Marxist Economics Revisited

[ComradeRed]

Firstly, I noticed this on Redstar2k's site about some further questions on Marxist Economics (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083720432&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&) and I thought I'd answer them, since it seems like these are the biggest "problems"(nuisances) in marxist economics.

The Service Industry
What qualifies to be a commodity? Well, basically anything that has a use-value and exchange value. It isn't limited to physical objects too, afterall there can be the purchase and sale of labor power[1] (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm).

What is a service but labor-power? Well, labor-power without creating a commodity. Cleaning ladies use their means of production(vacuums and such) to do a job. It doesn't, however, create a commodity. But isn't that all a service really is: labor without the creation of commodities?

Labor-power v. "directed energy"

But consider a lump of iron ore. We could say its exchange value is equal to the amount of socially necessary manual labor required to dig it out of the ground.
Yes, we could say that...supposing the market goes to the mines. But the value of this unrefined iron ore is: the amount of labor to extract it and the amount of labor to produce the tools to do this task. The final value would have to include the delivery to the market.

But how would we determine, oh say, the value of this iron if we turned it into steel?
Well, the labor to extract the coal, the labor to deliver it, the labor needed to extract the other resources[e.g. Tungsten], the labor needed for the iron, the labor needed for the tools, etc. would all be constituents of the final value. Naturally, the final value is greater than the constituents sum(to include the surplus value).

But suppose it was a mule whose power was used to extract the coal, what is the value of the coal then?
Well, the value of the mule is transfered into the coal[2] (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S2). The more coal yielded, the more the value must be spread(e.g. if 10 tons of coal is yielded and the value of the mule is 10W, the value of the coal per ton is W; suppose the output doubled, the value would halve because the relation of yielded per value changes).

Modern Machinery and Value
As we all know, modern machinery can assemble products if there is someone to give it raw products and take away the finished commodity.

What is the value of the commodity then?
Well, it is the value from the machinery transfered into the commodity. The labor, it could be said better, is transfered: the labor designing it, manufacturing it, acquiring the raw materials for it, etc. This is only one factor, however, in determining its value. The other is the amount of labor needed to extrapulate the constituents of the commodity itself.

But we must also bear in mind the amount of labor required to make a machine of that sort. It isn't exactly a waltz in, make it with the snap of the fingers, and waltz right on out. It requires engineering labor, labor to make it, labor to get the necessary items to make it, labor to make the tools for getting the necessary items for making the machine, etc.

To a certain extent, the "mule rule" applies here too. The value of a piece of machinery apparati is 10X, and it can produce however many commodities the capitalist wants. Suppose it begins with 5 commodities, the value transfered is 2X. Suppose he doubles the number made, the value thereby becomes 1X. And so on and so forth.
====================
Footnotes:
[1] Das Kapital, Chapter 6, The Purchase and Sale of Labor-Power
[2] ibid, Chapter 15 section 2. Machinery, like every other component of constant capital, creates no new value, but yields up its own value to the product that it serves to beget.

[NovelGentry]

Well, the labor to extract the coal, the labor to deliver it, the labor needed to extract the other resources[e.g. Tungsten], the labor needed for the iron, the labor needed for the tools, etc. would all be constituents of the final value. Naturally, the final value is greater than the constituents sum(to include the surplus value).

I disagree with what you have repeatedly mentioned as the labor needed for the tools to do it. This is going beyond and cutting into the use value of those tools. Given that you'd be able to argue the labor put into the creation of those tools aswell as the labor put into any tools used to make those tools and so on right down the line till anything would seem to have almost infinite use value. The measure is labor time, period. Any tools which go into it have already been "paid for" with their necessary labortime.

That's really all I wanted to say.

[antieverything]

...welcome back to the dark ages of economics, folks. :lol:

"Value" is one of those things we should leave behind along with god and the dialectic.

[ComradeRed]

I disagree with what you have repeatedly mentioned as the labor needed for the tools to do it. This is going beyond and cutting into the use value of those tools. Given that you'd be able to argue the labor put into the creation of those tools aswell as the labor put into any tools used to make those tools and so on right down the line till anything would seem to have almost infinite use value. The measure is labor time, period. Any tools which go into it have already been "paid for" with their necessary labortime. Not necessarily so, the labor to produce the means of production would play a role in the factor of the final value; however it is not the labor to produce every piece of means of production(e.g. if a factory produces 30 tools, and 10 tools are sold and used it would be the labor of the 10 tools put into the final value, not the 30).

It wouldn't be an "infinite value" because its relatively simple: the constituents of the means of production plus the labor. The means of production could be further subdivided, which is what I really took liberty to do.

Although, upon further consideration, this is wrong. The final value is always greater than their constituents.


"Value" is one of those things we should leave behind along with god and the dialectic. Value will be left behind after the fall of capitalism. The economic theory of Marx is perfectly sound and valid, and I intend to prove it.

[NovelGentry]

"Value" is one of those things we should leave behind along with god and the dialectic.

Hardly, Marx's idea on use value is little different than the same value placed on commodities in capitalist society that makes any product worth something. Instead, however, that value is not measured directly by the supply and demand factors, and is instead directly related to labor time. In that sense, it is too, defined by supply and demand. A product or service in high demand would be likely to have more laborer's and thus overall labor time.


Value will be left behind after the fall of capitalism. The economic theory of Marx is perfectly sound and valid, and I intend to prove it.

You're 70+ years too late: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6579/index.htm


Not necessarily so, the labor to produce the means of production would play a role in the factor of the final value;

It would, but not in the sense of the direct cost of a product or service to an individual. Take it out of the context of communism for a minute where we assume that these means of production have reached an equilibrium (at least for necessities) with the material needs of the people. Look at it under advanced socialism (although I argue this could be in practice in early socialism), and you can see how it makes a lot more sense. One hour of labor buys one hour of labor period. Products which take longer to make will yield a smaller number of products and thus would seem likely to need more laborers, however, when taken in the context of an advanced capitalist nation, much of this has already been created. It's not impossible to get housing to those who don't already have it, while it may not resemble the normal idea of housing, it's shelter nonetheless.

But under this system, what you propose is that the final value of a house would include the value of all the products that went into making the house, the labor time necessary to create the saws, hammers, nails, etc...etc. This is already paid for though when the resources are "bought" to be used. Yes, the eventual cost of the house takes them into account, but not directly, and traversing all the way back to the machines used to ore the iron to produce the nails would once again create products with seemingly infinite use value (no one would ever be able to afford anything). House = labor time of raw materials uses + time to build house + time to build machines used in acquiring and processing iron ore into nails + time to build saws which cut the lumber + time to make tools which built the machines that process iron ore and made the machines + time it took to ore the resources to make those tools (probably more iron ore, etc...etc..)... you can follow this on forever. There has to be a point at which it is cut, and that point is easily defined at the single products labor time. Say a house takes 125 hours to build with 5 workers (not sure if this estimate would be at all accurate). The labortime put into that house becomes 625, assuming you supply all raw materials and nails etc..etc. If you do not, yes, indeed you pay for the labor time of allt he nails used (quite small when you think about the mass production of them). What you would NOT pay for, however, is the time it took to build the machines to ore the iron for these... as you've already paid for them indirectly when you "bought" the nails. The machines for the nail factory are "bought" by that factory so that they can produce a product -- you have no place in paying for them. Just like the saws and hammers will be "bought" by those who build houses, so once again, you wouldn't pay for these things.


however it is not the labor to produce every piece of means of production(e.g. if a factory produces 30 tools, and 10 tools are sold and used it would be the labor of the 10 tools put into the final value, not the 30).

Owing to what I just said, the answer to this becomes an obvious NO. It is not your position to acquire these tools, unless you are indeed going to build the house yourself (which is 100% possible, but probably not very likely or viable). The cost of these products is the burden of those who wish to do this labor. Once again, this is out of the context of communism, and exist in socialism, where there certainly still exists a means of acquiring property (as we all know, what does not exist is the supposed RIGHT to subjugate the labor of others for that property, nor would this make any sense as in order to subjugate such labor you would have to work yourself to acquire the amount of labor time necessary to buy such property to begin with).


It wouldn't be an "infinite value" because its relatively simple: the constituents of the means of production plus the labor. The means of production could be further subdivided, which is what I really took liberty to do.

Yes, but they can be divided infinitely. What tools made the saws to cut down the trees? What tools made those tools? And what tools made those OTHER Tools? and so on and so on, until you've gotten it down to a point of simple labor (which would seem almost impossible given the advancement of technology and the previous technology which was used to build the newer technology). Unless you create some sort of epoch time, maybe the time of revolution, where all means of production would become equally shared, and thus only NEWLY created means of production would be calculated in this? It just seems foolish to do such as there's a much simpler way to do it and ensure a working and equal society.


Although, upon further consideration, this is wrong. The final value is always greater than their constituents.

Certainly, but only because labor has been put into the final product itself.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2004, 10:10 PM
...welcome back to the dark ages of economics, folks. :lol:

"Value" is one of those things we should leave behind along with god and the dialectic.
Very well, then, with what do we replace it?

That is, how is it possible (even in principle) to calculate the exploitation of labor (or even to explain it) without a "theory of value"?

You can't seriously be suggesting that we "fall back" on "supply and demand", can you?

I'm as dissatisfied with the "labor theory of value" as anyone...but I can't see the absurdities of "supply and demand" as anything even remotely approaching an acceptable alternative.

Especially when we know that the "free market" with "unregulated competition" is as fictional as Santa Claus.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[antieverything]

Hardly, Marx's idea on use value is little different than the same value placed on commodities in capitalist society that makes any product worth something. Instead, however, that value is not measured directly by the supply and demand factors, and is instead directly related to labor time. In that sense, it is too, defined by supply and demand. A product or service in high demand would be likely to have more laborer's and thus overall labor time.
Little different? "Hardly"! These different conceptions of value are completely opposed--Marx's assuming a magical, intrinsic aspect of everything miraculously related to the amount of labor put in...the modern conception has value as a solely socially constructed aspect of an object that is determined by market forces and psychology. We can't, of course, fault Marx on this as the labor theory was the prevailing idea at the time. Labor theory of value--Flat Earth...same sort of thing.


The economic theory of Marx is perfectly sound and valid, and I intend to prove it.
Well, it seems we just can't have a conversation at all, now, can we? Of course, you'll inevitably run into a problem--you can't prove that value actually exists. Whoops! Do you really think you are any smarter than the legion of brilliant economists who have tried, and failed, to do the same thing in the past? The best you can do is make hugely complicated and entirely unconvincing apologies for the instances in which the LTV seems to fall apart. Do you think that the high price of diamonds is directy related to the labor hours DeBeers put into the task of warping public perception? All the marxist model could say is that it took labor to find the diamond deposits but in truth diamonds aren't all that rare!

Of course in a competitive market, prices naturally gravitate towards zero profit which is defined by the cost of labor and equipment. This is not to say that value is naturally that cost! There is no such thing as a natural cost, after all! Markets are completely human institutions that operate according to human laws and regulations. There's nothing magical about it.

[antieverything]

Very well, then, with what do we replace it?
Can't we just agree that value is an incredibly complicated mess involving tons of variables and we can never fully understand every aspect that goes into it?


That is, how is it possible (even in principle) to calculate the exploitation of labor (or even to explain it) without a "theory of value"?
I think that calculating exploitation is a misguided endeavor from the begining. Exploitation is readily apparent in human terms--and these terms are ultimately more meaningful for individuals. Why is it necessary to arrogantly claim we can calculate the exact dollar amount of exploitation when we can do something just as good much more confidently and convincingly--demonstrate how capitalism dehumanizes individuals by making them solely into units of production and consumption (the focus on production, after all, leaves much to be desired)?


I'm as dissatisfied with the "labor theory of value" as anyone...but I can't see the absurdities of "supply and demand" as anything even remotely approaching an acceptable alternative.
I'm curious as to your problem with supply and demand--perhaps you could post them here, direct me to something already written or send me a PM. Still, the point is that supply and demand (which is, by itself, deficient--as I have shown) doesn't even attempt to show "value" because value is socially created. In fact, it can be different for different people. Market value, on the other hand, is the product of specifics and situations as much as it is of "invisible" forces and such nonsense.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything
...the modern conception has value as a solely socially constructed aspect of an object that is determined by market forces and psychology.

I see..."supply and demand" with "psychology" as a "cover" for every time "supply and demand" doesn't work?

And you really wish to maintain that Marx's theory is "magical"?

It looks to me like you're stumbling around in the dark with the rest of us...


Can't we just agree that value is an incredibly complicated mess involving tons of variables and we can never fully understand every aspect that goes into it?

Well, we could agree on that for the moment...but would it not be preferable to really understand what's going on?

Perhaps the smallest details are too complicated to be grasped by the human mind...but surely a general understanding is possible.


I think that calculating exploitation is a misguided endeavor from the beginning. Exploitation is readily apparent in human terms--and these terms are ultimately more meaningful for individuals.

Yes, I should have chosen a better word than "calculating" (which probably is impossible). But we -- or at least some of us -- would like to be able to explain how and why exploitation takes place. Just observing that it "exists" -- and we don't know why -- is unsatisfying.

If exploitation can't be directly connected to the way capitalism actually functions, then who's to say that exploitation is not "inherent" in "all possible forms of production"?

That it's not "human nature" to exploit/be exploited?


I'm curious as to your problem with supply and demand...

That it's totally fictional. The best thing I've read on it is Steve Keen's Economics: the Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences. He "slices & dices" bourgeois economics with genuine relish.

