Socialism doesn't mean equal pay, right?

[Jacob Cliff]

I know the lower stage of communism features distribution based on contribution and the higher stage is free access to needs, so there technically isn't any equal pay, right? It seems to abolish the idea of payment itself. Im asking because I've seen some socialists say equal pay is desirable or good, but theres nothing in Karl Marx's writing that want equal pay, just free access.

Is this correct or am I missing something?

[DOOM]

Socialism means no pay at all. However, there are tons of differents approaches to what's generally called "lower-stage socialism". Most of them do not involve money, but some form of labour credit or rationing the goods according to the needs.

[Creative Destruction]

That's more or less correct. There is proportional remuneration in the lower phase of communism, because Marx recognizes that there will be people who are going to work more hours than others, just due to natural variance in how people work, what jobs they take, prefer to work or can work. That necessarily means there's going to be a slight inequality in "pay."

[Jacob Cliff]

I know it's probably addressed already in the forums, and I already have a general idea so I'm not clueless, but what's the real incentive other than personal enjoyment of the job in higher stage of communism?

[Creative Destruction]

That's it. Work becomes life's prime want, rather than a toiling need. You don't need an "incentive" to do what you want. If there is a task that needs to be done, but no one wants to do it and automation hasn't taken care of it, then we'd need to come together to decide how best to make sure it gets done. It kind of violates the principle, but I like the idea of having an "army" of people that serves in an industrial corps for a year or two, just making sure things are running the way they need to be running or doing tasks that no one is volunteering for but still needs human labor to do. I dunno, there are ways to address the issue.

[Jacob Cliff]

This is of course after automation of most or a good deal of labor, correct? I find it hard to believe somebody's own enjoyment of work is going to impel them to work to their ability with even modern technology, especially when you apply that to all of society.

[Creative Destruction]

This is of course after automation of most or a good deal of labor, correct? I find it hard to believe somebody's own enjoyment of work is going to impel them to work to their ability with even modern technology, especially when you apply that to all of society.

Yeah, I edited my post to add this:


If there is a task that needs to be done, but no one wants to do it and automation hasn't taken care of it, then we'd need to come together to decide how best to make sure it gets done. It kind of violates the principle, but I like the idea of having an "army" of people that serves in an industrial corps for a year or two, just making sure things are running the way they need to be running or doing tasks that no one is volunteering for but still needs human labor to do. I dunno, there are ways to address the issue.

[contracycle]

Also; it doesn't do to assume that work will be conducted in the same way. I don't think it's going to be merely a case of going in to the same job you had before the revolution and working in the same way. The job can be reorganised to make it more fulfilling, less alienating.

Plus, I think we see a lot of it already happening. People write software and make it available for free, more or less for the joy of it, and/or the kudos. That stuff is definitely work, and yet real people do do it with no expectation of reward, already.

[Subversive]

Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...

Anyway, the answer to your question is, yes and no.
By "equal pay" people generally mean that the pay is "fair".
"Fair pay" being 'equal' to the amount someone else would get working the same hours at the same job with the same productivity and quality.

Capitalists usually take this completely out of context and believe that this means everyone in the world gets 'paid equally' no matter how much work they do, what their quality is, and etc. This is simply nothing but filthy Capitalist propaganda, of course. They use this as an argument to discredit Socialism, and because they are ignorant of what Socialism really is.

People working two completely different jobs, different hours, or even producing different quality work will get paid differently, even in a Socialist society.

As for the phase of society wherein people take what they need and don't need money, that is called Communism.

I'm not sure why people here are suggesting there is no such thing as payment. People are always compensated for the work they do, no matter what form of society we're talking about. Even slaves often got paid in history.
The difference with Socialism being that they aren't paid in Capital-money, they are paid in a currency that is a direct equivalent of the amount of their labor, as per Marx's Das Kapital. This currency is often referred to as 'labor-notes'.

[ckaihatsu]

Also; it doesn't do to assume that work will be conducted in the same way. I don't think it's going to be merely a case of going in to the same job you had before the revolution and working in the same way. The job can be reorganised to make it more fulfilling, less alienating.


There's a trade-off, though, between 'self-determination' (at any scale), and 'collectivism'.

These are *both* aspirations of a post-capitalist social order, yet more of one means less of the other.





Plus, I think we see a lot of it already happening. People write software and make it available for free, more or less for the joy of it, and/or the kudos. That stuff is definitely work, and yet real people do do it with no expectation of reward, already.


In today's society as long as someone can *afford* to do something -- large or small -- they can pretty much go ahead and do it. This 'hobbyist' ethos, though, isn't necessarily *collectivist*, and doesn't necessarily benefit other people, because the person putting out a piece of free software according to their own inclination may have just uploaded something *so* specialized and niche that it's *not* of any use to anyone else. (Or it could be an academic or technical research paper, or whatever.)

So while social *mores* may certainly allow for a fiercely individualistic hobbyist work ethic, the larger society in its *collective* interest may actually be allowing itself to be *taken* by not having stricter social expectations in place for the individual, that *oblige* or *mandate* work that really *does* have a clear social benefit, instead of such discretion being left to the individual themselves.





Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...

Anyway, the answer to your question is, yes and no.
By "equal pay" people generally mean that the pay is "fair".
"Fair pay" being 'equal' to the amount someone else would get working the same hours at the same job with the same productivity and quality.

Capitalists usually take this completely out of context and believe that this means everyone in the world gets 'paid equally' no matter how much work they do, what their quality is, and etc. This is simply nothing but filthy Capitalist propaganda, of course. They use this as an argument to discredit Socialism, and because they are ignorant of what Socialism really is.

People working two completely different jobs, different hours, or even producing different quality work will get paid differently, even in a Socialist society.

As for the phase of society wherein people take what they need and don't need money, that is called Communism.

I'm not sure why people here are suggesting there is no such thing as payment. People are always compensated for the work they do, no matter what form of society we're talking about. Even slaves often got paid in history.




The difference with Socialism being that they aren't paid in Capital-money, they are paid in a currency that is a direct equivalent of the amount of their labor, as per Marx's Das Kapital. This currency is often referred to as 'labor-notes'.


'Labor notes' is the conventional orthodoxy, but I'll maintain that -- in line with the larger dotp or market socialism -- it *could* conceivably lend itself to commodity-type exchanges and thus to implicit exchange-values.

The response here usually is 'But people would have their own designated labor notes accounts and the notes are never withdrawn or circulated so where's the problem?'

I'll just note that whatever is *bought* with one's own account could then *subsequently* be exchanged for other types of goods, at varying quantities of exchange, and in this way would be a step backward to bartering, black markets, and possibly the use of informal currencies (cigarettes, etc.).

[Creative Destruction]

Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...

Anyway, the answer to your question is, yes and no.
By "equal pay" people generally mean that the pay is "fair".
"Fair pay" being 'equal' to the amount someone else would get working the same hours at the same job with the same productivity and quality.

Capitalists usually take this completely out of context and believe that this means everyone in the world gets 'paid equally' no matter how much work they do, what their quality is, and etc. This is simply nothing but filthy Capitalist propaganda, of course. They use this as an argument to discredit Socialism, and because they are ignorant of what Socialism really is.

People working two completely different jobs, different hours, or even producing different quality work will get paid differently, even in a Socialist society.

As for the phase of society wherein people take what they need and don't need money, that is called Communism.

I'm not sure why people here are suggesting there is no such thing as payment. People are always compensated for the work they do, no matter what form of society we're talking about. Even slaves often got paid in history.
The difference with Socialism being that they aren't paid in Capital-money, they are paid in a currency that is a direct equivalent of the amount of their labor, as per Marx's Das Kapital. This currency is often referred to as 'labor-notes'.


What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

It seems like you're confusing Lenin with Marx.

eta. Marx also didn't address this issue of payment within communism in Capital.

[Blake's Baby]

Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...

Seems you may be drawing an unwarrented distinction between 'socialism' and 'communism'.

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

I don't see any mention of a stage called 'socialism' in there, do you?

[Subversive]

'Labor notes' is the conventional orthodoxy, but I'll maintain that -- in line with the larger dotp or market socialism -- it *could* conceivably lend itself to commodity-type exchanges and thus to implicit exchange-values.
'Labor Notes' are generally referred to by Socialists, by a certain definition, but in truth there is not a factual definition for this item. In general, I see it, along with many other interchangeable terms, as a word merely to imply money as a non-commodity. A value for commodity exchange, but not being used as a commodity itself.

Though, your argument is still applicable in many cases. But I think we're losing scope here. The fundamental premise of currency alone is irrelevant because the currency is not the sole-means of abolishing Capitalism. The currency is just a method for exchange, and nothing but that. If applied correctly it can be used as a means of countering Capitalism, but the means of applying it is regarding laws and rules and not of the currency alone.

Thus, the 'M-C-M' cycle of currency is not abolished merely by changing the coin or the dollar, but by an entire social-political-economic system which alters the exchange paradigm to instead utilize the C-M-C cycle of exchange.

A labor note alone cannot shift a paradigm. It is merely a note indicating an exchange, nothing more or less. It is therefore the responsibility of the society itself to regulate the process of exchange and therefore deal with the issues of exchange and therefore change the paradigm.

That is the point of the revolution and the establishment of a completely new form of government: To shift paradigms. And certainly not just economic ones, either.


It seems like you're confusing Lenin with Marx.

eta. Marx also didn't address this issue of payment within communism in Capital.
I'm not confusing anything. What gives you that idea?

Marx didn't need to "address this issue of payment within communism".
What issue of payment are you even referring to, exactly? I wrote more than one paragraph and you quoted the entire post. Can you be a little more specific?

Are you just suggesting that he didn't mention labor notes? That is not what I was explaining, if so. I was merely noting that many Socialists these days often refer to 'labor-notes' or some other term as a mechanism of payment, rather than use the term "money" itself which is connotatively tied to Capitalist-money. This was aside from the reference to Marx and not related to it but the former subject in the same paragraph. If this is what you are indicating, I apologize for the confusion.


Seems you may be drawing an unwarrented distinction between 'socialism' and 'communism'.
I feel it is warranted.
Are you suggesting they are the same thing?



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

I don't see any mention of a stage called 'socialism' in there, do you?
Yeah, I do. "The period of revolutionary transformation of the one into the other".
He just doesn't use the word "Socialism" specifically. However, this is obviously what he was indicating here.

What else do you call it?
Did you think 'Socialism' and 'Communism' are synonyms? What would be the point of this? I am confused by your reply.

[Red Star Rising]

For a simple answer to the OP's question - you get back from society everything that you need + whatever society can give (within reason) proportionately to the number of labour hours you put in. This way nobody has some special privilege because of a subjective, immaterial difference between the job that they chose to do and someone else's.

[Creative Destruction]

I'm not confusing anything. What gives you that idea?

You said that "labor notes" is something that Marx talks about in "socialism" but not "communism" (he never makes a distinction, anywhere, of these two, btw, so you're wrong on this point, too. This is a Leninist aberration.)


Marx didn't need to "address this issue of payment within communism".
What issue of payment are you even referring to, exactly? I wrote more than one paragraph and you quoted the entire post. Can you be a little more specific?

Marx specifically says that this labor chit scheme should come about in the lower phase of communism. It contradicts your contention. You're: a.) confusing "socialism" for the revolutionary dictatorship and b.) denying that Marx places this labor-hour trade scheme in the stage of communism.


Are you just suggesting that he didn't mention labor notes?

I'm not suggesting that at all. Try reading the passage I quoted. He specifically said that this would be needed in the lower phase of communism.


That is not what I was explaining, if so. I was merely noting that many Socialists these days often refer to 'labor-notes' or some other term as a mechanism of payment, rather than use the term "money" itself which is connotatively tied to Capitalist-money. This was aside from the reference to Marx and not related to it but the former subject in the same paragraph. If this is what you are indicating, I apologize for the confusion.

Don't apologize for confusion. Apologize for being completely wrong in your political analysis.

[Creative Destruction]

I feel it is warranted.
Are you suggesting they are the same thing?

Yeah, I do. "The period of revolutionary transformation of the one into the other".
He just doesn't use the word "Socialism" specifically. However, this is obviously what he was indicating here.

No, that's what Lenin indicated there. Not Marx. Lenin doesn't speak for Marx, though, so it's an incoherent argument to say that this is what Marx meant. He specifically calls the revolutionary transformation the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, not socialism. You can better work this out by thinking about it for two seconds:

Socialism is the complete negation of capitalism. Capitalist commodity production still exists in the revolutionary dictatorship. Ergo, the revolutionary dictatorship can't be socialism. It's the process of getting to socialism (or communism.)


What else do you call it?

Call it what Marx called it. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.


Did you think 'Socialism' and 'Communism' are synonyms? What would be the point of this? I am confused by your reply.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest or imply that Marx thought "socialism" and "communism" were separate things, as in they represented different stages of revolutionary transformation.

[Subversive]

You said that "labor notes" is something that Marx talks about in "socialism" but not "communism" (he never makes a distinction, anywhere, of these two, btw, so you're wrong on this point, too. This is a Leninist aberration.)
Again, no I did not. That was a misunderstanding. I already apologized for the confusion. I was speaking merely in the context of the paragraph, not of the reference to Marx. You're misplacing context here.



Marx specifically says that this labor chit scheme should come about in the lower phase of communism. It contradicts your contention. You're: a.) confusing "socialism" for the revolutionary dictatorship and b.) denying that Marx places this labor-hour trade scheme in the stage of communism.
A) I'm not confusing this. I don't see you making a clear argument that this is the case.
B) Simply not true. It occurs in both to some degree. It is established in Socialism ('the lower-phases of Communism').

You do understand that Marx used the phrase "lower phase(s) of communism" as a term for Socialism, right? You seem confused by this.



I'm not suggesting that at all. Try reading the passage I quoted. He specifically said that this would be needed in the lower phase of communism.
It is becoming clear to me that you seem confused by Marx's use of this phrase. Do you disagree that these are synonymous?


In Marxist theory, socialism (also called lower-stage communism or the socialist mode of production)
(Insert link to Wikipedia: Socialism. Apparently I'm not allowed to post links yet. :))
I'm kind of new here, so I'm not sure how this forum responds to Wikipedia, but this properly points out that Socialism and Marx's use of this phrase are the same thing. I thought this was common knowledge.
I could easily find references to the same in places like marxist.org and such. For example:

Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society [Socialism] to its higher phase [Communism], and with it the complete withering away of the state.
(Insert link to Marxists.org's glossary definition for 'Communism')

If you still disagree, please tell me what are your true contentions with this and what evidence do you have to suggest they are not the same thing?



Don't apologize for confusion. Apologize for being completely wrong in your political analysis.
lol
I would possibly indeed do that, if I were the one who was wrong. So I assume it must be you who will apologize?


No, that's what Lenin indicated there. Not Marx.

Incorrect. Blake's Baby was directly quoting 'Critique of the Gotha Program' by Marx.

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
(Insert link to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program, Ch. 4 - again I'm not yet allowed to post links.)
It is about the 10th paragraph down from the top. You can't miss it.


Lenin doesn't speak for Marx, though, so it's an incoherent argument to say that this is what Marx meant.
Yes, like all men Lenin speaks for himself.
But is indeed what Marx meant when it was Marx who actually said it.



He specifically calls the revolutionary transformation the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, not socialism. You can better work this out by thinking about it for two seconds:

Socialism is the complete negation of capitalism. Capitalist commodity production still exists in the revolutionary dictatorship. Ergo, the revolutionary dictatorship can't be socialism. It's the process of getting to socialism (or communism.)
Now you're the one making a distinction that isn't really there.
The formal definition of Socialism is a system that abolishes the private ownership over the means of production. Perhaps somewhere within the revolutionary state this is not yet abolished, like in regards to the USSR, but in such an argument you're ignoring the fact that this revolutionary-period is a relatively short transitional phase to implement Socialism from a social state of Communism. You also forget that there is no specific name for this phase, as it generally just considered to be part of Socialism, even if it doesn't formally qualify under Socialism's explicit definition.

My point being: I see no reason to try to cut semantics like this. You're just being obtuse.



Call it what Marx called it. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Or Socialism, since the dictatorship of the proletariat exists within the state that is Socialism and the revolutionary element of society only exists for as long as it takes to take power and ownership away from the ruling bourgeois.
Again, I see no reason to be so dry about the definitions. Marx certainly wasn't.



There is absolutely no evidence to suggest or imply that Marx thought "socialism" and "communism" were separate things, as in they represented different stages of revolutionary transformation.
I'd argue that he most certainly did think of them as separate things. So much so that he felt no need to explicitly qualify them as such, only implying it in general terms because he spoke mostly in concepts and theories, not of terms. Such dry definitions were never necessary for him.

I think all of his writings are more than enough evidence to 'suggest' and confirm this. Your objections are meaningless to me unless you are to clarify your position further with an explanation of why you believe they are synonymous terms.

[Creative Destruction]

You seem to keep coming back to the thing that confuses all Leninists. Marx never termed the lower-phase of communism as "socialism" as separate from the higher phase of communism. He doesn't make a socialist/communist distinction between the lower phase and the higher phase. He simply distinguishes them by lower/higher. The calling of the "lower" phase of communism as "socialism" only is a Leninist invention. Further, it seems a lot of Leninists also bring "socialism" under the guise of the revolutionary dictatorship, which is wrong itself. There is a user here that does that, named RedMaterialist. I'm sure you two will have a masturbatory field day if he ever comes in this thread.

Nothing in Marx's writings suggests that socialism and communism are two different things, and I challenge you to go through any of his writings and find where he even implies that this is the case. You haven't done so thus far. You've quoted Lenin, but Lenin made an error, so quoting him here isn't going to do your argument any good whatsoever. To that point:


Or Socialism, since the dictatorship of the proletariat exists within the state that is Socialism and the revolutionary element of society only exists for as long as it takes to take power and ownership away from the ruling bourgeois.
Again, I see no reason to be so dry about the definitions. Marx certainly wasn't.

Marx was very clear about his definitions, almost to a fault. Again, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a revolutionary transformation from capitalism to communism. It is still based on a capitalist mode of production -- it has to be because it hasn't abolished it yet. It's in the process of doing so. You cannot have socialism in capitalism, and thus you cannot have the proletarian dictatorship in socialism. Socialism (being communism) requires the abolition of classes. How in the hell can you have a proletarian class in a classless society? It's completely incoherent. Again, think about it for longer than 2 seconds. If you do, you'll realize what you're saying here is complete nonsense. I get the feeling that you haven't actually read Marx, but you've mostly read Lenin's interpretation of Marx.

[Subversive]

You seem to keep coming back to the thing that confuses all Leninists. Marx never termed the lower-phase of communism as "socialism" as separate from the higher phase of communism. He doesn't make a socialist/communist distinction between the lower phase and the higher phase. He simply distinguishes them by lower/higher.
You're just arguing rhetoric. There is no difference between calling them "lower/higher" or calling them "Socialism/Communism".
This is why it is commonly accepted, Leninists or not.

You just seem to have some obscure bias against Lenin/Leninists and seem to be using this bias to blind you from real discussion.


The calling of the "lower" phase of communism as "socialism" only is a Leninist invention. Further, it seems a lot of Leninists also bring "socialism" under the guise of the revolutionary dictatorship, which is wrong itself. There is a user here that does that, named RedMaterialist. I'm sure you two will have a masturbatory field day if he ever comes in this thread.
Do you have a real argument for anything, or do you just like to throw around insults and say "wrong wrong wrong" all day?
I don't need to reply to you. I am doing you a favor by explaining your errors.



Nothing in Marx's writings suggests that socialism and communism are two different things, and I challenge you to go through any of his writings and find where he even implies that this is the case.
He references lower/higher phases of communism many of times.
He very distinctly depicts them as two separate things.



You haven't done so thus far. You've quoted Lenin, but Lenin made an error, so quoting him here isn't going to do your argument any good whatsoever.
I haven't quoted Lenin. You are just being blind.



To that point:
Marx was very clear about his definitions, almost to a fault.
He was clear with his concepts. Not with definitions. These are two very different things.
Definitions deal with explicit terminology of single words. Concepts deal with ideas that may go by many different names.
Marx didn't write dictionaries. He wrote theories and social-political documents.
You are in error, again.



Again, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a revolutionary transformation from capitalism to communism. It is still based on a capitalist mode of production -- it has to be because it hasn't abolished it yet.
To be honest, you seem to be the one more focused on Leninism than I ever was.
Was it not the USSR which held on to Capitalist ideology after their revolution, unable to shrug away the lingering Capitalist mode of production due to an unrealized proletariat? A stationary existence of perpetual revolution. As Trotsky called it: "Permanent Revolution".

So are you arguing that Lenin was right, or are you arguing that he was wrong? You can't have it both ways.

Or are you... like I said, just nitpicking semantics?


It's in the process of doing so. You cannot have socialism in capitalism, and thus you cannot have the proletarian dictatorship in socialism.
There is a direct line you can divide phases between to separate them into cognitive categories.
Just like how an evolutionary path of a species has no clear distinction between minor changes, yet however you can still differentiate between a human and an ape.

Such is the processes of social evolution and the categories of how we define them. The revolution is not clearly cut individually, but in those processes is indeed a change between Capitalism and Socialism. And from Socialism into Communism. The Revolution overlaps both Capitalism and Socialism to some degree, but neither of those two overlap each other.

Make sense? It's simple if you just think about it for a moment. It's how humanity categorizes pretty much everything, from plants to animals to political regimes.


Socialism (being communism) requires the abolition of classes.
That seems outside of the confines of it's formal definition even moreso than the definition that I was using.

The modern definition suggests that it is merely the change in the mode of production and that it is NOT synonymous with Communism.
Why do you bother arguing rhetoric and semantics? It is pointless. Just understand and be done with it. Historical literacy has no place here. Find the history section if you wish to argue those things.


How in the hell can you have a proletarian class in a classless society?
My thoughts exactly.


It's completely incoherent.
So says the one arguing pointless semantics.


Again, think about it for longer than 2 seconds.
I might suggest you do the same...



If you do, you'll realize what you're saying here is complete nonsense.
We have come to an impasse.


I get the feeling that you haven't actually read Marx, but you've mostly read Lenin's interpretation of Marx.
I get the feeling you have a Lenin-complex.

Now, stop with the rhetorical games, please. I am not going to bother responding again unless you present some reasoning, evidence, citations, relevancy or anything that might be considered a legitimate argument. I would simply suggest checking the rhetorical games at the door.

To clarify the situation: Again, I'm merely using the modern definitions. Meanwhile, you're suggesting that it is necessary to use only and strictly words directly from Marx, but not giving any reason as to why this is necessary or productive. I argue that it is pointless semantics.

[Creative Destruction]

I haven't quoted Lenin. You are just being blind.

What in the ever loving fuck are you talking about? You quoted from State and Revolution, you fucking moron:



Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society [Socialism] to its higher phase [Communism], and with it the complete withering away of the state.

(Insert link to Marxists.org's glossary definition for 'Communism')

That's not Marx. That's Lenin, from State and Revolution. Marxists.org, while doing important work, are generally Trots (afaik), so it's not surprising they would use this definition (their brackets are insertions, based on Lenin.) It is wrong, though. And you're wrong. You were quoting Lenin.

If you're not going to deal here honestly, I'm not interested in having this conversation with you.

[Creative Destruction]

To clarify the situation: Again, I'm merely using the modern definitions. Meanwhile, you're suggesting that it is necessary to use only and strictly words directly from Marx, but not giving any reason as to why this is necessary or productive. I argue that it is pointless semantics.

I gave you the reasoning several times. I'm sorry if it's inconvenient for you.

[Subversive]

I quoted Marxists.org for you to briefly summarize a point.
The fact that it was a quote from Lenin is arbitrary and irrelevant. You are attempting to be deceitful in your arguments in order to look as if you were correct from the beginning, when in fact this is but a minor point of insignificance.
No other use of Lenin's work was referenced. It is not my fault that almost all sources agree, which just happens to be what you say is an agreement with Lenin's definitions. That is sort of the point, though. A modern agreement on definitions. You seem to be the only detractor here. Does anyone else on this forum even agree with you? A voice of agreement has yet to side with you. Meanwhile I have listed two major sources for agreement supporting my argument. So, my question remains: Where is your evidence?


I gave you the reasoning several times. I'm sorry if it's inconvenient for you.
You have still yet to clarify your issue in an understandable manner, especially without such improper and disrespectful behavior, especially considering this is the 'Learning' section where this is, according to the board rules, not tolerated. Was it too inconvenient for you to maintain any sense of control on such a minor issue such as this?
So if you do not mind, I have better things to do than argue with someone who is not honest with his arguments and can't provide a meaningful statement of contention without dissolving.

Good day, sir.

[ckaihatsu]

'Labor notes' is the conventional orthodoxy, but I'll maintain that -- in line with the larger dotp or market socialism -- it *could* conceivably lend itself to commodity-type exchanges and thus to implicit exchange-values.

The response here usually is 'But people would have their own designated labor notes accounts and the notes are never withdrawn or circulated so where's the problem?'

I'll just note that whatever is *bought* with one's own account could then *subsequently* be exchanged for other types of goods, at varying quantities of exchange, and in this way would be a step backward to bartering, black markets, and possibly the use of informal currencies (cigarettes, etc.).





'Labor Notes' are generally referred to by Socialists, by a certain definition, but in truth there is not a factual definition for this item.




In general, I see it, along with many other interchangeable terms, as a word merely to imply money as a non-commodity. A value for commodity exchange, but not being used as a commodity itself.


What you're suggesting is *self-contradictory*, since an instrument can't be used to *facilitate* commodity exchange while at the same time not-being a commodity itself.

You're not advancing anything that would be different from the capitalist status quo.





Though, your argument is still applicable in many cases. But I think we're losing scope here. The fundamental premise of currency alone is irrelevant because the currency is not the sole-means of abolishing Capitalism. The currency is just a method for exchange, and nothing but that. If applied correctly it can be used as a means of countering Capitalism, but the means of applying it is regarding laws and rules and not of the currency alone.


We have to first look at the (economic) *function* of whatever's being used -- if some kind of currency-type vehicle is in circulation for the sake of facilitating *exchanges*, then that means it's inherently part of a system of *exchange-values*, since the basic act of exchange is still taking place.

You're suggesting some kind of *reformism* in saying that different laws and rules could be enacted to re-shape the *contours* of how such a system of commodity-exchanges is done, but such laws and rules would certainly not constitute a 'paradigm shift', since the fundamental economic unit of exchange-value is still present.





Thus, the 'M-C-M' cycle of currency is not abolished merely by changing the coin or the dollar, but by an entire social-political-economic system which alters the exchange paradigm to instead utilize the C-M-C cycle of exchange.


I don't see how 'C-M-C' is any different from 'M-C-M' -- since commodities and money are interchangeable, through the economic act of exchanges, it doesn't matter if one starts with one or the other. It's an unending cycle either way.





A labor note alone cannot shift a paradigm. It is merely a note indicating an exchange, nothing more or less.


Actually, the labor-note proposal does *not* facilitate exchanges, in and of itself. In my previous post (reproduced above) I leveled a *critique* of it, from the left, to indicate how a labor-note system could *devolve*, given insufficiently robust mass political consciousness.

The original labor note idea is to have labor performed and then compensated from entities that administer production goods (factories, etc.) on a collective basis -- the labor notes would just be an entry in a person's account, from which a person could draw for the sake of personal purchases in a market-like economy for *consumer* goods. In this way there would be no *exchange* of labor for money / commodities, since labor notes are *issued*, and no commodification of labor notes since they don't circulate and don't function as capital.





It is therefore the responsibility of the society itself to regulate the process of exchange and therefore deal with the issues of exchange and therefore change the paradigm.


Here you're *explicitly* recommending reformism, which is *not* a change in paradigm since reformism is already an existing feature in the politics of the status quo.





That is the point of the revolution and the establishment of a completely new form of government: To shift paradigms. And certainly not just economic ones, either.


This statement taken on its own would be self-consistent and relatively valid (except for the 'government' part), but your overall line is one of reformism.

I'll posit my standing critique of the labor notes / vouchers proposal, in favor of a unique 'labor credits' approach, which is at my blog entry:





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

What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

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

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

[...]




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

[Hermes]

I quoted Marxists.org for you to briefly summarize a point.
The fact that it was a quote from Lenin is arbitrary and irrelevant. You are attempting to be deceitful in your arguments in order to look as if you were correct from the beginning, when in fact this is but a minor point of insignificance.
No other use of Lenin's work was referenced. It is not my fault that almost all sources agree, which just happens to be what you say is an agreement with Lenin's definitions. That is sort of the point, though. A modern agreement on definitions. You seem to be the only detractor here. Does anyone else on this forum even agree with you? A voice of agreement has yet to side with you. Meanwhile I have listed two major sources for agreement supporting my argument. So, my question remains: Where is your evidence?

www.revleft.com/vb/socialismi-t183513/index.html?t=183513 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/www.revleft.com/vb/socialismi-t183513/index.html?t=183513) might be relevant.

[Blake's Baby]

Blake's Baby said:

"I don't see any mention of a stage called 'socialism' there".

Subversive said:


...
... I do...
He just doesn't use the word "Socialism" specifically...

Blake's Baby says:

"I don't see any mention of a stage called 'socialism' there".

Subversive says... ?




For anyone who is not sure of Marx's schema here...

1 - capitalist society;
2 - the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat;
3 - the first stage of communist society;
4 - a higher stage of communist society.

The revolutionary dictatorship is a class society (because if there's a proletariat, there are other classes too); it comes between capitalist society and communist society (and is therefore not part of communist society); the first stage, that Leninists for some unexplainable reason call 'socialism', follows the revolutionary dictatorship; therefore the revolutionary dictatorship is not the same as Lenin's 'socialism', or what Marx calls 'the first stage of communist society'.

So what are we left with? The revolutionary dictatorship, as a class society that preceeds socialism/communism, must be capitalism; Marx draws no distinction between 'socialism' and 'communism', quite clearly refering to both what Leninists call 'socialism' and 'communism' as different phases of 'communist society'. No 'stage called socialism', either under the revoutionary dictatorship, or in the 'first phase of communist society'.

[RedMaterialist]

For anyone who is not sure of Marx's schema here...

1 - capitalist society;
2 - the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat;
3 - the first stage of communist society;
4 - a higher stage of communist society.

Is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat a socialist or communist society?


So what are we left with? The revolutionary dictatorship, as a class society that preceeds socialism/communism, must be capitalism;


So, the Soviet Union was 'state capitalism' not because of any degeneration of the working class state, but because capitalism is the natural, historical, economic, social structure of the revolutionary working class?

[ckaihatsu]

For a simple answer to the OP's question - you get back from society everything that you need + whatever society can give (within reason) proportionately to the number of labour hours you put in. This way nobody has some special privilege because of a subjective, immaterial difference between the job that they chose to do and someone else's.


This *is* the simple, sales-ad version of presenting socialism.

Yes, we want to eradicate privileges that are based on today's ownership of capital, but I, for one, have some reservations about how liberated labor hours would be valued, post-capitalism, in regards to the kind of work done.

We've been over this ground at another thread, so I won't repeat it here....


To each according to his deed?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/each-according-his-t189982/index.html?p=2778202


My own political-logistical conclusion is that the *purpose* should be to eradicate scarcity -- that is, to ensure abundance. Anything that can be accomplished with collectivized productive assets and resources and sheerly voluntary liberated labor, can be, as for humanity's most basic needs for life and livelihood.

Any kinds of production *beyond* the basics would be more complicated in terms of how to value one person's labor hour, versus another's. But the overall point / ethos would still be to *eradicate scarcity*, so anything produced would never be bought or sold (commodified). People may, though, find ratios for the way one type of liberated labor relates to another type so that there can be a formal, universal standard for different work roles, per hour of working.

(Meaning, if some work roles were particularly difficult or distasteful, people would have to pool together more 'labor credits' from work they've done in the past, to satisfy someone who agrees to do the work, for the sake of the common good.) (See my blog entry, if you like.)

[Blake's Baby]

Is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat a socialist or communist society?...

No, it isn't.



...
So, the Soviet Union was 'state capitalism' not because of any degeneration of the working class state, but because capitalism is the natural, historical, economic, social structure of the revolutionary working class?

As the 'revolutionary working class' (if I wanted to be a total tool here I'd insist you say 'revolutionary proletariat' but I'll take 'working class' as a synonym as long as we both understand it means 'working class in capitalism' and not 'any class of people who do any work in any economic system') is a product of capitalist relations, and the revolution begins in a capitalist society, and the revolution doesn't transform capitalist society until it destroys it completely, then yes, "capitalism is the natural, historical, economic, social structure of the revolutionary working class". The revolutionary working class must by definition be revolting in capitalism.

Once there is no more capitalism, the working class is 1-not revolting; and 2-not a working class any more.

[Subversive]

What you're suggesting is *self-contradictory*, since an instrument can't be used to *facilitate* commodity exchange while at the same time not-being a commodity itself.

You're not advancing anything that would be different from the capitalist status quo.
Not true. Your argument is doing nothing but simply stating "this is impossible, therefore you are wrong", yet you present no argument why this is impossible. Marx himself speaks of money being used as nothing but a means of exchange in his explanation of the 'C-M-C' cycle of exchange, which is thoroughly explained in Capital Ch. 4.

Are you an anarchist, by the way? What leads you to believe that money cannot be used as a non-commodity means of exchange? How else do you believe that Socialism/Communism would be achieved? Are you arguing that Capitalism must necessarily be maintained until a gift-economy can be established? To me I'd label that as a pro-Capitalist or Utopian fallacy.



We have to first look at the (economic) *function* of whatever's being used -- if some kind of currency-type vehicle is in circulation for the sake of facilitating *exchanges*, then that means it's inherently part of a system of *exchange-values*, since the basic act of exchange is still taking place.

You're suggesting some kind of *reformism* in saying that different laws and rules could be enacted to re-shape the *contours* of how such a system of commodity-exchanges is done, but such laws and rules would certainly not constitute a 'paradigm shift', since the fundamental economic unit of exchange-value is still present.
You are completing misunderstanding me. This is a straw man argument that you've entangled into this discussion that I don't quite know how to unravel. Please go re-read my earlier posts and perhaps then it might become clear what I am referencing.



I don't see how 'C-M-C' is any different from 'M-C-M' -- since commodities and money are interchangeable, through the economic act of exchanges, it doesn't matter if one starts with one or the other. It's an unending cycle either way.
So.... You are an anarchist, utopian, or otherwise non-Marxist? Because Marx clearly explained the cycles of both C-M-C and M-C-M and why they were not interchangeable. Again, Ch. 4 of Das Kapital.



Actually, the labor-note proposal does *not* facilitate exchanges, in and of itself. In my previous post (reproduced above) I leveled a *critique* of it, from the left, to indicate how a labor-note system could *devolve*, given insufficiently robust mass political consciousness.
'Could' is the key word there. And you're essentially agreeing with me entirely, despite the obvious misunderstandings of the above. You're correct that an insufficient political consciousness could 'devolve' this system, just as it could any system. The key point I was making was that the government can play a large beneficial part in maintaining awareness, and thus nullify that possibility. However, obviously, a corrupt government could remove the checks and balances in place to maintain such an order and if the people are unaware (and thus unwilling to fight it) then it would indeed 'devolve'.



Here you're *explicitly* recommending reformism, which is *not* a change in paradigm since reformism is already an existing feature in the politics of the status quo.
I will just make a note that I am by far not a reformist. You are clearly mistaken.



I'll posit my standing critique of the labor notes / vouchers proposal, in favor of a unique 'labor credits' approach, which is at my blog entry:
I am not personally in favor of 'labor-notes', explicitly, either. However, like I explained earlier, this is not a concept that has a strict definition. It is merely a term for money as a non-commodity, as described by Marx in Ch. 4 of Capital. And such approach is one I find valuable.
If you disagree with this fundamental idea, then you also disagree with Marx. And if you disagree with Marx, then we disagree on many things.


-repeating quotations while adding nothing of value or substance-
I will ask in the future that you try to maintain context and not aim to pointlessly annoy. I have already explained where the aim of the argument is. It need not be stripped of context to attempt to make me look as if a fool when it is clearly not the case.



For anyone who is not sure of Marx's schema here...

1 - capitalist society;
2 - the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat;
3 - the first stage of communist society;
4 - a higher stage of communist society.
And as I have explained, rather than terming both 'Socialism' and 'Communism' as synonyms, which is utterly pointless, and also having to use the wordy-phrases of "lower phase of communism" and "higher phase of communism", it is instead much easier to just go with the modern accepted definitions wherein 'Socialism' is defined as the lower stage and 'Communism' is the higher stage.

These are ideologically equivalent terms. Meaning: The difference in only in historical use of terminology, of which I pointed out to rednoise that if we wish to use such historical terminology it's best to perhaps argue this in it's own topic and not here.

Now, I am not quite sure the contentions here. Is it merely the fact that some of you wish to utilize historical terminology, and wish to actually make this an issue of contention, a problem that is nothing but mere rhetoric, or is there a true underlying point to this that I am not catching on to? Because it seems clear to me that this is nothing but games of semantics and some of you seem to have steeped too long together and gotten use to utilizing your own terms, rather than the terminology of the people. And it seems the only reason I can conceive to reject such modern terms, and use strictly historical definitions, is that some of you want to distance yourself from Lenin and the USSR.

And that's all fine and dandy for you, but obviously I will not simply agree. I will not distance myself from Lenin. I am not a Leninist, but Lenin was a great man and a great Communist. I can agree with someone's terms and not agree with all of their policies. Perhaps something you could also learn to do?

So please, inform me what your true intent is with this argument before we continue. And if we're going to go off-course from this topic's main point, please open a new topic up to discuss the issue with me and anyone else who would like to join. Perhaps in the 'History' section, but 'Learning' might suffice, as both may be essentially applicable.



The revolutionary dictatorship is a class society (because if there's a proletariat, there are other classes too); it comes between capitalist society and communist society (and is therefore not part of communist society);
Indeed, so you make the distinction that it is neither Capitalist society nor Communist society?
Yet you contentions is that the term 'Socialism' is not favorable.

