Diamonds in a Marxist society?

[The_Southern_Leftist]

As we all know, the diamond industry in today's world has been artificially inflated by a group of wealthy british capitalists called the De Beers Corporation. Through their scheming and propaganda they have taken what is truly a almost worthless mineral and made it one of the most costly. I am personally wondering how exactly would exist in a communist society. Would they be given to all? Would they not even be mined or used for jewelry? Would they be mined for solely industrial application? I do know that in a communist world the De Beers Corporation would be broken and dismantled but what would happen to diamonds.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Nothing particular would happen to diamond production. Diamonds are quite useful in industrial application, and some people like shiny rocks. So diamonds would still be produced.

And DeBeers would not be "broken up" as if it would be succeeded by a number of autonomous workplaces, but society would take over the organisation of diamond production. How it would do so is something we shall have to see, although I doubt the DeBeers Group of Companies would have anything to do with it.

[The_Southern_Leftist]

Nothing particular would happen to diamond production. Diamonds are quite useful in industrial application, and some people like shiny rocks. So diamonds would still be produced.

And DeBeers would not be "broken up" as if it would be succeeded by a number of autonomous workplaces, but society would take over the organisation of diamond production. How it would do so is something we shall have to see, although I doubt the DeBeers Group of Companies would have anything to do with it.

Well of course. My use of broken up is mainly just in reference to the men in charge no longer owning the means of production.

[Jacob Cliff]

Nothing particular would happen to diamond production. Diamonds are quite useful in industrial application, and some people like shiny rocks. So diamonds would still be produced.

And DeBeers would not be "broken up" as if it would be succeeded by a number of autonomous workplaces, but society would take over the organisation of diamond production. How it would do so is something we shall have to see, although I doubt the DeBeers Group of Companies would have anything to do with it.
Are autonomous workplaces not what we oppose, though? Ownership by society as a whole and autonomy of the workplace seem to conflict; I think wording it as "autonomous workplaces" gives the impression of an unplanned and balkanized economy.

[willowtooth]

can't we just outlaw using diamonds for anything but tools?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Are autonomous workplaces not what we oppose, though? Ownership by society as a whole and autonomy of the workplace seem to conflict; I think wording it as "autonomous workplaces" gives the impression of an unplanned and balkanized economy.

Yes, I think "autonomous workplaces" are impossible under socialism. But that was precisely the point of my post - DeBeers would not necessarily be broken up, and if it is it will be to form entities of similar scope, eventually coalescing into the single system of planned production as the revolution wins on a global scale.


can't we just outlaw using diamonds for anything but tools?

And who is going to enforce this prohibition, the Socialist Police? Socialism is a society that administers things, it does not rule over men. If someone wants a diamond, why wouldn't society see to it that they get a diamond? It all smacks of weird power fantasies.

[willowtooth]

well because theres not enough for everybody?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

well because theres not enough for everybody?

First of all, that doesn't answer the question at all. Even if there were not "enough" diamonds for everyone who wants one, this does not explain how a prohibition would be enforced in a stateless society.

Second, what makes you say that there aren't enough diamonds? Not only do there seem to be substantial diamond deposits, and not everyone wants a diamond (I wouldn't know what to do with one if you gave it to me, and I think I'm far from alone on this), diamonds can be grown in a laboratory.

[willowtooth]

well why can't there be a prohibition of some kind? are you saying in stateless society serial killers and child molesters could do as they as please as well?

also the cost of mining a diamond is about $50 per carat, the cost of producing synthetic diamonds is around $2500 per carat, the reason daimonds cost so much is people want real daimonds with a specific cut color and quality

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

well why can't there be a prohibition of some kind?

Because the socialist society is a stateless one, a society where political coercion is a thing of the past. There would be no bodies of armed men to enforce such prohibitions (which, in case it needs to be said, is a good thing).


are you saying in stateless society serial killers and child molesters could do as they as please as well?

I'm saying that these people would not exist in a stateless society, as the social relations would be entirely different.


also the cost of mining a diamond is about $50 per carat, the cost of producing synthetic diamonds is around $2500 per carat, the reason daimonds cost so much is people want real daimonds with a specific cut color and quality

And this is another example of the social relations being entirely different in the socialist society: in socialism, both mining diamonds and growing them would cost nothing as commodity production, money and the market will have been abolished.

[RA89]

http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bullshit Recommended reading.


We covet diamonds in America for a simple reason: the company that stands to profit from diamond sales decided that we should. De Beers’ marketing campaign single handedly made diamond rings the measure of one’s success in America. Despite its complete lack of inherent value, the company manufactured an image of diamonds as a status symbol. And to keep the price of diamonds high, despite the abundance of new diamond finds, De Beers executed the most effective monopoly of the 20th century. Okay, we get it De Beers, you guys are really good at business!

The purpose of this post was to point out that diamond engagement rings are a lie - they’re an invention of Madison Avenue and De Beers. This post has completely glossed over the sheer amount of human suffering that we’ve caused by believing this lie: conflict diamonds funding wars, supporting apartheid for decades with our money, and pillaging the earth to find shiny carbon. And while we’re on the subject, why is it that women need to be asked and presented with a ring in order to get married? Why can’t they ask and do the presenting?

Diamonds are not actually scarce, make a terrible investment, and are purely valuable as a status symbol.

Diamonds, to put it delicately, are bullshit.

There are enough for everyone though. Are they worth the labour though?

[Jacky Hearts]

well why can't there be a prohibition of some kind? are you saying in stateless society serial killers and child molesters could do as they as please as well?

also the cost of mining a diamond is about $50 per carat, the cost of producing synthetic diamonds is around $2500 per carat, the reason daimonds cost so much is people want real daimonds with a specific cut color and quality

My understanding of Classless Communist societies are that society would only interfere in someone's actions if they are actions which harmed others. I've never seen this defined by any Socialist thinker, but the Liberal John Stuart Mill developed a 'Harm Principle' which claimed that it is acceptable for the state to act against 'other regarding actions' but unjust for it to act against 'self regarding actions.

Obviously nobody on here is a Liberal and so we mostly believe in eventually reaching statelessness, but if you replace the state with society, then I think Mill's idea is a pretty reasonable principle to apply to Communism.

[RedWorker]

What 870 says relies on extremely utopian assumptions. One day he will wake up and realize he has absurd beliefs, see how ridiculous it is, and decide to leave socialism... when the only socialist making absurd assumptions was, after all, him.

As a matter of fact, 870 is the kind of person you may want to hide as a socialist. He is better at convincing people not to be socialists than the opposite... Okay, perhaps not to that extreme, I have seen him explain himself in a way the average person may truly learn about and sympathize with sometimes, but you get the point. Of course he will now launch some sort of attack about how I supposedly want to appeal to people with nice words that however betray revolutionary socialist principles, even though I have given no indication that I would do such a thing. Yeah, whatever.

In socialist society, the production and usage of diamonds will be planned by society. Society will decide which portion will be used and distributed as jewellery. It will adapt this based on economic and social parameters. It is that simple.

Society in foreseeable future will rely on coercion to stop unwanted behaviour and to ensure the management of society at a basic level. After the upper stage of communist society is realized, this management and coercion will not be run by any organ resembling the bourgeois state. That said, it will still be there, until a much higher stage of development is complete - if this is possible.

Marx talked about a withering away of the modern or political state. This does not mean that all organs of social organization will magically disappear.

[Црвена]

What 870 says relies on extremely utopian assumptions. One day he will wake up and realize he has absurd beliefs, see how ridiculous it is, and decide to leave socialism... when the only socialist making absurd assumptions was, after all, him.

As a matter of fact, 870 is the kind of person you may want to hide as a socialist. He is better at convincing people not to be socialists than the opposite... Okay, perhaps not to that extreme, I have seen him explain himself in a way the average person may truly learn about and sympathize with sometimes, but you get the point. Of course he will now launch some sort of attack about how I supposedly want to appeal to people with nice words that however betray revolutionary socialist principles, even though I have given no indication that I would do such a thing. Yeah, whatever.

In socialist society, the production and usage of diamonds will be planned by society. Society will decide which portion will be used and distributed as jewellery. It will adapt this based on economic and social parameters. It is that simple.

Society in foreseeable future will rely on coercion to stop unwanted behaviour and to ensure the management of society at a basic level. After the upper stage of communist society is realized, this management and coercion will not be run by any organ resembling the bourgeois state. That said, it will still be there, until a much higher stage of development is complete - if this is possible.

Marx talked about a withering away of the modern or political state. This does not mean that all organs of social organization will magically disappear.

I don't think what 870 was saying is utopian. Classless, communist society is obviously going to be enormously different from capitalist society, with its power structures and institutionalised violence and hierarchical, oppressive institutions like the family. So unless you think that human behaviour comes from some sort of innate, abstract "nature" - a pretty utopian belief - it goes without saying that humans will behave very differently from the way in which they do now. And since the power dynamics and property relations which cause serial killing and child molesting will not exist in socialism, there will not be serial killers or child molesters.

Also, how do you think this coercive organ which doesn't resemble the bourgeois state will work, and what distinguishes it from a state?

[Armchair Partisan]

I don't think what 870 was saying is utopian. Classless, communist society is obviously going to be enormously different from capitalist society, with its power structures and institutionalised violence and hierarchical, oppressive institutions like the family. So unless you think that human behaviour comes from some sort of innate, abstract "nature" - a pretty utopian belief - it goes without saying that humans will behave very differently from the way in which they do now. And since the power dynamics and property relations which cause serial killing and child molesting will not exist in socialism, there will not be serial killers or child molesters.

This is a massive and risky assumption to make, however. Why not build a failsafe mechanism for dealing with such people in your system, that will not have to be used if 870 and you are right? If it turns out that there will be some serial killers left over, it's best not be taken off-guard and have society completely collapse! Just like employing the human nature argument is wrong, so is blaming everything on capitalism - I see no reason to believe that every mental illness that can drive people to serial murder will just disappear and never emerge again. Reduce in scope, sure, but that's a very different thing.

For example, the way I see it, child molesting requires only two things: a child, and a pedophile who lacks the necessary self-control not to act upon their urges despite societal pressure. Which of these can we guarantee will no longer exist under socialism?

[oneday]

Socialism is a society that administers things, it does not rule over men. If someone wants a diamond, why wouldn't society see to it that they get a diamond? It all smacks of weird power fantasies.

A reason society might not see to it that someone gets a diamond is because people will have to be convinced to mine, refine and distribute diamonds and build the machines that do these things. I think we might swing producing diamonds, but obviously there are some things that would be deemed not worth the time and coordination effort, no matter how badly a few people wanted them.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A


What 870 says relies on extremely utopian assumptions. One day he will wake up and realize he has absurd beliefs, see how ridiculous it is, and decide to leave socialism... when the only socialist making absurd assumptions was, after all, him.

Perhaps I will abandon socialism one day. But you, dear Red, are going to wake up one day and realise that you never were a socialist. Fair enough - unlike many people on this site, I don't expect everyone to become a socialist. But political clarity is necessary. That socialism means the abolition of government over men is fairly well known - well, at least among those who agree with the "extreme utopian" Engels when he writes:

"When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.

We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society."

Of course, to you this is "utopian" because it dares to imply that current social structures and relations are not eternal. In fact you abuse the term "utopian". Projects are utopian, not because they propose radical social change but because they propose no material process that will bring this change about. For us Marxists there is precisely such a process - the class struggle. Socialism is possible, not because it's a good idea, but because it is connected to the actual movement of the proletarian class against capitalist relations.


As a matter of fact, 870 is the kind of person you may want to hide as a socialist. He is better at convincing people not to be socialists than the opposite... Okay, perhaps not to that extreme, I have seen him explain himself in a way the average person may truly learn about and sympathize with sometimes, but you get the point. Of course he will now launch some sort of attack about how I supposedly want to appeal to people with nice words that however betray revolutionary socialist principles, even though I have given no indication that I would do such a thing. Yeah, whatever.

You want to appeal to people, yes, that's the problem, this perspective of communist politics as being, not about militant intervention into the class struggle, but about linear recruitment into the mythical RevLeft marty-poovement of millions. This a hackneyed old social-democratic perspective and that it is being dragged out today as the latest in socialist tactics is just another sign of the reactionary climate in which we live. I am quite happy if I have convinced people not to be socialists who had no interest in and no predisposition toward socialism. I think it's better for them to not waste their time on a movement that is not for them, and I think it's better for socialists to have political clarity.


In socialist society, the production and usage of diamonds will be planned by society. Society will decide which portion will be used and distributed as jewellery. It will adapt this based on economic and social parameters. It is that simple.

I see - society will "adapt this" based on "economic and social parameters"! I am convinced! No, rather the scales have fallen from my eyes! Society will adept this based on economic and social parameters! It is extremely rare to find so deep a thought expressed in such terse and economic language.


Society in foreseeable future will rely on coercion to stop unwanted behaviour and to ensure the management of society at a basic level. After the upper stage of communist society is realized, this management and coercion will not be run by any organ resembling the bourgeois state. That said, it will still be there, until a much higher stage of development is complete - if this is possible.

So in the "lower stage of communist society", something invented nearly out of whole cloth by people who took Marx's assessment of the productive forces in nineteenth century Europe to be a pronouncement of immutable dogma, we will have coercion to stop "unwanted behaviour" (unwanted by who? by Our Committee, apparently, because this nonsense reaches the levels of Bakunin and Nechayev), and an organ "not resembling the bourgeois state", although it might resemble some other state.

Indeed there is little that this idea shares with those "extreme utopians" Marx and Engels, who showed that the socialist society means the end of every state form and all political coercion. Instead we have the "socialism" of Nechayev or Lassalle - a people's government with a people's gendarmerie and people's nightsticks bearing down on the people's heads.


Marx talked about a withering away of the modern or political state. This does not mean that all organs of social organization will magically disappear.

Marx talked about the withering away of the proletarian semi-state - definitely not the modern bourgeois state. And of course, to say "political state" is a pleonasm, which Engels makes clear by distinguishing state from gentile societies.


This is a massive and risky assumption to make, however. Why not build a failsafe mechanism for dealing with such people in your system, that will not have to be used if 870 and you are right?

Because special bodies of armed men are not an incidental feature of the social structure, that can be activated or deactivated as one pleases. As long as the "socialist" gendarmerie exists it will make work for itself, as the present police do.


If it turns out that there will be some serial killers left over, it's best not be taken off-guard and have society completely collapse!

Even if serial killers still existed, beyond reason (the existence of serial killers is demonstrably linked to the growth of bourgeois society), they would not cause society to collapse. That is silly. Even if we assume some bizarre hypothetical socialist serial killers, they would kill less people than faulty wiring or alcohol. Or a hypothetical "socialist" gendarmerie.

[Bee]

Diamonds are a bourgeoisie's best friend.


(Yes I only posted here to make that joke).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Once more on violence: we know that the forms that violence takes change as society changes. I take it none of us have recently been ambushed by people from another community or killed in a tribal feud (although such feuds existed in the Balkans until the mid twentieth century). On the other hand, back when the average person might have reasonably worried about ambushes and tribal feuds, they would not have had to worry about serial killers. These appear in the historical record only as bourgeois society develops.

And this is what we would expect if we take the basic Marxist postulate that social relations depends principally on the way society organises to produce the necessities of human life seriously. Talking about mental illness is - well, first of all it subtly contributes to the stigma people with mental illnesses face; most people with a mental illness are not violent and probably most (I'm not aware of any studies on the issue, but of the various kinds of serial killers, only the minority of 'visionary' killers show symptoms associated with various forms of mental illness) serial killers aren't mentally ill - and second, like violence, mental illness also changes form as society changes. It's not as if there is a "kill people hail Satan" switch in the brain that mental illnesses cause to always be on; the various physical states of the nervous system manifest as socially-mediated behaviour, which is why at various points in time we hear about demonic possession, wendigos and similar cannibal spirits, about psychopathy etc.

And finally, for most of the existence of class society, the police force was almost entirely nominal and confined its attention to crimes against the state. These societies still did not "collapse", nor were the members of these societies being killed left and right. Today we are far, far from the constant violence of the first agricultural societies (some of us further than others, of course), and it's not because of the police. (As higher rates of policing do not increase security - quite the contrary in fact.)

[RedWorker]

Perhaps I will abandon socialism one day. But you, dear Red, are going to wake up one day and realise that you never were a socialist. Fair enough - unlike many people on this site, I don't expect everyone to become a socialist.

You are completely right. My view of the necessity of a social revolution that overthrows the bourgeois state and capitalist mode of production and the need for its replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat, constructed over the common ownership of the means of production and ran by the organized proletariat, matches me most closely to conservative liberalism.

Wait, was it not you who claimed some months ago in another thread that when you're drunk and your full dogma-switch is down you can admit to yourself that your socialism restricts itself to a "literary" role, disconnected from reality, i.e. you are a socialist in words alone? Ok, have fun with the role playing, some people are actual socialists and want socialism in reality though.

But anyway - it is only your old pointless attacks, not backed by logic. Nothing new to see here. You stagnate.

And how does a quote of Engels in which he says that authority will be required independently of the abolition of the political state, rallying against those who purely focus on attacking all authority itself, disagree with me and not the opposite?


You want to appeal to people, yes, that's the problem, this perspective of communist politics as being, not about militant intervention into the class struggle, but about linear recruitment into the mythical RevLeft marty-poovement of millions. This a hackneyed old social-democratic perspective and that it is being dragged out today as the latest in socialist tactics is just another sign of the reactionary climate in which we live. I am quite happy if I have convinced people not to be socialists who had no interest in and no predisposition toward socialism. I think it's better for them to not waste their time on a movement that is not for them, and I think it's better for socialists to have political clarity.

When have I claimed that socialists should attempt to convince people with no interest in socialism? When have I modified my explanation of communism in order to hide what communism actually is? Yet another failure of an attack based on a fabricated accusation.

And what I claimed is not that you un-convince people because you accurately portray what communism is but rather the opposite.


I see - society will "adapt this" based on "economic and social parameters"! I am convinced! No, rather the scales have fallen from my eyes! Society will adept this based on economic and social parameters! It is extremely rare to find so deep a thought expressed in such terse and economic language.

So there is no refutation? After all it seems to be you who has some absurd belief in that everyone who wants diamonds will simply walk in a store, in which they are magically available, and get them, just at the same time as diamonds are used as a resource in production - with no planning by society and allocation of resources required. You are right - this is completely obvious yet somehow you have missed it.


So in the "lower stage of communist society", something invented nearly out of whole cloth by people who took Marx's assessment of the productive forces in nineteenth century Europe to be a pronouncement of immutable dogma, we will have coercion to stop "unwanted behaviour" (unwanted by who? by Our Committee, apparently, because this nonsense reaches the levels of Bakunin and Nechayev), and an organ "not resembling the bourgeois state", although it might resemble some other state.

So the #1 dogmatist on RevLeft who rather than follow rational logic simply worships his line is telling me that the "lower stage of communist society" was simply some idea by Marx - not materially derived - that does not apply today? That the world will make a switch from capitalism to upper stage communism immediately is a ridiculous idea. There will be, as Marx described, a phase of development first.

Communist society will require rules which are violently enforced.


Indeed there is little that this idea shares with those "extreme utopians" Marx and Engels, who showed that the socialist society means the end of every state form and all political coercion. Instead we have the "socialism" of Nechayev or Lassalle - a people's government with a people's gendarmerie and people's nightsticks bearing down on the people's heads.

Yes, more of your pointless arbitrary accusations, throwing the names of A and B and claiming someone sympathizes more with them than C and D. By now you have accused me of having the politics of so many people that any individual accusation may very well have lost any meaning.

You are delusional - the #1 defender of the Cheka is you, not me. Please check your common sense. That society will foreseeably require management and middlemen, that it will have social organs of management that depend on violence, does not mean that anything resembling the bourgeois police will exist.

Your blind belief in dogma makes you oblivious to the evident reality that you make jokes about demonstrating sailors being crushed for demanding Soviet elections while you preach that it is others who want a "people's gendarmerie" to exist. To any sane person no further comment on this is required. But of course, we will have more of your dogma, "we have this in the dictatorship of the proletariat" (in which the Soviet elections have not been run in months - a true dictatorship of the proletariat - oh wait, it's now the Bolsheviks who are the workers themselves so it's all fine!), "but then as soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat" (increasingly repressing the proletariat) "ceases existing, suddenly all organs of social organization will disappear!"

Anyway, I leave it to the rallying cry of your political organization (LITERALLY!!!). Then everybody may make his own conclusions: "DEFEND THE NORTH KOREAN DEFORMED WORKERS' STATE!"


Marx talked about the withering away of the proletarian semi-state - definitely not the modern bourgeois state.

Correct. So? Does that mean all organs of social organization will magically disappear? No.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The idea that people living in a society of free labor will still choose to go down into a mine for diamonds actually does sound utopian to me. Its not the same thing as doing something gross or unpleasant, its incredibly fucking dangerous regardless of what safety measures are in place. Only our society with its choice between work and starvation can produce miners in a meaningful quantity

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You are completely right. My view of the necessity of a social revolution that overthrows the bourgeois state and capitalist mode of production and the need for its replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat, constructed over the common ownership of the means of production and ran by the organized proletariat, matches me most closely to conservative liberalism.

It matches you most closely to the various "left" tails of "radical" social-democracy, a perspective you never abandoned even though you are now outraged about the supposed "coup" of Iglesias. All you have proven is that you can use phrases like "the dictatorship of the proletariat". Likewise Catholics profess to believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, amen. But in practice they are as leery of dying as you and I, who know there is no afterlife, are. Likewise you refuse to draw any practical or theoretical conclusions from the phrases you piously repeat.


But anyway - it is only your old pointless attacks, not backed by logic. Nothing new to see here. You stagnate.

If your politics remains the same, then my assessment will remain the same. I don't know what you expect, exactly.


When I explain what communism is to someone then I am explaining what communism is, not what social democracy is. So this is just another pointless accusation backed by nothing.

Nearly half of your post consists of the same accusation that my statements are not backed by anything. And every time it is wrong. Your concern that I am driving people away from socialism is driven by the same refusal to acknowledge that communist politics can only be minority politics that much of the soft-left milieu shares. Our Third-World Caesarean socialists are at least honest and consciously link themselves to Kautsky and talk about assuming government responsibility. You on the other hand just spew phrases.


So there is no refutation? After all it seems to be you who has some absurd belief in that everyone who wants diamonds will simply walk in a store, in which they are magically available, and get them, just at the same time as diamonds are used as a resource in production - with no planning by society and allocation of resources required.

The point is your "solution" is so embarrassingly vague it doesn't mean anything. Of course production in the socialist society will be planned. That is not contrary to free access to the social product, diamonds included. In fact only consciously planned production enables free access.


So the #1 dogmatist on RevLeft who rather than follow rational logic simply worships his line is telling me that the "lower stage of communist society" was simply some idea by Marx - not materially derived - that does not apply today? That the world will make a switch from capitalism to upper stage communism immediately is a ridiculous idea. There will be, as Marx described, a phase of development first.

Marx never talked about a stage, but the lower phases of the socialist society. And he talked about these phases being a period of development from the perspective of the productive forces that existed in Europe at the time. Do we live in the nineteenth century? No we don't, although some are certainly LARPing it up in here.


Yes, more of your pointless arbitrary accusations, throwing the names of A and B and claiming someone sympathizes more with them than C and D. By now you have accused me of having the politics of so many people that any individual accusation may very well have lost any meaning.

You are delusional - the #1 defender of the Cheka is you, not me. Please check your common sense. That society will foreseeably require management and middlemen, that it will have social organs of management that depend on violence, does not mean that anything resembling the bourgeois police will exist.

Your blind belief in dogma makes you oblivious to the evident reality that you make jokes about demonstrating sailors being crushed for demanding Soviet elections while you preach that it is others who want a "people's gendarmerie" to exist. To any sane person no further comment on this is required. But of course, we will have more of your dogma, "we have this in the dictatorship of the proletariat" (in which the Soviet elections have not been run in months - a true dictatorship of the proletariat - oh wait, it's now the Bolsheviks who were the workers themselves so it's all fine!), "but then as soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat" (increasingly repressing the proletariat) "ceases existing, suddenly all organs of social organization will disappear!"

As soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat withers away, political coercion does as well, including whatever socialist police you political masochists want to have so it will protect you from the hordes of serial killers that disturb your petit-bourgeois sleep. Social organisation doesn't disappear, of course, but I never claimed it did. Management of the production process is not the same as political coercion. That you think management will be done whip in hand is your own personal pathology.


Anyway, I leave it to the rallying cry of your political organization (LITERALLY!!!). Then everybody may make his own conclusions: "DEFEND THE NORTH KOREAN DEFORMED WORKERS' STATE!"

Yes, everybody may make their own conclusions.

Anyway I'm off to my impromptu vacation, the Christ-buggerers are having some kind of holiday and that means I don't have to come to work until Monday. Sleep tight and don't let the crazies and the serial killers ruin your Sunday roast.


The idea that people living in a society of free labor will still choose to go down into a mine for diamonds actually does sound utopian to me. Its not the same thing as doing something gross or unpleasant, its incredibly fucking dangerous regardless of what safety measures are in place. Only our society with its choice between work and starvation can produce miners in a meaningful quantity

Every occupation is dangerous, though. I'm sure a socialist society would divert significant resources to making the mines safe, and as for who would work in them, I would be one of the first to volunteer to be honest.

[RedWorker]

It matches you most closely to the various "left" tails of "radical" social-democracy, a perspective you never abandoned even though you are now outraged about the supposed "coup" of Iglesias. All you have proven is that you can use phrases like "the dictatorship of the proletariat". Likewise Catholics profess to believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, amen. But in practice they are as leery of dying as you and I, who know there is no afterlife, are. Likewise you refuse to draw any practical or theoretical conclusions from the phrases you piously repeat.

How does the description I gave match me most closely to the left tails of radical social-democracy? When I described that there was indeed a coup of Iglesias, does that mean that I worshipped the Podemos social-democratic line? No. I simply found Podemos interesting and posted news about it to RevLeft. Does that mean it is an example that we should follow? No. Would Podemos being a revolutionary party have prevented its quick degeneration? Yes; as you yourself said, it is natural for parties such as Podemos to degenerate. It must completely surprise you that I believe this, given your wild accusations about my supposed views!

It was a reformist party backed by the USFI. Now it is still a reformist party but it is much worse. I never claimed that it went from something that I sympathized with to this. So that is just another empty accusation from you, that because I made posts about Podemos I must have believed x, y, or z - even when plainly stating the opposite. People are not as dogmatic as you, and simply because someone writes about political parties without immediately explaining which dogmatic line everyone ought to follow about them, does not mean that they completely agree with the party. RevLeft is generally aware about the criticism of social democracy and reformism so it does not need to be reminded every post.

