Market socialism

[Redhead]

What are your thoughts on market socialism?

[QueerVanguard]

Worker managed capital ain't "Socialism", I don't give a shit how many closet Proudhonists masquerading around as "Marxists" say that it is

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's like saying the only problem with death camps is that they're not run by inmates. No, the problem is they're fucking death camps. And the problem with capitalism is that it's fucking capitalism, not that workers don't generally get to manage their own oppression.

Socialism means the abolition of commodity production. Commodity production is production for a market. I'll let you connect the dots about the possibility of "market socialism".

[exeexe]

If you look at market from a capitalistic perspective you would have market for competition. Through competition you get better products for a cheaper price.

If you look at market from a socialistic perspective you would have market for laborvalue. You produce something you get to dispense that value, and the result of this is you can fullfill your needs.

Thus fullfilling of your needs becomes an individual question. If you get rid of the market, the fullfilment of your needs becomes a political question. But only you know how to best fullfill your needs. DIY.

So, is it possible to have laborvalue without competition? Yes, competition in capitalistic markets exist because it is possible to go bankcrupty and then you lose your factory. This cant happen in a social market since property has been eliminated. Thus you dont get to own a factory, you get to posses it. You can posses a factory one day and the next day if you dont want to continue possessing it, someone else can posses it, and no moneytransfer has taken place and no theft has taken place for this change of possession to occur.

And when i say you it does not mean a single human being but the group of workers working at that factory.

In capitalistic market the further existence of a factory is an economic question. In a social market the further existence of a factory becomes a political question. Does society want the products that is being produced? Can society tolerate the pollution from the factory etc.
So as a producer you dont compete with other producers you appeal to society. One example of this could be how european states are subsidising domestic farmers so they dont have to compete with African farmers.
Ofcourse that form of subsidicing is deeply asocial but it goes to show how you can eliminate competition if the political desire exist. And ofcourse the reason why the european states are doing it is becuase if they didnt they would have to import food from Africa and domestic foodproduction would go bankcrupty and once europa has lost its means of foodproduction the african farmers could put pressure on the EU, and EU would then lose geopolitical power. Ofcourse the whole reason why deeply asocial subsidising can take place is because of national borders or trade barriers, but national borders would not exist in social markets, so the subsidising that would take place would not be asocial but would be for the benefit of the whole society.

What about unemployment? In socialism you dont compete so you would work as little as possible and divide the workload with your fellow workers. Unemployment would not exist any longer between people who can and want to work.
And if someone would work 80 hours per week and someone else would had to be unemployed because of that then i would expect some kind of political organ would take care of that.

[exeexe]

To fullfill your needs the best way possible two things are required. A sufficient amount of resources available and freedom of choice.
In capitalism you have freedom of choice
In communism you have A sufficient amount of resources available
In market socialism you have both.

[Zoroaster]

As long as the individual is forced to conform to capital in order to survive, exploitation exists. The market must be abolished.

[bropasaran]

A socialist economy (workers emancipated from bosses and rentiers) which would use markets as the prime method of distribution would, depending on other types of institutions, be in a greater of lesser degree unviable.

Anarcho-individualism, with a market that is free as it can be, would most likely turn non-socialistic very fast. Classical socialist proposal with there being a [directly] democratic state which would provide various regulations and services to the people could make the market socialist economy more viable, but if that economy would turn out to be viable for some time, it would be so in spite of the markets. A mutualist system with it's institutions of the commune and the agro-industrial federations would a tendency to either become anarcho-individualism or to become anarcho-collectivism, depending on the level of which workplaces in question federate.

[tuwix]

I would like to remind that market in form of barter will never cease to exist. The an abolition of market is just impossible.

[Creative Destruction]

Markets need to be abolished.

[Tim Cornelis]

Tuwix is again parroting the Stalinist perception that in socialism the abolition of money means product exchanges, which is fundamentally opposed to a Marxist analysis of capitalism and socialism.

In socialism wage labour is replaced by associated labour, meaning all productive establishments are integrated into one cooperative body. This necessarily means that production is carried out on the basis of a social plan withiut commodity production as extension of labour being directly social.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would like to remind that market in form of barter will never cease to exist. The an abolition of market is just impossible.

No matter how many times you say it, that still won't be true. Commodity exchange is impossible in socialism because commodities are not produced in socialism. But then again, what you call "socialism" is obviously capitalism with "worker ownership" in the sense of every "worker" owning part of "his" business so that's neither here nor there.

[Црвена]

Market "socialism," is just a gentler form of oppression. Workers' control (which I'm not sure is even compatible with the existence of capital without some kind of ruling class arising) isn't going to magically end all exploitation. Only abolition of its root cause - the very existence of capital - can do that.

[tuwix]

Markets need to be abolished.

When have you asked them? And how have they expressed such need? :D


No matter how many times you say it, that still won't be true.

You shouldn't even read me. It's far beyond your possibility of recognition. Q was right. The situation where to men or woman exchange goods and services without money that constitutes barter which is form of market is far beyond your mind capacity...


Tuwix is again parroting the Stalinist perception that in socialism the abolition of money means product exchanges, which is fundamentally opposed to a Marxist analysis of capitalism and socialism. .

It's difficult to call it otherwise than lie. You're just lying. You know very well why barter will never cease to exist and you've admitted it. So putting such things in my mouth is just lie.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You shouldn't even read me. It's far beyond your possibility of recognition. Q was right.

The only thing that is "far beyond [my] possibility of recognition" is how someone can type with their head so far up their arse, but that's neither here nor there. This isn't the first time you've tried to prove markets are some supra-historical necessary form blablabla, and each time you've been roundly trounced, resorting to quoting Wikipedia in your last attempt if I'm not mistaken. How you're not restricted for being a market socialist is also beyond me.


The situation where to men or woman exchange goods and services without money that constitutes barter which is form of market is far beyond your mind capacity...

Because, of course, humans will exchange goods and services (or rather: commodities) in socialism! Out-bloody-standing. At this point I think it is clear to anyone that you're entirely ignorant of the ABC of Marxism.

[tuwix]

^^
Signal words like "confused", "irrelevant", "complete misunderstanding" and just putting up an unsourced rant about what 870 thinks is right is what we might have come to expect of him. Why people thank such mindnumbing garbage is something that I just won't understand.

Sorry, you're just not worth my time anymore 870. You may yell your ideology all as much you like. When you actually start to engage in arguments, source your arguments or stop misrepresenting the argument of your debating opponents, do give me a shout.



and nothing else...

[bropasaran]

Market "socialism," is just a gentler form of oppression. Workers' control (which I'm not sure is even compatible with the existence of capital without some kind of ruling class arising) isn't going to magically end all exploitation. Only abolition of its root cause - the very existence of capital - can do that.
Can you even define what capital is? This question also goes to Socialisme ou Barbarie (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=157507), QueerVanguard (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=160434), 870 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=76782), rednoise (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106212) and other market-abolitionist ignoramuses who, accepting the idiotic idea of the likes of Mises, think that markets equal capitalism. Neither Marx nor anarchism, nor original socialism that precedes both of them, never identified capitalism with markets- because markets can exist without capitalism and that capitalism can exist without markets. Markets per se are not exploitative, capitalist, non-socialist or whatever, they're just impractical, and therefore are not to be abolished, but surpassed- by forming voluntary non-market institutions that are effective, efficient and stable and that thus can make socialism viable, which markets most probably can't.

I would suggest firstly reading these:

C.2 Why is capitalism exploitative?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html

C.2.1 What is "surplus value"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21

C.2.2 How does exploitation happen?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc22

[QueerVanguard]

Can you even define what capital is? This question also goes to Socialisme ou Barbarie (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=157507), QueerVanguard (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=160434), 870 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=76782), rednoise (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106212) and other market-abolitionist ignoramuses who, accepting the idiotic idea of the likes of Mises, think that markets equal capitalism. Neither Marx nor anarchism, nor original socialism that precedes both of them, never identified capitalism with markets- because markets can exist without capitalism and that capitalism can exist without markets. Market in itself is not exploitative, capitalist, non-socialist or whatever, it's just impractical, and therefore are not to be abolished, but surpassed- by forming voluntary non-market institutions that are more effective, efficient and stable.

I would suggest firstly reading these:

C.2 Why is capitalism exploitative?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html

C.2.1 What is "surplus value"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21

C.2.2 How does exploitation happen?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc22

Please kindly shove that assrag Proudhonist FAQ firmly up your sphincter, where it belongs

[QueerVanguard]

If you look at market from a capitalistic perspective you would have market for competition. Through competition you get better products for a cheaper price.

If you look at market from a socialistic perspective you would have market for laborvalue. You produce something you get to dispense that value, and the result of this is you can fullfill your needs.

Thus fullfilling of your needs becomes an individual question. If you get rid of the market, the fullfilment of your needs becomes a political question. But only you know how to best fullfill your needs. DIY.

So, is it possible to have laborvalue without competition? Yes, competition in capitalistic markets exist because it is possible to go bankcrupty and then you lose your factory. This cant happen in a social market since property has been eliminated. Thus you dont get to own a factory, you get to posses it. You can posses a factory one day and the next day if you dont want to continue possessing it, someone else can posses it, and no moneytransfer has taken place and no theft has taken place for this change of possession to occur.

And when i say you it does not mean a single human being but the group of workers working at that factory.

In capitalistic market the further existence of a factory is an economic question. In a social market the further existence of a factory becomes a political question. Does society want the products that is being produced? Can society tolerate the pollution from the factory etc.
So as a producer you dont compete with other producers you appeal to society. One example of this could be how european states are subsidising domestic farmers so they dont have to compete with African farmers.
Ofcourse that form of subsidicing is deeply asocial but it goes to show how you can eliminate competition if the political desire exist. And ofcourse the reason why the european states are doing it is becuase if they didnt they would have to import food from Africa and domestic foodproduction would go bankcrupty and once europa has lost its means of foodproduction the african farmers could put pressure on the EU, and EU would then lose geopolitical power. Ofcourse the whole reason why deeply asocial subsidising can take place is because of national borders or trade barriers, but national borders would not exist in social markets, so the subsidising that would take place would not be asocial but would be for the benefit of the whole society.

What about unemployment? In socialism you dont compete so you would work as little as possible and divide the workload with your fellow workers. Unemployment would not exist any longer between people who can and want to work.
And if someone would work 80 hours per week and someone else would had to be unemployed because of that then i would expect some kind of political organ would take care of that.

Ummm... What?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Can you even define what capital is? This question also goes to Socialisme ou Barbarie (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=157507), QueerVanguard (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=160434), 870 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=76782), rednoise (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106212) and other market-abolitionist ignoramuses who, accepting the idiotic idea of the likes of Mises, think that markets equal capitalism. Neither Marx nor anarchism, nor original socialism that precedes both of them, never identified capitalism with markets- because markets can exist without capitalism and that capitalism can exist without markets. Markets per se are not exploitative, capitalist, non-socialist or whatever, they're just impractical, and therefore are not to be abolished, but surpassed- by forming voluntary non-market institutions that are effective, efficient and stable and that thus can make socialism viable, which markets most probably can't.

I would suggest firstly reading these:

C.2 Why is capitalism exploitative?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html

C.2.1 What is "surplus value"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21

C.2.2 How does exploitation happen?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc22

I would suggest that you stop trying to flog that silly FAQ in every thread, but hell, what do I care, I'm not an anarchist, so if you want to make anarchists look bad, that's no concern of mine. Capital is the congealed human labour, whether in the form of money or commodities, that participates in the M-C-M' cycle. Now the M-C-M' cycle is impossible without markets. Commodity production is defined by markets. If you think you can have commodity production without a market, then it seems that you have no grasp of what a commodity is, what the market is, or most likely both.

[tuwix]

Can you even define what capital is? This question also goes to Socialisme ou Barbarie (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=157507), QueerVanguard (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=160434), 870 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=76782), rednoise (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106212) and other market-abolitionist ignoramuses who, accepting the idiotic idea of the likes of Mises, think that markets equal capitalism.

The 'ignoramuses' as you called them just don't know a definition of market. It's difficult to understand for them that it isn't devil that eats poor communists and anarchists...

