What is this system called?

[LeninsDenim]

Hey,
I have a system in my mind which I think would work well (its state socialism) but idk what its called. I would also like to learn about problems from a purely economic and not political standpoint. The political problem is obvious: hunger for power reverting back to state slavery.

The state controls all means of production, land, and employs every worker. Private property is abolished. Money is replaced with a labour voucher system that guarantees life stuff for work. The idea being that if you work for the state and society, the state works for you. There are elections, but working is mandatory in order to vote. (Mothers still can go back at 3 to care for kids). In this way, workers control means of production. If not served, rebellion of new leaders.

The state undergoes massive industrialization, killing the service sector in the process. This is to meet the needs of the people. The government becomes a production machine, and as more goods are produced, the labour voucher value goes up as well. If this does not happen, again, vote or rebellion. Instead of the old capitalism, all the goods go back to workers. Progress is made, because progress is simply labour*time and happy workers work harder, for more progress.

Thats basically the idea. Workers control a superstate which has control over all the means of production and the value of this state flows back to workers. Workers work harder, more venue is added, labour voucher increases and it is a good cycle. Thoughts?

[Tim Cornelis]

It does not follow that because the state controls all means of production that private property is abolished. Private property is a judicial expression of wage-labour, of the separation of the producers from the means with which they produce. You say the opposite. Workers control the means of production through voting in parliamentary elections. In other words, they don't control the means of production. They are separated from the means of production through a representative parliament.

Vouchers too can function as facilitator and regulator of the exchange of commodities. As they did in WWII in many countries, or Israel during the austere period, or presently in North Korea. In itself, vouchers, whether supplied on the basis of labour or not, do not, in itself, alter the social relationships in which commodity exchange is embedded.

And we get a little bit of a corporatist welfare state thrown in the mix. At least we know sexism is still alive in your system.

Your point on industrialisation is terribly confused. Industrialisation is always accompanied by the impoverishment of the worker. It needs to be. The Soviet Union slashed workers' wages, increased the rate of exploitation, to be able to generate more surplus value to reinvest in the expansion of fixed capital, to fund industrialisation.

"Workers' living standards declined sharply from 1928 to 1933 by at least half, to a bare subsistence level. Part of this was the disastrous outcome of agricultural Collectivization, but part of it was deliberate policy: to finance the forced industrialization of the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932) by squeezing the workers with simultaneous pay-cuts and production speed-ups. After 1933, living standards began to recover, but only precariously. For example, by 1937, wages had climbed back to 60% of the 1928 level. Nearly all investment was directed to heavy industry and weapons, rather than consumer goods for working families. Despite a shortage of workers for new industrial projects, fierce repression of independent union activity ensured that wages would remain low."

http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/labor-discip.html

The government becomes a production machine, a machine made up of people, workers, whom work like cogs in the machine, and have to work harder, and work like bees in a hive. What a wonderful utopia! It sounds suspiciously like capitalism, but whatever.

Of course, it raises additional questions. Like, you give the option rapid industrialisation or being voted away/overthrown, but apparently the workers are not allowed to vote against industrialisation. Or, if progress is simply labour*time which are some areas in the world so underdeveloped? Do they not have labour or time? Why not? Are there maybe other variables to take into consideration?

I don't know what this system is called. Horrible? Oh you mean, like what type of socialism. Maybe it's a 'state-proudhonism'. Instead of an agro-industrial federation, we have this monstrosity of a superstate regulating production, and exchanging commodities using vouchers.

[Blake's Baby]

Seems to me you want to build a 'benevolent' state-capitalist barracks-state. By the way, most of us here think that there's no such thing as 'state socialism', it's an oxymoron.

I'm not sure why anyone would want that. The point about communism is that it's the liberation of humanity (particularly the working class), not its perpetual and perfected enslavement.

[Comrade #138672]

There are elections, but working is mandatory in order to vote.Well, that sucks if you are unable to work...

[Tim Cornelis]

That only allowed to vote if you work clause reminded me of Starship Troopers.

[Guardia Rossa]

Oh well, at least he didn't suggest forced work or slavery or something.

[Rudolf]

The state controls all means of production, land, and employs every worker. Private property is abolished. Money is replaced with a labour voucher system that guarantees life stuff for work. The idea being that if you work for the state and society, the state works for you. There are elections, but working is mandatory in order to vote. (Mothers still can go back at 3 to care for kids). In this way, workers control means of production. If not served, rebellion of new leaders.