How am I not for the dictatorship of the proletariat practically, how is it a belief only in words? So this is yet another meaningless attack built on empty accusations! I remind you: it is you who admitted to be a socialist only in words. Yawn, you make it so easy.

Who maintains that the state capitalist states destroyed capitalism? You! Who asks for a defense of them and proletarian politics to be centered about them? You! It is you who claims authoritarian social democracy is closer to communism, not me! So you have to mask this by delivering your dogmatic line.


Nearly half of your post consists of the same accusation that my statements are not backed by anything. And every time it is wrong. Your concern that I am driving people away from socialism is driven by the same refusal to acknowledge that communist politics can only be minority politics that much of the soft-left milieu shares. Our Third-World Caesarean socialists are at least honest and consciously link themselves to Kautsky and talk about assuming government responsibility. You on the other hand just spew phrases.

Every time it may be wrong, but you so far have failed to back them by anything meaningful. I believe communist politics should at least attempt to have the biggest reach possible - still, we should be able to achieve our goals as a minority. Thanks for providing a good example of you spewing phrases.


The point is your "solution" is so embarrassingly vague it doesn't mean anything. Of course production in the socialist society will be planned. That is not contrary to free access to the social product, diamonds included. In fact only consciously planned production enables free access.

There is no "solution". There is simply an evident statement which you somehow completely overlooked in your posts. I simply said there needs to be something BEHIND this free access. Items don't magically appear in stores. Precisely, I said that free access depends on production and planning.


Marx never talked about a stage, but the lower phases of the socialist society. And he talked about these phases being a period of development from the perspective of the productive forces that existed in Europe at the time. Do we live in the nineteenth century? No we don't, although some are certainly LARPing it up in here.

So your post depends on the fact that I said "stage" instead of "phase" - as if they were not synonymous. I don't follow dogma and therefore I don't bother to look after every little word. That you assume that the meaning of something is completely different just because somebody says "stage" instead of "phase" further goes on proving my points. Actually, it is not completely different, this is more of a case of you disagreeing with what Marx called the stage or phase or whatever and you simply can't admit it. It's ok to disagree with Marx.


As soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat withers away, political coercion does as well, including whatever socialist police you political masochists want to have so it will protect you from the hordes of serial killers that disturb your petit-bourgeois sleep. Social organisation doesn't disappear, of course, but I never claimed it did. Management of the production process is not the same as political coercion. That you think management will be done whip in hand is your own personal pathology.

There will be no serial killers in socialism? Ok, thanks for further proving my points and giving good examples of what you believe. My petty-bourgeois sleep? Ok, provide an example of how I have petty-bourgeois class status or petty-bourgeois politics or interests. No examples? Ok.

You ridiculize me by portraying my claim as claiming the extreme of there being hordes of serial killers, whereas it is you who claimed the extreme of there being no serial killers! So your rhetoric is dishonest. Will socialism reduce the amount of serial killers? Yes. Will there foreseeably be murder in society for the next many years? Yes.

When have I said management will be done "whip in hand"? I said that society will have rules, and management (not management of labor specifically) and these rules will be enforced.

Good job avoiding replying about your obvious contradictions which are only explained by the fact that instead of following logic you simply follow dogma.


Every occupation is dangerous, though.

Yes, because programming is exactly as dangerous as mining diamonds. Sure, occupations all have a level of danger, but some are more dangerous than others. Your dogma relies on bullshit like this, though - otherwise the whole system you support breaks down, when somebody may demand much more of this or much less of that in comparison to everyone else, or when some occupation is much more dangerous than the other.

[RedMaterialist]

Here's what Marx had to say about labor and diamonds:


Marx:

If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks.

Capital, Ch. One, vol. I

No need to work in the mines anymore.

[Comrade Jacob]

Diamonds will be produced as normal just without the profit-motive.

[Armchair Partisan]

Because special bodies of armed men are not an incidental feature of the social structure, that can be activated or deactivated as one pleases. As long as the "socialist" gendarmerie exists it will make work for itself, as the present police do.

Like all other organs of socialist governance, I assume any such body would be transparent and subject to the control of the working people collectively.


Even if serial killers still existed, beyond reason (the existence of serial killers is demonstrably linked to the growth of bourgeois society), they would not cause society to collapse. That is silly. Even if we assume some bizarre hypothetical socialist serial killers, they would kill less people than faulty wiring or alcohol. Or a hypothetical "socialist" gendarmerie.

Serial killers linked to the growth of bourgeois society? I would like some citations on that. I know that Gilles de Rais ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais) predated capitalism by quite a bit - there was no bourgeoisie in 15th century France.

Okay, my problem is not that serial killers would kill a lot of people. My problem is that serial killers would kill people at all. Let's assume there are a few "socialist serial killers", as you put it, then. What are we going to do about it? Write them down as unfortunate victims, the Price We Have To Pay for abolishing class society? Ask them nicely to stop? Vigilantism?

[consuming negativity]

that's the thing. the people who actually want a jet or a yacht or tons of jewelry or this and that are exactly the sort of people who wouldn't even go near a mine because they'd get their italian suit dirty.

do you want a diamond? okay, go get it. no? well, lol, i hope you have good friends

i don't really see communism as being a societal thing at all. it's more a recognition of anarchy that already exists, in combination with a recognition of our species-essence (sorry to just rip a term from marx like that but idk how else to describe it). if your idea of communism is capitalism but where we get paid more and don't have to listen to managers i'm sorry to break your bubble, but that's ridiculous. like yes, some jobs will still be as they are; some things will be made in factories or require dangerous work and there will always be people willing to do that work so long as they value the end product more than the risk. but a lot of shit will stop being standardized and we'll make it for ourselves.

people will still enjoy taking risks and shit. people will still prefer doing something interesting and dangerous to sitting on their ass. it's like this forum is so full of "well how will we do this? how will we do that?" because really what capitalist society is is a society of a bunch of people who don't want to think for themselves so they go home and have the TV think for them and tell them what to believe and what's important. which who can hardly blame people the way things are now? who really wants to sit and think about it? people like us who don't give a fuck because we'd rather live in reality even if it sucks ass and there's no great afterlife full of eerily sexually-deprived beautiful people to fuck for eternity. stop waiting for other people to figure out how YOU can get diamonds and instead figure out how YOU can get YOURSELF diamonds if you really fucking want one, which you only do because of the social value which will be gone along with capitalism

[Armchair Partisan]

do you want a diamond? okay, go get it. no? well, lol, i hope you have good friends

[...]

stop waiting for other people to figure out how YOU can get diamonds and instead figure out how YOU can get YOURSELF diamonds if you really fucking want one, which you only do because of the social value which will be gone along with capitalism

The problem is, if I had to learn a new profession for every different kind of thing I wanted, I would have a pretty miserable life. To take this line of argumentation to its absurd conclusion: do you expect everyone to learn architecture if they want to live somewhere else? Or learn computer engineering if they want a better computer? Unless we find the secret to immortality, this is an extremely undesirable kind of society IMO. The matter of fact is, it's better to let everyone generally do whatever they have a talent and passion for (as much as possible), and then (or beforehand) collectively decide how we distribute it all.

[Jacky Hearts]

The problem is, if I had to learn a new profession for every different kind of thing I wanted, I would have a pretty miserable life. To take this line of argumentation to its absurd conclusion: do you expect everyone to learn architecture if they want to live somewhere else? Or learn computer engineering if they want a better computer? Unless we find the secret to immortality, this is an extremely undesirable kind of society IMO. The matter of fact is, it's better to let everyone generally do whatever they have a talent and passion for (as much as possible), and then (or beforehand) collectively decide how we distribute it all.

I think the point communer was making is that if something is barely needed/desired (because some desires do constitute psychological needs, like comfy sofas) then it's something which you will have to undertake yourself, which makes sense.

[oneday]

but a lot of shit will stop being standardized and we'll make it for ourselves.

I hope not, it's already hard enough finding the right fucking tupperware top that fits the container. I would hope communism brings more standardization, not less, as the useless redundant efforts in producing plastic containers of the same size but of different brands with incompatible tops is abated due to the abolition of the anarchy of the market.


do you want a diamond? okay, go get it. no? well, lol, i hope you have good friends... stop waiting for other people to figure out how YOU can get diamonds and instead figure out how YOU can get YOURSELF diamonds if you really fucking want one

Now I have to have friends to get diamonds, great. I'm pretty sure my band of merry pranksters won't be able to do that on their own, so I better hope I have some friends in high places (wait..) that can command the kind of labor necessary to produce diamonds.

I'd much rather complete some online poll showing my preference for diamonds against a basket of other luxury goods. If the diamonds for jewelry are popular enough we will produce diamonds for jewelry, unless there's no one at all that wants to do the work.


YOU can get YOURSELF
No, I can't get myself. Most of everything we take for granted in modern society is due to large scale production. This is what makes communism possible. I don't want to get go back to some primitive existence where I have to resort to getting things myself.

[ckaihatsu]

In the past couple of years, particularly when I was on-the-road backpacking, I got to thinking quite a bit about exchange values versus use values. In today's capitalist economy it can be surprising sometimes -- even often -- regarding what one person considers to be valuable for themselves (particularly if there's time pressure), compared to another person who's able and willing to supply that item or service for them. In other words this means that there are incredible ranges of pricing for what is usually thought of as having a more-or-less *constant* 'use value'.

And, I don't think that use values themselves would tend to *stabilize*, either, given a post-capitalist political economy -- there would continue to be innumerable empirical variables surrounding any given materials or services, at any given point in time. Any attempts to 'calculate' or 'valuate' items or labor efforts, as through the orthodox 'labor vouchers' proposal, would just be sheer ridiculousness from the get-go.

Regarding 'semi-rare' items, undoubtedly there'd be an 'interest group' culture around diamonds and gems, for any given society, and thus its own cottage-economy of sorts, but perhaps the actual topic of this thread would be better addressed with a more 'fringe' example, like that of landscape artworks....





My favorite illustrative scenario for this -- if you'll entertain it -- is that of a landscape artist in such a post-commodity world.

They make public their artistic endeavor to drape a prominent extended length of cliffs with their creation, and they'll require a custom-made fabric that is enormous and must be made with a blending of precious and rare metals formed as long threads.

Who is to deny them? (Or, how exactly would be this treated, politically?)


I'll add, for this thread, how would this endeavor be treated *economically*, regarding liberated-labor, for a post-commodity world -- ?

[ckaihatsu]

Regarding 'semi-rare' items, undoubtedly there'd be an 'interest group' culture around diamonds and gems, for any given society, and thus its own cottage-economy of sorts


I'll elaborate on what's implied here, to say that if gift-economy conditions existed for the production of any given item like diamonds, then an interest-club would probably be socially sufficient for the administration of that interest-culture and all of its accompanying materials.

Undoubtedly that group would have found that 'x' amount of average-type labor hours in the diamond mines happen to yield 'y' number of carats of diamonds, and so if one had an abiding interest in the culture of gems and wanted to build up one's own personal collection, one would have to do the math and contribute whatever number of labor hours is necessary, on the average, to receive the total weight of diamonds that one desires. In this way having a social administration over the whole process of producing diamonds -- or whatever -- would *smooth out* the production process and provide a *collective guarantee* to the individual regardless of ground-level variations in work-effort and actual productivities.

If the group found that production *fell below* expectations from a certain number of average labor hours then the number of hours would have to be raised to ensure actual production levels.

And if the group found that production *exceeded* expectations from a certain number of average labor hours then the 'surplus' production could be put into general circulation, as through libraries or museums, for the public to view and/or borrow, for those who wouldn't require personal possession of the gems.


---





I'll add, for this thread, how would this endeavor be treated *economically*, regarding liberated-labor, for a post-commodity world -- ?


The giant-fabric-with-precious-metals scenario is meant to show that there can certainly be cases where the whole 'interest club' social format would break down:

- Why would people want to freely assist with the production of the giant fabric when the originating artist has said upfront that it's their own creation and that they will never share credit for it -- ?

- Why can't a post-commodity society find a way to apply its collectivity over production, for the production of this artwork that would potentially be beautiful and on-display for all, forever -- ?

- Why can't those who just want to work, at whatever work roles, be able to contribute to the production of this artwork and be compensated in some appropriate way for their efforts -- ?


Since the project is a one-off, there's nothing that could be gained from a fixed 'interest club' culture around it, as far as administration over materials is concerned. The artist would insist on ultimate control over its creation, but would necessarily require additional labor efforts far beyond their own abilities, since the project itself is so large and expansive in material scope.

[Luís Henrique]

As with luxuries in general, it is difficult to rationally explain the use value of a diamond (exception made, or course, of industrial diamonds).

I suspect in these cases the use value is deeply "contaminated" by value. Something like, a 100,000 dollars diamond's use value is... to show that its owner can spend 100,000 dollars in something as unpractical as a diamond. If so, the primary use value of diamonds is as a class-marker: those using them are showing us their social class.

And if so, of course, its main use would become obsolete in a classless society. Whether they would be still produced as decorative objects would depend on whether people would still find them "decorative" once they do no longer denote social class, ie, whether some use value still remains once it loses its properties as an embodiment of value.

If that is the case (which I tend to doubt, but who knows), I don't see any problem with their continued production. If it isn't (which I tend to believe will be the case), then there will be no reason to produce them. Those who have already been produced before the abolition of value will continue to be used, until interest in such use vanishes.

What people who want to forbid the production or use of diamonds seem to fail to realise is that what they are proposing is the prohibition of luxury goods without the suppression of value itself. Which is, in my reckoning, a very bad idea.

Luís Henrique

[RedMaterialist]

As with luxuries in general, it is difficult to rationally explain the use value of a diamond (exception made, or course, of industrial diamonds).




Marx: A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.

Diamonds would still satisfy the use value of vanity. The difference, I think, is that any surplus value produced would go to society rather than to the diamond industry. Of course, if an industrial diamond could be produced which could not be distinguished from a "natural" diamond then there would be no utility value for the satisfaction of somebody's vanity.

Supposedly the cost of producing one carat of synthetic diamond is about $2500 as compared to the mining cost of $50. It can't be long before the synthetic cost is less than the mining cost. And, importantly, the point will be reached when not even an expert can tell the difference.

Suppose, for instance, a Rembrandt could be re-produced down to the sub-atomic level and no expert or machine could tell the difference. There would no longer be any use-value in owning the original.

[Luís Henrique]

Diamonds would still satisfy the use value of vanity. The difference, I think, is that any surplus value produced would go to society rather than to the diamond industry.

In a socialist society, no value or surplus value is produced, since the products of labour are not commodities.

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, admittedly I left off with a cliffhanger, so I'll follow-up now.... (grin)





- Why would people want to freely assist with the production of the giant fabric when the originating artist has said upfront that it's their own creation and that they will never share credit for it -- ?

- Why can't a post-commodity society find a way to apply its collectivity over production, for the production of this artwork that would potentially be beautiful and on-display for all, forever -- ?

- Why can't those who just want to work, at whatever work roles, be able to contribute to the production of this artwork and be compensated in some appropriate way for their efforts -- ?


Even if one dismisses this scenario as a unique, fringe-type example that would probably just be worked-out among those concerned, I'll gladly point out that it has a more-tangible analogue in the domain of *applied science*.

How would a post-capitalist society handle nascent large-scale projects -- for transportation, say -- that would necessarily require a broad-based cooperation over wide-ranging planning and labor efforts -- ?

In *this* case the three questions above would become *unavoidable* -- I'll rephrase them for the sake of a large-scale project:


[1] Why would people want to freely assist with the production of a new form of transportation that they may have personal disagreements with, over its design and implementation -- ? (A sheerly voluntary mode of liberated-labor means that people would be able to eschew any work that they didn't personally / 'politically' agree-with.)

[2] Why can't a post-commodity society find a way to apply its collectivity over production, for the production of this system of transportation that would benefit thousands and millions, for decades into the future -- ? (Since people's veto power is in their feet there's nothing to guarantee that everyone, in all locations concerned, would be able to get 'on the same page' for a system that's consistent and standardized across all areas it's meant to serve.)

[3] Why can't those who just want to work, at whatever work roles, be able to contribute to the production of this transportation system and be compensated in some appropriate way for their efforts -- ? (In the context of a generally post-scarcity environment everything of necessity would be freely available, so any efforts *beyond* that domain of necessity would be *discretionary*, by definition -- people would have no obligation to do any work that they didn't inherently *want* to do, but if they *did* want to do *any* kind of labor for the greater good, there's no apparent way for them to be 'compensated' in proportion to the efforts they contribute, as for a large-scale project that requires specific, standardized labor roles.)


And, just so that no one out there passes out from holding their breath too long (grin), I'll drop the other shoe and specify how a framework of 'labor credits' could be used for these kinds of scenarios:


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/)


---


[1] The design and implementation of a large-scale project, like that for transportation, would be a fully *inclusive* endeavor, from a bottom-up process of discussion and cooperation -- differences could exist, but no one's input into the process could be summarily *excluded*, so the result would necessarily be a fully *collective* one, entirely.





communist administration -- Assets and resources have no quantifiable value -- are considered as attachments to the production process




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 [...]




consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




communist administration -- Assets and resources are collectively administered by a locality, or over numerous localities by combined consent [supply]




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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


---


[2] The way to get consistency and standards for work, for a social order that's based on purely *voluntary* efforts, is to take a step back and first collectivize over the initial *plans* for what projects are needed, and then what labor efforts are required *for* those plans.





labor [supply] -- Work positions are created according to requirements of production runs and projects, by mass political prioritization




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




labor [supply] -- Labor supply is selected and paid for with existing (or debt-based) labor credits


---


[3] This may actually be the *toughest* issue for a post-capitalist social order, strangely enough.... Under capitalism we're used to labor being commodified, so in practice it *doesn't matter* what work anyone picks -- they're / we're still going to be exploited, regardless, and of course there's no political empowerment whatsoever through wage labor.

But in a *post*-capitalist environment everyone would have an ongoing equitable interest in the functioning and development of society -- people would naturally want to only put their efforts towards whatever is most worthwhile, in their best estimations, but on the whole that might not be enough to fulfill what's in society's best interests *as a whole*. If some transportation project happened to be uninteresting but necessary, there could very well be plenty of people who wouldn't want to *participate* in the social planning of it, but *would* be willing to contribute their labor for any routine tasks that went with it. Obversely the transportation project might not objectively need everyone to bone up on civil engineering (though it would be okay if they did), but it *would* need the (liberated) labor of hundreds and thousands, potentially, for the completion of the project.

Would such a society be correct in allowing those numbers to just 'voluntarily contribute' their discretionary labor to the transportation project, in a sheerly civic-duty kind of way -- ? How could such a social order conceivably 'recognize' such broad-based efforts, besides a perfunctory plaque on a wall somewhere -- ?

Once again, this is where the labor credits come in, since the only material resource that could conceivably be 'scarce' in such a society would be that of (liberated) labor itself....





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 [...]

[cyu]

Would they not even be mined or used for jewelry? Would they be mined for solely industrial application?


Under capitalism, the wealthy control the market. This is why lots of things unrelated to survival are produced, yet poor people are forced to produce these things to survive. If people could freely take food without paying for it, or grow stuff to eat anywhere they damn please, how many would be making video games?

The question wouldn't be how to force people to make video games if they could survive without having to make video games. If they're not making video games because they enjoy making video games, only an immoral society forces people to do trivial things when they don't want to do it.

[ckaihatsu]

Diamonds would still satisfy the use value of vanity.


I'll reiterate my position at post #32 -- undoubtedly there'd be those who get into gems for their own sake -- aesthetics, size, history, etc. -- and would effectively be a cultural 'interest club'.





Suppose [...] a Rembrandt could be re-produced down to the sub-atomic level and no expert or machine could tell the difference. There would no longer be any use-value in owning the original.


Expanding on the 'aesthetics' point, human-made creations, like Rembrandts, *or* naturally-produced items, like diamonds, can be seen to have *aesthetic* value, and thus use-value.

[Invictus_88]

As we all know, the diamond industry in today's world has been artificially inflated by a group of wealthy british capitalists called the De Beers Corporation. Through their scheming and propaganda they have taken what is truly a almost worthless mineral and made it one of the most costly. I am personally wondering how exactly would exist in a communist society. Would they be given to all? Would they not even be mined or used for jewelry? Would they be mined for solely industrial application? I do know that in a communist world the De Beers Corporation would be broken and dismantled but what would happen to diamonds.

There's no reason why not.

Apparently the great majority (70%-80%) of diamonds mined are used for industrial applications like drilling, cutting, and grinding.

These are applications that any modern industrial society would value.

[consuming negativity]

The problem is, if I had to learn a new profession for every different kind of thing I wanted, I would have a pretty miserable life. To take this line of argumentation to its absurd conclusion: do you expect everyone to learn architecture if they want to live somewhere else? Or learn computer engineering if they want a better computer? Unless we find the secret to immortality, this is an extremely undesirable kind of society IMO. The matter of fact is, it's better to let everyone generally do whatever they have a talent and passion for (as much as possible), and then (or beforehand) collectively decide how we distribute it all.

Who can actually build a house by themselves in the first place in any reasonable amount of time? Obviously, people are going to be working together to do things, and certain people are going to prefer certain productive activities over others. There's no reason why we can't have one person vacuum and another wash the dishes, or why we can't have one person who is good with computers and another who prefers construction. What I'm saying is that in a society where nobody can be compelled to undertake dangerous tasks for you, if you want a diamond, you're going to have to go get it yourself. If you want food, go grow the shit, or, as I said, find friends who like to grow food who you're willing to do something for in exchange. Everybody doesn't need to be able to do everything, but in capitalist society, our "my name is X and I do Y for a living" way of thinking is going to be shattered, and we're no longer going to define ourselves based on the productive activities we undertake that get us income. None will get us income - all will get us something. We won't be workers, we'll be people who do work.

[ckaihatsu]

if you want a diamond, you're going to have to go get it yourself.


This is problematic, though, because people are used to having economic *flexibility* through capitalism's commodification of everything, including labor.

While we don't need to *maintain* labor commodification, we should be able to guarantee that people won't be *stuck* having to do exactly all the things that produce the goods they want, when there could very well be *others* who have more of a personal inclination to do those things, for anyone else. Obviously what's then missing would be some kind of expected 'reciprocity' or 'compensation' in turn, for whoever *does* consent to go mine diamonds, or whatever.

My treatment at post #36, question [3] speaks to this, with a framework of 'labor credits' for the purpose of indexing one person's labor efforts to the next.

[consuming negativity]

This is problematic, though, because people are used to having economic *flexibility* through capitalism's commodification of everything, including labor.

While we don't need to *maintain* labor commodification, we should be able to guarantee that people won't be *stuck* having to do exactly all the things that produce the goods they want, when there could very well be *others* who have more of a personal inclination to do those things, for anyone else. Obviously what's then missing would be some kind of expected 'reciprocity' or 'compensation' in turn, for whoever *does* consent to go mine diamonds, or whatever.

My treatment at post #36, question [3] speaks to this, with a framework of 'labor credits' for the purpose of indexing one person's labor efforts to the next.

if enough people feel this way, they are more than welcome to go mine diamonds and give them away to people who want them

alternatively, the people who want diamonds can figure out an easier way to get what they want (ie. zirconium)

[ckaihatsu]

if enough people feel this way, they are more than welcome to go mine diamonds and give them away to people who want them


That's cute, but you're sidestepping the realistic scenario of a social *imbalance* between those who *want* something, and those who are expected to *provide* that, for everybody.

Since there's no wage labor in a post-capitalist society, no one can be *paid* for mining diamonds, but no one *should* mine diamonds for everyone else because that is then effectively *exploitation* (if there's no material reciprocity of any kind).





alternatively, the people who want diamonds can figure out an easier way to get what they want (ie. zirconium)


This is just another kind of sidestepping -- it doesn't matter what the *items* are (goods / resources / materials), the point is what are the *social relations* involved in making things available for social consumption.

The conclusion of this part either brings us back to a socially-backward d.i.y., or else the issue remains of how those who 'get' can compensate those who 'do' -- my proposal is the labor credits from post #36.

[RedMaterialist]

In a socialist society, no value or surplus value is produced, since the products of labour are not commodities.

Luís Henrique

I agree. but I would add that use-values would still be produced. And since a rapidly diminishing part of the product is represented by human labor, then the value of the product begins to approach zero. The price of a mass produced, flawless diamond, would be less than a brick, as Marx predicted.

Walmart, for instance, can put a t-shirt on its shelves for $.50, yet sell it for $5.00. The price has almost no relation to the cost of production. Under socialism the t-shirt would still be produced but sold at its real cost of production or maybe even given away.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How does the description I gave match me most closely to the left tails of radical social-democracy?

You don't seem to be paying attention. That you can recite the Credo is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether you are willing to apply it to the actual world - including standing for independence of the proletariat from bourgeois and petit-bourgeois formations like Podemos.


When I described that there was indeed a coup of Iglesias, does that mean that I worshipped the Podemos social-democratic line? No. I simply found Podemos interesting and posted news about it to RevLeft. Does that mean it is an example that we should follow? No.

This is a direct untruth. First of all, even if you just "posted news about it to RevLeft", this does not excuse you from taking political responsibility for your posts. I certainly never saw you posting about the FE-JONS or UPyD.

And second, you did in fact say the followinghttp://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2763733#post2763733):

"Why?

People do not oppose capitalism out of discourse from a left party which seeks elections.
They do not oppose capitalism from Marxism.
They do not oppose capitalism from any socialist theory or discourse.

They oppose capitalism out of reality.
They oppose capitalism because it fucks you over, because it doesn't give you a roof to live under, because it takes food away from you.

If anybody wanted to oppose capitalism, reality and populist-style discourse would be a much better device than anything else.

The aims of Podemos are directly opposite to that of the bourgeoisie.
The aims of Podemos advance the immediate interests of the proletariat.

Nobody pretended that Podemos is a revolutionary communist party. "

If we're going to talk, we're going to talk like adults, and this inane "I'm just posting news/asking questions" that conspiracy loons resort to won't do.


Would Podemos being a revolutionary party have prevented its quick degeneration? Yes; as you yourself said, it is natural for parties such as Podemos to degenerate. It must completely surprise you that I believe this, given your wild accusations about my supposed views!

Except I never said anything like that. I said that these parties drop their "radical" rhetoric sooner or later. They do not degenerate as there is nothing to degenerate - they are already bourgeois parties.


It was a reformist party backed by the USFI.

I don't know why you continue to bring this up. Is it supposed to impress us? USEC back the ruling party in Brazil and Estonian Nazis among other niceties.


