Value of Entrepeneurs

[Major K.]

Do entrepreneurs create any economic value? Randheads seem to think they are the sole source of value (uber-meritocratic), so I naturally want to say they have none. But I don't know -- I think this is what marginalist theories of economics (e.g. Austrian) try to explain. In part they are explaining away surplus value, but that's probably not the whole picture.

Some illumination here would be most appreciated. What is the value of entrepreneurs, and would there be entrepreneurs after the revolution? There motivations would certainly be changed, that much I surmise.

Wealth is only wealth when perceived as such, so everyone will have different degrees of wealth based on their perspective, though the spectrum of wealth will not be as disparate as it is now. This seems both good and bad in some ways, but if it means that 90% of people are freed from slavery (wage slavery etc) while 10% are left worse off than before but still not in a bad situation, that seems like a justifiable trade-off.

Most people I talk to are hesitant about communism because they think it would mean the removal of most meritocratic aspects of society. It's not that people would get lazy, but that innovation would slow and personal profit (in the broad sense) for your actions would disappear.

My guess is that what a person considers a person would necessarily change dramatically in a truly communist system, and these types of questions would be more or less meaningless in that context, but I want to hear what y'all think.

-Major K.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

First of all we need to be clear on what value is. For Marxists, value has nothing to do with the subjective valuations of individual people. It is the real basis for the prices of commodities - part of the Marxist explanation of how capitalism works. It is the quantity whose money-equivalent represents the "ideal" price around which actual prices oscillate. Entrepreneurs (that is, the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie) invest capital into production, but for the production of surplus value, human labour is necessary. Most members of the bourgeoisie do not work.

And entrepreneurs will not exist in communism as communist production is socialised, planned and based on the common control of the means of production. Ownership will have been abolished in communism, along with the market.

[Major K.]

First of all we need to be clear on what value is. For Marxists, value has nothing to do with the subjective valuations of individual people. It is the real basis for the prices of commodities - part of the Marxist explanation of how capitalism works. It is the quantity whose money-equivalent represents the "ideal" price around which actual prices oscillate. Entrepreneurs (that is, the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie) invest capital into production, but for the production of surplus value, human labour is necessary. Most members of the bourgeoisie do not work.

And entrepreneurs will not exist in communism as communist production is socialised, planned and based on the common control of the means of production. Ownership will have been abolished in communism, along with the market.

I don't mean value in the Marxist sense here. That's a special category of value used to justify social change. I'm thinking more about how individuals evaluate their reality. A dresser that was your mothers is probably more valuable to you than it is to someone who never knew her. Attitudinal and experience based wealth disparity is inevitable.

I also thought that ownership would only be abolished in name -- leaving it severely curtailed. I don't think you can really abolish ownership. On a basic level -- what about ownership of your own self? This is the foundation of human rights. Or slightly less philosophically challenging, what about the clothes on your back? Let's say you even made them yourself -- would it be right for someone to come take them from you as you're going along so they can go give them to someone else? And under what basis of authority would this thief have of doing so? The mandate of the people? Surely that's rather micromanaging of us...

I don't think you can reasonably abolish ownership. You can abolish private property on the macro level, but trying to do so entirely seems unnecessary and oppressive.

The market also -- you can say it would be abolished only in name. In reality, it's a matter of reframing the processes of the market in terms beneficial to the proletariat. Discourse about the market would be transformed, but the circulation of goods and services would still be conceptualized in not so very disparate terms as they are now.

I'm also interested in what you guys think about the place of meritocratic values in a communist society.

Thanks for your replies!
Major K.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't mean value in the Marxist sense here. That's a special category of value used to justify social change. I'm thinking more about how individuals evaluate their reality. A dresser that was your mothers is probably more valuable to you than it is to someone who never knew her. Attitudinal and experience based wealth disparity is inevitable.

But this sort of value is not something that interests Marxists. In all likelihood it would decline in socialism, as objects could be replaced without any hassle, and easily-replaceable objects are not something humans sentimentalise over, as a general rule. I would say that very few people have any emotional investment in their mother's candy bar or their mother's roll of toilet paper.

