The moneyless society

[norwegian commie]

As the title says i am curios on how exactly the moneyless society functions.
And i want to know if Marx, Engels or Lenin wrote about this, if they did, in which books or articles.

Example, if i want to give my neighbor a gift, and that gift is somewhat rare, how will this be decided?
What role has the market in communism, will we exchange goods for other goods, or will we receive from "above"

Is there communists that believe in money in communism, or are money and communism against eachother, and impossible to join together.


If someone could give me a long answer with concrete examples on the function of a moneyless society, the reasons a moneyless society is necessary.
And i need examples refering to Marxist, Leninist, ext litterature.


--And last, what are the difference between a communist and a revolutionary socialist.

[Red October]

it would be a funky society

[norwegian commie]

This is for an essay and for my understanding of marxism.
This means one-liners wont help me. The term funky society means little.

[MrDoom]

Originally posted by norwegian [email protected] 04, 2006 02:48 pm
As the title says i am curios on how exactly the moneyless society functions.
And i want to know if Marx, Engels or Lenin wrote about this, if they did, in which books or articles.

Example, if i want to give my neighbor a gift, and that gift is somewhat rare, how will this be decided?
What role has the market in communism, will we exchange goods for other goods, or will we receive from "above"

Is there communists that believe in money in communism, or are money and communism against eachother, and impossible to join together.


If someone could give me a long answer with concrete examples on the function of a moneyless society, the reasons a moneyless society is necessary.
And i need examples refering to Marxist, Leninist, ext litterature.


--And last, what are the difference between a communist and a revolutionary socialist.
While communism by its very nature has no money, a form of currency is still possible. The idea of energy accounting, taken from technocratic advocacy, would allow for a degree of productive restraint and control, and tracking of consumer demand to take place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accounting

The entire concept of money itself is based upon scarcity and private property. When the very material basis for private property and its corresponding material scarcity fall apart, money becomes a useless waste of metal.

[Delta]

Shortly after the revolution, it is certainly possible that there will be many communities which do use some sort of money or rationing for rare items, with the abundant and crucial items being provided for free of charge. Once a particular rare item becomes abundant, it also will become free. Well, this is one of the possible scenarios that one could have, and is one that the Spanish communities during the Spanish Revolution had, as described in Sam Dolgoff's book The Anarchist Collectives.

[Floyce White]

Poor people do without money a lot. If you want to understand how communism works without money, look at how poor people care for each other and help each other even when they have no money. That's communism in everyday life.

[norwegian commie]

can anyone refer to any works of Marx or Lenin where they specificly rejects money in communism?
That would help me alot. And if there are articles describing the moneyless society and the need for it.

[Chocobo]

First of all, energy credits is an outdated ideal. Have you forgotten about renewable resources? How would these be accounted for? Energy credits are a rather ridiculous thing.

As for the moneyless socity, well yes, its the principle of communism. "To each according to his ability to each according to his needs", what this means is that people no longer need any form of distinct money, where we can operate in unity and productivity. Marx though, never goes to describes what this would like avoid venturing into utopist ideal.

As for any of Marx's/Lenin's works rejecting the use of money, umm, all of them? :P

Also, as for an alternative to money there are also time labor vouchers, which is explained rather well in Lenin's book, "The State and revolution". Time labor Vouchers are just some form of credential saying that a person worked for however specific amount of time which would then allow them the capability of turning the TLV in for goods and such. This is seen as the "lower phase" of communism, where the dictatorship of the proletariat (Proletariat state) has not fully withered away yet, where there is still bourgeois right.

[norwegian commie]

Let me explain.
I am writing an essay about money. This to convince my leftist friends that money is unneccasary and cannot exist in communism.
A powerful tool would be to refer to a marxist or leninist book saying that "money will not exist"

The debate is weather money can be used to purchase unneccesary goods, luxuries, things that cannot be given to everyone.
That to distribute luxuries we need a way, they feel that that way is communism. Then i thugt of describing a moneyless society to them and if possible reffering to marx.
-So please dont say: Everyone, because that is false, i have read many marxist books and none of them talked about the role of money in communism. I find decription on moneys descriminating part in capitalism, but i find no rejection in that the descriminating parts can be removed to then include it in communism. Myselvf i belive that moneys principle is discriminatind towards the people.