Now it is still a reformist party but it is much worse. I never claimed that it went from something that I sympathized with to this. So that is just another empty accusation from you, that because I made posts about Podemos I must have believed x, y, or z - even when plainly stating the opposite. People are not as dogmatic as you, and simply because someone writes about political parties without immediately explaining which dogmatic line everyone ought to follow about them, does not mean that they completely agree with the party. RevLeft is generally aware about the criticism of social democracy and reformism so it does not need to be reminded every post.

No, many posters on RevLeft are able to recite the words that imply they are opposed to reformism and social-democracy - they can even spice them up with insane Shaker ranting - but many of them are unwilling to accept the practical conclusions, as can be seen by their response to Podemos, Die Linke, SYRIZA, PKK, etc. etc.


How am I not for the dictatorship of the proletariat practically, how is it a belief only in words? So this is yet another meaningless attack built on empty accusations! I remind you: it is you who admitted to be a socialist only in words. Yawn, you make it so easy.

And I'm sure you will be able to back this accusation up. No, wait, I'm a crazy liar and actually think you're talking about things you have no understanding of, as usual.


Who maintains that the state capitalist states destroyed capitalism? You! Who asks for a defense of them and proletarian politics to be centered about them? You! It is you who claims authoritarian social democracy is closer to communism, not me! So you have to mask this by delivering your dogmatic line.

And once again you demonstrate that, as per my previous paragraph, you have no understanding of the things you talk about. Obviously no one in the ICL would say that the Soviet Union was "state capitalist". You make a claim, then act indignant when people don't accept it - this makes for good drama, but poor argumentation, as always.

And here is an interesting thought - if you think any sort of generalised commodity production is capitalism, you have no reason to criticise the Soviet Union for being capitalist, as it follows that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, too, will be capitalist. To me this signifies a fundamental problem in the conceptualisation of the transitional society - the failure to recognise that in addition to historically stable modes of production there are also sets of temporary and transitional relations of production. But in either case, you have no grounds for criticism.

And the perspective of the ICL is that the bureaucracy of the deformed workers' states needs to be overthrown by a proletarian political revolution - against the perspective of Deutscher and others who call for a self-reform of the bureaucracy. This is not an empty slogan - it meant an orientation toward movements like the Hungarian Revolution and the Tiananmen protests (the former generally being slandered on RevLeft as bourgeois-liberal, which would mean any communist should reject it in disgust!). Of course we are not for the restoration of capitalist relations, for the full restoration of the law of value. I think that is a good thing - if you find yourself on the same side of the barricades as Yeltsin, you've lost the thread.

Nor does Stalinism have much to do with social-democracy. Social-democracy is the original sin of communism - the association with petit-bourgeois elements in the First and Second Internationals, the "party of the entire class" etc. Stalinism is the particular political manifestation of the failure of the revolution in Germany. The line that Stalinism and social-democracy are the same is mostly pushed by our decentralists, self-managers, friends of the petite bourgeoisie etc., who are concerned people will notice social-democrats support all the things they uphold as true proletarian politics.


Every time it may be wrong, but you so far have failed to back them by anything meaningful. I believe communist politics should at least attempt to have the biggest reach possible - still, we should be able to achieve our goals as a minority. Thanks for providing a good example of you spewing phrases.

Well, you can believe whatever you please, but the historical revolutionary communist movement never tried to have "the biggest reach possible" - in fact it emphasised splits as much as regroupment, and the ejection of opportunist elements from the party. If you want to have "the biggest reach possible", the path is clear - replace serious propaganda with bromides about "elites", as you yourself advocated.


There is no "solution". There is simply an evident statement which you somehow completely overlooked in your posts. I simply said there needs to be something BEHIND this free access. Items don't magically appear in stores. Precisely, I said that free access depends on production and planning.

First of all, your statement is not "evident" because it doesn't mean anything. "It will adapt this based on economic and social parameters" is too vague to mean anything. You set out trying to say something clever and just ended up embarrassing yourself/


So your post depends on the fact that I said "stage" instead of "phase" - as if they were not synonymous. I don't follow dogma and therefore I don't bother to look after every little word. That you assume that the meaning of something is completely different just because somebody says "stage" instead of "phase" further goes on proving my points. Actually, it is not completely different, this is more of a case of you disagreeing with what Marx called the stage or phase or whatever and you simply can't admit it. It's ok to disagree with Marx.

In fact I don't disagree with Marx. In the nineteenth century, the productive forces were not developed to the extent that they are today. Whether Marx's solution was the correct one is debatable - but be that as it may, we do not live in the nineteenth century anymore. The problem is not that Marx thought there will exist a short-term phase where the social product will be rationed out according to some scheme, the problem is the mechanicist "Marxism" of the Second International, particularly Kautsky and Plekhanov, who turned this putative phase into a historically stable and long-term stage that society has to mechanically pass (the old social-democratic model of the development of society as ticking off the boxes in a list: democratic-bourgeois stage, check, socialist revolution, check, lower stage of the communist society, check, higher stage of the communist society, well, we can check that after a thousand years).


There will be no serial killers in socialism? Ok, thanks for further proving my points and giving good examples of what you believe. My petty-bourgeois sleep? Ok, provide an example of how I have petty-bourgeois class status or petty-bourgeois politics or interests. No examples? Ok.

I already quoted you supporting Podemos.


You ridiculize me by portraying my claim as claiming the extreme of there being hordes of serial killers, whereas it is you who claimed the extreme of there being no serial killers! So your rhetoric is dishonest. Will socialism reduce the amount of serial killers? Yes. Will there foreseeably be murder in society for the next many years? Yes.

Once again you've managed to misunderstand everything. It's not that I object to your statements because they're "extreme". Extremism is good. Carry out any line of thought to its logical conclusions, and it will seem "extreme" to those mired in the marsh of "common sense". The problem is that you are worrying over something that barely exists in capitalism, and is obviously a historically-bound behaviour. In defence all you can muster (and that by way of implication!) is the old idea that crime is part of the immutable human nature. Sure, just like ritual gift-giving, submission to a feudal lord, and buying and selling, right?

I genuinely marvel at RevLeft sometimes. It reminds me of nothing so much as a group of slaves reassuring themselves that in the new society there will still be foremen and overseers.


When have I said management will be done "whip in hand"? I said that society will have rules, and management (not management of labor specifically) and these rules will be enforced.

And deeper down the rabbit hole we go, as we now have "management, not of labor specifically". Now the charitable thing to assume here would be that you are talking about management of things, stocks, railways etc., but given that in the previous sentence you talked about "society having rules", the impression I get is quite different.

As for management being done whip in hand, here is what one RedWorker had to say on the subject:

" Communist society will require rules which are violently enforced."

" Society in foreseeable future will rely on coercion to stop unwanted behaviour and to ensure the management of society at a basic level. After the upper stage of communist society is realized, this management and coercion will not be run by any organ resembling the bourgeois state. That said, it will still be there, until a much higher stage of development is complete - if this is possible. "

In fact I just noticed this corker of a sentence: "after the upper stage of communist society is realized, this management and coercion will not be run by any organ resembling the bourgeois state", implying that until the "upper stage" is reached, there will be an organ resembling the bourgeois state! Outstanding! So not only can you promise the workers the whip, you can promise them something like the bourgeois state - in communism! Are you sure it's me who is driving people away from communism?


Yes, because programming is exactly as dangerous as mining diamonds.

Oh look, another thing I never said. There seem to be an awful lot of those. The point is that every task has its associated risks - people accept these risks when they set out to do the task. And yes, that includes programming, although the risks there are much lower than risks in mining. A socialist society would obviously strive to make mining much less dangerous, at the expense of productivity if necessary. Risk changes as society changes - miners, in particular, used to face much less risk when they formed a privileged stratum under the so-called stannary system.


Sure, occupations all have a level of danger, but some are more dangerous than others. Your dogma relies on bullshit like this, though - otherwise the whole system you support breaks down, when somebody may demand much more of this or much less of that in comparison to everyone else, or when some occupation is much more dangerous than the other.

And here we have another unexplainable statement. Of course people will demand much more or much less of certain items, compared to other people. I would demand much less avocados - zero to be precise - than my neighbour who likes avocados, the weirdo. Why that is supposed to be a problem, I don't know. You seem to start from the idea that consumption should be decided beforehand, which makes planning production trivial, of course - and leaves everyone unsatisfied.


Like all other organs of socialist governance, I assume any such body would be transparent and subject to the control of the working people collectively.

That doesn't mean much, though. "Transparency" and various civilian control boards already exist in various police forces. They don't mean much to the workers because the function of the police is such that it is always against the interest of the workers. Socialists don't propose a "transparent" police, even in the transitional society, but a general militia. That is incompatible with a police force, which is supposed to be a separate armed body.


Serial killers linked to the growth of bourgeois society? I would like some citations on that. I know that Gilles de Rais (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais) predated capitalism by quite a bit - there was no bourgeoisie in 15th century France.

There was. The development of bourgeois society in France goes back at least as far as the Champagne Fairs in the 12th century. And Gilles de Rais, if we assume he was guilty, was part of that stratum of the nobility which had an intimate contact with bourgeois society. The same goes for the Calvinist E. Bathory, another purported early serial killer. But those two are as far as you can go. We don't have any evidence of e.g. Frankish or Roman or Minoan serial killers. So it's obviously a historically-bounded phenomenon.


Okay, my problem is not that serial killers would kill a lot of people. My problem is that serial killers would kill people at all. Let's assume there are a few "socialist serial killers", as you put it, then. What are we going to do about it? Write them down as unfortunate victims, the Price We Have To Pay for abolishing class society? Ask them nicely to stop? Vigilantism?

But you're asking me to assume something I find completely fantastic. Even if these people existed, however, I trust people would be able to defend themselves instead of waiting on the Socialist Police to... do what, exactly? We know the police doesn't actually stop crime. By the time the police come, you're dead. What violence will exist in the socialist society will be solved by the people on the ground.

And the number of people killed by serial killers, even today, is so low it's pretty pointless to argue from the existence of serial killers. Sure, serial killings evoke more emotion than faulty wiring but the latter is more likely to do you in by several orders of magnitude.

[Armchair Partisan]

That doesn't mean much, though. "Transparency" and various civilian control boards already exist in various police forces. They don't mean much to the workers because the function of the police is such that it is always against the interest of the workers. Socialists don't propose a "transparent" police, even in the transitional society, but a general militia. That is incompatible with a police force, which is supposed to be a separate armed body.

Look, you call it a militia. I could call it a police force, although I also prefer the term 'militia'. Still, I'm not convinced that the two are much different. The function of the police/militia I propose would obviously be created so as to serve the interests of the workers. Otherwise, what's the difference? That they are not professionals, but rather amateurs rotated in and out?


There was. The development of bourgeois society in France goes back at least as far as the Champagne Fairs in the 12th century. And Gilles de Rais, if we assume he was guilty, was part of that stratum of the nobility which had an intimate contact with bourgeois society. The same goes for the Calvinist E. Bathory, another purported early serial killer. But those two are as far as you can go. We don't have any evidence of e.g. Frankish or Roman or Minoan serial killers. So it's obviously a historically-bounded phenomenon.

You are factually wrong, and here are some examples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_before_1900) to prove that. Please don't tell me that the Han dynasty or Rome also had some proto-bourgeois developments that created serial killers.

The reason we do not know of that many Roman or Minoan serial killers is because they were lost to history; today, the Internet is better at preserving cases of serial killers, but even so, in 500 years, I doubt anyone would be able to cite a single example of a serial killer in the pre-2000 US without extensive research (even though the US is serial killer heaven). Look at one of the examples above; a Han prince. That one was discovered and his antics recorded. I'm pretty sure there were many others who butchered their slaves and successfully kept it secret.


But you're asking me to assume something I find completely fantastic. Even if these people existed, however, I trust people would be able to defend themselves instead of waiting on the Socialist Police to... do what, exactly? We know the police doesn't actually stop crime. By the time the police come, you're dead. What violence will exist in the socialist society will be solved by the people on the ground.

Okay, look, here we have a fundamental difference in our vision of the socialist future. I do not want to be constantly on edge to protect myself against serial killers. I'm not even sure I want to learn to shoot a gun - maybe if it's necessary for achieving or defending the revolution, sure, but otherwise I'm not really that eager to be armed at all times. I get it, capitalism creates the conditions which drive a lot of serial killers - but you know what else drives all criminals? Knowing that they can get away with it, at all times. You see, imagine that - no borders, no state, and nobody who can stop you. Pretend that I look for people who cannot defend themselves (young boys and girls, old men and women, anyone who isn't carrying an assault rifle, etc.) and kill them, because for some reason, the prophecy of all serial killers disappearing under socialism has failed, and I might have some kind of mental problem that drives me to kill people - it's an addiction, perhaps. How will you stop me? I kill someone, travel somewhere else before the local lynch mob finds me, and kill again. What are you gonna do about it? The point is not to prevent the first death, which is pretty much impossible to prevent by anyone except the victim. The point is to protect future potential victims.

(Speaking of lynch mobs - how are they, vigilante groups, spontaneously formed militias etc. any less of a threat to a classless society than a standing militia/police/whatever you call it? If I've got to rely on armed people to defend me, I might as well make sure they are at least accountable to some organ of workers' power!)


And the number of people killed by serial killers, even today, is so low it's pretty pointless to argue from the existence of serial killers. Sure, serial killings evoke more emotion than faulty wiring but the latter is more likely to do you in by several orders of magnitude.

It does not matter. Every preventable death counts and we must strive to eliminate them all.

[Guardia Rossa]

And If I and some 20 friends decide to make diamonds, make absurd piles of them over my life, get bored, and change work? What would the society do with these diamonds?
Socialist superproduction crisis? :grin:

EDIT: Don't hit me with that stick, I know superproduction crisis are natural to societies wich try to reduce the number of avaliable products/commodities (whatever) to maximize profits.

[RedWorker]

You don't seem to be paying attention. That you can recite the Credo is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether you are willing to apply it to the actual world - including standing for independence of the proletariat from bourgeois and petit-bourgeois formations like Podemos.

When have I advocated that the proletariat should depend on Podemos?


First of all, even if you just "posted news about it to RevLeft", this does not excuse you from taking political responsibility for your posts. I certainly never saw you posting about the FE-JONS or UPyD.

I talk about the FE-JONS and UPyD sometimes, but not in RevLeft. Podemos is more relevant in RevLeft (e.g. by the amount of interest to revolutionary leftists, and by a degree of political sympathy), and even if it wasn't, you can't assume that someone sympathizes with a party merely because he posts about it and not about any other party.


And second, you did in fact say the following

I wasn't claiming Podemos was the best party model - I was simply questioning your statement "And that is precisely why it will never do anything that could possibly be interesting or relevant to revolutionary socialists". Podemos does advance the immediate interests of the proletariat like other social-democratic parties, and this is interesting to revolutionary letists. And by the way, I wasn't claiming IU was not a social deomcratic party in the post before that - it only is a social democratic party with partial communist aesthetics. What I was explaining in that post was not my view - it was the average person's view of Podemos and IU, and why Podemos appeals more than IU does.


Except I never said anything like that. I said that these parties drop their "radical" rhetoric sooner or later. They do not degenerate as there is nothing to degenerate - they are already bourgeois parties.

My point is exactly that Podemos was never a proletarian party, and, as all social democratic parties that claim to be more left than the other, their demands usually become more and more limited - as you yourself stated, this is something that commonly occurs to Podemos-style parties - I agree with that.


I don't know why you continue to bring this up. Is it supposed to impress us?

To emphasize my point that the change I highlighted was that the Spanish USFI section lost control - not that Podemos suddenly turned from some proletarian revolutionary party to this. Is this kind of smartass statement from you supposed to impress any of "us"?


No, many posters on RevLeft are able to recite the words that imply they are opposed to reformism and social-democracy - they can even spice them up with insane Shaker ranting - but many of them are unwilling to accept the practical conclusions, as can be seen by their response to Podemos, Die Linke, SYRIZA, PKK, etc. etc.

I believe that harsh criticism of Podemos must be made and that the proletariat must found its revolutionary party independent from it.


And I'm sure you will be able to back this accusation up. No, wait, I'm a crazy liar and actually think you're talking about things you have no understanding of, as usual.

You said when you're drunk you can admit that your socialism is merely "literary", i.e. you're a socialist only in words, no engagement in real action.


And here is an interesting thought - if you think any sort of generalised commodity production is capitalism

I don't. State capitalist theory is much more complex than that, and that you reduce it to this only suggests that you are unable to deal with what it actually claims.


To me this signifies a fundamental problem in the conceptualisation of the transitional society - the failure to recognise that in addition to historically stable modes of production there are also sets of temporary and transitional relations of production.

Sets of temporary relations of production and modes of production which neither you nor your political organization can reliably label nor describe...


Nor does Stalinism have much to do with social-democracy. Social-democracy is the original sin of communism - the association with petit-bourgeois elements in the First and Second Internationals, the "party of the entire class" etc. Stalinism is the particular political manifestation of the failure of the revolution in Germany. The line that Stalinism and social-democracy are the same is mostly pushed by our decentralists, self-managers, friends of the petite bourgeoisie etc., who are concerned people will notice social-democrats support all the things they uphold as true proletarian politics.

Stalinism isn't social democracy. The Stalinist states, however, were states that applied some measures advancing social equality (and others which did the opposite) within capitalism. This is very similar to social democracy in practice, plus they were authoritarian. You claim capitalism was defeated here. So it is you who claims that authoritarian social democracy is closer to communism - not me.


Well, you can believe whatever you please, but the historical revolutionary communist movement never tried to have "the biggest reach possible" - in fact it emphasised splits as much as regroupment, and the ejection of opportunist elements from the party.

I believe in unity of revolutionary parties all of which agree to basic principles. There should be no unity with these that do not agree on the fundamental principles of revolutionary socialism.


First of all, your statement is not "evident" because it doesn't mean anything.

You missed the evident reality that diamonds will not magically be placed on stores themselves - it must be planned...


Once again you've managed to misunderstand everything. It's not that I object to your statements because they're "extreme".

You claimed that I believe there will be "hordes" of social killers in socialism - as if I was claiming an absurd extreme. Otherwise you would not say "hordes". Anyway, this is just an example of cheap rhetoric to attempt to get an edge in arguments.


Extremism is good. Carry out any line of thought to its logical conclusions, and it will seem "extreme" to those mired in the marsh of "common sense".

That simply does not follow. I believe there will still be social killers in socialism - the number still will be drastically reduced. It makes no sense to claim that I claim there would be 'hordes'.


The problem is that you are worrying over something that barely exists in capitalism, and is obviously a historically-bound behaviour. In defence all you can muster (and that by way of implication!) is the old idea that crime is part of the immutable human nature. Sure, just like ritual gift-giving, submission to a feudal lord, and buying and selling, right?

It is not part of immutable human nature - it obeys to conditions. The change of social and economic conditions in socialism will lower the amount of murders. It does not follow that there will be no murder, because not all conditions are immediately changed by socialism - for example, what about crimes of passion?


And here we have another unexplainable statement. Of course people will demand much more or much less of certain items, compared to other people. I would demand much less avocados - zero to be precise - than my neighbour who likes avocados, the weirdo. Why that is supposed to be a problem, I don't know. You seem to start from the idea that consumption should be decided beforehand, which makes planning production trivial, of course - and leaves everyone unsatisfied.

If I request 10,000,000,000 sheets of paper with something printed on them - does socialist society immediately obey the order? Sure, nobody wants that until someone requests it for the heck of it. And socialist society must do something: obey the request fully or not.

[ckaihatsu]

---





And If I and some 20 friends decide to make diamonds, make absurd piles of them over my life, get bored, and change work? What would the society do with these diamonds?
Socialist superproduction crisis? :grin:

EDIT: Don't hit me with that stick, I know superproduction crisis are natural to societies wich try to reduce the number of avaliable products/commodities (whatever) to maximize profits.





And if the group found that production *exceeded* expectations from a certain number of average labor hours then the 'surplus' production could be put into general circulation, as through libraries or museums, for the public to view and/or borrow, for those who wouldn't require personal possession of the gems.

[ckaihatsu]

[T]he idea that consumption should be decided beforehand [...] makes planning production trivial, of course - and leaves everyone unsatisfied.


I'd welcome any elaboration here -- you're saying that work-your-way-backwards planning, from consumption, would be 'too easy', and also 'unsatisfying' -- ?

[ckaihatsu]

Are autonomous workplaces not what we oppose, though? Ownership by society as a whole and autonomy of the workplace seem to conflict; I think wording it as "autonomous workplaces" gives the impression of an unplanned and balkanized economy.





A reason society might not see to it that someone gets a diamond is because people will have to be convinced to mine, refine and distribute diamonds and build the machines that do these things. I think we might swing producing diamonds, but obviously there are some things that would be deemed not worth the time and coordination effort, no matter how badly a few people wanted them.





The problem is, if I had to learn a new profession for every different kind of thing I wanted, I would have a pretty miserable life. To take this line of argumentation to its absurd conclusion: do you expect everyone to learn architecture if they want to live somewhere else? Or learn computer engineering if they want a better computer? Unless we find the secret to immortality, this is an extremely undesirable kind of society IMO. The matter of fact is, it's better to let everyone generally do whatever they have a talent and passion for (as much as possible), and then (or beforehand) collectively decide how we distribute it all.





[I]t's already hard enough finding the right fucking tupperware top that fits the container. I would hope communism brings more standardization, not less, as the useless redundant efforts in producing plastic containers of the same size but of different brands with incompatible tops is abated due to the abolition of the anarchy of the market.



Now I have to have friends to get diamonds, great. I'm pretty sure my band of merry pranksters won't be able to do that on their own, so I better hope I have some friends in high places (wait..) that can command the kind of labor necessary to produce diamonds.

I'd much rather complete some online poll showing my preference for diamonds against a basket of other luxury goods. If the diamonds for jewelry are popular enough we will produce diamonds for jewelry, unless there's no one at all that wants to do the work.


No, I can't get myself. Most of everything we take for granted in modern society is due to large scale production. This is what makes communism possible. I don't want to get go back to some primitive existence where I have to resort to getting things myself.





Who can actually build a house by themselves in the first place in any reasonable amount of time? Obviously, people are going to be working together to do things, and certain people are going to prefer certain productive activities over others. There's no reason why we can't have one person vacuum and another wash the dishes, or why we can't have one person who is good with computers and another who prefers construction. What I'm saying is that in a society where nobody can be compelled to undertake dangerous tasks for you, if you want a diamond, you're going to have to go get it yourself. If you want food, go grow the shit, or, as I said, find friends who like to grow food who you're willing to do something for in exchange. Everybody doesn't need to be able to do everything, but in capitalist society, our "my name is X and I do Y for a living" way of thinking is going to be shattered, and we're no longer going to define ourselves based on the productive activities we undertake that get us income. None will get us income - all will get us something. We won't be workers, we'll be people who do work.


( From another thread: )




Really the *point* [...] is to match up willing and available liberated-labor, to those types of production that are most wanted, on the whole, *and* to make it so that participants would receive reciprocal proportionate liberated-labor efforts, in turn. (That way those with less-popular wants / desires would necessarily have to be more *personally* involved in some way, since the scope of the endeavor is relatively small-scale. And on the flipside, *more*-common, *mass* projects -- as for food -- would only require relatively *nominal* effort from any given person since the support and participation could be very broad-based.)


So the most socially-progressive post-capitalism option so far here is either 'everyone-do-their-thing-and-let's-divide-it-all-up', or 'let's-barter-our-labor-and-hopefully-someone-does-the-shit-work'.

I say this just to reiterate that the tricky part is *flexibility* -- we shouldn't be stuck with a d.i.y.-only situation, *and* those who *would* do the shitwork, like mining diamonds, should be appropriately reciprocated, somehow.





[T]he idea that consumption should be decided beforehand [...] makes planning production trivial, of course - and leaves everyone unsatisfied.





I'd welcome any elaboration here -- you're saying that work-your-way-backwards planning, from consumption, would be 'too easy', and also 'unsatisfying' -- ?


I raise *this* point only to say that any regular 'inventory tracking' system, as for a warehouse, would be able to keep a good supply of whatever common items on-hand at all times to cover daily fluctuations in mass demand -- this way someone's impromptu change in consumption habits would already be covered by the warehouse supply, so that goods to anyone who puts in a request could be instantaneously allocated by the warehouse, with the whole process being invisible to the consumer.

Not *everyone's* spontaneous wishes could be immediately supplied by a local warehouse, of course, but we could safely say that people wouldn't be unsatisfied over at least the *basics* of life and living, as for the most *common* items.

The more *flexibility* we could confer onto a liberated-labor political economy, as with the 'labor credits' framework from post #36, the better.

[consuming negativity]

That's cute, but you're sidestepping the realistic scenario of a social *imbalance* between those who *want* something, and those who are expected to *provide* that, for everybody.

Since there's no wage labor in a post-capitalist society, no one can be *paid* for mining diamonds, but no one *should* mine diamonds for everyone else because that is then effectively *exploitation* (if there's no material reciprocity of any kind).

This is just another kind of sidestepping -- it doesn't matter what the *items* are (goods / resources / materials), the point is what are the *social relations* involved in making things available for social consumption.

The conclusion of this part either brings us back to a socially-backward d.i.y., or else the issue remains of how those who 'get' can compensate those who 'do' -- my proposal is the labor credits from post #36.

you're over-thinking it and trying to make it be capitalism when it isn't

people can do whatever the fuck they want and nobody is expected to do anything

if they want to go get diamonds and give them away, there is nothing anybody can do to stop them, there is nothing anybody should do to stop them, and it's completely fine

everything is fine

stop finding problems because that is what keeps leading us down the path of coercion

people can do whatever they want, stop trying to be their parent. this is a stateless, classless society. so why do you keep talking about what "we" should do? as if "we" are a state trying to coerce people to acting the way we want?

because that's exactly what all of the "realists" are actually doing - they're being capitalists with colorful language and pretending it's socialism when they enforce hierarchy on people

just leave people the fuck alone and everything will be fine

[ckaihatsu]

you're over-thinking it


I hear ya, but I'll have to politely disagree -- the unresolved issue (in my opinion) is how distasteful tasks would be done if there's a fairly large demand for them, but with no one inherently wanting to do them.

(A decent example would be the clean-up and restoration of a well-populated area after a hurricane hits.)





and trying to make it be capitalism when it isn't


No, I'm not trying to make it be capitalism because nothing I'm suggesting involves commodification or commodities.





people can do whatever the fuck they want and nobody is expected to do anything


*Basically*, yes -- but then we have to seriously / honestly ask if that's really enough.





if they want to go get diamonds and give them away, there is nothing anybody can do to stop them, there is nothing anybody should do to stop them, and it's completely fine


True. Yes.





everything is fine


No, not quite -- again, the thing is about having a *robust* political economy, one that facilitates the flow of one kind of liberated-labor for another.





stop finding problems because that is what keeps leading us down the path of coercion


You'll have to be more specific here because I don't see anywhere that coercion is implied, or would result.





people can do whatever they want, stop trying to be their parent.