Also, the law of value is not "used to justify social change", it's a description of how capitalism works. We don't need justification to try to change a system that's shit as far as we're concerned, and even if we did the l.o.v. is a bad choice, as using it in that way would seem to imply everyone should get "the full proceeds of their labour", which first of all is not what we stand for (Marx in fact ridiculed the proposal as "Ricardian socialism"), and second, it's impossible anyway.


I also thought that ownership would only be abolished in name -- leaving it severely curtailed. I don't think you can really abolish ownership. On a basic level -- what about ownership of your own self? This is the foundation of human rights.

The notion of self-ownership is completely ludicrous. I don't own my body, I am my body. There is no spirit floating through the rationiferous aether that just happens to possess my body like I possess my boots or my coat.

And, of course, there are no human rights in socialism. Human rights are a constraint on how the state might act, but there is no state in socialism.



Or slightly less philosophically challenging, what about the clothes on your back? Let's say you even made them yourself -- would it be right for someone to come take them from you as you're going along so they can go give them to someone else? And under what basis of authority would this thief have of doing so? The mandate of the people? Surely that's rather micromanaging of us...

The clothes on your back are something you are using. But use is not the same as ownership; ownership is exclusive and confers the right to both use and abuse and alienate the object you own. This is a creature of the state and will disappear with the state. Any individual will still be fully free to use and consume objects as they see fit, within bounds prescribed by reason, hygiene etc. (which means you can't shit in the shower I habitually use; there will be no police to stop you, of course, but you'll have to face a lot of angry people if you try to do it).


The market also -- you can say it would be abolished only in name. In reality, it's a matter of reframing the processes of the market in terms beneficial to the proletariat. Discourse about the market would be transformed, but the circulation of goods and services would still be conceptualized in not so very disparate terms as they are now.

"Transforming" discourse about something changes nothing, which is why all the literature departments in the world can produce piles of critical theory year after year and yet capitalism remains. And, I mean, half of your comments are along the lines of "but you don't really want to abolish capitalism, do you?". We do. That's the point.

And no, in socialism, goods would move, physically, but they would be produced according to a general social plan to satisfy human need, not as commodities to be sold on the market. Nothing would circulate; there would be no wages and no prices.


I'm also interested in what you guys think about the place of meritocratic values in a communist society.

"Meritocracy" generally means that one stratum of the bourgeoisie, generally a young and increasingly powerful one, tells itself stories about how they're naturally superior to those poor people. It's rubbish. Even the notion that only the most capable persons need to fill every position is dodgy (but at least it's not the drivel we hear from fans of Singapore's bourgeoisie etc.). If a system requires exceptional people to function, it's not a good system. If Schlubbo McGee can't be the chairman of the world soviet because he's too average, that's a problem in itself.

[Major K.]

The notion of self-ownership is completely ludicrous. I don't own my body, I am my body. There is no spirit floating through the rationiferous aether that just happens to possess my body like I possess my boots or my coat.

I agree with you. However, most people do not. Most people think they are a soul or an ego or what have that HAS a body. This of course is an illusion. This is why I was speculating that this question would be meaningless in a communist society because people would conceive themselves in radically different terms. This issue could be a point of resistance that a revolution would have to deal with.


And, of course, there are no human rights in socialism. Human rights are a constraint on how the state might act, but there is no state in socialism.

The clothes on your back are something you are using. But use is not the same as ownership; ownership is exclusive and confers the right to both use and abuse and alienate the object you own. This is a creature of the state and will disappear with the state. Any individual will still be fully free to use and consume objects as they see fit, within bounds prescribed by reason, hygiene etc. (which means you can't shit in the shower I habitually use; there will be no police to stop you, of course, but you'll have to face a lot of angry people if you try to do it).

This does leave room for flexibility. This makes me think that as long as a society has abundant resources, it'll be good in communism, but if resources become scarce, things become terrible for everyone.



"Transforming" discourse about something changes nothing, which is why all the literature departments in the world can produce piles of critical theory year after year and yet capitalism remains. And, I mean, half of your comments are along the lines of "but you don't really want to abolish capitalism, do you?". We do. That's the point.

I'm a Neitzchean when it comes to discourse: "Language is power." You have to conceive revolutionary forms of communication discursively before you can manifest that revolutionary image in the world. Let's be nice to the critical theorists -- they play a different role. No need to reject them wholesale.



And no, in socialism, goods would move, physically, but they would be produced according to a general social plan to satisfy human need, not as commodities to be sold on the market. Nothing would circulate; there would be no wages and no prices.