Anyways, i would really appreciate if someone could help me out.

[MrDoom]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2006 10:28 pm
First of all, energy credits is an outdated ideal. Have you forgotten about renewable resources? How would these be accounted for? Energy credits are a rather ridiculous thing.
It takes energy and power to harvest, process, and apply labor to those renewable resources through machinery. Energy accounting measures ENERGY, not latent "value" in resources.

[norwegian commie]

hmm. Can really no one ansver me on that question?
That is quite disturbing

[DougMagic]

Sorry that this is my first post and I did not introduce myself properly, but I just had to answer this question.

Karl Marx Das Kapital

go read it here at Bibliomania (http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/261/1294/frameset.html)
I read this in early high school and it has been a number of years, but I am certain that he will address your question in this book.

[ComradeRed]

The entire concept of money itself is based upon scarcity and private property. Uh, no, money itself is based on a standard expression of value, as Marx pointed out:

Originally posted by Marx
The first chief function of money is to supply commodities with the material for the expression of their values, or to represent their values as magnitudes of the same denomination, qualitatively equal, and quantitatively comparable. It thus serves as a universal measure of value. And only by virtue of this function does gold, the equivalent commodity par excellence, become money.

It is not money that renders commodities commensurable. Just the contrary. It is because all commodities, as values, are realised human labour, and therefore commensurable, that their values can be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the latter be converted into the common measure of their values, i.e., into money. Money as a measure of value, is the phenomenal form that must of necessity be assumed by that measure of value which is immanent in commodities, labour-time. [1.

The expression of the value of a commodity in gold — x commodity A = y money-commodity — is its money-form or price. A single equation, such as 1 ton of iron = 2 ounces of gold, now suffices to express the value of the iron in a socially valid manner. There is no longer any need for this equation to figure as a link in the chain of equations that express the values of all other commodities, because the equivalent commodity, gold, now has the character of money. The general form of relative value has resumed its original shape of simple or isolated relative value. On the other hand, the expanded expression of relative value, the endless series of equations, has now become the form peculiar to the relative value of the money-commodity. The series itself, too, is now given, and has social recognition in the prices of actual commodities. We have only to read the quotations of a price-list backwards, to find the magnitude of the value of money expressed in all sorts of commodities. But money itself has no price. In order to put it on an equal footing with all other commodities in this respect, we should be obliged to equate it to itself as its own equivalent.

The price or money-form of commodities is, like their form of value generally, a form quite distinct from their palpable bodily form; it is, therefore, a purely ideal or mental form. Although invisible, the value of iron, linen and corn has actual existence in these very articles: it is ideally made perceptible by their equality with gold, a relation that, so to say, exists only in their own heads. Their owner must, therefore, lend them his tongue, or hang a ticket on them, before their prices can be communicated to the outside world. [2. Since the expression of the value of commodities in gold is a merely ideal act, we may use for this purpose imaginary or ideal money. Every trader knows, that he is far from having turned his goods into money, when he has expressed their value in a price or in imaginary money, and that it does not require the least bit of real gold, to estimate in that metal millions of pounds’ worth of goods. When, therefore, money serves as a measure of value; it is employed only as imaginary or ideal money. This circumstance has given rise to the wildest theories. [3. But, although the money that performs the functions of a measure of value is only ideal money, price depends entirely upon the actual substance that is money. The value, or in other words, the quantity of human labour contained in a ton of iron, is expressed in imagination by such a quantity of the money-commodity as contains the same amount of labour as the iron. According, therefore, as the measure of value is gold, silver, or copper, the value of the ton of iron will be expressed by very different prices, or will be represented by very different quantities of those metals respectively.

If, therefore, two different commodities, such as gold and silver, are simultaneously measures of value, all commodities have two prices — one a gold-price, the other a silver-price. These exist quietly side by side, so long as the ratio of The value of silver to that of gold remains unchanged, say, at 15:1. Every change in their ratio disturbs the ratio which exists between the gold-prices and the silver-prices of commodities, and thus proves, by facts, that a double standard of value is inconsistent with the functions of a standard. [4.