So what term would you prefer that is easier to say than "revolutionary dictatorship", and if none: how can you make Marx's sort of "revolutionary dictatorship" distinct from any other form of revolutionary dictatorship, without also applying "of the proletariat" which then only makes the phrase quite a bit lengthier?

There was a reason Lenin used this formulation of terms, despite knowing full and well how Marx had defined and used the terms. Some of you suggest Lenin was "wrong" to express the phases this way, but perhaps you're not looking at this fairly. Perhaps it was Marx who's terminology was incomplete and Lenin merely coined the terminology to become more useful in simple expression of the Communist ideology.

Do you see my point now? I will assume not and will continue.


the first stage, that Leninists for some unexplainable reason call 'socialism', follows the revolutionary dictatorship;
An "unexplainable" reason? Are you truly so unaware of history that you're unable to cope with or understand that Lenin used this terminology to simplify and more easily relate Marx's writings to the masses? It is an extremely basic concept, one only of words.

Think of it this way, if I were to go out and speak to the public in strictly Marxian terminology, completely abolishing all modern linguistics from my mind and catering only to the people whom have fully read Das Kapital, the Communist Manifesto, and other works, do you think my audience will be very responsive?
The answer is obvious.
Nor would it be better to stand out to an audience and give a lecture about what your terminology means. What exactly are the terms you are describing, rather than to assume SOME knowledge of the subject by the listener. You would merely bore them to death and drive them away.

Furthermore, looking at historical Socialism, Marx's revolutionary society and lower phase of communism had all the trademarks of a Socialist society. Lenin was merely responding to an appropriate description. It is indeed more than just a Socialist society that Marx spoke of, but it was obvious what Lenin was describing when he spoke of Socialism. He was not speaking of the idealistic and utopian fallacies of the former Socialist ideology. He would speak of nothing but Communism. It is therefore satisfactory to relinquish some clarity in your formulation


therefore the revolutionary dictatorship is not the same as Lenin's 'socialism', or what Marx calls 'the first stage of communist society'.
Indeed. I agree my terms also differ from Lenin's.
I go one step further and relegate the revolutionary phase into the phase now known as 'Socialism', simply because that it is how it is now understood by most people. It is one extended phase of society proceeding after the victory of the revolutionary armies, and it encompasses many phases in and of itself. The term 'Socialism' used today is not a complete phase, but an umbrella term for a group of phases.



So what are we left with? The revolutionary dictatorship, as a class society that preceeds socialism/communism, must be capitalism;
You stated the revolutionary dictatorship was the stage after Capitalism, now you state it must be Capitalism. Therefore you have just contradicted yourself.

My terminology is not contradictory like this. It is simplified, I'll agree, but if anyone is to clearly read and understand me and my arguments, then there is no mistakes about what I refer to. I refer only to Communism.



Marx draws no distinction between 'socialism' and 'communism', quite clearly refering to both what Leninists call 'socialism' and 'communism' as different phases of 'communist society'. No 'stage called socialism', either under the revoutionary dictatorship, or in the 'first phase of communist society'.
Marx also wrote about these things about 150 years ago, meanwhile created the entire concept of Communism (obviously). Prior to this, the concept known as 'Socialism' was an idealism of Utopian dreamers who had no idea how to properly conceive of a well-working society. For him to have utilized this term for himself in the creation of an entirely new concept would have caused issues.

Those days are now long gone. Marx's work has stormed the world and completely redefined these ideologies altogether. Utopians still exists, but they are now seen for what they truly are. Not as visionaries, but as naive people simply hoping to escape reality. We live in the days of post-USSR, wherein these terms have developed over time, just as all language does.

Now, I perfectly understand the historical tenacity of the terms and why some Marxists may still like to use them that way. If you wish to use them as such, that's fine. The problem herein lies in the fact you attempt to tell others that they must also use them that way, especially when your terms are no longer generally accepted. That is a problem. An argument that none of you have any means to support, simply because they are not widely accepted terms anymore and depend on lengthy-descriptors and source-text.
Feel free to drive some groups to get the terms more defined and known again. Or even develop new ones that make EVERYTHING well-defined and distinct. I'd perhaps support you on that. Maybe.

Thanks for the interesting discussion everyone. However, I think we're going very off-topic now. I'd rather not do that. Some people are here to learn about the topic, not about ridiculous arguments of some random disgruntled people. As such, I have already replied to the topic at hand, and I think I have well addressed it. So I do not feel the need to further clarify myself on either of these issues. I hope if any of you still have disagreements, feel free to message me and one of us can open up a new topic to discuss it. Thanks.

So I bid you all, good day. :)

[Blake's Baby]

I asked you where Marx had refered to 'the first stage of comunist society' as socialism. You claimed that he had indeed called it socialism, but that he hadn't actually called it socialism.

I don't need to make you look a fool, you're doing that quite well on your own.

I didn't state that the revolutionary dictatorship was 'after capitalism'. Please, if you think I'm wrong, quote the post where I said it.

What I said was, in Marx's schema, the revolutionary dictatorship is the transformational stage between capitalist society and communist society. Now, I'll admit that Marx isn't very clear here; but as communism is a classless communal society (yes? You're not redefining words so that you don't agree with that assertion, are you?) and the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat includes the proletariat, it cannot be a classless society, can it?

Also, as Marx defines 'communist society' as coming after the revolutionary dictatorship, and Marx's definition of 'communist society' includes both your 'socialism' and your 'communism', then the revolutionary dictatorship cannot be 'socialism' - even though you define it as such here:


...
Call it what Marx called it. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat...


...
Or Socialism, since the dictatorship of the proletariat exists within the state that is Socialism and the revolutionary element of society only exists for as long as it takes to take power and ownership away from the ruling bourgeois...

Honestly, I don't care what you call things. You can call the state capitalism communism, you can call the peasantry the proletariat, you can call the bourgeoisie the aristocracy, and you can call Marx a fish-finger for all I care. But, what you can't do, is complain that other people are using words to mean particular things; you're the one who waded into this thread to 'correct' people with your ignorance:


Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...

The problem really arises because you've changed the terms, and then you read back with your changed terms and think that Marx agrees with you.

"Why, I think communism follows socialism... therefore if Marx writes about 'communist society' following 'the revolutionary dictatorship', that must mean that the revolutionary dictatorship is socialism (which isn't even what Lenin said but I'll pretend it was, while simultaneously pretending I didn't quote Lenin)."

No; because Marx didn't distinguish between socialism and communism; for Marx, 'communist society' included what you call 'socialism' and it still followed 'the revolutionary dictatorship' (as Lenin knew full well).

[Subversive]

I asked you where Marx had refered to 'the first stage of comunist society' as socialism. You claimed that he had indeed called it socialism, but that he hadn't actually called it socialism.
Again, you're uttering nonsense to attempt to make me look foolish and annoy me.
The reality of this is simple - you quoted Marx and asked that I point out where he "mentioned" socialism. I pointed out the part of the quote where I believed 'socialism' was being defined, but very clearly pointed out that he did not actually call it 'Socialism'.
It doesn't take much to put two-and-two together and realize that I was merely indicating that terminology has changed since Marx, but the ideologies themselves have not.




I don't need to make you look a fool, you're doing that quite well on your own.
Stated by someone who has to reword themselves later just to utilize a straw man fallacy, as seen above.

Is there a reason that some of you are behaving so rudely and attacking me as such?
Or is this merely because many Socialists are the result of anti-conformism and are unable to adapt to proper social behavior with peers?



I didn't state that the revolutionary dictatorship was 'after capitalism'. Please, if you think I'm wrong, quote the post where I said it.
It was the same post. I had quoted your very description about two quotations above the aforementioned one.
This:


The revolutionary dictatorship is a class society (because if there's a proletariat, there are other classes too); it comes between capitalist society and communist society (and is therefore not part of communist society);
Is in direct contradiction to this:


So what are we left with? The revolutionary dictatorship, as a class society that preceeds socialism/communism, must be capitalism;
See bolded.
If it comes "between" Capitalist society and Communist society, for the same reason you excluded communist society in the parentheses of the first quote you must also exclude capitalist society. Something cannot come between two things if it is one of those things.
You asked me to quote you. There is no way to worm out of this error now.

By the way, I also asked you to message me to start a new topic if you wanted to continue. We didn't need to derail. I assume that, because I said this, you would think I would not reply and therefore get away with this diversive tactic to destroy my arguments by the fallacy of winning by non-response.


you're the one who waded into this thread to 'correct' people with your ignorance:
Let me point out a few things for you.
1. I did not "correct" anyone. I merely indicated an error.
2. I did not state anyone's name regarding this error, but generally stating a fact that it existed.
3. Absolutely nothing I've stated is in ignorance.
4. You are unable to see a vivid contradiction in your own terminology despite me pointing it out to you directly, which would make you seem quite a bit more ignorant than me.



The problem really arises because you've changed the terms, and then you read back with your changed terms and think that Marx agrees with you.
I did not change any terms at all. I remained consistent throughout.
Furthermore, I never stated Marx agreed with me. Seeing as how the modern definitions of these terms was developed after Marx's lifetime, I can't possibly understand how you could even have mistaken this for something that I've said. You are clearly misunderstanding everything.



for Marx, 'communist society' included what you call 'socialism' and it still followed 'the revolutionary dictatorship' (as Lenin knew full well).
Yes, and I've never disagreed with anything Marx stated. Understanding this may help to remove your misunderstanding regarding what I have stated.

I apologize if I've offended anyone here. That was never my intent. However, some of you are going off-the-wall with your responses and reading things I absolutely never stated. You also attacked me. This was uncalled for and completely unnecessary. Obviously I will not be very friendly in my replies, as such. So, if you would dissolve the superficial walls of ego and bias, you may find I'm actually quite pleasant to discuss with and that hostility is completely unnecessary.
Now please, let us return to the topic and not derail it. :) If you wish to continue this conversation, please message me and we will find elsewhere to continue. There is absolutely no need for immaturity here.

[Creative Destruction]

Again, you're uttering nonsense to attempt to make me look foolish and annoy me.

BB doesn't need to utter nonsense or even reply to you. You're doing a well enough job at making yourself look foolish.


The reality of this is simple - you quoted Marx and asked that I point out where he "mentioned" socialism. I pointed out the part of the quote where I believed 'socialism' was being defined, but very clearly pointed out that he did not actually call it 'Socialism'.

It doesn't take much to put two-and-two together and realize that I was merely indicating that terminology has changed since Marx, but the ideologies themselves have not.

So, you're imposing your argument onto Marx and basically stuffing words in his mouth. That's not very honest, I have to say.


Is there a reason that some of you are behaving so rudely and attacking me as such?

You're being a complete idiot and not backing up any of your contentions, to boot. You're just restating your arguments.


Or is this merely because many Socialists are the result of anti-conformism and are unable to adapt to proper social behavior with peers?

I don't know, man. I'm from Texas and we're pretty good at conforming to "proper social behavior." It's just so that when we see someone acting like a complete fool, we don't beat around the bush about it.


It was the same post. I had quoted your very description about two quotations above the aforementioned one.
This:

Is in direct contradiction to this:

See bolded.
If it comes "between" Capitalist society and Communist society, for the same reason you excluded communist society in the parentheses of the first quote you must also exclude capitalist society. Something cannot come between two things if it is one of those things.
You asked me to quote you. There is no way to worm out of this error now.

lol. There's no error here. This stems from your fundamental political misunderstanding (in addition to a basic misunderstanding of language and words.)

If you're "between" something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're completely free from the thing before as you're going to the thing after. In this case, the phrase should be taken to mean "between" full capitalism and full communism. Since the transition of capitalism isn't instantaneous, you're on your way toward communism, but you still have things like the law of value in effect, and thus exploitation. The proletariat still exists, which implies the existence of capitalism still. You don't reach communism until you abolish all of those things, and if you're not in communism, then you're still in capitalism, since there are categorical terms that define both things. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the process in between capitalism as we know it and the communism we're striving for.


By the way, I also asked you to message me to start a new topic if you wanted to continue. We didn't need to derail. I assume that, because I said this, you would think I would not reply and therefore get away with this diversive tactic to destroy my arguments by the fallacy of winning by non-response.

Now who's trying to worm out of the discussion?


Let me point out a few things for you.
1. I did not "correct" anyone. I merely indicated an error.

There was no error to indicate in the first place. The error is yours.


2. I did not state anyone's name regarding this error, but generally stating a fact that it existed.

You weren't stating any facts.


3. Absolutely nothing I've stated is in ignorance.

Thus far it has been, from claiming Marx meant "socialism" as a term for the lower phase of communism and on. If Marx meant to say "socialism" he would've said "socialism." This isn't anything to do with fidelity to Marx and more about recognizing his style of writing. He painfully literal and painfully detailed in the things he meant, which is part of the reason why he's such a difficult read, because he goes into excruciating detail about any word or phrase he uses.


4. You are unable to see a vivid contradiction in your own terminology despite me pointing it out to you directly, which would make you seem quite a bit more ignorant than me.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/508/watch-out-we-got-a-badass-over-here-meme.png


I did not change any terms at all. I remained consistent throughout.

Well, I'll give you this. You have been consistently wrong this entire time.


Furthermore, I never stated Marx agreed with me. Seeing as how the modern definitions of these terms was developed after Marx's lifetime, I can't possibly understand how you could even have mistaken this for something that I've said. You are clearly misunderstanding everything.

No one except for Leninsts regard the "lower phase" of communism as "socialism." I'm sorry, that's not enough to claim that the terms have moved beyond Marx's time. It's evidence that a particular tendency within Marxism got it wrong.


I apologize if I've offended anyone here. That was never my intent. However, some of you are going off-the-wall with your responses and reading things I absolutely never stated. You also attacked me. This was uncalled for and completely unnecessary. Obviously I will not be very friendly in my replies, as such. So, if you would dissolve the superficial walls of ego and bias, you may find I'm actually quite pleasant to discuss with and that hostility is completely unnecessary.

Just stop being an idiot and we won't have anymore issues.

[Subversive]

rednoise, as I stated before, unless you have a real argument to present then do yourself a favor and save some time by not posting. Your meaningless insults and straw men are pointless behavior and you only disgrace yourself with these sort of posts. At least Blake's Baby is attempting an actual argument with me. You are just trolling.

I will reply to the only point you made:

No one except for Leninsts regard the "lower phase" of communism as "socialism." I'm sorry, that's not enough to claim that the terms have moved beyond Marx's time. It's evidence that a particular tendency within Marxism got it wrong.
I posted two sources wherein the definition I use is applied.

One was from marxists.org, which is a respectable and valid source for anything Marxism. You may suggest they are Leninists, or as you formerly called them, Trots, but this does not validate your argument. They are still a respectable source.
The fact they used a quote from Lenin (which was modified in their own words, and thus I was quoting THEM, not Lenin as you had stated) speaks only of the fact they believe Lenin's works to be valid, not necessarily that they are themselves Leninists. In fact, Lenin's original words in this quoted excerpt did not even reference Socialism and Communism. If you read the quote without the additions, Lenin is consistent with Marx's terms, noting that he understood them himself. Something you overlooked in your silly critiques.
As I explained to Blake's Baby, you can respect someone and even agree with their terminology and not necessarily agree with all of their policies. It is perhaps something that you should learn to do, as you clearly have a problem with it right now.

The other was wikipedia, which as we all know is liable to be edited by practically anyone. However, it's also the mainstream form of definitions and descriptions of a concept or person. Therefore, it suitably fits the explanations I have given.

I would have presented more sources, but I did not feel it necessary to do so since the above two should have sufficed, given an open-minded person willing to listen to reason.

Neither you nor Blake's Baby have presented a definition from any source other than yourselves and Marx's original works, wherein only the two of you suggest that the definition is complete and rigid and cannot be adapted.
Both of you have invalid arguments based on the same premise of misunderstandings and misinformation. They stem from nothing but purist and elitist attitude and do not present any actual evidence that these definitions should not, can not, or have not changed over time.

Again, I would suggest not derailing the topic. This is not me attempting to "worm" out of the argument, as I clearly stated we could continue it elsewhere. It is obviously so that the forum maintains order and that the topic's value is not wasted on your petty arguments.

[Creative Destruction]

One was from marxists.org, which is a respectable and valid source for anything Marxism. You may suggest they are Leninists, or as you formerly called them, Trots, but this does not validate your argument. They are still a respectable source.
The fact they used a quote from Lenin (which was modified in their own words, and thus I was quoting THEM, not Lenin as you had stated) speaks only of the fact they believe Lenin's works to be valid, not necessarily they they are themselves Leninists. In fact, Lenin's original words in this quoted excerpt did not even reference Socialism and Communism. This was an addition by the site's authors. Something you overlooked in your critique.
As I explained to Blake's Baby, you can respect someone and even agree with their terminology and not necessarily agree with all of their policies. It is perhaps something that you should learn to do, as you clearly have a problem with it right now.

They're respectable in far as they have a huge and useful archive. That says nothing of their editorial respectability. Of course a collective of Leninists are going to agree with the Leninist definition. That doesn't make it right. You were quoting Lenin. Just because you used a secondary source directly doesn't mean you weren't quoting the primary source. MIA added no new information that would distinguish their definition from Lenin's. You need to learn how citations work.


The other was wikipedia, which as we all know is liable to be edited by practically anyone. However, it's also the mainstream form of definitions and descriptions of a concept or person. Therefore, it suitably fits the explanations I have given.

Wikipedia -- as you said -- can be edited by "practically anyone." It is not a credible source for anything. If I were a moderator and this was a debate of any consequence, I would have disqualified this argument just based on that.


I would have presented more sources, but I did not feel it necessary to do so since the above two should have been perfectly valid.

The problem is you presented: a.) a Leninist source, which I already regarded as being faulty, for reasons that I and BB have already explained several times now. b.) an incredibly non-credible source. I almost embarrassed for you that you would admit using Wikipedia -- for a political page, nonetheless -- and not try to backtrack.


Neither you nor Blake's Baby have presented a definition from any source other than yourselves and Marx's original works, wherein the definition is complete and rigid and cannot be adapted.

It can be adapted, but you haven't presented any solid reasoning for it to be adapted.


Both of you have invalid arguments based on the same premise of misunderstandings and misinformation.

You're contradicting yourself. You just admitted above that we're using the terms as Marx meant it. But then accusing us of "misunderstanding" and "misinformation." That doesn't make any sense. If we're using Marxist arguments here, then you'd expect some level of fidelity to Marx's arguments pending any future reasoning for any changes that may be needed.


They stem from nothing but purist and elitist attitude and do not present any actual evidence that these definitions should not, can not, or have not changed over time.

We never said that they "should not" or "cannot" changed. No reasoning -- neither by you nor Lenin -- has been provided that they should, though.

[Subversive]

They're respectable in far as they have a huge and useful archive. That says nothing of their editorial respectability. Of course a collective of Leninists are going to agree with the Leninist definition. That doesn't make it right. You were quoting Lenin. Just because you used a secondary source directly doesn't mean you weren't quoting the primary source. MIA added no new information that would distinguish their definition from Lenin's. You need to learn how citations work.
Lenin's quote, if I were to have taken it directly, actually would not have expressed my point because, like Marx's quote, it referenced neither "Socialism" nor "Communism" directly.
This may have been what Lenin meant, but who are Marxists.org to add words into Lenin's mouth? Is that not the exact argument you used against me for the exact same thing? Stop being such a massive hypocrite.

Perhaps you should learn how citations work? That would probably have resolved the entire debate right there.



Wikipedia -- as you said -- can be edited by "practically anyone." It is not a credible source for anything. If I were a moderator and this was a debate of any consequence, I would have disqualified this argument just based on that.
Yeah, okay. The old "wikipedia is not a valuable tool for information" argument.
You and I both know that isn't a valid argument. If anything it just points out the fact that you're so horribly biased and hypocritical that you'd unable to even moderate a forum properly.

Sure, it's freely editable, but that also means that those definitions are social and communal. As in, they are acknowledged by a larger scope of society or else they would be constantly changing and improving.

... Or, wait, do you not believe in cooperative development? Hmm, did you say you were a Communist? :P

So, since you're quite picky of the source, what sort of definition could I possibly use to satisfy you?
Or, perhaps, are you simply admitting a bias that no possible source could satisfy you in terms of a socially-accepted modern definition? Because this is what it seems to be to me.



The problem is you presented: a.) a Leninist source, which I already regarded as being faulty, for reasons that I and BB have already explained several times now.
I'll explain that you both regard it as faulty. Though, I will disagree that either of you gave legitimate reasons why.
Nor have you personally proven that marxists.org is a "Leninist source". Please do so if you wish to maintain this point.


b.) an incredibly non-credible source. I almost embarrassed for you that you would admit using Wikipedia -- for a political page, nonetheless -- and not try to backtrack.
Likewise, I am actually quite embarrassed for you that you don't quite understand the natural aspect and importance of socially-collected and moderated information when you simultaneously call yourself a Socialist/Communist, or at the very least a Leftist.

You don't even seem to accept the social-acceptance of this form of mass-media when it is the two things which imply each other! How is that even possible?

But, once again, go ahead and state a kind of source you'd be satisfied with.
Because obviously you have a bias against all sources that support my definitions, which is obviously the reason why you don't accept either of the above.



It can be adapted, but you haven't presented any solid reasoning for it to be adapted.
It's called 'time'. I felt that it was unnecessary to include such a common-sense thing.
Time evolves language. More specifically, it is the social evolution of language over time which simply exists as a natural aspect of social communication and cultural changes.
In other words: Terms and definitions change over time as a simple fact of life and social behavior.

Example: We no longer use Old English. We hast no need for thine language any longer. Comprende, muchacho?



You're contradicting yourself. You just admitted above that we're using the terms as Marx meant it. But then accusing us of "misunderstanding" and "misinformation." That doesn't make any sense.
Why does that not make any sense to you? I don't know how you can be that oblivious.
Your misunderstandings and misinformation come from your arguments and general ignorance of the subject. I am not accusing you of not knowing your historical terminology. I am accusing you of faulty arguments, lack of logic and reasoning, your bias and fallacies, and your egotistical insults.

I don't know how you would not understand this or think it as a contradiction except that you seem to, intentionally, misunderstand or twist everything I say.



We never said that they "should not" or "cannot" changed. No reasoning -- neither by you nor Lenin -- has been provided that they should, though.
It is not my argument that they should change. It is that they already have.
As a result of natural social change, a lot of time and use, and simplification. If you really must ask 'Why?', go ask Lenin's living relatives or something. I don't know, specifically, why this is. It just was.

There is no 'should' in this argument. It is either that they did or did not.

I see from you two that you argue that they should not have changed (though they already did) and that we should revert them (though no explanation as to why we should do that). Though, this seems intermixed with a lot of 'They didn't change', as well.
This argument doesn't satisfy me, and makes me think, especially given the incoherent double-talk, ridiculous straw man arguments, insults, and other fallacies, that you two both merely misunderstand the argument at hand and have only resolved yourselves to some biased chest-beating for no reason other than because I, apparently and inadvertently, challenged your alpha-status.

And once again, I'll point out how irrelevant and truly petty is an argument over nothing but semantics. Can you not just accept that we use different terms to mean the same thing? What is your REAL problem here? I have asked you three or more times now to explain.

So please, stop with the attacks. This is entirely unnecessary. I am merely trying to defend myself at this point. We have long-gone away from the original topic and many people here may still be curious about that. I don't see the issue with creating a new topic and simply PMing me with the link.

[Creative Destruction]

Lenin's quote, if I were to have taken it directly, actually would not have expressed my point because, like Marx's quote, it referenced neither "Socialism" nor "Communism" directly.
This may have been what Lenin meant, but who are Marxists.org to add words into Lenin's mouth? Is that not the exact argument you used against me for the exact same thing? Stop being such a massive hypocrite.

Perhaps you should learn how citations work? That would probably have resolved the entire debate right there.

Have you ever read State and Revolution? (For that matter, have you actually read Marx?) The part that MIA is quoting, earlier in the passage Lenin defines it. They're bringing down his definitions and filling "in the holes," as it were. That is Lenin's definition. Not one created by MIA. Just because they agree with the error, enough to use the passage as representative for a definition, does not make it any less an error.

As for the rest, I don't know what to say to someone who actually thinks that Wikipedia is a credible source for anything and misuses the idea of communism to justify it. Just because it is a collaborative platform doesn't mean it's a useful source to cite in a discussion. I suppose since Stephen Colbert says people should go change random Wikipedia pages to input what he told them to, then that is now the correct definition of a thing.

That's truly, astoundingly, incredibly stupid. Someone who has convinced themselves -- and mounted an ideological argument to justify it -- that using it as a source is... man, I don't even have the words. That's just really fucking dumb.

[Subversive]

Have you ever read State and Revolution? (For that matter, have you actually read Marx?) The part that MIA is quoting, earlier in the passage Lenin defines it. They're bringing down his definitions and filling "in the holes," as it were. That is Lenin's definition. Not one created by MIA. Just because they agree with the error, enough to use the passage as representative for a definition, does not make it any less an error.
I understand that they are "filling in the holes", as you say. That still doesn't excuse your arguments, nor make it true when you state it is an error.

I pointed this out only because, like I stated, I was quoting the website, not Lenin. The difference is that the site paraphrased Lenin, while a direct quotation from Lenin would not have sufficed for a sufficient definition unless I quoted more, as you explained.

There is indeed a difference between a paraphrasing and a quoting. And there is a difference between proving an error and stating there to be one.
You should probably learn both of these differences.



As for the rest, I don't know what to say to someone who actually thinks that Wikipedia is a credible source for anything and misuses the idea of communism to justify it. Just because it is a collaborative platform doesn't mean it's a useful source to cite in a discussion.
Tell me something before you discredit me.
Do you never use wikipedia for information? If you use it, even once, you may now accept you are a hypocrite.

If not, then I ask where you get your information from, how you know those sources are credible, and why you refuse to try using wikipedia?

I believe it was you who stated how I need to learn how citations work? Yet you do not seem to understand that most of Wikipedia's information is cited. And there is a policy regarding the proper citing information. Anyone can follow the links to confirm a source and it's authenticity.

Such a silly argument that you make.


I suppose since Stephen Colbert says people should go change random Wikipedia pages to input what he told them to, then that is now the correct definition of a thing.
There is a difference between intentional misuse, which like in any good system is locked, reversed, and prevented, and misinformation which is carelessly overlooked and not rejected.

If you're attempting to argue that someone has abused the definition I gave you, then prove it or attempt to show that a more accurate one exists elsewhere. This should be very easy to do, given the nature of such things. A simple reference to what the definition was, previously, before the intentional misuse occurred, would suffice.

However, if you're attempting to suggest that the collaborative efforts of society's definition, regarding that page, is somehow untruthful, then this argument needs not only evidence but also further explanation. Neither of which you have given thus far, despite repeated requests.

Now the thing with you believing in Socialism/Communism and ignoring the obvious nature of collaborative projects is the fact that the most basic fundamental ideology is the same. I find it both humorous and extremely sad that you feel this way and don't realize the irony of the situation.
I'm not sure how to respond to it.

As usual, I won't respond to your other childish insults/behavior.
Though, again, I question it's use. Is this a habit of yours? Are you unable to control your anger, or is it simply just my destruction of your arguments which brings this about? I assume it's also partially from the cognitive dissonance rummaging about in your head from the inconsistent ideologies that you hold, as indicated above.

[Creative Destruction]

I understand that they are "filling in the holes", as you say. That still doesn't excuse your arguments, nor make it true when you state it is an error.

According to Marx's argument, it is an error. Again, for reasons that I and BB have explained to you several times now. That is the standpoint that I argue from as a Marxist.


I pointed this out only because, like I stated, I was quoting the website, not Lenin. The difference is that the site paraphrased Lenin, while a direct quotation from Lenin would not have sufficed for a sufficient definition unless I quoted more, as you explained.

There is indeed a difference between a paraphrasing and a quoting. And there is a difference between proving an error and stating there to be one.
You should probably learn both of these differences.

Tell me something before you discredit me.

Let's go to MIA:

Under the heading "Socialism"


"The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production – the factories, machines, land, etc. – and make them private property.... Marx shows the course of development of communist society....which [firstly] consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not [yet] according to needs)."

"But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by marx the "first", or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word "communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism."

Vladimir Lenin
The State and Revolution
Chpt. 5: The first phase of Communist Society

Under the heading "Communism"


"From the moment all members of society, or at least the vast majority, have learned to administer the state themselves, have taken this work into their own hands, have organized control over the insignificant capitalist minority, over the gentry who wish to preserve their capitalist habits and over the workers who have been thoroughly corrupted by capitalism — from this moment the need for government of any kind begins to disappear altogether. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it becomes unnecessary. The more democratic the "state" which consists of the armed workers, and which is "no longer a state in the proper sense of the word", the more rapidly every form of state begins to wither away.

"Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society [Socialism] to its higher phase [Communism], and with it the complete withering away of the state.

Vladimir Lenin
The State and Revolution
Chpt 5. The higher phase of Communist Society

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm

Those are direct quotes from Lenin, which they cite. If you click on the link, it'll send you directly to the page where they quote it.

A paraphrase, on the other hand, is a general (hopefully faithful, but not always) rewording of something by someone else of a primary source. What MIA did with Lenin's Communist definition was not paraphrasing. It was a direct quote and they were using his definitions from a few paragraphs before to clarify the terms within the paragraph. Again, not paraphrasing.

I mean, this is some basic English course stuff you learned in middle school. You can't even tell the difference between a quote and a paraphrase; I was giving you too much credit for thinking that you could understand anything else in this conversation that is related to terminology. The only way it would be okay for you to make such a basic error is if English wasn't your first language. So, tell me, is English not your first language?


Do you never use wikipedia for information? If you use it, even once, you may now accept you are a hypocrite.

If not, then I ask where you get your information from, how you know those sources are credible, and why you refuse to try using wikipedia?

I use Wikipedia as a quick reference and usually drill down to the source and read it myself if I intend on using that source. So, no, I'm not a hypocrite. I'm not saying "Don't use Wikipedia at all." I'm saying "Don't use Wikipedia as a source for your argument." I don't use Wikipedia as a source for my argument. I use the source as a source for my argument.


I believe it was you who stated how I need to learn how citations work? Yet you do not seem to understand that most of Wikipedia's information is cited. And there is a policy regarding the proper citing information. Anyone can follow the links to confirm a source and it's authenticity.

That does not mean that whoever used that source paraphrased it correctly or realizes the nuance in the argument. This is an issue with Wiki's "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" page, which I brought up on the talk menu. They source and quote Marx, even, but the interpretation of that passage is erroneous. Yet it stays up. If I tried removing it, it would probably be put back in.


Such a silly argument that you make.

Well, the silliness here is that you can't understand terminology; either when it comes to English or Marxism.


There is a difference between intentional misuse, which like in any good system is locked, reversed, and prevented, and misinformation which is carelessly overlooked and not rejected.

This says nothing to my argument; it is easily edited by people, who have no expertise in the topic they're writing about, taking information and misinterpreting it for the page. There are some great pages on Wikipedia. I still would not use them as sources in a discussion, debate or in a scholarly context. And I know absolutely no one who would, except for you, apparently.

Are you in school? Do you argue with your teachers over using Wikipedia as a source for your papers? If they let you do this, then they should be promptly removed from their position.


If you're attempting to argue that someone has abused the definition I gave you, then prove it or attempt to show that a more accurate one exists elsewhere. This should be very easy to do, given the nature of such things. A simple reference to what the definition was, previously, before the intentional misuse occurred, would suffice.

I already proved it to you, so did BB; through Marx's argument and logically thinking it through.


However, if you're attempting to suggest that the collaborative efforts of society's definition, regarding that page, is somehow untruthful, then this argument needs not only evidence but also further explanation. Neither of which you have given thus far, despite repeated requests.

Wikipedia and MIA =/= society-at-large. Even if it were, it would not make it automatically true. In our society, the word "socialism" has take on something to refer to the Scandinavian countries all the way to Obama's healthcare reform.

Do you want to give me an argument, now, for why the Scandinavian countries are socialist countries?


Now the thing with you believing in Socialism/Communism and ignoring the obvious nature of collaborative projects is the fact that the most basic fundamental ideology is the same. I find it both humorous and extremely sad that you feel this way and don't realize the irony of the situation.
I'm not sure how to respond to it.

Unfortunately for your argument, these words have meaning. The simple fact of the matter -- if you had actually read Marx, which it doesn't appear you have -- is if Marx meant for the "lower phase" to mean "socialism," he simply would have said it. He didn't. He specifically refers to it as the lower phase of communism. That's the important qualifier here and it's the reason why he doesn't place it in a socialist >> communist schema. It's all communism. If he doesn't make the distinction, the logical thing to think is that he doesn't think there is a distinction between communism or socialism (meaning, the early phase is not "socialism" whereas the latter phase is "communism" -- they're both communism.) If you were to argue that socialism == the dictatorship of the proletariat, then that is wrong, as well, but wrong in entirely different manner. It's completely illogical. You can't have socialism (assuming there is no distinction between communism and socialism) in a society where there are classes; so that just by itself disproves the assertion that socialism is the same thing as the revolutionary dictatorship.

I'm not accusing you of making that last argument. The point in pointing that out is that these words and the consistent use of them matters. If you have a reasoning for why that should change, then you need to present that reasoning. You have not done that, except to directly quote Lenin, who gave erroneous reasoning for his change, and you just said "time = words changing," which is just wrong itself. Time itself is not responsible for how words gain new meanings.


As usual, I won't respond to your other childish insults/behavior.
Though, again, I question it's use. Is this a habit of yours? Are you unable to control your anger, or is it simply just my destruction of your arguments which brings this about? I assume it's also partially from the cognitive dissonance rummaging about in your head from the inconsistent ideologies that you hold, as indicated above.

It's much simpler than that: I have a short fuse when it comes morons and their dumb argument.

[RedMaterialist]

As the 'revolutionary working class' is a product of capitalist relations, and the revolution begins in a capitalist society, and the revolution doesn't transform capitalist society until it destroys it completely, then yes, "capitalism is the natural, historical, economic, social structure of the revolutionary working class". The revolutionary working class must by definition be revolting in capitalism.

Once there is no more capitalism, the working class is 1-not revolting; and 2-not a working class any more.

The revolutionary dictatorship of the working class exists as part of capitalist society? I must say that sounds odd. Are you part of the tendency/school, etc. which believes the Soviet Union failed because it was "state capitalism?"

That would be like the feudal lords allowing the burgher guilds to establish political control on the estates. Or the slave owners allowing the slaves to set up their own dictatorship in slavery.

[RedMaterialist]

Have you ever read State and Revolution? (For that matter, have you actually read Marx?)

You seem to be agreeing that Lenin defined socialism and communism as two different (although related) stages of development following capitalism. And, of course, Marx never specifically separated the two terms (although he came close in The Gotha Programme.

Lenin had the experience of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, WWI and the rebuilding of the Soviet economy after the civil war while under the threat of world capitalism. Why is it not reasonable to argue that Lenin used this historical experience to identify socialism as a separate, antecedent phase of transition to communism?

In the same way, Marx used the historical lesson of the 1871 Paris Commune to show that the bourgeois state cannot be simply taken over, but must be completely destroyed.

Marx would have been the last to claim that his was the last word on socialism or communism.

[Creative Destruction]

You seem to be agreeing that Lenin defined socialism and communism as two different (although related) stages of development following capitalism.

No, I never did that.

[RedMaterialist]

No, I never did that.

When you cited:

""But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by marx the "first", or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word "communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism..."

from State and Revolution, it seems pretty clear that Lenin made a distinction, even a scienfiic distinction, between the two.

[Creative Destruction]

The revolutionary dictatorship of the working class exists as part of capitalist society? I must say that sounds odd.

Then you're saying Marx sounds "odd."

Think about what he says in Critique of the Gotha Program:


What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

He specifically calls this out as the lower-phrase of communism; where it has not developed on it's own foundations; it's developing still with the "birthmarks" of the old society it has just abolished: capitalism. That means he views the dictatorship of the proletariat as happening preceding communism, which means that there is still a capitalist base during the proletarian dictatorship.

It's not socialism, which is the same as communism, because that is an economic mode of production that is the negation of capitalism in whole, and where the state, and thus class, has been abolished. During what mode of production is the dotp happening then? It necessarily cannot be socialism/communism, and since the dotp is not a mode of production itself -- it's a revolutionary event, the process of abolishing capitalism -- then it has to be happening while capitalism is still in effect.

Another way of looking at it is this: what is the dictatorship of the proletariat? It's the act of abolishing capitalism. Once it has abolished capitalism, then we have no capitalism to abolish. We've transformed it into communism. It is an event that necessarily depends on capitalism existing, otherwise there would be no reason for it to exist.

[Creative Destruction]

When you cited:

""But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by marx the "first", or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word "communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism..."

from State and Revolution, it seems pretty clear that Lenin made a distinction, even a scienfiic distinction, between the two.

I didn't quote him in support of the idea. I quoted it to explain to Subversive the difference between a direct quote and a paraphrase. You might want to pay closer attention to what I'm saying there.

Eta. looking back at your post, I misread it. I apologize for that. Yes, I agree that Lenin does define the two stages as "Socialism" and "Communism." I do not agree with him on this point, so I am not sure, then, what your point is.

[RedMaterialist]

Then you're saying Marx sounds "odd."

Think about what he says in Critique of the Gotha Program:



He specifically calls this out as the lower-phrase of communism; where it has not developed on it's own foundations; it's developing still with the "birthmarks" of the old society it has just abolished: capitalism. That means he views the dictatorship of the proletariat as happening preceding communism, which means that there is still a capitalist base during the proletarian dictatorship.

It's not socialism, which is the same as communism, because that is an economic mode of production that is the negation of capitalism in whole, and where the state, and thus class, has been abolished. During what mode of production is the dotp happening then? It necessarily cannot be socialism/communism, and since the dotp is not a mode of production itself -- it's a revolutionary event, the process of abolishing capitalism -- then it has to be happening while capitalism is still in effect.