Note that I'm not in any way suggesting what *should* be done -- this is all about the 'how'.





this is a stateless, classless society. so why do you keep talking about what "we" should do?


This is about revolutionary politics -- it's a general 'we'.





as if "we" are a state trying to coerce people to acting the way we want?


No, nothing like that is being suggested here.





because that's exactly what all of the "realists" are actually doing - they're being capitalists with colorful language and pretending it's socialism when they enforce hierarchy on people


Nothing here is about capitalism, though, or is in any way suggestive of it.





just leave people the fuck alone


Yes -- I'm not suggesting *interventions* of any sort.





and everything will be fine


(Again, not quite.)

[consuming negativity]

>*Basically*, yes -- but then we have to seriously / honestly ask if that's really enough.


because that's exactly what all of the "realists" are actually doing - they're being capitalists with colorful language and pretending it's socialism when they enforce hierarchy on people

[ckaihatsu]

*Basically*, yes -- but then we have to seriously / honestly ask if that's really enough.





because that's exactly what all of the "realists" are actually doing - they're being capitalists with colorful language and pretending it's socialism when they enforce hierarchy on people


So you're just conflating me and my entire argument / line, with that of capitalists, without bothering to say why you're characterizing me or my words in this way.

You're obviously uncomfortable in dealing with these matters, so just don't worry about it, then.

[consuming negativity]

So you're just conflating me and my entire argument / line, with that of capitalists, without bothering to say why you're characterizing me or my words in this way.

You're obviously uncomfortable in dealing with these matters, so just don't worry about it, then.

if you don't see it there's nothing i can do that's going to help

yes, actually, communism is completely possible, it is enough, it can happen, and hierarchy is actually not necessary in any way shape or form

we do not need money, we do not need the people's money aka labor credits, it just doesn't need to be there, we are actually right, like i don't know how else to put it i'm tired of it

[ckaihatsu]

if you don't see it there's nothing i can do that's going to help


Yeah, since you're there, maybe communicate what 'it' is, for the rest of us.





yes, actually, communism is completely possible, it is enough, it can happen, and hierarchy is actually not necessary in any way shape or form


Agreed, but now you're implying that I'm advocating hierarchy -- again, without any excerpts or specifics.

I'll mention that nothing about the 'labor credits' model requires hierarchy of any sort.





we do not need money,


Agreed -- that would be commodification.





we do not need the people's money aka labor credits,


There's no 'people's money' -- there's no commodification.

At least do me, and whoever else is reading this, the courtesy of *knowing* what you're talking about when you talk about it.





it just doesn't need to be there, we are actually right, like i don't know how else to put it i'm tired of it


I have better things to do as well -- again, if you're not up to addressing actual issues of substance, then don't worry about it.

[consuming negativity]

Yeah, since you're there, maybe communicate what 'it' is, for the rest of us.





Agreed, but now you're implying that I'm advocating hierarchy -- again, without any excerpts or specifics.

I'll mention that nothing about the 'labor credits' model requires hierarchy of any sort.





Agreed -- that would be commodification.





There's no 'people's money' -- there's no commodification.

At least do me, and whoever else is reading this, the courtesy of *knowing* what you're talking about when you talk about it.


I have better things to do as well -- again, if you're not up to addressing actual issues of substance, then don't worry about it.

if you don't think that labor credits results in commodification then you don't know what commodification is - it is the translation of what we do and, in extreme cases, us ourselves into a generic medium of exchange. you might think you've managed to find a way where you can word labor credits so that they aren't actually commodification but the fact that you think they are even necessary proves the whole thing wrong from the start. the very purpose served - that you think is necessary - is that of commodification.

you can only be wrong because that's reality and no matter how you try to justify it or change it or think around it the fact remains that you think money in some way, shape, or form is necessary and you are therefore arguing in favor of hierarchy.

do me a favor - as one of the few people who is willing to take your (rather good, i might add) diagrams and whatnot seriously and engage on them in an intellectual level, don't be a dick and push my buttons to try to get responses out of me by pretending you think i don't know what i'm talking about. i'm just tired and irritated and i would have given you a response later.

[ckaihatsu]

if you don't think that labor credits results in commodification then you don't know what commodification is - it is the translation of what we do and, in extreme cases, us ourselves into a generic medium of exchange. you might think you've managed to find a way where you can word labor credits so that they aren't actually commodification but the fact that you think they are even necessary proves the whole thing wrong from the start. the very purpose served - that you think is necessary - is that of commodification.

you can only be wrong because that's reality and no matter how you try to justify it or change it or think around it the fact remains that you think money in some way, shape, or form is necessary and you are therefore arguing in favor of hierarchy.

do me a favor - as one of the few people who is willing to take your (rather good, i might add) diagrams and whatnot seriously and engage on them in an intellectual level, don't be a dick and push my buttons to try to get responses out of me by pretending you think i don't know what i'm talking about. i'm just tired and irritated and i would have given you a response later.


I think we still have some time on this, so -- knowing how much you dislike coercion (grin) -- please take your time and come back to this with your own inclination, if you want.

Regarding your argument, I'd like to just point out that since no goods / resources / materials -- *or* labor -- are being commodified (meaning put on a tit-for-tat exchange basis, as the only method for production), that means that the 'labor credits' do *not* create or facilitate commodification of any sort. Goods and services could be produced with or *without* the labor credits.

[oneday]

I think we still have some time on this, so -- knowing how much you dislike coercion (grin) -- please take your time and come back to this with your own inclination, if you want.

As one who lived in a micro communist society (something like the american version of a kibbutzim) with a labor credit system (though way simpler than ckaihatsu's idea) for over 6 years, and then supporting myself with regular jobs for 8, perhaps I can offer some unique experience.

There are degrees of coercion, it's not a binary thing. Based on my experience, there was a mega shit ton less coercion with the communal labor credit system that we had compared to my existence in mainstream capitalist society. True, there was a requirement in the commune to do a certain number of average weekly hours, but you could basically work whenever you wanted and it whatever areas you wanted, with little to no hierarchy. There was also effort to make work as little stressful as possible.

Where I work now my boss can make me work overtime or loss my job, I have to be there at certain hours, it's managed completely despotically, there were rapid layoffs during the recession, and I'm basically locked in a career path of doing the same thing all day every day for the rest of my life. Not to mention all the responsibilities that are racked that must be handled individually, completely dependent on income from the job. And I know I have it really good compared to many workers.

Interestingly, in the commune there were movements to abolish the labor credit system, and not account for hours worked at all (and there are actually smaller communes that do this). To some, it felt like there would be more coercion this way, as some people would feel compelled to work constantly to feel like they were doing their share, instead of doing other things like relaxing or vacationing. There was also fear that some would not do their share of course (and who would know what their "share" was), or that not having the system would create envy.

A global scale system would be totally different, and of course what level of coercion would ultimately be required is unknown. I tend to believe that the need for coercion could ultimately be overcome, especially with large degrees of material abundance (what small scale experiments lack), but it is just a hope. Perhaps the takeaway though, is that it *is* possible to have lower levels of coercion, without doing away with all coercive systems entirely.

[cyu]

There are degrees of coercion

Agreed - the silliest form of coercion would, for example, if you don't do something, they physically grab you and make you do it. Of course, this kind of coercion doesn't work for forced labor, since the person grabbing you is doing just as much (if not more) work than the person being forced.

Other more primitive forms include threat of injury, violence, or violence to family members to force someone to do something.

Modern capitalism uses force to prevent people from accessing food if they don't do something.

Ultimately I think it comes down to laziness on the part of those in power. It's easy to shoot someone if they don't do what you say - especially if you have enough power where the ruling class can do as they please. It is harder to understand the psychological difference between work and play - the difference between things people need to be paid to do, vs things people would pay to do - and make use of that in economics. On the other hand, if people are doing what they actually want to do, they are less likely to kill the people in power.

[ckaihatsu]

As one who lived in a micro communist society (something like the american version of a kibbutzim) with a labor credit system (though way simpler than ckaihatsu's idea)


I appreciate your sharing, OD, but you're still not addressing what's relevant to the topic, and to revolutionary politics in general.

Basically you're introducing a differing system of material accounting, with the same label of 'labor credits', but without bothering to describe it.

From your mention of this 'communal labor credit system' it sounds like these credits function along the lines of 'tokens' for work performed -- basically the conventional 'labor vouchers' approach.

I'll note, for the record, that any labor -> tokens -> goods method is virtually identical to the commodification of labor since goods are being implicitly valuated in terms of work performed. This implies competition and (implicit) exchange values since those who produce goods could simply leverage those goods for the *greatest* amount of new labor being offered for them, in an exchange.

Additionally any local 'commune' construct for production is problematic since it is *not* a pan-locality centralization of administration over liberated-production. Inter-commune competition, through implicit exchange values, would undoubtedly result.





for over 6 years, and then supporting myself with regular jobs for 8, perhaps I can offer some unique experience.

There are degrees of coercion, it's not a binary thing. Based on my experience, there was a mega shit ton less coercion with the communal labor credit system that we had compared to my existence in mainstream capitalist society. True, there was a requirement in the commune to do a certain number of average weekly hours, but you could basically work whenever you wanted and it whatever areas you wanted, with little to no hierarchy. There was also effort to make work as little stressful as possible.

Where I work now my boss can make me work overtime or loss my job, I have to be there at certain hours, it's managed completely despotically, there were rapid layoffs during the recession, and I'm basically locked in a career path of doing the same thing all day every day for the rest of my life. Not to mention all the responsibilities that are racked that must be handled individually, completely dependent on income from the job. And I know I have it really good compared to many workers.

Interestingly, in the commune there were movements to abolish the labor credit system, and not account for hours worked at all (and there are actually smaller communes that do this). To some, it felt like there would be more coercion this way, as some people would feel compelled to work constantly to feel like they were doing their share, instead of doing other things like relaxing or vacationing. There was also fear that some would not do their share of course (and who would know what their "share" was), or that not having the system would create envy.

A global scale system would be totally different, and of course what level of coercion would ultimately be required is unknown. I tend to believe that the need for coercion could ultimately be overcome, especially with large degrees of material abundance (what small scale experiments lack), but it is just a hope. Perhaps the takeaway though, is that it *is* possible to have lower levels of coercion, without doing away with all coercive systems entirely.


I hear you on the 'coercion' aspect, and you should certainly uphold and maintain this concern as you see fit.

From a purely 'economic' political-economy standpoint -- especially with my 'labor credits' framework -- it's simply not relevant, I'm pleased to say.

[ckaihatsu]

Sorry, all, for *yet another* post, but I'd like to make explicit the underlying issue here....

Let's say that currently, under capitalism, 1% of the world's population happens to be diamond-owners (a sheerly made-up number).

If, under a post-capitalist political economy, 1% -- *or more* -- of the population happens to want diamonds, for whatever reasons, that society *should* be able to satisfy this popular desire, *regardless* of people's personal, subjective reasons for wanting diamonds. One percent of the population is a *significant* number, and would effectively be a mass demand for 'use value', and thus 'socially necessary'.

If, for whatever reasons, a post-capitalist social order was *not* able to produce sufficient quantities of diamonds to satisfy this number of people, that would mean that it *fails* in relation to its predecessor, capitalism (regarding diamonds, anyway).

So, however seemingly trivial the desire, the benchmark for fulfillment will always be *the markets*, and a revolutionary society will always be in danger of *slipping back* to some form of black-markets if it's unable to supply actual mass demand through its collectivism of some form.

[oneday]

I appreciate your sharing, OD, but you're still not addressing what's relevant to the topic, and to revolutionary politics in general.

To be fair, I'm going to have to say a detailed, intricate plan for the economy of a future international post-revolutionary society has as much relevance to revolutionary politics as describing actual existing small scale communal economies.



Basically you're introducing a differing system of material accounting, with the same label of 'labor credits', but without bothering to describe it.

Fair enough, here is some and there's more in my introduction post about it.


From your mention of this 'communal labor credit system' it sounds like these credits function along the lines of 'tokens' for work performed -- basically the conventional 'labor vouchers' approach.

I'll note, for the record, that any labor -> tokens -> goods method is virtually identical to the commodification of labor since goods are being implicitly valuated in terms of work performed. This implies competition and (implicit) exchange values since those who produce goods could simply leverage those goods for the *greatest* amount of new labor being offered for them, in an exchange.


No, the labor credits weren't exchangeable for any kind of goods like Owenite labor vouchers. They were simply a measure of how many hours had been worked. If you worked the average number of hours required, you stayed in the community and got everything it could provide, otherwise you eventually got kicked out. It was in no way tied to the distribution of the products of labor, except obviously if you got kicked out you didn't get anything. There was a way a transfer some of your labor credits to someone else to have them perform labor on your behalf, such as build you a cabinet, but you couldn't purchase any goods with them at all.



Additionally any local 'commune' construct for production is problematic since it is *not* a pan-locality centralization of administration over liberated-production. Inter-commune competition, through implicit exchange values, would undoubtedly result.


I agree.

Though I would recommend revolutionary socialists study these types of small scale socialist economies and understand the dynamics, some of their reasons for failure and revert back to regular capitalism and some some of the internal contradictions that arise from having land and property in common. Not all of it can be blamed on the surrounding capitalist environment, I think. I think it would be folly to completely ignore them just as it would be folly to ignore past struggles or the history of the SU.

For example,



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.


Basically no commune or kibbutzim ever had a functioning variable labor-credit system for very long, it always becomes one hour of work is one labor credit very quickly. The reason being is because determining at what multiplier an hour of work should valued at if not 1.0 is incredibly complex and there is basically no rational basis to set the rate. Everything thinks that their area is 'difficult', and with everyone having political power this becomes a problem. I don't see why a large scale system would be any different, and exponentially more complex in a way that isn't needed.

[ckaihatsu]

To be fair, I'm going to have to say a detailed, intricate plan for the economy of a future international post-revolutionary society has as much relevance to revolutionary politics as describing actual existing small scale communal economies.


Agreed that any detailed 'blueprint' approach would be too-specific, unwieldy, and unrealistic. (Mine is a skeletal-type 'framework'.)





Fair enough, here is some and there's more in my introduction post about it.


Link?





No, the labor credits weren't exchangeable for any kind of goods like Owenite labor vouchers. They were simply a measure of how many hours had been worked. If you worked the average number of hours required, you stayed in the community and got everything it could provide, otherwise you eventually got kicked out. It was in no way tied to the distribution of the products of labor, except obviously if you got kicked out you didn't get anything. There was a way a transfer some of your labor credits to someone else to have them perform labor on your behalf, such as build you a cabinet, but you couldn't purchase any goods with them at all.


Interesting -- this is the first I've heard of this kind of implementation. It sounds like 'grading on the curve', from the classroom context, with an averaged pass-fail benchmark for everyone.

Just to clarify, you're saying that any hours one works *above* the average are then *transferable* to others, at one's discretion -- ? This would be the ability to 'create jobs' based on one's own actual productivity prowess.

I can now see where your skepticism of *my* 'labor credits' comes from, and it's a decent position, actually. (See the last part, though, below.)





I agree.

Though I would recommend revolutionary socialists study these types of small scale socialist economies and understand the dynamics, some of their reasons for failure and revert back to regular capitalism and some some of the internal contradictions that arise from having land and property in common. Not all of it can be blamed on the surrounding capitalist environment, I think. I think it would be folly to completely ignore them just as it would be folly to ignore past struggles or the history of the SU.


Okay, you're the expert here when it comes to that, then...(!) (grin)





For example,





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





Basically no commune or kibbutzim ever had a functioning variable labor-credit system for very long, it always becomes one hour of work is one labor credit very quickly. The reason being is because determining at what multiplier an hour of work should valued at if not 1.0 is incredibly complex and there is basically no rational basis to set the rate. Everything thinks that their area is 'difficult', and with everyone having political power this becomes a problem. I don't see why a large scale system would be any different, and exponentially more complex in a way that isn't needed.


I appreciate this concern.

If you don't mind, would you mind addressing my own conception / formulation here -- ? I'm suggesting a system of mass-exit-surveys, from any actual work positions filled (perhaps with a one-year minimum, or something like that).

Here's the same issue raised, from a past thread:





My point is that there is nothing to prevent everyone from inflating these ratings to get paid more, or not being able to accurately rate it because they don't work much in other jobs or have a skill set that makes some jobs more difficult than others for themselves but not necessarily other people, or cultural perceptions of that job molding their reactions to it.





Yeah, I hear ya, and it's a good point, but I like to think that the law of large numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers) might apply here since we're talking about a total population of billions of people. Also, depending on the prevailing ethos of the society this 'multiplier index' could be socially considered to be rather sacrosanct -- a fine civic duty that one shouldn't mess around with.

[oneday]

Interesting -- this is the first I've heard of this kind of implementation. It sounds like 'grading on the curve', from the classroom context, with an averaged pass-fail benchmark for everyone.

Just to clarify, you're saying that any hours one works *above* the average are then *transferable* to others, at one's discretion -- ? This would be the ability to 'create jobs' based on one's own actual productivity prowess.


I don't think I described it well. It wasn't grading on the curve. Basically there was a quota of hours you had to work every week, everyone had the same quota, unless you were old or disabled in some way. If you worked more than the quota you banked the hours, and could not work that many hours some time in the future. For example, if the quota was 40, and you worked 50 hours for 4 weeks, you had 40 hours in your account and could relax or take a vacation for a week. If you worked less you could slip into the 'labor hole' and if you were something like -120 hours in the hole there would be a lengthy process to try to get you on track, and possibly kick you out. In practice there was a pretty tough vetting process for membership, as well as a six month provisional membership period so virtually no full members got kicked out. In a full scale system, there would not be the luxury of "kicking someone out", so more problems present themselves.

The credits were transferable, but only on the same 1 hour = 1 credit scale, you couldn't arbitrarily distribute them. Usually it was used for small transient things, although there was an old woman that had a huge labor credit balance (her quota very low due to age, but she still worked alot) that had people help her on a regular basis, teaching kids to read in town.

To get back on topic, I'm still having a problem understanding how the labor credits work exactly in your framework completely. Could you walk through the process of creating some kind of 'fringe' object, like diamonds, from beginning to end in the daily life of a worker so I can get a better understanding?



If you don't mind, would you mind addressing my own conception / formulation here -- ? I'm suggesting a system of mass-exit-surveys, from any actual work positions filled (perhaps with a one-year minimum, or something like that).


The problem with variable labor-credit systems is it is impossible to create one that everyone will accept as 'fair'. What rationale would you give to someone to rate their past work for 'difficulty'? What happens if the actual ratings start completely unbalancing the economy creating totally useless things, while important things don't get completed, do you stick with the ratings or do you do something else? How will this be explained, and who is doing the explaining? What is the purpose of variable labor-credits in the first place, since we're assuming everyone will work in areas they like, when there is no economic motivation to do otherwise?



At Twin Oaks, a labor credit is simply an hour of work. That’s not the way Skinner thought it would be. In Walden Two, different jobs got different amounts of credit; for example, a worker got a credit and a half for an hour spent cleaning sewers, but only a tenth of a credit for an hour working in the flower garden. Skinner’s idea was that some jobs were more pleasant than others, and the only way to distribute work fairly would be to have people with less pleasant jobs work shorter hours.

The early Twin Oakers used this variable credit system, with some interesting results. First they tried deciding as a group which jobs deserved more credit, which led to arguments and competition about whose job was hardest and least desirable. Then they tried letting each person rate jobs according to personal preference. This meant that two people could be canning tomatoes together, but one would be earning more credit than the other. No matter how the difference had been arrived at, it didn’t feel fair.

As one of our first members, Kat Kinkade, points out in her book, Is It Utopia Yet?, Skinner didn’t realize that every job will appeal to somebody, and no job will appeal to everybody. Some people would rather rake sludge in our sewage treatment plant than sit through a three-hour meeting—and they do. Some people would rather manage the complexities of a phone switchboard or a computer accounting system than the complexities of a shopful of rope-making machinery or a 22-bit gang drill, and they do. If there’s a job that nobody wants to do, the community figures out a different way to do it or it doesn’t get done.

This is basically the experience of any group that has tried this.


Also, depending on the prevailing ethos of the society this 'multiplier index' could be socially considered to be rather sacrosanct -- a fine civic duty that one shouldn't mess around with.


Groupthink!! :laugh:

[ckaihatsu]

I don't think I described it well. It wasn't grading on the curve. Basically there was a quota of hours you had to work every week, everyone had the same quota, unless you were old or disabled in some way. If you worked more than the quota you banked the hours, and could not work that many hours some time in the future. For example, if the quota was 40, and you worked 50 hours for 4 weeks, you had 40 hours in your account and could relax or take a vacation for a week. If you worked less you could slip into the 'labor hole' and if you were something like -120 hours in the hole there would be a lengthy process to try to get you on track, and possibly kick you out. In practice there was a pretty tough vetting process for membership, as well as a six month provisional membership period so virtually no full members got kicked out.


Okay, got it.

You mentioned an 'average' earlier, and now you're mentioning a 'quota' -- these are two different conceptions, and my concern would be with the arbitrariness of the 'x'-hours quota method. (What if all of society's needs and desires happened to be 100% fulfilled with a quota of only *30* hours a week from everyone -- ? Would everyone still have to work 40 -- ? How would this quota number be decided-on, and how would the total-productivity cutoff be decided-on (needs and/or wants, into quota hours) -- ?

I'm impressed with the 'average' method you mentioned earlier since it would be self-regulating on-the-whole -- as society approached 100% fulfillment people across-the-board would find less work *to* do, and so would work *less*, thus lowering the overall average.

At the same time, under regular, sub-ideal conditions, people would have an *individual* incentive to *work more*, since they could use any personal hours worked above-the-average to transfer to *others*, to expand capacity / 'create jobs' (in my own interpretation / conception of it). This would *raise* the overall societal average, encouraging more productivity from everyone in order to avoid the cutoff, and to strive towards 100% fulfillment.





In a full scale system, there would not be the luxury of "kicking someone out", so more problems present themselves.


In a full-scale system what you're describing would be a 'threshold' approach, which suffers from the same arbitrariness as the more-delineated 'quota' method -- it's just a cruder form of labor-commodification since there would be a social stratification into 'sub-threshold' liberated-labor and 'threshold' liberated-labor -- and again the correlation of the labor threshold to actual productivity, for consumption, is necessarily unclear due to wide-ranging variations in actual work-role productivities (including accompanying difficulties and hazards), for society's available goods and services, for consumption.





The credits were transferable, but only on the same 1 hour = 1 credit scale, you couldn't arbitrarily distribute them.


This part is unclear, though -- you mentioned 'banking' labor-hours earlier, which makes sense -- at what point, though, would a person be able to transfer their labor-hours, and on what basis -- ?





Usually it was used for small transient things, although there was an old woman that had a huge labor credit balance (her quota very low due to age, but she still worked alot) that had people help her on a regular basis, teaching kids to read in town.


Are you indicating that any hours above one's quota (40, for example) would be at one's discretion to either 'bank' *or* to distribute to others, for the creation of 'jobs', to the extent of those extra hours -- ? If so then it *would* be the arbitrary distribution of extra-hours, contrary to what you just said about them.





To get back on topic, I'm still having a problem understanding how the labor credits work exactly in your framework completely. Could you walk through the process of creating some kind of 'fringe' object, like diamonds, from beginning to end in the daily life of a worker so I can get a better understanding?


Sure -- I can do a quick sample narrative here....

Let's say that 1% of the world's population happens to call for diamonds, which necessitates some amount of diamond-production to make up for an objective lack in supply. This is Day One and no one has yet worked a full year at liberated-labor diamond production, so there's no available data on how 'difficult' or 'hazardous' diamond mining actually is.

Turns out that once everyone has read the news about the need for diamonds *no fucking one* wants to do the job -- meaning *zero* people volunteer for it, period. Those who want diamonds form a diamond-lovers club worldwide and, after some discussion, determine that *they*, the members, would go as high as working *9* hours at multiplier-1 (1 labor hour = 1 labor credit) work roles, to earn enough labor credits to supply *anyone* with *9* labor credits for every *1* hour worked at diamond-production. (Of course *any* available-and-funded work roles could be worked by these members -- or anyone -- for the sake of getting sufficient quantities of labor credits *pooled*, to hand over to the diamond-miners, for the sake of mining diamonds.)

And, finally, once thousands of people worldwide have worked at diamond-production (or whatever) for one full year, those who *leave* will be exit-surveyed, with the bulk data compiled into an index for each discrete work role -- perhaps the workers themselves will happen to give diamond-mining a '9' (out of 10) for the hazard/difficulty multiplier. Or perhaps they will *not*, and the multiplier turns out to be a '7', or a full '10' -- it wouldn't matter, because ultimately what will count is how much *others* are willing to work, to provide sufficient numbers of pooled labor credits, for the production of whatever *is* wanted, by those who are *willing* to work for the labor credits being offered.





The problem with variable labor-credit systems is it is impossible to create one that everyone will accept as 'fair'.


Correct, and per the above, no *qualitative* judgments need to be made -- everything goes by the numbers, according to liberated-labor *supply*, measured in labor credits per hour, and mass-*demand*, as measured in pooled labor credits offered (from discrete past work done).





What rationale would you give to someone to rate their past work for 'difficulty'?


As I mentioned I would think that such a society's mores / norms would be to 'be honest when you rate the work role you just did', the same way that today we do 'don't fuck around when exchanging stated amounts of money'.





What happens if the actual ratings start completely unbalancing the economy creating totally useless things, while important things don't get completed, do you stick with the ratings or do you do something else?


You're suggesting that everyone would artificially rate *everything* upwards, so that easy tasks also receive '9's and '10's, and then workers choose *those* easy work roles to do, to get higher rates of labor credits per hour of work.

But this would be self-correcting, because *so* many people are willing to do *easy* roles that there becomes a *glut* of available liberated-laborers for that kind of work -- someone could get by with just offering an '8' to get that work done, then maybe a '7', a '6', a '5', and so on....

If *important* things aren't getting completed then those who *want* those things will have to do more liberated-labor *themselves* so as to pool sufficient labor credits to offer to those who *would* (possibly) do those tasks. Here's a quick scenario that I happen to copy-and-paste often:





[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.





How will this be explained, and who is doing the explaining?


It's all at my blog entry:




A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits



To clarify and simplify, the labor credits system is like a cash-only economy that only works for *services* (labor), while the world of material implements, resources, and products is open-access and non-abstractable. (No financial valuations.) Given the world's current capacity for an abundance of productivity for the most essential items, there should be no doubt about producing a ready surplus of anything that's important, to satisfy every single person's basic humane needs.