Commodities with definite prices present themselves under the form; a commodity A = x gold; b commodity B = z gold; c commodity C = y gold, &c., where a, b, c, represent definite quantities of the commodities A, B, C and x, z, y, definite quantities of gold. The values of these commodities are, therefore, changed in imagination into so many different quantities of gold. Hence, in spite of the confusing variety of the commodities themselves, their values become magnitudes of the same denomination, gold-magnitudes. They are now capable of being compared with each other and measured, and the want becomes technically felt of comparing them with some fixed quantity of gold as a unit measure. This unit, by subsequent division into aliquot parts, becomes itself the standard or scale. Before they become money, gold, silver, and copper already possess such standard measures in their standards of weight, so that, for example, a pound weight, while serving as the unit, is, on the one hand, divisible into ounces, and, on the other, may be combined to make up hundredweights. [5. It is owing to this that, in all metallic currencies, the names given to the standards of money or of price were originally taken from the pre-existing names of the standards of weight.

As measure of Value, and as standard of price, money has two entirely distinct functions to perform. It is the measure of value inasmuch as it is the socially recognised incarnation of human labour; it is the standard of price inasmuch as it is a fixed weight of metal. As the measure of value it serves to convert the values of all the manifold commodities into prices, into imaginary quantities of gold; as the standard of price it measures those quantities of gold. The measure of values measures commodities considered as values; the standard of price measures, on the contrary, quantities of gold by a unit quantity of gold, not the value of one quantity of gold by the weight of another. In order to make gold a standard of price, a certain weight must be fixed upon as the unit. In this case, as in all cases of measuring quantities of the same denomination, the establishment of an unvarying unit of measure is all-important. Hence, the less the unit is subject to variation, so much the better does the standard of price fulfil its office. But only in so far as it is itself a product of labour, and, therefore, potentially variable in value, can gold serve as a measure of value. from Das Kapital, vol I, Chapter 3. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm)


Energy accounting measures ENERGY, not latent "value" in resources. The mind reels at such "reasoning"; the above exerpt from Capital actually is a good basis for a critique of "energy accounting" as just another expression of value.

[Dimentio]

Energy credits are not only accounting for one stage of production, but for all, and are thus emergy credits rather than energy credits. Moreover, they are not outdated, but could actually be implemented even better today, as electronic cards. Each citizen is accounted for an own card.

The energy is equally distributed to all cards, the denominator being the total production capacity/number of individuals. So in reality, energy accounting is the only "designed" way to assure the marxian catch-word for "from all according to work to all according to need".

It is not planners who decide what everyone should get in Energy Accounting, but rather the citizens themselves, and their allocation of energy credits in it's turn decides the overall resource-production allocation of the technate.

As for recycling, it is even better, as it will make the technate more energy-efficient, thus increase the prosperity of the benefactors - the citizens of the technate.

http://www.technocracyeurope.eu

[RebelDog]

Money comes from the practical need to be able to go around and not have to carry all your own commodities to swap for others. Instead you'd carry a 'bank note' which initialy was just a hand-written note from a bank saying the bearer of the note had enough equivalent literal commodity value to cover the exchange for the new commodities. When accessing goods and services in a communist world we will not need to show our wealth and exchange commodities to get other needed commodities. Money would be unnecessary as their would be no discrimination as to who gets what.

[Dimentio]

That is only because the productive capacity has passed the point when it has reached abundance and surpassed the total physical ability to consume. Otherwise, we would need a price system. It is not an issue of class relations so much as one of productive capacity.

Of course, the system somewhat makes it into a class issue when we have surpassed scarcity but still relies on scarcity-based distribution systems.

[Lamanov]

I suggest reading Capital, ASAP.

Everything you want to know now: what's money, value, exchange - is explained in first few chapters.

[norwegian commie]

Thanks all, got many ansvers.
And i am going to read das Kapital sometime, but im going to read some more basic lenin, Marx and engels first...
Arent das Kapital on like 900pages?

[Dimentio]

More like a thousand pages, but there are much references. The TSC [Technocratic Study Course] does also have some chapters dealing with the subject of money, but the perspective there is more thermodynamic.

[DougMagic]

I also hate to bet the bearer of bad news, but I have to make one opinion very clear. Society has advanced much too far past the point of shared commodities to actually share them.

Imagine for one minute the realistic value of the computers that each of us is currently typing on. Inside those very computers are many components from different manufacturers so that the composition of the very machine that you are working on is greater than the whole. How would one place value on that?