Also, there's these folks...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=29005

I'm in sympathy with those who are presently skeptical of the classical "labor theory of value".

But I'm still awaiting a credible alternative.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[antieverything]

I see..."supply and demand" with "psychology" as a "cover" for every time "supply and demand" doesn't work?
Psychology always works into the equation (such as it is) because for something to have value it must first have a valuer. Trying to determine value independent of the valuer is a futile exercise if I've ever seen one. Scarcity, real or artificial, is a very real aspect in the determination of price...I don't see how you can just say supply and demand is fictional.


It looks to me like you're stumbling around in the dark with the rest of us...
Of course I am...the difference is that I recognize this while Marxists need to deny their ignorance. After all, if the scientific basis for the theory falls apart (even though this scientific basis is largely irrelevant to the bulk of Marxian analysis) they are "stumbling around in the dark" stripped of their magical "paradigm" without which they cannot claim intelectual superiority independant of reasoned demonstration!


Perhaps the smallest details are too complicated to be grasped by the human mind...but surely a general understanding is possible.
But the "general understanding" offered by LTV is a joke compared to modern economics--the basis of which at the very least is valid even if the "science" itself is little less than an organized church of capital.

Let's face it, the reluctance to move beyond an outmoded economic theory is rooted in the unwillingness to admit that Marxism isn't the holy grail of social analysis.


Yes, I should have chosen a better word than "calculating" (which probably is impossible). But we -- or at least some of us -- would like to be able to explain how and why exploitation takes place. Just observing that it "exists" -- and we don't know why -- is unsatisfying.

If exploitation can't be directly connected to the way capitalism actually functions, then who's to say that exploitation is not "inherent" in "all possible forms of production"?
I probably gave the impression that the nature of the capitalist system can't be directly tied to exploitation and dehumanization...I gave the wrong impression in that case--they can. Demonstrating exploitation isn't actually dependant on LTV. The general economic trends demonstrated in Das Kapital are still valid with a more subjective understanding of value. Competition is still competition and downward pressure on wages is still downward pressure on wages...wage slavery remains wage slavery. Exploitation can actually be shown in the simple fact that there is an alternative under which the vast majority of people would be better off--if the system maintains itself on human suffering (which can be shown independant of LTV) and it is possible to organize an economic system which doesn't (it is the task before us to prove this) than exploitation is visible from both an economic and ethical standpoint. I recommend the first chapter of "After Capitalism" by David Schweikart. I'll read the documents you linked but presently I need to find some food!

[NovelGentry]

Marx's assuming a magical, intrinsic aspect of everything miraculously related to the amount of labor put in...the modern conception has value as a solely socially constructed aspect of an object that is determined by market forces and psychology.

Marx's is hardly magical, and is far more pragmatic than the abstraction of how current value is figured. You do not see value as being a socially constructed aspect as a bad thing? It's not logical, nor useful, nor meaningful for socialist/communist society.


Markets are completely human institutions that operate according to human laws and regulations.

Precisely why value should not be defined by the meaningless market value placed on it.


Can't we just agree that value is an incredibly complicated mess involving tons of variables and we can never fully understand every aspect that goes into it?

We can. But such thinking will hardly create any sort of sustainable economic platform.


demonstrate how capitalism dehumanizes individuals by making them solely into units of production and consumption (the focus on production, after all, leaves much to be desired)?

This is something we should do, but it hardly can be used as an argument for the means of production being turned over to the hands of the working class. Sounds to me like you want more socially feasible capitalism, and with that argument, we can stop at that and have the best of both worlds.


Market value, on the other hand, is the product of specifics and situations as much as it is of "invisible" forces and such nonsense.

What are these invisible and magical forces you speak of? I hardly see labor time as invisible or magical.


Psychology always works into the equation (such as it is) because for something to have value it must first have a valuer.

While this may play into diamonds and ferrari's, ALL people value and need food. This seems to jump into the face of basic Marxism, in that you're denying the material necessities of men and taking value in the context of only that which is desired.


if the system maintains itself on human suffering (which can be shown independant of LTV) and it is possible to organize an economic system which doesn't (it is the task before us to prove this) than exploitation is visible from both an economic and ethical standpoint.

So then it's settled, we just want capitalism with a massive social safety net employed by the government!

While you're reading documents, check out:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6579/index.htm

I've linked it many times before. I'm not done reading all of it myself, but so far what I've seen seems to make a fair amount of sense.

[antieverything]

Marx's is hardly magical, and is far more pragmatic than the abstraction of how current value is figured. You do not see value as being a socially constructed aspect as a bad thing? It's not logical, nor useful, nor meaningful for socialist/communist society.
Pragmatism doesn't make something valid. Your logic seems to say that because LTV is more useful for a socialist argument it is somehow valid. I've heard the same logic from Christian apologists who say that putting God into the creation scenario makes things infinately more "logical" and elegant than the idea that creation is the arbitrary result of a single chemical reaction we know as the "big bang". Of course this argument is total crap because the more scientific inquiry into the physical world advances, the more we discover that our prior understanding was incredibly simplistic. The example of quantum mechanics (in which space and time are seemingly meaningless) shows just how messy things get as we look into them in greater detail. Reality is incredibly complex--whether it be physical reality or economic reality. Taking a shortcut because it makes everything work out doesn't prove validity, it proves that you are intelectually lazy and not above using circular logic to advance your argument.


Precisely why value should not be defined by the meaningless market value placed on it.
This does nothing to advance the idea that things have intrinsic value as a part of their nature.


We can. But such thinking will hardly create any sort of sustainable economic platform.
Reality has a way of screwing things up for idealogues...that's not my fault. Still, I disagree as I've seen it done!


What are these invisible and magical forces you speak of? I hardly see labor time as invisible or magical.
I was refering to market forces as invisible...obviously my point was that a simplistic conception of market dynamics is as false as the idea that value exists outside of the human mind.


While this may play into diamonds and ferrari's, ALL people value and need food. This seems to jump into the face of basic Marxism, in that you're denying the material necessities of men and taking value in the context of only that which is desired.
First, Marx's analysis doesn't only deal with food, clothes, and shelter...Das Kapital deals with luxury goods and (unconvincingly) relates them to the same universal laws of value. Second, even things that people need are valued differently by different people depending on their circumstances and psychological state.


So then it's settled, we just want capitalism with a massive social safety net employed by the government!
Who said that? There are many paths to a radical anti-capitalist conclusion. I suggest you try to understand that there is more to the world than rigid Marxist orthodoxy and there is more to Marxism itself than you seem to think. I'd defend my views on post-capitalist economic organization but I really don't have a starting point as your statement was utterly unfounded!

Ultimately we must get back to the original point--value can't be proven...you have to take it on faith. I'm afraid I'm not convinced by that sort of anti-intellectual garbage.

[NovelGentry]

Pragmatism doesn't make something valid. Your logic seems to say that because LTV is more useful for a socialist argument it is somehow valid.

This is not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that in socialist/communist society we're going to need something a little bit more real than psychology to base our value on. It's a matter of practicality. Or would you rather we entertain the same old aspects of capitalist society? Hell, at this rate we don't even need workers or any logical extension by which we can wage their labor and allow them to acquire the products of society. We can abandon it alltogether... we'll force the old bourgeoisie to work, and the products will be allotted based simply on who WANTS it the most.



Taking a shortcut because it makes everything work out doesn't prove validity, it proves that you are intelectually lazy and not above using circular logic to advance your argument.

I'm not saying we should take shortcuts, but I've yet to seen much better propositions.


This does nothing to advance the idea that things have intrinsic value as a part of their nature.

But they do, at least as a relation to man. But that is indeed who the socio-economic system should be catered to. We have material needs, and it is not logical that we all produce our own material needs and ignore social interaction based on them, thus we NEED a system of value, and I see no better way to judge value of a product than it's creation relative to man i.e. labor time.


Reality has a way of screwing things up for idealogues...that's not my fault. Still, I disagree as I've seen it done!

Where's that? I'm not aware of any economy which has ever downright ignored value with the excuse that it's something which "can never be fully understood." Whether or not the value is real or not, the value is still placed and at some point the value of the products acquired and used by people should form some sort of equilibrium with the value of the products produced by people. Whether we are conscious of this or not, is another question, but an economic critique would certainly take it into account.

Under socialism I would argue that we should be very aware of the value of the products, communism, it is less likely, as the productive forces will have advanced enough to the point where such blatant tagging of value does not exist, nor is it taken into account in every day life. But when we examine that system from the outside, we indeed must see how these values are "calculated" and how they fit into the acquiring of said products. Without that, and more to the point, without these two sides in balance, we will always see some starving and some getting extra, and such a system is not truly sustainable (even if it does have a long run).


I was refering to market forces as invisible...obviously my point was that a simplistic conception of market dynamics is as false as the idea that value exists outside of the human mind.

I'm not sure any market dynamics or the account of such believes this is the case. Indeed without people to use products there is no real value to them. So is there an absolute value? no, the value is ALWAYS something which is placed on the products by man, but with good reason, because these are the products OF man. The value of a car to anything but a wo/man is more than likely 0. But why would we ever assume otherwise? It's designed by man, created by man, and in the end is for man.

Thus I don't agree that market forces are invisible, nor should they be -- they should be as real and definable as man himself.


First, Marx's analysis doesn't only deal with food, clothes, and shelter...Das Kapital deals with luxury goods and (unconvincingly) relates them to the same universal laws of value.

Taken in the context of socialist/communist society they very much should be defined by the same universal laws. Why shouldn't they? they are produced and utilized very much the same in any advanced society with enough wealth. Then you have to go into defining what exactly defines a luxury item. Is a watch a luxury item? It keeps time, so you can be on time, so that you can get to your job on time, so that you can work, so that you can eat. As is a car for people who live in areas without public transportation and their work is too far for a bike or walking ot be feasible.

What it would seem you want us to do is to maintain the overt consumerism of capitalist society. Personally I think it will be a non-issue under communism and even advanced socialism. We will have progressed beyond that, and currently it is something which is only embedded in us as a fundamental requirement for societies like the US to function as they do.


Second, even things that people need are valued differently by different people depending on their circumstances and psychological state.

I agree, a starving man more highly values food than someone who eats regularly. The question isn't whether that is or would be the case, but SHOULD it be the case. My answer is no. So remove that aspect of value right off the bat, and what are you left with? The only thing that becomes truly definitive is the practical value of those items.


Who said that? There are many paths to a radical anti-capitalist conclusion. I suggest you try to understand that there is more to the world than rigid Marxist orthodoxy and there is more to Marxism itself than you seem to think. I'd defend my views on post-capitalist economic organization but I really don't have a starting point as your statement was utterly unfounded!

It was a statement to point out some of the absurdity of the idea that we seek primarily to fix the moral aspects of capitalism (dehumanization, danger of some working conditions, etc..). These are all problems which need to be addressed yes, and they are all problems that can be addressed by a truly communist society, but they are not the primary reasons why I am Marxist. Aside from all moral obligation to other men, communism WILL happen.


Ultimately we must get back to the original point--value can't be proven...you have to take it on faith. I'm afraid I'm not convinced by that sort of anti-intellectual garbage.

Once again, this is so utterly relative that your statements make a whole lot of sense, and none at all. The value of products to wo/men is very much driven by the type of society in general. Thus for each form of society value CAN be proven (but not very easily I might add for some forms). I agree, there is no absolute value, but we're not playing on absolute value -- if there was indeed such a thing, exploitation wouldn't even be able to be masked as it is under capitalism.

You equated an earlier argument I made (despite some misinterpretation) to the argument a similar argument held by Christians. Your argument seems little more than an argument held by capitalist, which maintains the capitalist society under the guise of fairness. It's easy to tell a worker their labor (and thus the products of their labor) have no definable value, but showing that to be the case is a whole other story. And I'm not sure about you, but if I'm being paid $8 an hour to shape metal into parts for a vehicle, and I make 100 parts per hour, and these parts go for $1, It's gonna be difficult for you to tell me that somehow my labor is only worth $8 for that hour when the products of my labor are apparently worth $100. This is something my father, as a machinist, was very well acquated with.

[antieverything]

This is not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that in socialist/communist society we're going to need something a little bit more real than psychology to base our value on. It's a matter of practicality.
We've all seen what happened to the supposedly labor-based value system of the former soviet union--it depended on prices set by international markets...apart from that it simply didn't work because labor is neither uniform nor uniformly valuable. Thankfully, we don't need a labor-hours based economy as the existing form of valuation works just fine in a socialist economy...why else would every "socialist" economy fall back on it?


I'm not saying we should take shortcuts, but I've yet to seen much better propositions.
There is plenty of non-Marxist, non-LTV based radical economics...I suggest you read some of it. I think you will find it to be much more convincing.


But they do, at least as a relation to man. But that is indeed who the socio-economic system should be catered to. We have material needs, and it is not logical that we all produce our own material needs and ignore social interaction based on them, thus we NEED a system of value, and I see no better way to judge value of a product than it's creation relative to man i.e. labor time.
We don't need a new system of value as people create their own values anyhow...these values are subjective. Any attempt to create objective measures of value will inevitably contradict with the real, existing subjective value held by each individual in each circumstance. There's a good reason why almost nobody buys LTV anymore...just because the subjective theory came packaged with capitalist apologetics doesn't mean the theory itself is invalid. Hell, LTV originated with Locke's justification of private property. Sure, tying value with labor time is neat and clean--but it just isn't the way things actually work. Whenever it becomes clouded labor theorists are forced to use hugely complicated excuses as to why things cost the way they do, invoking tons of different labor costs when in truth one could look at it and say that the price is the most profitable price determined by the relationship between production costs and the point at which price x number of buyers at this price is highest.