[I]t would only be fair that those who put in the actual (liberated) labor to produce anything should also be able to get 'first dibs' of anything they produce.

In practice [...] everything would be pre-planned, so the workers would just factor in their own personal requirements as part of the project or production run. (Nothing would be done on a speculative or open-ended basis, the way it's done now, so all recipients and orders would be pre-determined -- it would make for minimal waste.)

We can do better than the market system, obviously, since it is zombie-like and continuously, automatically, calls for endless profit-making -- even past the point of primitive accumulation, through to overproduction and world wars, not to mention its intrinsic exploitation and oppression.

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

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.

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. Since all resources would be in the public domain no one would be at a loss for the basics of life, or at least for free access to providing for the basics of life for themselves. And, no political power or status, other than that represented by possession of actual labor credits, could be enjoyed by liberated labor. It would be free to represent itself on an individual basis or could associate and organize on its own political terms, within the confines of its empowerment by the sum of pooled labor credits in possession.

Mass demand, then as now, would be a matter of public discourse, but in a societal context of open access to all means of mass communication for all, with collectivized implements of mass production at its disposal. It would have no special claim over any liberated labor and would have no means by which to coerce it.

The administration of all of this would be dependent on the conscious political mass struggle, on a continuous, ongoing basis, to keep it running smoothly and accountably.


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

http://tinyurl.com/mtspczpcpe


[8] communist economy diagram

http://postimage.org/image/1bvfo0ohw/




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


With:





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


Also:


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/)





What is the purpose of variable labor-credits in the first place, since we're assuming everyone will work in areas they like, when there is no economic motivation to do otherwise?


Sure, *anyone* could work *only* in areas that they like, for *no* labor credits -- that would be a 'gift economy', and hopefully that's how the *whole world* would operate, for *everything*.

*But*, if it *can't*, then there's labor credits as an option.





This is basically the experience of any group that has tried this.


Well, as you admitted, those groups were not worldwide, and had the privilege / luxury / option of being *selective*, by expelling those who didn't fulfill the overall benchmark (though you've vacillated on whether that benchmark is by *average* or by *quota*).

[cyu]

What is the difference between a king who wants everything in the world and still doesn't have enough, and a monk who basically wants nothing?

Is one sane and the other insane? Which is which?

[ckaihatsu]

What is the difference between a king who wants everything in the world and still doesn't have enough, and a monk who basically wants nothing?

Is one sane and the other insane? Which is which?


Why is this so 'philosophical' -- ?

People are individuals at some level, and we all have varying personal inclinations. What's more to the point, though, I would say, is whether the overarching prevailing political economy *facilitates* one or the other, or both, due to the status quo of the dominant culture, or 'superstructure'.

(Both limitless 'primitive accumulation', through profit-making, is allowed and encouraged in today's society, and so are religious practices, through tacit and official support from state policy.)

[cyu]

What's more to the point, though, I would say, is whether the overarching prevailing political economy *facilitates* one or the other, or both, due to the status quo of the dominant culture, or 'superstructure'.


Agreed. I would say that in situations of unequal political / economic power, those who have a lot of such power, would attract the largest number of the most manipulative people in a society, who have the goal of manipulating the king's desires to further their own goals. So the king doesn't really want islands wrapped in bubble wrap? Well, we'll get our best salesmen on the job until he does.

[ckaihatsu]

Agreed. I would say that in situations of unequal political / economic power, those who have a lot of such power, would attract the largest number of the most manipulative people in a society, who have the goal of manipulating the king's desires to further their own goals. So the king doesn't really want islands wrapped in bubble wrap? Well, we'll get our best salesmen on the job until he does.


Jesus, I don't know if you realize it, but you're being downright *cartoonish*, either naturally or deliberately -- do you really think that those in positions of material privilege are so *naive* -- ? -- !

[cyu]

do you really think that those in positions of material privilege are so *naive* I've been on the sales side. I know what's up. The irony of it all is that the truly good salesmen get rich themselves, and become the new targets of manipulation.

It happens in politics too. Say the CIA wants the President to follow some policy and the President initially disagrees. In this case, the CIA becomes the salesmen and the President becomes the mark. Since the President relies on the CIA to provide information for policy decision making, how do you change his decisions? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_stacking

[ckaihatsu]

Agreed. I would say that in situations of unequal political / economic power, those who have a lot of such power, would attract the largest number of the most manipulative people in a society, who have the goal of manipulating the king's desires to further their own goals. So the king doesn't really want islands wrapped in bubble wrap? Well, we'll get our best salesmen on the job until he does.





I've been on the sales side. I know what's up. The irony of it all is that the truly good salesmen get rich themselves, and become the new targets of manipulation.

It happens in politics too. Say the CIA wants the President to follow some policy and the President initially disagrees. In this case, the CIA becomes the salesmen and the President becomes the mark. Since the President relies on the CIA to provide information for policy decision making, how do you change his decisions? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_stacking


*Bubble wrap*, though, for an *island* -- ?

This has got to just be a flip example to illustrate your argument, then....

Politics is different story, because everything is much tighter -- the president has to have people to do the dirty work, but has to retain plausible deniability. Hence the CIA, and the leverage it gains from having that special position on the political spectrum.

[cyu]

This has got to just be a flip example


Not to pick on this particular guy, but capitalism is full of examples of frivolous misallocation of resources, while others starve.

http://christo.vaesite.net/__data/3388ae974177b6e289b162c3b9ed9d31.jpg

On some things, the President and the CIA are on the same page. On other things, neither really cares what the other does. And on stuff like funding and reasons for continued existence, obviously the CIA has a vested interest in getting particular outcomes. And if they're saving the careers of their friends and the families that depend on the careers of their friends, they can even manage to rationalize their corruption as altruistic.

In any case, the real point is that it's not really about people "naturally" having difference desires. Desires are manufactured by marketers, salesmen, and advertising. If you're disgusted by people who eat beef, pork, or grubs, that is not nature, that is nurture. Classical conditioning on a wide scale becomes cultural conditioning. If the mass media of your culture is funded by consumer advertising, the result is a very particular type of cultural conditioning. And if cultural conditioning can make men prefer women with long hair over bald women, and make them believe dresses and skirts are "feminine" - then it can affect material desires as well.

[ckaihatsu]

Not to pick on this particular guy, but capitalism is full of examples of frivolous misallocation of resources, while others starve.

[IMG]http://christo.vaesite.net/__data/3388ae974177b6e289b162c3b9ed9d31.jpg[IMG]

On some things, the President and the CIA are on the same page. On other things, neither really cares what the other does. And on stuff like funding and reasons for continued existence, obviously the CIA has a vested interest in getting particular outcomes. And if they're saving the careers of their friends and the families that depend on the careers of their friends, they can even manage to rationalize their corruption as altruistic.

In any case, the real point is that it's not really about people "naturally" having difference desires. Desires are manufactured by marketers, salesmen, and advertising. If you're disgusted by people who eat beef, pork, or grubs, that is not nature, that is nurture. Classical conditioning on a wide scale becomes cultural conditioning. If the mass media of your culture is funded by consumer advertising, the result is a very particular type of cultural conditioning. And if cultural conditioning can make men prefer women with long hair over bald women, and make them believe dresses and skirts are "feminine" - then it can affect material desires as well.


Your rote Skinnerian line, as usual....

You started with the assertion that *sales* people were encouraging the bubble-wrapping of islands, but now you're just conflating a piece of *artwork* -- of whatever quality -- with the process of sales.

[cyu]

If a communist society, if people were starving, would stuff like this happen?

[ckaihatsu]

If a communist society, if people were starving, would stuff like this happen?


What is this, a *trick question* -- ??

If people were starving it couldn't *be* a communist society, because scarcity (of basics) can only occur from misallocation.

Are you trying to imply that there could be no bad art in a communist world -- ?


x D

[cyu]

So if somebody wants bubble-wrapped islands or a golf course on top of a skyscraper, while others are hungry, how does your society handle these different desires?

[ckaihatsu]

So if somebody wants bubble-wrapped islands or a golf course on top of a skyscraper, while others are hungry, how does your society handle these different desires?


I still don't get how you happen to arrive at this formulation -- why would it be an 'either-or' -- ?

How about some of society tends to food production while others bubble-wrap islands and build golf courses on top of skyscrapers?

Yeesh! Drama.

[cyu]

Let's say everywhere in the world, people have enough to eat, and have moved on to bubble-wrapped islands. Then one day, there's a natural disaster in one part of the world - suddenly, those people are in desperate need for food and shelter, while people in the rest of the world are still working on bubble-wrapped islands. So the people suffering from natural disaster say "Help, help, we need food and shelter!" and the rest of the world says "well, we think bubble-wrapped islands is more important, since we already have enough food."

How does your society prevent this situation? If communists simply have a different morality and would never do stuff like that, what is the cause of this morality? Is there a central organization that decides what is correct communist ideology and what is not?

[oneday]

You mentioned an 'average' earlier, and now you're mentioning a 'quota' -- these are two different conceptions, and my concern would be with the arbitrariness of the 'x'-hours quota method. (What if all of society's needs and desires happened to be 100% fulfilled with a quota of only *30* hours a week from everyone -- ? Would everyone still have to work 40 -- ? How would this quota number be decided-on, and how would the total-productivity cutoff be decided-on (needs and/or wants, into quota hours) -- ?


It was a quota based system, forget about average. There was a yearly planning process in which the quota was traded off against the things labor could produce, different areas actually had budgets of labor credits allocated to them. It was well known what the average hour of labor could produce in any area, from past years. Society's desires were never completely satisfied, but the desires were traded off against the desire to work less. The weekly quota moved around quite a bit, between 36-42 hours.



Are you indicating that any hours above one's quota (40, for example) would be at one's discretion to either 'bank' *or* to distribute to others, for the creation of 'jobs', to the extent of those extra hours -- ? If so then it *would* be the arbitrary distribution of extra-hours, contrary to what you just said about them.

You banked them if you worked over-quota. If you wanted to transfer them you could, by having someone do some work for you. It wasn't arbitrary in that you couldn't just transfer 300 credits to someone for nothing, they had to do 300 hours of labor for you. But you could have them do anything. In practice, it was a pretty fringe feature, but sometimes there would be a few people that would band together and donate credits for others to build a canoe or sauna or something.



Sure -- I can do a quick sample narrative here....

Let's say that 1% of the world's population happens to call for diamonds, which necessitates some amount of diamond-production to make up for an objective lack in supply.


This actually sounds pretty similar as far as the transferring of credits is concerned (except for the variableness of the labor credits), but I'm not quite sure where the credits come from in the first place, since you mentioned it's a 'gift economy' predominantly.

The way you are describing the diamond production sounds like it could lead to markets and competition (it didn't happen in the commune, but on a larger scale it could be a different story), if I'm understanding it correctly.

[ckaihatsu]

Let's say everywhere in the world, people have enough to eat, and have moved on to bubble-wrapped islands. Then one day, there's a natural disaster in one part of the world - suddenly, those people are in desperate need for food and shelter, while people in the rest of the world are still working on bubble-wrapped islands. So the people suffering from natural disaster say "Help, help, we need food and shelter!" and the rest of the world says "well, we think bubble-wrapped islands is more important, since we already have enough food."

How does your society prevent this situation?


"My" society -- ??

You're talking about a society of callous people and then pinning it on *me*, for some reason -- ? -- !

Obviously any framework I've developed can't speak to what *people themselves* decide to do.

Since you're already going down this path why not take some excerpts from my 'labor credits' framework and then use them to posit an inhumane, nightmare scenario of your own imaginings -- ?





If communists simply have a different morality and would never do stuff like that, what is the cause of this morality? Is there a central organization that decides what is correct communist ideology and what is not?


No -- as others have already discussed on this thread, the social ills that we know of capitalism would *not* be present in any society that eliminated the *material causes* of those ills, like starvation and malnutrition from an artificial scarcity of food.

Here's from a recent post at another thread:





[Governance] is inherently problematic, and unnecessary, and should *not* be implemented.

('[G]overnance' implies 'those who administrate over governance', which tends to imply *specialization* -- most likely 'administration' for 'governance' will tend to be / become specialized, which would then effectively be a privileged class or caste distinction in relation to everyone else.)

Really the *point* -- so as to obviate 'governance' -- is to match up willing and available liberated-labor, to those types of production that are most wanted, on the whole, *and* to make it so that participants would receive reciprocal proportionate liberated-labor efforts, in turn. (That way those with less-popular wants / desires would necessarily have to be more *personally* involved in some way, since the scope of the endeavor is relatively small-scale. And on the flipside, *more*-common, *mass* projects -- as for food -- would only require relatively *nominal* effort from any given person since the support and participation could be very broad-based.)

[oneday]

Let's say everywhere in the world, people have enough to eat, and have moved on to bubble-wrapped islands. Then one day, there's a natural disaster in one part of the world - suddenly, those people are in desperate need for food and shelter, while people in the rest of the world are still working on bubble-wrapped islands. So the people suffering from natural disaster say "Help, help, we need food and shelter!" and the rest of the world says "well, we think bubble-wrapped islands is more important, since we already have enough food."

How does your society prevent this situation?

Many societies already have centralized agencies to deal with crisis. FEMA would work better without the corrupting influence of insurance companies. We already have firefighters and emergency workers. Not that they all work for everyone all the time. Communism would help them work better and for everyone. Food and shelter would be provided as a right.



If communists simply have a different morality and would never do stuff like that, what is the cause of this morality? Is there a central organization that decides what is correct communist ideology and what is not?

The correct course of action would be decided democratically, without the corrupting and undemocratic influence of money. There would be central agencies that administer the decisions.

[cyu]

the social ills that we know of capitalism would *not* be present in any society that eliminated the *material causes* of those ills, like starvation and malnutrition from an artificial scarcity of food.


Agreed - under capitalism, losing your job is a terrible thing - you suffer not only materially, but unemployed people are socially shamed as well. The result is that everyone tries to avoid unemployment, including pretending your military department is useful, or running large advertising campaigns to convince people that the products your company makes are desirable.

If there were no material suffering or social shame associated with unemployment, then people wouldn't care if it turns out their military department is now useless, or if people no longer want the widgets their company makes. They'd simply shrug their shoulders and stop doing useless things.

And the side-effect of no longer having such survival-motivated consumer advertising, would in fact be less consumerism and greed in the culture.

[ckaihatsu]

It was a quota based system, forget about average. There was a yearly planning process in which the quota was traded off against the things labor could produce, different areas actually had budgets of labor credits allocated to them. It was well known what the average hour of labor could produce in any area, from past years. Society's desires were never completely satisfied, but the desires were traded off against the desire to work less. The weekly quota moved around quite a bit, between 36-42 hours.


Okay.





You banked them if you worked over-quota.


Okay.





If you wanted to transfer them you could, by having someone do some work for you. It wasn't arbitrary in that you couldn't just transfer 300 credits to someone for nothing, they had to do 300 hours of labor for you. But you could have them do anything. In practice, it was a pretty fringe feature, but sometimes there would be a few people that would band together and donate credits for others to build a canoe or sauna or something.


Now it sounds like *all* of a person's hours worked would 'credit' them with the social power to assign that many hours of work to *others*.

This is where the 'hazard/difficulty' factor would *definitely* come into play, since one wouldn't necessarily know what kinds of work *others* did that gave them the power to assign work. You're also indicating that the assigned work would be *mandatory* somehow -- even though communism itself is supposed to be entirely self-determining. What if some people did mattress-testing and thermometer-checking work and then told others to go mine coal and diamonds -- ? -- !





This actually sounds pretty similar as far as the transferring of credits is concerned


A key aspect of *any* communism-type model would be 'how-work-is-assigned'.

I'll note that with the 'labor credits framework' from post #67, liberated-labor could *never* be coerced, because then it wouldn't be 'liberated'. Besides, there would always be d.i.y. to fall-back-on, if social cooperation really got that bad, for whatever reason -- no one would 'own' or have 'claims' to anything, unless productive assets and material resources were actively being used according to formal-process collective efforts (a mass-prioritized 'policy package').





(except for the variableness of the labor credits),


This is a key component of the 'labor credits' model -- I don't see how the quality of 'hazard / difficulty' could realistically be ignored or sidestepped.





but I'm not quite sure where the credits come from in the first place,





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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


Here's an elaboration of this aspect, from a past thread:





[E]very debt issuance of labor credits by any locality is a public event, with full disclosure of the creation of the labor credits -- they all have serial numbers stamped on them so they can be traced back to the locality they were issued from, and tracked indefinitely like license plates on cars.




The people of any locality can collectively decide to issue *any number* of labor credits -- but it's a *political* act since they're expecting their "local brand" (by serial numbers) to be honored at face value by everyone else in the world. The people of that issuing locality haven't done *any work* for their issuing of those labor credits, and everybody knows it because it's all part of the public record.

What that locality *could* do is send enough of its own people out to anywhere else, to do work and bring labor credits from outside back to their own locality, so as to show real backing for the batch of labor credits that they issued from debt. That, too, would be part of the public record.




The 'locality debt' aspect would be in *political* terms -- 'reputation' -- since a locality's act of issuing a new batch of labor credits through debt issuance would effectively be the *direct exploitation* of liberated labor since there's no reciprocity of labor effort on the part of those in that locality.

All that the locality's population would have to do to correct things would be to search out opportunities to earn labor credits from *outside* their own locality, and then to bring that 'x' amount of labor credits back to their locality to cancel out the debt.

Similarly, two localities could coordinate to issue identical numbers of labor credits at the same time, and then to 'earn' each other's labor credits at about the same time, thus nullifying both respective debts at once. (The physical labor credits would then remain in general circulation afterwards, unencumbered by any underlying debt.)


---





since you mentioned it's a 'gift economy' predominantly.


I myself can't *guarantee* this, because that would be an *emergent* quality of the particular society itself (or it wouldn't).





The way you are describing the diamond production sounds like it could lead to markets and competition (it didn't happen in the commune, but on a larger scale it could be a different story), if I'm understanding it correctly.


You may want to explain your reasoning here.

I'll note that if *anything* -- diamonds or otherwise -- goes on for too long without being materially fulfilled, that would be a social 'imbalance', and we all know that nature abhors a vacuum.

But -- I don't think that backward black-markets would have any *advantage* in a world that has already become communist and possibly uses this system of labor credits. Either people would have to figure out how to provide (liberated) labor for the production of whatever's outstanding, or else things would come to a standstill. Reintroducing bits of colored paper, and balkanized 'ownership' wouldn't really help anything at that point, that collectivism itself couldn't potentially address and solve.

Here's another elaboration -- this is about the social power / significance of the labor credits:





[L]et's say that 'work-from-home mattress testing' is the *easiest* work role ever known, and so the multiplier for it is a '1' -- one hour of liberated-labor yields 1 labor credit.

'Spreading manure on a field' happens to be a '4' according to the mass work-role exit survey, but, as things turn out, people have *not* yet automated this kind of farmwork, yet *many* people are demanding beer, which requires this role, and other kinds of farmwork, for its production.

While engineering students and a worldwide legion of hobbyists unobtrusively work in the background on automating this task once-and-for-all, some others note the disparity between supply and demand and opportunistically announce that *they* will do this kind of work, to produce an abundance of beer for the greater region, but only at a multiplier rate of '6'.

Why would *anyone* give a shit about labor credits and agree to do shitwork, even for an increased rate of labor credits, you ask -- ?

Because anyone who can command a *premium* of labor credits, as from higher multiplier rates, are effectively gaining and consolidating their control of society's *reproduction of labor*. Most likely there would be social ('political') factionalism involved, where those who are most 'socially concerned' or 'philosophically driven' would be coordinating to cover as much *unwanted* work territory as possible, all for the sake of political consolidation. Increased numbers of labor credits in-hand would allow a group to *direct* what social work roles are 'activated' (funded), going-forward.

Perhaps it's about colonizing another planet, or about carving high-speed rail networks that criss-cross and connect all seven continents underground. Maybe it's a certain academic approach to history and the sciences, with a cache of pooled labor credits going towards that school of educational instruction. Perhaps it's an *art* faction ascending, funding all kinds of large-scale projects that decorate major urban centers in never-before-seen kinds of ways.

Whatever the program and motivation, society as a whole would be collectively *ceding ground* if it didn't keep the 'revolution' and collectivism going, with a steady pace of automation that precluded whole areas of production from social politics altogether. Technology / automation empowers the *individual* and takes power out of the hands of groups that enjoy cohesiveness based on sheer *numbers* and a concomitant control of social reproduction in their ideological direction. The circulation and usage of labor credits would be a live formal tracking of how *negligent* the social revolution happened to be at any given moment, just as the consolidation of private property is today against the forces of revolutionary politics and international labor solidarity.

[oneday]

You may want to explain your reasoning here.


Assuming the people who want the diamonds get to pick who does the work, the diamond buyer's club will want to get the most diamonds with the least amount of labor credits. Groups of liberated labors will compete against each other to offer the most amount of diamonds in the shortest amount of time, after all the diamond buyer's club is offering a very attractive 9:1 labor credit ratio. Perhaps some groups will use some of their labor credits to get others to produce better quality picks (who owns the picks then?), so they can mine faster. The exit poll provides incentive for the exiting workers to vote the ratio higher, their interests are at odds with diamond buyers. Etc.

[The Modern Prometheus]

well why can't there be a prohibition of some kind? are you saying in stateless society serial killers and child molesters could do as they as please as well?

also the cost of mining a diamond is about $50 per carat, the cost of producing synthetic diamonds is around $2500 per carat, the reason daimonds cost so much is people want real daimonds with a specific cut color and quality

Why would we want to prohibit diamonds? They are overpriced rocks in my opinion and in today's Capitalist society blood or conflict diamonds are the embodiment of Capitalist exploitation. Well that and FIFA :glare: . Nothing say's i love you like a small rock in which a few dozen poor African wage slaves died trying to get to market :rolleyes: . Come to think of it most of my g/f's over the years have hated Diamonds as well and if i was ever dumb enough to spend that much money on a rock no doubt a good telling off would be what i would have gotten instead of a "Yes omg i will marry you". But if Diamonds where produced in a Communist society the exploitation argument would no longer apply. Some people do like Diamonds and although i myself don't get the appeal that's not to say i am automatically right and the people who like Diamonds are wrong. If someone wanted to acquire such a item in a Communist society i am sure there would be enough left over rocks from industrial applications to come up with a Diamond for them.

Of course the needs of a society would come before the wants but if there was enough raw material left over i don't see why we would or could say to people that they cannot acquire diamonds. Specialized knives used for eye surgery, other cutting tools used for industrial applications such as oil drilling as one example i know offhand and any of the other essential products would take priority over a nice shiny rock in my opinion but other then that i would have no problem with it. I really do not like the notion that we should ban such products outright for no reason as in a Communist society the laws we would live by would be directed by society as a whole and as long as you where not harming anyone else then what would be the need for such a law written or unwritten? It smacks of petty tyranny at it's worst really. As long as the people working to make those Diamonds where in safe and good working conditions and all their needs where looked after (from each according to his ability to each according to his need) who are we to ban people from acquiring certain products like Diamonds and other which carry a negative association today due to Capitalist exploitation which of course would no longer be a problem at all once a Socialist economic system formed. Not to mention in say 50 years all diamonds may very well be made in a lab thus the value of diamonds would drop drastically not to mention the mystique around them would as well so in a few generations they could very well be worth fuck all in value.

I usually avoid such arguments like how to deal with such pathological criminals (atm this is the best definition i can come up with) as the child molester/serial killer like the plague as there is no real way to predict how the radical shift to a stateless classless society would change what i would call criminals of a slightly different nature. This is assuming they would change at all as unlike many criminal activities such as say drug trafficking, theft, extortion, robbery, etc they have no financial gain. Most people i know who got into drug dealing did so because there where very little if any other opportunities for them to help get themselves out of poverty much less make any real serious money. Granted decisions to say dealing drugs on a large scale or worse yet pull robberies more often then not result in prison time at best or death at worst there is a very real incentive to do "the crime" and going into that most people tend to know and accept the risks of doing business on the black market. Personally i see this as a great hypocrisy within Capitalist society but that's another story.

I think child molesters and also possibly serial killers would exist in a Communist society as i think it would be Utopian to think that such crimes would automatically disappear. We would have to as a society come up with a way to deal with them but since my crystal ball is currently in storage ;) i don't know what way we would go about dealing with criminals of that sort in a Communist society. Personally i take a rather dim view of child molesters and sex offenders in general and i would not want any of them living within a Irish mile of me especially if i had a g/f and/or kids staying with me.

I actually ran into a problem somewhat like this ages ago when i found out there was 1 known sex offender in the same neighborhood as the one me my g/f and i where living in. This gave me more then a few nights lacking in sleep and for the first time in my life i actually used the locks on the door. I didn't have a alarm system or the money to get 1 and due to my g/f's anti-gun stance didn't have a firearm of any kind at the time. That was a deal breaker for her but only for that i would have had a 12 gauge pump action in the house just in case the sex offender was the type to attack women of legal age. She did have a knife with a springless blade as well as pepper spray so that made me feel better about her going out alone at night. Call me a chauvinist if you will but once i found out about that i tried to walk her over to her friends or mom's house whenever i could. It was a shitty neighborhood though i would not call it dangerous atleast for a full grown male and there where a few streets that had very poor lighting especially between the different sets of row houses and that made me slightly nervous. She was well able to handle herself and didn't look like a easy target (she was a good 5'11 and in shape as well and due to growing up the youngest of 3 kids knew how to fight) but you never can tell with these types as they aren't rational. Plus a gun or longer range weapon like a bat or crowbar would make any knife or fighting skills irrelevant. Of course in good old Canada the land of the free where a few months in prison is about all a sex offender gets meanwhile getting caught with 6 fucking weed plants carries a mandatory 6 month sentence i had no legal recourse to take against this dirty scoundrel so any offensive action would land me in prison. Hell even if he broke into our place i would be risking atleast manslaughter if i shot him unless i could prove he was going to kill or do harm to my g/f or me. Granted if anyone tried to hurt a loved one of mine the last thing i would be thinking about would be any legal action taken towards me.

Personally for such a crime i would be in favor of the exile or death option. So short of dropping them all off in some remote abandoned town in the arctic that they couldn't get out of i really don't see much of a option besides a bullet to the back of the head. And no i am not in favor of the death penalty as it is just a extension of the power of the Capitalist state and has nothing to do with justice. Also not all killers are the type to kill again as most murders are committed on impulse as opposed to being thought out. However in a Socialist society i would not be against death during certain circumstances such as with sex offenders and such.

These are all problems that we would have to iron out during the transition from Socialism to Communism. Along with many more of course. There is no easy answer to this problem but i thought id give my opinion on it as full of shit as it may be.