Goods moving physically to satisfy human needs is what I meant by the reframe of "market", where goods move physically to support artificial desires and maintain the class structure. My point was that there is a functional necessity of good transference, that this will still be organized institutionally, and that those institutions will grow out of capitalist institutions -- there will have to be a period of transition, as it'd be impossible to institute communism from tabula rasa. We work with what we've got.


"Meritocracy" generally means that one stratum of the bourgeoisie, generally a young and increasingly powerful one, tells itself stories about how they're naturally superior to those poor people. It's rubbish. Even the notion that only the most capable persons need to fill every position is dodgy (but at least it's not the drivel we hear from fans of Singapore's bourgeoisie etc.). If a system requires exceptional people to function, it's not a good system. If Schlubbo McGee can't be the chairman of the world soviet because he's too average, that's a problem in itself.

People are inferior or superior in production power, specialization, and skill. I think what you're saying is that people would be lauded by other means besides fame and personal wealth for their individual abilities? E.g., I write philosophy and have devoted the majority of last 40 years of my life to it and have some unique insights to share the world. Does that not merit wide-reaching recognition so I can spread that good idea?

Specialized labor is socially valuable, but it also creates social stratification. And then it is natural for when a man who, say, is a epidemiologist, has a daughter, he trains her to also be an epidemiologist. My point here is basically that there seems to be a gray area where property exists in communism for as long as you are utilizing it, and I can imagine that leading to abuses and the crystallization of new property consolidations, just under different names.

I'm also thinking that the function of entrepreneurs could be transformed to that of those who are playing the dominant role of efficiently organizing and distributing goods and services on the micro level. This is a reframing of the role, which is a discursively dependent phenomenon.

[oneday]

property exists in communism for as long as you are utilizing it

That doesn't follow at all, there are plenty of things we utilize today even in capitalism that we don't have property rights to, most of everything major if you're prole.

Most of the time we won't try to take things things like clothes off people's backs as a matter of socialized courtesy, it has nothing to do with property rights. There's no incentive to do this if you can get clothes with a click of a button or stopping by your distribution center.

The goal of communism is to eliminate private property, you're basically saying you don't believe communism is possible.

[Major K.]

That doesn't follow at all, there are plenty of things we utilize today even in capitalism that we don't have property rights to, most of everything major if you're prole.

Most of the time we won't try to take things things like clothes off people's backs as a matter of socialized courtesy, it has nothing to do with property rights. There's no incentive to do this if you can get clothes with a click of a button or stopping by your distribution center.

The goal of communism is to eliminate private property, you're basically saying you don't believe communism is possible.

Ah, yeah -- was responding to Xhar-Xhar's comment:

"The clothes on your back are something you are using. But use is not the same as ownership; ownership is exclusive and confers the right to both use and abuse and alienate the object you own. This is a creature of the state and will disappear with the state. Any individual will still be fully free to use and consume objects as they see fit, within bounds prescribed by reason, hygiene etc."


I think communism is possible, but philosophically there appears to be a "common sense" gray area where ownership is permitted, but is not called that. The quote you just selected was of me musing over Xhar-Xhar's aforementioned comment.

The socialized courtesy you talk about is the gray area I mentioned. It would probably disappear with a careful def of private property, but as a slogan "abolish all private property", I think people get the wrong idea about what that means more often than not, as it's intentionally provocative. People still have things they keep around them -- goods aren't in a constant stake of flux, where the moment you're done wearing your day shirt, someone comes by and takes it for himself. Minor things like that seem by and large permissible. But that permissability could undermine a communist system if socialized courtesy expanded to include other things, and then property rights crystallized in a counter-revolution.

K.

[ComradeAllende]

...Most people think they are a soul or an ego or what have that HAS a body. This of course is an illusion. This is why I was speculating that this question would be meaningless in a communist society because people would conceive themselves in radically different terms. This issue could be a point of resistance that a revolution would have to deal with.

You could "deconstruct" people's notion of self-ownership by taking the concept to its logical conclusions. If people own themselves, then by definition they can sell themselves as slaves and thus "reject" their liberties; this then means that the "liberties" that we take for granted are neither universal nor inalienable.