Where's that? I'm not aware of any economy which has ever downright ignored value with the excuse that it's something which "can never be fully understood." Whether or not the value is real or not, the value is still placed and at some point the value of the products acquired and used by people should form some sort of equilibrium with the value of the products produced by people. Whether we are conscious of this or not, is another question, but an economic critique would certainly take it into account.
Every economy in history ignores imaginary intrinsic value, instead operating on subjective determinations of value...even the Soviet Union relied on subjectively determined market prices. During the period where labor hours factored into the equation, the state was forced to subsidize and ration goods in order to deal with the problems of scarcity!


Thus I don't agree that market forces are invisible, nor should they be -- they should be as real and definable as man himself.
That's why I drew specific objection to the term "invisible" in my post...market forces are just a mystical way to give the determination I gave before--price at which production is most profitable (in the real world...which is to say, taking competition into account).


The value of a car to anything but a wo/man is more than likely 0.
So why is "actual" value different from use value? Because without it Marx couldn't so neatly prove his theories, that's why! In your example it is clear that use value is the true determiner of value, not labor hours!


It was a statement to point out some of the absurdity of the idea that we seek primarily to fix the moral aspects of capitalism (dehumanization, danger of some working conditions, etc..). These are all problems which need to be addressed yes, and they are all problems that can be addressed by a truly communist society, but they are not the primary reasons why I am Marxist. Aside from all moral obligation to other men, communism WILL happen.
These problems are directly related to the capitalist system in that they stem from class relations to the means of production. You don't need a magical value system to see that. You also don't need it to see that they can only be adaquetly addressed through revolutionary structural changes, namely the abolition of capitalism and the introduction of a democratically controlled economic system.


Without that, and more to the point, without these two sides in balance, we will always see some starving and some getting extra, and such a system is not truly sustainable (even if it does have a long run).
Why is that? It is obvious that the problems of deprivation are problems of distribution, not of valuation...the real problem is the warped valuation of human life, not of commodities. We can easily produce enough to supply the needs of all without attaching labor-based values to things people subjectively value anyway. If income is roughly equal, resources are distributed equally and scarce resources are distributed according to who values them more. Of course, this is a problem we can't hope to solve in capitalism...it isn't, after all, only a system of production.


I agree, a starving man more highly values food than someone who eats regularly. The question isn't whether that is or would be the case, but SHOULD it be the case. My answer is no. So remove that aspect of value right off the bat, and what are you left with? The only thing that becomes truly definitive is the practical value of those items.
Bingo! Practical value is the only thing we can determine. Your example however misses the point entirely. People with greater desire for an object (whether it is because of want or need) will always value that object more. You can't change that...you can only pretend to and in the process create an economy operating on imaginary terms. In socialism, of course, starvation isn't really an issue at all, regardless of the method of valuation.


And I'm not sure about you, but if I'm being paid $8 an hour to shape metal into parts for a vehicle, and I make 100 parts per hour, and these parts go for $1, It's gonna be difficult for you to tell me that somehow my labor is only worth $8 for that hour when the products of my labor are apparently worth $100. This is something my father, as a machinist, was very well acquated with.
Finally we can speak in material terms instead of ideologically-loaded jargon that really depends on presupostions we can't prove in the first place. Yes, this relationship is exploitative...it doesn't depend on a formulation of value at all, it depends on the individual's ability to reject situations and enact different situations. Let me explain...and try not to judge what I'm saying until I'm finished as some things may initially seem rather confrontational:

The products of your labor are worth $100 insofar as value can be determined. And, yes, your labor is worth $8 an hour insofar as value can be determined. So, yeah, I'm saying there's theoretically no problem with these valuations. There is, however, a problem outside of the realm of valuation and economics in that your labor is valued at $8 an hour because of a socio-economic system in which your labor is devalued because of your relationship to the means of production. Ethically speaking, of course, you can only quantify this exploitation by showing an alternative in which the exploitation isn't present.

We can do that in the example of a cooperative enterprise--a form of productive organization that can be proven viable and sustainable. Thus, the relationship is exploitative because it is an artificial institution maintained, ultimately through violence and coercion. It can be demonstrated, furthermore, that in a system absent of the capitalist, the resulting levels of management, and private ownership of the means of production itself your labor would be valued much closer to the value of the product of your labor. In fact, the value of your labor would be determined as the full product of your labor minus the other costs associated with the productive process--maintenance of the means of production as well as the cut the cooperative takes in order sustain itself.

Obviously, none of what I said in the counter-example directly contradicts LTV. LTV, however, depends on the value of the product of your labor being directly tied to the amount of labor put into it...this is unprovable and unconvincing and thus I reject it as unneccessary at best and preposterous at worst.

[NovelGentry]

We've all seen what happened to the supposedly labor-based value system of the former soviet union--it depended on prices set by international markets...apart from that it simply didn't work because labor is neither uniform nor uniformly valuable. Thankfully, we don't need a labor-hours based economy as the existing form of valuation works just fine in a socialist economy...why else would every "socialist" economy fall back on it?

This is a poor and misguided comparison to what I'm talking about. Furthermore, the collapse of the soviet union was hardly due to the necessity to fall back on a existing means of defining value. Read that paper I linked to earlier, it points out where the USSR went dreadfully wrong in it's implementation of Marxist economics.


There is plenty of non-Marxist, non-LTV based radical economics...I suggest you read some of it. I think you will find it to be much more convincing.

Of course, but abstracting the idea of "value" does little to end exploitation, and I would argue only contributes to making it possible.


We don't need a new system of value as people create their own values anyhow...these values are subjective. Any attempt to create objective measures of value will inevitably contradict with the real, existing subjective value held by each individual in each circumstance.

Unfortunately these subjective measure don't make sense for the production, distribution, and acquiring of goods and services. If they did, I'd be able to buy diamonds at little more than the cost of candy.


just because the subjective theory came packaged with capitalist apologetics doesn't mean the theory itself is invalid.

No it doesn't, nor have I relied on that as a primary argument. The fact is these subjective and individually related measures of value give way to exploitation, certainly not always, but where they do not give way to exploitation they will give way to what we see already in capitalism, which is a very UNSTABLE market. We feed into the booms and recessions and eventually watch it all collapse on itself when the subjective value of enough people turns to mush. Diamonds will hold little value when they can be mass produced for pennies, and this is why labor time is much more practical -- because it grows with the means of production and doesn't use some illusionary measurement of how bad people want something, because how bad people tend to want something has a lot to do with how difficult it is for the majority of people to get it (at least in consumerist societies). Once again, taken in the context of communism, such a drive will hardly exist (if at all), so what becomes of this subjective value that is now quite openly based on the "price" of production to begin with?


Sure, tying value with labor time is neat and clean--but it just isn't the way things actually work.

No, not under capitalism. I agree, and that is one of the flaws I agree with for the LTV, but part of using it as an argument is that is how we aim for things to work. Subjective values can be IGNORED to easily show the exploitation of men, if not for any other reason then simply because they are subjective.


Every economy in history ignores imaginary intrinsic value, instead operating on subjective determinations of value...even the Soviet Union relied on subjectively determined market prices. During the period where labor hours factored into the equation, the state was forced to subsidize and ration goods in order to deal with the problems of scarcity!

Every economy in history has given way to exploitation and the growth of class antagonisms, including the Soviet Union. Might I point out that the failure you mention of the soviet union has little to do with the economy and a hell of a lot more to do with the state of the means of production prior to and during revolution. Such issues would not be a problem in an advanced capitalist nations, which is of course what Marx argued communism to stem from.


So why is "actual" value different from use value? Because without it Marx couldn't so neatly prove his theories, that's why! In your example it is clear that use value is the true determiner of value, not labor hours!

As you have already pointed out, it's different because of the subjective forces. As I've already pointed out, Marx's LTV is really questionable for critiquing capitalist society, because in such society these subjective forces DO exist. It is far less questionable for defining a new system of economics, and by this, it is useful in pointing out the exploitation in spite of subjective forces. Starving African diamond miners don't give a damn about why you're willing to pay $8,000 for the polished stone they have a big part in bringing to your fiance's ring, but they have every right to care that their making an almost infinitely small fraction of that by bringing it there.


These problems are directly related to the capitalist system in that they stem from class relations to the means of production. You don't need a magical value system to see that. You also don't need it to see that they can only be adaquetly addressed through revolutionary structural changes, namely the abolition of capitalism and the introduction of a democratically controlled economic system.

Yes, but once again, it only makes for a strictly moral argument. "People are starving we need communism!" -- why are they starving? they don't have enough money for food. Two fixes, end the exploitation which uses them to produce more food than they can afford (the whole of the working class combining their paychecks could not buy the whole of the products they produce, food or otherwise), or regulate the industry and supply food at costs which are affordable to all. People who stop at socialism may opt for the second, and they will do this with most industries that constitute necessity... I'm not willing to stop at that, nor should any communist.


Why is that? It is obvious that the problems of deprivation are problems of distribution, not of valuation...the real problem is the warped valuation of human life, not of commodities. We can easily produce enough to supply the needs of all without attaching labor-based values to things people subjectively value anyway. If income is roughly equal, resources are distributed equally and scarce resources are distributed according to who values them more. Of course, this is a problem we can't hope to solve in capitalism...it isn't, after all, only a system of production.

I agree, and the LTV matches this. If we use a average social hour of labor, we have effectively equalized pay without the abstraction of money. Distribution would be solved naturally the way it is now. If a store NEEDS more food, because more people are getting food, they call up the distribution center an order it. These necessities should never be a scarcity, thus such a means of distribution works just as dandy under socialism/communism. If indeed there is a scarcity, it should never be brought down to who values it more. It should be equally shared, period. If there are not enough cars so everyone can have a car, then all cars should be put towards public transportation, and thus all people can equally utilize their purpose. This is apparently the fundamental difference between our beliefs, you believe that on some level we must maintain this subjective value... I do not. Nor do I think such a thing will ever be indicative of a truly free society.


Bingo! Practical value is the only thing we can determine. Your example however misses the point entirely. People with greater desire for an object (whether it is because of want or need) will always value that object more. You can't change that...you can only pretend to and in the process create an economy operating on imaginary terms. In socialism, of course, starvation isn't really an issue at all, regardless of the method of valuation.

False. The fact alone that over time most people (I woudl argue all) take things for granted disproves your first point. They will not ALWAYS value that object more, and if you buy into any number of other philosophies you may believe, as I do, that acquiring that object alone decreases it's value to that person. As such, it is foolish to maintin this type of reasoning. Does this mean people won't necessarily want something more than someone else? no... but that doesn't need to affect it's value or availability to both people. If you believe that people will remain so selfish no matter what the socio-economic conditions are, I'm not sure how you even think communism would ever be possible. Hell, maybe you don't, you haven't really clarified as of yet.

False too in saying that under socialism starvation isn't an issue. Socialism does not cure starvation, it only equalizes it, if starvation is a problem for a few it is a problem for all.


In fact, the value of your labor would be determined as the full product of your labor minus the other costs associated with the productive process--maintenance of the means of production as well as the cut the cooperative takes in order sustain itself.

Under socialism, I agree, but even still there is no reason to divide labor as such. The people at the power plant in a broader perspective can be seen as workers for that company. They are paid to sustain the electricity required for these products to be produced. This is what happens when you centralize credit and take it out of the hands of separate cooperatives/corporations. With such centralized credit (meaning money aswell as credit in the nature of loans) the system becomes one fully autonomous system. Thus the cost to sustain a cooperative need not affect the the overall value of the labor. The "cooperative" makes no such payment for electricity, etc... or any other "costs of business." And why should they?


Obviously, none of what I said in the counter-example directly contradicts LTV. LTV, however, depends on the value of the product of your labor being directly tied to the amount of labor put into it...this is unprovable and unconvincing and thus I reject it as unneccessary at best and preposterous at worst.

When the cost of the products you need is determined in the exact same fashion it is not only "provable" in the sense that it works, it's beyond convincing. Your labor time buy's labor time. For an hours worth of work at a power plant you can afford an hours worth of work on a farm, etc..etc. As such your labor is as much as you need to survive if you were to diversify your time and energy into partaking in creating all the products you need to sustain yourself.

[Monty Cantsin]

antieverything i havent read it all so i dont know if someone told you but you're mixing up value and price there not one in the same.

[antieverything]

This is a poor and misguided comparison to what I'm talking about. Furthermore, the collapse of the soviet union was hardly due to the necessity to fall back on a existing means of defining value. Read that paper I linked to earlier, it points out where the USSR went dreadfully wrong in it's implementation of Marxist economics.
I didn't say it was...interestingly enough, however, it was partly due to a lack of an appreciable incentive structure and the inability to produce and impliment new technologies.


Of course, but abstracting the idea of "value" does little to end exploitation, and I would argue only contributes to making it possible.
I've already shown that demonstrating exploitation is not dependant on a system of value in economic theory...at best the Marxist critique is lacking a counter-factual. My counter-example, on the other hand presents a reasonable counter-factual.

Especially seeing as the concept of exploitation is really a value judgement (in the ethical sense) based on a comparison of capitalism to previous modes of production it seems odd that one can seriously attempt to prove it with "science". I've said it once and I'll say it again: you cannot demonstrate exploitation without presenting an alternative model and making a value judgement. If nothing else, Marx's methodology in this respect is flawed.