[ckaihatsu]

Assuming the people who want the diamonds get to pick who does the work,


Not quite.

Since liberated labor cannot be *commanded*, there's no 'picking' of laborers in the sense of pointing at people who should go do the work -- it's not that simple.

Those who *want* diamonds (or anything else) would have to do sufficient work themselves to pool a certain amount of labor credits that they can then offer, as a group, to whoever *would* (possibly) take up the work required to make diamonds available. (Obviously a project of this scope would have to be a *collective* effort, and so would be pre-planned and spelled-out in advance, as to all specifics.)





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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


---





the diamond buyer's club


One objection: Those who want diamonds aren't 'buyers', because there's no private property in communism.

What they *can* do is see if there are people who want to do the necessary work to make diamonds *available*, in the societal interest of *eliminating scarcity* (of whatever). Those coordinating the sufficient amounts of labor credits, to activate the liberated-labor for producing the diamonds, would *most likely* be the recipients of the newly available diamonds -- since everything for the production effort would be according to a detailed 'policy package', all the specifics would be collectively determined in advance. (Also see the last part of the following quoted section.)





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).


---





will want to get the most diamonds with the least amount of labor credits.


Okay.





Groups of liberated labors will compete against each other to offer the most amount of diamonds in the shortest amount of time, after all the diamond buyer's club is offering a very attractive 9:1 labor credit ratio.


*Possibly*, depending on actual conditions -- and the 'competition' may also be at the *individual* level, as well, since people will be known for different personal *abilities* and *intensities* -- but ultimately all personnel and work schedules will have to be spelled-out and committed-to in advance, as part of the agreed-upon 'policy package' before anything gets started.





Perhaps some groups will use some of their labor credits to get others to produce better quality picks (who owns the picks then?), so they can mine faster.


Well, again, it's not a free-for-all -- since all 'property' and productive assets have been collectivized, it's the locality/localities and liberated laborers who have to all collectively decide how these things get done.

Also, regarding personal possessions (like diamonds):





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


---





The exit poll provides incentive for the exiting workers to vote the ratio higher, their interests are at odds with diamond buyers. Etc.


I think what's significant in this model is that there would be no *class differences*, as you're making it out to be -- no one can incentivize work with the offer of labor credits until one has *earned* those labor credits for themselves, by supplying services or productive services with their own liberated labor for 'socially necessary' tasks.

There are no 'buyers' because there is no 'ownership' -- only personal possessions that one must actively tend to, or else others may mistake them for being abandoned and freely available as part of the world's 'commons'.

So there's no 'workers vs. buyers' -- everyone has to do socially necessary work if they're to participate in the labor credits economy. The exit surveys would not be open to skewing in the way you're suggesting.

I'll note, on the flipside, that if the item for production was so societally crucial (*not* diamonds), the mass demand for it would be widespread and *everywhere*, so that it would be a 'humanity emergency' of sorts, and would thus spur *broad-based* numbers of people to step up their attentions and the availability of their liberated labor, to it.

Also, after some thought, I have a *small* change in a part of the proposed 'placeholder' policy for the model -- maybe, instead of just 'exit' surveys, from those who are *leaving* work roles (as after a one-year minimum, perhaps), there might be a *mass* survey, *every year*, for everyone who is actively at work roles for at least a year. This kind of thing would have to be decided by those of such a society, anyway, regardless.

[Luís Henrique]

Are you trying to imply that there could be no bad art in a communist world -- ?

While I am pretty sure that bad art will continue to plague society even after the revolution... it seems quite obvious that this is not just "art", bad or good, but also an appropriation of commons, that might or might not be allowed in a socialist society - not, at least, without a previous public debate on whether tampering like that with landscape and, possibly, ecology, is a good or a bad idea.

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

While I am pretty sure that bad art will continue to plague society even after the revolution... it seems quite obvious that this is not just "art", bad or good, but also an appropriation of commons,


Oh -- a social 'power play'. Good point.





that might or might not be allowed in a socialist society - not, at least, without a previous public debate on whether tampering like that with landscape and, possibly, ecology, is a good or a bad idea.


Agreed.

[ckaihatsu]

Perhaps some groups will use some of their labor credits to get others to produce better quality picks (who owns the picks then?), so they can mine faster.


Just noticed that I interpreted this part differently than what you meant -- I thought you meant 'a pick of the diamonds'.

Regarding the development of new technologies, that would have to be a project of its own -- there might be *several* *different*, varying policy package proposals in flux at once over any given production goal, like diamonds, and it would be up to the collective (locality/localities) to prioritize one versus all of the others, for actual implementation.

A policy proposal that happened to include a provision / project for 'improving pick material technology' would probably get a better reception from diamond miners, and from the general public, for its improved productivity, and would most likely be prioritized over more-conventional approaches to the whole diamond-production issue.

Labor credits aren't exchangeable for materials / resources / goods of any kind, so earning more labor credits doesn't confer 'wealth' -- they only apply to matters of 'activating' liberated labor going-forward.

Regarding the picks themselves:





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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[oneday]

Since liberated labor cannot be *commanded*, there's no 'picking' of laborers in the sense of pointing at people who should go do the work -- it's not that simple.

Well you said no one was willing to produce diamonds for no labor credits. The diamond club must offer an incentive to produce diamonds. There must be a minimum ratio of labor credits per hour that must be offered for anyone to want to do the work - afterall, noone will want to do it for 0.0001 credits per hour of labor. Some labors will want do it at 3:1, and a lot more will want to do it at 9:1. So, something is picking which laborers will do the work.


Those who *want* diamonds (or anything else) would have to do sufficient work themselves to pool a certain amount of labor credits that they can then offer, as a group, to whoever *would* (possibly) take up the work required to make diamonds available. (Obviously a project of this scope would have to be a *collective* effort, and so would be pre-planned and spelled-out in advance, as to all specifics.)

Just because they have 'honestly' acquired the labor credits doesn't mean they're not commanding labor. The diamond enthusiast club is providing incentive to labor by offering labor credits, where no desire to labor existed before. I'm assuming they can also stop offering labor credits, thereby probably stopping the labor.

Imagine this scenario, the diamond enthusiast club offers a rate of 3:1 and there is one group in South America that will offer to organize to produce diamonds at this rate, but South America is known to be a tough place to mine diamonds, the club will most likely need a high expenditure of labor credits to get as many diamonds as they want. So they raise the offered rate to 5:1 and 3 more groups are interested. Should they pick the most promising one or offer a trial period to all of them?

Say they decide to try a group in Africa and this group ends up producing a great diamond/labor credit ratio. However, the labors thought it was really difficult work and have consistently polled that the ratio should be 27:1 (and they were being as completely honest in their assessment as possible). Now they would be forced to raise the rate, but they figure it's not worth to continue at 27:1. They decide to try another group. The other group thinks it is equally difficult work but they know the diamond club won't accept 27:1. So they have no choice but to vote for a lower ratio as they know they will get rejected otherwise. They know they will have to be lower than 27:1, but probably will be able to get higher than 5:1.

Why not just drop the pretext and fancy words and float the ratio on the market based on supply and demand? That is what will end up happening anyway. I agree with communer on this, you are really just reinventing the market and money. Why call it "communist supply and demand" (an oxymoron!) and instead call it "communism with market socialist characteristics" or something which would be more fitting.



What they *can* do is see if there are people who want to do the necessary work to make diamonds *available*, in the societal interest of *eliminating scarcity* (of whatever). Those coordinating the sufficient amounts of labor credits, to activate the liberated-labor for producing the diamonds, would *most likely* be the recipients of the newly available diamonds -- since everything for the production effort would be according to a detailed 'policy package', all the specifics would be collectively determined in advance. (Also see the last part of the following quoted section.)


So the people who put in the labor credit *might not* get the diamonds. Who gets the diamonds? Really, come on. Also, you are dressing it up again with words like "societal interest", "collectively determined", when it is really private initiative for private interest using market mechanisms.

I mean, I'm not saying what you're suggesting is all bad, you are trying to address a real problem that arrives with planned economies. But there isn't much point of dressing it up, and pretending it's something it's not.

[ckaihatsu]

Well you said no one was willing to produce diamonds for no labor credits. The diamond club must offer an incentive to produce diamonds. There must be a minimum ratio of labor credits per hour that must be offered for anyone to want to do the work - afterall, noone will want to do it for 0.0001 credits per hour of labor. Some labors will want do it at 3:1, and a lot more will want to do it at 9:1. So, something is picking which laborers will do the work.


Yes.

To 'drill down', there could be various, separate proposals being discussed and mass-prioritized daily across all areas concerned -- so there might be a '3x' proposal, with certain specifics, and a '9x' proposal, with other specifics.

Those who may want to do it for 3x would undoubtedly look to be formally included in the '3x' proposal, while those who would only do it for 9x would only formally be a part of the '9x' proposal. And some might join *both* proposals, with varying conditions of work for each separate one. (Etc.)





Just because they have 'honestly' acquired the labor credits doesn't mean they're not commanding labor.


Yes, it *does* mean that they're not commanding labor because any person could *ignore* the labor credits economy and live fully normal, uncoerced, mostly self-determined lives without earning a single labor credit or otherwise participating in the labor credits economy even once.

(The overall premise is that of communism -- that there would be enough of a collectivist 'gift economy', from sheerly voluntary efforts, to provide the basics of life and living to all, barring no one, with 'free access' and 'direct distribution' of all produced goods and services.)





The diamond enthusiast club is providing incentive to labor by offering labor credits, where no desire to labor existed before. I'm assuming they can also stop offering labor credits, thereby probably stopping the labor.


Yes, correct -- in such a case the social production would revert back to that of d.i.y.-only.





Imagine this scenario, the diamond enthusiast club offers a rate of 3:1 and there is one group in South America that will offer to organize to produce diamonds at this rate, but South America is known to be a tough place to mine diamonds, the club will most likely need a high expenditure of labor credits to get as many diamonds as they want. So they raise the offered rate to 5:1 and 3 more groups are interested. Should they pick the most promising one or offer a trial period to all of them?


Whatever the goals are, there would have to be one or more policy-package proposals that address all of these factors and variables.





Say they decide to try a group in Africa which produces a great diamond/labor credit ratio. However, the labors thought it was really difficult work and have consistently polled that the ratio should be 27:1 (and they were being as completely honest in their assessment as possible). Now they would be forced to raise the rate, but they figure it's not worth to continue at 27:1. The decide to try another group. The other group thinks it is equally difficult work but they know the diamond club won't accept 27:1. So they have no choice but to vote for a lower ratio as they know they will get rejected otherwise. They know they can get a great rate, after all, they were willing to do the work at 5:1 in the first place.


Okay.





Why not just drop the pretext and fancy words and float the ratio on the market based on supply and demand?


Why are you suggesting that private ownership (of the mines and picks, presumably) would in any way *improve* the social conditions of this collectivist scenario -- ?





That is what will end up happening anyway.


Here's from earlier in the thread:





[I] don't think that backward black-markets would have any *advantage* in a world that has already become communist and possibly uses this system of labor credits. Either people would have to figure out how to provide (liberated) labor for the production of whatever's outstanding, or else things would come to a standstill. Reintroducing bits of colored paper, and balkanized 'ownership' wouldn't really help anything at that point, that collectivism itself couldn't potentially address and solve.


---





I agree with communer on this, you are really just reinventing the market and money.


Nope, not at all, because of these portions of the framework:





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




communist administration -- Assets and resources have no quantifiable value -- are considered as attachments to the production process




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


---





Why call it "communist supply and demand" (an oxymoron!)


Cute -- thanks for noticing. It also proves that you're not really understanding the content of the model itself.





and instead call it "communism with market socialist characteristics" or something which would be more fitting.


There are no markets in this model because nothing is commodified, unlike 'market socialism', where there *is* implicit commodification.





So the people who put in the labor credit *might not* get the diamonds. Who gets the diamonds?


It would be in whatever policy package that gets mass-prioritized, and implemented.





Really, come on. Also, you are dressing it up again with words like "societal interest", "collectively determined", when it is really private initiative for private interest using market mechanisms.


Nope.

No private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, no profits.





I mean, I'm not saying what you're suggesting is all bad, you are trying to address a real problem that arrives with planned economies. But there isn't much point of dressing it up, and pretending it's something it's not.


I'll ask you to read my responses here and consider the veracity of what I'm saying in relation to the model itself.

[oneday]

Well you said no one was willing to produce diamonds for no labor credits. The diamond club must offer an incentive to produce diamonds. There must be a minimum ratio of labor credits per hour that must be offered for anyone to want to do the work - afterall, noone will want to do it for 0.0001 credits per hour of labor. Some labors will want do it at 3:1, and a lot more will want to do it at 9:1. So, something is picking which laborers will do the work.


Yes.

If you do not see a labor market here, then there is no point in discussing further.


the labor credits economy and live fully normal, uncoerced, mostly self-determined lives without earning a single labor credit or otherwise participating in the labor credits economy even once.

(The overall premise is that of communism -- that there would be enough of a collectivist 'gift economy', from sheerly voluntary efforts, to provide the basics of life and living to all, barring no one, with 'free access' and 'direct distribution' of all produced goods and services.)

Just because there is a minimum standard of living that is met through communism, does not mean that your system does not introduce markets and commodification.


Why are you suggesting that private ownership (of the mines and picks, presumably) would in any way *improve* the social conditions of this collectivist scenario -- ?

I'm not, I'm saying you don't have to have private ownership of mines or picks to have markets and commodification and doing away with the facade of polling the workers to disguise the fact that there is a price set by a market would be more efficient and more honest.


It would be in whatever policy package that gets mass-prioritized, and implemented.

I am sure the diamond lovers club will not withdraw their labor credits for the package that gives them no diamonds and gives them to someone else.


No private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, no profits.

Just because you say it doesn't mean it ain't so. Transferable labor credits are a private means of economic power. Labor-power and diamonds have been commodified, and there is a labor market.


[I] don't think that backward black-markets would have any *advantage* in a world that has already become communist and possibly uses this system of labor credits. Either people would have to figure out how to provide (liberated) labor for the production of whatever's outstanding, or else things would come to a standstill. Reintroducing bits of colored paper, and balkanized 'ownership' wouldn't really help anything at that point, that collectivism itself couldn't potentially address and solve.

To avoid black markets why not improve communism - make planning more agile, increase participation in the planning process, build up the means of productions and increase efficiency - instead of introduce market reforms?

[ckaihatsu]

Well you said no one was willing to produce diamonds for no labor credits. The diamond club must offer an incentive to produce diamonds. There must be a minimum ratio of labor credits per hour that must be offered for anyone to want to do the work - afterall, noone will want to do it for 0.0001 credits per hour of labor. Some labors will want do it at 3:1, and a lot more will want to do it at 9:1. So, something is picking which laborers will do the work.





Yes.

To 'drill down', there could be various, separate proposals being discussed and mass-prioritized daily across all areas concerned -- so there might be a '3x' proposal, with certain specifics, and a '9x' proposal, with other specifics.

Those who may want to do it for 3x would undoubtedly look to be formally included in the '3x' proposal, while those who would only do it for 9x would only formally be a part of the '9x' proposal. And some might join *both* proposals, with varying conditions of work for each separate one. (Etc.)





If you do not see a labor market here, then there is no point in discussing further.


I'm sorry that you're so insistent on your own particular interpretation of the word 'market', but once again there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, and no profits.





Just because there is a minimum standard of living that is met through communism, does not mean that your system does not introduce markets and commodification.


Yes, that's *exactly* what it doesn't do -- there's no commodification, and everything is collectively planned and decided-on in advance. That's about as far from being markets as anything can get.

You're continuing to repeatedly assert that there's commodification, but without providing any reasoning for this spurious conclusion of yours.


---





Why are you suggesting that private ownership (of the mines and picks, presumably) would in any way *improve* the social conditions of this collectivist scenario -- ?





I'm not, I'm saying you don't have to have private ownership of mines or picks to have markets and commodification and doing away with the facade of polling the workers to disguise the fact that there is a price set by a market would be more efficient and more honest.


(Again I have to point out that there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, and no profits. I've already referenced the portions of the model that support my characterization, and you haven't given any reasoning for your contentions.)





I am sure the diamond lovers club will not withdraw their labor credits for the package that gives them no diamonds and gives them to someone else.


Maybe this will shed some light on things: You're thinking of the 'diamond lovers club' as a *monolithic*, controlling bloc, something like a monopolistic cartel. But in such a post-capitalist environment there's nothing based on the abstraction of private property holdings that would keep *all* diamond-lovers glued together -- you already mentioned different *regions* of the world for mining production, like South America and Africa. It might turn out to be that certain areas happen to be more favorable for the use of labor credits, while others are less-so -- it would all depend on who 'goes' where, both in terms of funding and in terms of liberated labor, to whatever results.

Also, if liberated labor, worldwide, was particularly hesitant about doing *any* kind of mining work, maybe we would see a *delineation* in their ranks where many would drop out altogether and not do *any* mining, while some others somewhere would go for the '3x' rate, for a longer duration, with others going for the '9x' rate in tougher conditions, for a *shorter* duration.

Still others might happen to inherently *like* mining work, and -- given an acceptable rate -- would *exceed* any given proposal, and mine to their heart's content, supplying the world (or at least the local locality) with *120%* of what was originally planned.





Just because you say it doesn't mean it ain't so. Transferable labor credits are a private means of economic power.


No, it's *not* private, because there's no *private ownership* (as through real estate, equities, etc.).

The labor credits can only ever represent a discrete portion of work that a person *oneself* has already done. Once passed along to someone else for the completion of their (new) work, that portion of one's own past labor, and its representation in one's possession of the labor credits, is 'closed-out', forever.

So the 'economic power' is a discrete 'packet' of one's own past work, in the necessarily-limited number of labor credits that one could have at any given time, and is closed-out once passed along for the activation of others' new-work.





Labor-power and diamonds have been commodified, and there is a labor market.


No, yet again, just because you're repeating this doesn't mean that it's true -- you should present some line of reasoning for this characterization of 'commodification'.





To avoid black markets why not improve communism - make planning more agile, increase participation in the planning process, build up the means of productions and increase efficiency


Absolutely.

I've included all of the database fields that are in the 'labor credits framework' illustration, in the following spoiler section. If you can think of a better process, please feel free to do so, for the sake of communism, etc.




ISSUER

AUTOMATIC TIMESTAMP UPON RECEIPT (YYYYMMDDHHMM)

ACTIVE DATE (YYYYMMDD)

FORMAL-ITEM REFERENCED (OR AUTOMATICALLY CREATED), IF ANY

FORMAL-ITEM NUMERICAL INCREMENT, 001-999, PER DAY, PER UNIQUE GEOGRAPHIC UNIT

GEOGRAPHIC LEVEL INTENDED-FOR ('HSH', 'ENT', 'LCL', RGN', 'CTN', 'GBL')

GEOGRAPHIC SOURCE UNIQUE NAME, ABBREVIATED

FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME_BIRTHYEAR(YY)

INDIVIDUAL'S ITEM RANKING, 0001-9999 (PER DAY)

RANK-ITEM TYPE ('INI', 'DMN', 'PRP', 'PRJ', PDR', 'FND', 'DTI', 'LLI', 'PLP', 'ORD', 'REQ', 'SLD')

TITLE-DESCRIPTION


WORK ROLE NUMBER AND TITLE

TENTATIVE OR ACTUAL HAZARD / DIFFICULTY MULTIPLIER

ESTIMATE-OF OR ACTUAL LABOR HOURS PER SCHEDULED WORK SHIFT

TOTAL LABOR CREDITS (MULTIPLIER TIMES HOURS)

ACTUAL FUNDING OF LABOR CREDITS PER WORK SHIFT (FUNDING ITEM REFERENCE REQUIRED)

SCHEDULED DISCRETE WORK SHIFT, BEGINNING DATE & TIME

SCHEDULED DISCRETE WORK SHIFT, ENDING DATE & TIME

AVAILABLE-AND-SELECTED LIBERATED LABORER IDENTIFIER


DENOMINATION

QUANTITY, PER DENOMINATION

TOTAL LABOR CREDITS PER DENOMINATION

SERIAL NUMBER RANGE, BEGINNING

SERIAL NUMBER RANGE, ENDING


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'



http://s6.postimg.org/jjc7b5nch/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)


---





- instead of introduce market reforms?


Again, I solidly disagree with your groundless mischaracterization here.

[oneday]

I'm sorry that you're so insistent on your own particular interpretation of the word 'market',

I'm sorry you've invented your own definition of the word 'market' to avoid using it.

"Market - An actual or nominal place where forces of demand and supply operate."

You've called it supply and demand by your own admission with the name of your blog post.

You've admitted that those with labor credits can voluntarily incentivize production by offering labor credits, and freely withdraw labor credit support. They have economic power and can command labor.

You've admitted there's a minimum price that labor-power can be bought (just because you don't like the words 'price' and 'bought' doesn't mean thats not what's happening). You've admitted that there's a maximum price that the diamond club is willing to pay for labor-power. These admissions are enough to demonstrate the existence of a market, since supply and demand are establishing a minimum and maximum price.

The diamond club represents a demand for diamond producing labor-power, which is trying to minimize it's labor credit expenditure. The laborers offer a supply of labor-power, looking to maximize the number of labor credits they receive for the time they work. It's much like a traditional wage system.

Saying you want them to play nice and objectively determine the price by some poll is like saying if only the capitalists would be more moral and less corrupt everything would be fine, it's ignoring the structural issue that creates struggle. Like I've already explained, the laws of supply and demand will force the laborers to rate the 'difficulty' of the work at an acceptable market price, or be priced out of the market (or engage in struggle to attempt to raise the price).

Lets look at commodification -
"Commodification (1975, origins Marxist political theory) is used to describe the process by which something which does not have an economic value is assigned a value and hence how market values can replace other social values. It describes a modification of relationships, formerly untainted by commerce, into commercial relationships in everyday use."

You've noted that there is another economy which provides a minimum standard of living, which presumably is motivated by the social good-will of the producers. Previously, the labor-power of the producers was motivated by social values. When you've introduced the labor credit system, the labor-power of the diamond producers becomes commodified, it is assigned a price of a certain number of labor-credits per hour, it now has an economic value. I've previously established how this price is established by a market system.

Let's not try to hand-wave these issues away with a guarantee of a minimum standard of living produced through a non-market system. The fact that one could live their entire lives without dealing in labor credits makes no difference to the substance of the matter - that you are reintroducing markets and commodification.



The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sorry you've invented your own definition of the word 'market' to avoid using it.


No, that's what *you're* doing.





"Market - An actual or nominal place where forces of demand and supply operate."


It takes *more* than just 'supply' and 'demand' to have markets, as I've consistently maintained -- supply and demand are *objective* social dynamics that would exist regardless of the mode of production.





You've called it supply and demand by your own admission with the name of your blog post.


Yeah, and that *still* doesn't make it markets. You've been ignoring my argument that (once again) there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, and no profits.





You've admitted that those with labor credits can voluntarily incentivize production by offering labor credits, and freely withdraw labor credit support.


Yes, but if *some* withdraw their labor credits for a proposed project or production run, that doesn't necessarily *end* things -- certainly others would be free to step-in to fill-the-vacuum, and offer *their* labor credits (one or more localities could even issue debt for the sake of providing labor credits, if need be), probably under different terms / 'policy package'.





They have economic power and can command labor.


No, the economic power that one has is strictly limited to the past work they've done, as represented by one's labor credits in-hand.

Anyone is free to accept any terms offered, including labor-credit funding, or reject them, and still live a healthy and uncoerced life, with the general conditions of communism. This means that *no one* can 'command' labor, because it's *liberated*.





You've admitted there's a minimum price that labor-power can be bought


Yeah, the minimum "price" is *zero*, because then labor credits aren't being used at all, and it's a general gift-economy. This parameter, incidentally, *proves* that your reasoning is faulty, because if people are willing to work for the common good for *free* (sheerly voluntarily), that doesn't mean that they're being *exploited*, or that they're being 'bought' for nothing -- they're simply contributing to communist society's 'free access' and 'direct distribution'.

If they decide to contribute their liberated labor with a transfer of labor credits then they're no more 'selling' their labor to anyone than if they did it for nothing, because no one 'owns' anything -- people can *receive* the resulting work-products, because that's what *consumption* is, but they can't *own* it in the sense of drawing a line around it, putting up a fence, putting a lock on it, hiring security guards for it, or 'selling' it at a profit, since there's no private property or currency.





(just because you don't like the words 'price' and 'bought' doesn't mean thats not what's happening).


Yeah, there's no 'price' because there is no currency. (I just covered the 'bought' issue.)





You've admitted that there's a maximum price that the diamond club is willing to pay for labor-power.


You're still not understanding that the paying-forward of liberated work-effort is not the same as capital-based currency transactions.





These admissions are enough to demonstrate the existence of a market, since supply and demand are establishing a minimum and maximum price.


No, again, 'supply' and 'demand' are objective material dynamics and are not enough themselves for the existence of a market.





The diamond club represents a demand for diamond producing labor-power, which is trying to minimize it's labor credit expenditure. The laborers offer a supply of labor-power, looking to maximize the number of labor credits they receive for the time they work. It's much like a traditional wage system.


You can point out all the parallels you like, but it's still apples-and-oranges -- it's *not* a traditional wage system, it's the paying-forward of liberated work-effort.





Saying you want them to play nice and objectively determine the price by some poll is like saying if only the capitalists would be more moral and less corrupt everything would be fine,


No, again you're misrepresenting my descriptions -- the multiplier index (a compilation of all work-role exit surveys) is simply a go-to *guide*, and if the prevailing situation calls for *floating* whatever rates for whatever work roles, then that's what's going to happen. That's the supply-and-demand aspect of it.





it's ignoring the structural issue that creates struggle. Like I've already explained, the laws of supply and demand will force the laborers to rate the 'difficulty' of the work at an acceptable market price,


It ultimately doesn't matter *what* number-factors the workers use to rate the work roles -- the multiplier index is *not binding*.





or be priced out of the market (or engage in struggle to attempt to raise the price).


Again you're conflating the conditions of communism (that may include this labor credits framework), with that of a *class society*, when, by definition, communism is *not* a class-divided society, and would not have / require 'struggle'.

I think you have to accept that the context for all of this is a *collectivist* one -- if society is that serious about getting diamonds to 1% of the world's population (or whatever), then people are going to have to come together and figure out a way to cooperate to make it happen. Certainly the best would be to improve the technology of production so that no one is stuck using pick-axes -- that would probably come first.





Lets look at commodification -
"Commodification (1975, origins Marxist political theory) is used to describe the process by which something which does not have an economic value is assigned a value and hence how market values can replace other social values. It describes a modification of relationships, formerly untainted by commerce, into commercial relationships in everyday use."

