How do you counter this statement?

[Rawthentic]

"' Socialist production is not compatible with liberty of work; that is to say, with the workers freedom to work when or how he likes....It is true to say that under capitalism, a workers still enjoys liberty up to a certain amount of degree. If he does not like a factory, he can find work elsewhere. In a socialist society, all the means of production will be concentrated in the hands of the state, and the latter will be the only employer; there will be no choice. The workman today enjoys more liberty than he will possess in a socialist society.'''

" To repudiate Engels, Marx and Kausky on this central point is not good enough. For once, these men were right: socialism without compulsory labor is as impossible as wooden iron or dry water. Is it not time for the labor movement to acknowlegde that socialism is a false solution to the problems of misery and oppression? Is it not obvious that freedom and well-being cannot be accomplished by the abolition of property, but only by maintaining or creating conditions in which the largest number of citizens are able to acquire property and, through it, economic security? What must be repudiated is not just slave-labor, but socialism itslef"

So what do we say to that? :unsure:

[redstar2000]

Well, he's not really being honest, but he does have a point.

The 20th century Leninist concept of "socialism" did indeed incorporate wage-slavery into its "mix".

But, in fact, there was a substantial amount of "labor mobility" in the USSR...even under Stalin. You might "ultimately" have been an employee of the USSR, Inc., but there was a lot of choice about which "department" you worked in.

In Mao's China, from what I've read, there was much less choice...positions were assigned by the bureaucracy even almost down to the position of unskilled laborer.

But then, this guy says...


Is it not obvious that freedom and well-being cannot be accomplished by the abolition of property, but only by maintaining or creating conditions in which the largest number of citizens are able to acquire property and, through it, economic security?

He allows the reader to assume that the "largest number of citizens" constitutes a significant portion of the population.

How many people actually have enough property that they don't have to work?

In other words, he thinks that a relatively small minority of people should be free while the vast majority remain unfree!

That's unacceptable! :angry:

It is communism that abolishes wage-slavery for everyone.

A concept which I take it he chose to ignore...for good reasons. :lol:

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[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2006, 10:08 PM
Well, he's not really being honest, but he does have a point.

The 20th century Leninist concept of "socialism" did indeed incorporate wage-slavery into its "mix".
Uh no, that's not the writer's point at all.

The writer's point is the opposite: that "socialism" abolishes the precondition for capitalist wage-labor: the worker selling labor-power on the market!

Of course it does....but why assume that's bad? That market choice represents "freedom" and is the only possible basis for freedom?

The workers' individual choice between competing exploiters is worth little, and does little even to keep wages from declining below the value of labor-power. Collective action does better at that....and can do far more after workers take power.

Hastalavictoria quoted:

For once, these men were right: socialism without compulsory labor is as impossible as wooden iron or dry water."

But that doesn't follow from the first paragraph. A society doesn't need compulsory labor because the worker has no choice.

The opposite is true: it becomes necessary when the worker has the real option not to work, having escaped the economic necessity to work to survive. And if there is no motivation other than individual self-interest....

[Djehuti]

Socialist production is not compatible with liberty of work; that is to say, with the workers freedom to work when or how he likes....It is true to say that under capitalism, a workers still enjoys liberty up to a certain amount of degree. If he does not like a factory, he can find work elsewhere.

1: Have the guy even heard of a thing called unemployment? You can't just walk around picking whatever job you want to have. More likely you will run around begging for whatever work you can have.

Most of us are easily interchangeable and we know it. Thus we have to adapt to their condition. That is the ultimate result of private property (the division between the producers and the mans of production), the working class is always in a inferior position, there is no room for "negotiation" or "free contracts".



In a socialist society, all the means of production will be concentrated in the hands of the state, and the latter will be the only employer; there will be no choice. The workman today enjoys more liberty than he will possess in a socialist society.

He does not seem to know the different between the socialism of Marx and Engels and the socialism of the leninists. For the former, socialism was the same thing as communism, i.e. the free association of producers, the abolition of the divsion between producers and means of production, the abolition of the property relations as such. There is no thing as a socialism with a state, commodity production or wage labour.

[Ol' Dirty]

The writer of this argument has a point, but it is highly refutable.

In a modern capitalist society, surplus is as abundant there is water earth, and we are barely working at full potential. The problem is, you see, that the plutarchs in the clergy, state, and millitary, controll most production and recources. In a modern Socialist society, however, the recources of a society are evenly divided between all people according to their need. Surplus rates would rise, technology would get better and better, and eventually, people would work less. Anyway, they would still control where they work.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
Uh no, that's not the writer's point at all.

The writer's point is the opposite: that "socialism" abolishes the precondition for capitalist wage-labor: the worker selling labor-power on the market!

The worker sells his/her labor power under Leninist "socialism" in return for wages. S/he must do this in order to survive.

Surplus value is extracted and is used both to reward the leading circles of the party and for additional investment in the means of production.

But in the USSR, Inc., different agencies and sub-agencies did compete for labor...often unofficially and even illegally. There was an internal "market" for labor power...even if it was "informal".

In People's China, Inc., things might have been more rigidly controlled...but even if you were assigned a job and had no other choice but to do it, you still worked for wages and still produced surplus value which was appropriated in exactly the same way as would happen if you worked for any private capitalist.

In both countries, the only escape from wage slavery was to suck your way up in the party hierarchy...until you reached a level that allowed you to delegate all the real work to others.

Both countries were, in their way, as "Dilbertesque" as any modern large corporation.

Wisdom for Grads (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/02/wisdom_for_grad.html)

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[Severian]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Feb 26 2006, 04:20 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Feb 26 2006, 04:20 PM)
Severian
Uh no, that's not the writer's point at all.

The writer's point is the opposite: that "socialism" abolishes the precondition for capitalist wage-labor: the worker selling labor-power on the market!

The worker sells his/her labor power under Leninist "socialism" in return for wages. S/he must do this in order to survive.
....
But in the USSR, Inc., different agencies and sub-agencies did compete for labor...often unofficially and even illegally. There was an internal "market" for labor power...even if it was "informal". [/b]
If that's true, then the writers' point is just plain factually wrong and without basis in the real world.

[rouchambeau]

Easy. Socialism is undesirable. What working people want is to control their own lives, not have the State tell them what is good for them.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

In Socialism there may only be one employer, the state, but if the state is run totally democratically and workers benefit from all the profits then they will be more free.

They ability to change employer under capitalism is a charade at best, since as a worker you must be exploited in order to be of value to the capitalist.

The workers freedom therefore is restricted to "who they want to sell their labor ".
Under socialism, they sell their labor and in return gain far more from the state than they would under capitalism.

For example, if you compare a worker who works under capitalism to a worker who works under socialism, the only advantage the capitalist worker has is "who" they work for, the socialist worker decides "how" they work, when, and under what conditions.

The worker under capitalism will have to put up with what the ruling class want to give him/her.

The only cases where you would be freer under capitalism is if you are not a worker.


If he does not like a factory, he can find work elsewhere.

No, people are tied to the local area, as they either need to pay rent or a mortgage, their property restricts this “freedom” of choice.

Also, this is contradictory, no one much likes working at a factory, i doubt the author ever has, to simply find work elsewhere means finding an almost identical job in close proximity to where they already work.

So yes, we do currently get a choice of where we work, but not much else. I'll trade that choice any day of the week to be able to have control over that factory, with my fellow workers.