But Marxist definition of market is:

Originally, a kind of place where buyers and sellers gathered and agreed prices by a noisy process resembling a street-auction, with all the participants in ear-shot of one another. In modern times, the concept of market is extended by analogy to refer to a “social space” where products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted at widely separated times and places.

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm

And money aren't needed for market. In early markets people exchanged goods without money. And it will never cease to exist whatever 'ignoramuses' would think.

[bropasaran]

Please kindly shove that assrag Proudhonist FAQ firmly up your sphincter, where it belongs
Firstly, a very argumented message.

Secondly, we're on the Learning forum, where rules say that such idiotic one-liners lead to direct infractions.

Finally, Proudhon is the most important socialist thinker. Firstly, he refined the original socialist labor theory with his idea of replacing the notion of property with the notion of possession; secondly, he refined and extended the core socialist notion of worker self-management into a general libertarian theory in the sense of anti-authoritarianism and necessity of direct democracy everywhere. Also, thirdly, he noticed the impracticalness of markets and advocated the instutions of the free commune (voluntary local political assemblies) as replacement for the state and the agro-industrial federation (broad networks that are decentrally planned economies) as opting out of market, so as to make socialism viable. The only faults of Proudhon as a socialist thinker are his understanding of revolution as dual-power gradualism and his not being visionary enough to see the tendecy of the commune and the AIF fusing together, both of which were redressed by Bakunin.

On the other hand, Marx was firstly a bewildered thinker with confused and (by his own admition) contradictory economic theories, which are non-socialist, secondly, he was a state-capitalist, an ideologue of the menagerial class who thought that workers are incapable of being emancipated from bosses and controling production themselves. Thirdly, he, like Proudhon, understood the revolution as a gradual process, but, unlike him, advocated electioneering and relying of representatives. Fourthly, he was "against" markets because of his absurd ideas of iron historical progrees which by itself surpasses markets by development of productive technology. All in all, it is you who can go and shove your daft quasi-marxist pop "socialism" where the sun don't shine.


Capital is the congealed human labour, whether in the form of money or commodities, that participates in the M-C-M' cycle. Now the M-C-M' cycle is impossible without markets. Commodity production is defined by markets. If you think you can have commodity production without a market, then it seems that you have no grasp of what a commodity is, what the market is, or most likely both.
Sorry, but you are wrong both from a socialist (classical socialism and anarchism) and marxist perspectives. Capital is that property which is used to exploit workers, a capitalist being the one who extract income not based on labor but on ownership of something. All of that can exist without markets, e.g. in a state-capitalist system where everything is centrally planned; and markets can exist without any of that.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Sorry, but you are wrong both from a socialist (classical socialism and anarchism) and marxist perspectives. Capital is that property which is used to exploit workers, a capitalist being the one who extract income not based on labor but on ownership of something. All of that can exist without markets, e.g. in a state-capitalist system where everything is centrally planned; and markets can exist without any of that.

Oh look, once again impossible has no idea what he is talking about. Concerning the Marxist analysis (impossible's "classical socialism" being petit-bourgeois utopianism of the Owenite sort), let us see what Marx had to say:

"As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns. The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M-C-M, becomes his subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operations, that he functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will. Use-values must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit on any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at. This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The never-ending augmentation of exchange-value, which the miser strives after, by seeking to save his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by constantly throwing it afresh into circulation.

The independent form, i.e., the money-form, which the value of commodities assumes in the case of simple circulation, serves only one purpose, namely, their exchange, and vanishes in the final result of the movement. On the other hand, in the circulation M-C-M, both the money and the commodity represent only different modes of existence of value itself, the money its general mode, and the commodity its particular, or, so to say, disguised mode. It is constantly changing from one form to the other without thereby becoming lost, and thus assumes an automatically active character. If now we take in turn each of the two different forms which self-expanding value successively assumes in the course of its life, we then arrive at these two propositions: Capital is money: Capital is commodities. In truth, however, value is here the active factor in a process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus value from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the movement, in the course of which it adds surplus value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs."

(Capital, vol I.)

[bropasaran]

Oh look, once again impossible has no idea what he is talking about.
It's always amazing to see the brazeness of ignorance.


Concerning the Marxist analysis (impossible's "classical socialism" being petit-bourgeois utopianism of the Owenite sort)
If you don't precisely define petit-bourgeois and utopianism, which I'm sure you can't do- they're just pointless labels.


let us see what Marx had to say:
You quoted from a chapter where Marx gives his, as the name of the chapter says, "General Formula for Capital". Marx himself, in the very next chapter, says that this formula of his is contradictory, and doesn't know how to solve the contradiction. The contradiction was "solved" by Kautsky and Engels by historicizing Marx's writing in the Vol 3. of Capital and by giving a metaphorical interpretation to Marx' terminology. This was accepted by Luxemburg, Lenin, Bukharin etc. and was not doubted until in modern times people ignorant of Marxist theory started reading Marx and interpreting his terminology literally, giving us a new "solution" to the contradiction of Marx' theory which is the superficial, mainstream pop "socialist" market-abolitionism that you all know and love. Both "solutions" are irrational and non-socialistic.

Marx did have some aproximatelly lucid points in his writing where he seems to come close to the labor theory on which socialism as an economic school in it's own right came into existence in Britain in 1820s, where he doesn't make up nonsense, but writes somewhat in line with classical economy and socialism, for example:

"Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only. .. We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation."
Capital, Vol 1, 33

"The punctum saliens will be best brought if we approach the matter as follows: suppose, the labourers themselves are in possession of their respective means of production and exchange their commodities with one another. In that case these commodities would not be products of capital."
Capital, Vol 3, 10.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If you don't precisely define petit-bourgeois and utopianism, which I'm sure you can't do- they're just pointless labels.

You have asked people to define the term "petit-bourgeois" so many times it counts as spamming at this point. Once again, the petite bourgeoisie is the class whose members own the means of production but do not extract enough surplus value from their workers, if any, to escape the necessity of labouring themselves. Utopians are those who approach historical development as a matter of enacting some "ideal" plan deduced by the intelligentsia in isolation from the actually existing social struggles - plan-mongers as Lenin called them.


You quoted from a chapter where Marx gives his, as the name of the chapter says, "General Formula for Capital". Marx himself, in the very next chapter, says that this formula of his is contradictory, and doesn't know how to solve the contradiction.

You know, I think it's time for you to substantiate your claims by citing the relevant paragraphs.



Marx did have some aproximatelly lucid points in his writing where he seems to come close to the labor theory on which socialism as an economic school in it's own right came into existence in Britain in 1820s, where he doesn't make up nonsense, but writes somewhat in line with classical economy and socialism, for example:

"Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only. .. We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation."
Capital, Vol 1, 33

"The punctum saliens will be best brought if we approach the matter as follows: suppose, the labourers themselves are in possession of their respective means of production and exchange their commodities with one another. In that case these commodities would not be products of capital."
Capital, Vol 3, 10.

By the way, how do you know when someone is mining for quotes to support their preconceptions, and does not care about the text? Well, most of the time they cite one or two sentences at most, all out of context. The second quote comes from a long section which, in part, reads:

"The fact that capitals employing unequal amounts of living labour produce unequal amounts of surplus-value, presupposes at least to a certain extent that the degree of exploitation or the rate of surplus-value are the same, or that any existing differences in them are equalized by real or imaginary (conventional) grounds of compensation. This would assume competition among labourers and equalization through their continual migration from one sphere of production to another. Such a general rate of surplus-value – viewed as a tendency, like all other economic laws - has been assumed by us for the sake of theoretical simplification. But in reality it is an actual premise of the capitalist mode of production, although it is more or less obstructed by practical frictions causing more or less considerable local differences, such as the settlement laws for farm labourers in Britain. But in theory it is assumed that the laws of capitalist production operate in their pure form. In reality there exists only approximation; but, this approximation is the greater, the more developed the capitalist mode of production and the less it is adulterated and amalgamated with survivals of former economic conditions.

The whole difficulty arises from the fact that commodities are not exchanged simply as commodities, but as products of capitals, which claim participation in the total amount of surplusvalue, proportional to their magnitude, or equal if they are of equal magnitude. And this claim is to be satisfied by the total price for commodities produced by a given capital in a certain space of time. This total price is, however, only the sum of the prices of the individual commodities produced by this capital.

The punctum saliens will be best brought if we approach the matter as follows: suppose, the labourers themselves are in possession of their respective means of production and exchange their commodities with one another. In that case these commodities would not be products of capital. The value of the various means of labour and raw materials would differ in accordance with the technical nature of the labours performed in the different branches of production. Furthermore, aside from the unequal value of the means of production employed by them, they would require different quantities of means of production for given quantities of labour, depending on whether a certain commodity can be finished in one hour, another in one day, and so forth. Also suppose the labourers work an equal average length of time, allowing for compensations that arise from the different labour intensities, etc. In such a case, two labourers would, first, both have replaced their outlays, the cost-prices of the consumed means of production, in the commodities which make up the product of their day's work. These outlays would differ, depending on the technical nature of their labour. Secondly, both of them would have created equal amounts of new value, namely the working-day added by them to the means of production. This would comprise their wages plus the surplus-value, the latter representing surplus-labour over and above their necessary wants, the product of which would however belong to them. To put it the capitalist way, both of them receive the same wages plus the same profit, or the same value, expressed, say, by the product of a ten-hour working-day. But in the first place, the values of their commodities would have to differ. In commodity I, for instance, the portion of value corresponding to the consumed means of production might be higher than in commodity II. And, to introduce all possible differences, we might assume right now that commodity I absorbs more living labour, and consequently requires more labour-time to be produced, than commodity II. The values of commodities I and II are, therefore, very different. So are the sums of the values of the commodities, which represent the product of the labour performed by labourers I and II in a given time. The rates of profit would also differ considerably for I and II if we take the rate of profit to be the proportion of the surplus-value to the total value of the invested means of production. The means of subsistence daily consumed by I and II during production, which take the place of wages, here form the part of the invested means of production ordinarily called variable capital.But for equal working periods the surplus values would be the same for I and II, or, more precisely, since I and II each receive the value of the product of a day's work, both of them receive equal values after the value of the invested “constant” elements has been deducted, and one portion of those equal values may be regarded as a substitute for the means of subsistence consumed in production, and the other as surplus-value in excess of it. If labourer I has greater expenses, they are made good by a greater portion of the value of his commodity, which replaces this “constant “ part, and he therefore has to reconvert a larger portion of the total value of his product into the material elements of this constant part, while labourer II, though receiving less for this, has so much less to reconvert. In these circumstances, a difference in the rates of profit would therefore be immaterial, just as it is immaterial to the wage-labourer today what rate of profit may express the amount of surplus-value filched from him, and just as in international commerce the difference in the various national rates of profit is immaterial to commodity exchange.

The exchange of commodities at their values, or approximately at their values, thus requires a much lower stage than their exchange at their prices of production, which requires a definite level of capitalist development."

So obviously, when Marx says "suppose the labourers themselves are in possession of their respective means of production" he is not talking about socialism, but petty commodity production, an archaic and regressive economic form almost completely destroyed by capitalism.

The same is the case for the first quote, which comes from a paragraph reading:

"Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers‘ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only. In Western Europe, the home of Political Economy, the process of primitive accumulation is more of less accomplished. Here the capitalist regime has either directly conquered the whole domain of national production, or, where economic conditions are less developed, it, at least, indirectly controls those strata of society which, though belonging to the antiquated mode of production, continue to exist side by side with it in gradual decay. To this ready-made world of capital, the political economist applies the notions of law and of property inherited from a pre-capitalistic world with all the more anxious zeal and all the greater unction, the more loudly the facts cry out in the face of his ideology. It is otherwise in the colonies. There the capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems, manifest itself here practically in a struggle between them. Where the capitalist has at his back the power of the mother-country, he tries to clear out of his way by force the modes of production and appropriation based on the independent labour of the producer. The same interest, which compels the sycophant of capital, the political economist, in the mother-country, to proclaim the theoretical identity of the capitalist mode of production with its contrary, that same interest compels him in the colonies to make a clean breast of it, and to proclaim aloud the antagonism of the two modes of production. To this end, he proves how the development of the social productive power of labour, co-operation, division of labour, use of machinery on a large scale, &c., are impossible without the expropriation of the labourers, and the corresponding transformation of their means of production into capital. In the interest of the so-called national wealth, he seeks for artificial means to ensure the poverty of the people. Here his apologetic armor crumbles off, bit by bit, like rotten touchwood. It is the great merit of E.G. Wakefield to have discovered, not anything new about the Colonies2, but to have discovered in the Colonies the truth as to the conditions of capitalist production in the mother country. As the system of protection at its origin3 attempted to manufacture capitalists artificially in the mother-country, so Wakefield‘s colonization theory, which England tried for a time to enforce by Acts of Parliament, attempted to effect the manufacture of wage-workers in the Colonies. This he calls ―systematic colonization."