Another way of looking at it is this: what is the dictatorship of the proletariat? It's the act of abolishing capitalism. Once it has abolished capitalism, then we have no capitalism to abolish. We've transformed it into communism. It is an event that necessarily depends on capitalism existing, otherwise there would be no reason for it to exist.

Marx uses the birth metaphor to distinguish the new society, communism, from the old society, capitalism. The new society retains the birthmarks from the old. That can't mean that the new child is born and then destroys its mother. The mother dies in the act of birth. The process of the birth is socialism which may be aborted as in the case of the Soviet Union. The birth is usually protracted and bloody, as most dictatorships are.

The revolution destroys the old political order, the bourgeois state, then the new political order, the dictatorship of the proletariat is set up. This dictatorship then goes about the process of destroying capitalism.

What kind of economic structure does the proletariat use while it is destroying capitalism? You and Blake are saying that it uses capitalism. In that case it would only be a short while before capitalism was restored. It cannot possibly be the case that Marx meant that capitalism would be wholly used (other than having some "birthmarks") during the DOP. It would contradict every thing he had ever written.

[RedMaterialist]

I didn't quote him in support of the idea. I quoted it to explain to Subversive the difference between a direct quote and a paraphrase. You might want to pay closer attention to what I'm saying there.

Eta. looking back at your post, I misread it. I apologize for that. Yes, I agree that Lenin does define the two stages as "Socialism" and "Communism." I do not agree with him on this point, so I am not sure, then, what your point is.

Only that Lenin is a fairly good source for the concept of two stages, socialism and communism. In the 20th century there were only two major socialist revolutions, Russia and China. From Lenin's perspective there would be a transitional stage (Stalin apparently disagreed.) I'm not sure what Mao's position was, although he said he was a Marxist-Leninist.

[Creative Destruction]

Only that Lenin is a fairly good source for the concept of two stages, socialism and communism. In the 20th century there were only two major socialist revolutions, Russia and China. From Lenin's perspective there would be a transitional stage (Stalin apparently disagreed.) I'm not sure what Mao's position was, although he said he was a Marxist-Leninist.

That is not an argument that Lenin was correct in making the distinction. Sorry.

[ckaihatsu]

What you're suggesting is *self-contradictory*, since an instrument can't be used to *facilitate* commodity exchange while at the same time not-being a commodity itself.

You're not advancing anything that would be different from the capitalist status quo.





Not true. Your argument is doing nothing but simply stating "this is impossible, therefore you are wrong", yet you present no argument why this is impossible.


My argument is that anything which is *interchangeable* with commodities, is also a commodity -- meaning money.





Marx himself speaks of money being used as nothing but a means of exchange in his explanation of the 'C-M-C' cycle of exchange, which is thoroughly explained in Capital Ch. 4.




Are you an anarchist, by the way? What leads you to believe that money cannot be used as a non-commodity means of exchange?


I'm a 'Marxist - vanguardist', as it says under my username.

Money cannot be used in a non-commodity way as long as it facilitates exchanges, because then it's functioning as a commodity itself.





How else do you believe that Socialism/Communism would be achieved?


The unavoidable step is that the world's working class would have to collectively be in control of the means of mass production.





Are you arguing that Capitalism must necessarily be maintained until a gift-economy can be established?


No, rather that it will just happen that way by default.





To me I'd label that as a pro-Capitalist or Utopian fallacy.


I'm not apologizing for capitalism in any way.


---





We have to first look at the (economic) *function* of whatever's being used -- if some kind of currency-type vehicle is in circulation for the sake of facilitating *exchanges*, then that means it's inherently part of a system of *exchange-values*, since the basic act of exchange is still taking place.

You're suggesting some kind of *reformism* in saying that different laws and rules could be enacted to re-shape the *contours* of how such a system of commodity-exchanges is done, but such laws and rules would certainly not constitute a 'paradigm shift', since the fundamental economic unit of exchange-value is still present.





You are completing misunderstanding me. This is a straw man argument that you've entangled into this discussion that I don't quite know how to unravel. Please go re-read my earlier posts and perhaps then it might become clear what I am referencing.


You may want to specify what part of my statement you consider to be a 'straw man argument'.





I don't see how 'C-M-C' is any different from 'M-C-M' -- since commodities and money are interchangeable, through the economic act of exchanges, it doesn't matter if one starts with one or the other. It's an unending cycle either way.






So.... You are an anarchist, utopian, or otherwise non-Marxist? Because Marx clearly explained the cycles of both C-M-C and M-C-M and why they were not interchangeable. Again, Ch. 4 of Das Kapital.


I'll leave it to you to use your own words here.





Actually, the labor-note proposal does *not* facilitate exchanges, in and of itself. In my previous post (reproduced above) I leveled a *critique* of it, from the left, to indicate how a labor-note system could *devolve*, given insufficiently robust mass political consciousness.

The original labor note idea is to have labor performed and then compensated from entities that administer production goods (factories, etc.) on a collective basis -- the labor notes would just be an entry in a person's account, from which a person could draw for the sake of personal purchases in a market-like economy for *consumer* goods. In this way there would be no *exchange* of labor for money / commodities, since labor notes are *issued*, and no commodification of labor notes since they don't circulate and don't function as capital.





'Could' is the key word there.


I mean to say that it's *conceivably possible*.





And you're essentially agreeing with me entirely, despite the obvious misunderstandings of the above.


I doubt that I am agreeing with you, and you may want to specify exactly what you think these points of agreement are.





You're correct that an insufficient political consciousness could 'devolve' this system, just as it could any system.


Yes, either that or a substantial decline in objective material conditions.





The key point I was making was that the government can play a large beneficial part in maintaining awareness, and thus nullify that possibility.


Again I'll maintain that you're a reformist, based on statements like this one.





However, obviously, a corrupt government could remove the checks and balances in place to maintain such an order and if the people are unaware (and thus unwilling to fight it) then it would indeed 'devolve'.


Basically, although I would use the term 'administration' instead of 'government' here, and I don't think such major changes could take place without the people becoming aware of it.





I will just make a note that I am by far not a reformist. You are clearly mistaken.


You may want to stop making statements that are reformist, then, and instead make statements otherwise.





I am not personally in favor of 'labor-notes', explicitly, either. However, like I explained earlier, this is not a concept that has a strict definition.


Yes, here's a summary of it:





The original labor note idea is to have labor performed and then compensated from entities that administer production goods (factories, etc.) on a collective basis -- the labor notes would just be an entry in a person's account, from which a person could draw for the sake of personal purchases in a market-like economy for *consumer* goods. In this way there would be no *exchange* of labor for money / commodities, since labor notes are *issued*, and no commodification of labor notes since they don't circulate and don't function as capital.





It is merely a term for money as a non-commodity


Actually the labor-notes are *not* exchanged for money or commodities, and they do not circulate, so they are not money.





, as described by Marx in Ch. 4 of Capital. And such approach is one I find valuable.
If you disagree with this fundamental idea, then you also disagree with Marx. And if you disagree with Marx, then we disagree on many things.


You may want to describe 'labor notes' according to your understanding.

[Blake's Baby]

Again, you're uttering nonsense to attempt to make me look foolish and annoy me.
The reality of this is simple - you quoted Marx and asked that I point out where he "mentioned" socialism. I pointed out the part of the quote where I believed 'socialism' was being defined, but very clearly pointed out that he did not actually call it 'Socialism'.
It doesn't take much to put two-and-two together and realize that I was merely indicating that terminology has changed since Marx, but the ideologies themselves have not...

Right - you're claiming that 'socialism' now means something different to what it meant to Marx.

And yet, you're arguing with two Marxist socialists who disagree with you - and saying that we're wrong. Does that not strike you as a bit weird?

So to recap:

You claimed that Marx referred to 'socialism' as a stage in the Critique of the Gotha Programme. I asked you to quote where. You then said he didn't refer to 'socialism', but to the concept of 'socialism' - as you define it.

I thought you meant he was referring to the first stage of communist society (Lenin's definition of socialism). But no, it turns out you were actually referring to the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (neither Marx's nor Lenin's definition of 'socialism'). So this is a third definition of socialism that you've introduced - neither Lenin's nor Marx's, but which you think is the 'right' one, hence you trying to 'correct' rednoise and me in the first place - when we are Marxists, and using Marx's definition.

Then you said I was being inconsistent with my contention that the revolutionary dictatorship was the final stage of capitalism. I admitted that Marx could have been clearer, and asked you to quote where Marx said that the revolutionary dictatorship followed capitalism; you quoted where Marx said that the revolutionary dictatorship followed capitalist society, but claimed that he'd said it followed capitalism. This is part of the problem of using 'capitalism' and 'communism' (and 'socialism' even) for what Marx clearly refers to as 'capitalist society' and 'communist society'. You think 'capitalism' is the same as 'capitalist society' and therefore you think that your definitions are OK but you're distorting Marx by your failure to comprehend the terms he's using (and then spreading your confusion around and believing everyone else shares it).

Yes Marx could have been clearer; but there is a necessary distinction here between 'capitalist society' (society in which the bourgeoisie rules) and 'capitalism' (economic system of wage labour and commodity production). There will still, of necessity, be wage labour and commodity production during the revolutionary period, precisely because we haven't completed the revolution against capitalism. Just like, in going to another country, one must start in the country one is in, and until we get there, we haven't left our own country. The journey starts in capitalism. The revolutionary dictatorship is the process of the journey to. Not 'arriving'.

So if you still think I've been inconsistent, feel free to quote any of my posts from this thread where I say 'the revolutionary dictatorship follows capitalism' which is what you claimed I'd said earlier.


...
By the way, I also asked you to message me to start a new topic if you wanted to continue. We didn't need to derail. I assume that, because I said this, you would think I would not reply and therefore get away with this diversive tactic to destroy my arguments by the fallacy of winning by non-response...

You came to this thread to start throwing your fallacious crap around. Rednoise and I are attempting to clear it up. If you want to stop 'derailing' the thread, then stop derailing the thread. That's your choice. If rednoise and I want to clear up the dogshit you've left behind, that's our choice.



...
Let me point out a few things for you.
1. I did not "correct" anyone. I merely indicated an error.
2. I did not state anyone's name regarding this error, but generally stating a fact that it existed.
3. Absolutely nothing I've stated is in ignorance.
4. You are unable to see a vivid contradiction in your own terminology despite me pointing it out to you directly, which would make you seem quite a bit more ignorant than me...

Feel free to point out where Marx's definition of 'socialism' agrees with your definition of 'socialism'. Then we can talk about who is 'ignorant'.



...
I did not change any terms at all. I remained consistent throughout.
Furthermore, I never stated Marx agreed with me. Seeing as how the modern definitions of these terms was developed after Marx's lifetime, I can't possibly understand how you could even have mistaken this for something that I've said. You are clearly misunderstanding everything.


Yes, and I've never disagreed with anything Marx stated. Understanding this may help to remove your misunderstanding regarding what I have stated...

So you agree that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is a class society, and the first phase of communist society is classless? That's a start.

Only you call either the first phase, or the revolutionary dictatorship (no-ones quite sure which) 'socialism' for no real reason?

Can't you see that when you go around re-defining terms, things become confusing? You end up in a mess understanding both Marx and Lenin.



...I apologize if I've offended anyone here. That was never my intent...

Really? I don't believe you. I think you're arrogant and self-serving and wanted to show off just how much you thought you knew.

Sadly, what you think you know is just some mainstream bullshit. 'Socialism means whatever people say it means'. Yeah, and Obama is a communist, is he? Must be; Fox News says he is.


... However, some of you are going off-the-wall with your responses and reading things I absolutely never stated. You also attacked me. This was uncalled for and completely unnecessary. Obviously I will not be very friendly in my replies, as such. So, if you would dissolve the superficial walls of ego and bias, you may find I'm actually quite pleasant to discuss with and that hostility is completely unnecessary...

On the contrary - you joined in this discussion to argue with our definitions, which are pretty widely accepted in the Marxist movement, outside of Maoist sects that don't know what Marx's schema was.


..
Now please, let us return to the topic and not derail it. :) If you wish to continue this conversation, please message me and we will find elsewhere to continue. There is absolutely no need for immaturity here.

This 'conversation' is rednoise and I cleaning up your shit. So we'll continue to do that while you continue to leave it lying around. You want this to stop? Then stop it.

[Blake's Baby]

...

The revolution destroys the old political order, the bourgeois state, then the new political order, the dictatorship of the proletariat is set up. This dictatorship then goes about the process of destroying capitalism...

Yes - very clearly and succinctly put.

The way Marx uses the terminology, the 'revolutionary dictatorship' follows (because it destroys) capitalist society - what you call 'the old political order, the bourgeois state' - but is in itself a revolutionary 'transformation' (a process of changing from this to that) that destroys capitalism (which must necessarily still exist, or how can the revolutionary dictatorship destroy it?).


...What kind of economic structure does the proletariat use while it is destroying capitalism? You and Blake are saying that it uses capitalism. In that case it would only be a short while before capitalism was restored...

If the revolution fails, then of course. Look at the Soviet Union; this is exactly what happened in the early years after 1917 when the revolution stalled and then rolled back. Capitalism was never really transcended, though the 'the old political order, the bourgeois state' was destroyed - for a short time, before a new bourgeois state reformed itself through a fusion of the Bolshevik Party and the existing skeleton state apparatus.

Though 'What kind of economic structure does the proletariat use...?' is a weird way of putting it. 'What kind of economic structure is the proletariat forced to accept through historical circumstance ...?' is a bit more accurate. I think we should be clear that this isn't a matter of 'policy' but 'circumstance/historical necessity'. One can't overleap historical and material conditions by just deciding to do so. Otherwise, we could just all wish 'communism' was true.


... It cannot possibly be the case that Marx meant that capitalism would be wholly used (other than having some "birthmarks") during the DOP. It would contradict every thing he had ever written.

Not at all. Have you ever read the '10 planks'?

The job of the revolutionary dictatorship is to transform capitalist society into communist society. It must do this starting in capitalist society by establishing itself in a situation that Lenin referred to as 'dual power' - by challenging the power of the bourgeoisie, then overcoming the bourgeoisie - this is the beginning, but only the beginning, of the revolution and the revolutionary transformation. If this society is already post-capitalist, what was it that brought about the transformation? If it is already post-capitalist, how is there still a 'proletariat' to do the 'revolutionary dictating'?

[Subversive]

According to Marx's argument, it is an error.
"According to Marx's argument"? Since when did your argument become his argument? Such a silly statement from a silly person.



Again, for reasons that I and BB have explained to you several times now. That is the standpoint that I argue from as a Marxist.
Yes, you have lots of reasons and lots of arguments. I know that very well now. The problem is that none of them are logical or validly supported.

You can call yourself an invisible-unicorn-leprechaun for all I care, you are not going to convince me of such until you are sufficient in arguing your position.

By the way, why do you make such a brash assumption that someone can't be a Marxist if they use different terminology than you or Marx? If the ideology and the concepts are the same, are they not still a Marxist? I don't know why you can't understand this basic concept.



Well, the silliness here is that you can't understand terminology;
lol, I am amazed by your obtuseness.
My entire argument can be boiled down to simply the basic concept that multiple people can use different terminology to represent the exact same concept.
Something so completely basic in English language that it is mostly just plain common sense. And yet you still have the audacity to suggest I'm the one here which can't understand terminology?
And not only that, but you seem completely unable to put your arguments into a logical form and instead you only resort into pointless insults of an ad hominem fallacy.

lol. I mean, really, the irony of this situation is truly funny.


I already proved it to you, so did BB; through Marx's argument and logically thinking it through.
1. You have proven nothing but your inability to keep a level head and provide a rational argument.

2. You have not presented an "argument" by Marx. Again you mistakenly attribute your own arguments to him.

3. A quotation from Marx regarding his use of terms does not support your inept argument that terminology cannot, has not, and should not change.

4. You have completely failed to understand my argument. Ignored every point I have made. And ultimately only made yourself look ignorant of not just terminology, but of basic social communication.



Wikipedia and MIA =/= society-at-large. Even if it were, it would not make it automatically true.


In our society, the word "socialism" has take on something to refer to the Scandinavian countries all the way to Obama's healthcare reform.
That would be propaganda, though. Generally speaking, that nonsense can be freely ignored since it has absolutely no basis in reason or social development. It is only misinformation applied to a concept.

And while there is some room to argue these definitions are valid, since they are accepted by a large percentage of society, there is also a significant argument to be made that they are also steeped in a complete ignorance of the subject and hijacked from the ideology in order to twist and defame it, rather than to refer to it as a legitimate term. So, again, that propaganda can be freely ignored and this is a justified reaction.

However, if, as I argue, two terms are currently being used as nothing but Synonyms, without an individualized definition, then it is not abusive to the situation to develop their meanings to become distinct. This is what Lenin has done. This is what modern society has done. There is, so far, no justification for your denial of this linguistic development. It is not a justified reaction because the terms are not being hijacked, but instead merely being fully realized; being utilized as distinct concepts, yet still remaining true to reference their earlier concepts.

Do you understand the argument now?
I only argue that terms have (already) changed - but ultimately mean the same things that you speak of.
You, however, argue, incoherently. Sometimes that the terms have not changed, other times you argue that they have changed but should not have done so. The former is based only in ignorance, the latter only in elitism and a purist attitude.

Do you disagree this is your argument? Again, I find it incoherent and I have asked that you clarify it many times now. If I misunderstand your argument then I do so only due to your inability to appropriately respond to this request. If I originally misunderstood you, and had you responded by clarifying, I certainly would have apologized for my mistake. But at this point - I have made no mistakes.


Unfortunately for your argument, these words have meaning. The simple fact of the matter -- if you had actually read Marx, which it doesn't appear you have -- is if Marx meant for the "lower phase" to mean "socialism," he simply would have said it. He didn't.
Perhaps I can clarify this for you then. Despite your claims that I have not read Marx, I have and indeed have not only done this but also know the context and history in which he was writing. However, it seems you are either ignorant of this context or are forfeiting it in order to actively pursue your own interpretation.

In any case, the resolution of this argument is here.
Marx did not use the term 'Socialism' until around 1875. The reasoning behind this was that the term 'Socialism' referred to Utopian-socialism, an idealistic and non-revolutionary ideology that favored seeking out and establishing lone-colonies in order to resolve conflicts they found in the Capitalist system. Marx and Engels both wanted to distance themselves completely from these people (kind of like you're currently trying to distance yourself from Leninists).
However, after writing the Communist Manifesto and after the development of Communist ideals, the Communist movement had gained momentum and around 1875 both Marx and Engels began using the term 'Socialism' to describe Communism, as synonymous terms.
He never used the terms separately because originally he conceived of the two phases of communism when he was still distancing himself from Socialism, prior to the popularity of his own ideology. Or, perhaps, because he never even really thought of it.
Instead, he eventually used the two terms almost simultaneously and synonymously, simply because this is how they were developed.

It was not until Lenin, who was fully aware of the way Marx used his terminology and the distinct phases of society, whom would then differentiate the terminology to make a more generalized theory than Marx's clearly detailed works would entail.

Is this wrong? You, repeatedly, state that it is wrong. You repeatedly state that Marx used the terms differently, despite everyone knowing this.
Yet, what makes you think it is wrong? What, exactly, is your contention?
I have asked you multitudes of times. You ignore me and build your straw men arguments and throw insults at them. As if that were somehow a mature or valid means of argument.

Do you understand yet the foolishness of your endeavor? I do not know how to make it anymore clear.


He specifically refers to it as the lower phase of communism. That's the important qualifier here and it's the reason why he doesn't place it in a socialist >> communist schema. It's all communism. If he doesn't make the distinction, the logical thing to think is that he doesn't think there is a distinction between communism or socialism (meaning, the early phase is not "socialism" whereas the latter phase is "communism" -- they're both communism.)
Yes, that is what Marx believed. However, that is not a sufficient argument for why language, including Marx's terminology, cannot continue to develop over time.
Purism is, however, not a valid reason or support for a claim like this. Purism is nothing but an emotion-filled ventilation system, which equally explains your consistent use of insults rather than challenging yourself to a mature debate.


If you were to argue that socialism == the dictatorship of the proletariat, then that is wrong, as well, but wrong in entirely different manner. It's completely illogical. You can't have socialism (assuming there is no distinction between communism and socialism) in a society where there are classes; so that just by itself disproves the assertion that socialism is the same thing as the revolutionary dictatorship.
Key here being the bolded.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/communism

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/socialism
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/communism

Should I continue? How many of these should I do before it is enough for you to accept that you are wrong?

Go ahead, I challenge you to find me a modern definition where these two words are factually synonyms and in no way distinct.
It has nothing to do with wikipedia being an invalid source, or marxists.org being run by Leninists, or any other sort of nonsense you claim but won't support.

You can argue until you're blue-in-the-face that every source I link to you is invalid for some reason or other, yet I am providing support for my arguments and you still have nothing but an irrational Purist argument.

You deny this only because you hold a fragile ego. It seems to me that it is too much for you to bear being wrong.

So let me qualify something, so you can save a little face. You are correct that if the terms are synonymous then it would be unreasonable to expect Socialism to mean anything but Communism. By definition, if they are synonyms, then they mean the same thing.
You are also correct in that this is how Marx himself used the terms: synonymously.

The error you make is that I have never once denied this. I have never argued with you about this.
The error you make is that they are no longer held as synonyms.

It is, again, nothing but a Purist's argument to suggest anything but this truth. If you disagree - then once again, provide a true, real, actual, reasonable argument that this is so. Anything but a logical explanation and you're merely resorting to pointless nonsense again.



I'm not accusing you of making that last argument. The point in pointing that out is that these words and the consistent use of them matters.
This is, the only time, you have actually presented the truth to your Purism.

However, it still must be supported. You have yet to do so.
You must explain, in a reasonable, logical way, why the consistency and Purism of these words matter. Obviously, I point out once again, you have never even attempted this.



If you have a reasoning for why that should change, then you need to present that reasoning.
Once again, it is not an argument that they "should change".
Do you truly not understand this? They already 'have' changed.
You even accept that Lenin changed them. You pointed this out yourself before I even had a word in it.

This is another of your fallacies. The reasoning being very simple: I have never made the claim that terms "should change". I have only made the claim that they have - something you essentially acknowledge with Lenin, despite your repeated attempts to state that it is "wrong", despite the lack of support or justification for your claim.

By the way, do you understand logical argument? It does not seem you do, as you consistently use a large number of fallacies, as well as using some repeatedly.
Because of this, and the fact I have thoroughly destroyed every one of your arguments, I have obviously grown tired of arguing with you. If you make such careless mistakes again do not expect me to be so nice as to correct and inform you with so much detail.

As for the posts that have been provided since rednoise's post, I will reply to these at a later time. Do not think I will allow such errors and misinformation to escape so easily. ;)

[RedMaterialist]

If the revolution fails, then of course. Look at the Soviet Union; this is exactly what happened in the early years after 1917 when the revolution stalled and then rolled back. Capitalism was never really transcended, though the 'the old political order, the bourgeois state' was destroyed - for a short time, before a new bourgeois state reformed itself through a fusion of the Bolshevik Party and the existing skeleton state apparatus.



According to your theory the Soviet Union was correct in retaining capitalism, i.e. wage-labor and commodity production?

And it didn't matter that the means of production were owned by the state rather than privately?

And the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat destroyed the capitalist state but in the process of using the capitalist economic system the revolution failed because the Bolsheviks fused with a skeleton state apparatus and thus created a new bourgeois state. Correct?

What you're describing is a 'permanent revolution' (i.e. no state apparatus) with capitalist production. I've read a lot of Trotsky but I don't think I've ever read his suggesting that the permanent revolution retain capitalism.

[Blake's Baby]

According to your theory the Soviet Union was correct in retaining capitalism, i.e. wage-labor and commodity production?

And it didn't matter that the means of production were owned by the state rather than privately?

And the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat destroyed the capitalist state but in the process of using the capitalist economic system the revolution failed because the Bolsheviks fused with a skeleton state apparatus and thus created a new bourgeois state. Correct? ...

Not exactly.

How is the Soviet Union 'correct' in retaining capitalism?

This is like arguing that someone is 'correct' for submitting to gravity when they fall of a cliff.

The Soviet Union could not create a communist society in the territory of the Soviet Union, because capitalism (a world system) has not been overthrown. Therefore the Soviet Union (not being autarchic) had no chioce but to continue being a country in which capitalism dominated, despite the fact that during the revolution - as you very clearly stated in your earlier post - the 'old political order, the bourgeois state' had been (temporarily) defeated.

The revolution must keep moving forward, or it dies. The revolution that swept Russia and then the world in 1917-27 stopped moving forward. It died.

It didn't matter that the economy was owned by the state rather than privately, any more than it matters that swathes of the economy in the west are owned by the state. Nationalisation is not communism. State control of the economy is not communism. Otherwise, all we'd have to do would be to make everywhere subject to the US military and we'd have communism.

The revolution died not because the Bolsheviks fused themselves with the state. This was the vehuicle for the counter-revolution, not the fuel. The revolution died because it failed to spread. It died because the SPD turned proto-fascist death-squads onto the workers in Germany, and executed the Spartikists. It died because the Left in Germany failed to provide the political leadership to the German working class that the Bolsheviks had done in Russia. It failed because the German working class - for a variety of reasons - failed to make a revolution.

The world revoluition didn't die in Moscow or Petrograd or even Kronstadt. It died in Berlin (and Glasgow and Seattle and Turin and Shanghai...)


... What you're describing is a 'permanent revolution' (i.e. no state apparatus) with capitalist production. I've read a lot of Trotsky but I don't think I've ever read his suggesting that the permanent revolution retain capitalism.

I don't think it has anything to do with 'permanent revolution'. Permanent revolution is Trotsky's insight (inciddently shared by Lenin, Luxemburg, Bukharin, Bordiga, Pannekoek, all the signatories of the 21 Theses for admission to the Communist International and even the SPGB), and originally elaborated by Marx both in his work on the revolutions of 1848, and later to Vera Zusulich, that it was not necessary for everywhere to undergo a period of sustained liberal-capitalist development; on the contrary, the development of capitalism internationally, on a world scale,was sufficient that communist society was a material possibility at the beginning of the 20th century.

What I'm talking about is the fact that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat exists in a world where capitalism still dominates, and cannot of itself institute communist production - which Lenin agreed upon, indeed insisted upon. He called it 'socialism' but he wasn't right about everything.

If the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat existed in a world where capitalism had already been abolished, then the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat would not be 1) revolutionary - there'd be nothing to revolt against; 2) a dictatorship - there'd be no dictating to be done; and 3) of the proletariat - it would have ceased to exist along with all classes. For the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat to exist, it must be happening inside capitalism.

[Subversive]

I will finish with my thorough dismantling of the arguments against me.


My argument is that anything which is *interchangeable* with commodities, is also a commodity -- meaning money.
You have not argued this, only stated it. I would like to see some reasoning, explanation, and support to indicate that this is true.
As I stated before, I see no indication from anything that this is an inevitable result.



I'm a 'Marxist - vanguardist', as it says under my username.
And I mean no offense, but you can call yourself a unicorn for all I care. What you really are and what you call yourself can be two completely different things. Therefore it is more important to prove something rather than simply state it.



Money cannot be used in a non-commodity way as long as it facilitates exchanges, because then it's functioning as a commodity itself.
Again, this disregards many elements of Das Kapital. Yet you just suggested you are a Marxist, did you not? I think you should choose one or the other and not attempt to mislead me. Or, perhaps more accurately, mislead yourself.



No, rather that it will just happen that way by default.
Are you serious? Again, you oppose Marxist doctrines with this belief.
Do you truly believe that Capitalism is never abolished until we establish a "gift economy"? This is ridiculous. The entire phase of "lower communism" (aka: Socialism) abolishes Capitalism but does not yet possess the capacity for a gift economy or any similar sort of thing.
I'll also note that people often misuse the term 'gift economy'. Marx never spoke of one. So why do so-called Marxists?



I'm not apologizing for capitalism in any way.
Which I assumed. And I find it interesting that you deny being pro-Capitalist, yet do not deny being Utopian.
Since you speak of gift economies and abolishing Capitalism with them, and speak against Marx's writings, then I must assume that I was correct to assume you are a Utopian and not a Marxist.



You may want to specify what part of my statement you consider to be a 'straw man argument'.
The parts where you changed what I said into things I did not say. I don't need to be anymore specific than that, you know what you did, even if you hide it in your subconscious.




I mean to say that it's *conceivably possible*.
This is irrelevant, though.
Marx never suggested that every attempt at a Communist revolution would succeed.
There will absolutely always be problems in overthrowing an old government and establishing a new one, especially when the revolution aims to develop a new form of society, including some policies that have never been used before.
There will always be "conceivably possible" errors in all cases, in all policies. Humanity is never perfect, and there will always be those people whom wish to exploit imperfections.
This is not to say that society cannot adapt, develop, or advance while possessing these 'conceivable possibilities'. It will.

And if the first revolution fails, like with the USSR, then we try and try again. We learn from our past mistakes. Only those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Everyone else learns, acknowledges, and grows.



I doubt that I am agreeing with you, and you may want to specify exactly what you think these points of agreement are.
You're probably correct. Your beliefs are Utopian and I do not agree with Utopian fallacies.



Again I'll maintain that you're a reformist, based on statements like this one.
You are truly hilarious. What in the world could possibly have given you the idea that I am a "reformist" of all things?
You are the one denying Marx. You are the one depending on Utopian fallacies. You are the one who believes that a "conceivable possibility" is enough to forfeit a policy altogether, as if some universally perfect system were to exist.

Not only that, but you strip all context from my words when responding, which is the only way you could possibly have mistaken my posts so badly as to think I was anything even close to a reformist.

I am surely not a reformist. You are absolutely mistaken in every single way. I do hope in the future you will attempt to read my posts within context and not ignore reality.



Basically, although I would use the term 'administration' instead of 'government' here, and I don't think such major changes could take place without the people becoming aware of it.
You are the one so worried about this scenario. But now you're saying you don't think it would actually happen?
Then please, inform me of what your point of this discussion really is, because I thought the entire point of you arguing was that you are worried this possibility is too real to approach it.



You may want to stop making statements that are reformist, then, and instead make statements otherwise.
Give me even a single example where anything I said was ever reformist, without you stripping away the context.
Go ahead, quote me on this so-called "reformist" attitude that you suggest I possess.



Actually the labor-notes are *not* exchanged for money or commodities, and they do not circulate, so they are not money.
Labor notes aren't exchanged for commodities!? What? lol, I can't help but laugh at this.

I apologize for laughing, but this proves you know absolutely nothing about what you argue.
What other point would labor-notes have other than to be exchanged for commodities?
If they are not to be exchanged for commodities, then are they not completely useless?

I assume what you really mean is that they are not exchanged in the traditional way that money is exchanged, where the notes go to the other person to use. This is true, but it would be ludicrous to suggest this means they aren't exchanged for commodities. Going to a producer of commodities and exchanging one's labor-notes, which are then destroyed, for commodities is the entire point of their existence. It allows for exchange without allowing the notes themselves to become commodities, because they are destroyed upon use.
Therefore, there is only the C-M-C cycle. And, as opposed to what you suggested earlier, the C-M-C cycle, in this case, does not devolve back into a M-C-M cycle, because you cannot possibly exchange a commodities for labor-notes.

The only exception would be bribery of officials with commodities (in exchange for approving unearned labor notes), of which this exchange itself would only qualify, again, as C-M-C, because those labor-notes will still be used to earn other commodities - and exchange of commodities for notes and then back again for other commodities. The only corruption here is that some portion of these commodities will be unfairly earned, thus the necessity to bribe someone. Though, such a dubious exchange can become very apparent to others, unlike in the Capitalist money-system, especially if there are measures to counter it by the government, and in which case it would be investigated.

It is true that they do not circulate, though. And that would be the entire point. That is the basic difference of why they are different than just "money".

I hope now you understand labor-notes and why they can, and should, maintain themselves as a non-commodity means of exchange.
Hopefully, as well, you'll also go back and read/re-read some of Marx's works in order to better understand them and then accept actual Marxism, rather than just calling yourself one.

By the way, why are so many of you so willing to just throw out labels? I've been called, in this topic alone, for absolutely no true reasons, a "Leninist", a "reformist", a "moron", an "idiot", and I'm sure other names I've already forgotten.



You may want to describe 'labor notes' according to your understanding.
They are a very simple concept. I already described them well enough, it was only that you rejected the definition which was your own error.
Here is a further explanation of them, if you feel it absolutely necessary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_voucher

This should further clarify any misunderstandings you have about labor-notes. And yes, labor vouchers and labor notes are the same thing.

On to the next tragedy of a post:

Right - you're claiming that 'socialism' now means something different to what it meant to Marx.

And yet, you're arguing with two Marxist socialists who disagree with you - and saying that we're wrong. Does that not strike you as a bit weird?
Yes, it strikes me as somewhat weird that so many of you are claim to be things you are not.
Though, I expected this as much before I came to this forum. This forum is full of improper labels, foolish beliefs, and general misunderstandings. It is, in fact, why I have come here.



You claimed that Marx referred to 'socialism' as a stage in the Critique of the Gotha Programme. I asked you to quote where. You then said he didn't refer to 'socialism', but to the concept of 'socialism' - as you define it.
Correct. Bravo.



I thought you meant he was referring to the first stage of communist society (Lenin's definition of socialism). But no, it turns out you were actually referring to the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (neither Marx's nor Lenin's definition of 'socialism'). So this is a third definition of socialism that you've introduced - neither Lenin's nor Marx's, but which you think is the 'right' one, hence you trying to 'correct' rednoise and me in the first place - when we are Marxists, and using Marx's definition.
Oh, Oh, wait, I take that back. You didn't earn that 'Bravo'.
I did not state that Socialism now refers to the revolutionary DOTP. Rather, it refers to both part of the revolutionary phase and to the lower-phase of communism. By definition it means the social ownership over the means of production.
This event occurs during the revolutionary phase of development, and prior to the 'lower-phase of communism', and after the phase which is Capitalist.
The revolutionary phase itself, being, both part-Capitalist and part-Socialist. It is, obviously, a transitional phase, just like Socialism.

This is according to modern definitions. I am not simply stating it is my definition and the 'right' one, rather I am stating that it is correct because it is the modern terminology. It simply has nothing to do with me, you, Marx, or Lenin. It is about modern terminology as opposed to historical terminology.



Then you said I was being inconsistent with my contention that the revolutionary dictatorship was the final stage of capitalism. I admitted that Marx could have been clearer, and asked you to quote where Marx said that the revolutionary dictatorship followed capitalism; you quoted where Marx said that the revolutionary dictatorship followed capitalist society, but claimed that he'd said it followed capitalism. This is part of the problem of using 'capitalism' and 'communism' (and 'socialism' even) for what Marx clearly refers to as 'capitalist society' and 'communist society'. You think 'capitalism' is the same as 'capitalist society' and therefore you think that your definitions are OK but you're distorting Marx by your failure to comprehend the terms he's using (and then spreading your confusion around and believing everyone else shares it).
You're getting completely confused.

First off, Marx only used the term "Capitalism", itself, very rarely. He mentioned it only two times in the entirety of Das Kapital, both in Ch. 24.
The terms he traditionally used are 'Capitalist', 'Capitalist society', and 'Capitalist mode of production'.

Nowhere in Marx's literature does he ever make a distinction that the Capitalist system is separate from Capitalist society or Capitalist mode of production, or any other distinction therein. They all imply each other.
A Capitalist system (Capitalism) cannot exist without both the Capitalist society and the Capitalist mode of production.
A Capitalist society cannot itself exist without the Capitalist mode of production.
A Capitalist mode of production cannot exist without a Capitalist system and its society.

They are, indeed, not all the exact same thing: However, they are all very closely related and where one can be found, the others can be assumed.

Let me quote Capital Ch. 24, just so you get a feel for how Marx used the term:

So long as the laws of exchange are observed in every single act of exchange the mode of appropriation can be completely revolutionised without in any way affecting the property rights which correspond to commodity production. These same rights remain in force both at the outset, when the product belongs to its producer, who, exchanging equivalent for equivalent, can enrich himself only by his own labour, and also in the period of capitalism, when social wealth becomes to an ever-increasing degree the property of those who are in a position to appropriate continually and ever afresh the unpaid labour of others.
And:

The constant tendency of capital is to force the cost of labour back towards this zero. A writer of the 18th century, often quoted already, the author of the “Essay on Trade and Commerce,” only betrays the innermost secret soul of English capitalism, when he declares the historic mission of England to be the forcing down of English wages to the level of the French and the Dutch.

As you can observe yourself, each time using them as a synonym for 'Capitalist society', just as in the modern definition.
So wherein any of this am I ever "distorting" anything Marx had said, as you suggest that I am doing?

Do not be deceitful. You are merely arguing from ignorance. You act as if you know everything Marx wrote and call me 'wrong', and suggest I am 'distorting' his views. But where is your proof of any of this?
You and rednoise attempt to manipulate this argument by stating that I am wrong - meanwhile providing nothing of proof or validity to suggest that this is true - nothing but your own statements. Meanwhile, I provide more than enough reasoning and evidence to support all of my claims and back them up indefinitely.

Where in this argument will you finally accept that I was never speaking out of ignorance? Do not worry - you have both already formed your conclusion, as I have formed mine. We are speaking past each other. However, I am resolved because I provide legitimate reasoning and evidence. You two, however, provide opinions and misinformation. The few times you do quote Marx you're unable to coherently deliver a point utilizing the quotation effectively to support your argument - only using it as a vain attempt to superficially imitate an actual piece of evidence.

We are done here soon. For there will be absolutely nothing that remains of either of your arguments as I have successfully countered everything you have thrown at me.