This is brilliant! Imagine it, the government could sack everyone for a day, election day, thus reducing the pool of voters to those that make up the government who in turn would vote for themselves, obviously. It really does streamline the process of restricting the vote that occurs in liberal democracies

[Armchair Partisan]

I had some ideas similar to these when I was still just a baby communist. Your idea is not new, and shows that you have an incomplete understanding of socialism, such as the definition of private property and capitalism, as well as what a classless, stateless society would require.

If this state is meant to be the form of a proletarian dictatorship in a "transitional period" of sorts, well, the real problem IMO is: does this system really guarantee workers' control over the means of production? It has problems very similar to those of the USSR in this regard. Way too bureaucratic, and way too detached from the average worker. I mean, when you are referring to the "state" as a separate entity with this much power, that's definitely a concern. You say "the state controls all the means of production", then also that "the workers control the means of production". However, if there is a narrow strata of economic planners who can supersede the will of the broader working class, including taking away their right to elect their representatives, or whatever else they may have the power to do, then you have a new ruling class on your hands who essentially assume the role of capitalists soon enough, and will try to reinstate that system as well.


The state undergoes massive industrialization, killing the service sector in the process. This is to meet the needs of the people.

You do realize that the "needs of the people" very much include a lot of what is produced by the service sector? A strong industry is necessary, of course, but it's not like the western world is Imperial Russia, we don't have huge peasant classes that need to be converted into an industrial proletariat. Any strong industrialization drive would serve only two purposes: "autarky" (if important industries are missing from the proletarian dictatorship entirely, and trade with the capitalists would be the only way to acquire certain goods) or "more tanks". Neither of these has anything to do with consumer goods.

[Comrade #138672]

Oh well, at least he didn't suggest forced work or slavery or something.You just lose your rights (e.g., to vote) if you don't work. That's all. :confused:

[Guardia Rossa]

You just lose your rights (e.g., to vote) if you don't work. That's all. :confused:

Eh, that's unfair but that's not slavery, slavery as far as I know is objectification so they can be owned by private persons. Neither it is forced labour, as they are not forced to it, just lose rights if they don't work.

Just like in Brazil we aren't forced to live in a house but if you don't you can't get a job.

[Luís Henrique]

The state controls all means of production, land, and employs every worker.

So the State is the owner of all means of production; workers are still not owners of the means of production. They are owners of their own labour power, which they have to sell for a living. What exactly has changed?


Private property is abolished.

Juridically, may be. But I guess that there are still going to be several different companies, each of them with its own requirements in terms of inputs, and with an output that requires sales. So, this system will entail competition among those companies; they will still be individual capitals competing. The "State ownership", therefore, is a fiction, a juridical fiction, that recovers the reality of capitalist competition.


Money is replaced with a labour voucher system that guarantees life stuff for work.

Mkay. So I go to the bakery and I buy bread. With a voucher that is only valid for bread? Or with a voucher that is only valid for that specific bakery?

But how does the baker now buy the wine he wants to drink, if the voucher I gave him is not valid for wine?

Or, if "the baker" is replaced by this abstract entity, "the bakery", how does the bakery buy gas/oil, flour, water, milk, etc, for productive consumption in baking bread?

A bank system is required to exchange bread voucher for wine vouchers, and that bank system will have to find exchange means that make those goods exchangeable. Which is, it will have to find a general equivalent. Which is, it will have to reintroduce money into the system. The general populace will thus be deprived of the benefits of a general equivalent (if I decide that I want to eat less bread and instead save for buying a bycicle, I am stuck with bread vouchers that can't be exchanged for bycicles - which is by the way the foundation of a black market), but the system as a whole is grounded into the restricted, privileged circulation of clandestine money.

It is, as we see, a worse system than ordinary capitalism; less efficient and less fair.

Unless your labour vouchers are exchangeable for any commodity. But in this case they are a general equivalent, ie, they are money. And in this case, what has changed? At most, these vouchers will be nominated in labour time, instead of gold or of an abstract share of the total product. But gold has this quality that two ouces of gold always value twice the value of one ounce of gold, nevermind how much one ounce is worth. Labour time does not have such property, and it is possible that two hours of labour time do not value twice the value of one hour of labour time, because the value of labour time is dependent on productivity.