[Creative Destruction]

Can you even define what capital is? This question also goes to Socialisme ou Barbarie (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=157507), QueerVanguard (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=160434), 870 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=76782), rednoise (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106212) and other market-abolitionist ignoramuses who, accepting the idiotic idea of the likes of Mises, think that markets equal capitalism. Neither Marx nor anarchism, nor original socialism that precedes both of them, never identified capitalism with markets- because markets can exist without capitalism and that capitalism can exist without markets. Markets per se are not exploitative, capitalist, non-socialist or whatever, they're just impractical, and therefore are not to be abolished, but surpassed- by forming voluntary non-market institutions that are effective, efficient and stable and that thus can make socialism viable, which markets most probably can't.

I would suggest firstly reading these:

C.2 Why is capitalism exploitative?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html

C.2.1 What is "surplus value"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21

C.2.2 How does exploitation happen?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc22

I don't think markets necessarily equal capitalism, you bonehead.

[bropasaran]

Once again, the petite bourgeoisie is the class whose members own the means of production but do not extract enough surplus value from their workers, if any, to escape the necessity of labouring themselves.That's not a precise definition. There a problem internal to the definition of what is "enough"- different people might decide to not work on different levels of exptraction of surplus value of their employees. But the more important point is the implied problem of that definition- you seem to imply that the petite bourgeoisie are a subset of people who have employees, if that is true, that calling me or my ideas or Proudhon or his ideas "petite bourgoisie" is at best intellectual dishonesty, at worst malevolent slur, being that all anarchists are for the abolition of the employer-employee relation.


Utopians are those who approach historical development as a matter of enacting some "ideal" plan deduced by the intelligentsia in isolation from the actually existing social strugglesThis isn't a precise definition either. What preciselly is an "ideal" and who enacts it? What is isolated from social struggles- deduction of an ideal, it's enactment, it's deducers, or enactors, and in what way are they isolated?


You know, I think it's time for you to substantiate your claims by citing the relevant paragraphs.A simple glance at the title of the chapter five of first volume of Capital is enough, you don't even have to read the chapter itself or read the seventh chapter of the part two of Anti-Duhring.


So obviously, when Marx says "suppose the labourers themselves are in possession of their respective means of production" he is not talking about socialism, but petty commodity productionHim redefining socialism is not pertinent, being that he was against workers' emancipation from bosses (he in fact considered it impossible), which was considered the core of socialism from it's inception. The simple commodity production that he describes (but doesn't name, the term is given by Engels and Kautsky) is in fact basically the very thing that market socialist advocate, and Marx himself accepted it as being non-exploitatory, as illustrated by the two quoted I have given where Marx talks about non-capitalist commodity production. He did hold that "the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production" which can exist in "individual form" or the "collective form", and was 'against' the individual form only because of his absurd theory of history which supossedly necessarily surpasses it with it's iron laws of industrial progress.


I don't think markets necessarily equal capitalism, you bonehead.
But you do think that they are necessarily correlates?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That's not a precise definition. There a problem internal to the definition of what is "enough"- different people might decide to not work on different levels of exptraction of surplus value of their employees. But the more important point is the implied problem of that definition- you seem to imply that the petite bourgeoisie are a subset of people who have employees, if that is true, that calling me or my ideas or Proudhon or his ideas "petite bourgoisie" is at best intellectual dishonesty, at worst malevolent slur, being that all anarchists are for the abolition of the employer-employee relation.

It's not a matter of individual decision but of economic necessity. If the owner of a firm is unable to maintain his firm and, indeed, maintain his own labour-power, without work, he is a member of the petite bourgeoisie. If he is able to do so but chooses not to for one reason or another, he is not. And again, whether the owner of a small business hires labour is not the line of demarcation between the haute and the petite bourgeoisie.

Proudhonism is petit-bourgeois not because Proudhon himself was a member of that class, but because his theories reflected the aspirations of the vanishing petite-bourgeoisie, particularly petty artisans in the Jura region.


This isn't a precise definition either. What preciselly is an "ideal" and who enacts it? What is isolated from social struggles- deduction of an ideal, it's enactment, it's deducers, or enactors, and in what way are they isolated?

Good grief, you take definition-trolling to new and undreamed-of heights, impossible. An "ideal plan" is simply that, a plan considered in abstraction of the actual material possibilities at any given moment. The plan-mongers are isolated from social struggles by largely not participating in the same. I know this is a sore point to you since you view socialism precisely as some timeless Good Idea (TM) and have in fact claimed socialism could be instituted in the Ur III empire, but actual socialists scoff at this sort of idealism.


A simple glance at the title of the chapter five of first volume of Capital is enough, you don't even have to read the chapter itself or read the seventh chapter of the part two of Anti-Duhring.

So in other words, you're full of shit and can't actually quote Marx admitting that his theory is contradictory. Duly noted. Perhaps you should have read the text of the chapter, and not just the title; then you might have noticed Marx is talking about the contradictions of the theories of surplus value which do not take the peculiar character of labour-power as a commodity into account.


Him redefining socialism is not pertinent, being that he was against workers' emancipation from bosses (he in fact considered it impossible), which was considered the core of socialism from it's inception. The simple commodity production that he describes (but doesn't name, the term is given by Engels and Kautsky) is in fact basically the very thing that market socialist advocate, and Marx himself accepted it as being non-exploitatory, as illustrated by the two quoted I have given where Marx talks about non-capitalist commodity production. He did hold that "the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production" which can exist in "individual form" or the "collective form", and was 'against' the individual form only because of his absurd theory of history which supossedly necessarily surpasses it with it's iron laws of industrial progress.

Ah, classic impossible moment. Your confusion and dishonesty has been demonstrated, so you retreat into crying about how mean old Marxists don't use the term "socialism" in the same sense as some irrelevant utopians from more than a century ago, inventing new and even more fantastic stories about what Marx meant. Which, of course, you can't substantiate as you've never read Marx, it seems.

[Zoroaster]

Can you even define what capital is? This question also goes to Socialisme ou Barbarie (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=157507), QueerVanguard (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=160434), 870 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=76782), rednoise (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106212) and other market-abolitionist ignoramuses who, accepting the idiotic idea of the likes of Mises, think that markets equal capitalism. Neither Marx nor anarchism, nor original socialism that precedes both of them, never identified capitalism with markets- because markets can exist without capitalism and that capitalism can exist without markets. Markets per se are not exploitative, capitalist, non-socialist or whatever, they're just impractical, and therefore are not to be abolished, but surpassed- by forming voluntary non-market institutions that are effective, efficient and stable and that thus can make socialism viable, which markets most probably can't.

I would suggest firstly reading these:

C.2 Why is capitalism exploitative?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html

C.2.1 What is "surplus value"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21

C.2.2 How does exploitation happen?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc22

First off, can you watch the language? This is the learning forum.

Secondly, we understand that markets aren't necessarily capitalism, but we do recognize that markets in all forms are exploitive, and must be abolished. As long as the individual is forced to conform to capital in order to enjoy his or her life, or even to survive, explotation exists. And it doesn't matter whether a worker's co-operative manages it or if a single capitalist owns it, the market is broken.

Although Proudhon was a smart guy, and I do respect him to a degree, he screwed up, like all figures in history, whether that may be Marx or Kropotkin. The only free society is one without money.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

What are your thoughts on market socialism?

It's stupid.

[bropasaran]

Proudhonism is petit-bourgeois not because Proudhon himself was a member of that class, but because his theories reflected the aspirations of the vanishing petite-bourgeoisie
So, Proudhonism is the aspiration of small-scale employers to abolish the employer-employee relation? That doesn't make any sense, much like the rest of your tirading. You are simply refusing the accept the historical fact of socialism preceding Marx and the obvious facts of Marx' contradictoriness, irrationality, authoritarianism and non-socialism.


Secondly, we understand that markets aren't necessarily capitalism, but we do recognize that markets in all forms are exploitive, and must be abolished.
Which is not true. Capitalism and exploitation can exist without markets and markets can exist without capitalism and exploitation. Markets are unviable, not exploitatory.


As long as the individual is forced to conform to capital in order to enjoy his or her lifeWhat does "conform to capital" mean?

[Tim Cornelis]

Presumably tuwix considers the exchange of cards in a card game a market. Incidental barter is not a market and it s tiring to keep at this.

[RedMaterialist]

Finally, Proudhon is the most important socialist thinker.

You ever read The Poverty of Philosophy?

[bropasaran]

Yes I did, it's a poorly thought-out book. I would suggest devoting a little time to study this essay:

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/pjproudhon/appendix-proudhon-and-marx.html

[tuwix]

Incidental barter is not a market and it s tiring to keep at this.

Your ignorance in terms of market's definitions doesn't change them. Barter is market.

[ckaihatsu]

---





Markets need to be abolished.





This is no-scarcity economics [...] -- naturally, if one could just pick up what one wanted from a warehouse there wouldn't *be* the hassle of currency.

[tuwix]

^^Distribution centers free of charge won't eliminate a barter completely.

[Jimmie Higgins]

^^Distribution centers free of charge won't eliminate a barter completely.what's the "charge" when there's abundance? There is no "free of charge" because there is actually the absence of "charge". There dosn't need to be an account of labor and goods because modern labor is capable of producing more that it collectively uses itself. We don't sell our labor on the market, we use our labor power to enrich ourselves.

And no "distribution centers free of charge" i.e. collective control of everything needed to survive and thrive, won't eliminate people trading some things informally. capitalism doesn't eliminate barter completely either... So would you say that we live in a moneyless society since I agreed to wash my friend's car in return for a lift to downtown?

Yes some people will trade things and exchange things, but we are more or less talking about favors loosly based on subjective values. It's not a market when kids trade a hot dog for a burger because one kid likes the other lunch better.

[tuwix]

^^I must worry you. According to definitions a place where any trade happens is called market.

And I used an expression free of charge only to stress that those distribution centers aren't just shops.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The market is an abstract way of referring to the exchange of exchange-values, that is the realisation of commodities as exchange values. Do any of our esteemed market-eternalists even know what an exchange value is? If they do, they have done a crack job of hiding it.

[bropasaran]

Well, the terms are not really precisely defined, but although colloquially speaking barter is not the same as the market, strictly speaking, what we call barter is a primitive form of a market; market being a continuum of forms of exchange going from bilateral barter to multilateral barter, to gross commodity money, to sophisticated (seignioraged) commodity money, to representative money, to fiat money, enumerated presumably by historical progression and levels of efficiency.

[Tim Cornelis]

Of course impossible has no idea about marx and marxism saying he was a state capitalist and wanted managers to manage production. Completely oblivious to that Marx' conception of socialism is the free association of equal producers in a moneyless society, which is central to marx writings (although 870 shares this ignorance). Aware of the latter fact that marx conception of communism is moneyless, he redefines commodity production, effectively nullifying any meaningfullness of the phrase, to make the lauchable case of marx' state capitalism -- purely to pass of anarchism as exclusively socialist

He parrots anarchist and stalinoid parodies of marxism with no intellectual integrity whatsoever. Also evidenced by claiming that in marxism capital is synonymous with means of production (used for exploitation), which is factually incorrect. This is not up for debate or interpetation even. Since we are in learning I advice not to take this nonsense at face vakue.