This does leave room for flexibility. This makes me think that as long as a society has abundant resources, it'll be good in communism, but if resources become scarce, things become terrible for everyone.

Just to clarify, Marxists (and most other socialists) want to transition to a postcapitalist, post-scarcity society where the law of supply and demand loses most of its potency (an infinite supply will gradually push prices down to zero). I've heard some people toss around the idea of a market-based transition to socialism: the Swedes offered a proposal in the 1970s where workers would gradually gain a majority share of stock in their firms and gain influence over their employer's policies. The state could also confiscate wealth and income from affluent individuals and establish a fund from which socialized firms (cooperatives, syndicates, nationalized industries, etc.) could compete for credit. I would personally favor abolishing (or sharply curtailing) the market after a socialist revolution. but given the problems that would entail (logistical breakdown, decline in production, rising black market activity, etc.), a "socialized" market could seem feasible. Then again, there is considerable debate among left anti-capitalists over whether socialism and markets are compatible.


I'm a Neitzchean when it comes to discourse: "Language is power." You have to conceive revolutionary forms of communication discursively before you can manifest that revolutionary image in the world. Let's be nice to the critical theorists -- they play a different role. No need to reject them wholesale.

I agree completely. The critical theorists may have their flaws, but they have provided more depth to the problems of reestablishing a left-wing movement than most other socialist academics.

[Citizen]

It's like LEGOs. Why do kids build LEGOs? Certainly not for profit.

[Luís Henrique]

I don't mean value in the Marxist sense here. That's a special category of value used to justify social change. I'm thinking more about how individuals evaluate their reality. A dresser that was your mothers is probably more valuable to you than it is to someone who never knew her. Attitudinal and experience based wealth disparity is inevitable.

In which case "entrepreneurs" may well be valuable. But such "value" isn't transferred to the "value" (which is "value" in the Marxist sence) of commodities.


I also thought that ownership would only be abolished in name -- leaving it severely curtailed. I don't think you can really abolish ownership. On a basic level -- what about ownership of your own self?

It depends on what we are calling "ownership". People don't own themselves, as demonstrated by Comrade Allende. People own teeth brushes, which they will probably continue to own in a communist society, and people own factories, which will no longer be possible in communism. But the ownership of teeth brushes is not predicated on "self-ownership"; it is predicated upon the fact that my teeth brush is useless for anyone else.


This is the foundation of human rights. Or slightly less philosophically challenging, what about the clothes on your back? Let's say you even made them yourself -- would it be right for someone to come take them from you as you're going along so they can go give them to someone else? And under what basis of authority would this thief have of doing so? The mandate of the people? Surely that's rather micromanaging of us...

Clothes are like teeth brush. They are personal ownership, and there is absolutely no sence in taking them from their owners to distribute them to anyone else.


I don't think you can reasonably abolish ownership. You can abolish private property on the macro level, but trying to do so entirely seems unnecessary and oppressive.

Private property that matters is property of means of production. Those will become collective ownership in communism. Objects of consumption - that aren't used to exploit others' labour - aren't going to expropriated in order to become collective. That means teeth brushes, clothes, houses, automobiles, yachtes, etc.


The market also -- you can say it would be abolished only in name. In reality, it's a matter of reframing the processes of the market in terms beneficial to the proletariat. Discourse about the market would be transformed, but the circulation of goods and services would still be conceptualized in not so very disparate terms as they are now.

There will still be circulation of goods, obviously; but such circulation isn't to depend on a counter-circulation of "money". Things will be produced and distributed to those who need them; there isn't going to be a system of accounting, in which we confront how much a given person has "contributed" to society to how much the same person has "profited" from society, in order to calculate whether he or she "deserves" goods and services, and how much.


I'm also interested in what you guys think about the place of meritocratic values in a communist society.

Depends on what you call "meritocratic". A great poet is a great poet, a good soccer player is better than a lousy one, and we won't call the runner up in a chess championship "the winner". But mediocre poets, lousy soccer players, and loosing chess players are going to be fed, sheltered, and respected as human beings or members of society as much as those who excell them in poetry, soccer, or chess.

There is a strong tendency among the upper middle class, at least here in Brazil, to consider the difference between their earnings and those of the lower layers of the working class a function of "merit" - they "deserve" their better wages, and those who earn less are at a fault for earning less. If this is what called "meritocracy", then it is hogwash - people cannot even define what "merit" is in this reasoning.

