work, no one should be denied food, shelter, and medical care. Lets just get that out of the way.

In a supposed Revolution, Post-Revolution, what ever society in which there exists a scarcity of goods, then those who can and willing choose not to work should not be able to taste of the forbidden fruits that are rationed goods.

Post-Scarcity, "Communism", Utpoia-whatnot society in which there is no scarcity of goods, then those who can and willing choose not to work can just do what ever the hell they want.

If we are ever to reach such a point that casual work is sufficient to provide for the needs of the masses, then that is amazing, totally unrealistic for the time being but amazing none the less. The reality is that liberated wage-workers or not, farms need to be farmed, trucks need to be driven, and shit needs to be flushed. If not enough people are willing doing these essential tasks, then those who choose not to work should not partake in luxuries and should be shunned.

And when I say those who choose not to work, I am not speaking of those who's work doesn't fall into neat little Capitalist categories. I'm talking about the dude that just sits at home all day and doesn't move his ass off the couch. Myth or not, there will be some people that do this, and if there still exists a scarcity due to lack of man hours, then these people can go fuck themselves.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Haven't heard about that, could you point me to some reading material about it?

Durruti referred to churches as "dens of sodomy" - I can't find the source right now (and the phrasing might be off), but I think it was Bennassar, "Franco". Generally the CNT proclaimed itself against "inverts" and used homophobic abuse against opposing groups, and, to quote "Workers against Work" on the CNT in Barcelona:

Licentious popular culture was attacked but did not disappear. Anarchosyndicalist and Communist militants criticized the lazy for congregating in bars and cafes.36 Some CNT activists wanted to end immorality by shutting down such unproductive activities as bars and music or dance halls by 10:00 P.M.; several music-hall managers reduced the number of bars. Authorities executed a number of drug dealers and pimps and supposedly cleaned up "neighborhoods of vice."37 In general, the Left frowned on pornography. One CNT militant equated pornography with "evil influences that make children turn pale."38 According to a military publication, pornography produced masturbation that provoked tuberculosis; the militant CNT Graphics Union even destroyed "a pornographic novel."39 The campaign against prostitution, with posters and propaganda, did not eliminate the major problem of venereal disease in Barcelona. The sailors' port also attracted many soldiers, who usually had a good deal of disposable income. Indeed, venereal disease was the primary cause for discharging militiamen, who received repeated warnings against the malady.40 In July 1938 army physicians were ordered to inspect brothels located away from the front lines and to check their men every two weeks. If soldiers became infected more than once, they could be sent to a military prison. Three-time offenders were subject to the accusation of self-inflicted wounding and might receive the death penalty, a certain cure.


What about preventing capitalists from accessing the product of workers' work?

Yes, that might cause their death. Likewise seizing the peasants' surplus to feed the cities. Marxists don't pretend that the dictatorship of the proletariat will not cause deaths. It will cause quite a few.


There are two problems with Marx' criticism of that phrase from the Gotha Program. "Undiminished" or "whole" fruits of labor isn't a colloquial phrase, but a technical term of socialist theory which could be said to be in the realm of legality, as Anton Menger pointed out, even though law itself would be of different kind then law as is it understood today as an act of the state. In this technical, legal meaning, "whole product of labor" means that in the sphere of production there is no alienation of labor and/ or assumed alientation of it's produce, and in sphere of circulation there is no acquisition based on permission of use of anything that is accepted to be property or possession of the lessor in question; which just means- that there is no exploitation. The second problem is that even if understood colloquially- there is still no fault in the phrase if we're talking about an anarchist society- there is no necessary diminishing of the produce, because there are no compulsory memberships in social structures and no compulsory redistributions.

You're reading Menger's guff back into Lassalle, who although a piss-poor theoretician, at least never dreamed of "Juridical Socialism", and for that matter was not an "anarchist" as you use the term - and indeed that use has more to do with Nozick or Hoppe than Makhno or Bakunin (I'd really like to see the communes with other economic systems that Makhno allowed - oh wait there aren't any).


Or maybe, a "labor army"? http://www.pesgaming.com/images/smilies/ilovethis.gif

Well, yes. Generally a labour army organised on the basis of coercion will give poor results - the only reason the proposal was seriously considered in Russia is that the actual status of the economy was even worse than what a brigaded labour-force would give. And of course, this was a measure specifically meant for the transitional period in one extremely backward state. Trotsky never said communism would have compulsory labour armies. That's the difference - we "authoritarians" advocate a lot of things we consider unpleasant in the transitional period, but a lot of "libertarians" advocate them as the very blueprint of a future society.