[bropasaran]

Of course impossible has no idea about marx and marxism saying he was a state capitalist and wanted managers to manage production.
Which of course is not true, because when Marx writes down words that mean advocacy of electioneering and nationalization, he in fact doesn't mean that, but probably has some mystical meaning in mind, implying that those words mean the opposite of what they actually mean. When he says that workers are incapable of running production without managers commanding them, he likewise doesn't mean by those words what the words actually mean, but is by using such words implying something totally different.


Marx' conception of socialism is the free association of equal producers
The words are: "National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers". Freedom and equality though nationalization and centralization, LOL, that's almost on the level of "war is peace, slavery is liberty". Although Lenin does get exactly to that level with his statements like "Dictatorial powers and one-man rule are not contradictory to socialist democracy."


he redefines commodity production
Marx talking about commodities which are not a product of capital in itself debunks the quasi-marxist pop 'socialist' myth which identifies markets with capitalism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Oh no, centralisation, how horrible. That means decisions will be made on the level of society and I won't be able to act like the owner of my petty enterprise. What a laugh.

And for the last time: market socialism is impossible, not because markets are necessarily capitalist (as exchange values can be exchanged without generalised commodity production), but because they entail commodity production, which is impossible under socialism. Quite frankly a lot of people who have posted on this thread need to be restricted as market "socialists"-mutualists.

[bropasaran]

Oh no, centralisation, how horrible. That means decisions will be made on the level of society
Yep, because I can be free and equal only if the society acts as my boss. Reactionaries often caricaturize emancipation of the workers as tyranny of the majority, it's just sad that there are people who actually advocate the latter deluding themselves that it has anything to do with the former.


and I won't be able to act like the owner of my petty enterprise.
Sorry, but free association means precisely that, everyone will be free to act as an owner of his petty enterprise (only act as, it won't be his property, but possession); there can be no free association if a single association is imposed on everyone as the only economic institution they can join.


And for the last time: market socialism is impossible, not because markets are necessarily capitalist (as exchange values can be exchanged without generalised commodity production), but because they entail commodity production, which is impossible under socialism.
Market is synonymous with commodity production. Markets can exist capitalism and exploitation is synonymous with saying commodity production can exist without capitalism and exploitation. Also, it's not impossible but would most likely be unstable and infeasible.


Quite frankly a lot of people who have posted on this thread need to be restricted as market "socialists"-mutualists.
The real problem is that state capitalists are not restricted, market socialism is just misguided, state capitalism is pernicious.

Market socialism accepts as it's goal abolition of bosses and rentiers (labor theory) likewise of all relations of domination (libertarian theory) and the only thing that needs to be pointed out to them is that socialism would be unviable in absence of comprehensive political and economic mutual aid federations that the workers are to voluntarily form, which is something that they anyway don't oppose. On the other hand, state capitalists not only reject the two theoretical notion that constitute the foundation of socialism (understood as the idea of and movement for emancipation of the workers) but also oppose the anarcho-collectivist / anarcho-communist institutions that can make socialism stable and feasible by advocating instead imposed/ authoritarian ones.

[tuwix]

Well, the terms are not really precisely defined, but although colloquially speaking barter is not the same as the market, strictly speaking, what we call barter is a primitive form of a market; market being a continuum of forms of exchange going from bilateral barter to multilateral barter, to gross commodity money, to sophisticated (seignioraged) commodity money, to representative money, to fiat money, enumerated presumably by historical progression and levels of efficiency.

Agreed. Perhaps it's primitive. Nevertheless it's form of market. And exchange-value has nothing to do with it as some 'ignoramuses' pretend to argue in lack of real argument.

[helot]

Agreed. Perhaps it's primitive. Nevertheless it's form of market. And exchange-value has nothing to do with it as some 'ignoramuses' pretend to argue in lack of real argument.


what the fuck are you on about? When two commodities are put into relation with each other through exchange what's expressed is their exchange-value. This occurs whether it's a simple Commodity-Commodity circuit or if it's Commodity-Money-Commodity or the circuit of capital: Money-Commodity-Money'




edit: and market socialism is foolish. Advocating a market is not something that comes from an understanding of capitalism. You still have alienated labour and thus commodity fetishism, you still have the same fundamental contradictions a market economy has and you'll still be opening up an avenue for the emergence of capital.

[tuwix]

Just another 'ignoramus' who can't understand simple definitions...

[Tim Cornelis]

Which of course is not true, because when Marx writes down words that mean advocacy of electioneering and nationalization, he in fact doesn't mean that, but probably has some mystical meaning in mind, implying that those words mean the opposite of what they actually mean. When he says that workers are incapable of running production without managers commanding them, he likewise doesn't mean by those words what the words actually mean, but is by using such words implying something totally different.


The words are: "National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers". Freedom and equality though nationalization and centralization, LOL, that's almost on the level of "war is peace, slavery is liberty". Although Lenin does get exactly to that level with his statements like "Dictatorial powers and one-man rule are not contradictory to socialist democracy."


Marx talking about commodities which are not a product of capital in itself debunks the quasi-marxist pop 'socialist' myth which identifies markets with capitalism.

I will give a more in depth critique tomorrow or sunday to refute all this nonsense (which is easily done), but for now I'd like to point out that you do nnot have an accurate picture of what Marxism is and instead parrot thiss anarchist parody of Marxism as the big bad Statist (capital S). I have seen some fair andd educated criticism of Marxism, and yours is not one of them -- by far.

You seem to have no clue what Marxism is, all the claims of you having studied it the spite, and instead regurgitate distortions that are common in stalinists, anarchists, and conservatives alike. So I advice you to research Marxism yoursellf instead of spelt out distortions by presumably anarchist authors.

[Tim Cornelis]

Just another 'ignoramus' who can't understand simple definitions...

Jesus christ.... Maybe your simple definitions cant be superimposed in complex social issues, have you considered this? Besides it is you who doesjt understamd these simple definitions. You gave a definition and thenyou conflate the market as annalogous to amrket place with the aactual market place to make a case that markets are inevitable... A social system is necessarily structural and durable, incidental barter (which will hapen rarely in socialism) is not a social institution or system it is not a market economy or even a market.

[helot]

Just another 'ignoramus' who can't understand simple definitions...

What a stunning refutation you have there. Verbal abuse is not an argument.

So tell me, tuwix, what do i not understand? It appears to me you're making an obviously false claim that markets don't entail exchange-value.



Ugh, i don't like this thread. I don't wanna be siding with Marxists :laugh:

[tuwix]

What a stunning refutation you have there. Verbal abuse is not an argument.

So tell me, tuwix, what do i not understand? It appears to me you're making an obviously false claim that markets don't entail exchange-value.



I gave you the same amount of "respect", you gave me first...

But I have a one simple question to you: Have you ever read any definition of market? For example, the Marxist definition that I quoted in the very first page of this thread? It seems that you haven't. Because the term exchange value is used there once in quotes of Alfred Marshall critique towards David Ricardo.

And that means that this term is very irrelevant to circumstances when market starts to exist its relation to barter...


Jesus christ.... Maybe your simple definitions cant be superimposed in complex social issues, have you considered this? Besides it is you who doesjt understamd these simple definitions. You gave a definition and thenyou conflate the market as annalogous to amrket place with the aactual market place to make a case that markets are inevitable... A social system is necessarily structural and durable, incidental barter (which will hapen rarely in socialism) is not a social institution or system it is not a market economy or even a market.

I think you're wrong. Barter is basic form of market and it's clear from a Marxist definition. But you ignore it because it's uncomfortable to your beliefs.

[TheEmancipator]

I see Market Socialism as an intermediate phase of the revolutionary process. The only way it can be implemented is if workers take hold of the factors of production, and until the factors of production increase tenfold it is nigh-impossible to abolish the state.

It is also a good solution to the underlying problem of centralisation, the bullshit that is the ''vanguard'' Party (why should intellectuals manage the production process when Marx explicitly says it us up to the workers who have employed the factors of production throughout their lives that are the best judges as to how to exploit them?).

In this case the only role of the centralised state is to restrict the accumulation of capital and therefore restrict any bourgeois class from emerging from the market system. Otherwise, the market remains the most efficient tool to allocate resources according to needs we have found yet.

Ask people in ex-Yugoslavia how their living standards were compared to the rest of the Eastern Bloc. I know the Stalinists on here care little for other people's living standards, but still, ask them...

[Tim Cornelis]

I gave you the same amount of "respect", you gave me first...

But I have a one simple question to you: Have you ever read any definition of market? For example, the Marxist definition that I quoted in the very first page of this thread? It seems that you haven't. Because the term exchange value is used there once in quotes of Alfred Marshall critique towards David Ricardo.

And that means that this term is very irrelevant to circumstances when market starts to exist its relation to barter...



I think you're wrong. Barter is basic form of market and it's clear from a Marxist definition. But you ignore it because it's uncomfortable to your beliefs.

No you misinterpet what a market is according to the definition you cited. I explained how you conflated two things. Maybe read it again.

[tuwix]

^^
It will be the best when I quote the definition another time:

Originally, a kind of place where buyers and sellers gathered and agreed prices by a noisy process resembling a street-auction, with all the participants in ear-shot of one another. In modern times, the concept of market is extended by analogy to refer to a “social space” where products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted at widely separated times and places.


https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm

So originally it was 'place' and now it's 'social space' too.
And now tell me please where in this whole definition that source you have above is stated that money are needed to that? Can't you? Then it means they are not needed in market. And that means that barter is form of market too.

[Tim Cornelis]

^^
It will be the best when I quote the definition another time:

Originally, a kind of place where buyers and sellers gathered and agreed prices by a noisy process resembling a street-auction, with all the participants in ear-shot of one another. In modern times, the concept of market is extended by analogy to refer to a “social space” where products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted at widely separated times and places.


https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm

So originally it was 'place' and now it's 'social space' too.
And now tell me please where in this whole definition that source you have above is stated that money are needed to that? Can't you? Then it means they are not needed in market. And that means that barter is form of market too.

Man oh man oh man oh man. Youre really testing my patience here.

"And now tell me please where in this whole definition that source you have above is stated that money are needed to that? "

"products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted "

It says so rigt there in front of your eyes; (sold, transacted, sale, price) market a social space of buying and selling, that is, money is involved.

Incidental barter is not a social space since its not durable or structural. There is also no buying and selling.

My god....

Im sure youre going to spin these words to mean something they dont.

[helot]

I gave you the same amount of "respect", you gave me first... No you didn't as i actually made a point.



But I have a one simple question to you: Have you ever read any definition of market? For example, the Marxist definition that I quoted in the very first page of this thread? It seems that you haven't. Because the term exchange value is used there once in quotes of Alfred Marshall critique towards David Ricardo.

My starting point of knowledge on the subject of exchange is Das Kapital vol 1 i'm afraid. Don't give a toss about crappy semantic arguments that are just there to try and score points.



And that means that this term is very irrelevant to circumstances when market starts to exist its relation to barter...

Exchange-values are realised even in barter as i've already mentioned. How is it then irrelevant?

[tuwix]

Man oh man oh man oh man. Youre really testing my patience here.

"And now tell me please where in this whole definition that source you have above is stated that money are needed to that? "

"products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted "

It says so rigt there in front of your eyes; (sold, transacted, sale, price) market a social space of buying and selling, that is, money is involved.

Incidental barter is not a social space since its not durable or structural. There is also no buying and selling.

My god....

Im sure youre going to spin these words to mean something they dont.

And now you're trying to forget what is price, selling, buying, etc. Now you're trying to say that if China sells TV sets for oil, there isn't market at all, because it's just barter...

But I'll cite another definition of market that is pretty neutral:

A market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services (including labor) in exchange for money from buyers.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics)




My starting point of knowledge on the subject of exchange is Das Kapital vol 1 i'm afraid. Don't give a toss about crappy semantic arguments that are just there to try and score points.


Whatever you say it doesn't justify anyone of ignoring definitions.



Exchange-values are realised even in barter as i've already mentioned. How is it then irrelevant?

It's irrelevant to circumstances of existence of barter and market. Simply putting exchange-value of anything doesn't decide barter or market exists or not.

[QueerVanguard]

I see Market Socialism as an intermediate phase of the revolutionary process. The only way it can be implemented is if workers take hold of the factors of production, and until the factors of production increase tenfold it is nigh-impossible to abolish the state.

