Traveling: How would it work?

[Culicarius]

So most of the time when I hear about distribution of goods and such, usually it's things like the necessities (food and water), things like televisions, computers, etc. For the most part I think I've only witnessed conversations talking about things in the immediate community and surrounding areas.

Let's say I live in NYC and I (and maybe a friend or two) wanted to take a trip to a European country for a few weeks. The way I'm looking at it, I see it as us taking a vacation for awhile. When money is no longer being used for things like airplane tickets, hotels, food, other travel expenses, etc., how would traveling operate? How would we determine what to give to the airline/pilot that's reasonable? Once we're here, how would I get about?

The airplane ticket is the one that I feel most unsure about given how expensive it can be to fly across the ocean currently. Once at the destination however, I could see you doing work in individual communities in order to get food, have a place to stay, interact with locals, etc.

Note: I'm questioning this with the idea in mind that both NA and Europe are at this point in the process of moving towards communism and the road towards eliminating capitalism has begun. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) once full-on communism has been reached and money eliminated then we'd be free to travel as we please and not worry about currency.


So yeah, thoughts? As I said talk of distributing goods and labour I've witnessed never seem to bring up travel, so I'd like to hear from other people with more knowledge than me what they think.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm not sure what the problem is, to be honest.

If you want to travel by airplane, you would contact the people who provide airplane services, in order to book your flight, you would contact a hotel in order to book your stay, and then you would go to the airport, board the airplane, and travel.

There would be no need to give the pilot anything or working in order to get food while on vacation, what gave you that idea?

Also, North America and Europe aren't "moving toward communism"; the bourgeois state has not been overthrown in any of the countries in question.

[Creative Destruction]

things like airplane tickets, hotels, food, other travel expenses, etc., how would traveling operate? How would we determine what to give to the airline/pilot that's reasonable? Once we're here, how would I get about?

In the lower phase of communism, it's proposed -- as a way of negating what "money" is in capitalism -- to have a one-to-one proportional labor chit system for items that are scarce. Services such as this would probably fall under that category.

The airline would be a socially owned cooperative (another way of saying this is that it isn't owned by anyone), so you don't really determine what's "fair" to give the airline. It exists as a horizontal organization in relation to consumers. You'd personally determine how many plane trips you want/need to take and your consumer council would submit this to the airline's worker council, to decide if this is feasible, what the "cost" is to do such a thing and what not.

Your airline ticket, I'd imagine, would be based on a few different things: considering labor hours of the attendants on the plane and, of course, the pilot if the plane isn't automated. Labor hours that go into accounting for things like fuel, maintenance and what not. This would all be spread out on the ticket -- what you would draw from the social product vis a vis what you've put into the social product.

Same principle would apply for hotels, food service and the rest.


Note: I'm questioning this with the idea in mind that both NA and Europe are at this point in the process of moving towards communism and the road towards eliminating capitalism has begun. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) once full-on communism has been reached and money eliminated then we'd be free to travel as we please and not worry about currency.

Where'd you get the idea that NA and Europe are "moving toward communism"? Not even by a long shot is this happening.

[Blake's Baby]

I think the OP means 'in my hypothetical when I want to holiday in Europe, both NA and Europe are moving towards communism'.

To my mind however, that's really 'in the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat'. I'm not sure that 'holidays' will be high on many people's agenda in the middle of the world civil war.

[Culicarius]

Yeah, sorry, I could've worded it better. I meant this as a hypothetical situation, not that North America and Europe are at this moment in time doing that :P

Good point though, I forgot to consider that if a revolution is in progress on such a large scale that most people wouldn't be thinking of taking a few weeks of leisure time abroad.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think the OP means 'in my hypothetical when I want to holiday in Europe, both NA and Europe are moving towards communism'.

To my mind however, that's really 'in the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat'. I'm not sure that 'holidays' will be high on many people's agenda in the middle of the world civil war.

Ah, that makes more sense. I was talking about the communist society, not about the transitional period. In the transitional period, money would still exist, as unfortunate as that is, since we can't get rid of it by snapping our fingers. So any vacation would probably have to be paid for.

And I think vacations would still happen, yes, even in the middle of the civil war. You can't grind down the workers in the factories by not giving them any rest, for example. And people would obviously still travel around quite a bit, even though restrictions would probably be in place.

I would emphasise that the communist society is a society of free access, except perhaps (and this "perhaps" is important; Marx assumed this would be the case... in the nineteenth century, yet people treat this as some sort of prophecy or doctrinal point) for a brief period where we would have to ration things. But I think many people here are fixated on some kind of labour note scheme, and think "higher stage" communism is something that happens in the year 3000 when robots do everything.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, by 'not high on most people's agenda' I didn't mean 'will never happen'. But, taking a plane to Nuyorkograd to the-liberated-territory-formerly-known-as-Germany, while there are still deperate reactionaries holding Britain who can shoot you down, might not be such a clever move. Best go on holiday to Socialist Canukistan instead, until it all settles down.

Or, see if you can arrange to be sent as a delegate to something going on in Europe - that might work. Combine business* and pleasure that way.


*by which I mean 'activity, especially in this case that will benefit your community', rather than 'money-making'.