Yes Marx could have been clearer; but there is a necessary distinction here between 'capitalist society' (society in which the bourgeoisie rules) and 'capitalism' (economic system of wage labour and commodity production). There will still, of necessity, be wage labour and commodity production during the revolutionary period, precisely because we haven't completed the revolution against capitalism.
I'm really not sure what distinction you're attempting to make here.
Are you trying to suggest that the capitalist mode of production can somehow exist wholly separate from both capitalist society and capitalism itself?
This is more contradiction, or at the very least you should admit that it is unsatisfying and confusing terminology.

I think you're looking too deep into Marx's terms, because of your Purist philosophy, rather than looking at the conceptual ideas behind these things.
Capitalist society exists because of the capitalist mode of production. Without it, they are not capitalist society.
Capitalism, itself, is merely another term for a society wherein both capitalists and the capitalist mode of production exists. Therefore, they all imply each other - if capitalist society exists, then so does capitalism and the mode of production. If the mode of production exists, then so does the society and capitalist system. And any other combination therein.
Why do you try to make them all exclusive things and insist that capitalist society can exist without it's compatible capitalist system, or its mode of production? I do not really understand that.

During the revolutionary period, the private means of ownership is abolished - and with it, Capitalism itself is abolished, and with it Capitalist society. Thus, Socialism is formed (and therefore, the common-sense use of modern terminology). After this period, the society will structure itself so that each worker be paid fairly, or in Marx's words and defining the 'lower phase of communism': 'To each according to contribution'.

There will indeed be a revolutionary phase of development wherein society is still Capitalist, as you can't simply replace an entire system overnight. But this will soon be phased out by the dictatorship of the proletariat, or possibly even by ruling Communists if the case where the publish is not yet class-conscious enough to form the DOTP. This phase is not yet Socialism, obviously. It cannot become Socialism until private ownership is abolished, and therefore the Capitalists core means of exploitation and oppression.

There will also be, realistically, a period between abolishing private ownership and the establishment of fair-pay. This period will still be a revolutionary period, but will necessarily be part of the overall phase of Socialism. Thus the natural development and need for the modern definition; the same one I have been providing.


Just like, in going to another country, one must start in the country one is in, and until we get there, we haven't left our own country.
You're looking at this as black-and-white. Strict borders. However, Social development is anything but black-and-white.

It is, very literally, 'social evolution'.
Just like with biological evolution, transitions come in minute phases of development. There are no border-lines. Monkeys do not simply just become human beings overnight. There is a very long line of monkey-humans inbetween.

Devisive borders, like you imply, are absolutely nothing that Marx ever indicated. Social and political events do not just magically change overnight. Those overnight changes, if they ever occur, are only one small aspect of the overall evolution of society.


The journey starts in capitalism. The revolutionary dictatorship is the process of the journey to. Not 'arriving'.
I agree with that. The revolution and DOTP is a transition. It is part of the journey, as you state.
What I do not agree with is your black-and-white thinking wherein these steps are made in-whole, rather than merely each being a single movement of the foot. The Revolution merely being a moment when a full step is taken. The DOTP, another step. The lower phase, many steps in a different direction. The higher phase, a place where we are finally able see our destination.

They are indeed all just parts of a journey. But we can never forget each step that is made, each movement that is required. That is key to our success - knowing the precisely right steps to take.



So if you still think I've been inconsistent, feel free to quote any of my posts from this thread where I say 'the revolutionary dictatorship follows capitalism' which is what you claimed I'd said earlier.
Then, if you do not agree, perhaps explain to me how a capitalist society exists without capitalism?
I believe we are probably using different definitions, yet again.



You came to this thread to start throwing your fallacious crap around.
LOL. Ridiculous.
Prove this. Show me where. Quote me on even a single fallacy or piece of "crap". I challenge you to find this in my posts.

You two make me laugh.



Rednoise and I are attempting to clear it up.
If by "clear it up" you actually mean 'create it', then you've done a fine job. Otherwise, not so much.


If you want to stop 'derailing' the thread, then stop derailing the thread. That's your choice.
No, what I wanted was for both of your to stop being ridiculous and derailing not only the thread, but my posts as well.
I had no choice in this. I could either watch both of you foolishly spout misinformation, lies, and slander and do nothing about it, or I could speak out and attempt to stop you and express clarity in the situation, especially wherein the conversation can become more focused in an appropriate place.

In other words, you have both lacked maturity and clarity to understand the circumstances I was trying to make clear to you.


If rednoise and I want to clear up the dogshit you've left behind, that's our choice.
I think what should be made clear here is the foolishness of the two of you for even speaking out of place with your ignorance, as you both did. This is what I've done, why I replied to you despite the massive ignorance, multitude of fallacies, and the ridiculous insults.



So you agree that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is a class society, and the first phase of communist society is classless? That's a start.
You are incredibly naive if, after all of my posts, you still do not understand my arguments. I have repeated them multiple times for you, and explained them in multiple ways.

Are you even listening, or did you just blind yourself with anger like rednoise? Pitiful.



Only you call either the first phase, or the revolutionary dictatorship (no-ones quite sure which) 'socialism' for no real reason?
As, I have explained multiple times, it is for a very good reason.
That reason being that the modern definition of 'Socialism' easily fits with part of the revolutionary phase and all of the lower phase of communism.

Are you truly too inept to understand such a very, very simple thing? I mean this is as basic as communication gets. You merely have to read, and think only briefly, to understand it.



Can't you see that when you go around re-defining terms, things become confusing? You end up in a mess understanding both Marx and Lenin.
Once again, ineptitude.
I repeat, again and again and again, I am not the one who redefined anything. I merely use the modern definitions. The way it is understood socially in the modern world.

If you have any disagreements with these definitions then you should honestly speak to someone else - maybe the people who write dictionaries? I am not someone who cares, nor is it my problem.



Really? I don't believe you. I think you're arrogant and self-serving and wanted to show off just how much you thought you knew.
You know, sometimes what someone sees as arrogance is merely their own inability to understand.

I actually try my best to avoid becoming arrogant. I constantly test myself and my abilities, and I often fail. I have often been accused of being arrogant, and I take it somewhat seriously. Not that you would ever know me, but I am someone who accepts errors and uses them to learn and educate myself. However, it must first be the case where someone can actually prove I made an error. I am someone who re-analyzes myself daily, in order to better myself.
How else are we to grow, as people, if not to accept our own errors? This is a necessity for me.

However, the two of you have proven yourselves more than arrogant, many times over. Numerous times I've had to correct you - and not just on Marx and such, but on things like basic reading ability, logical fallacies, and etc.
If you ever did have a fair or valid point - it was lost in your complete train-wreck of posts. Your inability to logically argue a point is an underwhelming task for me to resolve.

Furthermore, it is never my intent to offend anyone. Sometimes it simply becomes necessary to do this when ones' beliefs are not in line with reality. People take offense to being corrected. This is why I mean no offense to anyone here. I am merely pointing out the facts of reality, because your beliefs are not in line with it.

So I just want to make it clear - you have been mistaken about me from the beginning. You have clearly misunderstood my points, and made brash assumptions about the kind of person I am simply because you choose to beat on straw men rather than embrace reality. Therefore, I do objectify your lack of reason and condemn it. Do not mistake this as me condemning you, personally, but only your mistakes and errors.



Sadly, what you think you know is just some mainstream bullshit. 'Socialism means whatever people say it means'. Yeah, and Obama is a communist, is he? Must be; Fox News says he is.
Like I explained to rednoise, there is a distinct and objective difference between hijacked terms and development of language.
What I know is certainly not "mainstream". The way I express it? Perhaps. But I do not see that as a negative trait.

Though, I will admit, most people on this forum probably have issues like this. The entire forum is dedicated to rejecting a part of society and non-conformism. The mentality that is required to prescribe to such systems lends itself to anti-conformity and counter-culture. Most have problems with authority-figures. A lot of them have pent up frustrations, and problems with impulse control. Lots developed these issues due to growing up in social situations that were not really stable or favorable.

This is nothing new. You reject "mainstream" in the same way you reject Capitalism - the same way you likely reject most of society.

Let me guess, you see the mass population as "stupid", don't you? You look down on most people.
People have to 'earn your respect', they never just get it from you.

And something you don't admit - everything is about you.

This is why you have an issue with me. I stated some people here don't know the distinction between Socialism and Communism, and you and rednoise interject not because I was calling either of you out (I actually wasn't even talking about either of you), but because you do not make such a distinction yourself and therefore immediately assumed I was speaking of you. Because, everything is about you and I am a stranger. I am new here, someone who has not yet earned your respect. Someone who is stupid. Someone who does not understand what you understand (Marx).

Truly, do not be naive. I can read you like a book. You do not just open the pages for me, but brag about them. It is an easy read.

You do not need to give me any respect. I'm fine with arguing over things, even if I didn't intend for them to be directed at you. I am not offended by your silly insults. I do not care if you twist my words to make yourself look more intelligent than you really are.

All I care about, here, is the truth. I am here to both teach and to learn.
And so far, you have no truth, so you can not teach me. And so far, you refuse to learn. I am at an impasse.



On the contrary - you joined in this discussion to argue with our definitions, which are pretty widely accepted in the Marxist movement, outside of Maoist sects that don't know what Marx's schema was.
It is hilarious you attempt to tell me why I am here, as if I do not know the reason myself. As if you know me, someone whom you have never met, never talked to before now, and never actually been open to learning anything about. Someone who you have composed straw men arguments about a massive number of times.

Go ahead, prove or at least explain why you think I'm here only to argue with your definitons - and that it is not the two of you who are only here to argue with me - which I will add, you have already stated multiple times was the case in your attempts to "clean up" the mess that you think I made.

Do not be so deceitful. The person you think I am is, apparently, a reflection of yourself. You admitted that you were here only to clarify against my definitions. And you cannot possibly support the accusation that I am here only to argue yours.
Are you lying to yourself, or are you merely hoping that I won't actually read your posts enough to find these sort of contradictions? Each time, you contradict yourself or manipulate the truth in some way.



This 'conversation' is rednoise and I cleaning up your shit. So we'll continue to do that while you continue to leave it lying around. You want this to stop? Then stop it.
When the truth is accepted then I will stop.
I asked only that the two of you bring it elsewhere so that you could be mature and not derail a topic, and also so that you would not drag me into derailing it with you.

Furthermore, you both seem to repeatedly make claims that I am wrong - yet have yet to ever once support that claim.
On the contrary, I have supported arguments against all claims against me; provided evidence and reasoned arguments against your ludicrous behavior. I have only defended myself from atrocious and ridiculous claims, and I have done so meticulously, logically, and with sound evidence. Neither of you have ever provided even a single glimpse of evidence to support any of your Purist nonsense. It is almost embarrassing that I am even having to explain myself to two people so incompetent at arguing their points.

Therefore if you two are attempting to 'clean up' anything, then might I suggest you start only with yourselves. That is where the true issue lies.

I think I am done now. If you want to wreck this conversation and attempt to discredit me, from now on I will not be so detailed, I will merely destruct your fallacies as they are, rather than analyze or explain them, and if you're unable to understand them then that will be no fault of my own. If you want explanations, see this post and my previous ones. I have already said all I need to say on this subject. I have proven myself, and clarified the truth of the matter.

[Creative Destruction]

so, when are you going to have an actual conversation about all of this instead of gish galloping?

[Subversive]

so, when are you going to have an actual conversation about all of this instead of gish galloping?
This is referred to as an 'ad hominem fallacy'.

It is generally used by people who are incapable of an actual argument and only wish to draw attention away from their loss by discrediting their opponent with lies and slander (or in this case, libel).

[Creative Destruction]

This is referred to as an 'ad hominem fallacy'.

It is generally used by people who are incapable of an actual argument and only wish to draw attention away from their loss by discrediting their opponent with lies and slander (or in this case, libel).

Not only do you not know basic English terminology, but you also misuse fallacies. Wonderful.

What you're doing is inundating Blake's Baby and I with tons of "arguments," many of which are wrong or only half-true. I do not feel compelled to actually answer your post because it's just going to be a restatement of what we've told you before, with you restating your wrong argument plus some more completely empty arguments.

Please. Learn what you're talking about first. These conversations will go over better. Stop playing victim.

[RedMaterialist]

The world revoluition didn't die in Moscow or Petrograd or even Kronstadt. It died in Berlin (and Glasgow and Seattle and Turin and Shanghai...)




The revolution died in Seattle because the SPD government murdered Rosa Luxembourg?

...

You say it doesn't matter that the state owns the means of production. Then would it make a difference if the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat owned the means of production? And, if so, what kind of economic system would that be, capitalism?

Another question: The revolutionary proletariat, say, succeeds in a world revolution, but the capitalist mode of production remains, as you say it must. The proletariat then begins to destroy capitalism. In the first year 10% is destroyed, then 10% each year until the entire economic base is destroyed.

What sort of economic system replaces capitalist production in the 5th year? Or does nothing replace capitalist production until the last 1%, as it were, is destroyed?

This also raises the question, I think, of the materialist conception of society: the mode of production determines the social structure; slavery determines slave society, etc. How does the proletariat prevent being transformed into a capitalist society by the underlying capitalist mode of production?

[Creative Destruction]

The revolution died in Seattle because the SPD government murdered Rosa Luxembourg?

How did you acquire this amazing ability to so consistently miss the point all the time?

[Subversive]

Not only do you not know basic English terminology, but you also misuse fallacies. Wonderful.
More ad hominem.



What you're doing is inundating Blake's Baby and I with tons of "arguments," many of which are wrong or only half-true.
Citations needed.


I do not feel compelled to actually answer your post because it's just going to be a restatement of what we've told you before, with you restating your wrong argument plus some more completely empty arguments.
Exactly my point: You never supported your argument to begin with, why start now?



Please. Learn what you're talking about first. These conversations will go over better. Stop playing victim.
Ad hominem. Again.

Tell me: Why are you avoiding the argument other than the reason that you are wrong and that your ego is too fragile to admit the error in judgment?
There is no necessity to respond to every point if it is too much for you - in fact I would support getting straight to the point, since it would mean you actually get to a real point for once instead of just nonsensically resorting to more anger, fallacies, and general avoidance.
You are better off learning to argue than continuing this debate with me when you clearly don't understand how proper debate is supposed to work.

[Creative Destruction]

You are better off learning to argue than continuing this debate with me when you clearly don't understand how proper debate is supposed to work.

This is rich coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between a direct quote and a paraphrase, nor the definitions of the fallacies they're using. Don't let me stop you; keep digging that hole.

[Subversive]

This is rich coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between a direct quote and a paraphrase, nor the definitions of the fallacies they're using. Don't let me stop you; keep digging that hole.
Again, ad hominem.
Do you ever, and I do mean ever, get tired of this charade of yours? Your words are more hollow than a Capitalist politician who pretends to care about the lower class.

But please, feel free to continue avoiding the argument. It is merely proving my point, repeatedly.

[ckaihatsu]

I will finish with my thorough dismantling of the arguments against me.





My argument is that anything which is *interchangeable* with commodities, is also a commodity -- meaning money.





You have not argued this, only stated it. I would like to see some reasoning, explanation, and support to indicate that this is true.
As I stated before, I see no indication from anything that this is an inevitable result.


Here's from a web search:





Capitalists do not see money as a means of exchanging the commodities they produce for the commodities they need but as something to be sought after for its own sake. The capitalist starts with money, transforms it into commodities, then transforms those commodities into more money. Capital is money used to obtain more money. These two different arrangements are summed up respectively in the diagrams C-M-C and M-C-M (C = commodity; M = money). Capitalists are primarily interested in the accumulation of capital and not in the commodities themselves.




http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/marx/section3.rhtml





Marx then compares C-M-C and M-C-M. They are similar in that both have M-C and C-M phases, involving commodities and money, and buyers and sellers. However, in the case of C-M-C, the final product is a use-value, and thus gets spent once and for all. There is no "reflux" of money because it is lost in exchange for the product bought. In M-C-M the seller gets his money back again; the money is not spent, but rather advanced. This reflux of money occurs regardless of whether a profit is made, by the nature of the process. Use-value is the purpose of C-M-C, while exchange-value is the purpose of M-C-M. Money is indistinguishable, and it seems absurd to exchange it for itself. It is distinguishable only in amount. Thus, in M-C-M what really occurs is M-C-M', where M' = M + excess. This excess is called surplus-value. The original value adds to itself and converts the surplus value to capital.




http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/daskapital/section2.rhtml


---





Are you an anarchist, by the way? What leads you to believe that money cannot be used as a non-commodity means of exchange?





I'm a 'Marxist - vanguardist', as it says under my username.





And I mean no offense, but you can call yourself a unicorn for all I care. What you really are and what you call yourself can be two completely different things. Therefore it is more important to prove something rather than simply state it.


Thanks, but I have no interest in "proving" to you that I'm a Marxist - vanguardist. You can call me a unicorn, for all I care.





Money cannot be used in a non-commodity way as long as it facilitates exchanges, because then it's functioning as a commodity itself.





Again, this disregards many elements of Das Kapital. Yet you just suggested you are a Marxist, did you not? I think you should choose one or the other and not attempt to mislead me. Or, perhaps more accurately, mislead yourself.


You may want to specify which parts of Das Kapital you're referring to.





Are you arguing that Capitalism must necessarily be maintained until a gift-economy can be established?





No, rather that it will just happen that way by default.





Are you serious? Again, you oppose Marxist doctrines with this belief.
Do you truly believe that Capitalism is never abolished until we establish a "gift economy"? This is ridiculous. The entire phase of "lower communism" (aka: Socialism) abolishes Capitalism but does not yet possess the capacity for a gift economy or any similar sort of thing.
I'll also note that people often misuse the term 'gift economy'. Marx never spoke of one. So why do so-called Marxists?


Here's from that other thread:





Have you ever heard of a "pot luck" party where everybody brings a dish? The original basis for the phrase is, I think, from the northwest pacific native american "potlach" which was a gathering of people who all brought some food or where one family provided the food, for free....a gift economy.


So, what this practice reveals is that the typical capitalist economy is *not* 100% pervasive, since these kinds of 'potluck' parties continue today, despite the preponderant monolithic nature of capitalist economics / material management.

This is to say that the only variable in play, then, is really that of *scale* -- we know that human society is *capable* of gift-economy-type social relations, but as things currently stand, such 'gift economies' are miniscule in size, or are unplanned, spontaneous events, as with 'paying it forward'.




"Pay it forward" is implemented in contract law of loans in the concept of third party beneficiaries. Specifically, the creditor offers the debtor the option of paying the debt forward by lending it to a third person instead of paying it back to the original creditor. This contract may include the provision that the debtor may repay the debt in kind, lending the same amount to a similarly disadvantaged party once they have the means, and under the same conditions. Debt and payments can be monetary or by good deeds.

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


---





I'm not apologizing for capitalism in any way.





Which I assumed. And I find it interesting that you deny being pro-Capitalist, yet do not deny being Utopian.


Okay, then, to firm it up -- I deny being Utopian.





Since you speak of gift economies and abolishing Capitalism with them, and speak against Marx's writings, then I must assume that I was correct to assume you are a Utopian and not a Marxist.


You're assuming much, and you're seeing dissonance where there is none.

Here's another interpretation of the term:





On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.




https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/


---





You may want to specify what part of my statement you consider to be a 'straw man argument'.





The parts where you changed what I said into things I did not say. I don't need to be anymore specific than that, you know what you did, even if you hide it in your subconscious.


All you have to do is to say what you mean to say.


---





Actually, the labor-note proposal does *not* facilitate exchanges, in and of itself. In my previous post (reproduced above) I leveled a *critique* of it, from the left, to indicate how a labor-note system could *devolve*, given insufficiently robust mass political consciousness.

The original labor note idea is to have labor performed and then compensated from entities that administer production goods (factories, etc.) on a collective basis -- the labor notes would just be an entry in a person's account, from which a person could draw for the sake of personal purchases in a market-like economy for *consumer* goods. In this way there would be no *exchange* of labor for money / commodities, since labor notes are *issued*, and no commodification of labor notes since they don't circulate and don't function as capital.





'Could' is the key word there.





I mean to say that it's *conceivably possible*.





This is irrelevant, though.
Marx never suggested that every attempt at a Communist revolution would succeed.
There will absolutely always be problems in overthrowing an old government and establishing a new one, especially when the revolution aims to develop a new form of society, including some policies that have never been used before.
There will always be "conceivably possible" errors in all cases, in all policies. Humanity is never perfect, and there will always be those people whom wish to exploit imperfections.
This is not to say that society cannot adapt, develop, or advance while possessing these 'conceivable possibilities'. It will.

And if the first revolution fails, like with the USSR, then we try and try again. We learn from our past mistakes. Only those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Everyone else learns, acknowledges, and grows.


---





I doubt that I am agreeing with you, and you may want to specify exactly what you think these points of agreement are.





You're probably correct. Your beliefs are Utopian and I do not agree with Utopian fallacies.


You may want to specify which parts of my position you're dismissing as 'utopian'.


---





The key point I was making was that the government can play a large beneficial part in maintaining awareness, and thus nullify that possibility.





Again I'll maintain that you're a reformist, based on statements like this one.





You are truly hilarious. What in the world could possibly have given you the idea that I am a "reformist" of all things?


This statement of yours:





The key point I was making was that the government can play a large beneficial part in maintaining awareness, and thus nullify that possibility [of insufficient political consciousness].


You're describing a *dependence* on government -- that's reformist.





You are the one denying Marx. You are the one depending on Utopian fallacies.


(I've dealt with this above.)





You are the one who believes that a "conceivable possibility" is enough to forfeit a policy altogether, as if some universally perfect system were to exist.


I have a standing critique of the labor notes proposal, in favor my own unique 'labor credits' construction which is at my blog entry. Here's *another* critique of the 'labor notes' formulation:




Pies Must Line Up

http://s6.postimg.org/5wpihv9ip/140415_2_Pies_Must_Line_Up_xcf_jpg.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/erqcsdyb1/full/)





Not only that, but you strip all context from my words when responding, which is the only way you could possibly have mistaken my posts so badly as to think I was anything even close to a reformist.


My method is to handle responses on a point-by-point basis. If you see any instance where I may have overlooked some content of yours just bring it to my attention.





I am surely not a reformist. You are absolutely mistaken in every single way. I do hope in the future you will attempt to read my posts within context and not ignore reality.


I just reproduced the wording of yours, above, that's reformist in content.


---





However, obviously, a corrupt government could remove the checks and balances in place to maintain such an order and if the people are unaware (and thus unwilling to fight it) then it would indeed 'devolve'.





Basically, although I would use the term 'administration' instead of 'government' here, and I don't think such major changes could take place without the people becoming aware of it.





You are the one so worried about this scenario. But now you're saying you don't think it would actually happen?
Then please, inform me of what your point of this discussion really is, because I thought the entire point of you arguing was that you are worried this possibility is too real to approach it.


No, again, I do *not* advocate the 'labor notes' proposal.





Give me even a single example where anything I said was ever reformist, without you stripping away the context.
Go ahead, quote me on this so-called "reformist" attitude that you suggest I possess.


(See the instance above.)





Actually the labor-notes are *not* exchanged for money or commodities, and they do not circulate, so they are not money.





Labor notes aren't exchanged for commodities!? What? lol, I can't help but laugh at this.

I apologize for laughing, but this proves you know absolutely nothing about what you argue.
What other point would labor-notes have other than to be exchanged for commodities?


Any goods received for labor vouchers earned would *not* be commodities since they would be meant for immediate consumption or use, and not for any exchanges, such as to compile exchange-value:





Such a [labor vouchers] system is proposed by many as a replacement for traditional money while retaining a system of remuneration for work done. It is also a way of ensuring that there is no way to 'make money out of money' as in a capitalist market economy.




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





If they are not to be exchanged for commodities, then are they not completely useless?


(See the aforementioned.)





I assume what you really mean is that they are not exchanged in the traditional way that money is exchanged, where the notes go to the other person to use. This is true, but it would be ludicrous to suggest this means they aren't exchanged for commodities.


We disagree on terminology, then.





Going to a producer of commodities and exchanging one's labor-notes, which are then destroyed, for commodities is the entire point of their existence. It allows for exchange without allowing the notes themselves to become commodities, because they are destroyed upon use.


What you describe is accurate, but you'd rather insist on calling the goods 'commodities', while I see no basis for the use of that term in this context.





Therefore, there is only the C-M-C cycle. And, as opposed to what you suggested earlier, the C-M-C cycle, in this case, does not devolve back into a M-C-M cycle, because you cannot possibly exchange a commodities for labor-notes.


I don't see 'commodities' whatsoever in the 'labor vouchers' context, so I don't see any 'C-M-C' or 'M-C-M' cycle here.





The only exception would be bribery of officials with commodities (in exchange for approving unearned labor notes), of which this exchange itself would only qualify, again, as C-M-C, because those labor-notes will still be used to earn other commodities - and exchange of commodities for notes and then back again for other commodities. The only corruption here is that some portion of these commodities will be unfairly earned, thus the necessity to bribe someone. Though, such a dubious exchange can become very apparent to others, unlike in the Capitalist money-system, especially if there are measures to counter it by the government, and in which case it would be investigated.


So you have your own critique / reservations with the labor notes system. I've already described my own critique of it.





It is true that they do not circulate, though. And that would be the entire point. That is the basic difference of why they are different than just "money".

I hope now you understand labor-notes and why they can, and should, maintain themselves as a non-commodity means of exchange.


Here you're obviously showing *support* for the labor notes system. I, for the record, find it to be irreparably *lacking*. Here's from my blog entry:





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

What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

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

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




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





Hopefully, as well, you'll also go back and read/re-read some of Marx's works in order to better understand them and then accept actual Marxism, rather than just calling yourself one.

By the way, why are so many of you so willing to just throw out labels? I've been called, in this topic alone, for absolutely no true reasons, a "Leninist", a "reformist", a "moron", an "idiot", and I'm sure other names I've already forgotten.


They are a very simple concept. I already described them well enough, it was only that you rejected the definition which was your own error.
Here is a further explanation of them, if you feel it absolutely necessary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_voucher

This should further clarify any misunderstandings you have about labor-notes. And yes, labor vouchers and labor notes are the same thing.

[contracycle]

There's enough information in currently existing books of account to figure out the specific quantity of labour embodied in a product. If you wanted to know what the embodied labour value of a Toshiba laptop was, I'd need Toshiba's books, and their suppliers books and probably their suppliers suppliers books, but it would all be there. We would of course collect and use it differently. Combine that with stuff like RFID and the "internet of things" and this could all be tracked automatically, no subjective valuation required. If you're paranoid about fraud for some reason, you could make them all talk to each other using public key encryption systems.

I mention this because the general concepts of labour vouchers and credits and stuff are over a hundred years old, which means that nobody back then had the slightest inkling of what modern information technology could do. So they were all thinking about how to do these things with paper and typewriters.

[ckaihatsu]

There's enough information in currently existing books of account to figure out the specific quantity of labour embodied in a product. If you wanted to know what the embodied labour value of a Toshiba laptop was, I'd need Toshiba's books, and their suppliers books and probably their suppliers suppliers books, but it would all be there. We would of course collect and use it differently. Combine that with stuff like RFID and the "internet of things" and this could all be tracked automatically, no subjective valuation required. If you're paranoid about fraud for some reason, you could make them all talk to each other using public key encryption systems.

I mention this because the general concepts of labour vouchers and credits and stuff are over a hundred years old, which means that nobody back then had the slightest inkling of what modern information technology could do. So they were all thinking about how to do these things with paper and typewriters.


Gotta love that can-do spirit, but what about the supplier's supplier's *supplier's* books -- ? And what about the supplier's supplier's supplier's supplier's books, not to mention all of the accompanying labor value that went into all of the aforementioned -- ?

This attempt to trace back all antecedent labor efforts and materials (which are all ultimately derived from labor themselves), is akin to an exercise in finding the origins of all geneaology, except that here you want to do it for each and every part that rolls off the assembly line.

I'll note, for the sake of clarification, that the 'labor credits' approach outlined towards the end of post #63 is a unique and fairly recent development, and would not require this proposed exercise in labor-value geneaology.

[Creative Destruction]

Gotta love that can-do spirit, but what about the supplier's supplier's *supplier's* books -- ? And what about the supplier's supplier's supplier's supplier's books, not to mention all of the accompanying labor value that went into all of the aforementioned -- ?

This attempt to trace back all antecedent labor efforts and materials (which are all ultimately derived from labor themselves), is akin to an exercise in finding the origins of all geneaology, except that here you want to do it for each and every part that rolls off the assembly line.

Except it's not. The "How It's Made" show basically does it in the span of a 5 minute video, tracing the origin of a commodity from beginning to end. We're not trying to solve abiogenesis of life on Earth and this isn't like that. What you're proposing here is a version of God of the gaps: because you specifically don't know of these resources, then you write it off as impossible to know.

[ckaihatsu]

Except it's not. The "How It's Made" show basically does it in the span of a 5 minute video, tracing the origin of a commodity from beginning to end. We're not trying to solve abiogenesis of life on Earth and this isn't like that.


Okay, you may want to describe what you're proposing, then.

[Creative Destruction]

Okay, you may want to describe what you're proposing, then.

It's exactly what contracycle proposed.

[ckaihatsu]

It's exactly what contracycle proposed.


Okay, then how is the value of one labor voucher determined? (What is the value of one labor voucher, relative to whatever else -- ?)

[Creative Destruction]

Okay, then how is the value of one labor voucher determined? (What is the value of one labor voucher, relative to whatever else -- ?)

The value of one labor voucher is one hour of labor done. Labor vouchers do not have relative value to other things except labor, like the dollar does (where the value $1 roughly represents the GDP of an economy in a post-gold economy), otherwise it would be money. Labor vouchers aren't money, since money is an indirect representation of labor. Vouchers are direct representations of labor.

You work 40 hours, deductions are made for social obligations and you get the rest in return so you have access to the general social product (or what is scarce in the general social product, to be exact.)

[Blake's Baby]

...


It is, very literally, 'social evolution'.
Just like with biological evolution, transitions come in minute phases of development. There are no border-lines. Monkeys do not simply just become human beings overnight. There is a very long line of monkey-humans inbetween...

Ah, you see, my goal is revolution not evolution. I think this may be the cause of your problem.



...

Then, if you do not agree, perhaps explain to me how a capitalist society exists without capitalism?
I believe we are probably using different definitions, yet again...


Why don't you quote where I you think I said it, and I'll show you yet again where you're mistaken?


...

LOL. Ridiculous.
Prove this. Show me where. Quote me on even a single fallacy or piece of "crap". I challenge you to find this in my posts.

You two make me laugh...

Well, let's start with the contention that 'socialism' is different to communism.

Show me where Marx uses 'socialism' in contradistinction to 'communism', which is where you blundered into this thread.

Words have technical meanings. You should know this, you were bloviating earlier about me describing rednoise and myself as Marxists, and claiming we weren't. Only if 'Marxist' means something. So, as 'socialist' means something, you don't get to redefine it.

You made a very good point earlier about Old English. We don't speak it any more. Why? Well, we've agreed not to. The language has developed.

We have not agreed to redefine 'socialism'. So, no, you don't get to arbitrarily change the meanings of terms just because Fox thinks 'socialism' means 'state intervention in the economy'.

'Mass' is a Catholic ritual, yes? Everyone knows that. So, force = mass times acceleration must mean, force equals Catholic priests going faster, yes?

'Volume' means 'how loud something is'. And yet, you'd be hard pressed to find the volume of a sphere with that definition, wouldn't you?

We don't give a toss for your populist, none-technical, idiot definitions. If you want to wade into a discussion and try to change technical terms, please try to have an argument.



...
Let me guess, you see the mass population as "stupid", don't you? You look down on most people.
People have to 'earn your respect', they never just get it from you...

Have you ever heard of 'transference'? It's when someone assumes other people have the same mental problems that they themselves have. Another way of describing the phenomenon is in the phrase 'don't judge everyone by your own standards'.




...
This is why you have an issue with me. I stated some people here don't know the distinction between Socialism and Communism, and you and rednoise interject not because I was calling either of you out (I actually wasn't even talking about either of you), but because you do not make such a distinction yourself and therefore immediately assumed I was speaking of you. Because, everything is about you and I am a stranger. I am new here, someone who has not yet earned your respect. Someone who is stupid. Someone who does not understand what you understand (Marx)...

You're right that you don't uderstand Marx, but wrong to think that our reaction was because you're new. If you'd be here 5 years and argued in this manner, we'd still demonstrate you're wrong.



...
Go ahead, prove or at least explain why you think I'm here only to argue with your definitons - and that it is not the two of you who are only here to argue with me - which I will add, you have already stated multiple times was the case in your attempts to "clean up" the mess that you think I made...

Of course, reddnoise and I joined this forum years ago, just to argue with you when you came along - how stupid of us not to realise it until now! You are, of course, the Messiah long foretold, we should have realised.



...Do not be so deceitful. The person you think I am is, apparently, a reflection of yourself. You admitted that you were here only to clarify against my definitions. And you cannot possibly support the accusation that I am here only to argue yours...

Obviously why both rednoise and I were participating on this thread before you intervened with your drunk-driving wreckage of an intervention.




...

I think I am done now. If you want to wreck this conversation and attempt to discredit me, from now on I will not be so detailed, I will merely destruct your fallacies as they are, rather than analyze or explain them, and if you're unable to understand them then that will be no fault of my own. If you want explanations, see this post and my previous ones. I have already said all I need to say on this subject. I have proven myself, and clarified the truth of the matter.

Good. I'm glad about that at any rate.

[ckaihatsu]

The value of one labor voucher is one hour of labor done. Labor vouchers do not have relative value to other things except labor, like the dollar does (where the value $1 roughly represents the GDP of an economy in a post-gold economy), otherwise it would be money. Labor vouchers aren't money, since money is an indirect representation of labor. Vouchers are direct representations of labor.


What if the conditions of this labor / labor-hour happen to *vary*, either by hazard/difficulty, by availability/willingness of liberated-labor, or both -- ?

Would the surrounding political economy put all of its efforts into upholding and maintaining this '1 LV = 1 labor hour' ratio, irrespective of any and all external real-world conditions -- ?

[RedMaterialist]

How did you acquire this amazing ability to so consistently miss the point all the time?

That's what he said, unless I am missing the irony.

[Creative Destruction]

What if the conditions of this labor / labor-hour happen to *vary*, either by hazard/difficulty, by availability/willingness of liberated-labor, or both -- ?

You're remunerated for hours done, rather than any subjective definition of "hazard" and "difficulty." (This varies from person to person.) It's the only objective calculation of direct labor that I am aware of. If there is a shortage of labor for something that needs to be done, then this was my earlier in the thread:


If there is a task that needs to be done, but no one wants to do it and automation hasn't taken care of it, then we'd need to come together to decide how best to make sure it gets done. It kind of violates the principle, but I like the idea of having an "army" of people that serves in an industrial corps for a year or two, just making sure things are running the way they need to be running or doing tasks that no one is volunteering for but still needs human labor to do. I dunno, there are ways to address the issue.

Which would apply in the lower phase as well as the higher phase.


Would the surrounding political economy put all of its efforts into upholding and maintaining this '1 LV = 1 labor hour' ratio, irrespective of any and all external real-world conditions -- ?

This assumes a communist scenario, so it wouldn't be effort but actual reality, just as our reality right now is exchange and commodity-money.

[Creative Destruction]

That's what he said, unless I am missing the irony.

It's not literally what he was saying.

[Blake's Baby]

The revolution died in Seattle because the SPD government murdered Rosa Luxembourg?

...

The most important defeat was Germany I'd say. It wasn't the only defeat. If Rosa had been murdered but revolution broke out in Canada an the USA and the UK, then the working class in Germany might - might - have been inspired to relaunch another revolutionary attempt. If the Shanghai Commune had triggered a rising in East Asia instead of being massacred by the KMT, then perhaps another round of world revolution could have begun. If the Italian workers had overthrown the state and Mussolini never come to power, perhaps France would have followed leading to a revitalisation of the revolutionary wave. But these things didn't happen.

The revolution in Russia went as far as it was able. It needed revitalising from the outside. It wasn't rescued despite heroic but sporadic and ultimately unsuccesful attempts by the workers elsewhere.


... You say it doesn't matter that the state owns the means of production. Then would it make a difference if the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat owned the means of production? And, if so, what kind of economic system would that be, capitalism? ...

In so far as it's a state trading on the world market (because there are no autarchic countries and even revolutionary workers need to eat) then yes, it's state-controlled capitalism. Even if the working class is doing its best to revolutionise production in the liberated territory. The very fact that they're fighting a war - while also trying to get trade deals - with their neighbours must demonstrate to you that it's not socialism. How can 'organising to not-die while killing people' possibly correspond with 'organising for the fullfilment of human wants (or even needs)'?


... Another question: The revolutionary proletariat, say, succeeds in a world revolution, but the capitalist mode of production remains, as you say it must. The proletariat then begins to destroy capitalism. In the first year 10% is destroyed, then 10% each year until the entire economic base is destroyed.

What sort of economic system replaces capitalist production in the 5th year? Or does nothing replace capitalist production until the last 1%, as it were, is destroyed?

This also raises the question, I think, of the materialist conception of society: the mode of production determines the social structure; slavery determines slave society, etc. How does the proletariat prevent being transformed into a capitalist society by the underlying capitalist mode of production?

Good question. By completing the process. This is why there is no 'partial' socialism.

Once all property is collectivised, all capitalists defeated, world capitalism is destroyed worldwide, this means there is no more 'class system' so no more proletariat, no more 'revolution', no more 'dictatorship'.

The proletariat prevents the failure of the revolution by pushing forwards. It fails by stopping. If the bourgeoisie manages to contain the revolution, it dies and the old order re-asserts itself - either through an open reaction (eg under Mussolini) or through the ... there really isn't a better word I can think of than 'corruption' of the workers' own organisations (eg the Bolsheviks).

[contracycle]

Gotta love that can-do spirit, but what about the supplier's supplier's *supplier's* books -- ? And what about the supplier's supplier's supplier's supplier's books, not to mention all of the accompanying labor value that went into all of the aforementioned -- ?