Unfortunately these subjective measure don't make sense for the production, distribution, and acquiring of goods and services. If they did, I'd be able to buy diamonds at little more than the cost of candy.
I said that individual use values vary according to situation. Market price, however, is a single value for all buyers though general willingness to pay plays a role in the formulation of price. You choose not to buy diamonds because you personally value them at little more than the price of candy. Those who do buy diamonds do so because they value them higher. Though this begins to sound like marginal utility, I assure you it isn't. Marginal utility theory also attaches absolute values based on market prices and in doing so attaches arbitrary, ideologically-driven value judgements in order to justify capitalism. Marxist economics make the same error but in a way intended to undermine capitalism's credibility.


Diamonds will hold little value when they can be mass produced for pennies, and this is why labor time is much more practical -- because it grows with the means of production and doesn't use some illusionary measurement of how bad people want something, because how bad people tend to want something has a lot to do with how difficult it is for the majority of people to get it (at least in consumerist societies). Once again, taken in the context of communism, such a drive will hardly exist (if at all), so what becomes of this subjective value that is now quite openly based on the "price" of production to begin with?
You assume a complete lack or scarcity in a communist society...the reason we speak in economic terms in the first place is because it is the study of scarcity. Scarcity always exists as the planet is a finite resource!


Subjective values can be IGNORED to easily show the exploitation of men, if not for any other reason then simply because they are subjective.
I already showed that you don't need any objective theory of value to demonstrate exploitation. Exploitation is structural and is thus best discussed in structural, not strictly economic, terms. Actually my counter-demonstration of exploitation deals with the basic ideas of structural economics which is a very interesting way to look at how wages and prices are determined...it is certainly much less of a psuedo-science than the economics schools dealing with abstract models and forces instead of very real structures that can be studied with a social scientific approach. I'm interested in seeing what this school of economic thought can turn up in the future!


Might I point out that the failure you mention of the soviet union has little to do with the economy and a hell of a lot more to do with the state of the means of production prior to and during revolution. Such issues would not be a problem in an advanced capitalist nations, which is of course what Marx argued communism to stem from.
The only failure I mentioned was the failure of LTV-based valuation to produce a viable economic system. It was tried, it did fail, and it failed for very specific reasons!


Yes, but once again, it only makes for a strictly moral argument. "People are starving we need communism!" -- why are they starving? they don't have enough money for food. Two fixes, end the exploitation which uses them to produce more food than they can afford (the whole of the working class combining their paychecks could not buy the whole of the products they produce, food or otherwise), or regulate the industry and supply food at costs which are affordable to all. People who stop at socialism may opt for the second, and they will do this with most industries that constitute necessity... I'm not willing to stop at that, nor should any communist.
Look, I gave you what I consider to be a perfectly good example of exploitation demonstrated in structural economic terms...still, this exploitation can only be considered exploitation (a value judgement) in relation to an example in which the exploitation isn't present. Both examples (mine and the traditional Marxist one) make value judgements about labor and capital...in fact they make the same judgements. The difference is that mine is a valid ethical argument backed up with sound, provable economics while Marx's is methodologically flawed!


I agree, and the LTV matches this. If we use a average social hour of labor, we have effectively equalized pay without the abstraction of money. Distribution would be solved naturally the way it is now. If a store NEEDS more food, because more people are getting food, they call up the distribution center an order it. These necessities should never be a scarcity, thus such a means of distribution works just as dandy under socialism/communism. If indeed there is a scarcity, it should never be brought down to who values it more. It should be equally shared, period. If there are not enough cars so everyone can have a car, then all cars should be put towards public transportation, and thus all people can equally utilize their purpose. This is apparently the fundamental difference between our beliefs, you believe that on some level we must maintain this subjective value... I do not. Nor do I think such a thing will ever be indicative of a truly free society.
You are exactly right--there is a fundamental difference between our views. You, on one hand, deny the problem of scarcity and propose we create an economic system without proper incentive structures while I propose a system that deals effectively with scarcity and can be shown as far as can be expected to be viable and sustainable and at the same time doesn't require taking anything on faith. I suppose I have more faith in the intelligence and critical ability of normal people to see past bullshit. Many people, after all, have much more to lose than their chains.


False. The fact alone that over time most people (I woudl argue all) take things for granted disproves your first point. They will not ALWAYS value that object more, and if you buy into any number of other philosophies you may believe, as I do, that acquiring that object alone decreases it's value to that person. As such, it is foolish to maintin this type of reasoning. Does this mean people won't necessarily want something more than someone else? no... but that doesn't need to affect it's value or availability to both people. If you believe that people will remain so selfish no matter what the socio-economic conditions are, I'm not sure how you even think communism would ever be possible. Hell, maybe you don't, you haven't really clarified as of yet.
This sort of thinking assumes that there will always be a superabundance of everything...without a mechanism sensative to supply and demand it is difficult (probably impossible) to determine how much of what should be produced where and when. This is all very basic, of course...it can be argued that there are participatory planning models to achieve such a mechanism but I really don't think they are necessary (at best) or are unworkable (at worst). If you've ever read about Parecon, you've probably noticed that it requires pre-planned consumption by every household in advance...ouch! Of course, the Parecon gang are working on a real problem that far too many radicals, such as yourself, would rather ignore. The problem of production is a big one--it can't be set aside and it certainly won't sort itself out on its own! At the very least we have to deal with it in order to convince the masses we aren't setting them up for a fall. What do I propose? I don't think it is the time or the place for that as I feel my critique is valid independant of my specific thoughts on post-capitalist economic organization.


False too in saying that under socialism starvation isn't an issue. Socialism does not cure starvation, it only equalizes it, if starvation is a problem for a few it is a problem for all.
Fact: every country in the world has enough food to feed its people. Fact: if basic, non-meat food was distributed equally across the world it would equal out to over 2 pounds of food per person per day...do you still think I'm wrong?


Under socialism, I agree, but even still there is no reason to divide labor as such. The people at the power plant in a broader perspective can be seen as workers for that company. They are paid to sustain the electricity required for these products to be produced. This is what happens when you centralize credit and take it out of the hands of separate cooperatives/corporations. With such centralized credit (meaning money aswell as credit in the nature of loans) the system becomes one fully autonomous system. Thus the cost to sustain a cooperative need not affect the the overall value of the labor. The "cooperative" makes no such payment for electricity, etc... or any other "costs of business." And why should they?
Money, in a socialist society, is simply (1) a way of dealing with scarcity (2) a way of encouraging efficiency (say what you like about efficiency, waste kills the planet). Why should the cooperative have to pay for electricity? To ensure that they use as little electricity as possible, that's why! The amount of electricity produced--especially in an environmentally friendly society--is always finite.


antieverything i havent read it all so i dont know if someone told you but you're mixing up value and price there not one in the same.
I think you misunderstand my point though you do make a valid objection at some level--in my latter posts I started to use price and value interchangeably. This is misleading, yes, but I don't think it is "wrong" in that I have previously rejected the idea that value is a real, existing aspect of commodities anyway. I think that my statements, if read carefully, are internally consistant though I admit they certainly aren't clear enough to present in a serious (for instance, academic) setting.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything
You assume a complete lack of scarcity in a communist society...the reason we speak in economic terms in the first place is because it is the study of scarcity. Scarcity always exists as the planet is a finite resource!


You, on one hand, deny the problem of scarcity and propose we create an economic system without proper incentive structures while I propose a system that deals effectively with scarcity and can be shown as far as can be expected to be viable and sustainable and at the same time doesn't require taking anything on faith.


This sort of thinking assumes that there will always be a superabundance of everything...without a mechanism sensitive to supply and demand it is difficult (probably impossible) to determine how much of what should be produced where and when.


Money, in a socialist society, is simply (1) a way of dealing with scarcity (2) a way of encouraging efficiency (say what you like about efficiency, waste kills the planet). Why should the cooperative have to pay for electricity? To ensure that they use as little electricity as possible, that's why! The amount of electricity produced--especially in an environmentally friendly society--is always finite.

I suppose, in a way, you're right. Marxists do assume a finite but very large amount of resources will be available..."super-abundance" might be one good term for it.

I think this is a reasonable assumption because of the enormous waste associated with class society -- swollen state and corporate bureaucracies, military and luxury production, etc.

I see, in fact, no reason for the production of diamonds (or much else) at all.

Getting rid of the crap ought to yield sufficient surpluses to make "to each according to his need" a practical possibility (in a technologically advanced country, of course).

Shortages may exist from time to time for particularly desirable items...in which case, people who want those items will simply have to join their efforts to produce them or accept rationing of those items. Labor will have a tendency to flow towards producing what people are unwilling to do without...without regard to the absence of money.

Likewise, labor would tend to flow away from producing that which is in vast over-supply...people would see further efforts as pointless.

Perhaps this voluntary shifting of labor back and forth would be less efficient than market/price mechanisms...I really don't know.

But any proposed alternative to communism -- where all labor must be voluntary -- must retain that crucial characteristic or is otherwise not worth fighting for...or even arguing for.

If wage-slavery is not to be abolished...then what's the point?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[antieverything]

suppose, in a way, you're right. Marxists do assume a finite but very large amount of resources will be available..."super-abundance" might be one good term for it.
If goods are produced according to demand that means there is less overproduction and hence less work overall.


I think this is a reasonable assumption because of the enormous waste associated with class society -- swollen state and corporate bureaucracies, military and luxury production, etc.
This waste is currently killing our planet...wanton overproduction in a socialist society would continue to kill the planet! Coupling this overproduction with inefficient production and distribution methods is not in the interests of the people or the planet!


Likewise, labor would tend to flow away from producing that which is in vast over-supply...people would see further efforts as pointless.
I'm still assuming global exchange of goods and services. Your observation only stands up in a small communal model in which producers and consumers are not only the same class but the exact same individuals! Of course, I'm not saying that such a model isn't valid or isn't workable...I simply don't think it is desirable or necessary.


Perhaps this voluntary shifting of labor back and forth would be less efficient than market/price mechanisms...I really don't know.
It certainly would be, seeing as the overlap of producers and consumers is never complete except in a small-scale communal model.


But any proposed alternative to communism -- where all labor must be voluntary -- must retain that crucial characteristic or is otherwise not worth fighting for...or even arguing for.
It will take plenty of work to create the material conditions in which a pure, communist society can be workable...this must take place in a reasoned shift of wealth from global north to global south and from region to region as well as a radical change in the way we think about the world and our relationship to it and to one another. These things just don't happen, at least I don't have faith that they can happen satisfactorily without a transitional program. In fact, I don't have faith in the possibility of such a scheme at all--utopian experiments have a way of falling apart at best and killing lots of people at worst. I also don't expect people to sign onto something they can't be completely sure of.

As to an imperfect but workable model of socialism being "not worth fighting for...or even arguing for"--this statement is simply absurd and you know it! Tell that to the billions of people who are being murdered, in one way or another, by the current system. Tell that to the alienated, dehumanized workers from every corner of the globe. Tell that to the youth who are tormented by their desire for freedom--who want a real solution, not a perfect ideal.

What about a 4-hour day and industrial democracy isn't worth fighting for? What about production based on human need isn't worth fighting for? What about global guaranteed employment, housing, and healthcare isn't worth fighting for? These things are all worth fighting for--they are all worth dying for. Many people have died fighting just so that we can see these things as possible. So, with all due respect (seriously), don't be an arrogant ass and trivialize the hope for a just world today--a hope that goes beyond a just ideal alone. I think this sort of talk fits perfectly into what Marx refered to as nihilistic socialism. Revolution requires active participation and understanding by the masses--it is necessary that a real, demonstratably workable alternative exist or people will dismiss your ideas as a utopian exercise in futility. That's my opinion, anyway, and I think the parameters of the debate between us are pretty much stuck here though I respect your ideas fully.


If wage-slavery is not to be abolished...then what's the point?
I actually think that in practice the sort of society I concieve of would be more conducive to the free development of one and all. You can call me counter-revolutionary or whatever till you are blue in the face...I don't really care about the intricacies of marxist vocabulary--I'm more concerned with justice.

[NovelGentry]

I didn't say it was...interestingly enough, however, it was partly due to a lack of an appreciable incentive structure and the inability to produce and impliment new technologies.

Well this is what you get when you appeal to widespread reactionary thought for revolution. The fact is, Russian imperialism, starving peasants, and the power struggle for bourgeois thinkers who eventually became part of the provisional government gave Russia's revolution large reactionary appeal. Everyone had a reason to be mad, and Lenin promised Peace, Bread, and Freedom -- what's not to like about the sound of that?

I agree completely that reactionary people want "incentive" and the USSR didn't supply it at all really until the NEP and then it ended less than a decade later.

The USSR would seem doomed from the start from the point of view of the fastidious Marxist. Hence why it's a misguided example -- whether you said it was or not, it IS and I don't think it should be brought into the picture.

Unless you're trying to argue (like the capitalists do) that communism was proven unsuccessful by the USSR.


I've already shown that demonstrating exploitation is not dependant on a system of value in economic theory...at best the Marxist critique is lacking a counter-factual. My counter-example, on the other hand presents a reasonable counter-factual.

Yes, you do, and I've said before that appealing to the moral aspects of exploitation, the dehumanization etc.. is not going to get us very far. It will gain large support from "reactionary communists" (and yes, I realize that appears to be a contradiction of terms, but it's meant to be, to show that there are those who are that misguided about the truths of communism) -- and reactionaries in general, but it will do little to create a TRULY conscious and revolutionary people.