[Blake's Baby]

...
That's a very strange statement. Labour will always be necessary as labour is the only thing that allows humanity to change its environment, but this does not mean that everyone needs to labour, particularly since most people will probably want to labour (unless someone presses a gun against their backs and brigades them into some sort of labour detachment, that tends to kill enthusiasm for labour in most circumstances).

I don't think so. I think any statement to the contrary is very strange.

A 'society of abundance' only relates to the technical capacity to produce to fulfil desires. It may be that we could fulfill everyone's desires if we all work an hour a week, or if we all work 30 hours a week. If we reach a stage where we only have to work an hour a week, smashing, I'm all for it. If we have to work 30 hours a week, then, OK, I can live with that, but I'd prefer it not to be the case and would be 'working' to get that necessary labour-time down.

Or, we could all work for an hour and not fulfill people's wants, but that's not a society of abundance.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think so. I think any statement to the contrary is very strange.

A 'society of abundance' only relates to the technical capacity to produce to fulfil desires. It may be that we could fulfill everyone's desires if we all work an hour a week, or if we all work 30 hours a week. If we reach a stage where we only have to work an hour a week, smashing, I'm all for it. If we have to work 30 hours a week, then, OK, I can live with that, but I'd prefer it not to be the case and would be 'working' to get that necessary labour-time down.

Or, we could all work for an hour and not fulfill people's wants, but that's not a society of abundance.

That still assumes that everyone will work an equal amount of time. Why would you make that assumption?

[adipocere12]

I don't think so. I think any statement to the contrary is very strange.

A 'society of abundance' only relates to the technical capacity to produce to fulfil desires. It may be that we could fulfill everyone's desires if we all work an hour a week, or if we all work 30 hours a week. If we reach a stage where we only have to work an hour a week, smashing, I'm all for it. If we have to work 30 hours a week, then, OK, I can live with that, but I'd prefer it not to be the case and would be 'working' to get that necessary labour-time down.

Or, we could all work for an hour and not fulfill people's wants, but that's not a society of abundance.


Although what people want depends very much on the society. In a society where you had access to everything you wanted (without owning it) then the things you desire would be quite different, I think.

[Blake's Baby]

That's not relevant. What's relevant is the distinction between a society that can provide for all those wants (whatever they might be) by everyone working a lot, and one which can provide for all those wants (whatever they migt be) with everyone working a tiny bit (or if the fantasies of the tehnocrats are realised, not at all because we've set up machines to do it all for us).

870 seems to assume that a society of abundance (one that can fulfill all our wants) necessarily means one in which only a very small amount of work is necessary. I hold that it doesn't necessarily follow. It's possible, but not by any means certain.

[adipocere12]

No, I guess there's is a certain amount of faith involved. Let's build it and find out.

[Blake's Baby]

That I can definitely agree with. Something about proving puddings I think.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That's not relevant. What's relevant is the distinction between a society that can provide for all those wants (whatever they might be) by everyone working a lot, and one which can provide for all those wants (whatever they migt be) with everyone working a tiny bit (or if the fantasies of the tehnocrats are realised, not at all because we've set up machines to do it all for us).

870 seems to assume that a society of abundance (one that can fulfill all our wants) necessarily means one in which only a very small amount of work is necessary. I hold that it doesn't necessarily follow. It's possible, but not by any means certain.

Not really - however, given the present state of the development of the productive forces, there is no good reason to assume that the communist society will require a large expenditure of labour-power per person, at least once the productive forces have returned to their pre-revolutionary state.

The example of agriculture in Europe shows that human society can make use of a small percentage of the labour-force to produce so much food it needs to be destroyed so that it does not disrupt the market. In communism, the situation will be better as the need to maintain a relatively high rate of profit will no longer be an impediment to automatisation, and certain goods will no longer need to be produced - various kinds of military equipment for example. Certain professions will no longer be necessary, the entire financial sector for example.

But let us assume that humans will still need to expend significant amounts of labour-power per person in order to meet needs. Does this imply that they should "work or starve"? Only if you think everyone should dedicate the same amount of socially-useful labour time to production, which is, I think, an unwarranted imposition, driven by fears of shortages that are essentially bourgeois in origin.