But they do all have books. And we have Excel. It's really just an exercise in crunching the data, and that's what our computers are best at.


This attempt to trace back all antecedent labor efforts and materials (which are all ultimately derived from labor themselves), is akin to an exercise in finding the origins of all geneaology, except that here you want to do it for each and every part that rolls off the assembly line.

I'm not saying want, exactly; I'm saying can.


I'll note, for the sake of clarification, that the 'labor credits' approach outlined towards the end of post #63 is a unique and fairly recent development, and would not require this proposed exercise in labor-value geneaology.

It's not clear to me what distinction you're drawing here; all that labour does have to be accounted for and chits or whatever issued, so it's really the same thing, only less organised. My real point is that if you have your eye on that gold toilet seat that Lenin mentioned, you could just scan it with an RFID reader and it will tell you the exact quantity of work that went into producing it down to a fraction of a second. And in the same way, all the work you do can be recorded, so on your way out of the factory you just swipe a debit card thingy over a pad and get credited for the precise quantity of socially necessary labour you've just performed. And it doesn't even matter if you're on speaking terms with the foreman or not.

I also agree with you that we can - as a matter of political decision - choose to regard some hours of labour, due to hazardous or unpleasant conditions, as being multiplied by some factor as an inducement. Perfectly fine with that, just code in another variable and off we go.

[ckaihatsu]

You're remunerated for hours done, rather than any subjective definition of "hazard" and "difficulty." (This varies from person to person.) It's the only objective calculation of direct labor that I am aware of. If there is a shortage of labor for something that needs to be done, then this was my proposal in another thread:




If there is a task that needs to be done, but no one wants to do it and automation hasn't taken care of it, then we'd need to come together to decide how best to make sure it gets done. It kind of violates the principle, but I like the idea of having an "army" of people that serves in an industrial corps for a year or two, just making sure things are running the way they need to be running or doing tasks that no one is volunteering for but still needs human labor to do. I dunno, there are ways to address the issue.




Which would apply in the lower phase as well as the higher phase.


Okay, so you're showing that there would be a dependence on an institutional-type *voluntarism*. And if sufficient liberated-labor was *lacking* from this institutional voluntarism, what recourse would society have, as a collective, to make sure that socially needed tasks actually got done?

You're also asserting that, statistically / objectively, all subjective variations over 'hazard' and 'difficulty' would just average-out, so that over a whole population, no large-scale preferences would be visible.

I happen to disagree that 'hazard' and 'difficulty' are entirely subjective -- I would think that large-scale preferences *would* be visible.

But, leaving that aside for the moment, I'll raise the point of reaching-into-the-past -- the term 'labor' generally brings to mind a *realtime* kind of activity one that immediately changes the configuration of materials, etc., in the present-time. But what about *research* -- any kind of activity that seeks to solve a problem by consulting with the results of past efforts, as with poring over experimental / empirical data -- ? Would the labor for 'research', while at times critically necessary, be generally considered as 'on par' with all other kinds of labor?




Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://s6.postimg.org/567knh33l/2520219100046342459hj_Klk_C_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/3r5zyr20d/full/)





This assumes a communist scenario, so it wouldn't be effort but actual reality, just as our reality right now is exchange and commodity-money.


Acknowledged.

[ckaihatsu]

But they do all have books. And we have Excel. It's really just an exercise in crunching the data, and that's what our computers are best at.


I'm not doubting any aspect of technological *prowess*, but, rather, where one would draw the 'cut-off' line in the past that divides 'all-this-will-be-included' from 'all-that-will-*not*-be-included'.





I'm not saying want, exactly; I'm saying can.


(Okay, I'll just refer to my point above.)





It's not clear to me what distinction you're drawing here; all that labour does have to be accounted for and chits or whatever issued, so it's really the same thing, only less organised.


One distinction, offhand, is that labor notes / vouchers don't circulate, while my 'labor credits' *do* circulate.





My real point is that if you have your eye on that gold toilet seat that Lenin mentioned, you could just scan it with an RFID reader and it will tell you the exact quantity of work that went into producing it down to a fraction of a second. And in the same way, all the work you do can be recorded, so on your way out of the factory you just swipe a debit card thingy over a pad and get credited for the precise quantity of socially necessary labour you've just performed. And it doesn't even matter if you're on speaking terms with the foreman or not.


Again, I can only marvel at your can-do spirit and grasp of current technological means, but I'll continue to question your *logistics*, in terms of how far back in time you go with the collection of data that you consider to be 'valid', and included in the calculation of what one single labor voucher is worth.





I also agree with you that we can - as a matter of political decision - choose to regard some hours of labour, due to hazardous or unpleasant conditions, as being multiplied by some factor as an inducement. Perfectly fine with that, just code in another variable and off we go.


Sounds good -- now how would you address the availability/willingness 'variable' -- if there's a mass political decision to value 'ground leveling' as a matter of priority, for example, but there aren't enough people in the immediate area to actually get this done on the required timetable, what then?

Also:





Okay, then how is the value of one labor voucher determined? (What is the value of one labor voucher, relative to whatever else -- ?)

[RedMaterialist]

There's enough information in currently existing books of account to figure out the specific quantity of labour embodied in a product.

We already have something which tells us the current and past labor and surplus value contained in a commodity: its price.

[motion denied]

Aren't there some Marxist economists (Cockshott etc?) who empirically verified the amount of labour embed in commodities or something like that? I mean, there was a bunch of mathematical wizardry I couldn't get around but...

[Creative Destruction]

We already have something which tells us the current and past labor and surplus value contained in a commodity: its price.

The surplus value obscures the value of the commodity; that's alienation. It's not a good tool if you want to quantify how many labor hours it takes to produce something.

[Creative Destruction]

Okay, so you're showing that there would be a dependence on an institutional-type *voluntarism*. And if sufficient liberated-labor was *lacking* from this institutional voluntarism, what recourse would society have, as a collective, to make sure that socially needed tasks actually got done?

Well, I wasn't exactly advocating voluntarism, necessarily. Liberated-labor here, I think, as well as Marx, just means labor associating with each other in the absence of capitalism and all that comes with it; private property, alienation, the state and what not. Rather, the qualifier I put here was "this may violate the principle," which means that we could institute a conscription situation. And thinking it through a bit more, I don't think it would violate the principle of freely associated labor, anymore than making deductions for social projects would be a "violation." This would obviously be a societal decision, so it may or may not happen, but I think it's an option, if there is truly something that we can't get done. Otherwise, we kick the issue over to whether a particular task can be automated. Or it just doesn't get done.


You're also asserting that, statistically / objectively, all subjective variations over 'hazard' and 'difficulty' would just average-out, so that over a whole population, no large-scale preferences would be visible.

I happen to disagree that 'hazard' and 'difficulty' are entirely subjective -- I would think that large-scale preferences *would* be visible.

There are very few extreme examples you could provide where "hazard" and "difficulty" could be objective assessments. I think getting into fights over who does "harder" work than another will just disintegrate into pissing matches, and that in itself would show that it isn't an objective enough assessment to use for remuneration. Michael Albert proposes people ranking each other's jobs, but that's just really absurd.


But, leaving that aside for the moment, I'll raise the point of reaching-into-the-past -- the term 'labor' generally brings to mind a *realtime* kind of activity one that immediately changes the configuration of materials, etc., in the present-time. But what about *research* -- any kind of activity that seeks to solve a problem by consulting with the results of past efforts, as with poring over experimental / empirical data -- ? Would the labor for 'research', while at times critically necessary, be generally considered as 'on par' with all other kinds of labor?

Is it a task that is useful society? (In other words, does it have use-value?) If so, then you get remunerated the same. It's socially direct labor. It's "on par" with all other kinds of labor in that sense.

I looked at your graph and it's about as incomprehensible and convoluted as all your other ones. It really is useless to me, so I'm not going to address it.

[Creative Destruction]

Aren't there some Marxist economists (Cockshott etc?) who empirically verified the amount of labour embed in commodities or something like that? I mean, there was a bunch of mathematical wizardry I couldn't get around but...

If you can find that, I'd be interested in reading it. I couldn't find anything like this.

[motion denied]

Found here (http://digamo.free.fr/newvalue.pdf). And it's not actually Cockshott, but Edward Chilcote.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, I wasn't exactly advocating voluntarism, necessarily. Liberated-labor here, I think, as well as Marx, just means labor associating with each other in the absence of capitalism and all that comes with it; private property, alienation, the state and what not. Rather, the qualifier I put here was "this may violate the principle," which means that we could institute a conscription situation. And thinking it through a bit more, I don't think it would violate the principle of freely associated labor, anymore than making deductions for social projects would be a "violation." This would obviously be a societal decision, so it may or may not happen, but I think it's an option, if there is truly something that we can't get done. Otherwise, we kick the issue over to whether a particular task can be automated. Or it just doesn't get done.


Okay, acknowledged. Overall what you're describing sounds roughly the same as a gift economy, but with the formalism of a collective administration and formal accounting over labor hours -- which isn't a bad thing.





There are very few extreme examples you could provide where "hazard" and "difficulty" could be objective assessments.


Possibly -- but it's better to have something in place for just such occurrences, I think.





I think getting into fights over who does "harder" work than another will just disintegrate into pissing matches,


This would be the thing to avoid. I'll note that while my 'labor credits' model uses a hazard/difficulty index of multipliers onto labor hours, in practice these multipliers would be elastic, for actual, emergent conditions.







[If] simple basics like ham and yogurt couldn't be readily produced by the communistic gift economy, and were 'scarce' in relation to actual mass demand, they *would* be considered 'luxury goods' in economic terms, and would be *discretionary* in terms of public consumption.

Such a situation would *encourage* liberated-labor -- such as it would be -- to 'step up' to supply its labor for the production of ham and yogurt, because the scarcity and mass demand would encourage others to put in their own labor to earn labor credits, to provide increasing rates of labor credits to those who would be able to produce the much-demanded ham and yogurt. (Note that the ham and yogurt goods themselves would never be 'bought' or 'sold', because the labor credits are only used in regard to labor-*hours* worked, and *not* for exchangeability with any goods, because that would be commodity production.)

This kind of liberated-production assumes that the means of production have been *liberated* and collectivized, so there wouldn't be any need for any kind of finance or capital-based 'ownership' there.





and that in itself would show that it isn't an objective enough assessment to use for remuneration.


Exactly -- hence the need for flexibility, as with somewhat-floating multipliers on labor hours, depending on actual conditions.





Michael Albert proposes people ranking each other's jobs, but that's just really absurd.




Is it a task that is useful society? (In other words, does it have use-value?) If so, then you get remunerated the same. It's socially direct labor. It's "on par" with all other kinds of labor in that sense.


Okay, understood -- again, I have differences with the 'one-size-fits-all' approach to (liberated) labor and labor hours.





I looked at your graph and it's about as incomprehensible and convoluted as all your other ones. It really is useless to me, so I'm not going to address it.


No prob -- as I've probably mentioned before, it's a resource, and, like any resource, it may be more useful to some than to others at any given moment. I put it there for the sake of reference only.

[RedMaterialist]

In so far as it's a state trading on the world market (because there are no autarchic countries and even revolutionary workers need to eat) then yes, it's state-controlled capitalism. Even if the working class is doing its best to revolutionise production in the liberated territory. The very fact that they're fighting a war - while also trying to get trade deals - with their neighbours must demonstrate to you that it's not socialism. How can 'organising to not-die while killing people' possibly correspond with 'organising for the fullfilment of human wants (or even needs)'?

Because the people you are killing are the capitalists and their hangers-on. Whoever said that socialists can't kill people? That's what you do in a war.

You were saying that there won't be any revolutionizing of production, it will remain capitalism until the very last moment, but it will be state capitalism. What is state capitalism but another phrase for "socialism," as Marx described in the Communist Manifesto (the ten planks, as you mentioned? -- credit centralized into the state, ownership of transportation, free education, etc. I really doubt that Marx was advocating the extension of capitalism in the ten planks.)




Once all property is collectivised, all capitalists defeated, world capitalism is destroyed worldwide, this means there is no more 'class system' so no more proletariat, no more 'revolution', no more 'dictatorship'.


I.e., no more state, the state will wither away and die.


The proletariat prevents the failure of the revolution by pushing forwards. It fails by stopping.

True enough. However, in the case of the Soviet Union, it stopped at the borders of the old Russian Empire. But, did the revolution really have a choice? The Russian people were starving and the west was backing the Whites in the Civil War. The Soviets and Stalin were in no condition to press a world revolution, neither was Mao in 1949. They were successful, however, in "exporting revolution" (as the west maintained) to Vietnam and Cuba, and those revolutions also stopped at their borders. Which reminds me that Che Guevara tried to expand the revolution to Columbia, with not too much success, I am afraid.

It's probably a law of history that socialist revolutions always stop at the border until at a certain point of development enough of the revolutions have the strength to coalesce into a world revolution. Somewhat similar to the old boiling water example, quantity into quality, etc.

[RedMaterialist]

The surplus value obscures the value of the commodity; that's alienation. It's not a good tool if you want to quantify how many labor hours it takes to produce something.

It's the form of the commodity which obscures (i.e., fetishizes) its value.

It's almost impossible to establish the value of something by labor hours, primarily because one person's labor hour is different from another's (as Marx showed in The Gotha Programme. If it takes .1 hrs to produce a factory-made chair and 10 hrs to do a heart transplant, are you going to give the factory worker a .1 labor note and the heart surgeon a 10 labor note? Who would then decide what a bar of soap costs? $.01 labor note? You end up in a fantastic and insane system.

In the system we now have the factory worker makes $7.25 per hour and the surgeon about $100 per hour because their labor is a commodity which must be sold. It is unequal pay for unequal work. However, under socialism the surgeon would be taxed at 90% and the factory worker guaranteed health care, education for his kids, decent housing, etc., exactly as Marx described in Gotha.

In other words, the capitalist system of wage-labor would be used by the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (as Blake's Baby maintains.) That would, in my opinion, be socialism. Then, when capitalism is fully eradicated, communism will develop out of socialism and the wage system and commodity production will cease to exist.

[ckaihatsu]

It's the form of the commodity which obscures (i.e., fetishizes) its value.

It's almost impossible to establish the value of something by labor hours, primarily because one person's labor hour is different from another's (as Marx showed in The Gotha Programme. If it takes .1 hrs to produce a factory-made chair and 10 hrs to do a heart transplant, are you going to give the factory worker a .1 labor note and the heart surgeon a 10 labor note? Who would then decide what a bar of soap costs? $.01 labor note? You end up in a fantastic and insane system.

In the system we now have the factory worker makes $7.25 per hour and the surgeon about $100 per hour because their labor is a commodity which must be sold. It is unequal pay for unequal work. However, under socialism the surgeon would be taxed at 90% and the factory worker guaranteed health care, education for his kids, decent housing, etc., exactly as Marx described in Gotha.

In other words, the capitalist system of wage-labor would be used by the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (as Blake's Baby maintains.) That would, in my opinion, be socialism. Then, when capitalism is fully eradicated, communism will develop out of socialism and the wage system and commodity production will cease to exist.




[U]nder socialism the surgeon would be taxed at 90% and the factory worker guaranteed health care, education for his kids, decent housing, etc., exactly as Marx described in Gotha.


While I agree in spirit, the *logistics* of any labor-note-type proposal continue to remain problematic and intractable.

Here all that's been done is to replace a *numeric* designation ($7.25 per hour, $100 per hour), with a *percentage* designation (0% taxed per hour, 90% taxed per hour). The values for either quantities have to be determined somehow, and there's nothing put forward that shows how rates of compensation could be equitably decided *while also* corresponding accurately to existing material quantities. (See the 'Pies Must Line Up' graphic at post #63, in a spoiler.)

Here's the same point, from a past thread:





Would this compensation be decided-on in relation to the labor contributed, or would it be decided-on in relation to the 'value' / worth of the compensation-value itself, meaning the range of goods and services that could be obtained with it -- ?

- If the subsidies are in relation to the *labor inputs*, then that effectively *commodifies* labor, since workers will be looking to see the relative *levels* of compensation given for whatever work inputs, over time. People will know what kinds of work are rewarded more than others and that will be a labor *market* of sorts.

- If the subsidies are in relation to the *compensation value* (goods and services exchangeable for it), then that's effectively *market socialism* since the subsidies now function as cash and will circulate at-will, independently of any and all pre-planning.




The problem with every compensation-for-labor proposal I've seen is that there's a *direct exchangeability* of labor for material rewards, which effectively *commodifies labor*.

[RedMaterialist]

While I agree in spirit, the *logistics* of any labor-note-type proposal continue to remain problematic and intractable.




I was looking at the Chilcote article mentioned a few posts above. Even he admits that determining the labor hour value of an actual commodity (as opposed to proving the abstract idea of the labor value of a commodity) is almost impossible, at least at present.

It seems to me that it has been proven that the value of a commodity is determined by the (socially necessary) amount of labor time used in its production. I wonder if it makes much difference, though, because out of 10,000 economists in the U.S. maybe one is a Marxist. It may be slightly better in Europe, but I doubt that any Marxists work at the EU Central Bank, or have any influence, if they do.

[ckaihatsu]

I was looking at the Chilcote article mentioned a few posts above. Even he admits that determining the labor hour value of an actual commodity (as opposed to proving the abstract idea of the labor value of a commodity) is almost impossible, at least at present.


I'd be interested to hear what anyone thinks about even *theoretically* determining the labor-hour value of a product, either under capitalism or with a post-capitalist labor-notes-type accounting.





It seems to me that it has been proven that the value of a commodity is determined by the (socially necessary) amount of labor time used in its production.


We know this to be true, because those who buy labor time simply sell the *products* of that labor time at a *profit*.




[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://s6.postimg.org/nzhxfqy9d/11_Labor_Capital_Wages_Dividends.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/f4h3589gt/full/)


But in the *post*-capitalist context, nailing-down a logistical definition for *explicitly* describing 'socially necessary' -- especially including consideration of varying types of, and rates for, liberated-labor -- continues to be elusive.





I wonder if it makes much difference, though, because out of 10,000 economists in the U.S. maybe one is a Marxist. It may be slightly better in Europe, but I doubt that any Marxists work at the EU Central Bank, or have any influence, if they do.


I'm sorry, I don't understand the significance of what you're saying here.

[Creative Destruction]

It's the form of the commodity which obscures (i.e., fetishizes) its value.

It's almost impossible to establish the value of something by labor hours, primarily because one person's labor hour is different from another's (as Marx showed in The Gotha Programme.

Marx did not show that in the Critique. What he argued was one hour of labor is the same as another, but some people might accrue more hours than another, based on the ability to work more hours:


What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.

Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.

In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

He is clearly saying here that labor is not unequal itself. He's saying inequity stems from the amount of labor-power one could perform vs. another individual. And it absolutely is not "almost impossible" to quantify labor value. It's difficult work, but it is not "almost impossible." That's ridiculous.


If it takes .1 hrs to produce a factory-made chair and 10 hrs to do a heart transplant, are you going to give the factory worker a .1 labor note and the heart surgeon a 10 labor note?

No, you're going to give the factory worker notes that recognize how many hours of labor he put in working in the factory. You're not paying the worker piecemeal.


Who would then decide what a bar of soap costs? $.01 labor note? You end up in a fantastic and insane system.

Indeed, you would. Good thing that's not what we're talking about here. You're being completely stupid about this.


In the system we now have the factory worker makes $7.25 per hour and the surgeon about $100 per hour because their labor is a commodity which must be sold. It is unequal pay for unequal work. However, under socialism the surgeon would be taxed at 90% and the factory worker guaranteed health care, education for his kids, decent housing, etc., exactly as Marx described in Gotha.

No, "under socialism" there wouldn't be taxes. You don't have a commodity/wage system in socialism. Wages and commodities (which prices like you're contextualizing here implies!) exist in capitalism. Not socialism. Under no part of Marx (and I don't even think Lenin) is what you're saying true.


In other words, the capitalist system of wage-labor would be used by the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat (as Blake's Baby maintains.) That would, in my opinion, be socialism.

It's your invention, and it isn't based on anything Marx wrote.


Then, when capitalism is fully eradicated, communism will develop out of socialism and the wage system and commodity production will cease to exist.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/47/16/c4/4716c4aef92cb70e8f4a2cc40dfc7c38.jpg

[RedMaterialist]

While I agree in spirit, the *logistics* of any labor-note-type proposal continue to remain problematic and intractable.




I was looking at the Chilcote article mentioned a few posts above. Even he admits that determining the labor hour value of an actual commodity (as opposed to proving the abstract idea of the labor value of a commodity) is almost impossible, at least at present.

It seems to me that it has been proven that the value of a commodity is determined by the (socially necessary) amount of labor time used in its production. I wonder if it makes much difference, though, because out of 10,000 economists in the U.S. maybe one is a Marxist. It may be slightly better in Europe, but I doubt that any Marxists work at the EU Central Bank, or have any influence, if they do.

[Creative Destruction]

I was looking at the Chilcote article mentioned a few posts above. Even he admits that determining the labor hour value of an actual commodity (as opposed to proving the abstract idea of the labor value of a commodity) is almost impossible, at least at present.

Where did he say that?

[ckaihatsu]

Apologies to all comrades in advance, but I've really come to take much of Marx's text as basically being *sloganeering* -- as with *any* 'venerable text' there are just too many inherent contradictions and inconsistencies within, if one insists on interpreting it literally.

Here's an example:





Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it.




The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.


These are fine-sounding words, but they suit the time (and still do today, unfortunately). Compare that phrasemaking with the Declaration of Independence, and try to find a way to make the pieces fit in any *literal* way....





We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.




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


---


And here's an inconsistency:





[L]abor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity,




This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. [...] [I]t tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.


So is labor to be measured with 'intensity' in mind, or is unequal individual endowment going to be left as an 'unequal right', with individual productive capacity unaccounted for in any measurement -- ?

[ckaihatsu]

---





While I agree in spirit, the *logistics* of any labor-note-type proposal continue to remain problematic and intractable.





I was looking at the Chilcote article mentioned a few posts above. Even he admits that determining the labor hour value of an actual commodity (as opposed to proving the abstract idea of the labor value of a commodity) is almost impossible, at least at present.





I'd be interested to hear what anyone thinks about even *theoretically* determining the labor-hour value of a product, either under capitalism or with a post-capitalist labor-notes-type accounting.





It seems to me that it has been proven that the value of a commodity is determined by the (socially necessary) amount of labor time used in its production.





We know this to be true, because those who buy labor time simply sell the *products* of that labor time at a *profit*.




[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://s6.postimg.org/nzhxfqy9d/11_Labor_Capital_Wages_Dividends.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/f4h3589gt/full/)


But in the *post*-capitalist context, nailing-down a logistical definition for *explicitly* describing 'socially necessary' -- especially including consideration of varying types of, and rates for, liberated-labor -- continues to be elusive.





I wonder if it makes much difference, though, because out of 10,000 economists in the U.S. maybe one is a Marxist. It may be slightly better in Europe, but I doubt that any Marxists work at the EU Central Bank, or have any influence, if they do.





I'm sorry, I don't understand the significance of what you're saying here.

[ckaihatsu]

(Here's my actual critique, from another thread....)





"The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in proportion."





In other words such a calculation would be impossible to arrive-at in the first place, for the same reasons that it's impossible to determine what fraction of a dollar today is labor-based (as opposed to exchange-value-based).

A simple argument against the conventional conception would be to ask how to handle the benefits of labor on an *inter-generational* basis -- should younger, incoming generations be obligated to rebuild the world anew, from scratch -- ? If not then they're obviously benefitting from *past labor*, which is disproportionate to the limited years of labor they could have possibly put in at such a young age.

[contracycle]

We already have something which tells us the current and past labor and surplus value contained in a commodity: its price.

No, price only does that in the most general sense, and even then, not consistently. A company will have a cut-off price beneath which it is not profitable to produce a good, but it has no inherent ceiling, which is limited only by what buyers are prepared to pay.

The only general effect that price has, and which orthodox capitalist economics struggles to explain without recourse to something like the labour theory of value, is why the price of something like a car or a house is always in a much higher bracket than the price of a pencil.

However, supply and demand break even this down, as in the water-diamond paradox. Water is cheap, being nearly free, requiring only the labour to collect and transport it. Diamonds require a lot of labour to dig up, cut etc. But if you were dying in the desert, you would happily trade a diamond for even a little water.

Capitalist economists use this example to claim that there is no such thing as a "natural" or "true" value to a good; Marx pointed out that this only shows that capitalist exchange is exploitative and to the detriment of human well-being: the more you need a thing, the harder capitalism makes it to get.

[contracycle]

I'm not doubting any aspect of technological *prowess*, but, rather, where one would draw the 'cut-off' line in the past that divides 'all-this-will-be-included' from 'all-that-will-*not*-be-included'.

Do you mean in the sense, back to the beginning of the production chain, or do you mean, back to 1900AD?

As far as production chains go, the only real difficulty is when some of your inputs might come from undeveloped areas. A dubiously legal logging company in the Amazon might not keep proper books, so the paper trail runs cold.

As for historical data, the practical case is that we can use companies existing databases easily enough; that might go back to the late 1960's in a very few cases, but probably only to the late 90's for Mom & Pop stores.

I'm not sure why we need to know this though.



One distinction, offhand, is that labor notes / vouchers don't circulate, while my 'labor credits' *do* circulate.

Sure,I'm only really talking about how data is collected, and whether there needs to be some kind of valuation.



Again, I can only marvel at your can-do spirit and grasp of current technological means, but I'll continue to question your *logistics*, in terms of how far back in time you go with the collection of data that you consider to be 'valid', and included in the calculation of what one single labor voucher is worth.

I trained as a commercial programmer i.e. someone who writes accounting programmes and databases.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't understand why you want this historical information.



Sounds good -- now how would you address the availability/willingness 'variable' -- if there's a mass political decision to value 'ground leveling' as a matter of priority, for example, but there aren't enough people in the immediate area to actually get this done on the required timetable, what then?

I'm only talking about how information can be collected. The point is that we do not need a vast bureaucracy of people monitoring work hours or determining some kind of labour input equivalencies. For whatever scheme you might consider, it is safe to assume that actual quantities of labour performed can be tracked, stored, and communicated globally within seconds.


Okay, then how is the value of one labor voucher determined? (What is the value of one labor voucher, relative to whatever else -- ?)

The same as one other. I took that as a given.

[contracycle]

Apologies to all comrades in advance, but I've really come to take much of Marx's text as basically being *sloganeering* -- as with *any* 'venerable text' there are just too many inherent contradictions and inconsistencies within, if one insists on interpreting it literally.


I am, frankly, quite surprised to hear this.


So is labor to be measured with 'intensity' in mind, or is unequal individual endowment going to be left as an 'unequal right', with individual productive capacity unaccounted for in any measurement -- ?

No, I don't think so. I think that what often gets missed here is that he is talking about socially aggregated labour time. It is still possible for there to be variation in how much or how efficiently workers produce stuff, and that can still be recognised.

The example of a loaf of bread was used in a previous thread, so I'll use it again. As before, the average production time for a loaf is 7 hours across the whole society. If I'm a slack, lazy worker, I can be - I don't sacked and starved. But if it takes me 8 hours to produce that loaf, I can still only claim 7 hours of others peoples labour inputs, because that is what my work is "worth" to the society as a whole. If you are a more efficient worker, and do that loaf in 6 hours, you can take the last hour off and pop down the pub, and still lay claim to 7 hours of others aggregate labour.

The important points in this are: workers can work as much as they choose, they dip in and out of work, because the only person they are beholden to is themselves. If they would rather make fewer claims on others, and instead spend their time on the beach, they can. If someone is a real go-getter, who puts in a lot of work that the rest of society needs, then their productive heroism can be recognised and reciprocated.

So I don't see any problem with the proposition that an hour of labour can be exchanged for another aggregated hour of someone else's labour.

[contracycle]

I'd be interested to hear what anyone thinks about even *theoretically* determining the labor-hour value of a product, either under capitalism or with a post-capitalist labor-notes-type accounting.


OK. The key is visibility.

Lets go back and look at primitive communism for a bit. In this scenario, people live and work intimately. There is probably some work we all do together, like harvesting crops, which can basically be ignored because it can just be allocated equally.

But say you are good at making baskets, sewing clothes, that kind of thing, and I am good at making, say, arrows and stuff. So when we work, we gather in the long house, or around the village centre, and we chat, and maybe sing, and tell jokes, sand speculate on which of the young un's has their eye on the other while we work.

In doing this, each of us has a very clear idea of what the others output is. I see you working on your baskets, you see me working on my arrows. When comes the day that we want to exchange each of our goods for the other's, we have a very precise understanding of what a fair and equitable exchange should be, because each of us knows how much work went into each good. Nobody has made a "profit", and nobody has been ripped off.

The point at which exchange based on price enters the scenario only appears with long distance trade. This is your classic "selling beads to the natives" thing. Say someone turns up from far away with a really really cool stone axe of a type we've never seen before. Because we do not see this production, we have no idea what a fair and equitable exchange would be, because we don't know how much work it took to make. And so without that information, the only thing that matters is psychological, how much we want it.

And so the trader can play us off against each other, to jack up how many baskets or arrows they get in exchange. Even worse, the whole ballpark in which we start bidding need not have any relation to how much work this axe took to produce; it could be hugely inflated by comparison to it's real production requirement, even counting the transport required to bring it here.

Yet this is the core of capitalist price exchange - perception and desire in the context of an absence of information. A genuinely fair exchange is not possible.

But, a future communist society CAN track and then publish the amount of labour time that goods take to produce. The lack of visibility problem goes away, exchanges can now be fair again.

[Blake's Baby]

Because the people you are killing are the capitalists and their hangers-on. Whoever said that socialists can't kill people? That's what you do in a war...

How is 'fighting a war' the same as 'producing for human need'? If you were 'producing for human need' then you'd be making ammunition for your enemies. They're no less human. Their need for ammo is the same as yours. So what's the connection between the war and communist society?


... You were saying that there won't be any revolutionizing of production, it will remain capitalism until the very last moment, but it will be state capitalism. What is state capitalism but another phrase for "socialism," as Marx described in the Communist Manifesto (the ten planks, as you mentioned? -- credit centralized into the state, ownership of transportation, free education, etc. I really doubt that Marx was advocating the extension of capitalism in the ten planks.)...

Because you don't really understand the state, what Marx was talking about, history or anything else about this, you never have.

Of course Marx was talking about the extension of capitalism. He expected the working class to organise to take power in the German states which were, at the time he was writing, not even organised into a single country. The 10 Planks are specifically about the European proletariat completing the bourgeois revolutions - unifying the state, developing the economy, fighting feudalism.

In the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions he realised that the bourgeoisie in Germany was incapable of progressing the revolutionary transformation of socialism. Incidentally, this is the basis of Trotsky's 'permanent revolution'.

Even more so, 1871 demonstrated that the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism (not feudalism) was at least a theoretical possibility; henceforth, the task of the proletariat was not to support bourgeois movements for national liberation or whatever, but to organise for world revolution.

That's why by 1872 Marx and Engels were saying that the 10 Planks were obsolete - capitalism had developed society to the point where the proletariat no longer needed to do those things. The bourgeoisie had done them. Or do you think Bismarck was a socialist?

The position that in the early 20th century, capitalism was an obsolete social formation and the task for the proletariat was the construction of socialist (or communist, if you prefer) society was the position of Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Pannekoek, Bordiga, the SLP in the US and the SPGB in the UK, as well as others. It's conditional upon membership of the 3rd International. The third international was founded specifically on the premise that - with apologies to any Bordigists - capitalism had changed. At one point, capitalism was a revolutionary social system - when it was fighting feudalism. Then, it became the dominant social system, and the new revolutionary social system was that embodied by the proletariat.

I really think you need to quote where you think I said that there will be no revolutionising of production. I'm pretty sure I said no such thing.

As to calling it 'socialism' - much as Subversive, you can call it 'socialism' if you like, but you can't pretend that's what Marx meant, and as I'm a Marxist, I'll use Marx's categories, thanks.



...
I.e., no more state, the state will wither away and die...

Absolutely. This didn't happen in the Soviet Union. I think when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were 183 states in the world, everything was 'property' of one sort or another, and there were at least 4 classes (the bourgeoisie,the artisans, the peasants and the proletariat but I'll be OK if you awanted to include the petite-bourgeoisie, though I'd regard them as a stratum of the bourgeoisie to be honest).




...
True enough. However, in the case of the Soviet Union, it stopped at the borders of the old Russian Empire. But, did the revolution really have a choice? The Russian people were starving and the west was backing the Whites in the Civil War. The Soviets and Stalin were in no condition to press a world revolution, neither was Mao in 1949. They were successful, however, in "exporting revolution" (as the west maintained) to Vietnam and Cuba, and those revolutions also stopped at their borders. Which reminds me that Che Guevara tried to expand the revolution to Columbia, with not too much success, I am afraid.

It's probably a law of history that socialist revolutions always stop at the border until at a certain point of development enough of the revolutions have the strength to coalesce into a world revolution. Somewhat similar to the old boiling water example, quantity into quality, etc.

Oh, I agree. A bubble isn't a boiling. Likewise, a revolutionary state isn't 'a socialism'.

I don't think 'revolutions have to stop at borders'. The point about the revolutionary wave of 1917-27 was that it didn't stop at borders. The working class in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Austria, France, Britain, Canada, USA, China and other places went on the offensive in response. They were all defeated for sure, but the revolution was a world revolution, that happened to go furthest in Russia.

The Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese 'revolutions' were coups by groups more-or-less allied to the Soviet Union. They were not proletarian revolutions at all, so they're irrelevant. They were nationalist revolts and stayed in national borders. Later, these states (including the Soviet Union) exported 'revolution' as a matter of foreign policy, cloaked as 'proletarian internationalism'. When the Soviet Union was making secret deals with Germany (while Germany was massacring communists) and Turkey (while Turkey was massacring communists) and China (when China was massacring communists) this wasn't 'proletarian internationalism' but realpolitik by an imperialist power.

[Subversive]

ckaihatsu, I'm really getting confused by not only what point you're trying to make, but by your excessive use of quotes to fulfill arguments, rather than simply stating a point.

The following lists some of the bigger issues. Hopefully you can address them for me.


I have a standing critique of the labor notes proposal, in favor my own unique 'labor credits' construction which is at my blog entry. Here's *another* critique of the 'labor notes' formulation:
I honestly cannot believe you argued with me about "labor notes", especially as I have described them, when you are literally arguing for what is basically the exact same thing.
You may have your own implementation of a note/credit system, but by no means is your system somehow escaping the arguments you brought up yourself.
Furthermore, I have repeatedly explained to you how labor-notes can be used as a non-commodity means of exchange. And repeatedly you disagreed and stated it impossible - Yet here you are, suggesting that your system, which is ideologically the same thing, can somehow do it - magically.

Your means of argument was pure dishonesty. It was nothing more than an attempt to commercialize your own ideology. I am absolutely repulsed by your deception.


You may want to specify which parts of Das Kapital you're referring to.
I stated the chapters I referred to, more than once.
And not only that, but ironically you even quoted a very important piece yourself, unknowingly and apparently completely oblivious to the fact I was indicating it.

You quoted:

Marx then compares C-M-C and M-C-M. They are similar in that both have M-C and C-M phases, involving commodities and money, and buyers and sellers. However, in the case of C-M-C, the final product is a use-value, and thus gets spent once and for all. There is no "reflux" of money because it is lost in exchange for the product bought.
I bolded the part which I was actually referring to at one point.
This quotation not only explains the difference between C-M-C and M-C-M, and why they are not equivalent (as I explained to you), but also points out that in C-M-C, there is no re-use of money, profit of money, or existence of money after the exchange. The money itself only being used as merely the means of exchange, to exchange use-values of two commodities.

I seriously do not know how you could possibly have quoted Marx exactly where I was referencing him and yet still disagree with me and simultaneously ask me to explain where I was referencing him. It is completely absurd. I can only assume, like the above, that you were deceptively disagreeing with me only to fulfill some ulterior motive.

What is the purpose of these kind of deceptions? Why are you playing this game with me? I do not understand what is your intent.



Here's from that other thread: [... arguments regarding a 'gift economy' ...]
What does a "gift economy" or the other topic have anything to do with labor-notes, your arguments against them, or anything else in this topic at all?
How is any of this relevant? Is that what this is really about, the other topic? Are you upset that I argued with you about gift economies in the other topic, therefore you decided to incoherently disagree with me elsewhere?
Again, I do not understand. These things are completely and utterly unrelated.



You're describing a *dependence* on government -- that's reformist.
There is simply just so much wrong here.

Let me clarify a few things for you:
1. The DOTP is a form of government. Communism itself, even in the upper stages, will still have government. Government does not mean State. You are confused.

2. I don't know what your definition of "reformist" is, but reformism is the ideology that Socialism can come about through small gradual steps of political reform, rather than through revolution. Absolutely nothing - and I do mean nothing - that I have stated here could even resemble an implication that I am a reformist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformism
Reformism is closely associated with both Revisionism and Utopianism.

3. A government, such as the DOTP, can indeed assist in the overall social prevention of corruption. You stating that this is "reformist" is not an argument against that. It is merely an ad hominem fallacy. If you truly disagree with my claims then you should provide a real argument and not just an accusation or insult.

4. The DOTP is also a form of State, and a State can still assist in these things, as well.

5. I do not argue Reformism, Utopianism, Revisionism, Anarchism, or any other nonsense. You will never find this in any of my posts without twisting my words, misunderstanding something, and/or possessing general ignorance of the subject.



My method is to handle responses on a point-by-point basis. If you see any instance where I may have overlooked some content of yours just bring it to my attention.
Every single time!
I would have expected you to resolve the issue by now, since I have brought it to your attention in detail in all previous replies to you.

So, personally, I would suggest you stop your "point-by-point" responses, because it seems you are unable to keep up with context and therefore losing all meaning. In fact, you do it so poorly that you're merely twisting words up and making the entire discussion repulsive.
I suggest that you merely read through the whole post first, in order to understand the larger points, context, issues, and contentions, before you attempt to address individual points. I, very seriously, believe that you are losing the entire meaning of people's posts simply because you're not reading into context. This seems to be the fundamental problem here, and it seems to be true of the other topic where I argued with you, as well.