Especially seeing as the concept of exploitation is really a value judgement (in the ethical sense) based on a comparison of capitalism to previous modes of production it seems odd that one can seriously attempt to prove it with "science". I've said it once and I'll say it again: you cannot demonstrate exploitation without presenting an alternative model and making a value judgement. If nothing else, Marx's methodology in this respect is flawed.

There you go with that ethics stuff again. But let me address the last sentence. Do you not think the labor theory of value presents an alternative as much as it tries to be a critique of capitalism? I agree, it does little alone as just the critique, but it is above and beyond a critique of capitalism, it is a grounds for a new way of determining value. One which is far more sustainable (possibly indefinitely so). See some of my points in the other thread in my debate with Praxus.


I said that individual use values vary according to situation. Market price, however, is a single value for all buyers though general willingness to pay plays a role in the formulation of price. You choose not to buy diamonds because you personally value them at little more than the price of candy. Those who do buy diamonds do so because they value them higher. Though this begins to sound like marginal utility, I assure you it isn't. Marginal utility theory also attaches absolute values based on market prices and in doing so attaches arbitrary, ideologically-driven value judgements in order to justify capitalism. Marxist economics make the same error but in a way intended to undermine capitalism's credibility.

I agree with the last chunk about Marginal Utility and all that. But as I just said and tried to imply or possibly said before, I agree that it fails as a critique standing simply as a critique, but it shines as a critique by offering us a new method.

The first part is applicable only to certain types of economics and certain forms of society. I'm not saying you're saying this, but just pointing out that it's foolish to think this is how ALL price, and essentially value must be determined.


You assume a complete lack or scarcity in a communist society...the reason we speak in economic terms in the first place is because it is the study of scarcity. Scarcity always exists as the planet is a finite resource!

Redstar seems to be addressing this, and I trust very much in what he is saying and more than likely what he will say.


I already showed that you don't need any objective theory of value to demonstrate exploitation.

And I already showed you that despite not needing any objective theory of value to demonstrate exploitation, we do need an objective theory of value to change much of that exploitation, in the sense that having a distorted and unviable system as the USSR had will do little to end class society.


The only failure I mentioned was the failure of LTV-based valuation to produce a viable economic system. It was tried, it did fail, and it failed for very specific reasons!

It was tried, but it did not fail because of the weakness of the LTV, it failed because the LTV does not account specifically for the form of exploitation which you're talking about, nor is the LTV designed to make sense in a system that has yet to work through capitalism. Once again, it was a misguided example.


Look, I gave you what I consider to be a perfectly good example of exploitation demonstrated in structural economic terms...still, this exploitation can only be considered exploitation (a value judgement) in relation to an example in which the exploitation isn't present. Both examples (mine and the traditional Marxist one) make value judgements about labor and capital...in fact they make the same judgements. The difference is that mine is a valid ethical argument backed up with sound, provable economics while Marx's is methodologically flawed!

I'm not sure why economics has to be a compliment to valid ethical arguments. They are two very different things, and the only time in which they seem to cross is the idea of mixed economies that try and apply some social compromise for the sake of soothing agitation. It should be a strictly material argument, one which makes sense for the material things alone. The ethical consequences of such a system do not exist because of that system alone, but because of the political nature involved with that system. This is why Marx has works title "Critique of Political Economy."


Fact: every country in the world has enough food to feed its people. Fact: if basic, non-meat food was distributed equally across the world it would equal out to over 2 pounds of food per person per day...do you still think I'm wrong?

Yes, I do think you're wrong. Not so much on the second "Fact" but on your first supposed "Fact." This was a problem Cuba had and continues to have to some extent this very day. It seems strange, however, that you talk about this apparent overabundance right after talking about the accounting of scarcity. I didn't respond to the other meat of that argument because as I said before, Redstar seems to be handling it.


Money, in a socialist society, is simply (1) a way of dealing with scarcity (2) a way of encouraging efficiency (say what you like about efficiency, waste kills the planet). Why should the cooperative have to pay for electricity? To ensure that they use as little electricity as possible, that's why! The amount of electricity produced--especially in an environmentally friendly society--is always finite.

Somewhat true, but very simply you're ruling out the profit aspects. Scarcity is not strictly caused by lack of productive forces. If this were the case layoffs wouldn't really occur except when the work of two men can be replaced by one, in which case you're not changing the amount being produced, only the amount of labor required to produce it.


I think you misunderstand my point though you do make a valid objection at some level--in my latter posts I started to use price and value interchangeably. This is misleading, yes, but I don't think it is "wrong" in that I have previously rejected the idea that value is a real, existing aspect of commodities anyway. I think that my statements, if read carefully, are internally consistant though I admit they certainly aren't clear enough to present in a serious (for instance, academic) setting.

Just to hop on this. I agree with what you're saying, obviously except for the objective value portion, as I do believe there is some objective form of value. But I realized what you meant, and personally I would argue depending on the economic system that there IS a relation between value and price, and given a proper economic system they should be the same. Under capitalism this just isn't the case because of the subjective influence.

Once agian, you should read my other argument with Praxus... I think it branched from the thread on sports in communism under OI.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything
If goods are produced according to demand that means there is less overproduction and hence less work overall.

But you yourself have spent many words in this thread on the impossibly subjective definition of "demand"...and I don't think you even mentioned the physical difficulty of actually obtaining the "demanded" commodity as one of the elements.

A market mechanism doesn't measure "demand" either...except in terms of "whoever has the most money can probably get whatever they want".

Perhaps a quantum computer (if a working model is ever built) will be able to determine "demand" in an objective and accurate way.

Until that or something like that happens, we will always over-produce one thing and under-produce something else.


This waste is currently killing our planet...wanton overproduction in a socialist society would continue to kill the planet!

Why? That is, why do you assume that a revolutionary society would over-produce environmentally destructive commodities?

Perhaps it would...what do you think we should "stop making"? Or make a lot less of?


I'm still assuming global exchange of goods and services.

Indeed...and again I ask why? However "efficient" (profitable) it has been for the capitalist class, it does not seem to have done a great deal to improve people's lives in either the exporting or the importing countries.

The anti-globalization movement did not originate because some people are just bad-tempered, chronic complainers.

I rather think "world trade" will be, for the most part, in the realm of techniques -- how to make something if you want to where you live. People will not move raw materials around the world unless there is no existing substitute yet.

And I think people will look very hard for those substitutes.


Your observation only stands up in a small communal model in which producers and consumers are not only the same class but the exact same individuals!

Well, shouldn't that be the case...at least roughly?

Shouldn't a communal polis be able to produce most of what it needs? Shouldn't food, clothing, shelter, transportation, even entertainment, etc. be taken care of mostly on a local level?

Sure, some "high-tech" stuff might be imported...as well as raw materials unavailable in your area, perhaps specialty food items, etc.

Who knows, perhaps beef will become a "rare treat"...but you can raise pigs and poultry everywhere. And perhaps even raise a breed of "miniature cattle" locally.


It will take plenty of work to create the material conditions in which a pure, communist society can be workable...this must take place in a reasoned shift of wealth from global north to global south and from region to region as well as a radical change in the way we think about the world and our relationship to it and to one another.

This seems very fuzzy to me...and will require an enormous bureaucracy to develop the "reasons" at least.

In my opinion, the transfer will be very abrupt -- on the "day after the revolution", we -- in an advanced capitalist country -- voluntarily renounce all titles and rights to all wealth located in other countries, period. Likewise, we cancel all debts "owed" to "us" by countries in the third world.

What they decide to do with that oil field or that automated factory is henceforth up to them.


In fact, I don't have faith in the possibility of such a scheme at all--utopian experiments have a way of falling apart at best and killing lots of people at worst. I also don't expect people to sign onto something they can't be completely sure of.

You would seem to be implying here that the USSR, China and possibly Cambodia were "utopian experiments" gone sour.

But with the exception of Cambodia, it seems to me that the USSR and China in practice did mostly what you want to do.

That is, aside from brief "utopian eruptions", they proceeded in a very "reasonable" way to maximize both development and profitability. And while they certainly had their failures, they also had their successes.

Indeed, I would expect you to look with considerable favor on China today...its economy under a limited market mechanism is "booming" and, for the lucky winners at least, their standards are approaching that of the U.S. circa 1925.


As to an imperfect but workable model of socialism being "not worth fighting for...or even arguing for"--this statement is simply absurd and you know it!

No, I do not "know it's absurd"...I meant every word of it.


Tell that to the billions of people who are being murdered, in one way or another, by the current system. Tell that to the alienated, dehumanized workers from every corner of the globe. Tell that to the youth who are tormented by their desire for freedom--who want a real solution, not a perfect ideal.

I do tell them...insofar as the internet makes that possible.

Because your "imperfect but workable" model of socialism will inevitably re-create exactly what we have now.

It may unfortunately be the case that in the course of the twists and turns of history, people may have to "go through" several versions of the USSR/China before they learn that it doesn't really "work" after all. Or, to be more precise, doesn't work except to the degree that it resembles what we have now.

I wonder if what you really find "distasteful" about Marx is not so much an esoteric dispute over the nature (or even existence) of "value", but a much more fundamental dispute -- namely, whether it is possible/desirable to break with all the assumptions of class society.


What about a 4-hour day and industrial democracy isn't worth fighting for? What about production based on human need isn't worth fighting for? What about global guaranteed employment, housing, and healthcare isn't worth fighting for?

Those would all be nice things to have, no doubt.

But without the abolition of wage slavery, they are only so many velcro chains and shaded auction blocks.

You see the struggle as one for improvement in the conditions of the working class; I see it as one for emancipation of the working class.


So, with all due respect (seriously), don't be an arrogant ass and trivialize the hope for a just world today--a hope that goes beyond a just ideal alone.

"Arrogant ass" I may be -- I've been called worse -- but I will say what I think is true even if the whole world disagrees.


...it is necessary that a real, demonstrably workable alternative exist or people will dismiss your ideas as a utopian exercise in futility.

A commonly expressed view; that is, unless we have a "workable vision", people will "ignore us".

I disagree. I think that unless we have a "vision of emancipation" -- however "utopian" it may sound now -- people will assume that we're all just another bunch of hustlers after power and wealth...like all the rest of the bastards.

We'll see who's right.


You can call me counter-revolutionary or whatever till you are blue in the face...I don't really care about the intricacies of marxist vocabulary--I'm more concerned with justice.

The "intricacies of Marxist vocabulary" are not required; I just think you're wrong.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[antieverything]

I haven't had the will to get back into this as it appears to be fairly futile on both ends...however I feel I should at very least respond. I think that we are nearing the end of possible discourse on the topic and in the next few posts we should be able to tie the ends as to what we disagree on and why.


But you yourself have spent many words in this thread on the impossibly subjective definition of "demand"...and I don't think you even mentioned the physical difficulty of actually obtaining the "demanded" commodity as one of the elements.
I refer you to something I said before:

...in truth one could look at it and say that the price is the most profitable [value] determined by the relationship between production costs and the point at which price x [meaning "multiplied by"] number of buyers at this price is highest.


A market mechanism doesn't measure "demand" either...except in terms of "whoever has the most money can probably get whatever they want"
Markets are actually quite good at providing an abundance of high quality, low cost goods, in this respect far outstripping a command system. Capitalism has proved to be the most dynamic system in history for creating consumer goods...the problems of markets in capitalism are related to the maldistribution of wealth. Those who are able to play the game, at least in the realm of consumption, tend to do just fine. The structural trends of the capitalist system, of course, create another set of problems entirely but this isn't what we are discussing. So, to summarize, your statement is a bit misleading and I think you know it.


Perhaps a quantum computer (if a working model is ever built) will be able to determine "demand" in an objective and accurate way.
Perhaps, but in regard to direct consumer demand an equation would require vast amounts of human variables to be constantly entered. This would probably end up looking something like Parecon where everyone magically knows exactly what they plan on consuming a year in advance. Still, I'm not counting out the computers...capitalist firms do this sort of thing all the time, internally. The former head economist of the World Bank (and current critic of it), Joseph Stiglitz, has written some interesting things on the subject in his promotion of a odd sort of state-managed (read command-inspired) market capitalism...to each their own, I suppose.


Until that or something like that happens, we will always over-produce one thing and under-produce something else
Undoubtedly. The argument is that a non-capitalist market would be better at gauging demand than a command system...and perhaps better than anything else out there at this point in human history.


Why? That is, why do you assume that a revolutionary society would over-produce environmentally destructive commodities?
The issue is reducing the environmental footprint in general. The productive process, by its very nature creates an environmental footprint. Inefficient pruductive practices make an environmental footprint that is larger than necessary (use more water than would be used otherwise). Of course, a locally-based, small-scale, mutualist-communist society would most likely not produce enough to do a huge amount of damage, provided people were very concientious(sp?) about it. Or, alternatively, it could produce everything on a small scale, locally which would ultimately be less efficient and more destructive.


Indeed...and again I ask why? However "efficient" (profitable) it has been for the capitalist class, it does not seem to have done a great deal to improve people's lives in either the exporting or the importing countries.
Actually, "Americans"--even "poor" residents of the United States--benefit richly from the exploitation of the third world. It is one of the reasons the standard of living is maintained despite the economy's focus on military equipment and prisons.


The anti-globalization movement did not originate because some people are just bad-tempered, chronic complainers.
No, it arose because some people opposed the trend of corporate globalization which has little to do with trade and lots to do with empirialism, etc.