You've noted that there is another economy which provides a minimum standard of living, which presumably is motivated by the social good-will of the producers. Previously, the labor-power of the producers was motivated by social values.




When you've introduced the labor credit system, the labor-power of the diamond producers becomes commodified,


No it doesn't because of what the labor credits *inherently represent* -- they *only* represent discrete portions of individual's past liberated-labor-efforts, which are then closed-out upon the passing-forward of the labor credits. There are no *abstracted valuations* here, the way there are under capitalism, with currency. (Under capitalism it's impossible to get an answer to 'How much labor is one dollar worth?', while the labor credits are 100% tangible on that question.)





it is assigned a price of a certain number of labor-credits per hour, it now has an economic value.


If 'price' is put into quotation marks, I can agree with this one phrase of yours itself:





[The labor-power of the diamond producers] is assigned a "price" ['rate'] of a certain number of labor-credits per hour, it now has an economic value.





I've previously established how this price is established by a market system.


No, you haven't. You continue to conflate labor credits with the abstract valuations and private property of capitalism's currency.





Let's not try to hand-wave these issues away with a guarantee of a minimum standard of living produced through a non-market system.


If you're questioning 'a guarantee of a minimum standard of living produced through a non-market system', then you're questioning the feasibility of *communism itself* -- you're disavowing any revolutionary leftist credentials with this statement.





The fact that one could live their entire lives without dealing in labor credits makes no difference to the ssubstance of the matter


Yes, it *does* make a difference -- we could simply ask if a world is possible where everything that people need gets done by paying-forward *zero* labor credits. Would that be possible, or not -- ?





- that you are reintroducing markets and commodification.


No, no I'm not.

[oneday]

then you're questioning the feasibility of *communism itself* -- you're disavowing any revolutionary leftist credentials with this statement.

You're the one questioning it. You maintain that there must be money and markets to meet desires that the planning process has not yet incorporated (or maybe never will).


Yes, it *does* make a difference -- we could simply ask if a world is possible where everything that people need gets done by paying-forward *zero* labor credits. Would that be possible, or not -- ?

Again, you are the one maintaining that it is not. Or at least maintaining that it would be better if money and markets were added to handle some things. [Omg, you said 'paying'.]


No, no I'm not.
Cool story.



if you don't think that labor credits results in commodification then you don't know what commodification is - it is the translation of what we do and, in extreme cases, us ourselves into a generic medium of exchange. you might think you've managed to find a way where you can word labor credits so that they aren't actually commodification but the fact that you think they are even necessary proves the whole thing wrong from the start. the very purpose served - that you think is necessary - is that of commodification.

you can only be wrong because that's reality and no matter how you try to justify it or change it or think around it the fact remains that you think money in some way, shape, or form is necessary and you are therefore arguing in favor of hierarchy.

Why did I not just thank him and move on?

[ckaihatsu]

then you're questioning the feasibility of *communism itself* -- you're disavowing any revolutionary leftist credentials with this statement.





You're the one questioning it. You maintain that there must be money


No, I'm not questioning communism by proposing a labor credits framework that would be *in addition to* a communistic gift economy.

Money is capitalist currency and requires underlying private property rights for its validation and function. Labor credits do not require / operate in the context of private property.

For the sake of clarification, here's the intro to the blog entry on labor credits:





A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits

To clarify and simplify, the labor credits system is like a cash-only economy that only works for *services* (labor), while the world of material implements, resources, and products is open-access and non-abstractable. (No financial valuations.) Given the world's current capacity for an abundance of productivity for the most essential items, there should be no doubt about producing a ready surplus of anything that's important, to satisfy every single person's basic humane needs.

[...]




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


---





and markets





[O]nce again there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, and no profits.





to meet desires that the planning process has not yet incorporated (or maybe never will).


Planning would be required *regardless* -- that's what collectivism is.

Recall that if *no one* would freely contribute their liberated labor to provide a particular service or productive service, the communistic 'commons' would be *jeopardized* because then there *would* be an advantage to the mode of production with private property ownership over natural resources, over the means of production, and a system of commodified labor with wages -- black markets, in other words. (People who desperately want diamonds would gladly go along with the social reality of private mines, a cash economy, cash wages, and currency payments for diamonds if the collectivist mode of production was lagging too much on all of this, or whatever else.)

Some actually *advocate* leaving 'fringe' goods to the markets (I even have an illustration of this, f.y.i.):


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy



http://s6.postimg.org/cp6z6ed81/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/ccfl07uy5/full/)


I don't. That's why I developed the labor credits framework, to keep things under the umbrella of collectivism even when personal inclinations fall short.


---





Yes, it *does* make a difference -- we could simply ask if a world is possible where everything that people need gets done by paying-forward *zero* labor credits. Would that be possible, or not -- ?





Again, you are the one maintaining that it is not.


Incorrect. Here's my position, from this thread:





Sure, *anyone* could work *only* in areas that they like, for *no* labor credits -- that would be a 'gift economy', and hopefully that's how the *whole world* would operate, for *everything*.

*But*, if it *can't*, then there's labor credits as an option.





Or at least maintaining that it would be better if money and markets were added to handle some things. [Omg, you said 'paying'.]


Now you're grasping at straws -- you're having to take *single terms* out-of-context to conflate a post-capitalist, communist-type political economy with labor credits as being one of 'money', 'markets', and 'payments'.

You continue to disregard the difference in mode of production between collectivism and capitalism.

[oneday]

I'm sorry you've invented your own definition of the word 'market' to avoid using it.


No, that's what *you're* doing.

Really? I pulled it from the dictionary. What's your definition of 'market'?


It takes *more* than just 'supply' and 'demand' to have markets, as I've consistently maintained -- supply and demand are *objective* social dynamics that would exist regardless of the mode of production.

Supply and demand are objective conditions. But "a place where forces of supply and demand operate" is socially created. Since the diamond club can freely supply and deny labor credits, while the diamond laborers can freely labor or not labor, it is obvious this is a place governed by supply and demand. As I've already gone over, the price in labor-credits of an hour of diamond producing labor will be governed by supply and demand necessarily.

In a place not governed by supply and demand, the decision to produce diamonds is a political decision, it may or may not ignore the objective demand for diamonds. If that's not what you want, then you are in favor of markets.


Yeah, and that *still* doesn't make it markets. You've been ignoring my argument that (once again) there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, and no profits.

You're not making an argument, you're making an assertion. You say there are no markets, you say that I've made up a definition of market, yet you have not provided a definition of market, or argued why your system is not that. I have provided a dictionary definition of market and made an argument as to why I think your system meets that definition.


Anyone is free to accept any terms offered, including labor-credit funding, or reject them, and still live a healthy and uncoerced life, with the general conditions of communism. This means that *no one* can 'command' labor, because it's *liberated*.

Obviously, they are not liberated from their desire for labor-credits or diamonds. I've already gone over this - tt makes no difference how healthy or well-off someone is before hand. They have a desire and the method you are proposing to meet that desire involves markets and commodification.

Much of your argument sounds like an argument for the existence of markets - you constantly reiterate how they are all free to accept or refuse the offer - as if this somehow makes it not a market. You add in the proviso that refusal to accept an offer will not result in death, and they can still live pretty good - as if this someone nullifies the existence of a market. You make the argument that since it is not the private ownership of the means of productions that there can not be markets by definition - when there are several schools of thought and several historic examples otherwise.


No it doesn't because of what the labor credits *inherently represent* -- they *only* represent discrete portions of individual's past liberated-labor-efforts, which are then closed-out upon the passing-forward of the labor credits. There are no *abstracted valuations* here, the way there are under capitalism, with currency. (Under capitalism it's impossible to get an answer to 'How much labor is one dollar worth?', while the labor credits are 100% tangible on that question.)

What is the answer to "How many hours of labor is one labor-credit worth?" under your system? How is the answer derived? The labor credits are certainly *not* tangible on that question, as it varies with market conditions. I believe this is where your misunderstanding lies.


It ultimately doesn't matter *what* number-factors the workers use to rate the work roles -- the multiplier index is *not binding*.

How is the multiplier index decided then? What is the point of the workers rating the work role, if it is not the deciding factor?


Again you're conflating the conditions of communism (that may include this labor credits framework), with that of a *class society*, when, by definition, communism is *not* a class-divided society, and would not have / require 'struggle'.

It certainly seems like it would be in the interests of the mine workers to unionize and go on strike to attempt to raise the multiplier index. Why couldn't they do this? Just saying they're otherwise well-off doesn't mean they wouldn't have an impetus to do this, after all they had a desire of labor-credits in the first place, they want as many as they can get. What if they sitdown and refuse to work for the index? They are occupying the mine, can someone come in and replace them since it's not private property? Who will remove them? Just because you say everyone will place nice doesn't mean they will.

Here are some more questions for you. Let's start with a 0 zero labor credit economy, everyone is working because labor has become a prime want of life. How do the first labor credits come into existence? Who issues them and who receives them and at what rate? How is it decided how many labor credits should be in the economy at any one time?

[ckaihatsu]

Really? I pulled it from the dictionary. What's your definition of 'market'?


(Below.)





It takes *more* than just 'supply' and 'demand' to have markets, as I've consistently maintained -- supply and demand are *objective* social dynamics that would exist regardless of the mode of production.





Supply and demand are objective conditions.


Yes, thank you.

I'll note / assert / argue / contend that (collectivist) 'administration' is *also* a (socially) objective condition, since there can never be *no* administration, of some kind -- these days it's the *state* that provides a general administration over competing claims to property.

Here are the three socially objective components of 'consumption' (demand), 'labor' (supply), and 'administration', listed in the text of my blog entry:





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.




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


---





But "a place where forces of supply and demand operate" is socially created.


Okay.





Since the diamond club can freely supply and deny labor credits, while the diamond laborers can freely labor or not labor, it is obvious this is a place governed by supply and demand.


Yes, agreed, and you've just concurred that 'supply and demand are objective conditions'.

This means that:





[ckaihatsu] [is] trying to address a real problem that arrives with planned economies. [...]


---





As I've already gone over, the price in labor-credits of an hour of diamond producing labor will be governed by supply and demand necessarily.


Okay, the 'rate' in labor credits will be determined by supply (of available and willing liberated labor), and mass demand (formally prioritized on people's daily demands lists, and mass-collated, per locality), including the pool of labor credits offered.





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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174


---





In a place not governed by supply and demand, the decision to produce diamonds is a political decision, it may or may not ignore the objective demand for diamonds. If that's not what you want, then you are in favor of markets.


I'm saying that a society that structurally *ignores* (can't respond to) an objective demand, *any* objective demand -- however 'fringe' or slight it may be -- is going to be *at a loss* compared to what *markets* are capable of providing.

This doesn't mean that I *favor* markets -- I don't. I'm just the messenger here.

Yes, under the 'labor credits framework', the decision to mass-prioritize diamond-production (or whatever) *would* be a political decision, *emerging* from the numerous daily individual prioritized political demand lists. It would be on this *collectivist* basis -- since 'commons' productive assets and natural resources would be used / at-stake -- that people would then pool or not-pool their personal collections of labor credits, in the hopes of providing a societal incentive to those who might do the distasteful (hazardous/difficult) work of mining, if such incentive is necessary.

You continue to ignore the collectivist basis underlying the potential use of labor credits, incorrectly terming as 'markets' the objective conditions of supply and demand.





You're not making an argument, you're making an assertion.


I won't argue this -- call it what you will, 'assertion', 'contention', 'theory', 'argument', 'statement', 'noting', whatever.





You say there are no markets, you say that I've made up a definition of market, yet you have not provided a definition of market, or argued why your system is not that.


Yes, I have. It's in this post, above.





I have provided a definition of market and made an argument as to why I think your system meets that definition.




Obviously, they are not liberated from their desire for labor-credits or diamonds.


And so what of it?

Where is the problematic with a personal desire for either labor credits, diamonds, or both?





I've already gone over this - tt makes no difference how healthy or well-off someone is before hand. They have a desire and the method you are proposing to meet that desire involves markets and commodification.


No, you're just repeating yourself endlessly here, so I'll do the same, in kind:





[O]nce again there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, no markets, and no profits.





Much of your argument sounds like an argument for the existence of markets - you constantly reiterate how they are all free to accept or refuse the offer - as if this somehow makes it not a market.


It's not because the labor credits do not / cannot represent private property, since there is none, and there is a *collectivist* basis for decision-making over all productive assets and natural resources ('communist property', or 'commons').





You add in the proviso that refusal to accept an offer will not result in death, and they can still live pretty good - as if this someone nullifies the existence of a market.


The existence of communism *does* nullify any possible existence of markets because what markets do -- with the enforcement of the state, through its violence -- is to mandate that the *only* avenue for production is through commodity-based exchanges.

The labor credits, as an option, operate within the context of a post-markets communism -- to whatever extent (technologically) that this particular communist-type society has advanced its productive capabilities, is the extent to which the people's standard of living will be advanced, roughly equitably. This could be housing and food-and-water only, or it could be much more.

If the use of labor credits assists this context, in providing a generalized social incentive for committing liberated-labor that one would not otherwise offer, then all the better.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Look, you call it a militia. I could call it a police force, although I also prefer the term 'militia'. Still, I'm not convinced that the two are much different. The function of the police/militia I propose would obviously be created so as to serve the interests of the workers. Otherwise, what's the difference? That they are not professionals, but rather amateurs rotated in and out?

On the contrary, there is an enormous difference between a workers' militia and a police force. The latter is a special body of armed men; the former, an organ identical to the armed citizens. The police stands above civil society; a militia is the political people, armed to impose their will. And a militia, of course, is primarily a military organisation.

And simply saying "the function of the police/militia... would... be created so as to serve the interests of the workers" is an empty gesture unless you can specify how this body would be made to serve the interests of the workers. That, I think, is a problem we have a pretty good grasp of - the militia is to be a general body, an "amateur" one if you will, subordinated to working collegial bodies of the labouring people, electing its own officers etc.

Now the question is, how is such a body compatible with the police force? If every citizen is potentially an armed militiaman, how will the police carry out its coercive function? In the Soviet state, the special coercive organs operated alongside the various workers' militias and were intended to supplement and direct the actions of these militias in matters of state security, not police the population (as Dzerzhinsky put it, the CheKa did not judge - it struck). The one time most of the VChK rebelled against the Soviet authorities, it got beaten quite badly. Now what do you think would happen to your Socialist Police if it tried to "arrest" (are there supposed to be socialist prisons as well?) people for violating the sumptuary laws being proposed on this thread?


You are factually wrong, and here are some examples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_before_1900) to prove that. Please don't tell me that the Han dynasty or Rome also had some proto-bourgeois developments that created serial killers.

The reason we do not know of that many Roman or Minoan serial killers is because they were lost to history; today, the Internet is better at preserving cases of serial killers, but even so, in 500 years, I doubt anyone would be able to cite a single example of a serial killer in the pre-2000 US without extensive research (even though the US is serial killer heaven). Look at one of the examples above; a Han prince. That one was discovered and his antics recorded. I'm pretty sure there were many others who butchered their slaves and successfully kept it secret.

The prince of Jidong is alleged to have robbed and killed people, helped by slaves and outlaws. This, at least, seems to be true - there is a passage in the Shiji that seems to confirm the claim in the Wikipedia article (http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&id=7285), at least according to my very, very poor grasp of Chinese. But this makes the prince of Jidong, not a serial killer, but a robber baron, of the sort that was ubiquitous in Europe. The obvious analogy here is not John Wayne Gacy but Robert the Old, the Capetian duke of Burgundy.

The rest of the people on the list, before de Rais, are similarly mostly people obviously guilty of other things - poisonings, assassination, political murder etc. The article seems to take a very broad view of serial killing, and I imagine that if we adopt these criteria the first "serial killer" was the first man or woman to kill three or more people. And this is not serious. It's not a serious way to approach the problem, it collapses all distinctions so that the historical development of the phenomenon is completely ignored.

As for the supposed paucity of historical evidence, this is I think quite a poor argument. We have evidence for many minor details of Roman and Minoan societies - e.g. Minoan paederastic courtship rituals. The Roman state in particular has left us an extensive written corpus. We know what sort of shoes the proedroi of the late Roman empire wore and the exact years when instead of the consuls the Roman patriciate elected tribunes with consular authority. We know of convictions for poisoning, for treason, parricide, murder etc. - but none for serial killing in the modern sense.

Oh, and another thing - about this purported "Zu Shenatir". As far as I've been able to ascertain, none of the books cited in the Wikipedia article give a primary source for the story. Searching for "Zu Shenatir" gives only repetitions of the same story (and "Zu Shenatir" doesn't sound like an Arabic name to me), but searching for the variant "Dhu Shenatir" ("dh" being pronounced as "z" in some Arabic dialects) gives us this:

"Towards the end of the fifth century the throne was usurped by the dissolute Dzu Shenatir. He was abhorred of the people for his flagitious deeds, which he carried to such an extreme as to dishonour the youths even of the most noble familes. One of them, rather than submit to his indignities, put an end to the tyrant's life. This youth, called Dzu Nowas, belonged to the royal stock, and was unanimously called to the throne."

(Muir, Life of Mahomet)

Now the problem is, first, this doesn't mention anything about Dhu Shenatir killing anyone, and in fact most sources seem to agree Dhu Nuwas came to rule as an adult, after having possibly overthrown Rabia ibn Mudhar. El Masudi, the author of an ancient Arabic encyclopedia, merely notes that Dhu Nuwas killed someone called Dhu Shenatir, without specifying what he killed him for. Certainly an episode as outlandish as the one recorded in the Wikipedia article would have been recorded by Masudi. Instead it seems to be a later embellishment from an insignificant incident.


Okay, look, here we have a fundamental difference in our vision of the socialist future. I do not want to be constantly on edge to protect myself against serial killers.

Good. You shouldn't be. If you are constantly on edge because you worry about serial killers, that is probably indicative of serious problems. The fact is that serial killers are rare even under capitalism. In socialism, I contend, they will be nonexistent. But even if we assume contrary to all the historical experience of the human species that violence will maintain the forms it currently takes in the socialist society, being constantly on edge because of perhaps one person per hundreds of millions is sheer paranoia.

This is, I think, the chief difference between the two sides of this thread. You worry about criminals. I think that's fantastic. I've been beaten up and had my apartment broken into, but I still have much less reason to fear criminals than people who are ostensibly here to protect me from them.


I'm not even sure I want to learn to shoot a gun - maybe if it's necessary for achieving or defending the revolution, sure, but otherwise I'm not really that eager to be armed at all times.

Why would you be armed at all times? In the transitional society, it stands to reason you will be - assuming you're a member of the proletariat - a potential member of the militia. You will be armed when preforming militia duty. In the socialist society, you will be armed if you wish to be armed. If you think you might get attacked by a serial killer, arm yourself or make sure other people around you are armed. The point is to give people access to the tools necessary to solve the problem, not to impose new problems on them by mandating that everyone drag a machinegun along with them.

I mean I don't even understand why machineguns would be manufactured in the socialist society.


I get it, capitalism creates the conditions which drive a lot of serial killers - but you know what else drives all criminals? Knowing that they can get away with it, at all times.

That doesn't seem to be the case. If that were the case heavily policed states would experience significantly lesser crime rates, which doesn't seem to be happening. Quite the contrary, heavy policing is just the sort of thing that brings crime about by perpetuating the misery of the dispossessed. I don't know what sort of world some of you live in, but in the one I live in, no worker sees the police and goes "oh thank god the police are here to protect me from the criminals", they think "oh I'll go cross the road and hope Milan the Policeman isn't on a power trip".


You see, imagine that - no borders, no state, and nobody who can stop you. Pretend that I look for people who cannot defend themselves (young boys and girls, old men and women, anyone who isn't carrying an assault rifle, etc.) and kill them, because for some reason, the prophecy of all serial killers disappearing under socialism has failed, and I might have some kind of mental problem that drives me to kill people - it's an addiction, perhaps.

It sounds more like demonic possession, to be honest. Like I said, mental problems don't "drive you to kill people", it's not as if there's some Serial Killer Mode in your brain that mental problems turn on. Variant brain states still cause behaviour that is socially mediated. A modern schizophrenic and someone from the Middle Ages thought to be possessed by demons might have had qualitatively similar brain states, but their behaviour was quite different.


How will you stop me? I kill someone, travel somewhere else before the local lynch mob finds me, and kill again. What are you gonna do about it? The point is not to prevent the first death, which is pretty much impossible to prevent by anyone except the victim. The point is to protect future potential victims.

Lynch mobs? No one said anything about lynch mobs. If I don't want the weirdoes from RevLeft getting together as the Socialist Police Deparment, I don't want them forming a lynch mob either.

And yes, the first murder can only be prevented by the victim. So I think giving potential victims the resources to defend themselves if the need arises would be more important than pursuing some theological "justice" - if this wasn't a purely academic exercise anyway.


It does not matter. Every preventable death counts and we must strive to eliminate them all.

This is a nice sentiment, but it easily leads into the most tedious "benevolent" authoritarianism. I mean, what would it take to eliminate every preventable death? What could we tell people in the socialist society? Don't smoke - don't drink - don't have sex for fun - don't kill yourself - don't be different?

I suppose there will still be preventable deaths in socialism. If anything people might not be as terrified of death as they are now, as barriers between individuals break down. What needs to be done is not to prevent every preventable death and have everyone be miserable and under the thumb of the Anti-Everything League.


When have I advocated that the proletariat should depend on Podemos?

You clearly expressed support for Podemos before the alleged "coup" (and the impassioned manner in which you denounced this heinous takeover is evidence enough, even if we didn't have your previous posts - Iglesias suddenly went from someone you only spoke positively of to a horrible Nazi-loving racist, I mean come on, do you really take us to be such chums?). I wasn't the only one who noticed that, far from it.


I talk about the FE-JONS and UPyD sometimes, but not in RevLeft.

I talk about MoDem and the Croatian People's Party sometimes.

What I don't do is post thread after thread of news about the People's Party, with either no commentary or vaguely positive commentary. Try posting about the FE-JONS like you did about Podemos, then see if anyone would believe the "no I'm really not a fascist" defense.


Podemos is more relevant in RevLeft (e.g. by the amount of interest to revolutionary leftists, and by a degree of political sympathy)

And that's the problem. You think social-democratic formations merit "a degree of" political sympathy.


I wasn't claiming Podemos was the best party model - I was simply questioning your statement "And that is precisely why it will never do anything that could possibly be interesting or relevant to revolutionary socialists". Podemos does advance the immediate interests of the proletariat like other social-democratic parties, and this is interesting to revolutionary letists.

This is why say you're simply reciting the Credo without understanding the words. If social-democratic parties advanced the immediate interests of the proletariat, then one would have to be a God's fool not to support them (assuming you are a Red Worker and not a Red Student or whatever). We don't oppose social-democrats in the short term because we ignore everything but the revolution, but because they can't deliver on the promise of short-term improvements. These can only be won by militant workers' activity escalating to the overthrow of the bourgeois state.

Of course, the question is, if you think social-democratic parties can advance the immediate interests of the proletariat, why don't you simply vote for PSOE.


What I was explaining in that post was not my view - it was the average person's view of Podemos and IU, and why Podemos appeals more than IU does.

M-hm. You clearly stated - well, I've already quoted your post - and you did so without any indication that you were not stating your opinion. if in the future the spirit of the People possesses you, state so in your post, and also probably seek some sort of exorcism.


To emphasize my point that the change I highlighted was that the Spanish USFI section lost control - not that Podemos suddenly turned from some proletarian revolutionary party to this. Is this kind of smartass statement from you supposed to impress any of "us"?

It's supposed to show how pointless it is to refer to the fact that the USEC supports something. And of course they don't control all the formations they support - in fact they don't even control their own sections.


You said when you're drunk you can admit that your socialism is merely "literary", i.e. you're a socialist only in words, no engagement in real action.

My dear boy, you need to acquaint yourself with the concept of providing evidence, including citations, for your claims.


I don't. State capitalist theory is much more complex than that, and that you reduce it to this only suggests that you are unable to deal with what it actually claims.

In the real world, there is no "state capitalist theory". There is a number of theories that are called "state capitalist" although many of them don't, in fact, mention anything called "state" capitalism. On RevLeft, however, "state capitalism" is more of a reflex than a theory. And the most popular claim is, indeed, that generalised commodity production is capitalism, full stop. As I've certainly never seen you talk about a deflected permanent revolution, or state industrialism, or in fact show any awareness of the problem, and since no one has ever been disappointed expecting the worst from people, I assumed you were with the latter group. But I'm sure you will delight us with tales of your position.


Sets of temporary relations of production and modes of production which neither you nor your political organization can reliably label nor describe...

And I'm sure you've read "Why the USSR isn't Capitalist", "Marxist Theory and Cuba", "For Marxist Clarity and a Forward Perspective" and so on, and so on.

No, actually I think you don't even know what these titles refer to, and in fact you haven't read any of the theoretical work of the Spartacist League.

And of course, I'm not a member of the ICL because the ICL doesn't have a section here. I mention this because people have this odd tendency to ascribe my positions to the ICL-FI, for example on Syria (whereas I was actually roundly criticised by the ICL people I met with). I don't have to get permission from comrade Parks before I make a post.


Stalinism isn't social democracy. The Stalinist states, however, were states that applied some measures advancing social equality (and others which did the opposite) within capitalism.

Here is another great example of a sentence that doesn't actually mean anything. Stalinist states applied some measures advancing social equality and others which did the opposite. Well I'm glad that's sorted out.

Of course, every government "applies some measures advancing social equality and others which do the opposite". If that is a criterion for similarity with social-democracy, then every movement that has been in power is similar to social-democracy. Not just Stalinism but Bolshevism, fascism, Christian Democracy, whatever.

Now concerning the actual policies of the Stalinist and social-democratic governments - already a superficial level at which to analyse the problem, but the only level at which you have a chance of finding similarities between Stalinism and social-democracy - the policies were quite different. Sots-dems stood for petty farm ownership, for example, Stalinists for collectivisation, etc.


I believe in unity of revolutionary parties all of which agree to basic principles. There should be no unity with these that do not agree on the fundamental principles of revolutionary socialism.

You're not doing a lot to dispel the impression that you want a "broad church" organisation. Of course everyone claims to agree with "basic principles". The point is that these basic principles are always interpreted, and in most cases the interpretations are so divergent no common political action is possible.


You missed the evident reality that diamonds will not magically be placed on stores themselves - it must be planned...

And once again, no one said diamonds will "magically be placed on stores themselves". That doesn't excuse the gibberish about "it will adapt this based on economic and social parameters".


You claimed that I believe there will be "hordes" of social killers in socialism - as if I was claiming an absurd extreme. Otherwise you would not say "hordes". Anyway, this is just an example of cheap rhetoric to attempt to get an edge in arguments.