On the other hand, it is evident that, within a capitalist society, positions within the civil service must be allocated according to a system of "merit", not according to the personal relationships of civil servants. That is what is more properly called "meritocracy", but it has little to do with anything but exactly this: civil service within capitalist societies.

Luís Henrique

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I agree with you. However, most people do not. Most people think they are a soul or an ego or what have that HAS a body.

No, many ("most" is difficult to prove) think they are a soul that inhabits a body. "Self-ownership" is a fringe, crackpot doctrine pushed by US "libertarians".


This does leave room for flexibility. This makes me think that as long as a society has abundant resources, it'll be good in communism, but if resources become scarce, things become terrible for everyone.

Things are terrible for most people, regardless of the mode of production, when there is scarcity. In socialism, we would not let one small group get by on speculation at expense of everyone else. But things would have to change quite a bit before scarcity becomes an issue in socialism.


I'm a Neitzchean when it comes to discourse: "Language is power." You have to conceive revolutionary forms of communication discursively before you can manifest that revolutionary image in the world. Let's be nice to the critical theorists -- they play a different role. No need to reject them wholesale.

Yes, they do play a different role. Their role is to provide the ideological fig leaf for bourgeois-populist regimes like that of Kirchner in Argentina, or Tsipras in Greece. And the ideological fig leaf they provide is a particularly transparent one, so that we can all see the sorry state of the goods being hidden. When was the last time discourse changed the world? Kirchner can sponsor books and articles and TV shows, yet she remains a puppet of imperialism and Argentina remains ruled by the bourgeoisie.


Goods moving physically to satisfy human needs is what I meant by the reframe of "market", where goods move physically to support artificial desires and maintain the class structure. My point was that there is a functional necessity of good transference, that this will still be organized institutionally, and that those institutions will grow out of capitalist institutions -- there will have to be a period of transition, as it'd be impossible to institute communism from tabula rasa. We work with what we've got.

The point is that the physical movement of goods doesn't have anything to do with a market. Markets involve exchange; there would be no exchange and no value in socialism. And yes, this movement will be organised by certain institutions; but these will be the political institutions the proletariat will set up after smashing the bourgeois state. Capitalism can't gradually turn into socialism.


People are inferior or superior in production power, specialization, and skill. I think what you're saying is that people would be lauded by other means besides fame and personal wealth for their individual abilities? E.g., I write philosophy and have devoted the majority of last 40 years of my life to it and have some unique insights to share the world. Does that not merit wide-reaching recognition so I can spread that good idea?

Specialized labor is socially valuable, but it also creates social stratification. And then it is natural for when a man who, say, is a epidemiologist, has a daughter, he trains her to also be an epidemiologist. My point here is basically that there seems to be a gray area where property exists in communism for as long as you are utilizing it, and I can imagine that leading to abuses and the crystallization of new property consolidations, just under different names.

I'm also thinking that the function of entrepreneurs could be transformed to that of those who are playing the dominant role of efficiently organizing and distributing goods and services on the micro level. This is a reframing of the role, which is a discursively dependent phenomenon.

I am saying that how people choose to "laud" other people, to use your term, is none of our business. And specialised labour doesn't necessarily create stratification; the point is that in socialism no one will have a fixed sphere of activity but will be free to pursue their interest in various tasks involved in production. The division of labour will exist synchronically but not diachronically.

(And I suspect you live somewhere where endocrinologists don't educate their daughters; schools do. In socialism, moreover, there is no family, and we don't care if something is natural or not.)

No one would distribute goods and services; every member of society would have free access to them. If you want, you can call members of the planning commission, executives in the steel production syndicate etc. "entrepreneurs", but then you're simply redefining words in a weird manner.


Just to clarify, Marxists (and most other socialists) want to transition to a postcapitalist, post-scarcity society where the law of supply and demand loses most of its potency (an infinite supply will gradually push prices down to zero).

Well, no, this sounds like we will continue to buy and sell in socialism until supply becomes infinite and we all effectively have infinite amounts of money. But first of all supply can't become infinite, second Marxists reject the notion that prices are determined by the bourgeois "law of supply and demand" (first, because prices fluctuate around value; second because the purported balance of supply and demand never happens - this is also why the so-called "transformation problem" is crock).


the Swedes offered a proposal in the 1970s where workers would gradually gain a majority share of stock in their firms and gain influence over their employer's policies.