I rather think "world trade" will be, for the most part, in the realm of techniques -- how to make something if you want to where you live. People will not move raw materials around the world unless there is no existing substitute yet.
What about raw materials? What about advanced medical equipment? Someone has to produce these and I certainly doubt everyone will produce them, after all, it would be easier to get them from somewhere that can make them in abundance. Of course the workers in the mines and factories producing important things every decent society needs (and would want) would resent working more to produce things for people they didn't know who offered nothing in return, wouldn't they? I'm all for local sustainability but the very basic issues of mass production--something capitalism made possible and something that socialism can finally utilize for the public good--simply don't disappear after the revolution. The hospital has to get medicine and highly expensive, technically advanced equipment, computers (especially magical market-busting quantum computers) need chips, etc.


And I think people will look very hard for those substitutes.
And I think people will do the natural thing and organize a method of mutual exchange that benefits everyone involved.


Well, shouldn't that be the case...at least roughly?

Shouldn't a communal polis be able to produce most of what it needs? Shouldn't food, clothing, shelter, transportation, even entertainment, etc. be taken care of mostly on a local level?
Yes and no...simply put, it isn't as simple as you make it out to be. And even in the smallest workable model of such a system, consumers and producers will never be the exactsame individuals. Some method for facilitating mutual exchange must be put in place...either that or we just trust to people's goodwill (remember, as I said, this means working more for people you don't know and who didn't contribute anything to your production).


This seems very fuzzy to me...and will require an enormous bureaucracy to develop the "reasons" at least.
Not necessarily...all it would really require is social control of investment based on a per capita basis. It certainly wouldn't rival the army of managers and pencil-pushers created by capitalism for no reason other than class warfare (as research into the development of the productive process and automation shows). Economic Democracy requires new institutions, of course, but these wouldn't be more than glorified, democratically accountable public investment banks cooperating with a larger-scale (democratically created) investment plan. If such a plan were targeted at reversing the trends of capital concentration, traditional communist aims such as blurring the line between urban and rural would fall into place naturally.


In my opinion, the transfer will be very abrupt -- on the "day after the revolution", we -- in an advanced capitalist country -- voluntarily renounce all titles and rights to all wealth located in other countries, period. Likewise, we cancel all debts "owed" to "us" by countries in the third world.
How exactly does this alleviate problems of regional inequality and capital concentration? How does this enable impoverished areas to develop while encouraging capital-intense regions to deal with overdevelopment? Besides, everything you mentioned in the statement I quoted would happen in a socialist revolution based on market-socialism as well. After all, once all firms are turned over to their workers to be managed on a democratic basis, how can overseas capital be justified? This, in conjunction with socialist protectionism (a policy proposed by leading Cuban socialist economists) would help to alleviate global inequalities and mal-development.


What they decide to do with that oil field or that automated factory is henceforth up to them.
And here we arrive at the sticky situation of "them"-ness. Who gets to decide what to do with the factory? The workers? The immediate community? The region? An affiliation of communities affiliated into regions affiliated into an even larger economic body? Suddenly we run into a whole slew of opposing interests...and out of this chaos (and chaos it would be) we could only hope that something equitable would arise. Something like this may work but not when people classify one another the way they currently do (revolution doesn't immediately negate centuries of a constructed group identity which may not be conducive to a direct move to stateless communism). Somehow, someway, disperate intra-class interests must be articulated and some concrete form of economic organization beyond simple free association must exist until these interests can be worked out and eventually eliminated.


But with the exception of Cambodia, it seems to me that the USSR and China in practice did mostly what you want to do.
If by "what I want to do" you mean institute a form of economic organization that is both democratic and responsive to people's wants and needs then, no...neither of those examples did that very well at all. After all, China under Mao is notable for the number of people who died. China after Mao is notable for seeing more people lifted out of abject and dire poverty than any other period in human history (yes, I can document this if you request). I'm not lending any support to the Chinese state at any juncture...all I'm saying is that the utopian ideas failed while the "revisionism" succeeded in many respects. That being said, China today is far from what I envision...were I living there I would most likely be imprisoned. Attaching my ideas to "market socialism with Chinese characteristics" is about as valid as me attaching your ideas to Leninism. Economic Democracy and economic tyrrany that happens to use the market mechanism are far removed.


Because your "imperfect but workable" model of socialism will inevitably re-create exactly what we have now.
You throw this accusation around a good deal...so much that it has seemingly taken on the character of your "ace in the hole." Interestingly enough, rational observation of human and economic realities seem to indicate that it is your envisioned post-capitalist mode of organization and production that would be most subject to tyrrany. But hey, who needs that...I've learned enough about some of the more dogmatic (even heretic dogmatists) leftists stick to their guns, whatever reasoned analysis may show to be the case.


I wonder if what you really find "distasteful" about Marx is not so much an esoteric dispute over the nature (or even existence) of "value", but a much more fundamental dispute -- namely, whether it is possible/desirable to break with all the assumptions of class society.
I find very little about Marx to be distasteful...rather I find the idea that his ideas are better than all that came after to be distasteful. Even to Marx, isn't dialectical socialism about progressing beyond the current order rather than destroying every aspect of it? The latter opinion is one I find in your writings rather often...but this really isn't the point. This debate should remain focused on the merits of the respective arguments, not who is a better communist. Frankly, I shy away from the Marxist label in general as it tends to pull one towards convenient, simplistic dogmatics rather than reasoned analysis.


But any proposed alternative to communism -- where all labor must be voluntary -- must retain that crucial characteristic or is otherwise not worth fighting for...or even arguing for.
In its very essence, this gets at a utopian concept that ultimately reeks of exploitation and the potential to produce it. I see no ethical reason why one who does not contribute to the production of society in whatever way one is capable has any right to the fruits of another's labor. Such a setup breeds resentment and ultimately instability...in fact, unless people immediately become "new men (and women)" after the revolution, such an arrangement could be compared to capitalism!

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything
Markets are actually quite good at providing an abundance of high quality, low cost goods, in this respect far outstripping a command system.

The "command systems" that we have empirical data on were not devoted to producing "high quality, low cost goods".

If you want to make a comparison, you should compare Russia and China to 19th century market economies...which was better at building railroads and factories?

I see no reason "in principle" that a "command economy" in the "west" would not work at producing "high quality, low cost goods" just as well as what we have now.

I'm not in favor of "command economies" in the sense that concept is currently used, but if we are to compare, let's compare apples with apples.


Capitalism has proved to be the most dynamic system in history for creating consumer goods...

Thus far...


Perhaps, but in regard to direct consumer demand an equation would require vast amounts of human variables to be constantly entered.

That's what "card-swipe" technology does...and we have it now.

The "variables" would be updated constantly, in real time, and so would the estimated demand equations.

In fact, we don't really need a quantum computer (though it would be useful to have one), much less the absurd individual estimates that Parecon demands. What we need is a data base...two or three decades of detailed records -- from that, it should be possible to predict demand within a narrow range of uncertainties.


The argument is that a non-capitalist market would be better at gauging demand than a command system...and perhaps better than anything else out there at this point in human history.

You could be right...I see no way of telling at this point. The problem I see is that your "market" generates other difficulties.


The issue is reducing the environmental footprint in general. The productive process, by its very nature creates an environmental footprint. Inefficient productive practices make an environmental footprint that is larger than necessary (use more water than would be used otherwise).

No doubt...but is that to be our goal? Should we make decisions about production solely or primarily on the basis of the projected size of the "environmental footprint"?

If we did do that, would it not imply a retreat to a pre-industrial mode of production?

The restoration of feudalism???


Actually, "Americans"--even "poor" residents of the United States--benefit richly from the exploitation of the third world.

I disagree with this view, fashionable though it is in some circles.

I would argue that it is the capitalist class that primarily benefits from the exploitation of the "third world" by the "west" -- that for the vast majority of people, the "benefits" are, at best, mixed.


No, it arose because some people opposed the trend of corporate globalization which has little to do with trade and lots to do with imperialism, etc.

Well, it's corporations that are "doing it" and what they're doing is "expanding world trade".

You seem to be suggesting that a vast exchange of goods and services on a global scale would be "ok" with people provided corporations were not the active agents.

But it seems to me that if somebody's "good job" is moved to Bangladesh by your "socialist market" in the name of "economic efficiency", they're still going to be pretty pissed off.


What about raw materials? What about advanced medical equipment?

What about them? I didn't say that there would be no movement of goods or raw materials around the world...I said that the communist bias would be against that. It wouldn't be done unless it were really necessary.

And, no doubt, this would be very inefficient...especially in the early years when things were being set up.

Later on, we'd probably take it for granted that you don't waste energy moving stuff half-way around the world when it's perfectly practical to make it at home.


Of course the workers in the mines and factories producing important things every decent society needs (and would want) would resent working more to produce things for people they didn't know who offered nothing in return, wouldn't they?

Your capitalist mind-set is showing.

You are assuming that everyone carries a little "bookkeeper module" around in their brains that is constantly calculating whether one is being "exploited" or is the "exploiter" in every social transaction or relationship.

Capitalists do have such a module...it is "second-nature" to them to look at everything in those terms.

Most people are not capitalists.

As to specifics, perhaps the way that raw material extraction could be carried out would involve a co-operative effort by a number of entities who would "split the product" according to how much labor each entity contributed.

As I suggested elsewhere, the communal polis would manufacture most of its consumer needs itself.


And I think people will do the natural thing and organize a method of mutual exchange that benefits everyone involved.

"The natural thing"? Is "trade in our genes"?


Yes and no...simply put, it isn't as simple as you make it out to be.

A truism...the territory is always more complicated than the map.

But saying that something is "easier said than done" is not an "insurmountable obstacle".


...or we just trust to people's good will...

It's not a matter of "good will" in the abstract. It represents a conscious decision on the part of the masses on how they want their society to work.


How exactly does this alleviate problems of regional inequality and capital concentration?

It lifts the burden of foreign exploitation from them and gives them something to "work with" in developing themselves.

What more is practical?


After all, once all firms are turned over to their workers to be managed on a democratic basis, how can overseas capital be justified?

Well, you still have a market economy, right? So that means it is in everyone's self-interest to accumulate as much money as they can, right? So why wouldn't a "worker-run" firm in the "west" continue to exploit the "third world" in some fashion if they could get away with it?

Good will?


And here we arrive at the sticky situation of "them"-ness.

No we don't. We "walk away" from that factory in the "third world". Whatever happens to it after that is up to the people who live there. Probably some local capitalist will take it over...or perhaps some local government agency over there. Or perhaps they'll see no need for it and just abandon it to the jungle.

We may place a "bridging order" with that factory if they decide to keep running it -- until we have our own factories to make that stuff for our own use. We can pay them in gold, since we won't be using currency ourselves.


Economic Democracy and economic tyranny that happens to use the market mechanism are far removed.

I didn't mean to suggest that you were a "believer" in the Chinese system.

But it does seem to me that the "market mechanism" itself is a kind of tyranny.


You throw this accusation around a good deal...so much that it has seemingly taken on the character of your "ace in the hole." Interestingly enough, rational observation of human and economic realities seem to indicate that it is your envisioned post-capitalist mode of organization and production that would be most subject to tyranny.

It may well be my "ace in the hole"...but that's not a refutation of my argument. A "free market" generates a certain kind of consciousness that one must acquire or otherwise perish in deprivation.

Accumulate! Accumulate! Thus sayeth the Law and the Prophets! All else is commentary.

Your suggestion that the attempt to achieve communism as rapidly as possible might "end in tyranny" is unsupported by argument.

But even if that risk is present, I prefer to run it.

I know where the other path leads...to the restoration of capitalism.


In its very essence, this gets at a utopian concept that ultimately reeks of exploitation and the potential to produce it. I see no ethical reason why one who does not contribute to the production of society in whatever way one is capable has any right to the fruits of another's labor.

Gee, will you have homeless shelters in "market socialism"?

Because you'll certainly have homeless people.

Just like now.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[NovelGentry]

I would argue that it is the capitalist class that primarily benefits from the exploitation of the "third world" by the "west" -- that for the vast majority of people, the "benefits" are, at best, mixed.

I just want to expand on this a little cause it's such a good point. Let me do so by asking a very simple question to antieverything. Is it to the benefit of working class American's when they lose their job of 20+ years manufacturing because it's being shifted over to another country? Is it to the benefit of the Informaiton Technology workers that India now represents the #1 threat to their jobs?

I realize this is not a struggle between two nations. It is us vs. Capitalism. It's not Indian people's fault, it's capitalisms fault, and in the end the capitalist's fault. But if these changes in the stability of the American working class's life are benefits to them, then apparently there's nothing for them to worry about. Why would they need a job when the third world countries will produce it cheaper? Oh yeah, that's right, cause when it comes back to our country it costs the same as when they were producing it, and now they don't have a job, or they have a job that may pay far less. THANK GOD FOR THE BENEFITS! :lol:

[antieverything]

The "command systems" that we have empirical data on were not devoted to producing "high quality, low cost goods".
If you want to make a comparison, you should compare Russia and China to 19th century market economies...which was better at building railroads and factories?
...
I'm not in favor of "command economies" in the sense that concept is currently used, but if we are to compare, let's compare apples with apples.