Any goods received for labor vouchers earned would *not* be commodities since they would be meant for immediate consumption or use, and not for any exchanges, such as to compile exchange-value:
Just to point out there error here:
Like earlier, I'll point out again that you call yourself a Marxist. Yet, you even quoted where Marx refers to the C-M-C type of exchange.

So please tell me: What is it that you think the "C" stands for in "C-M-C"?

Let me help you with that answer:

The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back again into commodities;
Does this help?

Funny thing is, there is irony in the fact you quoted Marx speaking about the C-M-C and M-C-M exchanges earlier. Do you always quote Marx without knowing what he is saying?

Next:


Ah, you see, my goal is revolution not evolution. I think this may be the cause of your problem.
Again, you're merely nitpicking semantics for no reason at all.
A revolution is part of the natural evolution of society, as it has always been throughout history - as Marx has described it.

It is evolution because it is indeed gradual development over time. But, just like with evolution, there are events where some species can no longer survive.
The revolution is the casting out, the extinction, of Capitalism, and growth of the Proletariat. The Proletariat are able to adapt - to survive. Capitalism dies out.

The event of change, the environmental fluctuation, being the revolution itself.

Again, you merely nitpick semantics. Like ckaihatsu, I think you need to try understanding context a little better, as you obviously (and intentionally) strip it away to discredit others (for no reason other than to bolster your ego).



Why don't you quote where I you think I said it, and I'll show you yet again where you're mistaken?
So, in truth, you agree with me then?
You either agree or you disagree. And since you disagreed, I assume that I was reading you correctly. Now you're implying that you agree - either that, or you're merely flip-flopping on your own points for no reason other than to make arguing with you difficult and annoying.



Well, let's start with the contention that 'socialism' is different to communism.

Show me where Marx uses 'socialism' in contradistinction to 'communism', which is where you blundered into this thread.
Once again, you ignore my argument and forge a straw man.
I'll admit, you must make pretty strong straw men to have had him last this long. Though, that only speaks of your close-mindedness and stubbornness.

In reality, I have never suggested that Marx made this distinction. In fact, I have repeatedly agreed that he never did - and pointed out that I never said this - and pointed out that it was a natural development of terminology - exactly like how most terminology within any subject grows and develops over time.

It was actually Lenin who helped develop the term to mean more than just being a synonym for Communism.

In fact, if we really want to be strict on our terminology, definitions, and focus on etymology, then I should point out that Marx, himself, was "incorrect" to use the term Socialism to be Synonymous to Communism. The concept of Socialism, and the term itself, were used long before Marx ever wrote any of his literature and it had actually referred to Utopianism, whom were at the time called Utopian-Socialists.

Therefore, if we REALLY want to nitpick terminology, like you and rednoise seem to enjoy doing, it was actually Marx who was "wrong", according to the both of you.
Yet neither of you say he was wrong, so you're both just being massive hypocrites and/or are simply just ignorant of the subject altogether and therefore speaking out of place.
Oh, but neither of you would be willing to admit that, would you? Your egos are too frail.



Words have technical meanings. You should know this, you were bloviating earlier about me describing rednoise and myself as Marxists, and claiming we weren't. Only if 'Marxist' means something. So, as 'socialist' means something, you don't get to redefine it.
"Words have technical meanings"? No, words have definitions.
Not all definitions are technical - some are very vague.
Some intentionally so, in order to describe loose, arbitrarily defined, concepts. Abstract things.
Some only due to the fact they have developed much over time, and sometimes because people have attempted to use them somewhat differently, when they believed the term fit.

Now, I don't really, honestly, care about labels. Call yourselves Marxists. Maybe you are. The problem here is that both of you seem to believe this label of "Marxist" means much more than it really does - you believe it means you must be an absolute Purist to Marx's literature.
This is false and flawed reasoning. You do not need to be a Purist to Marx's terminology. It is unnecessary as long as you maintain the same ideology.

In fact, once again, because of the vagueness of much terminology, one could argue that there is actually some room for ideological differences between Marxists themselves. That they all do not hold exactly the same beliefs - mostly because it being impossible - mostly because people do not know 100% of everything Marx believed, because they, as human beings, can only interpret his works and form conclusions about what he believed.
Those conclusions may not necessarily be correct.

My point being - you are wrong to suggest that words are strictly technical things. You are also wrong to suggest that a Marxist must be a Purist to Marxist terminology.

I would personally probably fit under the label "Marxist", as well. The obvious difference between you and I being that I do understand exactly how Marx used his terminology - but I do not feel it necessary to use exactly and only those terms to describe his concepts. In fact, I feel comfortable enough with my understandings of his works that I feel it is fine that I use any terminology that I wish - because I feel that I am still able to accurately express those understandings; his concepts, his ideologies.
This is not due to arrogance, but due to the fact that one must not be afraid of change if one is adequately prepared for it.

As I stated before, if I have shown any arrogance - inform me with proper arguments and explanation. Thus far in our discussions, I have not seen any proof - only misunderstandings and ridiculous accusations without basis.



You made a very good point earlier about Old English. We don't speak it any more. Why? Well, we've agreed not to. The language has developed.

We have not agreed to redefine 'socialism'. So, no, you don't get to arbitrarily change the meanings of terms just because Fox thinks 'socialism' means 'state intervention in the economy'.
Once again, and I have repeatedly explained this to both of you - I have not redefined anything. I am not even arguing that it should be defined.

Once again - I point out to both of you - the terms are already redefined.

It was a linguistic development over time. This began with Lenin and the popularity and success of the USSR and his influence on Communist ideology.
It has nothing to do with 'me', other than that I explain the development to two people who are too self-focused to understand that there is a world outside of their own heads.



'Mass' is a Catholic ritual, yes? Everyone knows that. So, force = mass times acceleration must mean, force equals Catholic priests going faster, yes?
'Volume' means 'how loud something is'. And yet, you'd be hard pressed to find the volume of a sphere with that definition, wouldn't you?

Again, you attempt to manipulate semantics instead of attempting to understand them.

Obviously the two concepts are different. They have different definitions - exactly my point. Definitions change over time - and there are often more than one.
Terms are not "technical" as you suggest. If they were, then priests move faster the fatter that they are. Speakers would get larger when you turn up the volume.
Rather, terms are defined and relational to concepts. Concepts themselves almost never have strict lines.

For example, what separates a primate from a human being? The concept of a primate is different than a human being, we think of them like monkeys. That is how we would conceptualize them.
Yet, science and evolution proves that human beings are primates - that we are closely related to our monkey-cousins. The conceptualization that one holds in their mind of a single term is not necessarily equal to its true form - a form that is vague and without physical border. A concept is not a strict or technical thing. Terms are more concrete due to how communication is expressed, but because they only have meaning as concepts they can never be so strictly defined as to only ever have a single meaning that absolutely never changes.

Someone who believes in such static words does not live in reality - reality is constantly changing, and therefore words can never be static or else they are lost and quickly become useless.

Though, now I'm merely ranting on about language. The true point being that you are careless to make such an argument. It is obvious what I am saying - you are merely ignoring it's meaning; ignoring my point.



Have you ever heard of 'transference'? It's when someone assumes other people have the same mental problems that they themselves have. Another way of describing the phenomenon is in the phrase 'don't judge everyone by your own standards'.
Actually, I am quite familiar with things like this. I have actually studied Pyshcology a bit.

And no, that isn't the same thing at all. Transference is a key psychological phenomena, meanwhile judging people by your own standards is simply a method of trying to make sense of the world by evaluating it using a known (and accepted) standard.
You do understand that, right? Or were you, perhaps once again, speaking about things you don't really understand?

Perhaps you should look up what 'Transference' really is?

As I believe I said before, I am not judging anyone here. I am merely rejecting fallacious arguments and defending the truth. My evaluation of you was merely to point out your rejectionist philosophy and the reason why you're refusing to listen to my reasoned arguments and instead just choose to argue. I pointed this out only because nothing else is working. You are simply just too close-minded.



You're right that you don't uderstand Marx, but wrong to think that our reaction was because you're new. If you'd be here 5 years and argued in this manner, we'd still demonstrate you're wrong.
I was mocking your beliefs, not accepting them.
As I have demonstrated, I understand Marx very well. I have quoted him many times so far and each time successfully countered an argument from either you or rednoise and supported my own arguments.
The only thing either of you have done is quote Marx and demonstrate a, well, poor to average understanding of his works. Each time citing him not because it supported your actual argument, but because it superficially made it look as if your argument had support.

When you did get parts of your understanding of Marx correct, I agreed. However, I was often pointing out the fact that these facts did not support your fallacious, Purist arguments that everyone needs to use purely and only historical Marxist terminology.

It may be true that you are not arguing with me because I am new. I do not know the reason why you argue. I only know that your arguments are meaningless, unsupported, biased, uneducated, lacking true explanation, and extremely irrational.
So forgive me if I may try to jump to some conclusions about your unreasonable behavior. I'm simply trying to make sense of your absolute nonsense and the filth you constantly utter.



Of course, reddnoise and I joined this forum years ago, just to argue with you when you came along - how stupid of us not to realise it until now! You are, of course, the Messiah long foretold, we should have realised.
Yes, because I obviously meant just me and not everyone else on these forums.
Again, twisting words only because you enjoy it, rather than attempting to be rational. Once again, only proving my points.



Obviously why both rednoise and I were participating on this thread before you intervened with your drunk-driving wreckage of an intervention.
This one just makes me laugh.
My first post in this topic was completely in line with Marxism and in fact basically did almost nothing but rephrase much of what others already stated, including something rednoise said.

So please, do yourself a favor. Go back and actually read my first post and tell me where this "drunk-driving wreckage of an intervention" is. Quote me.
Prove that I don't know what I'm talking about - actually make a real point for once.

I mean seriously. QUOTE ME.
Go ahead and explain the real issue here. What EXACTLY did you have a problem with in my first post? Why EXACTLY are you arguing so incessantly about me doing this-or-that yet never once providing any proof that I ever actually did any of these things?

You cannot prove or justify your arguments. You are just very ignorant.

And yes, I forgot that I wasn't going to waste any more time explaining things to any you. Obviously those explanations just go over your heads. I just got on another spree. Oops, my mistake. I'll try to remember for next time, if you people wish to continue spewing your filth all over this topic.

[Creative Destruction]

You've put out so many words and have absolutely nothing of value to say. A true mudpie of a post.

[Blake's Baby]

You entered this thread to argue with other people's uses of the terms 'communism' and 'socialism', didn't you? The very first thing you said was 'Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...'.

Well, we're not - it is you who is drawing a distinction between them, that is not warranted. Now of course, like Humpty Dumpty, you can use words however you like, but you can't complain that other people are not doing the same. Rednoise and I are quite happy that we'll use the term 'socialism' and 'socialist' as Marx uses them, while you can use the terms to refer to 'the first stage of communist society' (Lenin's usage) and 'the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat' (current Maoist usage) and 'state intervention in the economy' (current Fox News usage).

But you don't get to argue about our usage. Either, words refer to concepts (in which case, rednoise and I are using socialism as a technical term, so stop interrupting with your non-technical definitions), or they mean whatever users want them to mean (in which case, rednoise and I are using the term 'socialism' to mean what we want it to mean, and you still don't get to tell us or anyone else that we're using it wrongly).

[Subversive]

You entered this thread to argue with other people's uses of the terms 'communism' and 'socialism', didn't you? The very first thing you said was 'Some of you seem to be confusing Socialism and Communism...'.
Yes I said that, but no that is obviously not what I came here to do.
It was a brief note and named no one. If you want to know who I was referring to I can possibly PM and tell you so you can get off your high-horse. But I am not an ignorant fool who tries to form arguments where there are none, especially by calling out people whom I do not know. It was a brief and general statement. No one had to take offense to it.

If you read the rest of my post you'd even see I gave a clear description of the actual topic and an explanation thereof. An explanation that is completely in line with pure Marxism.

However, what you did was take what was a minor comment, ignore the rest of my post, and attack me because you believed I was calling you out, personally. As I stated a long while back - you are arguing only because I inadvertently challenged your 'alpha-status'. The status you believe you hold on this forum, for reasons unclear to me. Therefore you went on a witch-hunting escapade to drive out anyone who challenges your authority on Marxism; your alpha-status.

This was nothing but a primitive and irrational tirade of guiltless emotions and inability to control your impulses.

Though, I will admit that rednoise was probably the one who furthered your instigation. You seem more level-headed than him even though you obviously both demonstrated the same fundamental error.



Well, we're not - it is you who is drawing a distinction between them, that is not warranted.
As I stated many times, it is not me drawing the distinction. Rather, it a massive number of Socialists/Communists throughout history, as well as modern society.



Now of course, like Humpty Dumpty, you can use words however you like, but you can't complain that other people are not doing the same.
People can complain if your historical terms, conflicting with modern ones, gets confusing and causes unnecessary conflict. Just as it did here, since you argue for your Purism against others.

So yes, I will argue that you are wrong to use these terms. You are merely causing confusion by attacking people over something so petty.
If you merely want to point out and note that Marx used the terms differently, that is fine and everyone should accept this as fact. It is worth pointing out. However, you cannot possibly argue that this is still correct use, and if you believe you can then please do so for once. You obviously haven't done so yet.


Rednoise and I are quite happy that we'll use the term 'socialism' and 'socialist' as Marx uses them, while you can use the terms to refer to 'the first stage of communist society' (Lenin's usage) and 'the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat' (current Maoist usage) and 'state intervention in the economy' (current Fox News usage).
According to you, I have to use 'your' terms, explicitly. I can't use anyone else's. My terms are "wrong". Lenin's terms are "wrong". You do not remember saying this?
That has been your entire argument so far. You argued that these terms must be used because Marx himself used them. Are you changing your position now? Are you backpedaling?



But you don't get to argue about our usage.
When you make it an issue of contention, I do.
You're the ones who did that. As I have explained to both of you, I did not make it an issue of contention, I only pointed it out as a fact occurring. As in, I was not contending with anyone but merely pointing out that there was confusion. Notice past tense.


Either, words refer to concepts (in which case, rednoise and I are using socialism as a technical term, so stop interrupting with your non-technical definitions), or they mean whatever users want them to mean (in which case, rednoise and I are using the term 'socialism' to mean what we want it to mean, and you still don't get to tell us or anyone else that we're using it wrongly).
Yes, I can agree with that.
But obviously the issue came about when you said I was wrong. And by extension, you also stated that Lenin was wrong.

You have yet to prove any of your arguments. Not only that, but I have thoroughly discredited both you and rednoise, regarding this issue. I have presented much support, and you have yet to present any, or even to maintain a consistent position.

Furthermore, you also seem to be implying that my terms, and Lenin's terms, and etc. are not also 'technical' definitions referring to concepts, but instead you seem to be arguing that they are just words we want to use for whatever we want them to mean.
Is this true? Because if that is what you're implying, then you are wrong yet again.

Now I'm fine with backpedaling, but at least acknowledge that your earlier arguments were wrong and that you're moving your position back a step. I am fine with changing positions - change is good. However, I am not fine with dishonesty.

However, I will give you a means to escape this argument altogether.
As you pointed out, mistakenly, in the first part of your post, you believed that I came here only to argue definitions. You believe this because of my statement that 'some people' were confusing the terms.
I'll admit I was not clear on that (though, intentionally), and that I understand how you might have misunderstood.

If you'll accept that this was merely a misunderstanding then we can drop the argument and forget this. Otherwise I believe you will find it exceedingly difficult to actually prove your earlier arguments regarding the 'wrong'-ness of other people's definitions. This is your last chance to drop the argument in a civil manner.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm not 'back pedalling' on terms, Subversive. I'm pointing out that your insistence that other people are wrong to use the terms they do, is not compatible with your view that words are defined merely by the people using them.

If the later is true, it is you who is out of line. You have come to a place where in general (though not exclusively) 'socialism' is understood in Marxist terms. The users here use that definition and your definition is a minority one (and therefore invalid, in your view).

[Subversive]

I'm not 'back pedalling' on terms, Subversive. I'm pointing out that your insistence that other people are wrong to use the terms they do, is not compatible with your view that words are defined merely by the people using them.
1. You and rednoise were the ones insisting that my terms were wrong. As well as arguing that Lenin's terms were wrong, as well. You have yet to prove this is the case, and you seem to be backpedaling this argument entirely.

2. I didn't suggest anyone else's terminology was wrong until both of you made it a point of contention - wherein I pointed out that it is necessarily wrong for you to use because you're only causing confusion and arguing nonsense and are unable to accurately explain your reasoning.

3. I have never stated that words are only defined by the people using them. That is nonsense.
Words are defined by their definitions. Definitions develop over time according to how society use them, but are not in themselves directly equal to how each individual uses a word. It is a social construct, it requires more than one person. A single individual can not dictate the definition of a word, except inside of their own context where they might define it. And even when aptly defined, it should still be related to the original usage in some way and not merely a complete hijacking of the term.



If the later is true, it is you who is out of line. You have come to a place where in general (though not exclusively) 'socialism' is understood in Marxist terms. The users here use that definition and your definition is a minority one (and therefore invalid, in your view).
1. Prove it. I see no evidence for this claim.

2. I actually checked around and see no agreement on the definitions at all. As opposed to what you state. In fact, I even saw a poll with the three (or so) most popular definitions, and they were almost completely evenly split.

3. This forum still exists within society. It also needs to reference and include society if it ever wishes to have its goals succeed. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing the modern definitions, even if the local jargon is inconsistent. This would be an instance where (real) argument might prove beneficial.

[Blake's Baby]

So, you object to your own hijacking of the term 'socialism'?

[RedMaterialist]

How is 'fighting a war' the same as 'producing for human need'? If you were 'producing for human need' then you'd be making ammunition for your enemies. They're no less human. Their need for ammo is the same as yours. So what's the connection between the war and communist society?

The only way, ultimately, to get from capitalism to communism is through a dictatorship, which usually requires a war. One hopes, of course, it can be done peacefully, but the 20th century has shown what capitalism will do to stop communism.




Of course Marx was talking about the extension of capitalism.

No. He was talking about the destruction of the capitalist state and the replacement of capitalism with communism.


Even more so, 1871 demonstrated that the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism

I thought the proletariat was going to continue capitalism.


Or do you think Bismarck was a socialist?

No. He was a monarch implementing the first stages of the welfare state, for the benefit of the capitalist class. As in the US, food stamps to supplement income so that Walmart can stay in business.



I really think you need to quote where you think I said that there will be no revolutionising of production. I'm pretty sure I said no such thing.


Your argument is that the DOP will continue with capitalist production as its economic base, rather than replace it through revolution with socialist production.



Absolutely. This didn't happen in the Soviet Union. I think when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were 183 states in the world, everything was 'property' of one sort or another, and there were at least 4 classes (the bourgeoisie,the artisans, the peasants and the proletariat but I'll be OK if you awanted to include the petite-bourgeoisie, though I'd regard them as a stratum of the bourgeoisie to be honest).


The big bourgeoisie was eliminated very quickly or left Russia immediately after the revolution. The petit-bourgeois went underground, taking up new names, forging new papers, hiding their ancestry, moving to new cities, etc. to avoid being arrested or worse. This, by the way, is documented in a book on the class structure under Stalin. I can't recall the name of the author.

Artisans in the Soviet Union? That must have been an extremely small class of people. The peasants were absorbed into the proletariat after the introduction of large scale industrial farming. The wealthy Kulaks were murdered.

That left two classes: the proletariat and the underground petit-bourgeois. The political structure was the bureaucracy which is not a class in the Marxist sense. The petit-bourgeois took two generations to die, leaving only the proletariat class. And, exactly as Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted, the state collapsed.




The Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese 'revolutions' were coups by groups more-or-less allied to the Soviet Union.

These revolutions were far more than coups. They were a fundamental violent transformation of those societies. Besides, isn't that what the SU was supposed to be doing, assisting socialist revolution? If Stalin had done the same thing in Spain there might be a socialist government there today.

[RedMaterialist]

and 'state intervention in the economy' (current Fox News usage).



By the way Fox News also uses the words socialism and communism interchangeably. For Rush Limbaugh the Chinese are the Chicoms, Barak Obama is a socialist, communist, nazi, fascist, etc. And it is taught in most universities in the US that Hitler was, in fact, a socialist, who controlled the means of production in Germany.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I would be interested in seeing a source for the claim that most US universities teach that Hitler was a socialist who controlled the means of production. Do you mean high schools maybe?

[Subversive]

I thought the proletariat was going to continue capitalism.
"Zing!"

I liked that one. These guys are clearly too close-minded to realize their own contradictions, like this one.


And it is taught in most universities in the US that Hitler was, in fact, a socialist, who controlled the means of production in Germany.
Ah, I don't think that one is quite fair.
I have never seen or heard that from any college in the US. Only, maybe, from some people who attended a military college.

Most of the professors of history or social sciences know that Hitler was a Fascist, not a Socialist. No other professors should even be mentioning Hitler, and if they do then they are completely out of place and demonstrating their ignorance of other subjects.

Edit: As Ethics Gradient stated, maybe you meant the high schools. I would probably accept that as being true.

[Blake's Baby]

The only way, ultimately, to get from capitalism to communism is through a dictatorship, which usually requires a war. One hopes, of course, it can be done peacefully, but the 20th century has shown what capitalism will do to stop communism...

And? The revolutionary dictatorship is not the same as communist society. The process of revolution is not the same as the result of the process. Living is not the same as dying. Making a sandwich is not the same as eating a sandwich.

If a liberated territory is busy fighting with capitalists, then the revolution is not over. Do you get my point?


...
No. He was talking about the destruction of the capitalist state and the replacement of capitalism with communism.

...

He was talking about the measures the proletariat should take in the immediate aftermath of the revolution.


...
I thought the proletariat was going to continue capitalism...

Do you think it's a choice? Or do you think that's more, you know, a matter of historical circumstance?

The working class is not a position to 'do away with capitalism' when it doesn't control capitalism. It needs to take over the economy - if it hasn't done that, how can it revolutionise production?



...
No. He was a monarch implementing the first stages of the welfare state, for the benefit of the capitalist class. As in the US, food stamps to supplement income so that Walmart can stay in business.
...

But if he puts the tactics avocated by Marx 30 years earlier into effect... he's a socialist, isn't he? That's the crux of your argument. Socialism = the 10 planks.


... Your argument is that the DOP will continue with capitalist production as its economic base, rather than replace it through revolution with socialist production...

No, my argument is that the revolutionary dictatorship must necessarily start at the beginning and work towards the end. If you're making a sandwich you don't stop after cutting a single slice of bread and then tell everyone that's what a sanwich is.


...
The big bourgeoisie was eliminated very quickly or left Russia immediately after the revolution. The petit-bourgeois went underground, taking up new names, forging new papers, hiding their ancestry, moving to new cities, etc. to avoid being arrested or worse. This, by the way, is documented in a book on the class structure under Stalin. I can't recall the name of the author.

Artisans in the Soviet Union? That must have been an extremely small class of people. The peasants were absorbed into the proletariat after the introduction of large scale industrial farming. The wealthy Kulaks were murdered.

That left two classes: the proletariat and the underground petit-bourgeois. The political structure was the bureaucracy which is not a class in the Marxist sense. The petit-bourgeois took two generations to die, leaving only the proletariat class. And, exactly as Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted, the state collapsed...

The classes I referred to were classes in the world. Capitalism is a world system. As capitalism is a world system, what happened inside the Soviet Union is irrelevant to whether capitalism continued. It did. Deal with it.

You cannot have a single class. 'leaving only the proletarian class' doesn't make sense. Even if it were true (it isn't) it wouldn't be possible. A class is a part. You can no more have a society composed of a single class than you can cut a cake into one piece.


...
These revolutions were far more than coups. They were a fundamental violent transformation of those societies. Besides, isn't that what the SU was supposed to be doing, assisting socialist revolution? If Stalin had done the same thing in Spain there might be a socialist government there today.

They weren't socialist revolutions.

If you mean, was the imperialist state of the USSR 'supposed' to be interfering in other countries' politics? Then yeah, of course it was, just like any other imperialist state. Britain, France, USA, USSR...

[RedMaterialist]

Socialism, communism...what difference does it make?

[RedMaterialist]

I would be interested in seeing a source for the claim that most US universities teach that Hitler was a socialist who controlled the means of production. Do you mean high schools maybe?

Have you ever talked to the average college graduate? Hitler was the head of the National Socialist Party, therefore he was a socialist. And, he directed how and how much German industry produced. Therefore he was an "interventionist" in the economy, and, therefore, a socialist.

This is what they believe.

[Creative Destruction]

Socialism, communism...what difference does it make?

That's exactly what we've been saying. There is no goddamned difference, where it regards Marx. Good god.

[RedMaterialist]

If you're making a sandwich you don't stop after cutting a single slice of bread and then tell everyone that's what a sanwich is.

No. But you can tell them that you are making the sandwich with help from a lot of people and that no capitalists are going to expropriate the value of our work.

If I am making the sandwich and using my and my co-workers' labor, and someone else is standing by to take the sandwich (and paid me a wage for my work) and sell it then that is capitalism. If my co-workers and I decide to free ourselves of this third person and to maintain our freedom by force that is a DOP.

If we then take control of wheat production, meat production (for the non-vegs), bread packaging, etc. and consciously produce and distribute these things according to a plan, then that is socialism. Once all the capitalists and small capitalists and their apologists are expelled from our society, then we will be the only class left, and our state, the DOP will collapse.

That will be communism.

The ten planks are not "socialism" but they are a step toward the completion of socialism. The welfare state is not socialism, but it is necessary for the continuation of capitalism. For instance, the centralization of credit. Capitalism would collapse without the Federal Reserve system. Now, the people will take over that system and run it for our benefit.


You cannot have a single class. 'leaving only the proletarian class' doesn't make sense.


Of course it does. The DOP is the dominant class in socialism. It is suppressing the capitalist class. Once the capitalist classes (petit, small farmers, etc.) are eliminated (hopefully not by force) then only one class will be left, the proletariat, which is the only class in history not to be based on exploitation. This is clear in the Communist Manifesto. Once there is no more class exploitation, the need for an armed force, the state, will disappear and the state will disappear.

[Subversive]

Have you ever talked to the average college graduate? Hitler was the head of the National Socialist Party, therefore he was a socialist. And, he directed how and how much German industry produced. Therefore he was an "interventionist" in the economy, and, therefore, a socialist.

This is what they believe.
Eh, what they believe and what they are taught are two different things.

Hitler was indeed part of the "National Socialist Party". Which was simply just a label to hide their ulterior motives under a popular movement. Any decent history professor would probably point this out. If they do not, they are failing at their job. It was a very important aspect of how the Nazi Party came to power.
It is known, by definition, that the 'National Socialist Party' is the same thing as the Nazi Party and not a real Socialist party. Even a quick glimpse on Wikipedia or in almost any history book would indicate this.

The problematic nature of it comes from its history, prior to it becoming the Nazi Party. Many of the supporters actually did believe they were supporting Socialism. So in some regards, they were considered to be Socialists at the time. Just a really warped German-Nationalist definition of Socialist, just as everything else had gotten warped during that era in Germany.

So, a stupid university student who only half-listens in class, might get the wrong impression by missing the obvious detail that the Nazi Party was merely disguising themselves as Socialists to gather support AWAY from the Socialist/Communist movement, essentially by deceiving them in name only.

So that is either an inept professor, which I would argue is not all that common, or more likely, a lot of inept college students who care more about girls and parties than they do about knowledge.

[Creative Destruction]

There is no class in socialism, so there can't be a dictatorship of the proletariat. The point of it is to destroy classes, including destroying themselves as a class. Socialism happens when classes no longer exist.

[Blake's Baby]

No. But you can tell them that you are making the sandwich with help from a lot of people and that no capitalists are going to expropriate the value of our work.

If I am making the sandwich and using my and my co-workers' labor, and someone else is standing by to take the sandwich (and paid me a wage for my work) and sell it then that is capitalism. If my co-workers and I decide to free ourselves of this third person and to maintain our freedom by force that is a DOP.

If we then take control of wheat production, meat production (for the non-vegs), bread packaging, etc. and consciously produce and distribute these things according to a plan, then that is socialism. Once all the capitalists and small capitalists and their apologists are expelled from our society, then we will be the only class left, and our state, the DOP will collapse.

That will be communism...

But if you don't do those things, and instead just point at the slice of bread shouting 'look at my sandwich'?

Eventually, the bread goes mouldy. That's not the same as eating the sandwich, honestly.


...
Of course it does. The DOP is the dominant class in socialism. It is suppressing the capitalist class. Once the capitalist classes (petit, small farmers, etc.) are eliminated (hopefully not by force) then only one class will be left, the proletariat, which is the only class in history not to be based on exploitation. This is clear in the Communist Manifesto. Once there is no more class exploitation, the need for an armed force, the state, will disappear and the state will disappear.

No, because a 'class' is a sub-division of something. If 'the part' is the same as 'the whole' then what you call 'the part' is not a 'part'. Something is not the same as section of itself. Your leg is not the same as 'you'. Half a cake is not a cake. The working class is not the same as everybody.

A whole can be divided into two or more pieces. It cannot be divided into one piece. That's what 'divided' means.

[Tim Cornelis]

RedMaterialist, what you think you read in Marx and Engels simply isn't there. There's no discussion to be had over this. You simply indisputably misread. Please read the texts you've read again, put them in the proper context, and interpret them correctly.

And indeed, it makes as much sense to speak of one social class existing as it is to speak of one subspecies: none whatsoever.

[RedMaterialist]

That's exactly what we've been saying. There is no goddamned difference, where it regards Marx. Good god.

Not really. You've been saying that socialism and communism are two words which have the same meaning, that they are synonyms. That Marx and Engels apparently used the words interchangeably, maybe switching them out at random, socialism on even numbered days and communism on odd numbered days.

You are also saying that the meaning of the words cannot change with the historical change in the social relations of production. That meaning is fixed for all time. Very Hegelian. Lenin experienced the Russian revolution and was directly engaged in the transition from capitalism. Based on the historical evidence he determined that socialism was the preliminary step to communism.

Historical development did not end in 1883.

But regardless, what practical difference does it make? If a socialist and a communist are occupying a factory will they fight with themselves over the meaning of the words?

[Blake's Baby]

No but someone who believes you can have communism in one factory will fight with someone who believes the world socialist revolution nees to be fought for.

[Subversive]

If a socialist and a communist are occupying a factory will they fight with themselves over the meaning of the words?
Rednoise and Blake's Baby obviously refuse to understand any definition where those two things are not synonyms.
So, to the two of them, you're just asking if two random communists will argue over the meaning of the two words in a factory. Stubborn close-mindedness at its best.

In reality, what you're referring to is the historical (pre-Marx) or modern definition of the term 'Socialism', wherein this includes both Utopians and revisionist non-Marxists.

You're also referring to 'Socialism' as I was earlier, wherein it includes any revolutionary or other phase of society that has a socially owned means of production.
They, again, refuse to understand this definition, so to them: You are merely confusing the phases of society.

And they told me their terminology doesn't cause confusion... ironic.
This is what happens when you give guns to monkeys.

Edit: And just so we're all aware, I will point out that you don't have ALL of your phases sorted out entirely correctly. I am merely expressing my sympathy for your terminology which is obviously a significant issue for them, somehow.

[Tim Cornelis]

"Very Hegelian" phrasemongering.

Anyway, Marx and Engels didn't initially self-identify as socialists, differentiating between socialists and communists. They exclusively identified three types of socialists: democratic, reactionary, and bourgeois. None of which are communists.

Engels then coined scientific socialism, regarding which Marx noted the term "was only used in opposition to utopian socialism, which wants to attach the people to new delusions, instead of limiting its science to the knowledge of the social movement made by the people itself".

As for fascism, this is what first year's student textbook at the Free University's political science bachelor's says:

"At times both Mussolini and Hitler portrayed their ideas as forms of ‘socialism’. Mussolini had previously been an influential member of the Italian Socialist Party and editor of its newspaper, Avanti, while the Nazi Party espoused a philosophy it called ‘national socialism’. To some extent, undoubtedly, this represented a cynical attempt to elicit support from urban workers. Nevertheless, despite obvious ideological rivalry between fascism and socialism, fascists did have an affinity for certain socialist ideas and positions. In the first place, lower middle-class fascist activists had a profound distaste for capitalism, reflected in a resented of the power of big business and financial institutions. For instance, small shopkeepers were under threat from the growth of departmental store, the smallholding peasantry was losing out to large-scale farming, and small businesses were increasingly in hock to the banks. Socialist or ‘leftist’ ideas were therefore prominent in German grassroots organizations such as the SA, or Brownshirts, which recruited significantly from amongst the lower middle classes."

Characterising it as such would be fairly consistent with Marx and Engels' use of 'reactionary socialists'.

[RedMaterialist]

The working class is not the same as everybody.



From the CM:


Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. Karl Marx

The working class, through a revolution, will take control of production. The capitalists do not simply disappear, they do not go gently into the night. The dictatorship of the proletariat will suppress them, suppression is what a state does, the bourgeois will be the suppressed class.

After a period of time the capitalist class will cease to exist, leaving only the proletariat.

From the CM:


Karl MarxWhen, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

My emphasis. Later in The Gotha Programme Marx appears to have concluded that the proletariat would be forced to organize itself as a suppressing class, as a state, the DOP.

The proletariat will use its political power to suppress the bourgeoisie. Once that suppression is complete the only class left will be the proletariat, and it and its political structure, the state will also disappear.

I don't see how Marx could have made it any more clear.

[Tim Cornelis]

From the CM:



The working class, through a revolution, will take control of production. The capitalists do not simply disappear, they do not go gently into the night. The dictatorship of the proletariat will suppress them, suppression is what a state does, the bourgeois will be the suppressed class.

After a period of time the capitalist class will cease to exist, leaving only the proletariat.

From the CM:



My emphasis. Later in The Gotha Programme Marx appears to have concluded that the proletariat would be forced to organize itself as a suppressing class, as a state, the DOP.

The proletariat will use its political power to suppress the bourgeoisie. Once that suppression is complete the only class left will be the proletariat, and it and its political structure, the state will also disappear.

I don't see how Marx could have made it any more clear.

Marx is simply not saying what you say. This is part of your notorious habit of persistent (and annoying) misreadings of Marxist texts. Nowhere does he state that the proletariat will remain as sole class -- this doesn't make one ounce of sense. If there's only a "proletariat" then it means that all those engaged in economic activity share the same relation to the means of production, meaning that class society has disappeared. Incidentally, proletariat means dispossessed, it makes no sense to speak of a dispossessed class which has successfully asserted its ownership of all means of production.

"After a period of time the capitalist class will cease to exist, leaving only the proletariat." At which point the proletariat has successfully self-liquidated.

[RedMaterialist]

RedMaterialist, what you think you read in Marx and Engels simply isn't there. There's no discussion to be had over this. You simply indisputably misread. Please read the texts you've read again, put them in the proper context, and interpret them correctly.

And indeed, it makes as much sense to speak of one social class existing as it is to speak of one subspecies: none whatsoever.

I've already quoted from the CM.

Bourgeois society, as Marx showed, is rapidly developing into two opposed classes, the capitalists and the proletarians. That is directly from the CM.

There are two classes. One class needs a state to suppress the other. That state is now the bourgeois state. When the proletariat revolts it will set up its own political state, the DOP. It will suppress the capitalist class. Once that suppression is complete the state will disappear along with the only remaining class. The proletariat will be the first class in history to disappear on its own, it will wither away and die as its state does.

All of this is directly from the Communist Manifesto, The Gotha Program and The Economic and Phil Mss where Marx says that the "proletariat is the solution to the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution."

As far as species and subspecies, humanity is the species, finally there are two subspecies within humanity, the capitalists and the workers. The workers will destroy the capitalist subspecies, leaving only the one subspecies. All previous subclasses needed exploitation to exist. The last sub-class, if you want, has the distinction of being the last sub-class in history.

Humanity will then be whole again, free of any classes, economics species, sub or otherwise.

[Tim Cornelis]

I've already quoted from the CM.

Bourgeois society, as Marx showed, is rapidly developing into two opposed classes, the capitalists and the proletarians. That is directly from the CM.

There are two classes. One class needs a state to suppress the other. That state is now the bourgeois state. When the proletariat revolts it will set up its own political state, the DOP. It will suppress the capitalist class. Once that suppression is complete the state will disappear along with the only remaining class. The proletariat will be the first class to disappear, it will wither away and die as its state does.

So the proletariat does disappear, it self-liquidates at the point when the capitalist class disappears -- so there's not one class remaining, which made no sense. Great, we cleared up the first of many many many misconceptions you have.

Also, Marx didn't 'show' capitalist society was developing into two clear antagonistic classes, he told, and this is empirically wrong. Capitalism is producing a complex class system with bureaucratic and professional layers, with class antagonisms, as consequence, being muddled and unclear. It also doesn't relate to what what's being discussed.


All of this is directly from the Communist Manifesto, The Gotha Program and The Economic and Phil Mss where Marx says that the "proletariat is the solution to the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution."

That doesn't even relate to the point you are trying to make.

[RedMaterialist]

Marx is simply not saying what you say. This is part of your notorious habit of persistent (and annoying) misreadings of Marxist texts. Nowhere does he state that the proletariat will remain as sole class -- this doesn't make one ounce of sense. If there's only a "proletariat" then it means that all those engaged in economic activity share the same relation to the means of production, meaning that class society has disappeared. Incidentally, proletariat means dispossessed, it makes no sense to speak of a dispossessed class which has successfully asserted its ownership of all means of production.

"After a period of time the capitalist class will cease to exist, leaving only the proletariat." At which point the proletariat has successfully self-liquidated.