So how'd that turn out? First of all, even if it could work, all it would result in is a "workers'" capitalism with large capitalists being replaced by much less efficient worker-shareholders; second, the ones "offering the proposal" were the Swedish bourgeois state. Of all the groups in the world, the bourgeois state is the last group you can trust when it comes to establishing socialism.

[Comrade #138672]

Do entrepreneurs create any economic value?If they perform socially necessary labor, then yes.

[Luís Henrique]

If they perform socially necessary labor, then yes.

Then the question is, do entrepreneurs perform socially necessary labour?

Luís Henrique

[Comrade #138672]

Then the question is, do entrepreneurs perform socially necessary labour?

Luís HenriqueSome of them do, but they tend to be very small, so they cannot afford to hire anyone to do it for them. As a general rule, the bigger they get, the less work they do.

[ComradeAllende]

So how'd that turn out? First of all, even if it could work, all it would result in is a "workers'" capitalism with large capitalists being replaced by much less efficient worker-shareholders; second, the ones "offering the proposal" were the Swedish bourgeois state. Of all the groups in the world, the bourgeois state is the last group you can trust when it comes to establishing socialism.

I will grant that there are many flaws with the "worker-owned firms" model proposed by the Swedes, both in terms of practicality and revolutionary strategy. Nevertheless, the proliferation of such ideas is a crucial testament to the power of workers; such ideas would be considered anachronistic (or downright draconian) in modern times, where the labor movement's power is waning and the anti-capitalist left is struggling to form a coherent programme.

The bourgeois state cannot be trusted for radical revolution; that much is true. Yet we cannot ignore its effects on economic and social policy and blindly spout platitudes on revolution; we simply don't have the luxury of doing that. Reformism by itself is contradictory and futile, but revolutionary politics is a practical impossibility now due to the left's limited resources. One must embrace both methods in order to gather momentum for the former. How did the Socialists and Bolsheviks gain support for their programmes? By relating to the common struggles of working people and appealing to their needs.

As to the OP's original comment, I would argue that entrepreneurs (or disruptive innovators, as I prefer to call them) do provide some sort of dynamism that keeps the capitalist system from degenerating. They serve a dual purpose: revitalizing the capitalist system via the disruption and/or creation of new markets and methods of production, and providing reactionaries and bourgeois intellectuals a weapon to thwart the socialist movement. After all, the idea of the "tinkering inventor" is much sexier and appealing to the populace than a planned R&D sector with sterile labs and scientists in lab coats. The task of the socialist is to argue, above all else, that this view of the entrepreneur is anachronistic; most modern inventions are byproducts of previous basic research, be it in the pharmaceutical industry or commercialized versions of DARPA prototypes. Thus, the entrepreneur's "innovative" role could easily be superseded by planning in universities and technical centers in a socialist society; and that people who still want to tinker can do so without the menacing effects of money on scientific research.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

An entrepreneur is nothing but an inventor who becomes a capitalist. Communism needs inventors, but not capitalists.

Communism is the abolition of private property in the economic sense, but a commune would create reasonable allowances for personal property. I don't want my enemy to have the right to come into my room and take a shit on my bed.

[Comrade #138672]

An entrepreneur is nothing but an inventor who becomes a capitalist. Communism needs inventors, but not capitalists.Not every entrepeneur is an inventor. I have seen entrepeneurs solely ripping off other people's ideas and work, and profiting from that. If you happen to have a good idea, never tell an entrepeneur about it.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I will grant that there are many flaws with the "worker-owned firms" model proposed by the Swedes, both in terms of practicality and revolutionary strategy. Nevertheless, the proliferation of such ideas is a crucial testament to the power of workers; such ideas would be considered anachronistic (or downright draconian) in modern times, where the labor movement's power is waning and the anti-capitalist left is struggling to form a coherent programme.

That's not true at all. Many people who are not socialists think that socialism is, not about the social planning of production, but about workers owning "their own" firm, that Mondragon has something to do with socialism and so on. It's part of the generally low level of political consciousness in this post-Soviet period.