[Blake's Baby]

...
But let us assume that humans will still need to expend significant amounts of labour-power per person in order to meet needs. Does this imply that they should "work or starve"? Only if you think everyone should dedicate the same amount of socially-useful labour time to production, which is, I think, an unwarranted imposition, driven by fears of shortages that are essentially bourgeois in origin.

Right: in the specific case, that we can 'meet needs' only by spending 'significant amounts of labour-power per person in order' to do so, then yes, I think we should all work the same hours. Let's say that that number of socially-necessary labour is 24 hours per week per person. What I'm proposing is that everyone is rostered for 24 hours per week.

What you're proposing is that some people work 48 hours, and some people just get stuff without working.

That's the system we have now.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Right: in the specific case, that we can 'meet needs' only by spending 'significant amounts of labour-power per person in order' to do so, then yes, I think we should all work the same hours. Let's say that that number of socially-necessary labour is 24 hours per week per person. What I'm proposing is that everyone is rostered for 24 hours per week.

What you're proposing is that some people work 48 hours, and some people just get stuff without working.

That's the system we have now.

The system we have now is one that is based on private ownership of the means of production, where goods are produced as commodities to be exchanged on the market. It really is a strange sort of socialism that mandates that, even if people are perfectly happy working 48 hours a week (since work is no longer the tiring, dull, nonsensical activity it is under capitalism), other people have to work because, I don't know, some people are afraid the "scroungers" are "stealing" "their" work.

[Blake's Baby]

Maybe people are happy to work 48 hours a week. If you want to volunteer to work so that I can enjoy stuff, that's fine by me. You could do that under capitalism too though, why wait for the revolution? I'll set up a drop-box, you can post half your wages to me. Then we'll all be happier, no?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Maybe people are happy to work 48 hours a week. If you want to volunteer to work so that I can enjoy stuff, that's fine by me. You could do that under capitalism too though, why wait for the revolution? I'll set up a drop-box, you can post half your wages to me. Then we'll all be happier, no?

I'm sorry, am I still on the self-proclaimed "home of the revolutionary left" (I can imagine what sort of "home" it is, too), or am I hallucinating the default RevLeft skin while reading some sort of Hayekian rag?

First of all, as we've already established, work in capitalism is tiring, dull, and generally odious. This would presumably not be the case in the communist society. Second, if I give you half my wages, I won't get to have as much stuff. In communism, my ability to access the social product is not hampered by people not working.

Good grief, do you want people to be happy and free from drudgery or for everyone to be equally enslaved to some sort of generalised semi-capitalism?

[Blake's Baby]

The amount of work is the same the way you've set that up. In which case, I'll rephrase your question as 'surely you'd rather be a slave-owner, rather than have to work a bit?'

And no, I wouldn't.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The amount of work is the same the way you've set that up. In which case, I'll rephrase your question as 'surely you'd rather be a slave-owner, rather than have to work a bit?'

And no, I wouldn't.

Where the Jesusing Christ did I mention anything about slave-owning? Unless you, like our friend impossible, think that "stealing" "other people's" labour is tantamount to "enslaving" them.

And yes, the amount of work is the same by supposition, but if you can't see the difference between seven hours spent working in capitalism and seven hours labouring in socialism...

[Blake's Baby]

If I'm having an idle life while other people are working to keep me, then, yes, that's tantamount to slave-owning. That is what you're talking about, isn't it?

[Five Year Plan]

If I'm having an idle life while other people are working to keep me, then, yes, that's tantamount to slave-owning. That is what you're talking about, isn't it?

Setting aside the fact that I don't think people would be prone to do this in a situation where the nature of work has been transformed significantly by processes of planning, the elimination of the division of labor, etc., I would still disagree that it is "tantamount to slave-owning."

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If I'm having an idle life while other people are working to keep me, then, yes, that's tantamount to slave-owning. That is what you're talking about, isn't it?

I give up, we aren't speaking the same language.

[consuming negativity]

Maybe people are happy to work 48 hours a week. If you want to volunteer to work so that I can enjoy stuff, that's fine by me. You could do that under capitalism too though, why wait for the revolution? I'll set up a drop-box, you can post half your wages to me. Then we'll all be happier, no?

Word. There is such thing as freedom of association. I don't want to pay tribute to lazy capitalists now, why would I want to pay tribute to loafers in the future? Going outside and working in the garden to make sure you don't fucking starve to death is not the same thing as having to work 40 hours a week to go home and be unable to afford ramen this week. Brushing my teeth or wiping my ass are not things I want people doing, and nobody is gonna do your dishes for you unless you scratch their back too. That's life. Abolishing work does not mean allowing all of us to lay in vats 24/7 high as fuck. We are talking about reality.