Who is being persistently annoying? I said the proletariat class will suppress the capitalist class out of existence. It will then be the only remaining class in existence. After some period of time this class will disappear, will self-liquidate, as you say. Does it happen overnight? Only the Hegelians think so. It may take decades a generation or more. The proletariat as a class will not simply vanish like tinker bell. It is a mass organisation, a political movement of millions of people in hundreds of countries.

You need to tell me how long the proletariat will exist as a class after the DOP has eliminated the capitalist class? One second, a minute, maybe five minutes?

[Creative Destruction]

Who is being persistently annoying? I said the proletariat class will suppress the capitalist class out of existence. It will then be the only remaining class in existence. After some period of time this class will disappear, will self-liquidate, as you say. Does it happen overnight? Only the Hegelians think so. It may take decades a generation or more. The proletariat as a class will not simply vanish like tinker bell. It is a mass organisation, a political movement of millions of people in hundreds of countries.

You need to tell me how long the proletariat will exist as a class after the DOP has eliminated the capitalist class? One second, a minute, maybe five minutes?

It doesn't make any logical sense, what you're saying. If the class system relies on classes then when you no longer have two classes and the antagonisms that come with it, then you have no classes. You don't have "one" class.

[Tim Cornelis]

Who is being persistently annoying? I said the proletariat class will suppress the capitalist class out of existence. It will then be the only remaining class in existence. After some period of time this class will disappear, will self-liquidate, as you say. Does it happen overnight? Only the Hegelians think so. It may take decades a generation or more. The proletariat as a class will not simply vanish like tinker bell. It is a mass organisation, a political movement of millions of people in hundreds of countries.

You are not being persistently annoying, but your persistent misreadings are incredibly annoying. It produces all kinds of absurd conclusions on your part from which you will but butch no matter how many times you are being corrected. The idea that Sweden is progressing toward socialism at this point, the idea that the 10 planks of communism being implemented means exactly that, the idea that the Soviet Union's collapse can be explained by it withering away, the idea that there can be one class in existence. I mean this in the sincerest way possible: it doesn't make one lick of sense.

I'm going to ask for some clarifications. You describe a scenario where the proletariat is victorious, it has successfully repressed the capitalist class out of existence. Meaning, at this point, we are situated in the first phase of communist society. With the capitalists out of the way, there is social ownership, all human beings own all productive resources. You somehow think that the proletariat still exists as a class. How is the proletariat defined at this point? You also believe it will disappear after generations, what does this disappearance entail? How and why will it disappear?


You need to tell me how long the proletariat will exist as a class after the DOP has eliminated the capitalist class? One second, a minute, maybe five minutes?

0 seconds. Of course, the self-abolition or self-emancipation or self-liquidization of the proletariat is a qualitative process so it doesn't make sense to ask for an exact quantification of its disappearance.

The proletariat is the social class that exists in capitalism. The proletariat, literally meaning dispossessed, do not own the means of production, they confront it as alien property. In a social revolution the proletariat will form their revolutionary dictatorship and the means of production will be brought under control of the DOTP. At this point already the proletariat is disintegrating, as they enter into control over the means of production. The revolution and counter-revolution are fought on the basis of material class interests of capitalist society, they are fought on the basis of their former social positions in capitalism and hence we speak of bourgeoisie and proletariat only in this sense. In the period of revolutionary reconstruction, the bourgeoisie and proletariat are identified by their former social positions in capitalist society. Once the bourgeoisie is entirely defeated the DOTP loses its coercive functions and the economic and political workers' councils become freely associated administrative bodies of collective affairs. All means of production are owned in common. Being that they are owned in common, there are no social classes, hence no class society, and most certainly no proletariat or such utter drivel.

[RedMaterialist]

Nowhere does he state that the proletariat will remain as sole class --

Yes, he does. Here it is:


If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, [B]then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.



1. Proletariat becomes the ruling class.
2. Proletariat destroys the capitalist class.
3. In process of 1 and 2, proletariat destroys old conditions of production, i.e. capitalism. (which, by the way some people think will not happen, but the prolet will continue to use the old conditions of production.)

Proletariat is then the only class left. It will abolish itself as a class. Do you think it happens in one second?

[RedMaterialist]

hence no class society, and most certainly no proletariat or such utter drivel.

And no state. I wonder if there is any evidence of the disappearance of a state after a period of withering away? Maybe anywhere in history?

0 seconds to the classless society. Just as one day human beings appeared on the face of the earth, by magic. No need for millions of years of evolution. No need for decades of struggle.

No need to look at actually existing history.

For you history stopped in 1924 when Lenin died. Better still, what has been the history of socialism since 1924?

[Tim Cornelis]

Yes, he does. Here it is:



1. Proletariat becomes the ruling class.
2. Proletariat destroys the capitalist class.
3. In process of 1 and 2, proletariat destroys old conditions of production, i.e. capitalism. (which, by the way some people think will not happen, but the prolet will continue to use the old conditions of production.)

[/
Proletariat is then the only class left. It will abolish itself as a class. Do you think it happens in one second?


And no state. I wonder if there is any evidence of the disappearance of a state after a period of withering away? Maybe anywhere in history?

0 seconds to the classless society. Just as one day human beings appeared on the face of the earth, by magic. No need for millions of years of evolution. No need for decades of struggle.

No need to look at actually existing history.

For you history stopped in 1924 when Lenin died. Better still, what has been the history of socialism since 1924?

Please, RedMaterialist, learn to read. I have already addressed everything you wrote. Your entire understanding of Marxism, and I've already said this, hinges on you consistently misreading what Marx wrote. It's unbelievably frustrating that Marx in such clear language writes A and, for whatever reason, you insist, against all evidence and logic, that he says B. You're bringing me to the edge of a nervous breakdown and you're starting to make me half-suspect that you are an elaborate troll. I don't know how to approach this discussion further than refer to what I already wrote and what you ignored. I'm forced to repeat myself. Could you address what I wrote, or else stop posting?


a

You are not being persistently annoying, but your persistent misreadings are incredibly annoying. It produces all kinds of absurd conclusions on your part from which you will but butch no matter how many times you are being corrected. The idea that Sweden is progressing toward socialism at this point, the idea that the 10 planks of communism being implemented means exactly that, the idea that the Soviet Union's collapse can be explained by it withering away, the idea that there can be one class in existence. I mean this in the sincerest way possible: it doesn't make one lick of sense.

I'm going to ask for some clarifications. You describe a scenario where the proletariat is victorious, it has successfully repressed the capitalist class out of existence. Meaning, at this point, we are situated in the first phase of communist society. With the capitalists out of the way, there is social ownership, all human beings own all productive resources. You somehow think that the proletariat still exists as a class. How is the proletariat defined at this point? You also believe it will disappear after generations, what does this disappearance entail? How and why will it disappear?


b

0 seconds. Of course, the self-abolition or self-emancipation or self-liquidization of the proletariat is a qualitative process so it doesn't make sense to ask for an exact quantification of its disappearance.

The proletariat is the social class that exists in capitalism. The proletariat, literally meaning dispossessed, do not own the means of production, they confront it as alien property. In a social revolution the proletariat will form their revolutionary dictatorship and the means of production will be brought under control of the DOTP. At this point already the proletariat is disintegrating, as they enter into control over the means of production. The revolution and counter-revolution are fought on the basis of material class interests of capitalist society, they are fought on the basis of their former social positions in capitalism and hence we speak of bourgeoisie and proletariat only in this sense. In the period of revolutionary reconstruction, the bourgeoisie and proletariat are identified by their former social positions in capitalist society. Once the bourgeoisie is entirely defeated the DOTP loses its coercive functions and the economic and political workers' councils become freely associated administrative bodies of collective affairs. All means of production are owned in common. Being that they are owned in common, there are no social classes, hence no class society, and most certainly no proletariat or such utter drivel.

[Creative Destruction]

Yes, he does. Here it is:



1. Proletariat becomes the ruling class.
2. Proletariat destroys the capitalist class.
3. In process of 1 and 2, proletariat destroys old conditions of production, i.e. capitalism. (which, by the way some people think will not happen, but the prolet will continue to use the old conditions of production.)

Proletariat is then the only class left. It will abolish itself as a class. Do you think it happens in one second?

Why did you not bold the extremely important and, for your argument, inconvenient qualifier: "and classes generally"? That necessarily says -- not even implies, it says -- that there cannot be "one class." The proletariat, in this process, is wiping out classes generally.

So, there are two options here: you are being willfully deceptive or you just simply do not know how to read.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm not doubting any aspect of technological *prowess*, but, rather, where one would draw the 'cut-off' line in the past that divides 'all-this-will-be-included' from 'all-that-will-*not*-be-included'.





Do you mean in the sense, back to the beginning of the production chain, or do you mean, back to 1900AD?


Well, that's what I'm saying -- since it's your conception, you would be the one here to say where the cut-off date is, and why that particular point in time is selected, with everything beforehand considered to be 'invalid' for the sake of calculating antecedent labor-value inputs.





As far as production chains go, the only real difficulty is when some of your inputs might come from undeveloped areas. A dubiously legal logging company in the Amazon might not keep proper books, so the paper trail runs cold.


So then wherever relevant data is *lacking* / unavailable, that would be like 'holes' in the chain of calculations needed to arrive at a correct calculation of labor-value inputs.





As for historical data, the practical case is that we can use companies existing databases easily enough; that might go back to the late 1960's in a very few cases, but probably only to the late 90's for Mom & Pop stores.

I'm not sure why we need to know this though.


It's a 'geneaological' record of supporting inputs that you're attempting to establish.


---





It's not clear to me what distinction you're drawing here; all that labour does have to be accounted for and chits or whatever issued, so it's really the same thing, only less organised.





One distinction, offhand, is that labor notes / vouchers don't circulate, while my 'labor credits' *do* circulate.





Sure,I'm only really talking about how data is collected, and whether there needs to be some kind of valuation.


Okay, I thought you were (inaccurately) lumping-together the labor-notes system and my 'labor credits' model. If you want to only go over the aspects of labor notes, that's fine.





Again, I can only marvel at your can-do spirit and grasp of current technological means, but I'll continue to question your *logistics*, in terms of how far back in time you go with the collection of data that you consider to be 'valid', and included in the calculation of what one single labor voucher is worth.





I trained as a commercial programmer i.e. someone who writes accounting programmes and databases.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't understand why you want this historical information.


It wouldn't be *me* who 'wants' historical information pertaining to labor-value inputs -- rather, that's what would be required for any claimed calculation of antecedent labor-value inputs into a single 'labor note' in the present-time.

In other words, the validity of a single labor note depends on being able to calculate all of the preceding labor values, back through historical time, that could have conceivably led into it. I find this approach to be *unwieldy* and impossible, so that's why I critique the labor notes proposal instead of supporting it.





Sounds good -- now how would you address the availability/willingness 'variable' -- if there's a mass political decision to value 'ground leveling' as a matter of priority, for example, but there aren't enough people in the immediate area to actually get this done on the required timetable, what then?





I'm only talking about how information can be collected.


Okay, you're unable to address the realities of whether or not there would be sufficient liberated labor available (and willing) to fulfill any given collective mass initiative.





The point is that we do not need a vast bureaucracy of people monitoring work hours or determining some kind of labour input equivalencies. For whatever scheme you might consider, it is safe to assume that actual quantities of labour performed can be tracked, stored, and communicated globally within seconds.


I'm glad to hear that you're someone who grasps the potentials of technological data usage, but the labor notes system *would* have to determine labor-input equivalencies, and it's because of this:





My real point is that if you have your eye on that gold toilet seat that Lenin mentioned, you could just scan it with an RFID reader and it will tell you the exact quantity of work that went into producing it down to a fraction of a second.


---





Okay, then how is the value of one labor voucher determined? (What is the value of one labor voucher, relative to whatever else -- ?)





The same as one other. I took that as a given.


Sure, you're saying that 1 LV = 1 LV. That's not saying much. Your 'real point' is this:





My real point is that [technological means] will tell you the exact quantity of work that went into producing [a product] down to a fraction of a second.


So my point stands: You're making a claim about a particular implementation for the labor notes system, one that depends on data collection of past labor value inputs, but you're unable to address where the cut-off point in historical time would be for allowing or disallowing past historical data.

[ckaihatsu]

[L]abor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity,




This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. [...] [I]t tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.





So is labor to be measured with 'intensity' in mind, or is unequal individual endowment going to be left as an 'unequal right', with individual productive capacity unaccounted for in any measurement -- ?





No, I don't think so. I think that what often gets missed here is that he is talking about socially aggregated labour time. It is still possible for there to be variation in how much or how efficiently workers produce stuff, and that can still be recognised.

The example of a loaf of bread was used in a previous thread, so I'll use it again. As before, the average production time for a loaf is 7 hours across the whole society. If I'm a slack, lazy worker, I can be - I don't sacked and starved. But if it takes me 8 hours to produce that loaf, I can still only claim 7 hours of others peoples labour inputs, because that is what my work is "worth" to the society as a whole. If you are a more efficient worker, and do that loaf in 6 hours, you can take the last hour off and pop down the pub, and still lay claim to 7 hours of others aggregate labour.

The important points in this are: workers can work as much as they choose, they dip in and out of work, because the only person they are beholden to is themselves. If they would rather make fewer claims on others, and instead spend their time on the beach, they can. If someone is a real go-getter, who puts in a lot of work that the rest of society needs, then their productive heroism can be recognised and reciprocated.

So I don't see any problem with the proposition that an hour of labour can be exchanged for another aggregated hour of someone else's labour.


These are conflicting definitions that you're putting forth. If there is to be a set *standard* of 'a loaf of bread takes 7 hours to make', with individuals individually varying from that standard, then that's *one* thing, but such a standard would conflict with your latter statement that 'an hour of labour can be exchanged for another aggregated hour of someone else's labour'.

Since people's work effort can vary from the '7-hour' standard, those labor-hours, per individual, would *not* be exchangeable, or comparable, to each other -- they would only be meaningful in regards to the production of the loaf of bread.

Labor, then, would *not* be defined by its duration or its intensity, according to what you're saying here.

[Subversive]

I believe I can possibly help clarify the argument RedMaterialist is trying to make.
(Or perhaps butcher it with my own interpretation. I don't know.)

First, there is really no distinction between stating society has "one class" and that classes don't exist anymore. It's the same thing, these are synonymous. The people arguing against RedMaterialist's use of the phrase "one class left" are merely only doing what some people did to me earlier - arguing petty semantics for no reason other than to argue.

Second, I believe another point he was trying to make was that after the DOTP abolishes the bourgeois class, the DOTP itself still exists as a State. That society itself does not immediately and instantly transform from Capitalism into Communism simply through the dissolution of the bourgeoisie. Society is not yet Stateless and therefore does not yet qualify as Communism. Therefore, there will be a period of time where the DOTP (whom he is just calling the "proletariat" - and referring to them as the "one class" remaining) must dissolve itself and thus remove the State. Engels referred to this period as the 'withering away of the State'.

So, at least on these two points, I do not think RedMaterialist's arguments are non-Marxist. I didn't read the entire argument so I'm not sure what else was stated, but I believe most of you are just talking past each other. This seems to be a consistent trend in this topic.

[ckaihatsu]

I'd be interested to hear what anyone thinks about even *theoretically* determining the labor-hour value of a product, either under capitalism or with a post-capitalist labor-notes-type accounting.





OK. The key is visibility.

Lets go back and look at primitive communism for a bit. In this scenario, people live and work intimately. There is probably some work we all do together, like harvesting crops, which can basically be ignored because it can just be allocated equally.

But say you are good at making baskets, sewing clothes, that kind of thing, and I am good at making, say, arrows and stuff. So when we work, we gather in the long house, or around the village centre, and we chat, and maybe sing, and tell jokes, sand speculate on which of the young un's has their eye on the other while we work.

In doing this, each of us has a very clear idea of what the others output is. I see you working on your baskets, you see me working on my arrows. When comes the day that we want to exchange each of our goods for the other's, we have a very precise understanding of what a fair and equitable exchange should be, because each of us knows how much work went into each good. Nobody has made a "profit", and nobody has been ripped off.

The point at which exchange based on price enters the scenario only appears with long distance trade. This is your classic "selling beads to the natives" thing. Say someone turns up from far away with a really really cool stone axe of a type we've never seen before. Because we do not see this production, we have no idea what a fair and equitable exchange would be, because we don't know how much work it took to make. And so without that information, the only thing that matters is psychological, how much we want it.

And so the trader can play us off against each other, to jack up how many baskets or arrows they get in exchange. Even worse, the whole ballpark in which we start bidding need not have any relation to how much work this axe took to produce; it could be hugely inflated by comparison to it's real production requirement, even counting the transport required to bring it here.

Yet this is the core of capitalist price exchange - perception and desire in the context of an absence of information. A genuinely fair exchange is not possible.

But, a future communist society CAN track and then publish the amount of labour time that goods take to produce. The lack of visibility problem goes away, exchanges can now be fair again.


This gets back to where, and why, the 'cut-off' should be made for disallowing past historical data, into the calculation of labor inputs -- see post #138.

[Subversive]

This gets back to where, and why, the 'cut-off' should be made for disallowing past historical data, into the calculation of labor inputs -- see post #138.
Why do you even bother with historical data? How is it relevant? Maybe I missed part of this discussion, but what you quoted does not refer to it at all.

If it took 2 hours to make baskets a year ago, but today it only takes 1 hour, and I never used my 2 hour labor-credit from a year ago, are you suggesting that it's no longer fair to use it now?

Those 2 hours I spent a year ago are still 2 hours of labor I put into commodities that were used 2 years ago. They still hold the value of 2 hours of labor that I contributed to society - a society that would not be where it is today, not capable of producing the same in 1 hour if it weren't for me, and everyone else like me, putting in the same 2 hours of labor for what is today a 1-hour equivalent. It was society's 2 hours that allowed production to become 1 hour, and more importantly: it was still 2 hours of socially necessary labor time of the commodities I produce and were used a year ago. Therefore, time is not a factor here. An hour of labor will always be an hour of labor. It does not ever fluctuate, it is universal.

Thus, we still have fair-exchange despite absolutely any difference in time.

Time is therefore irrelevant to labor-value. Something that people like Mises never understood because they WANT for that time to matter - because they DON'T actually like the idea of fair-exchange. They want to benefit from hoarding. They desire to be Capitalists.

What is your contention? Why do you believe historical data is relevant here?

[Creative Destruction]

First, there is really no distinction between stating society has "one class" and that classes don't exist anymore. It's the same thing, these are synonymous. The people arguing against RedMaterialist's use of the phrase "one class left" are merely only doing what some people did to me earlier - arguing petty semantics for no reason other than to argue.

There is a distinction. He's arguing that there will be one proletarian class. That's a ridiculous formulation because the proletariat exist -- solely -- in opposition to something else, namely the bourgeoisie. If you liquidate the bourgeoisie, you necessarily liquidate the proletarian class. If you have nothing to oppose, and the existence of your class rests on that opposition, then that class no longer exists. This isn't a petty semantic debate -- it's a factual and logical debate. RedMaterialist, like you, has always had an issue with sussing out the facts and logic in the debate, instead meaning to discard it as "semantics." Of course, this leads to the absurd political positions that both of you have.


Second, I believe another point he was trying to make was that after the DOTP abolishes the bourgeois class, the DOTP itself still exists as a State. That society itself does not immediately and instantly transform from Capitalism into Communism simply through the dissolution of the bourgeoisie. Society is not yet Stateless and therefore does not yet qualify as Communism. Therefore, there will be a period of time where the DOTP (whom he is just calling the "proletariat" - and referring to them as the "one class" remaining) must dissolve itself and thus remove the State. Engels referred to this period as the 'withering away of the State'..

When Engels referred to the "withering away of the State" he meant that as a parallel to successfully suppressing the bourgeoisie. Since the state exists as an instrument of class oppression, and there is no more class to suppress, then there is no more state. The DOTP cannot exist as a "state" if there is a.) no proletariat class and b.) no other class to suppress. The proletariat class dissolves itself by dissolving the bourgeoisie -- as Marx said, abolishing "class generally."

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, I'm really getting confused by not only what point you're trying to make, but by your excessive use of quotes to fulfill arguments, rather than simply stating a point.

The following lists some of the bigger issues. Hopefully you can address them for me.





I have a standing critique of the labor notes proposal, in favor my own unique 'labor credits' construction which is at my blog entry. Here's *another* critique of the 'labor notes' formulation:




Pies Must Line Up

http://s6.postimg.org/5wpihv9ip/140415_2_Pies_Must_Line_Up_xcf_jpg.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/erqcsdyb1/full/)





I honestly cannot believe you argued with me about "labor notes", especially as I have described them, when you are literally arguing for what is basically the exact same thing.


No, there are distinct and major differences between the conventional labor notes system, and my 'labor credits' approach.





You may have your own implementation of a note/credit system, but by no means is your system somehow escaping the arguments you brought up yourself.


Feel free to raise these points, especially in regards to the labor credits model:







communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

labor [supply] -- Only active workers may control communist property -- no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want, with the proviso that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only -- after a certain period of disuse all personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property




Associated material values

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

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

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




Determination of material values

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

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

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




Material function

communist administration -- Assets and resources are collectively administered by a locality, or over numerous localities by combined consent [supply]

labor [supply] -- Work positions are created according to requirements of production runs and projects, by mass political prioritization

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




Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process




Propagation

communist administration -- A political culture, including channels of journalism, history, and academia, will generally track all known assets and resources -- unmaintained assets and resources may fall into disuse or be reclaimed by individuals for personal use only

labor [supply] -- Workers with past accumulated labor credits are the funders of new work positions and incoming laborers -- labor credits are handed over at the completion of work hours -- underfunded projects and production runs are debt-based and will be noted as such against the issuing locality

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




A further explanation and sample scenario can be found here:


'A world without money'

tinyurl.com/ylm3gev


'Hours as a measure of labor’

tinyurl.com/yh3jr9x




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





Furthermore, I have repeatedly explained to you how labor-notes can be used as a non-commodity means of exchange. And repeatedly you disagreed and stated it impossible - Yet here you are, suggesting that your system, which is ideologically the same thing, can somehow do it - magically.


There's a difference between 'ideology' and 'implementation' -- I don't agree that the conventional labor notes method is tenable, and that's why I developed the 'labor credits' model.





Your means of argument was pure dishonesty. It was nothing more than an attempt to commercialize your own ideology. I am absolutely repulsed by your deception.


You're making serious characterizations here which are not true.

I have severe differences with the implications that I've been dishonest, that I've attempted to commercialize, and that I've been deceptive.





I stated the chapters I referred to, more than once.
And not only that, but ironically you even quoted a very important piece yourself, unknowingly and apparently completely oblivious to the fact I was indicating it.

You quoted:





Marx then compares C-M-C and M-C-M. They are similar in that both have M-C and C-M phases, involving commodities and money, and buyers and sellers. However, in the case of C-M-C, the final product is a use-value, and thus gets spent once and for all. There is no "reflux" of money because it is lost in exchange for the product bought.





I bolded the part which I was actually referring to at one point.
This quotation not only explains the difference between C-M-C and M-C-M, and why they are not equivalent (as I explained to you), but also points out that in C-M-C, there is no re-use of money, profit of money, or existence of money after the exchange. The money itself only being used as merely the means of exchange, to exchange use-values of two commodities.


Okay, yes, you are correct about the difference between C-M-C and M-C-M.





I seriously do not know how you could possibly have quoted Marx exactly where I was referencing him and yet still disagree with me and simultaneously ask me to explain where I was referencing him. It is completely absurd. I can only assume, like the above, that you were deceptively disagreeing with me only to fulfill some ulterior motive.

What is the purpose of these kind of deceptions? Why are you playing this game with me? I do not understand what is your intent.[/quote]


No, there's nothing sinister going on. We're just talking here.


---





Are you serious? Again, you oppose Marxist doctrines with this belief.
Do you truly believe that Capitalism is never abolished until we establish a "gift economy"? This is ridiculous. The entire phase of "lower communism" (aka: Socialism) abolishes Capitalism but does not yet possess the capacity for a gift economy or any similar sort of thing.
I'll also note that people often misuse the term 'gift economy'. Marx never spoke of one. So why do so-called Marxists?





Here's from that other thread:





Have you ever heard of a "pot luck" party where everybody brings a dish? The original basis for the phrase is, I think, from the northwest pacific native american "potlach" which was a gathering of people who all brought some food or where one family provided the food, for free....a gift economy.





So, what this practice reveals is that the typical capitalist economy is *not* 100% pervasive, since these kinds of 'potluck' parties continue today, despite the preponderant monolithic nature of capitalist economics / material management.

This is to say that the only variable in play, then, is really that of *scale* -- we know that human society is *capable* of gift-economy-type social relations, but as things currently stand, such 'gift economies' are miniscule in size, or are unplanned, spontaneous events, as with 'paying it forward'.





What does a "gift economy" or the other topic have anything to do with labor-notes, your arguments against them, or anything else in this topic at all?
How is any of this relevant? Is that what this is really about, the other topic? Are you upset that I argued with you about gift economies in the other topic, therefore you decided to incoherently disagree with me elsewhere?
Again, I do not understand. These things are completely and utterly unrelated.


I made the point that the concept of the 'gift economy' is relevant to socialism because the 'gift economy' contradicts market valuations and also happens in the present time -- if such practices could be scaled upward to encompass the whole world it would be equivalent to a revolution that overthrows the rule of capital.


---





The key point I was making was that the government can play a large beneficial part in maintaining awareness, and thus nullify that possibility [of insufficient political consciousness].





You're describing a *dependence* on government -- that's reformist.





There is simply just so much wrong here.

Let me clarify a few things for you:
1. The DOTP is a form of government. Communism itself, even in the upper stages, will still have government. Government does not mean State. You are confused.

2. I don't know what your definition of "reformist" is, but reformism is the ideology that Socialism can come about through small gradual steps of political reform, rather than through revolution. Absolutely nothing - and I do mean nothing - that I have stated here could even resemble an implication that I am a reformist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformism
Reformism is closely associated with both Revisionism and Utopianism.

3. A government, such as the DOTP, can indeed assist in the overall social prevention of corruption. You stating that this is "reformist" is not an argument against that. It is merely an ad hominem fallacy. If you truly disagree with my claims then you should provide a real argument and not just an accusation or insult.

4. The DOTP is also a form of State, and a State can still assist in these things, as well.

5. I do not argue Reformism, Utopianism, Revisionism, Anarchism, or any other nonsense. You will never find this in any of my posts without twisting my words, misunderstanding something, and/or possessing general ignorance of the subject.


Okay, acknowledged. Given all of this that's here, and more elsewhere, I will cease using the term 'reformist' regarding you.





My method is to handle responses on a point-by-point basis. If you see any instance where I may have overlooked some content of yours just bring it to my attention.





Every single time!
I would have expected you to resolve the issue by now, since I have brought it to your attention in detail in all previous replies to you.

So, personally, I would suggest you stop your "point-by-point" responses, because it seems you are unable to keep up with context and therefore losing all meaning. In fact, you do it so poorly that you're merely twisting words up and making the entire discussion repulsive.
I suggest that you merely read through the whole post first, in order to understand the larger points, context, issues, and contentions, before you attempt to address individual points. I, very seriously, believe that you are losing the entire meaning of people's posts simply because you're not reading into context. This seems to be the fundamental problem here, and it seems to be true of the other topic where I argued with you, as well.


I don't agree with this generalization of yours.


---





Any goods received for labor vouchers earned would *not* be commodities since they would be meant for immediate consumption or use, and not for any exchanges, such as to compile exchange-value:





Just to point out there error here:
Like earlier, I'll point out again that you call yourself a Marxist. Yet, you even quoted where Marx refers to the C-M-C type of exchange.

So please tell me: What is it that you think the "C" stands for in "C-M-C"?

Let me help you with that answer:





The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back again into commodities;





Does this help?

Funny thing is, there is irony in the fact you quoted Marx speaking about the C-M-C and M-C-M exchanges earlier. Do you always quote Marx without knowing what he is saying?


You're mixing timeframes here since 'labor vouchers' is for a context of *post*-commodity-production, while 'commodities' implies market valuations.

[Subversive]

There is a distinction.
Only when you create one. RedMaterialist is not making one, not creating one, therefore it doesn't exist to him. It is indeed just semantics.


He's arguing that there will be one proletarian class. That's a ridiculous formulation because the proletariat exist -- solely -- in opposition to something else, namely the bourgeoisie. If you liquidate the bourgeoisie, you necessarily liquidate the proletarian class. If you have nothing to oppose, and the existence of your class rests on that opposition, then that class no longer exists. This isn't a petty semantic debate -- it's a factual and logical debate.
I understand both points of view here, and I'm not stating anyone is correct or incorrect.
However, I would have to point out that you are incorrect that this is a "factual and logical debate". He is referring to the Proletariat as 'the working class'. The working class does not simply disappear when Capitalists disappear. People will still work, obviously. Until such a time as complete automation is possible (though I personally reject this premise - total automation is never possible because automation itself needs upkeep).
You are referring to it in the Marxist way, as two opposing classes. The Proletariat being a class who's existence is solely to oppose the bourgeoisie.

Again, that is not a "factual and logical debate", it is merely semantics. And I'm personally of the opinion that semantic arguments are petty and pointless. I feel it is pretty easy to understand what either side is saying if you just read within context.


RedMaterialist, like you, has always had an issue with sussing out the facts and logic in the debate, instead meaning to discard it as "semantics." Of course, this leads to the absurd political positions that both of you have.
Well, I can't speak of his history, but it appears to me that you're foolishly only upholding a Purist argument, yet again, and merely stating that it is logical and factual, when in reality it really is nothing but Semantics.

I have no idea what you mean by absurd political positions. Again I can't speak for RedMaterialist, but I know my own political position is not "absurd". I do not like labels, but the political position that most closely fits my own would be Marxism. And I believe you also label yourself as a Marxist? That would merely mean you're calling your own political position "absurd".

We have so far disagreed only on terminology, rednoise. You have yet to understand that.



When Engels referred to the "withering away of the State" he meant that as a parallel to successfully suppressing the bourgeoisie. Since the state exists as an instrument of class oppression, and there is no more class to suppress, then there is no more state.
As RedMaterialist pointed out, there would not be an immediate dissolution of the State.
The State would dissolve itself without an opposing force to counter, for sure, just as both Marx and Engels would explain, but this would not happen overnight. It just isn't realistic. Some people would hold on to that power as long as they can. It would be in their own self-interests, even if they have no one left to oppose.



The DOTP cannot exist as a "state" if there is a.) no proletariat class and b.) no other class to suppress. The proletariat class dissolves itself by dissolving the bourgeoisie -- as Marx said, abolishing "class generally."
Yes, Marx stated that classes would be abolished, but that is not necessarily the same thing as abolishing a State or governing entity. That sort of thing takes time, and that process cannot begin until every last bourgeois is gone.
Again, some people would try to hold power for as long as they can, even if that means they have no one to oppose. The State will surely dissolve itself in this way, but how long will that take? This is what RedMaterialist was arguing, I believe.

Though, honestly, I don't care. I was only trying to clarify for him, since he was the only person who actually defended my use of the term "Socialism".

Personally, I hate talking about things so far in the future. I am interested in the here and now.

[Subversive]

ckaihatsu, can I have your definitions of "labor notes" and "labor credits" again?
I don't think we were talking about the same things.

[ckaihatsu]

ckaihatsu, can I have your definitions of "labor notes" and "labor credits" again?
I don't think we were talking about the same things.


Yeah, no prob....


---





I am not personally in favor of 'labor-notes', explicitly, either. However, like I explained earlier, this is not a concept that has a strict definition.





Yes, here's a summary of it:





The original labor note idea is to have labor performed and then compensated from entities that administer production goods (factories, etc.) on a collective basis -- the labor notes would just be an entry in a person's account, from which a person could draw for the sake of personal purchases in a market-like economy for *consumer* goods. In this way there would be no *exchange* of labor for money / commodities, since labor notes are *issued*, and no commodification of labor notes since they don't circulate and don't function as capital.


---





You may want to describe 'labor notes' according to your understanding.





They are a very simple concept. I already described them well enough, it was only that you rejected the definition which was your own error.
Here is a further explanation of them, if you feel it absolutely necessary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_voucher

This should further clarify any misunderstandings you have about labor-notes. And yes, labor vouchers and labor notes are the same thing.


---










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

What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

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

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




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

[ckaihatsu]

Why do you even bother with historical data? How is it relevant? Maybe I missed part of this discussion, but what you quoted does not refer to it at all.


Please keep in mind my political *position* -- I do *not* favor labor notes / vouchers, so any logistics required for their calculation would not be my responsibility to lay-out.





If it took 2 hours to make baskets a year ago, but today it only takes 1 hour, and I never used my 2 hour labor-credit from a year ago, are you suggesting that it's no longer fair to use it now?

Those 2 hours I spent a year ago are still 2 hours of labor I put into commodities that were used 2 years ago. They still hold the value of 2 hours of labor that I contributed to society - a society that would not be where it is today, not capable of producing the same in 1 hour if it weren't for me, and everyone else like me, putting in the same 2 hours of labor for what is today a 1-hour equivalent. It was society's 2 hours that allowed production to become 1 hour, and more importantly: it was still 2 hours of socially necessary labor time of the commodities I produce and were used a year ago. Therefore, time is not a factor here.


You're conflating labor notes with labor credits -- this scenario would not be possible in the first place with the model that I advocate because labor credits are *never* exchangeable for goods of any kind (no commodities, no commodity production).







[If] simple basics like ham and yogurt couldn't be readily produced by the communistic gift economy, and were 'scarce' in relation to actual mass demand, they *would* be considered 'luxury goods' in economic terms, and would be *discretionary* in terms of public consumption.

Such a situation would *encourage* liberated-labor -- such as it would be -- to 'step up' to supply its labor for the production of ham and yogurt, because the scarcity and mass demand would encourage others to put in their own labor to earn labor credits, to provide increasing rates of labor credits to those who would be able to produce the much-demanded ham and yogurt. (Note that the ham and yogurt goods themselves would never be 'bought' or 'sold', because the labor credits are only used in regard to labor-*hours* worked, and *not* for exchangeability with any goods, because that would be commodity production.)

This kind of liberated-production assumes that the means of production have been *liberated* and collectivized, so there wouldn't be any need for any kind of finance or capital-based 'ownership' there.





An hour of labor will always be an hour of labor. It does not ever fluctuate, it is universal.


However there *are* the real-world realities of different *types* of labor, that vary by hazard and difficulty, and the *availability and willingness* of liberated labor for any given collective-decided project.





Thus, we still have fair-exchange despite absolutely any difference in time.


There shouldn't be *any* exchanges in a post-revolution society because all production would be socialized and direct-distributed for use or consumption only.





Time is therefore irrelevant to labor-value. Something that people like Mises never understood because they WANT for that time to matter - because they DON'T actually like the idea of fair-exchange. They want to benefit from hoarding. They desire to be Capitalists.




What is your contention? Why do you believe historical data is relevant here?


(Again)

Please keep in mind my political *position* -- I do *not* favor labor notes / vouchers, so any logistics required for their calculation would not be my responsibility to lay-out.

[Subversive]

So, if I am clear, your definition of 'labor-notes' is a non-circulating credit that can be used for purchase of goods, meanwhile your 'labor-credits' that you speak of is a circulating credit that can not be used to purchase goods, and they are only applicable in a society with over-abundance of goods.

So what do you purchase with your labor-credits? I can only assume you mean that you purchase labor itself, since nothing else is available to buy.
But what is the point of purchasing labor in a society of over-abundance wherein all commodities are free and available?

In a realistic society of over-abundance, how are commodities like original artworks counted? There is only ever one in the entire world - so who gets it? If no one can buy commodities with their labor-credits, then that must mean no one gets them.
But what if I have tons of labor-credits and I just hire someone to steal it from wherever it is? Or, to bribe people to allow me to use my credits to buy it. And, then maybe I do not stop, so I bribe people to allow me to buy the factory where food is produced. So now I own the means of producing food, simply because I had these credits I had nothing else to do with.

And supposing that people, or the laws, don't let me do these things. Maybe I hire an artist to create me an original artwork. So now is that artwork mine or does it go to the collective-entity that possess all rarities and cannot sell them to individuals?

So if I'm not allowed to purchase labor to produce rare goods, then what is the real point of these credits? So are they just a means to pay prostitutes or something, supposing that someone would still sell themselves for credits? Or, maybe to hire a lot of people to carry me around town by foot instead of walking or getting a car.

And if I am allowed to purchase labor to produce rare goods, like paintings, doesn't that mean I'm just buying rare goods in a slightly more concealed way? So, again, what becomes of these items once I am done with them? No one else can have them? Wouldn't this just result in a black-market of trading rare goods?

I am confused what purpose these "labor-credits" have, as well as, what benefits they would provide.


Please keep in mind my political *position* -- I do *not* favor labor notes / vouchers, so any logistics required for their calculation would not be my responsibility to lay-out.
But you are critiquing the system, and therefore you still need an explanation for why you believe the critique is necessary and relevant.



You're conflating labor notes with labor credits -- this scenario would not be possible in the first place with the model that I advocate because labor credits are *never* exchangeable for goods of any kind (no commodities, no commodity production).
No? I am speaking only of labor notes / labor vouchers (sometimes also called labor credits).
I am not speaking of your system, even though the name you use, "labor credits", is sometimes synonymous and therefore may become confusing at times.

Nevertheless, the scenario I described is referring to labor-notes. But it could equally relate to your system, too, if you want to draw a parallel.



However there *are* the real-world realities of different *types* of labor, that vary by hazard and difficulty, and the *availability and willingness* of liberated labor for any given collective-decided project.
True, but that's an entirely different topic altogether. For the purposes of discussion the scenarios all assume equivalent quality and difficulty.
Those things can be measured separately and would need their own scenarios to discuss.



There shouldn't be *any* exchanges in a post-revolution society because all production would be socialized and direct-distributed for use or consumption only.
I don't see any reason to believe this.
In the "lower phase of communism" (aka: Socialism), there is no inherent mechanism for "direct-distribution". It does not suddenly just happen, magically. There is still a need to equate labor worked (contribution) with distribution of goods; a need for a currency.
Obviously, the revolutionary phase of society also has no direct-distribution and will need a currency.