It is also a good solution to the underlying problem of centralisation, the bullshit that is the ''vanguard'' Party (why should intellectuals manage the production process when Marx explicitly says it us up to the workers who have employed the factors of production throughout their lives that are the best judges as to how to exploit them?).

In this case the only role of the centralised state is to restrict the accumulation of capital and therefore restrict any bourgeois class from emerging from the market system. Otherwise, the market remains the most efficient tool to allocate resources according to needs we have found yet.

Ask people in ex-Yugoslavia how their living standards were compared to the rest of the Eastern Bloc. I know the Stalinists on here care little for other people's living standards, but still, ask them...

Most Yugos I've talked with say the country was a Capitalist dump, there's a reason it fell apart, you know? Tito's turn to Proudhon and abandoning of Marx was why things didn't work out there IMHI.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yugoslavia did rely on market mechanisms more than the Soviet Union, but keep in mind the state had the final word when it came to production planning, or what passed for planning, both through state boards (the grain board, as I recall it, being particularly influential), and through state-appointed managers and executives. Technically, the workers could vote against the directors, but that often led to a visit by nice young men from State Security (including several of my cousins, heh).

Yugoslavia had a better consumer sector, oddly enough, because it focused on the consumer sector, just like Hungary.

As for tuwix (I stand by my assessment that Janeway's decision was correct), it really takes, what's the term, chutzpah?, to suggest that one measly definition is more important than the foundational work of Marxist economic analysis.

[TheEmancipator]

Yugoslavia did rely on market mechanisms more than the Soviet Union, but keep in mind the state had the final word when it came to production planning, or what passed for planning, both through state boards (the grain board, as I recall it, being particularly influential), and through state-appointed managers and executives. Technically, the workers could vote against the directors, but that often led to a visit by nice young men from State Security (including several of my cousins, heh).

I think this criticism is unjust. Workers could vote for their CEO, who would in turn take on the Yugoslav government. Should the workers vote for somebody confrontational, then perhaps the local government would go out of their way to have him removed.

The real problem was the way they dealt with a still heavily reactionary peasantry, but most of Eastern Europe had that problem at the time.


Yugoslavia had a better consumer sector, oddly enough, because it focused on the consumer sector, just like Hungary.Oddly enough, because Yugoslavia didn't suscribe to the ''people will demand whatever will be supplied'' error that Marxist-Leninists thought they could pull of.

[bropasaran]

I will give a more in depth critique tomorrow or sunday to refute all this nonsense (which is easily done), but for now I'd like to point out that you do nnot have an accurate picture of what Marxism is and instead parrot thiss anarchist parody of Marxism as the big bad Statist (capital S).
When talking about Marx I only 'parrot' his words expressing what he advocated. And yes, he was a statist, an electioneering reformist one, who called for gradual centralization of control over the means of production in the hands of the state.


I have seen some fair andd educated criticism of Marxism, and yours is not one of them -- by far.
You being a sore marxist, this statement is predictable, and thus void of content. It's like a religious person giving a disparaging remark of writing of a non-theist, meaningless.


You seem to have no clue what Marxism
Ditto here. I have multiple times pointed out an interesting detail about Marx, namely his bewilderment on the question of whether exploitation can happen in circulation, where he admitted his theory is contradictory, and never figured it out, leaving it to Kautsky and Engels to 'figure it out' by giving a peculiar interpretation to his terminology, and that interpretation being virtually forgotten by modern marxists, and advocated against by some who know about it like Heinrich, Arthur and others. What's interesting about all that is that of all the posturing Marxists here who pout about how myself as an anarchist and anti-marxist don't know what marxism is- none of them don't have a clue about any of this, showing that they actually haven't researched marxism (at least not critically/ rationally) a tiny fraction of how much I did.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Here is my humble proposal: given that impossible has asserted that Marx admitted that his theory was contradictory several times, I think he should provide evidence for his claim and, if he can't (and he can't), be banned for constantly spamming the board with false statements. :3

[QueerVanguard]

Here is my humble proposal: given that impossible has asserted that Marx admitted that his theory was contradictory several times, I think he should provide evidence for his claim and, if he can't (and he can't), be banned for constantly spamming the board with false statements. :3

I'd also like some evidence for his claim Marx was some sort of republican reformist who didn't believe the workers could control the means of production without manager overlords hovering over them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think you're wrong. Barter is basic form of market and it's clear from a Marxist definition. But you ignore it because it's uncomfortable to your beliefs.
Historically, maybe, but not inherently.

When there is not enough extra social surplus to go around, there generally needs to be some kind of way for that surplus to be controlled and accounted for in class societies.

Why is there no market of people selling water from their tap? Because it is readily available to the point of being practically worthless for small trading. If there was a flood and the water was shut off for a week, then a "market" for saved tap water or rationed water might develop.

At the other end of the spectrum, Band societies exchanged things with other groups (there's even evidence of possible exchanges of tools and necklaces between early humans and Neanderthals), but this was incidental, casual and not the way people supported themselves. People reproduced their societies by collectively producing to their own abilities and then sharing in that meger production.

But capitalism has created the potential for a shared surplus. This means that potentially, things can be produced for use rather than exchange, that shared abundance (of basics at first) would undermine the basis of a market.

[RedMaterialist]

Here is my humble proposal: given that impossible has asserted that Marx admitted that his theory was contradictory several times, I think he should provide evidence for his claim and, if he can't (and he can't), be banned for constantly spamming the board with false statements. :3

No banning, even for stupidity or lying.

[RedMaterialist]

And yes, he was a statist, an electioneering reformist one, who called for gradual centralization of control over the means of production in the hands of the state.




It's true that Marx was a "statist," but only in the sense that he argued for the formation of a workers' state in the form of a dictatorship of the working class. The essential point of Marx's ideas on the state is that after the working class state has eliminated the capitalist, exploiting classes, there will no longer be any classes left to exploit or be exploited.

The state will therefore wither away and die. The state exists only as an entity to repress, suppress, and exploit. Once that function is no longer necessary the state will no longer exist. Marx was a statist who understood why the state exists and how the state will cease to exist.

The anarchists believe the state can be destroyed by violence, which is true, but as long as the suppressing nature of the state remains the state will simply re-appear. Anarchism has never accomplished anything.

[QueerVanguard]

It's true that Marx was a "statist," but only in the sense that he argued for the formation of a workers' state in the form of a dictatorship of the working class. The essential point of Marx's ideas on the state is that after the working class state has eliminated the capitalist, exploiting classes, there will no longer be any classes left to exploit or be exploited.

The state will therefore wither away and die. The state exists only as an entity to repress, suppress, and exploit. Once that function is no longer necessary the state will no longer exist. Marx was a statist who understood why the state exists and how the state will cease to exist.

The anarchists believe the state can be destroyed by violence, which is true, but as long as the suppressing nature of the state remains the state will simply re-appear. Anarchism has never accomplished anything.

I know all this, but it's not what Impossible is saying. He's saying Marx didn't believe workers could manage their own affairs and needed state oversight and that the democratic republic is here to stay.

[JahLemon]

Why is there no market of people selling water from their tap? Because it is readily available to the point of being practically worthless for small trading. If there was a flood and the water was shut off for a week, then a "market" for saved tap water or rationed water might develop.
I actually saw a guy selling tap water when I visited NYC.

[RedMaterialist]

I think you're wrong. Barter is basic form of market and it's clear from a Marxist definition. But you ignore it because it's uncomfortable to your beliefs.

Barter is an exchange of use-values, wine for wheat, etc. The market is an exchange of commodities by the use of one commodity which functions as the money-representative for all commodities, i.e., gold for wheat, wine, etc. You don't go to a farmer's market to barter shoes for tomatoes. You have to have money to buy anything, even in a garage sale. Barter is still used, though, but only on an extremely marginal scale. I will wash your car for you making me a sandwich. I'm not sure if barter is even recognized as income by the IRS (or the Inland Revenue.)

Gold, necklaces, wampum, shells, cattle, even humans, all were originally exchanged for their use-value, but then, over time, came to represent abstract value in themselves, money.

The key point, in my view, is that gold, necklaces, etc. all required a great amount of skill, time and labor to produce. Thus, they had labor-value which could be exchanged for other values created by labor. They were probably first used for religious purposes; people, in a sense, worshiped money.

There is a story on the internet about the island of "stone money." People apparently used gigantic stones as money (and even smaller stones.) Some economists, especially the monetarists, claimed that this proved that "money," as well as credit and banking, were eternal economic categories. What they failed to notice is that it took an extremely large amount of time and labor to move those giant stones across the ocean to the island and then carve them into giant shapes, usually, rings of some sort. (The stones were not from the island itself.) What the stones represented, therefore, was a store of labor value, which is what money still is today. Except in the case of the islanders, all shared in the labor-value of the stone money, today, only the capitalists share the labor-value of money. And the monetarists, of course, absolutely deny to the bitter end that money represents the labor of the working class.

[RedMaterialist]

I know all this, but it's not what Impossible is saying. He's saying Marx didn't believe workers could manage their own affairs and needed state oversight and that the democratic republic is here to stay.

Actually I was responding to Broparasan (?)

But Marx absolutely believed that workers could manage their own affairs. His entire adult life was devoted to that idea. Marx believed that the working class would hire their own managers, accountants, even economists, who would operate the non-productive part of the economy. (Believe me, workers have absolutely no interest in being accountants or economists. They want to look at a bridge and say, "I helped design, engineer, build and maintain that.") The workers, however, would retain complete control over these people. Workers, as a class, would maintain control of the state (whether in the form of a dictatorship of the working class or a democratic republic) until the capitalist class was eliminated, hopefully through peaceful means.

And, with machines, robots and computers beginning to replace the working class, it is society as a whole which will control the economy through hired managers. Exactly as Marx predicted. The economy will become nothing more than an "administration of things."

A democratic republic is no more eternal than any other form of government. Neither is a democracy. All forms of the state will wither away and die once the exploitation of human beings is ended.

[bropasaran]

Here is my humble proposal: given that impossible has asserted that Marx admitted that his theory was contradictory several times, I think he should provide evidence for his claim and, if he can't (and he can't), be banned for constantly spamming the board with false statements. :3
He wrote a chapter giving his "The General Formula for Capital", and then devoted a chapter to "Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital", where his conclusion was "It is therefore impossible for capital to be produced by circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to originate apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and yet not in circulation."

He never solved the contradiction. It was solved by Kautsky and Engels who chose the option that exploitation cannot happen in circulation. They gave an explanation where they "historicized" Marx' writing on exchange by saying that when he writes about "merchant capital" he isn't actually talking about capital or capitalism, but is talking about a "pre-capitalist" economy which they called "simple commodity production", which is commodity production, but there are no capitalists or capital in it. They say- M-C-M is no more capitalist then C-M-C except if the C(ommodity) that is bought is labor. This was accepted by Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg, etc, who all accepted the notion of "simple commodity production" instead of the notion of "merchant capitalism". This interpretation was forgotten by modern marxist movement, because it is mostly made out of Marx groupies and not of people who study Marx, they instead glanced at the volumes of Capital, saw the phrase "merchant capital" and were like- we must destroy money, all that business is just capitalist evil stuff. There were some who did actually study Marx and decided to reject the Kautsky/ Engels interpretation of him and go for the literal meaning of his terminology, I've seen works by two- Michael Heinrich and Christopher J. Arthur.

The problem is that both interpretations are faulty, because they are interpretations of theories which are in themselves faulty. The second, pop-marxist, with it's designation of all traders as capitalists is problematic to say the least, Marx in the first place acknowledged the contradiction precisely because he was baffled by the conclusion that simple trade is exploitation, being that there is no argument to justify that, there is no "surplus value" extracted there. Engels referenced this bafflement of his over the idea that trade is exploitatory to argument his choosing the interpretation no. 1 which says that there cannot be exploitation in circulation. The first interpretation is faulty because it ignores trade that is exploitatory, namely- renting things, including renting money, that is- loaning on interest.