The idea being that if you work for the state and society, the state works for you.

In other words, the idea is that we exchange things. It is a market system, even though one that does not dare confess its market nature.


There are elections, but working is mandatory in order to vote. (Mothers still can go back at 3 to care for kids). In this way, workers control means of production. If not served, rebellion of new leaders.

But this is a mere formal control of the means of production.

In pre-capitalist times, workers had actual control of the means of production. The baker owned her oven, his ware, and his workplace, as well as her labour power. This ownership was both a formal relationship (expressed by the fact that the baker could buy those means of production wiht the economic results of her labour), and a material relationship (expressed by the fact that the baker understood and controlled her tools, the rhythm of her work, and the production process as a whole).

At some time in the development of capitalism, bakers were deprived from the formal control of their means of production. While they still could understand and control their tools and the rhythm of their work, they were no longer able to replace their means of production with the economic results of their work. That's the phase of manufacture.

Further along the development of capitalism, bakers were deprived from the material control of means of production. Capital developed the tools and the division of labour within the bakery, such that bakers lost the ability to understand and control their tools and the production process as a whole. That's industry: the phase in which the master bakers are replaced by employees who only control a separate aspect of baking, the worker that mixes the dough no longer being able to control the oven, the worker at the oven no longer being able to mix the dough. A process that renders these workers mere human parts of the production machinery, fully replaceable because their labour is mere expending of human energy, devoid of any mastership upon nature.

Your proposal reverses the first process, but not the second one. As such, it is at most a proposal for a transition. But it seems to blind itself from its transitional quality. Instead of proposing, "since retaking full control of the productive process as a whole is going to be difficult and time consuming, we are for the moment taking measures to avoid the worst aspects of labour alienation", what it seems to say is "we aren't aware of the problem of labour alienation, and so we will pretend that a mere electoral supervision of labour management will mean 'control over the means of production'".

On the other hand, we have seen that the supposed "State property" of the means of production is also problematic. The State may have a formal, juridical title to the ownership of the means of production, but it cannot have real, material possession of these means of production unless its members have this level of control. And as the workers do not have it, either they are unable to control the State, or the State will be unable to control the process of production, which in all likelyhood will be driven by blind market forces. Indeed, by blind market forces that are even blinder than in commonplace capitalism, because the commonplace "eyes" of this system - money - are to be yanked off in favour of an unsensitive system that cannot measure the demand of different products in relation to one another.


The state undergoes massive industrialization, killing the service sector in the process. This is to meet the needs of the people.

But "killing the service sector" ensures that the needs of the people cannot be met. Never much how delicious a loaf of bread is, it is useless unless it is put into my table. A distribution system is absolutely necessary, and a distribution system is a service sector in a commodity oriented society.


The government becomes a production machine, and as more goods are produced, the labour voucher value goes up as well.

But why are more goods to be produced? What is the whip that drives people into producing more and more goods, for the sake of producing more and more goods? In capitalism, it is profits and wages, but what is to do the trick in your system?

In actual existing "State socialism", it was repression, which in turn required suppression of workers democracy, of workers even merely electoral control of the State, and the autonomisation of the State at the expense of the workers.


If this does not happen, again, vote or rebellion.

This, of course, is easier to say than to do. Any social group that may eventually become advantaged by your system will entrench itself and make sure that rebellion is not an option.


Instead of the old capitalism, all the goods go back to workers.

But means of production are goods, too. So this is openly contradictory to "the State is the owner of all means of production". If the State is the owner of all means of production, then a part of the goods - those that are means of production - must go to the State, not to the workers. If all goods go to the workers, then the workers are the owners of the means of production, not the State.


Progress is made, because progress is simply labour*time and happy workers work harder, for more progress.

But what makes those workers happy? And why would "happiness", instead of being an end of itself, become an incentive for production for the sake of production? Labour for the sake of labour doesn't make people happy; we are happy when we control things, not when things control us.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

At most, these vouchers will be nominated in labour time, instead of gold or of an abstract share of the total product. But gold has this quality that two ouces of gold always value twice the value of one ounce of gold, nevermind how much one ounce is worth. Labour time does not have such property, and it is possible that two hours of labour time do not value twice the value of one hour of labour time, because the value of labour time is dependent on productivity.