All of this gets at an important point--command structures are undoubtedly a very effective way to develop a modern economy. When it comes to sustaining a smoothly operating modern economy, on the other hand, they have universally failed due to the lack of incentive for efficiency and innovation. My argument is far closer to "apples to apples" than comparing 20th century command economies to 19th century capitalist ones. After all, command structures failed when they could no longer rely on the capitalist example for productive techniques and pricing systems. Responding to demand is all about dynamism and command economies have very little of this while markets have proven to have it in spades.


In fact, we don't really need a quantum computer (though it would be useful to have one), much less the absurd individual estimates that Parecon demands. What we need is a data base...two or three decades of detailed records -- from that, it should be possible to predict demand within a narrow range of uncertainties.
I think you are missing the point entirely. Such a setup has no place for innovation and no incentive for improving the quality and reducing the cost of production. Also, such equations require the repeated entrance of millions of variables...one error throws the thing off. That's why, though capitalist firms use planning internally, they don't leave it up to a computer, at least not primarily. There is actually a suprisingly large body of research regarding computers' abilities to plan a modern economy. The outlook is not good for such a plan. I'll try to find and link some of it later.


No doubt...but is that to be our goal? Should we make decisions about production solely or primarily on the basis of the projected size of the "environmental footprint"?

If we did do that, would it not imply a retreat to a pre-industrial mode of production?
STRAW MAN! I have no clue where you decided that an environmentally sustainable economy would be pre-industrial. Sustainability requires constant vigilance and attention to efficient use of resources within the industrial mode of production, not regression to fuedalism.


But it seems to me that if somebody's "good job" is moved to Bangladesh by your "socialist market" in the name of "economic efficiency", they're still going to be pretty pissed off.
Such an event would require that the workers making up the firm in question actually vote to move their own jobs overseas. Such a move is entirely unprecedented in the history of cooperative enterprises, of course.


Later on, we'd probably take it for granted that you don't waste energy moving stuff half-way around the world when it's perfectly practical to make it at home.
First, I think you fail to understand the complexity of the modern productive process. Second, what about moving stuff halfway across the continent? Would each region produce everything or would there be inter-regional trade? If so, the same arguments would apply!


Your capitalist mind-set is showing.

You are assuming that everyone carries a little "bookkeeper module" around in their brains that is constantly calculating whether one is being "exploited" or is the "exploiter" in every social transaction or relationship.

Capitalists do have such a module...it is "second-nature" to them to look at everything in those terms.

Most people are not capitalists.
No, I'm assuming that nobody likes a freeloader, especially when it is evident that such an arrangement results in some doing more work in order to subsidize the health, wellbeing, and leisure of those who do less (or nothing). Regardless of the "mindset" this is clear-cut exploitation. It isn't that I think everyone is a capitalist at heart, it is that I don't think people are utter morons--clearly evident exploitation tends to piss people off...to say the least.


As I suggested elsewhere, the communal polis would manufacture most of its consumer needs itself.
What it really comes down to is whether or not such an arrangement is workable and if so whether or not it is desirable. I tend to answer with a "probably not" on the first question and a "definately not" on the second question. Like I said, I support regional sustainability but it isn't as simple as you make it out to be--lots of things will necessarily be produced in a few places in large quantities. As to your suggestion that everyone would participate in raw material extraction, do you think the would send some poor sap to the mines in exchange for their cut of the product or do you simply think they would "log on" at their leisure since the concept of stationary capital doesn't exist in your world?


"The natural thing"? Is "trade in our genes"?
Mutual exchange isn't natural in the sense that it is in our genes, it is natural in the sense that people will develop such an arrangement anyhow as it ultimately results in less work and more product for all involved...assuming the playing field is leveled, which I think is possible.


It's not a matter of "good will" in the abstract. It represents a conscious decision on the part of the masses on how they want their society to work.
This is a terribly vague statement. It also assumes a great deal of commonality among the way people see the world. The whole point of a socialist organizational institution is to join these different perceptions together and extract a common goal for a common good. People don't do this in a vaccum, they do it through discourse and compromise.


It lifts the burden of foreign exploitation from them and gives them something to "work with" in developing themselves.

What more is practical?
What is more practical? Probably something that answers my question. What sort of organization do you forsee to alleviate regional, national, and global inequalities inherited from the capitalist past? Or does it all work out on its own?


Well, you still have a market economy, right? So that means it is in everyone's self-interest to accumulate as much money as they can, right? So why wouldn't a "worker-run" firm in the "west" continue to exploit the "third world" in some fashion if they could get away with it?
It really isn't in anyone's self-interest to accumulate as the ability to create wealth with wealth will have been eliminated. Savings and loans banks would either cease to exist or would be small scale. Savings, after all, are a stuctural peculiarity of capitalism.

If by accumulate you also mean "expand" then you are also mistaken. Capitalist firms naturally expand to the point of "market saturation", this is true. It is important to note, however, that cooperative firms expand only to the point at which profit per worker is maximized. It is not uncommon, furthermore for new firms to "hive off" from the old firm, even if both firms are ultimately affiliated with the same cooperative corporation.

Cooperative firms are structurally rendered incapable to exploit the third world...this is very intentional. All they can do is buy from and sell to foreign firms but they can only buy at prices adjusted by tarriffs to make up for poor labor and environmental standards--the proceeds from which are then rebated to the poor nation and earmarked for the development of such standards. It isn't inconceivable that a cooperative firm could expand across national boundaries but it would require the expansion of voting rights to all workers employed in the other country as well.

But ultimately your question is best answered with another question: what stops one "polis" from exploiting another "polis" if they can get away with it? Good will?




And here we arrive at the sticky situation of "them"-ness.

No we don't. We "walk away" from that factory in the "third world". Whatever happens to it after that is up to the people who live there. Probably some local capitalist will take it over...or perhaps some local government agency over there. Or perhaps they'll see no need for it and just abandon it to the jungle.

We may place a "bridging order" with that factory if they decide to keep running it -- until we have our own factories to make that stuff for our own use. We can pay them in gold, since we won't be using currency ourselves.
I didn't mean "we" as in first world residents, I meant "we" as in the two of us as theorists having a debate. So, to restate the question in several ways: how are local, regional, and supra-regional interests articulated in a stateless society?
What stops the workers in a firm producing a necessary commodity from extorting other communities?
Who gets to control the means of production--the workers, the community, the locality, the region, or a trans-regional organizational body?
Basically, who do you mean when you say "them" in this statement--"What they decide to do with that oil field or that automated factory is henceforth up to them"?

Catch my drift?


Your suggestion that the attempt to achieve communism as rapidly as possible might "end in tyranny" is unsupported by argument.
I've repeatedly made the point that chaos does not necessarily result in order. Abolishing the state does not necessarily make a society any more just or egalitarian. Basically it is the opposition between the Marxist idea that new societies arise from the shell of the old and the nihilistic or "crude communist" idea that new societies arise from the ashes of the old.


I know where the other path leads...to the restoration of capitalism.
Yeah? How and why? I see a pattern of you ignoring my arguments and then saying my statements aren't supported by argument...then you turn around and make statements that aren't supported by argument!


Gee, will you have homeless shelters in "market socialism"?

Because you'll certainly have homeless people.

Just like now.
Yet another baseless argument. It is a basic socialist ideal that there will be neither homelessness nor unemployment in a socialist society--even if that means the state has to be the employer of last resort and housing is publically controlled or at least heavily regulated. Just because a socialist society uses the market mechanism to deal with the problem of production doesn't mean that it will somehow inherit the structural shortcomings of capitalism. If you would, however, care to raise a specific structural problem that you feel market socialism would inherit feel free to do so. You appear to think, though, that as soon as the word "market" is brought up it automatically means "capitalism" and thus the whole lot of accompanying problems. This isn't so much unreasonable as it is uninformed about exactly what market socialism can mean.


I just want to expand on this a little cause it's such a good point. Let me do so by asking a very simple question to antieverything. Is it to the benefit of working class American's when they lose their job of 20+ years manufacturing because it's being shifted over to another country? Is it to the benefit of the Informaiton Technology workers that India now represents the #1 threat to their jobs?
Of course, corporate globalization causes job loss and downward pressure on wages (though it doesn't cause all, most, or even a large portion of job losses). My first point is that these costs mainly target the most comfortable and insulated sectors of the American working class--high payed, often unionized, manufacturing workers and border-line white collar workers.

This misses the point, however, as I was referring to a larger, structural "benefit" of the system of extracting super-profits from the third world. Many analysts would agree that these super-profits are one of the reasons why the American economy has remained relatively stable throughout a global period of recession. Capitalist economies, after all, are based on investment and US financial interests are granted a constant source of investment revenue from their exploitation of third world resources--far outstripping the neo-colonial benefits granted to any other capitalist power. This has assisted the US economy's relative lack of stagnation over the last decade or so and it is also part of the reason why the US unemployment rate is consistantly low, relatively speaking. Compared to other capitalist powers, especially Germany, things look bright for many working people in the United States...it is possible that even with the continued implimentation of reactionary anti-poor measures that the US standard of living could once again catch up to and even outstrip the European living standards that overtook it in the early 90s.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything+--> (antieverything)Such a setup has no place for innovation and no incentive for improving the quality and reducing the cost of production.[/b]

I don't see why you would think that. Humans spontaneously innovate...especially when looking for a way of reducing boring repetitive labor.

Improving the quality of a good would probably be a consequence of noisy complaints by the citizenry.

Reducing the "cost" of production (less labor, less raw materials, or both) might or might not be seen as desirable.


Also, such equations require the repeated entrance of millions of variables...one error throws the thing off.

I don't think that's how it works; when you have millions of entries, one error disappears into the noise of uncertainty. You need a really large number of errors before it starts to "show".


Sustainability requires constant vigilance and attention to efficient use of resources within the industrial mode of production, not regression to feudalism.

Ok, calm down, I was just trying to understand your meaning, that's all.


Such an event would require that the workers making up the firm in question actually vote to move their own jobs overseas.

Well, that's one way it could happen. But since you envision a continuation and even expansion of global commerce under "market socialism", why couldn't a worker-run factory in China flood the American market with some low-price version of what the American co-op produces...driving the American co-op "out of business"?


First, I think you fail to understand the complexity of the modern productive process.

I'm sure I do. I'm not an economist and claim no expertise in that field.

I'm "winging it" here.


Second, what about moving stuff halfway across the continent?

Perhaps I should have spelled out the general principle: the closer you can import from, the better. Best of all is to be able to make it yourself.


No, I'm assuming that nobody likes a freeloader, especially when it is evident that such an arrangement results in some doing more work in order to subsidize the health, wellbeing, and leisure of those who do less (or nothing).

We could support an awful lot of "freeloaders" at a basic standard-of-living on what it takes to support the capitalist class.

And freeloaders "do no harm", of course.

If your own work is intrinsically rewarding, why should you care if some hapless bastard spends his whole life playing video games?

Still "keeping score"?


What it really comes down to is whether or not such an arrangement is workable and, if so, whether or not it is desirable. I tend to answer with a "probably not" on the first question and a "definitely not" on the second question.

If it turns out not to be "workable", then we're just wasting bandwidth yapping about it.

But I think it is very much "desirable"...especially considering the alternative -- sending all the really shitty jobs off someplace far away and keeping all the good jobs to ourselves.

If we pretty much have to make most of the stuff we use ourselves, we'll have a much clearer idea as to if "it's really worth it" and "do we really need it".


As to your suggestion that everyone would participate in raw material extraction, do you think they would send some poor sap to the mines in exchange for their cut of the product or do you simply think they would "log on" at their leisure since the concept of stationary capital doesn't exist in your world?

I don't think I even understand that question.

No one would be "sent" to the mines; people would volunteer for that work. The period of work would be very short...perhaps as little as a month (and the work-shift at the mines would be very short as well). After their return, the polis would throw a big party for them, hand out medals, and they would have maximum status until the next group of volunteers returned. If there happened to be any desirable good that was in short supply at the time of their return, their names would go to the top of the ration list.


This is a terribly vague statement. It also assumes a great deal of commonality among the way people see the world.

Agreed. Communist society does make such an assumption.

It assumes that people have a basic understanding of communist ideas of how a civilized society should be organized, are in general agreement with those ideas, and "want" to make them "work".

I'm sure that many of the details will be heavily disputed...especially in the early years.

And then we'll see.


What sort of organization do you foresee to alleviate regional, national, and global inequalities inherited from the capitalist past? Or does it all work out on its own?

Mostly it "works out" on its own.

I don't see any other way to do it unless you wish to send a "Red Army" all over the world to impose an advanced social system on people who are far from ready for such a thing.

Inequalities within and among regions are largely being eradicated by capitalism now...they may still exist 50 or 100 years from now but I expect the differences will be marginal.


It really isn't in anyone's self-interest to accumulate as the ability to create wealth with wealth will have been eliminated.

Yes, but in any market economy, the more money you have, the better you live. So it's very much in your direct self-interests to maximize your income by any means you can.

Worker-run factory in North America has a subsidiary in Honduras (inherited from the old regime). If they are not compelled to turn it loose, then they can continue to profit from the lower wages paid in Honduras.


It is important to note, however, that cooperative firms expand only to the point at which profit per worker is maximized.

That's a fairly arcane point to determine, I would imagine.


All they can do is buy from and sell to foreign firms but they can only buy at prices adjusted by tariffs to make up for poor labor and environmental standards--the proceeds from which are then rebated to the poor nation and earmarked for the development of such standards.

Neat. Of course, "poor nations" are usually run by corrupt oligarchies...so the rebates would just go into their pockets.

Unless you've mobilized the "Red Army" again.