The labor theory on which original socialism was based (this is pre-Marx, 1820s and 30s England) doesn't have problems like this, it's simple and clear-cut. Income that is based not on labor, but on ownership of something- is exploitatory and should be abolished, that's it. That means that in the sphere of production alienation of labor and/or assumed alienation of it's produce is exploitation, in the sphere of circulation acquisition based on permission of use of the property of the lessor is exploitation. The practical suggestions flowing from that are abolition of all bosses (workers' control over production) and abolition of rentiers (encompassing usurers), and once you do that- you have a socialist economy.


I'd also like some evidence for his claim Marx was some sort of republican reformist who didn't believe the workers could control the means of production without manager overlords hovering over them.


But Marx absolutely believed that workers could manage their own affairs.
In Capital, Vol 3., Chapter 23, Marx says:

"all labour in which many individuals co-operate necessarily requires a commanding will to co-ordinate and unify the process, and functions which apply not to partial operations but to the total activity of the workshop, much as that of an orchestra conductor. This is a productive job, which must be performed in every combined mode of production."

Notice the language- necessarily requiries a commander, the job of the commander must exist.

Even more ominously, this is where Lenin and Trotsky got their idea of managers with dictatorial powers over the workers, "the unquestioning subordination of thousands to the will one" and similar proto-fuhrerprinzip abhorrent idiocies, they used the same metaphor- managers would command the workers as conductors of an orchestra.

Guess none of them ever heard of conductorless orchestras.


Marx believed that the working class would hire their own managers
How libertarian and emancipatory of him. I suppose that if some slave-owner made a suggestion that enslaved workers could elect their own slave-drivers or slave-owners, maybe even from among themselves, he would have be welcomed by the abolitionists with open arms as a true opposer of slavery. Because, after all, he would explain to them- slaves would retain complete control over those superiors they elect.


Actually I was responding to Broparasan (?)
It's in my signature, on the right side.


It's true that Marx was a "statist," but only in the sense that he argued for the formation of a workers' state in the form of a dictatorship of the working class. The essential point of Marx's ideas on the state is that after the working class state has eliminated the capitalist, exploiting classes, there will no longer be any classes left to exploit or be exploited.
Where his was wrong, because he ignored the possibility of a managerial class emerging as the oppressor of the workers and taking on itself the exploiting function of the capitalist.


Anarchism has never accomplished anything.
As opposed to what, state-capitalist dystopias masquerading as socialism? The only instances ever where anyone managed to accomplish anything of sizable scale regarding emancipation of the workers from all bosses, masters and other exploiters were the Free Territory of Ukraine, and the Anarchist Spain, both of which were attacked and destroyed by traditionalist reactionaries (monarchists/ fascists) and leninists.

[tuwix]

Barter is an exchange of use-values, wine for wheat, etc. The market is an exchange of commodities by the use of one commodity which functions as the money-representative for all commodities, i.e., gold for wheat, wine, etc.

No. In barter, you can exchange diamonds and platinum which use-value is limited for enormous quantity of goods because they have greater exchange-value than its use-value. And first markets were exactly based on barter because money, if existed, were very limited.

[Creative Destruction]

I'd also like some evidence for his claim Marx was some sort of republican reformist who didn't believe the workers could control the means of production without manager overlords hovering over them.

I had this argument with impossible. They point to a passage that Marx wrote wherein Marx contends that large-scale coordination and production, no matter what mode of production it is, will require some sort of management to orchestrate everything and make sure things run smoothly. What impossibly usually ignores is the crucial passage where the nature of the management would change completely, seeing as the workers hire the management, thereby making management a support position rather than so much a hierarchical "boss/employee" relationship.

eta. I see he's already responded to you and, just as I thought, he's still completely full of shit.

[Creative Destruction]

How libertarian and emancipatory of him. I suppose that if some slave-owner made a suggestion that enslaved workers could elect their own slave-drivers or slave-owners, maybe even from among themselves, he would have be welcomed by the abolitionists with open arms as a true opposer of slavery. Because, after all, he would explain to them- slaves would retain complete control over those superiors they elect.

Of course, this shows how full of shit you are. It's not surprising you can't see the reasons that would make your hypothetical completely different from a work relationship as described by Marx.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

He wrote a chapter giving his "The General Formula for Capital", and then devoted a chapter to "Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital", where his conclusion was "It is therefore impossible for capital to be produced by circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to originate apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and yet not in circulation."

He never solved the contradiction. It was solved by Kautsky and Engels who chose the option that exploitation cannot happen in circulation. They gave an explanation where they "historicized" Marx' writing on exchange by saying that when he writes about "merchant capital" he isn't actually talking about capital or capitalism, but is talking about a "pre-capitalist" economy which they called "simple commodity production", which is commodity production, but there are no capitalists or capital in it. They say- M-C-M is no more capitalist then C-M-C except if the C(ommodity) that is bought is labor. This was accepted by Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg, etc, who all accepted the notion of "simple commodity production" instead of the notion of "merchant capitalism". This interpretation was forgotten by modern marxist movement, because it is mostly made out of Marx groupies and not of people who study Marx, they instead glanced at the volumes of Capital, saw the phrase "merchant capital" and were like- we must destroy money, all that business is just capitalist evil stuff. There were some who did actually study Marx and decided to reject the Kautsky/ Engels interpretation of him and go for the literal meaning of his terminology, I've seen works by two- Michael Heinrich and Christopher J. Arthur.

The problem is that both interpretations are faulty, because they are interpretations of theories which are in themselves faulty. The second, pop-marxist, with it's designation of all traders as capitalists is problematic to say the least, Marx in the first place acknowledged the contradiction precisely because he was baffled by the conclusion that simple trade is exploitation, being that there is no argument to justify that, there is no "surplus value" extracted there. Engels referenced this bafflement of his over the idea that trade is exploitatory to argument his choosing the interpretation no. 1 which says that there cannot be exploitation in circulation. The first interpretation is faulty because it ignores trade that is exploitatory, namely- renting things, including renting money, that is- loaning on interest.

The labor theory on which original socialism was based (this is pre-Marx, 1820s and 30s England) doesn't have problems like this, it's simple and clear-cut. Income that is based not on labor, but on ownership of something- is exploitatory and should be abolished, that's it. That means that in the sphere of production alienation of labor and/or assumed alienation of it's produce is exploitation, in the sphere of circulation acquisition based on permission of use of the property of the lessor is exploitation. The practical suggestions flowing from that are abolition of all bosses (workers' control over production) and abolition of rentiers (encompassing usurers), and once you do that- you have a socialist economy.

Oh look, it's impossible, once again showing everyone how uninformed and full of shit he is, and in the process giving us the pleasure of seeing an admitted former Nazi ramble about usury.

You still haven't provided one single source for your claim that Marx admitted that his theory was contradictory. Because, in fact, you can't. When Marx talks about contradictions of the general formula of capital, he is talking about contradictions of theories that do not take into account the particular nature of labour as a commodity. Marx, by the way, explicitly mentioned simple commodity production several times in the three volumes of Capital. Perhaps you should at least browse through them, instead of relying on notorious revisionists and idealists.

So, to sum up: you don't know what you're talking about. And in all likelihood, you're aware of that. The same goes for your claims about Marx's reformism etc. etc. I'm very sorry that your small-town petit-bourgeois "every man a shopkeeper" "socialism" was wiped out as a political movement, but there are more productive ways to channel the resentment than consciously spreading lies about Marx. And yes, to be honest, I think you should be banned for this, as you are obviously not interested in constructive discussion and as your "socialism" is closer to Bush or Belloc than anything advocated by modern socialists.

[Tim Cornelis]

Which of course is not true, because when Marx writes down words that mean advocacy of electioneering and nationalization, he in fact doesn't mean that, but probably has some mystical meaning in mind, implying that those words mean the opposite of what they actually mean. When he says that workers are incapable of running production without managers commanding them, he likewise doesn't mean by those words what the words actually mean, but is by using such words implying something totally different.

Could you provide a quote where Marx states that workers are incapable of control over production without managers?


The words are: "National centralisation of the means of production will become the national basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers". Freedom and equality though nationalization and centralization, LOL, that's almost on the level of "war is peace, slavery is liberty". Although Lenin does get exactly to that level with his statements like "Dictatorial powers and one-man rule are not contradictory to socialist democracy."

Nationalisation, you seem to think, is state control over productive establishments without the participation of workers. Nationalisation by a workers' state necessarily puts control of production in the hands of voluntary unions of workers/producers. These unions, or associations, are 'self-managed', or else they would not be associations in the first place.

Capitalism concentrates capital, a socialist revolution assumes control of this centralised capital and integrates all the individual social units (such as productive establishments) into a whole body. The centralisation is performed by organs of workers' power -- e.g. workers' councils and workers' assemblies -- and therefore constitutes a sort of centralisation from below (I would argue is a form of decentralisation since power is not concentrated at the top, but flows from below). You, however, seem to think centralisation in a workers' state is top-down.

So you have a misunderstanding of Marxism.



Marx talking about commodities which are not a product of capital in itself debunks the quasi-marxist pop 'socialist' myth which identifies markets with capitalism.

k. Capitalism is a social totality, not a 'market'.



When talking about Marx I only 'parrot' his words expressing what he advocated. And yes, he was a statist, an electioneering reformist one, who called for gradual centralization of control over the means of production in the hands of the state.

You misrepresent those words in a disingenuous way. Indeed, Marx and Engels were not opposed to electoral participation, indeed he advocated a workers' state, and indeed he advocated defending the immediate interests, preparing them for the conquest of power, instead of doing nothing until a revolution occurs, as the ultra-left, and apparently you, advocate. None of that implies parliamentary road to socialism through reforms.


You being a sore marxist, this statement is predictable, and thus void of content. It's like a religious person giving a disparaging remark of writing of a non-theist, meaningless.

Right... :rolleyes: Or you are like a religious person who misrepresents evolution to keep his creationist illusions intact.


Ditto here. I have multiple times pointed out an interesting detail about Marx, namely his bewilderment on the question of whether exploitation can happen in circulation, where he admitted his theory is contradictory, and never figured it out, leaving it to Kautsky and Engels to 'figure it out' by giving a peculiar interpretation to his terminology, and that interpretation being virtually forgotten by modern marxists, and advocated against by some who know about it like Heinrich, Arthur and others. What's interesting about all that is that of all the posturing Marxists here who pout about how myself as an anarchist and anti-marxist don't know what marxism is- none of them don't have a clue about any of this, showing that they actually haven't researched marxism (at least not critically/ rationally) a tiny fraction of how much I did.

Maybe then you should reread those texts since I know an educated criticism when I read it (e.g. I like Paul Cardan's critiques and to an extend agree with them). Your critiques are not educated or well-informed.

[bropasaran]

I love how the main 'argument' against what I write are assertions that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I am full of shit.

I guess I should give kudos to Tim for having a rationally looking response. So, to get to it


Nationalisation by a workers' state necessarily puts control of production in the hands of voluntary unions of workers/producers. These unions, or associations, are 'self-managed', or else they would not be associations in the first place.
Are you implying free association? Because that means also the freedom not to associate. In the scheme you are describing, could a workplace deceide not associate with others that make up the main planned economy?


Capitalism concentrates capital
Technological progress brings about de facto concentration, Marx and orthodox marxists talk about "de facto socialization" where e.g. one factory can meet the needs of the entire economy for it's products, or the railway system, and similar stuff. That's actually why they saw the revolution as a gradual process, things will be nationalized as they become de facto concentrated through development of technology. I understand concentration, anarchists are not for braking up the organization of the air-traffic or similar. But the problem is with things that are not completely de facto socialized, because in capitalism control over them is concentrated, but cannot be in socialism because that would mean an existence of a group of people who would effectively become bosses to other people involved.


Indeed, Marx and Engels were not opposed to electoral participation, indeed he advocated a workers' state, and indeed he advocated defending the immediate interests, preparing them for the conquest of power, instead of doing nothing until a revolution occurs, as the ultra-left, and apparently you, advocate. None of that implies parliamentary road to socialism through reforms.
I didn't say that those things imply that they were for electioneering. I say that Marx saying that the ballot will be the instrument of the emancipation of the proletariat not only implies, but constitutes him being for electioneering.