So you're saying you're basing your entire argument - your entire attempt to foist some appalling "socialist" police - on something that even you think will be insignificant in socialism? Tall order, that.


It is not part of immutable human nature - it obeys to conditions. The change of social and economic conditions in socialism will lower the amount of murders. It does not follow that there will be no murder, because not all conditions are immediately changed by socialism - for example, what about crimes of passion?

What passion? Do you think "passion" is some sort of trans-historical category? That is pretty nonsensical. And again, we're talking about serial killers. Perhaps people will still get killed in heated arguments turned to brawls in socialism. Who knows. But obviously murder won't exist - there is no crime where there is no law.


If I request 10,000,000,000 sheets of paper with something printed on them - does socialist society immediately obey the order? Sure, nobody wants that until someone requests it for the heck of it. And socialist society must do something: obey the request fully or not.

I really like arguments that hinge on the idea that you're such a dick, you would ruin our free access to the social products. I mean, yeah, maybe you are a dick who would request 10,000,000,000 sheets of paper "for the heck of it" (you can swear on the Internet, it's alright). You're also someone who lives in capitalism and apparently think the police are jolly fun. The working class - if you belong to that class - changes itself by changing society. In socialism, you would be a dick no more. That, or you would be buried under 10,000,000,000 sheets of paper. One of the two, I'm sure.

[oneday]

You say there are no markets, you say that I've made up a definition of market, yet you have not provided a definition of market, or argued why your system is not that.


Yes, I have. It's in this post, above.

Can you tell me what your definition of 'market' is? I don't see it above. All I see are circular assertions along the lines of 'markets only exist under capitalism with private property, my system doesn't have markets'.


Okay, the 'rate' in labor credits will be determined by supply (of available and willing liberated labor), and mass demand (formally prioritized on people's daily demands lists, and mass-collated, per locality), including the pool of labor credits offered.

I've agreed that supply and demand are objective conditions. One way of mediating the objective conditions of supply and demand is through markets. I contend that your above scheme represents a labor market, based on the commonly accepted definitions of 'market'.


You continue to ignore the collectivist basis underlying the potential use of labor credits, incorrectly terming as 'markets' the objective conditions of supply and demand.

I'm not calling the objective conditions of supply and demand markets, I'm contending that the exchange of labor-credits for labor based on a rate governed by the objective conditions of supply and demand is a market. Provide a definition otherwise.



I'm saying that a society that structurally *ignores* (can't respond to) an objective demand, *any* objective demand -- however 'fringe' or slight it may be -- is going to be *at a loss* compared to what *markets* are capable of providing.


No society can meet any demand no matter how fringe or slight it may be, this is pure fantasy. What is the current capitalist system capable of providing in actuality in the way of diamonds? What percentage of the global population is capable of owning diamonds? What percentage of the population is hungry or lacks adequate shelter? Would not a society that met the food and shelter needs of all its members but could not produce diamonds for jewelry for anyone be an improvement?

Not that I'm saying a socialist society would be incapable of producing diamonds per say, but it surely would be incapable of meeting all slight or fringe demands of all its individual members, instead prioritizing projects which meet the demands of the majority, and guarantee all a decent standard of living.


Where is the problematic with a personal desire for either labor credits, diamonds, or both?
There is no problem with a desire for a diamond, just as there is no problem for a desire for 18 cars, 3 private jets and a 30,000 sf private mansion. It doesn't mean that a communistic society will be able to provide that for you.



Yes, under the 'labor credits framework', the decision to mass-prioritize diamond-production (or whatever) *would* be a political decision, *emerging* from the numerous daily individual prioritized political demand lists. It would be on this *collectivist* basis -- since 'commons' productive assets and natural resources would be used / at-stake -- that people would then pool or not-pool their personal collections of labor credits, in the hopes of providing a societal incentive to those who might do the distasteful (hazardous/difficult) work of mining, if such incentive is necessary.


This is similar to current liberal democracy apologetic arguments which try to completely separate the economic and political realms, and contend that the state is (or should be) completely above the economic sphere, governing in the interests of all citizens, without regard to economic circumstance. In reality, those with wealth have far more political power than those without.

Similarly, in your system it is inevitable that some members would amass great sums of labor credits, while others did not. They may been fortunate enough to have lived in an era of dire need, where the rate of labor credit / hour was extremely high, they may not choose to participate in the 'gift economy' at all, instead only working for labor credits, or they may just have a unique ability and drive to work many hours, gaining many labor credits in the process.

These people will have increased political power as, similarly to liberal democracy, they will be able to set the agenda, since they are the ones providing the labor credits. They can refuse to offer labor credits for proposals they do not agree with, and only support ones which operate in their favor. They hold the reigns.

Your system shifts political power away from the principal of "one person, one vote", and towards "one labor-credit, one vote". It does not operate according to the "from each according to their abillity..." principle as it is commonly understood, and is therefore not communistic.

[ckaihatsu]

Can you tell me what your definition of 'market' is? I don't see it above. All I see are circular assertions along the lines of 'markets only exist under capitalism with private property, my system doesn't have markets'.


Yes, that's correct, and that's my position as well: Markets only exist under capitalism (due to the extraction of surplus labor value through the process of profit-making, based on private property). My system doesn't have markets (because there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, and no profits.)

I hope this answers your request for information.





I've agreed that supply and demand are objective conditions. One way of mediating the objective conditions of supply and demand is through markets. I contend that your above scheme represents a labor market, based on the commonly accepted definitions of 'market'.


Yes, you've repeated this several times, and it's obvious we don't see eye-to-eye on the definition of markets, and on how 'labor credits' address objective matters of supply and demand *without* resorting to private property and profits.





I'm not calling the objective conditions of supply and demand markets, I'm contending that the exchange of labor-credits for labor based on a rate governed by the objective conditions of supply and demand is a market. Provide a definition otherwise.


I'm not here to refute your *baseless assertions*. You're welcome to your own groundless opinions.

But, again, there's no extraction of surplus labor value, there's no private ownership, there's no accumulation of capital, there's no private property, no profits -- thus no markets.





No society can meet any demand no matter how fringe or slight it may be, this is pure fantasy.


No, you're being overly dismissive -- it would be on a case-by-case basis. Producing diamonds from the ground on planet Earth is certainly within the bounds of reason, whereas producing diamonds from an *exoplanet* would be fantasy.





What is the current capitalist system capable of providing in actuality in the way of diamonds? What percentage of the global population is capable of owning diamonds? What percentage of the population is hungry or lacks adequate shelter? Would not a society that met the food and shelter needs of all its members but could not produce diamonds for jewelry for anyone be an improvement?


Absolutely. No dispute on that.

I'll note, though, that you're setting up a false dichotomy, as though there *has* to be an 'either-or' here, as in food-and-shelter *versus* diamonds-and-jewelry. It may very well turn out to be the case that, once capitalist oppression has been removed, only 3% of the population would have to work at farming duties to provide enough food for the whole world. And it may turn out to be that only 1% of the world's population would ever have to work at producing diamonds (with mechanistic mining techniques) to satisfy unmet demand, which could be negligible, given today's *existing* amounts.





Not that I'm saying a socialist society would be incapable of producing diamonds per say, but it surely would be incapable of meeting all slight or fringe demands of all its individual members,


I hear you, and I'll again say that it would be a 'case-by-case basis' -- neither you or I can say *definitively* how a socialist society could respond to *specifics* in that society because that information doesn't even exist yet.





instead prioritizing projects which meet the demands of the majority, and guarantee all a decent standard of living.


Again, full agreement. No argument.

I'll point out that an implication of this is '*How* are projects prioritized.' You're contending below that the labor credits would be the *sole determining factor* of what society produces, and what it doesn't, when that's not the case at all. (See below.)


---





And so what of it?

Where is the problematic with a personal desire for either labor credits, diamonds, or both?





There is no problem with a desire for a diamond, just as there is no problem for a desire for 18 cars, 3 private jets and a 30,000 sf private mansion. It doesn't mean that a communistic society will be able to provide that for you.


Good, because we're *not in* a communistic society, I *don't have* a desire for 18 cars, 3 private jets, and a 30,000 square-foot private mansion, *and* I'm not saying that a communistic society should provide that for me.

You're being dramatic here and imputing this contrived scenario onto my person, which has nothing to do with the issue at-hand regarding desires and labor credits.

This really brings us back to the whole topic of the thread which is really about 'How does a communistic society deal with materials that are going to continue to exist, which some people may want, and which require significant amounts of labor-effort on the part of those who are otherwise free to *not* put in that labor effort for others -- ?'

I just made a quick 2x2 table (four quadrants) with increasing-effort going up the left side (vertically), and increasing-want going across the top (horizontally) -- for 'low want, low effort' items the answer is obviously 'd.i.y.', as for the everyday, already-there, moment-to-moment, at-hand personalized things of a person's own life.

For 'high want, low effort', we have the archetype of farming, which I already covered, above -- a simple cooperative collectivism, as in a 'gift economy', would be more than sufficient to cover everyone's basics of life and living.

'High want, high effort' would be the cutting-edge of any society going-forward, as for scientific exploration in whatever field, with the potential of benefitting everyone in profound ways (the microchip, for example).

It's in this remaining quadrant of 'low want, high effort' that we find these 'slight' or 'fringe' desires which can't be *summarily* dismissed, because no one can realistically *judge* anyone else's personal, subjective feelings, as over what items or materials that person may really want to have. (Of course if there's a *larger* issue involved, as with people's personal safety, then that would make it a matter of social *politics*.)

So, to boil it down, what's left is 'How could a communistic society possibly apply its collectivity to any situation of 'fringe' production without leaving such production to be solely d.i.y. -- ?' (This also applies to any 'semi-rare' items that would continue to exist past the era of capitalism and commodity production.)

In other words the *easy* answer is 'Let those who want diamonds go do the mining themselves', and, on the face of it, it's an adequate answer -- the *problem* is that if this kind of attitude is taken for *too many* things it's simply a collectivist *negligence*, and the market-system of capitalism would actually be a *material improvement* in addressing this kind of production (not that I'm advocating it).





This is similar to current liberal democracy apologetic arguments which try to completely separate the economic and political realms, and contend that the state is (or should be) completely above the economic sphere, governing in the interests of all citizens, without regard to economic circumstance. In reality, those with wealth have far more political power that those without.


I hear you, I'm glad to say that your concern about a state apparatus does *not* apply to my framework, since no state is required, and also that there's no 'wealth' in the labor credits model since there's no private property to begin with.





Similarly, in your system it is inevitable that some members would amass great sums of labor credits, while others did not.


No, it's *not* inevitable, just because you say so. I'll continue to address the rest of this artificial scenario of yours....





They may been fortunate enough to have lived in an era of dire need, where the rate of labor credit / hour was extremely high,


You're positing a scenario of *catastrophic* conditions for the beginning of a post-capitalist era -- this could certainly be *possible*, but that doesn't mean that the system of labor credits would confer any *empirical advantage* to such a situation, as for the collectivist production of the *basics* for everyone.

Really, the labor credits are more applicable to 'fringe', or *atypical* items *only*, against a much-greater backdrop of regularized 'gift economy' production for the demands of the majority, for a decent standard of living. Regular tasks like farming require only regular skills, for regular, reasonable demands for production -- of *course* these kinds of tasks would just be done *collectively*, without any additional logistics like the use of labor credits, for such.





they may not choose to participate in the 'gift economy' at all, instead only working for labor credits, or they may just have a unique ability and drive to work many hours, gaining many labor credits in the process.


Even if this *was* the case, it would still be apples-and-oranges, since, by definition, the gift economy *doesn't mandate* any participation -- it's strictly ad-hoc and emergent, and all are welcome to its production whether they're participating, not-participating, or working separately, for labor credits, or not. Any labor credits earned, no matter how many, would *not be applicable* to the gift economy, since everything produced would be free-access anyway.





These people will have increased political power as, similarly to liberal democracy, they will be able to set the agenda, since they are the ones providing the labor credits.


No, labor credits are *not* 'wealth', as you're making it out to be.

I'll remind that the collectivist 'agenda' is set by mass-prioritization:





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




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174





They can refuse to offer labor credits for proposals they do not agree with, and only support ones which operate in their favor. They hold the reigns.


True, those who have *earned* labor credits (for 'socially necessary' tasks) have *discretion* over what they can put their labor credits towards, but there is no *class basis* here, as you're suggesting. Those with labor credits are *atomized* and can only pool their labor credits in a common way based on *personal interest*, which, as we all know, can vary greatly depending on the individual(s).

Also, there's a check-and-balance here, in that any given locality can collectively *issue debt*, to spontaneously provide sufficient labor credits for whatever -- the 'cost' is that the locality 'takes a hit' on their political reputation for doing so, until its members go outside of the locality to earn labor credits in sufficient numbers to bring back, to erase the locality's debt.





Your system shifts political power away from the principal of "one person, one vote", and towards "one labor-credit, one vote". It does not operate according to the "from each according to their abillity..." principle as it is commonly understood, and is therefore not communistic.


No, you're incorrect, for the reasons stated above -- the mass-prioritization of individually prioritized demands lists, on a daily basis.

Those with labor credits do *not* have sole political power, because there's no 'wealth' or class division.

They *do* have sole *economic power* (alongside any economic-for-political tradeoffs done by a locality's collective debt-issuance), but only to the degree of labor credits in their personal possession, from *actual* past work done.

The 'From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs' statement is a *slogan* only, and is *flawed* as a principle:





"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.

[oneday]

Yes, that's correct, and that's my position as well: Markets only exist under capitalism (due to the extraction of surplus labor value through the process of profit-making, based on private property). My system doesn't have markets (because there are no private interests, no private property, no commodification, and no profits.)

I hope this answers your request for information.

No it does not. "Markets only exist under capitalism." It's a circular definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Circular_definition). It does not describe what a market is. How can we argue if something is or is not a market, if we don't have a definition for the word from you?

You say that without profits or private property there are no markets, I say otherwise, and I gave an accepted definition of the word and explained why I thought your system met that definition. I'm not seeing why you call my arguments groundless or baseless.


You're contending below that the labor credits would be the *sole determining factor* of what society produces, and what it doesn't, when that's not the case at all. (See below.)

No, I'm not. There are other determining factors besides wealth influencing production in the present society, state intervention and regulation among others, yet it would be hard to argue that markets don't exist.


You're being dramatic here and imputing this contrived scenario onto my person, which has nothing to do with the issue at-hand regarding desires and labor credits.

It was a rhetorical 'you', I'm not putting it on your person. I was being dramatic in an attempt to demonstrate an extreme example of an objective demand that might not be met by a society, because you proposed that a society should be able to meet *any* demand of an individual.


This really brings us back to the whole topic of the thread which is really about 'How does a communistic society deal with materials that are going to continue to exist, which some people may want, and which require significant amounts of labor-effort on the part of those who are otherwise free to *not* put in that labor effort for others -- ?'

So, to boil it down, what's left is 'How could a communistic society possibly apply its collectivity to any situation of 'fringe' production without leaving such production to be solely d.i.y. -- ?' (This also applies to any 'semi-rare' items that would continue to exist past the era of capitalism and commodity production.)

I'm saying there has to be a point that society says 'tough shit', we're not going back to a personal incentive system that can potentially unravel the communistic property relations.



No, it's *not* inevitable, just because you say so. I'll continue to address the rest of this artificial scenario of yours....


I'm going to have to go with personal experience on this. Whenever you give people a number that is 'theirs' (commodify their activity) some will try to increase it as high as possible.

Even in my simple commune life with a non-variable labor-credit system, and a weekly quota that impaired accumulation, there were some members with thousands of accumulated labor credits, and others with 0.

Even if everyone was nice, and didn't accumulate labor credits for any 'bad' reasons, I am extremely skeptical that there would not be huge labor-credit balance inequalities.



The 'From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs' statement is a *slogan* only, and is *flawed* as a principle:

I'm not sure how you can say that it is flawed as a principle and be a communist. But you say it is possible and desirable as an organizing principle except for the 'high effort, low want' items only?



The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.


This is during the anticipated emergence of the communist society, when it is "still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges." It is intended to be overcome, not perpetuated.



Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values.



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.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

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

[ckaihatsu]

No it does not. "Markets only exist under capitalism." It's a circular definition (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Circular_definition). It does not describe what a market is. How can we argue if something is or is not a market, if we don't have a definition for the word from you?

You say that without profits or private property there are no markets, I say otherwise, and I gave an accepted definition of the word and explained why I thought your system met that definition. I'm not seeing why you call my arguments groundless or baseless.


Okay.


---





I'll point out that an implication of this is '*How* are projects prioritized.' You're contending below that the labor credits would be the *sole determining factor* of what society produces, and what it doesn't, when that's not the case at all. (See below.)





No, I'm not. There are other determining factors besides wealth influencing production in the present society, state intervention and regulation among others, yet it would be hard to argue that markets don't exist.


Okay, good, since we're not discussing the present society.





It was a rhetorical 'you', I'm not putting it on your person. I was being dramatic in an attempt to demonstrate an extreme example of an objective demand that might not be met by a society, because you proposed that a society should be able to meet *any* demand of an individual.


Theoretically it *should*, at least potentially. Granted there's a *political* side to any economy, so, at the *individual* level all bets are off, but what we can do in the here-and-now is at least have a sound *process* that's ready to go, to address any potential situation in a post-capitalist context.





I'm saying there has to be a point that society says 'tough shit', we're not going back to a personal incentive system that can potentially unravel the communistic property relations.


Okay, I hear you -- in the context of this model, I could certainly see where someone could say 'I want diamonds from an exoplanet' and not a single person responds to this individual's 'demand', even if they place it at #1 on their demands list every day for 10 straight years.

This shows you that the model inherently includes the dimension of *scale* -- one person's sole demands don't go very far, but if the demands are *common* ones, as for food and shelter, then *many* will be demanding these things initially, and, mass-collated, would be (formally / actually) politically formidable.

Even if this individual had worked for decades and had amassed many labor credits without using any of them, if there was no one around who was willing to put in the (liberated) labor for the sake of extracting diamonds from an exoplanet, then that person's unique desire would go unfulfilled.


---





Similarly, in your system it is inevitable that some members would amass great sums of labor credits, while others did not.





No, it's *not* inevitable, just because you say so. I'll continue to address the rest of this artificial scenario of yours....





I'm going to have to go with personal experience on this. Whenever you give people a number that is 'theirs' (commodify their activity) some will try to increase it as high as possible.

Even in my simple commune life with a non-variable labor-credit system, and a weekly quota that impaired accumulation, there were some members with thousands of accumulated labor credits, and others with 0.

Even if everyone was nice, and didn't accumulate labor credits for any 'bad' reasons, I am extremely skeptical that there would not be huge labor-credit balance inequalities.


Sure, I understand where you're coming from.

Allow me to proffer that it *wouldn't matter* on-the-whole if there *were* great disparities in the numbers of labor credits that people earned -- first, the disparities couldn't come anywhere close to the inequalities that we have today, with capital-accumulation-based 'wealth', and secondly, those labor credits would come at the cost of person's *own life* spent in laboring activities (of varying difficulties and hazards).

If it's a given that the larger gift economy would be sufficient to keep everyone liberated from all coercion, against securing the means of life and living, then *no amount* of labor credits offered could coerce anyone to do anything that they didn't want to do, because they could just say 'no' and their life would remain free of duress.


---





I'm not sure how you can say that it is flawed as a principle and be a communist.


Did you read my argument?





[H]ow [would] 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.


I realize it's a *controversial* thing to say, but it's also true -- if taken *literally* it's untenable, because when would this *measurement* of labor-in / goods-out be taken -- ?

Presumably it would be on an *ongoing* basis, but how would one *valuate* labor inputs, into goods produced, compared to what those goods are 'worth' in terms of use-values, for usage and consumption -- ?

I have an illustration of this problematic:


Pies Must Line Up

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





But you say it is possible and desirable as an organizing principle except for the 'high effort, low want' items only?


No, I'm not equivocating -- I developed the 'labor credits' model so as to provide a *comprehensive* approach to this whole topic of collectivist decision-making, liberated labor inputs, and free-access / direct-distribution of resulting production.


---





The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.





This is during the anticipated emergence of the communist society, when it is "still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges." It is intended to be overcome, not perpetuated.


Okay, certainly -- but I stand by my position that there is no adequate system proposed to *implement* this principle in practice -- except for mine, of course. (The 'Pies Must Line Up' illustration applies here.)




Here, obviously, [b]the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values.


---


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.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

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


Again, all of this should be taken as correct *slogans*, but slogans nonetheless -- my concern has been to work out a feasible *implementation* for the above, so that revolutionaries might at least have a *framework* to point to, to say 'This is one conception of how things could realistically work, beyond the current system of labor commodification and private property.'

[oneday]

Again, all of this should be taken as correct *slogans*, but slogans nonetheless -- my concern has been to work out a feasible *implementation* for the above, so that revolutionaries might at least have a *framework* to point to, to say 'This is one conception of how things could realistically work, beyond the current system of labor commodification and private property.'

A communistic society with "from each according.." inscribed on its banners would not take into account an individual's labor contribution whatsoever in determining what that individual receives from society. There is no 'right' to some portion of the social product, depending on the amount of labor contributed. That's what the slogan means. Do you agree or disagree with the meaning? Do you agree or disagree that this should be an organizing principle of society?

[ckaihatsu]

A communistic society with "from each according.." inscribed on its banners would not take into account an individual's labor contribution whatsoever in determining what that individual receives from society. There is no 'right' to some portion of the social product, depending on the amount of labor contributed. That's what the slogan means. Do you agree or disagree?


Yeah, I get it -- it's a declaration of superseding bourgeois 'rights'. And everything would be on a *collectivist* basis.

One might say that this is the 'slogan' for a 'gift economy', in general.

Again, my concern has been with showing a feasible *implementation* of post-capitalist collectivism that could realistically address *all* matters / items for production, so that the collectivist mode of production could be maintained, even for such 'fringe' / 'semi-rare' concerns, without having to resort to backsliding to commodity production.

[RedWorker]

So you're saying you're basing your entire argument - your entire attempt to foist some appalling "socialist" police - on something that even you think will be insignificant in socialism? Tall order, that.

There will be less murder under socialism, but it won't be insignificant.


And again, we're talking about serial killers. Perhaps people will still get killed in heated arguments turned to brawls in socialism. Who knows. But obviously murder won't exist - there is no crime where there is no law.

And how will people who kill others, who will surely exist, be socially dealt with? Are we going to pretend that all such cases will be spontaneously solved in the moment, and trust that they are solved correctly? That no angry vigilante mobs will rise up?

Is a murderer not going to be put in a prison?

Should society not be orderly regulated by rules rather than trust that situations just solve themselves on the spot and by the people immediately related?


I really like arguments that hinge on the idea that you're such a dick, you would ruin our free access to the social products. I mean, yeah, maybe you are a dick who would request 10,000,000,000 sheets of paper "for the heck of it" (you can swear on the Internet, it's alright). You're also someone who lives in capitalism and apparently think the police are jolly fun. The working class - if you belong to that class - changes itself by changing society. In socialism, you would be a dick no more. That, or you would be buried under 10,000,000,000 sheets of paper. One of the two, I'm sure.

Again you make the fallacy of concluding "there is a tendency - therefore it must be total". There will be less individualist behaviour under socialism - that does not mean that it will immediately disappear. There will be overloading requests (not necessarily from abuse or individualism) under socialism, and society needs a way to deal with them. That does not threaten, I believe, the principle of free access to products, because I do not believe that free access necessarily refers to completely unregulated free access with a lack of anti-abuse mechanisms. If somebody writing a number and pressing a button can ruin your system, then your system isn't good.

That is to say, I believe someone can walk into a store and get whatever they want, but if he fully empties the store every day that needs to be dealt with, and if somebody is making a complex order through a written request there should be an approve or deny mechanism, perhaps based purely on a set of objective rules.

[ckaihatsu]

As an aside I'd just like to mention that I'm fairly astounded that comrades *wouldn't* conceive of a formal material accounting system -- of *some* kind -- for the tracking and regulation of all things related to production. I have my own proposal for this, as you know, but the unspoken assumption that the informality of a *remote village* could be used on a worldwide basis is just staggering in its shortsightedness.

[oneday]

As an aside I'd just like to mention that I'm fairly astounded that comrades *wouldn't* conceive of a formal material accounting system -- of *some* kind -- for the tracking and regulation of all things related to production. I have my own proposal for this, as you know, but the unspoken assumption that the informality of a *remote village* could be used on a worldwide basis is just staggering in its shortsightedness.

Of course there would be a formal material accounting system of some kind and it is good to discuss. I was criticizing your proposal for the reasons that we have already been through.

And I don't suggest that a system in a remote village could be generalized, I was just mentioning it because it dealt with some of the same issues, and is the only experience I have, as I have never lived in a large scale socialist society. I have read some about the economy of the SU, but I'm still trying to get a grasp of how it worked, I guess I need to read more. I know that there were markets in the labor and consumer goods distribution section, and of course the undemocratic nature of the planning system is unappealing, but it is at least a starting point. We can realize that today's computer technology would open up many new possibilities.

There is much benefit to trying to tie in how a new global system would arrive from the present conditions, as opposed to just positing a possible future system. Have you written any about that?

[ckaihatsu]

Of course there would be a formal material accounting system of some kind and it is good to discuss. I was criticizing your proposal for the reasons that we have already been through.

And I don't suggest that a system in a remote village could be generalized, I was just mentioning it because it dealt with some of the same issues, and is the only experience I have, as I have never lived in a large scale socialist society. I have read some about the economy of the SU, but I'm still trying to get a grasp of how it worked, I guess I need to read more.

There is much benefit to trying to tie in how a new global system would arrive from the present conditions, as opposed to just positing a possible future system. Have you written any about that?


Well, for whatever it's worth, I do appreciate your attentions to my proposal, and your participation around this issue.

Regarding the 'full journey' of here-to-there, I *wouldn't* want to guess at it because of all of the factors and variables involved in such a revolution itself. The socio-political transition of proletarian revolution would be a complete, separate topic of its own.

What I *have* been able to do -- with all of this -- is to posit a *sociological*-type of approach, given the objective components of labor, administration, and consumption (or 'pleasure'). These are objective, 'timeless' material factors the same way that 'supply' and 'demand' for materials are.

Here are a couple of diagrams that also get at 'constant' socio-political qualities that would socially 'anchor' the material dynamics of *any* society, at any point in the future:




G.U.T.S.U.C., Individualism - Tribalism

http://s6.postimg.org/izeyfeh9t/150403_2_Individualism_Tribalism_aoi_36_tiff_x.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/680s8w7hp/full/)


Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems

http://www.revleft.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=8981&d=1355365441