Most of your critiques assume an era of over-abundance, or what you call a "gift economy". But the "lower-phase of communism" (aka: Socialism) does not yet possess over-abundance. It is only the "higher phase of communism" (aka: Communism) that possesses over-abundance. Therefore, post-revolutionary society still needs a method of distribution and exchange.

And even in a society of over-abundance, it cannot be assumed that every good will have infinite productive capability. For example, how do you create more than one original piece of art? Only one can be the original. The original holds more use-value to people than copies do. How do you adjust for these?
And why would you even need a currency, at all, your own "labor credits" or not, in a society with "direct-distribution" of goods?

[ckaihatsu]

So, if I am clear, your definition of 'labor-notes' is a non-circulating credit that can be used for purchase of goods, meanwhile your 'labor-credits' that you speak of is a circulating credit that can not be used to purchase goods, and they are only applicable in a society with over-abundance of goods.


Actually, they would be *most* useful in cases where the over-abundance-based 'gift economy' was *not* possible, as with the 'ham and yogurt' scenario (of economic 'luxury goods') that I put into a 'spoiler' section.

Since the purpose of a post-scarcity society would be to *ensure* over-abundance -- as with a sheerly voluntarist gift economy -- wherever it could *not*, would be cases where the quality and quantity of liberated labor would then be an issue, and would have to be addressed in some way, as with 'labor credits'.





So what do you purchase with your labor-credits? I can only assume you mean that you purchase labor itself, since nothing else is available to buy.


Correct.





But what is the point of purchasing labor in a society of over-abundance wherein all commodities are free and available?


You're correct -- in such a situation the labor credits would most likely be *superfluous* and unneeded -- *however*, it's quite possible, and even likely, that not *all* goods would be in a constant state of over-abundance, as with the examples of fine wine, truffles, a one-time public (musical) event, or any other specialty-type items. Admittedly these would probably be *peripheral* economic matters, but they could be soundly handled with the labor credits method.





In a realistic society of over-abundance, how are commodities like original artworks counted? There is only ever one in the entire world - so who gets it? If no one can buy commodities with their labor-credits, then that must mean no one gets them.


Sure -- there was a fairly recent extended treatment of this topic at another thread -- here's an excerpt:





I'll also remind that it's not merely cultural elitist, hoity-toity goods that would be in this domain -- it would include *anything* that could not be readily mass produced or d.i.y., including specialty items that may pertain to areas of scientific research, hobbyist cultures, historical interests, and so on.





Are millions and millions of people likely to want these things? If by historical interests you mean ancient artifacts, old manuscripts and the like, would theses items be the possessions of anybody? Wouldn't they be stored in public museums?





Yes, agreed -- the rarest, irreplaceable-type of objects would necessarily be strictly in the public domain, as you're indicating.

But then there's plenty of *other* cultural artifacts -- consumer items from the era of commodity production -- that would be numerous enough for personal possession, and not rare enough to be strictly collectivized. How would *these* goods be handled by such a society, as for some kind of circulation at a specialty convention, perhaps -- ?

Such items couldn't be readily mass-produced, since they're uniquely from a certain historical period, and couldn't be d.i.y., either, for the same reason. A system of barter could not be guaranteed due to the free availability of most things, and also for the logistical difficulties of matching apples-to-oranges. And as soon as you introduce any kind of abstracted valuations like vouchers you are back to the use of currency in a market-type system.





The same would be true of items like famous paintings.





I can't agree here, and this is actually a good example for discussion -- would *all* paintings by *all* publicly-known painters have to be put under public control, or where would the line be drawn as to what could be in personal collections versus being publicly displayed -- ?

Obviously this is the kind of question that a collectivist political economy is exactly for -- that's why I can't answer definitively with a pre-made, set policy position.


---





But what if I have tons of labor-credits and I just hire someone to steal it from wherever it is? Or, to bribe people to allow me to use my credits to buy it. And, then maybe I do not stop, so I bribe people to allow me to buy the factory where food is produced. So now I own the means of producing food, simply because I had these credits I had nothing else to do with.


This would be a matter of the society's overall ethos, or mass political consciousness. Certainly conditions *could* conceivably devolve from whatever, for any given revolutionary-progressive social order, but it would be unlikely.





And supposing that people, or the laws, don't let me do these things. Maybe I hire an artist to create me an original artwork. So now is that artwork mine or does it go to the collective-entity that possess all rarities and cannot sell them to individuals?


For this I would consider the transfer of labor credits to the artist to be a *personal* matter, and so the original artwork would be the product of a liberated-labor *service*, and would be your personal possession.





So if I'm not allowed to purchase labor to produce rare goods, then what is the real point of these credits?


Here's from the intro:





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




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


So any 'small', *personal* matter that requires someone's (liberated) labor could be handled with a transfer of labor credits.





So are they just a means to pay prostitutes or something, supposing that someone would still sell themselves for credits? Or, maybe to hire a lot of people to carry me around town by foot instead of walking or getting a car.


Let's get there as soon as possible so that you can try for yourself...! (grin)





And if I am allowed to purchase labor to produce rare goods, like paintings, doesn't that mean I'm just buying rare goods in a slightly more concealed way? So, again, what becomes of these items once I am done with them? No one else can have them? Wouldn't this just result in a black-market of trading rare goods?


(See above.)





I am confused what purpose these "labor-credits" have, as well as, what benefits they would provide.


I hope I've covered the main points fairly well -- feel free to let me know of any other potential issues.

[Subversive]

Actually, they would be *most* useful in cases where the over-abundance-based 'gift economy' was *not* possible, as with the 'ham and yogurt' scenario (of economic 'luxury goods') that I put into a 'spoiler' section.
In your blog it is indicated that your 'labor credits' are referring to a gift economy society.

In accordance with communism being synonymous with 'free-access', all material implements, resources, and products would be freely available and *not* quantifiable according to any abstract valuations.
But you're saying they would work prior to this?
Your 'ham and yoguyrt scenario' only makes a claim that your system would improve production of rare-goods by incentivizing with labor-credits, yet you did not truly address the issue I raised wherein labor-credits are not actually used for anything, since you claim they cannot be used to purchase goods.

Or are you claiming that they can be used to purchase goods, but only in instances where the goods themselves are limited/rationed?

If so, this becomes problematic in that someone can use their labor-credits to hoard limited-goods and sell them if/when their price rises. Say, for instance, diamonds are a rationed good. I use my labor-credits to purchase an abundance of diamonds. Diamonds are suddenly in demand a year later. I sell my abundance of diamonds for twice what I purchased them for.
No longer is my contribution of labor fair to my reward. I am exploiting the diamond-laborers with your labor-credit system and meanwhile hoarding resources.

Maybe ham and yogurt will not be easily exploited, due to spoilage, but other resources could easily be exploited.
Furthermore, what stops a collective of agents from uniting their labor-credit-power to collectively buy a large chunk of resources, artificially creating demand and thus creating profits immediately upon purchase? Just as it is currently done in Capitalist society today by large corporations. What is the distinction?

And if you're merely suggesting that you cannot ever outright buy products, but must purchase the labor of the products to receive the products, then what happens to limited-products that fall out of production? Such as, for example, an original piece of artwork? Or, let's say, a large pile of rationed-diamonds?
If they are scarce goods, but simultaneously cannot be purchased by anyone, then at what point are they being used instead of hoarded? And who is hoarding them? And who is it that enforces this credit-system so that it is never, ever used to purchase goods such as these, assuming a Stateless society?

I don't really see any way to escape these fundamental problems without making exceptions - exceptions that will eventually break or corrupt the entire system.



Since the purpose of a post-scarcity society would be to *ensure* over-abundance -- as with a sheerly voluntarist gift economy -- wherever it could *not*, would be cases where the quality and quantity of liberated labor would then be an issue, and would have to be addressed in some way, as with 'labor credits'.
So how does labor credits address the issue?
I mostly just see the statement that they address the issue, but not an actual explanation of how, except for the "ham and yogurt" situations which simply states that it incentivizes production, though without explanation and thus introducing many of its own problems.



You're correct -- in such a situation the labor credits would most likely be *superfluous* and unneeded -- *however*, it's quite possible, and even likely, that not *all* goods would be in a constant state of over-abundance, as with the examples of fine wine, truffles, a one-time public (musical) event, or any other specialty-type items. Admittedly these would probably be *peripheral* economic matters, but they could be soundly handled with the labor credits method.
I don't see how.



Sure -- there was a fairly recent extended treatment of this topic at another thread -- here's an excerpt:
And, so, what was the conclusion?
I am most particularly interested in what makes your "labor credits" distinct and how they resolve this issue as opposed to any other form of currency, such as labor-vouchers.
I believe it was your argument that your system handled everything without the same fundamental problems as other forms of currency, was it not? Most particularly, you argued against labor-notes/vouchers.



This would be a matter of the society's overall ethos, or mass political consciousness. Certainly conditions *could* conceivably devolve from whatever, for any given revolutionary-progressive social order, but it would be unlikely.
Personally, I do not see the dissolution of an ideologically broken system as "unlikely", but, instead, I see it as inevitable.
A system that does not resolve it's theoretical issues before being implemented will not and can not last no matter the people involved. All situations involve error - because it is the nature of humanity to guarantee error.

So I do not see a system that doesn't address basic theoretical issues as being "unlikely" to cause problems. I do not accept such systems.

It is, ironically, the same premise that Communists have against Capitalism - the fact that it is a fundamentally broken system and will inevitably be destroyed by its own internal forces.



For this I would consider the transfer of labor credits to the artist to be a *personal* matter, and so the original artwork would be the product of a liberated-labor *service*, and would be your personal possession.
And thus you have a means for goods-exchange and black market merchandise.
Who maintains this system and prevents the inevitable chaos? Who denies people wishing to exploit this for personal gain?
And - At what point is something a "personal matter" and not a public one?

So now, what if my collective agency buys up all the remaining diamonds in the world? What then? We now have a monopoly on diamonds and can determine any price we want, can we not? Who would determine it? How would you stop this?

So now, what if it is not diamonds - maybe it is medicine. Maybe not medicine, exactly, but I subtly buy out (aka: purchase the labor-force to extract) one of the limited-resources available that is necessary to create a certain type of medicine? I have not done anything illegal - merely used my labor-credits to extract resources for my own personal collection. It is only by "coincidence" that these resources are necessary for medicine - a "coincidence" immediately and directly in my favor.
What would a "politically conscious" society do about this? They are the ones who established the system as-is in the first place.

Where does this end? What prevents it? If your system has no, as you call it, "valuation" of products, then how does it successfully ration the ones which are scarce without allowing for exploitation?
How does a "political consciousness"



Here's from the intro:
So any 'small', *personal* matter that requires someone's (liberated) labor could be handled with a transfer of labor credits.
So, if you see the problem with exchanging your labor-credits for scarce goods, and nullify it, then labor-credits are then purely for extracting labor, as you suggest.

But then, as I explained, labor is used only to extract resources, so then we come back to the issue wherein I am purchasing labor only to extract scarce goods for hoarding and exploitation; A purely Capitalistic task.

How is this prevented?



Let's get there as soon as possible so that you can try for yourself...! (grin)
Despite this being unrealistic in my lifetime: I would rather not see a system like yours being utilized unless all ideological flaws are addressed.



(See above.)
The 'above' never really answered my questions.
It also seems like you defer to previous discussions which are only mildly relevant and do not fully answer questions but only vaguely imply there might be an answer somewhere. Sometimes these references are more references.

I am merely curious, why do you do this?



I hope I've covered the main points fairly well -- feel free to let me know of any other potential issues.
I think you've only covered half of the points.
I do understand how your system differs from the traditional labor-vouchers concept, but only in a negative way because I see more issues being raised than solutions it provides. I also find the term "labor credits" misleading, as they are merely a credits system and the "labor" element is entirely arbitrary because they do not actually indicate labor-worked but only indicate credits-received.

Perhaps you could explain how your system of labor-credits would have an actual use for purchasing labor, and how, if scarce goods are purchased with them, it would not dissolve into a black market system eventually resulting in the continuance and even possibly the revival of Capitalism?
Even if you believe this to be an "unlikely", I still believe it needs to be addressed.

[ckaihatsu]

In your blog it is indicated that your 'labor credits' are referring to a gift economy society.

But you're saying they would work prior to this?


It's not either-or -- a gift economy / communism would necessarily be the context for the use of labor credits since commodity production and exchanges would be unnecessary, and would be superseded by collective production and direct-distribution.

'Labor credits' can be thought of as paradigm damage-control, in that their use allows a *controlled slippage* back to a formal quantification and qualification of liberated labor (hours), wherever and whenever the simpler gift-economy *cannot* be used, for whatever real-world, logistical-type contingencies that might arise.





Your 'ham and yoguyrt scenario' only makes a claim that your system would improve production of rare-goods by incentivizing with labor-credits, yet you did not truly address the issue I raised wherein labor-credits are not actually used for anything, since you claim they cannot be used to purchase goods.


I think I did already:





But what is the point of purchasing labor in a society of over-abundance wherein all commodities are free and available?





You're correct -- in such a situation the labor credits would most likely be *superfluous* and unneeded -- *however*, it's quite possible, and even likely, that not *all* goods would be in a constant state of over-abundance, as with the examples of fine wine, truffles, a one-time public (musical) event, or any other specialty-type items. Admittedly these would probably be *peripheral* economic matters, but they could be soundly handled with the labor credits method.


---





Or are you claiming that they can be used to purchase goods, but only in instances where the goods themselves are limited/rationed?


No, labor credits are *never* used to purchase goods, by definition. The overarching political economy would be of *eliminating scarcity*, and that could only be done through the implementation of liberated labor on collectivized implements.

We've covered this ground already:





If it took 2 hours to make baskets a year ago, but today it only takes 1 hour, and I never used my 2 hour labor-credit from a year ago, are you suggesting that it's no longer fair to use it now?

Those 2 hours I spent a year ago are still 2 hours of labor I put into commodities that were used 2 years ago. They still hold the value of 2 hours of labor that I contributed to society - a society that would not be where it is today, not capable of producing the same in 1 hour if it weren't for me, and everyone else like me, putting in the same 2 hours of labor for what is today a 1-hour equivalent. It was society's 2 hours that allowed production to become 1 hour, and more importantly: it was still 2 hours of socially necessary labor time of the commodities I produce and were used a year ago. Therefore, time is not a factor here.





You're conflating labor notes with labor credits -- this scenario would not be possible in the first place with the model that I advocate because labor credits are *never* exchangeable for goods of any kind (no commodities, no commodity production).





[If] simple basics like ham and yogurt couldn't be readily produced by the communistic gift economy, and were 'scarce' in relation to actual mass demand, they *would* be considered 'luxury goods' in economic terms, and would be *discretionary* in terms of public consumption.

Such a situation would *encourage* liberated-labor -- such as it would be -- to 'step up' to supply its labor for the production of ham and yogurt, because the scarcity and mass demand would encourage others to put in their own labor to earn labor credits, to provide increasing rates of labor credits to those who would be able to produce the much-demanded ham and yogurt. (Note that the ham and yogurt goods themselves would never be 'bought' or 'sold', because the labor credits are only used in regard to labor-*hours* worked, and *not* for exchangeability with any goods, because that would be commodity production.)

This kind of liberated-production assumes that the means of production have been *liberated* and collectivized, so there wouldn't be any need for any kind of finance or capital-based 'ownership' there.


---





If so, this becomes problematic in that someone can use their labor-credits to hoard limited-goods and sell them if/when their price rises. Say, for instance, diamonds are a rationed good. I use my labor-credits to purchase an abundance of diamonds. Diamonds are suddenly in demand a year later. I sell my abundance of diamonds for twice what I purchased them for.
No longer is my contribution of labor fair to my reward. I am exploiting the diamond-laborers with your labor-credit system and meanwhile hoarding resources.


I call this kind of thing a 'nightmare scenario', since all you're doing is positing *details* that I can't possibly address from the standpoint of the here-and-now. I can only put forth the 'labor credits' proposed framework, for what it is, and that's all. And if a global hurricane wiped all people and animals off the face of the earth, then, yes, my model would fail.





Maybe ham and yogurt will not be easily exploited, due to spoilage, but other resources could easily be exploited.
Furthermore, what stops a collective of agents from uniting their labor-credit-power to collectively buy a large chunk of resources, artificially creating demand and thus creating profits immediately upon purchase? Just as it is currently done in Capitalist society today by large corporations. What is the distinction?


(Ditto.)





And if you're merely suggesting that you cannot ever outright buy products, but must purchase the labor of the products to receive the products, then what happens to limited-products that fall out of production? Such as, for example, an original piece of artwork? Or, let's say, a large pile of rationed-diamonds?


See this part, from a previous post:





Yes, agreed -- the rarest, irreplaceable-type of objects would necessarily be strictly in the public domain, as you're indicating.





If they are scarce goods, but simultaneously cannot be purchased by anyone, then at what point are they being used instead of hoarded? And who is hoarding them? And who is it that enforces this credit-system so that it is never, ever used to purchase goods such as these, assuming a Stateless society?


Again you're just positing an ethos that's contrary to that of communism, and simply as an abstraction in a void. You're not even attempting to put forth a line of reasoning for *why* the norms could conceivably backslide to such an extent where 'hoarding' would even be considered as an option, and practiced.

Even today, under material / economic conditions that intrinsically *reward* individuals for cornering the market on scarcities, there are social norms that override a base practice of economics, and, for example, help to protect certain kinds of wildlife, historical antiquities, artistic originals, etc.

Certainly a society that collectively revolted and overthrew commodity production and exchange values would place a premium on *eliminating scarcity* and ensuring that all have equal access to the bounties of humanity and nature. Objective material conditions would have to deteriorate considerably for this kind of social net to weaken to the point where hoarding conferred advantages over the prevailing mores of working in common to make sure that everyone had what they needed and wanted from the world.





I don't really see any way to escape these fundamental problems without making exceptions - exceptions that will eventually break or corrupt the entire system.


This is nothing more than a baseless accusation, and it isn't your first one, either -- you're characterizing my 'labor credits' as being problematic, but you're not giving any *grounds* for *how* the framework, itself, would invite or inherently lend itself to problems like corruption.


---





Since the purpose of a post-scarcity society would be to *ensure* over-abundance -- as with a sheerly voluntarist gift economy -- wherever it could *not*, would be cases where the quality and quantity of liberated labor would then be an issue, and would have to be addressed in some way, as with 'labor credits'.





So how does labor credits address the issue?
I mostly just see the statement that they address the issue, but not an actual explanation of how, except for the "ham and yogurt" situations which simply states that it incentivizes production, though without explanation and thus introducing many of its own problems.


So, basically, you're not satisfied with ham and yogurt.... (grin)

There's no better way of illustrating it, though I'll repeat the part at the beginning of this post:

'Labor credits' can be thought of as paradigm damage-control, in that their use allows a *controlled slippage* back to a formal quantification and qualification of liberated labor (hours), wherever and whenever the simpler gift-economy *cannot* be used, for whatever real-world, logistical-type contingencies that might arise.


---





You're correct -- in such a situation the labor credits would most likely be *superfluous* and unneeded -- *however*, it's quite possible, and even likely, that not *all* goods would be in a constant state of over-abundance, as with the examples of fine wine, truffles, a one-time public (musical) event, or any other specialty-type items. Admittedly these would probably be *peripheral* economic matters, but they could be soundly handled with the labor credits method.





I don't see how.


We have to look at the variables of 'material supply', 'liberated labor availability', and 'productivity' -- all at once, and in how these three components interrelate with each other.

Recall 'Pies Must Line Up':




Pies Must Line Up

http://s6.postimg.org/5wpihv9ip/140415_2_Pies_Must_Line_Up_xcf_jpg.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/erqcsdyb1/full/)


If something like truffles happens to be both time- and labor-intensive, that means that 'productivity' is necessarily low, and so supply can only be increased with an increasing use of (liberated) labor. Given that labor in a post-capitalist context *is* indeed liberated, it cannot be *artificially* increased, as with artificial scarcities (withholding food, housing, etc., for want of wages / money), or with coercion of any other kind.

The only thing left *would* be incentives, and the only incentive remaining in a social environment of material overabundance would be a share in the control (selection) of that which *is* necessarily scarce, more-or-less: labor.

So the more one works, at increasingly hazardous or difficult labor roles, the greater will be one's share in the selection of liberated-labor (hours), going-forward, through labor credits. (Note that in the absence of *capital* and capital *returns*, one becomes strictly limited to one's own labor-effort, which is certainly finite.)

Want more truffles? It's either d.i.y. or else you have to work to earn labor credits so that you can pay whoever *will* do the work to provide the world with more truffles. Those who do the work will naturally get first dibs on whatever they produce since they're right there at the point of production, and I can't even say for certain if the person putting forth the labor credits for the work would get *second* dibs on what's produced -- presumably that would be the case, but it would ultimately be at the discretion of the person doing the producing, first, and after that it would technically / actually be a *collective* matter, since all production is necessarily for the *commons* (to alleviate conditions of scarcity, for all).





And, so, what was the conclusion?


This discussion board's software gives you a link to the source posting of any quoted text. It's a little right-facing arrow (or greater-than math symbol) right after the username of the person whose text is being quoted -- knock yourself out.





I am most particularly interested in what makes your "labor credits" distinct and how they resolve this issue as opposed to any other form of currency, such as labor-vouchers.
I believe it was your argument that your system handled everything without the same fundamental problems as other forms of currency, was it not? Most particularly, you argued against labor-notes/vouchers.


(I noted that I am objectively unable to predict or set policy on how semi-rare items would be handled -- that would necessarily be up to the political economy of that society.)


---






This would be a matter of the society's overall ethos, or mass political consciousness. Certainly conditions *could* conceivably devolve from whatever, for any given revolutionary-progressive social order, but it would be unlikely.





Personally, I do not see the dissolution of an ideologically broken system as "unlikely", but, instead, I see it as inevitable.
A system that does not resolve it's theoretical issues before being implemented will not and can not last no matter the people involved. All situations involve error - because it is the nature of humanity to guarantee error.

So I do not see a system that doesn't address basic theoretical issues as being "unlikely" to cause problems. I do not accept such systems.

It is, ironically, the same premise that Communists have against Capitalism - the fact that it is a fundamentally broken system and will inevitably be destroyed by its own internal forces.


You're not suggesting any *material* conditions that would precipitate a tumble from prevailing (post-capitalist) social conditions, so the only thing left would be the *intrinsic* qualities of the framework I'm setting-forth -- but you're simply *asserting* that my proposed system is 'broken', without making any arguments as to *how* it might be so. You're not arguing from the standpoint of the overarching material conditions, and you're not arguing from within the terms of the framework *itself*, so you're shown to be left arguing in *abstraction*, with no grounding for your claims.

Again:

[Y]ou're characterizing my 'labor credits' as being problematic, but you're not giving any *grounds* for *how* the framework, itself, would invite or inherently lend itself to problems like corruption.


---





For this I would consider the transfer of labor credits to the artist to be a *personal* matter, and so the original artwork would be the product of a liberated-labor *service*, and would be your personal possession.





And thus you have a means for goods-exchange and black market merchandise.


No, there's no basis for such -- only if a *service* is performed, as from an artist, would there be a transfer of labor credits. Once the artwork is completed it's either someone's personal possession or else it reverts back to the commons, for anyone else to take for themselves.





Who maintains this system and prevents the inevitable chaos?


Again, just consider the advanced material conditions of overabundance and the social norm of 'eliminating scarcity'.





Who denies people wishing to exploit this for personal gain?


More baseless assertions -- you're not even bothering to describe how someone *could* 'exploit' it for personal gain.

Either items are 'rare' and would be under collective administration and for public display only, they would be 'abundant' and for-the-taking, they would be part of someone's personal possessions (actively around their own personal presence), or else they would be 'semi-rare' and it would be up to that society to set actual policy for this kind of gray-area.





And - At what point is something a "personal matter" and not a public one?


Items are considered someone's 'personal possessions' as long as they can actually actively look after them -- like as for a pet, perhaps. If someone *isn't* actively, consistently looking after them then someone else may notice it, see it as 'available', and take it for themselves.

Regarding politics / social matters for a post-capitalist society, if something only affects one person or is inter-personal to a small, local group then it's 'personal' -- if something can be seen to affect greater numbers of people, indiscriminately, according to *patterns*, then it's a social / political matter.





So now, what if my collective agency buys up all the remaining diamonds in the world? What then? We now have a monopoly on diamonds and can determine any price we want, can we not? Who would determine it? How would you stop this?


Piss off enough people and you'll find out. (Ignoring your assumption that you'd be able to 'buy' goods of any kind in the first place.)





So now, what if it is not diamonds - maybe it is medicine. Maybe not medicine, exactly, but I subtly buy out (aka: purchase the labor-force to extract) one of the limited-resources available that is necessary to create a certain type of medicine?


With your own labor-efforts, limited to the 24-hour day, you'd only be able to proportionately leverage a *limited* amount of others' subsequent labor efforts.





I have not done anything illegal - merely used my labor-credits to extract resources for my own personal collection. It is only by "coincidence" that these resources are necessary for medicine - a "coincidence" immediately and directly in my favor.
What would a "politically conscious" society do about this? They are the ones who established the system as-is in the first place.

Where does this end? What prevents it? If your system has no, as you call it, "valuation" of products, then how does it successfully ration the ones which are scarce without allowing for exploitation?


Glad you asked this, and you may even *like* the answer.... (Don't skip ahead.) (grin)

What you're *really* asking is how a post-capitalist social order would *differentiate* among all necessarily-equal claims / requests to social production, if that amount of social production is unavoidably limited and 'scarce' in comparison to outstanding demand for it. (A good example would be a much-anticipated one-time music event, with physically limited capacity for seating.)

Got this done only this past summer, for just such a post as this one....





Better, I think, would be an approach that is more routine and less time-sensitive in prioritizing among responders -- the thing that would differentiate demand would be people's *own* prioritizations, in relation to *all other* possibilities for demands. This means that only those most focused on Product 'X' or Event 'Y', to the abandonment of all else (relatively speaking), over several iterations (days), would be seen as 'most-wanting' of it, for ultimate receipt.

My 'communist supply and demand' model, fortunately, uses this approach as a matter of course:


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

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process

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


I'm also realizing that this model / method of demand-prioritization can be used in such a way as to lend relative *weight* to a person's bid for any given product or calendar event, if there happens to be a limited supply and a more-intensive prioritization ('rationing') is called-for by the objective situation:

Since everyone has a standard one-through-infinity template to use on a daily basis for all political and/or economic demands, this template lends itself to consumer-political-type *organizing* in the case that such is necessary -- someone's 'passion' for a particular demand could be formally demonstrated by their recruiting of *others* to direct one or several of *their* ranking slots, for as many days / iterations as they like, to the person who is trying to beat-out others for the limited quantity.

Recall:

[A]ggregating these lists, by ranking (#1, #2, #3, etc.), is *no big deal* for any given computer. What we would want to see is what the rankings are for milk and steel, by rank position. So how many people put 'milk' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'steel' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'milk' for #2 -- ? And how many people put 'steel' for #2 -- ? (Etc.)

*This* would be socially useful information that could be the whole basis for a socialist political economy.

So, by extension, if someone was particularly interested in 'Event Y', they might undertake efforts to convince others to *donate* their ranking slots to them, forgoing 'milk' and 'steel' (for example) for positions #1 and/or #2. Formally these others would put 'Person Z for Event Y' for positions 1 and/or 2, etc., for as many days / iterations as they might want to donate. This, in effect, would be a populist-political-type campaign, of whatever magnitude, for the sake of a person's own particularly favored consumption preferences, given an unavoidably limited supply of it, whatever it may be.




tinyurl.com/additive-prioritizations


---





How does a "political consciousness"










So any 'small', *personal* matter that requires someone's (liberated) labor could be handled with a transfer of labor credits.





So, if you see the problem with exchanging your labor-credits for scarce goods, and nullify it, then labor-credits are then purely for extracting labor, as you suggest.


No exchanges, because that would effectively be commodification and use of exchange values.

There's no 'extraction' of labor-power or labor-value -- rather, given a definite, finite number of people on the earth and a 24-hour day, 365-day year for everyone, there would be an inherent upper limit to how many hours of work could be done, by everyone.

Here's the next sentence from the intro:





This method would both *empower* and *limit* the position of liberated labor since a snapshot of labor performed -- more-or-less the same quantity of labor-power available continuously, going forward -- would be certain, known, and *finite*, and not subject to any kinds of abstraction- (financial-) based extrapolations or stretching.




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


---





But then, as I explained, labor is used only to extract resources, so then we come back to the issue wherein I am purchasing labor only to extract scarce goods for hoarding and exploitation; A purely Capitalistic task.

How is this prevented?


(Again)

With your own labor-efforts, limited to the 24-hour day, you'd only be able to proportionately leverage a *limited* amount of others' subsequent labor efforts.





Despite this being unrealistic in my lifetime: I would rather not see a system like yours being utilized unless all ideological flaws are addressed.


Address-away. I'll be here.





The 'above' never really answered my questions.
It also seems like you defer to previous discussions which are only mildly relevant and do not fully answer questions but only vaguely imply there might be an answer somewhere. Sometimes these references are more references.

I am merely curious, why do you do this?


Childhood traumas, as far as I can tell. (grin)

Seriously, instead of making flippant and spurious characterizations just point to specific aspects of what I'm proposing, and make an argument regarding such.





I think you've only covered half of the points.
I do understand how your system differs from the traditional labor-vouchers concept, but only in a negative way because I see more issues being raised than solutions it provides. I also find the term "labor credits" misleading, as they are merely a credits system and the "labor" element is entirely arbitrary because they do not actually indicate labor-worked but only indicate credits-received.


The 'labor-worked' is here:





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




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




communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg


---





Perhaps you could explain how your system of labor-credits would have an actual use for purchasing labor,


I've addressed this question in this post, above.

So -- you've already acknowledged the 'labor credits' on its own terms...





I do understand how your system differs from the traditional labor-vouchers concept,


...And you've noted the 'freely-available' quality of a communist-type social order (which could include labor credits)...





But what is the point of purchasing labor in a society of over-abundance wherein all commodities are free and available?


...And you've asked-to-confirm the point that labor credits *cannot* be exchanged for goods:





Or are you claiming that they [labor credits] can be used to purchase goods, [...]


---





and how, if scarce goods are purchased with them, it would not dissolve into a black market system eventually resulting in the continuance and even possibly the revival of Capitalism?
Even if you believe this to be an "unlikely", I still believe it needs to be addressed.


Either the communist-type society's liberated labor would have a collective interest in eliminating scarcity (ensuring abundance), or else what you're describing *would* happen, since what you're describing is a return to economic factionalism, for whatever reason. It's either one or the other, basically.

[ckaihatsu]

Either items are 'rare' and would be under collective administration and for public display only, they would be 'abundant' and for-the-taking, they would be part of someone's personal possessions (actively around their own personal presence), or else they would be 'semi-rare' and it would be up to that society to set actual policy for this kind of gray-area.




(I noted that I am objectively unable to predict or set policy on how semi-rare items would be handled -- that would necessarily be up to the political economy of that society.)


As an update, I'll note that semi-rare items *could* possibly be handled using the 'additive prioritizations' method, from the same post -- it would be like an auction, but with the results of a populist-style consumer campaign winning-out for any given item.




Better, I think, would be an approach that is more routine and less time-sensitive in prioritizing among responders -- the thing that would differentiate demand would be people's *own* prioritizations, in relation to *all other* possibilities for demands. This means that only those most focused on Product 'X' or Event 'Y', to the abandonment of all else (relatively speaking), over several iterations (days), would be seen as 'most-wanting' of it, for ultimate receipt.

My 'communist supply and demand' model, fortunately, uses this approach as a matter of course:


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

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process

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


I'm also realizing that this model / method of demand-prioritization can be used in such a way as to lend relative *weight* to a person's bid for any given product or calendar event, if there happens to be a limited supply and a more-intensive prioritization ('rationing') is called-for by the objective situation:

Since everyone has a standard one-through-infinity template to use on a daily basis for all political and/or economic demands, this template lends itself to consumer-political-type *organizing* in the case that such is necessary -- someone's 'passion' for a particular demand could be formally demonstrated by their recruiting of *others* to direct one or several of *their* ranking slots, for as many days / iterations as they like, to the person who is trying to beat-out others for the limited quantity.

Recall:

[A]ggregating these lists, by ranking (#1, #2, #3, etc.), is *no big deal* for any given computer. What we would want to see is what the rankings are for milk and steel, by rank position. So how many people put 'milk' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'steel' for #1 -- ? How many people put 'milk' for #2 -- ? And how many people put 'steel' for #2 -- ? (Etc.)

*This* would be socially useful information that could be the whole basis for a socialist political economy.

So, by extension, if someone was particularly interested in 'Event Y', they might undertake efforts to convince others to *donate* their ranking slots to them, forgoing 'milk' and 'steel' (for example) for positions #1 and/or #2. Formally these others would put 'Person Z for Event Y' for positions 1 and/or 2, etc., for as many days / iterations as they might want to donate. This, in effect, would be a populist-political-type campaign, of whatever magnitude, for the sake of a person's own particularly favored consumption preferences, given an unavoidably limited supply of it, whatever it may be.

tinyurl.com/additive-prioritizations

[ckaihatsu]

(See tinyurl.com/global-planning-matrix) (Some details have changed.)

Sam Smith and Pat Jones are separate individuals who both happen to live in 'New Physicalia', a locality in the Great Lakes region of North America. Sam Smith is late-middle-aged, lives alone, and finds kumquats to be the most delectable kind of food ever.

That's why, for the date of January 5, 2015, Sam put in an order for food item #09149, 'kumquats, raw', as the most-prioritized item for the day. (That's how most days' lists are for Sam.) Furthermore, the number-*two* item for that day was a political *demand*, intended for the local distribution entity, for *fresher* kumquats, since Sam has become something of a connoisseur of the fruit, over time.

The next day Sam got to brainstorming and whipped up a quick, brief initiative on how cooperative social planning could take place at the most-aggregated scales, meaning worldwide. Sam got very excited and confident about it and put it at the very first rank position for the personal prioritization list for January 6, 2015, calling it 'Global Planning Matrix'. Upon receipt from Sam, the Locality of New Physicalia automatically timestamped the items, two from the 5th and one from the 6th.

Pat Jones is a year younger than Sam, has always been socially active in one way or another, as far as memory serves, and has always been attentive to cutting-edge-type developments that would be worth supporting and improving-on.

Pat Jones happened to see Sam Smith's initiative for a 'Global Planning Matrix', from January 6, 2015, and right away -- almost instinctively -- included a duplicate-named initiative the very next day, at rank position #1 on the personal daily prioritization list.

Because the title-description of 'Global Planning Matrix' occurred twice in New Physicalia within a 7-day period, the tallying software automatically created a formal-item ('initiative') for it, thus making it a formal item for anyone else's future reference.

Chris Williams is two years older than Sam Smith and three years older than Pat Jones, living and working in the locality of 'Middle Mentalia', in the Ellim region of Antarctica. Chris only got around to socio-political involvement recently, after deciding to browse the public formal-item listings for a few major localities, including that of New Physicalia. The 'Global Planning Matrix' formal initiative popped up there one day and Chris read-up on it and then decided to personally include it as a supportive initiative for the date of January 8, 2015.

Even though the 'Global Planning Matrix' initiative was formalized (as formal-item '20150107.001') in the locality of New Physicalia, Chris, in the far-off continent of Antarctica, was able to reference it by number, and "updated" it as being intended for the *global* level ('GBL'). Chris could certainly have just joined in with discussions about the original initiative, for the locality of New Physicalia, but in that context would have been an 'outsider' with an inherent limitation on meaningful participation. By 'going global' with it Chris will need someone else to also put forth an identical 'Global Planning Matrix' personal list-item within seven days at the global level or else it will not become a formal item there.

Back in New Physicalia someone named Alex Johnson, two years younger than Sam Smith, has noticed and read-up on the '20150107.001' formal-item and, a few weeks later, decided to support it as a personal 'demand' item at rank position 5 (for the date of February 1, 2015).


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

http://s6.postimg.org/nfpj758c0/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)

[Yugoslav Partisan]

Socialism means that you get paid equally to how much you contributed to something.
Communism means that there is no pay, everyone works how much they can, and takes how much they need.

[ckaihatsu]

Socialism means that you get paid equally to how much you contributed to something.
Communism means that there is no pay, everyone works how much they can, and takes how much they need.


Yes, this is the conventional ethos and understanding of the social relations that would be the norm.

I have a standing critique / line regarding the *literalness*, or logistics, of it, though -- as at post #95 -- since the conventional wording that you've put forth cannot be implemented *literally*. It's better understood as a slogan, and for the *spirit* of what it's espousing:





I'll start by noting that Marx's line should be taken more as a *slogan*, rather than as a *doctrine* -- and only because of *logistical* realities.

Here's from a recent thread:





"The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in proportion."





[S]uch a calculation would be impossible to arrive-at in the first place, for the same reasons that it's impossible to determine what fraction of a dollar today is labor-based (as opposed to exchange-value-based).

A simple argument against the conventional conception would be to ask how to handle the benefits of labor on an *inter-generational* basis -- should younger, incoming generations be obligated to rebuild the world anew, from scratch -- ? If not then they're obviously benefitting from *past labor*, which is disproportionate to the limited years of labor they could have possibly put in at such a young age.


---





Socialism means that you get paid equally to how much you contributed to something.
Communism means that there is no pay, everyone works how much they can, and takes how much they need.


Much of this thread has covered how difficult and intractable the slogan is for actual, literal implementation.

That's why I developed the 'labor credits' system and graphic at post #154 -- its purpose is to eradicate scarcity and provide free-access and direct-distribution, and it would easily give way to a sheerly voluntaristic gift economy if conditions allowed.