[helot]

He wrote a chapter giving his "The General Formula for Capital", and then devoted a chapter to "Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital", where his conclusion was "It is therefore impossible for capital to be produced by circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to originate apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and yet not in circulation."

He never solved the contradiction.

It's soved in the next chapter: the Buying and Selling of Labour Power. Right in the first paragraph.



The change of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted into capital, cannot take place in the money itself, since in its function of means of purchase and of payment, it does no more than realise the price of the commodity it buys or pays for; and, as hard cash, it is value petrified, never varying. Just as little can it originate in the second act of circulation, the re-sale of the commodity, which does no more than transform the article from its bodily form back again into its money-form. The change must, therefore, take place in the commodity bought by the first act, M-C, but not in its value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the commodity is paid for at its full value. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the commodity, i.e., in its consumption. In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power. Even as an anarchist myself Marx's Capital is incredibly useful. It's well worth an honest read.



Marx isn't admitting a contradiction in his argument but recognising two opposing forces within one unitary concept (i.e. capital). This is the method he uses throughout Capital. He applies this method from the very start with the commodity and identifying use-value and exchange-value. This is how he builds on his argument. It actually is a brilliant argument.

[RedMaterialist]

No. In barter, you can exchange diamonds and platinum which use-value is limited for enormous quantity of goods because they have greater exchange-value than its use-value. And first markets were exactly based on barter because money, if existed, were very limited.

Not so. Diamonds and platinum originally have value only in use, only for decoration, religion, etc. They were exchanged for other commodities because they had a value represented by the labor used to make them useful. But, when, over time, they developed into an abstract form representing all other use-values then they become exchange-values par excellence (Marx), i.e., money. A diamond is nothing more than a piece of carbon. It's not until it's mined and polished, taking a great deal of labor, that it becomes an exchange value and later, an abstract exchange value. Marx noted, and this was mid-nineteenth century, that if carbon could be converted into diamonds in a factory, diamonds would be as cheap as bricks. We're already seeing that happen.

Research shows now that barter existed only marginally, at the borders of societies. Money did come later when it became more convenient to exchange things such as wheat, wine, etc. by using another item, gold, silver, cattle, to represent all commodities. The slow, gradual acceptance of a specific commodity to represent all commodities led to the belief that that particular commodity, say, gold, was in itself valuable, thus, as money.

As Marx said, no chemist has ever found exchange value in a pearl, unlike its use-value which any woman can tell you about (and guys, too.) People don't dive for pearls because they are valuable; pearls are valuable because people dive for them.

[RedMaterialist]

He wrote a chapter giving his "The General Formula for Capital", and then devoted a chapter to "Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital", where his conclusion was "It is therefore impossible for capital to be produced by circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to originate apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and yet not in circulation."

He never solved the contradiction.

IDIOT!!!

That wasn't Marx's contradiction. That was the essential contradiction of capitalism.


In Capital, Vol 3., Chapter 23, Marx says:

"all labour in which many individuals co-operate necessarily requires a commanding will to co-ordinate and unify the process, and functions which apply not to partial operations but to the total activity of the workshop, much as that of an orchestra conductor. This is a productive job, which must be performed in every combined mode of production."

Notice the language- necessarily requiries a commander, the job of the commander must exist.

That's the difference between socialism and capitalism. Society chooses the conductor, not the Koch Bros.

[RedMaterialist]

No. In barter, you can exchange diamonds and platinum which use-value is limited for enormous quantity of goods because they have greater exchange-value than its use-value. And first markets were exactly based on barter because money, if existed, were very limited.

A diamond has a use value just like a bucket of water does. One satisfies the need for decoration, the other satisfies thirst. Some people believe that decoration can be more important than thirst, for instance, Elizabeth Taylor and the Queen of England. A diamond has more exchange value than a bucket of water because it takes thousands of times more labor to appropriate the use value of a diamond than it does a bucket of water. Now, if we lived on a desert-diamond planet (they recently found a diamond star) then the situation would be reversed. Diamonds and water would still be carbon and H2O. Nothing would be changed except the labor necessary to produce them. Water would then become money and could be exchanged for diamonds.

[RedMaterialist]

It actually is a brilliant argument.

Not only a brilliant argument, but one of the greatest discoveries in history, maybe the greatest.

[tuwix]

Research shows now that barter existed only marginally, at the borders of societies. Money did come later when it became more convenient to exchange things such as wheat, wine, etc. by using another item, gold, silver, cattle, to represent all commodities. The slow, gradual acceptance of a specific commodity to represent all commodities led to the belief that that particular commodity, say, gold, was in itself valuable, thus, as money.


It's likely we read different researches. As far, as I know in the South America before arrival of Europeans there wasn't known any money although there was known a concept of property. Besides in archaeological researches from Middle Ages in northern Europe there any coins are very rare. It seems that until early renaissance the most of trade was just barter.

Besides gold has become a money due to its enormous exchange-value.

[RedMaterialist]

Besides gold has become a money due to its enormous exchange-value.

Gold has enormous exchange-value, relative to most other commodities, because it takes a lot of labor to extract from the ground and refine. It becomes money due to its portability, metallic hardness, ability to be stamped, ease of recognition, etc.

Instead of bartering one bushel of wheat for one bottle of wine for five yards of linen, for 10 lbs of iron for 1 oz of gold, for two sheep, for one bow and arrow, people simply began trading 1 oz of gold for these things, then 1/2 oz of gold, then 1/4 of gold, 2 oz of gold,etc.

And gold wasn't the first money; there was cattle (from which is derived the word "capital,") beads, shells, copper coins, anything which took a definite amount of labor to produce, was easy to identify, and could be easily transported and exchanged.

Marx explains all this in the first chapter of capital.

[RedMaterialist]

It's likely we read different researches. As far, as I know in the South America before arrival of Europeans there wasn't known any money although there was known a concept of property.


It is well known that in pre-columbian America people used wampum belts for religious ceremonies, treaty ratification, and for some inter-tribal trade. They required a lot of skill and time to make, thus they had a lot of exchange-value, although they had not developed into the modern form of money.

However, when the Dutch arrived they immediately saw that the native people placed a great deal of value on the wampum belts. So what did the Dutch do? They used machinery to counterfeit the belts and within a few years the value of the belts dropped to nothing. But not before the Dutch were able to buy an entire island for a few of the beads.

[bropasaran]

It's soved in the next chapter: the Buying and Selling of Labour Power.
Elsewhere on this forum when I discussed this, I actually quoted Engels where he references that chapter to justify his interpretation of Marx' terminology of "merchant capitalism" as not really capitalism, but as "simple commodity production". And it is only an interpretation because Marx does talk about M-C-M as entailing "merchant capital", even though that contradicts his notion that labor needs to exploited for there to be capital. That is the contradiction I'm talking about, which he himself admitted, as I referenced. And, as I also said, there are people who reject this Engels' interpretation, which includes most contemporary people who call themselves marxist, who accept that there is such a thing as "merchant capitalism".


Even as an anarchist myself Marx's Capital is incredibly useful. It's well worth an honest read.
It's not actually worth it. Not when you know that socialism precedes Marx, and has a simple, clear-cut labor theory on which anarchist theory is based on, through Proudhon's refinement of it.


Marx isn't admitting a contradiction in his argument but recognising two opposing forces within one unitary concept (i.e. capital). This is the method he uses throughout Capital. He applies this method from the very start with the commodity and identifying use-value and exchange-value. This is how he builds on his argument. It actually is a brilliant argument.
Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt- can you plainly explicate the argument and explain it's brilliance?


That wasn't Marx's contradiction. That was the essential contradiction of capitalism.
No, the essential contradiction of capitalism how is workers make everything and yet non-workers own most of it. The contradiction explained by the labor theory devised in England in 1820s which ushered in socialism as a school of political economy.


That's the difference between socialism and capitalism. Society chooses the conductor, not the Koch Bros.
If that's socialism, then fuck socialism. Choosing your slave-owner is not freedom from slavery.

[RedMaterialist]

If that's socialism, then fuck socialism. Choosing your slave-owner is not freedom from slavery.

Slaves don't chose their slave-owners. It's the slave-owners who chose, or rather, buy their slaves.

[tuwix]

And gold wasn't the first money; there was cattle (from which is derived the word "capital,") beads, shells, copper coins, anything which took a definite amount of labor to produce, was easy to identify, and could be easily transported and exchanged.


I think we just talking about different things. So-called (because money is commodity as well) commodity-money are semi-money. Using them, it's still makes a barter of market. Marxist definition of money says:


Money is the commodity whose sole use is for storing value and acting as a means of payment.


https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/o.htm


Sole use means that cattle can't be money in strict understanding of this term.

[helot]

Elsewhere on this forum when I discussed this, I actually quoted Engels where he references that chapter to justify his interpretation of Marx' terminology of "merchant capitalism" as not really capitalism, but as "simple commodity production". And it is only an interpretation because Marx does talk about M-C-M as entailing "merchant capital", even though that contradicts his notion that labor needs to exploited for there to be capital. That is the contradiction I'm talking about, which he himself admitted, as I referenced. And, as I also said, there are people who reject this Engels' interpretation, which includes most contemporary people who call themselves marxist, who accept that there is such a thing as "merchant capitalism".

I don't know what Engels quote you're referring to here but what you're saying sounds wrong. Capital is a process. Marx states that in the first instance capital appears as merchant's or usurer's capital. The thing is though only labour results in an increase in the value in circulation. Labour needs to be exploited for there to be surplus value because equivalants are exchanged and even if non-equivalents are exchanged there's still no surplus value just a redistribution of value.





It's not actually worth it. Not when you know that socialism precedes Marx, and has a simple, clear-cut labor theory on which anarchist theory is based on, through Proudhon's refinement of it.

How do you know it's not worth it when you've never read it? That's just being purposefully ignorant. What i don't understand is why you're even bothering to make claims about Capital when you've not even attempted to read it. Actually, i know why it's political dishonesty. It's an attempt at shitty political point scoring.



Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt- can you plainly explicate the argument and explain it's brilliance?

Jesus, you want me to explain the entire argument he makes, in detail no less? Why can't you go and read it? For me to come and explain Capital to you it'd take thousands of words per volume and i'm not going to write an essay for some randomer that isn't actually interested in understanding it.

His argument is brilliant because of how he expands it. He takes a unitary concept, identifies internal contradictions and how they unite again. He then takes this and identifies further contradictions slowly building on his argument.

[helot]

Sole use means that cattle can't be money in strict understanding of this term.


Ignore that... cattle is perishable and not divisible. You can't pay for something in half a cow and the seller combines it with his 3.5 cows to make 4. It's absurd. Money needs to be able to do that.

[Luís Henrique]

What are your thoughts on market socialism?

As a goal to be attained? As a transitional situation within the fight for communism? As an abstraction? As a different name to whatever existed in the Soviet Union and similar societies? As a label for kibbutzim or other kinds of cooperatives?

Define better the term, so that the discussion can be more profitable.

Luís Henrique

[RedMaterialist]

Sole use means that cattle can't be money in strict understanding of this term.

Sole use depends on the specific society using the money. The cattle are stores of value and are used for payment, as in bride dowries, still used in some places in Africa. The Illiad is filled with references to the payment for things in oxen.

Sole use can exist in a modern prison where cigarettes are money.

[RedMaterialist]

Ignore that... cattle is perishable and not divisible. You can't pay for something in half a cow and the seller combines it with his 3.5 cows to make 4. It's absurd. Money needs to be able to do that.

?? Google "cattle as money" or go to " history of money" on wiki. Achilles' shield was worth 500 oxen.

[tuwix]

Sole use depends on the specific society using the money. The cattle are stores of value and are used for payment, as in bride dowries, still used in some places in Africa. The Illiad is filled with references to the payment for things in oxen.

Sole use can exist in a modern prison where cigarettes are money.



Neither cows nor cigarettes has sole use as means of payment. Role of so-called commodity-money in prison is due to big exchange-value of any good. You can't buy cigarettes easily, then their value is higher. In Poland, we have phone cards as so-called commodity money in prisons, because nobody can have a mobile phone and only way to contact with family and lawyers are pre-paid phone cards. But it's role as mean of payment is never sole. It's the case as well with cattle. Cows give a milk, for example.