But ultimately your question is best answered with another question: what stops one "polis" from exploiting another "polis" if they can get away with it?

Well, a polis is not the same as a poor third-world country...it's full of communists who might be expected to be less than tolerant of exploitation by another polis.

There would be a fuss.

And maybe even a small war.


...how are local, regional, and supra-regional interests articulated in a stateless society?

I suppose we'd have a motley collection of assorted "talk shops" that would have long meetings and, occasionally, reach a tentative agreement on "doing something" about some pressing problem.

But the communal polis is "sovereign" insofar as that concept still retains meaning. It would participate or partially participate or not participate at all according to the will of its own citizenry.

Really sensible ideas would, over time, prevail in such an environment. More dubious propositions would have difficulties.


What stops the workers in a firm producing a necessary commodity from extorting other communities?

The ability of other communities to make it themselves. Or to make an acceptable substitute.


Who gets to control the means of production--the workers, the community, the locality, the region, or a trans-regional organizational body?

In an "immediate" sense, the workers. In an "ultimate" sense, the locality.


Basically, who do you mean when you say "them" in this statement -- "What they decide to do with that oil field or that automated factory is henceforth up to them"?

Whoever happens to be "in charge" in that "third world" country.

Of course, should it happen to be placed in the hands of the workers there, we might offer a little "extra help" in the transition to "native custody".

But what I'm really getting at is that we who establish communism in the "first world" will no longer be "in the business" of "guiding" or "commanding" third world countries, politically or economically.

Imperialism is over, period.


Abolishing the state does not necessarily make a society any more just or egalitarian. Basically it is the opposition between the Marxist idea that new societies arise from the shell of the old and the nihilistic or "crude communist" idea that new societies arise from the ashes of the old.

I'm afraid that's too "poetic" a distinction for me to grasp.

The "shell" of the old capitalist economy will be all around us, as will the "ashes" of the old capitalist state machinery.

The Leninists argue that we should take the shell "as is" (wage-slavery, money, production for profit) and build a new state apparatus to "run it".

You don't seem to differ much except for two amendments: (1) that workers in each firm should collectively become the "CEO's" of those firms (instead of a new state running the whole thing) and (2) the market mechanism must be retained "in full" (or nearly so) -- no centralized planning except where unavoidable.

But, if I understand you correctly, you'd still set up a new state to do "government stuff" -- an army, cops, laws, judges, lawyers, prisons, regulations, etc., etc., etc.


Yeah? How and why?

I told you. Here it is again.


redstar2000
It may well be my "ace in the hole"...but that's not a refutation of my argument. A "free market" generates a certain kind of consciousness that one must acquire or otherwise perish in deprivation.

Accumulate! Accumulate! Thus sayeth the Law and the Prophets! All else is commentary.

In a "free market", it pays to cheat (unless you get caught). And it pays to invest the proceeds of your successful cheating...legally if possible, illegally if necessary.

Over time, the successful cheaters will pay the necessary bribes to have the law changed in their favor.

Welcome back to capitalist society.


It is a basic socialist ideal that there will be neither homelessness nor unemployment in a socialist society--even if that means the state has to be the employer of last resort and housing is publicly controlled or at least heavily regulated.

So, like the USSR, you will have old women sweeping the streets and sleeping at desks at the end of each hotel corridor.

Because you have to find or make a "job" for everyone...no freeloading allowed!

And likewise for housing...what the market won't supply, the state apparatus will. But it will be shit, just like now...because the "unproductive" don't "deserve" any better.


Just because a socialist society uses the market mechanism to deal with the problem of production doesn't mean that it will somehow inherit the structural shortcomings of capitalism.

Why not? Why wouldn't it be "just like now" with some minor differences in the details? The more your new state apparatus intervenes in the economy in the interests of equity, the less well your free market will function. Intervene in a really major way, and you'll be back to central planning again.


You appear to think, though, that as soon as the word "market" is brought up, it automatically means "capitalism" and thus the whole lot of accompanying problems.

Yes, that's an accurate summary of my views on the subject.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[antieverything]

Improving the quality of a good would probably be a consequence of noisy complaints by the citizenry.

Reducing the "cost" of production (less labor, less raw materials, or both) might or might not be seen as desirable.
The first sentence, again, requires an overlap of producers and consumers...in other words, a utopian fantasy world. Seriously, what are they going to do? Get it from somewhere else? Efficiency isn't important because it is desirable, it is important because it helps to solve the problem of scarcity. It has also been well documented that without a pricing mechanism for input and output, efficiency is tough to guage at all...ultimately things degenerate to wasteful, confusing, madness.


I don't think that's how it works; when you have millions of entries, one error disappears into the noise of uncertainty. You need a really large number of errors before it starts to "show".
Each entry effects the value of hundreds of other entries all of which in turn effect hundreds of other entries. Added to that, these errors are reproduced millions of times, further throwing off the price of everything. Do you see what I mean now?


But since you envision a continuation and even expansion of global commerce under "market socialism", why couldn't a worker-run factory in China flood the American market with some low-price version of what the American co-op produces...driving the American co-op "out of business"?
Because of tarrifs protecting against that very thing. This isn't to say, of course, that a firm couldn't be driven out of business. That's part of the system...state investment institutions help the cooperative to reconstitute as a profitable enterprise or other institutions provide reemployment, training, etc.


Perhaps I should have spelled out the general principle: the closer you can import from, the better. Best of all is to be able to make it yourself.
Still, given the complexity of the modern productive process, especially in things like mass transit, medical and other technologies, etc. this system would still require a good deal of trade.


We could support an awful lot of "freeloaders" at a basic standard-of-living on what it takes to support the capitalist class.
Yeah, or we could support everyone at a much higher standard of living. Why is it acceptable to support any group of able people who are willingly freeloading? Work is an ethical obligation--a just society allows for no entitlement without responsibility.


And freeloaders "do no harm", of course.
Yes, they do...they are a drain on labor, increasing the amount of work necessary for those who do choose to work.


If your own work is intrinsically rewarding, why should you care if some hapless bastard spends his whole life playing video games?
I think we all know, whatever we tell ourselves, that we would all rather smoke pot and talk to our buddies or play video games or have sex than work in a factory...even if the factory is the most fun Willy-Wonka environment one could imagine. Work will be work...we can make it less bad (hell, we can even make it good) but we can never make it better than leisure. After all, leisure is defined by doing what we want, not liking what we do.


If we pretty much have to make most of the stuff we use ourselves, we'll have a much clearer idea as to if "it's really worth it" and "do we really need it".
Yet another instance of a utopian idea of collective consciousness. Whoops, take psychology and try again!


No one would be "sent" to the mines; people would volunteer for that work. The period of work would be very short...perhaps as little as a month (and the work-shift at the mines would be very short as well). After their return, the polis would throw a big party for them, hand out medals, and they would have maximum status until the next group of volunteers returned. If there happened to be any desirable good that was in short supply at the time of their return, their names would go to the top of the ration list.
I rather like that idea, actually. I also see no reason why a cooperative couldn't organize labor in such a way...all in all it sounds delightfully similar to a meeting of Calvin's Club G.R.O.S.s. (Get Rid of Slimy GirlS...in case you didn't read that cartoon strip).


It assumes that people have a basic understanding of communist ideas of how a civilized society should be organized, are in general agreement with those ideas, and "want" to make them "work".
So basically this just happens after the revolution? Or does it happen before the revolution in defiance of all existing culture? I simply don't buy it, I'm sorry...though a period of a society like the one I envision would certainly put us a long way toward that goal, especially as the autonomous cooperative corporation began to replace the state.


Inequalities within and among regions are largely being eradicated by capitalism now...they may still exist 50 or 100 years from now but I expect the differences will be marginal.
Actually we are seeing the beginings of a massive first world fortress system surrounded by a 3rd world basically beyond any hope...largely due to environmental problems. Regional inequalities always tend to intensify as private capital flows to areas that are already capital intensive...wage issues aren't everything.


Yes, but in any market economy, the more money you have, the better you live. So it's very much in your direct self-interests to maximize your income by any means you can.
Yeah...but inequalities would be relatively tiny and a basic standard of living would be guaranteed. Not taking into account a redistributionary income tax, there would be about a 10 to 1 rate of inequality within a society--given a natural (as tends to be the case) and or mandated solidarity ration within firms. Those payed the most would be payed that much because the workers in the firm decided the person deserved that much.


Worker-run factory in North America has a subsidiary in Honduras (inherited from the old regime). If they are not compelled to turn it loose, then they can continue to profit from the lower wages paid in Honduras.
I've already said that they would be compelled to turn it loose as a very basic aspect of the revolutionary transition.


That's a fairly arcane point to determine, I would imagine.
No, not really. It happens all the time. Remember what I said about "hiving" off?


Neat. Of course, "poor nations" are usually run by corrupt oligarchies...so the rebates would just go into their pockets.

Unless you've mobilized the "Red Army" again.
A socialist transition in the United States would almost certainly result in a socialist third world--or at least Latin America--within a few years. It is, after all, US military and financial pressure which keeps corrupt or ineffective governments in power (or keeps them ineffective). Of course there would be some level of corruption but we could expect to see a great deal of change in living, labor, and environmental standards around the world if socialist protectionism were implimented.


Well, a polis is not the same as a poor third-world country...it's full of communists who might be expected to be less than tolerant of exploitation by another polis.

There would be a fuss.

And maybe even a small war.
I would expect there would be many small wars...all the time.


The ability of other communities to make it themselves. Or to make an acceptable substitute.
Given as such an ability exists only in a fantasy world, it is almost inevitable (except of course for the good will thing) that one polis would be able to extort another.


In an "immediate" sense, the workers. In an "ultimate" sense, the locality.
So, the workers are in control of the productive process and the locality controls the product? Nothing objectionable except the structural difficulties accompanying the rest of the system.


Whoever happens to be "in charge" in that "third world" country.
Ok, I was initially assuming you meant there would be a global revolution...the original question still stands (and hasn't been adequetely adressed) in the form of the sticky situation of "us-ness" in the context of a revolution "here".


But, if I understand you correctly, you'd still set up a new state to do "government stuff" -- an army, cops, laws, judges, lawyers, prisons, regulations, etc., etc., etc.
You got it.


In a "free market", it pays to cheat (unless you get caught). And it pays to invest the proceeds of your successful cheating...legally if possible, illegally if necessary.
Cheat how? Exploit your workers? That can't happen. "Invest the proceeds" where? That can't happen either!


Over time, the successful cheaters will pay the necessary bribes to have the law changed in their favor.

Welcome back to capitalist society.
The same would go for any cutthroat "polis" in your model as well. The difference is the ability to counteract such a pattern with popular power. Besides, in market socialism, nobody makes that much money to begin with.


So, like the USSR, you will have old women sweeping the streets and sleeping at desks at the end of each hotel corridor.
No, there would be public works projects and public enterprises producing things for the public good. I would imagine the ability to go into a work office at any time and get temporary employment. Such a thing would be very helpful for students and those who didn't wish to work in an area permanently.


Because you have to find or make a "job" for everyone...no freeloading allowed!
Yes, but this "job" wouldn't be pointless or especially unenjoyable.


And likewise for housing...what the market won't supply, the state apparatus will. But it will be shit, just like now...because the "unproductive" don't "deserve" any better.
Society has more than enough resources to provide high quality housing for all. There won't be ghettos in socialism, nor will there be pockets of enduring poverty or unemployment. It simply wouldn't be tolerated.


Why not? Why wouldn't it be "just like now" with some minor differences in the details? The more your new state apparatus intervenes in the economy in the interests of equity, the less well your free market will function. Intervene in a really major way, and you'll be back to central planning again.
No, none of that is true...or intelligent, actually. Market socialism is vastly different from market capitalism because the most dangerous structural aspects of capitalism have been eliminated--reliance on private investment, the need for constant expansion, private ownership. Pretty much all of the social evils we see today are results of those three aspects of capitalism. The market gets a bad rap, really.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by antieverything
The first sentence, again, requires an overlap of producers and consumers...in other words, a utopian fantasy world.

Look...you think communism "is" a "utopian fantasy world".

It doesn't correspond with any of the assumptions of class society...assumptions that are clearly and deeply rooted in your own thinking.

What you want is a "nicer" version of what exists now.

Fine. Go for it!

If what I want is something completely different -- "a utopian fantasy world" -- then you have nothing to worry about. People will listen to you (the "realist") and ignore me (the "nutball").

But it's surrealistic for you to pretend to ask "questions" and then reply to my answers "Fantasy! Utopian! Won't work! People are not like that! Comic strip!"

No matter what answers I offered, your response would be the same.


Work will be work...we can make it less bad (hell, we can even make it good) but we can never make it better than leisure. After all, leisure is defined by doing what we want, not liking what we do.

In communist society work is defined as doing what we want.

I don't expect you to grasp that. It's "out of your league".


A socialist transition in the United States would almost certainly result in a socialist third world--or at least Latin America--within a few years.

No, it would result in a more vigorous native capitalism...because that's where they'd be at their present level of development if imperialism hadn't held them back by keeping domestic quislings in power.

Any "socialism" imposed on those countries would be socialism in name only.


The market gets a bad rap, really.

So...happy marketing! :D

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[redstar2000]

For another variation on this theme, see...

"Market Socialism" -- Are We "For Sale"? (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083079914&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[antieverything]

:huh:

Feel free to come back and actually respond to my arguments instead of ridiculous, straw-man generalizations you've constructed out of your refusal to question your assumptions or think outside of an essentially magical worldview.

Thanks.