[Blake's Baby]

Look, if we can all get what we want with very little effort, I don't see it as a problem. But if we can't, then yes it is a problem if some people are going 'what the fuck, someone else will take care of me' and other people are are working long hours out of social duty.

Sometimes shit needs to get done, and sometimes we all have to pitch in to do it. That seems so utterly fucking obvious to me, I don't understand why anyone older than 8 years old can't grasp it.

[bropasaran]

Durruti referred to churches as "dens of sodomy" - I can't find the source right now (and the phrasing might be off), but I think it was Bennassar, "Franco". Generally the CNT proclaimed itself against "inverts" and used homophobic abuse against opposing groups, and, to quote "Workers against Work" on the CNT in Barcelona:

Licentious popular culture was attacked but did not disappear. Anarchosyndicalist and Communist militants criticized the lazy for congregating in bars and cafes.36 Some CNT activists wanted to end immorality by shutting down such unproductive activities as bars and music or dance halls by 10:00 P.M.; several music-hall managers reduced the number of bars. Authorities executed a number of drug dealers and pimps and supposedly cleaned up "neighborhoods of vice."37 In general, the Left frowned on pornography. One CNT militant equated pornography with "evil influences that make children turn pale."38 According to a military publication, pornography produced masturbation that provoked tuberculosis; the militant CNT Graphics Union even destroyed "a pornographic novel."39 The campaign against prostitution, with posters and propaganda, did not eliminate the major problem of venereal disease in Barcelona. The sailors' port also attracted many soldiers, who usually had a good deal of disposable income. Indeed, venereal disease was the primary cause for discharging militiamen, who received repeated warnings against the malady.40 In July 1938 army physicians were ordered to inspect brothels located away from the front lines and to check their men every two weeks. If soldiers became infected more than once, they could be sent to a military prison. Three-time offenders were subject to the accusation of self-inflicted wounding and might receive the death penalty, a certain cure.
Interesting. I remember reading somewhere mention of a conservative sentiment among some anarchists of that time, there's even a cute poster by CNT promoting abandonment of vices of gambling and drinking because they "lead into madness", but this is the first I hear about any measures against such things, including shooting people, I will look into it further.


Yes, that might cause their death. Likewise seizing the peasants' surplus to feed the cities. So, basically, your "criticism" of anarchist thinkers talking about how workers shouldn't be forced to feed those who don't want to work by calling it "work or starve" is just blatant hypocrisy coming from someone who's ok with enacting that slogan (and an even worse one- "work until you starve" for peasants and other similar workers), as long as it's enacted by the ruling red bourgeoisie.


You're reading Menger's guff back into Lassalle, who although a piss-poor theoreticianI don't know much about Lessalle's theories, but the phrase comes from the original socialist theory.


and indeed that use has more to do with Nozick or Hoppe than Makhno or BakuninThe use of it, of course, has nothing to do with those capitalist, being that the (neo)Lockean theory which is the base of their philosophy is faulty. That is exactly the start of socialism- insisting that Locke reasoned in the right direction by giving labor the central position, but that he didn't formulate the theory precisely nor followed it to it's logical implications; and when that is done, the conclusion is that capitalism is illegitimate. The first socialist thinker Thomas Hodgskin, in the first real socialist work, in 1824., said how "the whole produce of labour ought to belong to the labourer", to which correlates the notion that when that principle is violated (by the existence of bosses and rentiers) - that is exploitation, which is illegitimate and should be abolished. That is the labor theory on which socialism came into being as a school of political economy in it's own right.

Bakunin was a socialist and thus logically did mention the principle "to each the full product of his labor" and how "it is wrong for those who produce nothing at all to be able to maintain their insolent riches, since they do so only by the work of others." This is the basis of socialist theory, from which follows the basis of socialist praxis- the workers' control over production, as Kropotkin notes that the main "guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour". Makhno likewise being a socialist mentioned it, e.g.- "Anarchism wants to transform the present bourgeois capitalist society into a society which assures the workers the products of their labours, their liberty, independence, and social and political equality."

I don't get the comment about Makhno "not allowing" other economic systems, neither did Makhno go around forbidding people this or that, nor did the Free Territory of Ukraine have an internal system of imposing anything on anyone, as oppossed to the state-capitalist tyranny which destroyed them, it wasn't a system of imposition, but of emancipation.