[helot]

?? Google "cattle as money" or go to " history of money" on wiki. Achilles' shield was worth 500 oxen.


and however many bronze tripods. Just because they're referring to a commodity's value in another commodity doesn't necessarily mean that other commodity is money.

[bropasaran]

I don't know what Engels quote you're referring to here but what you're saying sounds wrong. Capital is a process. Marx states that in the first instance capital appears as merchant's or usurer's capital. The thing is though only labour results in an increase in the value in circulation. Labour needs to be exploited for there to be surplus value because equivalants are exchanged and even if non-equivalents are exchanged there's still no surplus value just a redistribution of value.
Property becomes capital only when exploitation happens, when the so called "suprlus value" is extracted, without that happening, it's not capital.


How do you know it's not worth it when you've never read it?
I've read all three volumes multiple times and studied them extensively, and I can say they're rubbish. Hodgskin's (the guy who formulated socialist theory) Popular Political Economy (from 1827) is an incomparably better work.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So, impossible, do you ever plan on producing that Engels quote, or is this just one of those quotes you made up?

[helot]

Property becomes capital only when exploitation happens, when the so called "suprlus value" is extracted, without that happening, it's not capital.

Ah so if a capital never manages to get a surplus value, even if human labour is involved in production, it somehow never was capital to begin with?


And btw, sruplus was an obvious typo. Your use of it in scare quotes just makes you sound like a child.



I've read all three volumes multiple times and studied them extensively, and I can say they're rubbish.

I call bullshit. You weren't even aware of how Marx forms his argument assuming him pointing out an internal contradiction in the unitary concept capital is Marx being contradictory.

[Luís Henrique]

Ah so if a capital never manages to get a surplus value, even if human labour is involved in production, it somehow never was capital to begin with?

Capital will always be able to get surplus value. What it may fail to do is to realise that surplus value.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I've read all three volumes multiple times and studied them extensively, and I can say they're rubbish. Hodgskin's (the guy who formulated socialist theory) Popular Political Economy (from 1827) is an incomparably better work.

So you will kindly explain to us what exactly Hodgskin grasped, that Marx failed to? Or, conversely, what mistakes Marx committed, that Hodgskin was able to avoid?

Luís Henrique

[bropasaran]

Ah so if a capital never manages to get a surplus value
It cannot be capital before it manages to get a "surplus value", until it doesn't- it's just property. I'd suggest going through this essay:

C.2.1 What is "surplus value"?
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21



And btw, sruplus was an obvious typo. Your use of it in scare quotes just makes you sound like a child.
I'm doing that because I don't think that the marxist term "surplus value" is a good one, it's better to use "profit" in the meaning used in classical economics, or "unpaid labor", or "unearned income".


I call bullshit. You weren't even aware of how Marx forms his argument assuming him pointing out an internal contradiction in the unitary concept capital is Marx being contradictory.
You call bullshit by repeating something that is wrong. His theory is contradictory, as I have explained, in saying that for means of production to become capital they have to be used to exploit labor, and yet he uses the term merchant capital to talk about plain trade of M-C-M as opposed to C-M-C. Also, you have the face to "call bullshit" after dodging when I called bullshit on your claim of Marx' brilliance.


So you will kindly explain to us what exactly Hodgskin grasped, that Marx failed to?
He grasped the contradiction of capitalism- how come every economic object is a product of labor, yet non-laborers own most of the economy. He is the first who talked about exploitation and the need to abolish it, he formulated the simple the labor theory that ushered in socialism into existence as the movement and idea of emancipation of the workers from bosses and other exploiters.


Or, conversely, what mistakes Marx committed, that Hodgskin was able to avoid?
He talked about value of products of labor instead of possession over them, he talked about some absurd iron laws of historical progress instead of the need to restructure society by abolishing the capitalist notion of property and instituting new forms of economic functioning.

[RedMaterialist]

and however many bronze tripods. Just because they're referring to a commodity's value in another commodity doesn't necessarily mean that other commodity is money.

It does if that particular commodity was used to buy other commodities. That's what differentiates a specific commodity as money, the clearest example being gold.

[Luís Henrique]

I'm doing that because I don't think that the marxist term "surplus value" is a good one, it's better to use "profit" in the meaning used in classical economics, or "unpaid labor", or "unearned income".

But this is quite confusing. First, "profit" is by no means "surplus value" - surplus value includes rents, taxes, and other deductions. For this and other reasons, a capitalist can have losses, even while extracting surplus value. Othewise we would have to conclude that a company that is not making profits isn't a capitalist company. Which is absurd.

Second, not all "unpaid labour" is surplus value (surplus value, for one, is necessarily unpaid labour monetarily expressed; unpaid labour that cannot express itself monetarily is not surplus value).

Third, "unearned income", besides being a moralistic term, is obviously not surplus value. The income of beggars, or retired people, or people on social security, is "unearned" but is definitely not "surplus value" (it is a deduction of wages, of course).


You call bullshit by repeating something that is wrong. His theory is contradictory, as I have explained, in saying that for means of production to become capital they have to be used to exploit labor, and yet he uses the term merchant capital to talk about plain trade of M-C-M as opposed to C-M-C.

That's mistaken on both sides of the equation. On one side, directly exploiting labour is necessary for money to become productive capital. It can be non-productive capital without directly exploiting labour.

On the other side, M - C - M (indeed, M - C - M') is the formula for capital, but not for productive capital (which is M - C ... C' - M').


Also, you have the face to "call bullshit" after dodging when I called bullshit on your claim of Marx' brilliance.

Both of you are mistaking bourgeois categories for Marxist categories.


He grasped the contradiction of capitalism- how come every economic object is a product of labor, yet non-laborers own most of the economy.

But this is merely a "moral" contradiction. Yes, value (not every object) is a product of labour, and consequently it is "unjust" that most value ends up with non-labourers. But this "unjustice" cannot be solved by redistributing value.

The problem here is that "objects", or, more broadly speaking, wealth, is not value, and is not merely a product of labour, but of labour applied to natural resources. So, if this is Hodgskin's theory, it cannot fail to pressupose the eternity of value (which is merely wealth), nor can it explain how is value extorted, nor can it propose the abolition of value; it must simply propose the redistribution of labour, and consequently it will be unable to propose the abolition of the conditions of exploitation.


He is the first who talked about exploitation and the need to abolish it, he formulated the simple the labor theory that ushered in socialism into existence as the movement and idea of emancipation of the workers from bosses and other exploiters.

Maybe, though I fear that others did similar things before him. But the point is not merely to emancipate labourers from bosses and other exploiters, but to emancipate them from labour. Or, in other words, from capital.


He talked about value of products of labor instead of possession over them,

Which is the correct thing to do, since merely redistributing property does not abolish the enslavement of workers to capital.


he talked about some absurd iron laws of historical progress

Don't think this is true or relevant to this discussion.


instead of the need to restructure society by abolishing the capitalist notion of property and instituting new forms of economic functioning.

Well, but that he did. What is different is that he didn't confuse the abolition of capital is merely the abolition of property.

The disaster of the Russian Revolution should show us exactly that: the abolition of property does not amount to the abolition of exploitation or classes, and is insufficient for the liberation of the working class.

In other words, the bankrupcy of Stalinism is the bankrupcy of Proudhonianism.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

It does if that particular commodity was used to buy other commodities. That's what differentiates a specific commodity as money, the clearest example being gold.

True, but money is a commodity that becomes specialised as a means of exchange. Cattle cannot fulfill that role, as it will always at the very least play a double role: that of means of exchange, and that of food.

Gold is the clearest example of money because its use as a means of exchange completely overwhelmed its use as anything else.

In other words, the use of cattle as money relies in the fact that it is useful for other ends. The use of gold as money relies in the fact that it is not useful for anything else. This explains why the use of cattle as money always preceeds the use of gold as money: the former implies a less developed specialisation of commodities.

Luís Henrique

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Gold is actually extremely good as a material for jewelery - it's shiny, malleable and non-toxic. Of course, the use of gold as bullion far outstripped its use in jewellery (likewise with silver) after a point.

Cowrie shells are probably an even earlier example of commodity money.

[bropasaran]

But this is quite confusing. First, "profit" is by no means "surplus value" - surplus value includes rents, taxes, and other deductions.
In terminology of neoclassical economics. Which is why I explicitly referenced terminology of classical economics, where profits is a technical term that means income of the employer, i.e. when wages and other expenses are deduced from the firm's earning, what is left- the income of the capitalist, is called profit.

"The term "profit" is often used simply, but incorrectly, to mean an excess over costs. However, this ignores the key issue, namely how a workplace is organised. In a co-operative, for example, while there is a surplus over costs, "there is no profit, only income to be divided among members. Without employees the labour-managed firm does not have a wage bill, and labour costs are not counted among the expenses to be extracted from profit, as they are in the capitalist firm." This means that the "economic category of profit does not exist in the labour-managed firm, as it does in the capitalist firm where wages are a cost to be subtracted from gross income before a residual profit is determined . . . Income shared among all producers is net income generated by the firm: the total of value added by human labour applied to the means of production, less payment of all costs of production and any reserves for depreciation of plant and equipment.""

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html#secc21


Second, not all "unpaid labour" is surplus value
Again, unpaid labor, just like unearned income, is a technical term in socialist theory to describe the exploitation of labor.


It can be non-productive capital without directly exploiting labour.
If property isn't used to exploit labor, then it's not capital. Not in the terminology of classical economics, which socialist theory uses (being that it was the only terminology around when socialism came into being in Britain in the 1820s and 30s). Even though this is not the mainstream terminology, it's still common-sense, almost no one sane would say that an artisan or a peasant are capitalists, a word reserved for people like employers, usurers and similar.


On the other side, M - C - M (indeed, M - C - M') is the formula for capital, but not for productive capital (which is M - C ... C' - M').
M-C-M (/ M-C-M') is a formula for capital only if the C is labor, and note that I say it's a formula for capital, not the formula, because there are also others, like M-M (/ M-M') and also renting property, for which Marx doesn't even seem to have had a formula, which goes to say how much he understood exploitation of workers under capitalism.


But this is merely a "moral" contradiction.
Yes, likewise above with terms being "moralistic". Moral just means prescriptive as opposed to descriptive, it means it's about "ought" and not "is". We ought to abolish capitalism. Having in mind the is/ ought dichotomy, that's a moral/ moralistic statement.


Yes, value (not every object) is a product of labour, and consequently it is "unjust" that most value ends up with non-labourers. But this "unjustice" cannot be solved by redistributing value.

The problem here is that "objects", or, more broadly speaking, wealth, is not value, and is not merely a product of labour, but of labour applied to natural resources. So, if this is Hodgskin's theory, it cannot fail to pressupose the eternity of value (which is merely wealth), nor can it explain how is value extorted, nor can it propose the abolition of value; it must simply propose the redistribution of labour, and consequently it will be unable to propose the abolition of the conditions of exploitation.
Value is completely irrelevant. It's about workers being denied the fruits of their labor.


Maybe, though I fear that others did similar things before him.
There are similar statements in Owen and Fourrier, but he is the first to formulate it as a theory in it's own right.


But the point is not merely to emancipate labourers from bosses and other exploiters, but to emancipate them from labour. Or, in other words, from capital.
Without bosses and other exploiters there is no capital.


Which is the correct thing to do, since merely redistributing property does not abolish the enslavement of workers to capital.
It exactly is, which Marx himself in his erratic writing mentions when he says e.g. "producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production". So, it's about possession, not value.


The disaster of the Russian Revolution should show us exactly that: the abolition of property does not amount to the abolition of exploitation or classes
The Russian "Revolution" didn't abolish property, it just made the state the main proprietor.


In other words, the bankrupcy of Stalinism is the bankrupcy of Proudhonianism.
This is basically the most stupid thing ever said, being that you compared two absolute opposites, which I guess shouldn't surprise me being that you probably have no idea what Proudhonism is, that it is the basis of all anarchism, being that Proudhon formulated the anarchist labor theory (by refining Hodskin's labor theory) of replacing property with possession and coupled it with libertarian theory of anti-hierarchy.