The bourgeois state cannot be trusted for radical revolution; that much is true. Yet we cannot ignore its effects on economic and social policy and blindly spout platitudes on revolution; we simply don't have the luxury of doing that. Reformism by itself is contradictory and futile, but revolutionary politics is a practical impossibility now due to the left's limited resources. One must embrace both methods in order to gather momentum for the former. How did the Socialists and Bolsheviks gain support for their programmes? By relating to the common struggles of working people and appealing to their needs.

First of all, it is not "the left" that makes the revolution, and thank Azathoth for that. The revolution is made by the working class. What the working class needs is a Leninist party, forged into an adequate instrument for the revolution. But an adequate instrument does not mean a popular or numerous party, but an organised and centralist one.

Second, reformism means more than simply fighting for reforms. It means exclusively fighting for reforms, by way of petitioning the bourgeois state.

Third, we are not opposed to workers' ownership, co-operatives etc. because they are reforms, we're opposed to them because they're nothing more than a way for capital to recuperate after a crisis, as the rate of exploitation in co-operatives etc. is generally higher than that in "traditional" enterprises.


An entrepreneur is nothing but an inventor who becomes a capitalist. Communism needs inventors, but not capitalists.

An entrepreneur is someone who owns an enterprise, i.e. a capitalist. As for inventors, the romantic notion of an isolated inventor has never really been true. What the communist society needs is scientists, which have nothing to do with entrepreneurs.


Communism is the abolition of private property in the economic sense, but a commune would create reasonable allowances for personal property. I don't want my enemy to have the right to come into my room and take a shit on my bed.

First of all, we aren't talking about "communes", as if the communist society is going to be a federation of small communes of the utopian type, but the world socialist community.

I imagine that, in the communist society, people will be in broad agreement that taking a shit on a bed someone is using is not something you do, unless they really like that. But what you want is for the communist society to somehow enforce that. How? You would need some sort of police force at least, and that is quite incompatible with what we understand of communism - a society where the government over men has withered away. Besides, what is stopping people from shitting on your bed right now? Do you think the police would be particularly concerned with the cleanness of your bed? Come, now.

And obviously, property as opposed to use would not exist in communism. If the human society has, as a whole, taken over the means of production, thereby trampling over juridical property left and right, why do you think someone who has a mansion they never use would continue to be able to exclude other people from said mansion?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Not every entrepeneur is an inventor. I have seen entrepeneurs solely ripping off other people's ideas and work, and profiting from that. If you happen to have a good idea, never tell an entrepeneur about it.

True, many entrepreneurs rip ideas off of other people.


An entrepreneur is someone who owns an enterprise, i.e. a capitalist. As for inventors, the romantic notion of an isolated inventor has never really been true. What the communist society needs is scientists, which have nothing to do with entrepreneurs.

I was speaking more of the cliche idea of an entrepreneur as an "innovator". Someone who owns not only an enterprise, but one who is providing a product or service that is supposedly "new" and "original". What I meant to say is that a Communist society will seek out new resources, technologies and services, but without the need for capital to facilitate this.

Nor did I mean to imply that those who invent are isolated geniuses standing outside of history. That is, you are correct, a naive view.


First of all, we aren't talking about "communes", as if the communist society is going to be a federation of small communes of the utopian type, but the world socialist community.
Semantics ... the world socialist community is just a global commune.


I imagine that, in the communist society, people will be in broad agreement that taking a shit on a bed someone is using is not something you do, unless they really like that. But what you want is for the communist society to somehow enforce that. How? You would need some sort of police force at least, and that is quite incompatible with what we understand of communism - a society where the government over men has withered away.
I'm not discussing how it will be enforced. It could be enforced, even in a limited way, through locks, doors, and keys. I'm merely stating that it's a reasonable assumption that people will continue to want some kind of personal space that is recognized by society.


Besides, what is stopping people from shitting on your bed right now? Do you think the police would be particularly concerned with the cleanness of your bed? Come, now.The answer to this question depends on the class composition/wealth of your neighborhood.


And obviously, property as opposed to use would not exist in communism. If the human society has, as a whole, taken over the means of production, thereby trampling over juridical property left and right, why do you think someone who has a mansion they never use would continue to be able to exclude other people from said mansion? That's why I said that a *reasonable* allowance would be made by society. I agree that a revolutionary movement would not just allow large estates to continue existing.