So, if I am a welder, and work 180 hours a month, I am paid with a "voucher" that says, "180 hours of labour", or with 180 vouchers that say "1 hour of labour". Now I have HL$ 6 to expend each day. I go to the bakery, and I buy HL$ 1 of bread. But in order to this being of any use, it is necessary that the bread I buy is the result of one hour of labour - not of two hours, not of thirty minutes, not indeed of 59 or 61 minutes, otherwise we have an unfair trade.

But the bakery might have a lower, or less likely, higher productivity than the factory I work for. So I might come in with a HL$ 1 voucher, and get back home with bread that has taken one hour to produce in the conditions of lower productivity of the bakery. In which case I am transferring value to the bakery, that produces less bread in one hour than it would if it had the same productivity of the factory I work for. Which is to say, the bakery is being paid to be less productive.

Or I might get back home with bread that would have taken one hour to produce under the higher productivity conditions of the factory I work for. In which case the baker is going to be underpaid: he works one hour, but he has to accept a 30 minutes labour time voucher, because his productivity is subpar. In which case value is being transferred from the bakery to me, which might put the bakery's ability to reproduce its means of production - and to expand and perfect them in order to equate its productivity to the rest of the economy - into question.

Either way, the system hinders the productivity of individual companies. It either rewards lower productivity, or it prevents low productivity companies from becoming more productive by denying them the resources necessary to improve their productivity.

(All that, of course, besides the fact that there isn't any actual time-of-labour-o-meter that can actually measure the labour time employed in any given commodity. In a capitalist society, the time of labour is calculated by the price of commodities, not the other way round.)

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

You can only do it by time. An hour of your time is worth an hour of the baker's time.

But what either of those are worth as against 'some good somewhere' is anyone's guess.

[Luís Henrique]

You can only do it by time. An hour of your time is worth an hour of the baker's time.

If so, the baker will be paid to remain less productive. In a capitalist society, he would not do that because of competition; but if now all bakeries are property of one only capitalist - the State - there is no competition (or rather, competition cannot be expressed in that way), and it is in the direct interest of bakers to keep productivity low.

Until you effectively abolish the logic of value - which means doing away with all reckoning of value, be it through money or through "vouchers" - you can't really get rid of the effects of competition.

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

You can only do it by time. An hour of your time is worth an hour of the baker's time.

But what either of those are worth as against 'some good somewhere' is anyone's guess.


I'm of the position that using (liberated) labor hours as a basis for 'economic' (social) valuations is just as untenable as the 'labor vouchers' approach, due to the same lack of interchangeability.

My favorite sample work role here is 'mattress tester' -- should an hour's worth of 'mattress testing' (which could very well be a legitimate and socially necessary work role) be considered as equivalent to an hour's worth of time spent in baking, or anything else -- ? (What about mining, etc. -- ?)

And any suggestion / proposal of 'voucher' exchangeability with *goods* is even *less* viable, due to already-existing ratios of mechanical / industrial productivity, to labor time. (Meaning that not all factories' outputs are equivalent, everywhere, for any given labor hour of input. Differences in per-hour workplace productivity would imply differences in per-unit material 'costs' -- labor hours and types of effort.)

I developed a comprehensive framework for exactly this kind of political-economy issue:


Pies Must Line Up



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

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, just to allay any festering anxieties (heh), I *do* have an approach to address the post-capitalist 'valuation' of liberated labor efforts, in case such should happen to be needed.





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

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

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

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

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

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

[...]




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


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/)

[GLF]

There is a saying: "A slave dreams not of freedom but of becoming a master".

This applies in your case. You are wanting to take over the "plantation" so to speak, when what you should be doing is talking about how to abolish it.

[ckaihatsu]

There is a saying: "A slave dreams not of freedom but of becoming a master".

This applies in your case. You are wanting to take over the "plantation" so to speak, when what you should be doing is talking about how to abolish it.


Assuming you're addressing me, I'd be open to hearing you describe how you think this to be the case.

[GLF]

Assuming you're addressing me, I'd be open to hearing you describe how you think this to be the case.

No, I am sorry for not being more clear. I was referring to the OP.

[ckaihatsu]

No, I am sorry for not being more clear. I was referring to the OP.


No prob.