Think also about specialized fields. Doctors, making as much as a sanitation worker? Proposing such an idea would cause much outrage.

Yes, money does discriminate. By it's very nature it will always discriminate, but it is a necessary evil. The idea should not be how to get past it, but rather how to work with it. Seriously, can you take your work with you everywhere? If you are a farmer can you carry your fields in your back pocket? What should not happen is the gross excesses. The C.E.O. that makes an average of 270 times what the average factory worker makes. 270 times. This is ludicrous. The only justification that is offered is that companies want the best and most capable man for the job. Here is another tidbit to boil your blood. I live in a small city of around 250,000 people. The director of housing for this city and surrounding county makes $250,000 a year. That is more than the man in the same position in New York City makes. How useful could the extra $200,000 in his salary be? Well I can tell you that it could buy at least one home or assist many in their pursuit of affordable housing.

With this being said, I would also love to hear an honest, original and feasible proposal for a moneyless, or nearly moneyless society.

[Dimentio]

DougMagic - There are other ideas than shared commodities. The material foundation of communism [and technocracy] is abundance in production capacity. Let that capacity be utilised in a service with all the inhabitants of a specific area as the users, and let them get an equal amount of consumption capacity.

Just look at the link at my sig.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by norwegian [email protected] 10, 2006 03:39 pm
Arent das Kapital on like 900pages?

First few chapters will be enough: they deal with value, money and exchange - everything you need for now. That's about 80 pages.

[Concept]

i have a question concerning a moneyless society....how would travel be handled??
cuz i know i'd still love to see the world even if i lived in a world and/or country that was moneyless

[DougMagic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2006 04:09 pm
DougMagic - There are other ideas than shared commodities. The material foundation of communism [and technocracy] is abundance in production capacity. Let that capacity be utilised in a service with all the inhabitants of a specific area as the users, and let them get an equal amount of consumption capacity.

Just look at the link at my sig.
Great recommendation and I also recommend that everyone read Technocracy Inc's (http://www.technocracy.org) webpage fully, but there is one fatal flaw in all of these systems.

People

People are naturally greedy. It is literally in our nature to binge until we can have no more, even on material goods. Our DNA says to get as much of a good thing as we can, because we never know when it will run out.

Again I have to say how do you think Mr. Richman is going to react when we attempt to kick him out of his penthouse? People would just freak out.

Another small point to follow up is that competition breeds innovation. We would not have many of the products that we so readily enjoy if it were not for one company attempting to one-up another company. We would not have made it into space if we were not competing with the Soviets. I could only imagine that in a Technocratic society there would be a limited amount of companies making similar products.

I readily embrace all theories that lead to true equality, but always must play the devils advocate. For if we cannot defend what we believe in then how do know that we truly believe in it?

[Chocobo]

People are naturally greedy. It is literally in our nature to binge until we can have no more, even on material goods. Our DNA says to get as much of a good thing as we can, because we never know when it will run out.

Again I have to say how do you think Mr. Richman is going to react when we attempt to kick him out of his penthouse? People would just freak out.

Another small point to follow up is that competition breeds innovation. We would not have many of the products that we so readily enjoy if it were not for one company attempting to one-up another company. We would not have made it into space if we were not competing with the Soviets. I could only imagine that in a Technocratic society there would be a limited amount of companies making similar products.

I readily embrace all theories that lead to true equality, but always must play the devils advocate. For if we cannot defend what we believe in then how do know that we truly believe in it?
Nope, people aren't naturally greedy, and your corporate-producitivity statement is reactionary and false. The concious socialist? The foundation for the communist revolution? Brush up with some Marx, get rid of that reactionary filth.

As with Technocracy, I refuse to believe it will come about by reformist measures but strictly with revolutionary measures which is why I add Marxism to this.



Also, for a book recommendation for understanding moneyless societys, and one that isn't 1000 pages long, is "The state and Revolution" by Lenin. It doesn't detail but touches upon how a moneyless society would work and is 100 pages long, so you could read it in a day or 2.

[DougMagic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2006 01:07 pm

Nope, people aren't naturally greedy, and your corporate-producitivity statement is reactionary and false. The concious socialist? The foundation for the communist revolution? Brush up with some Marx, get rid of that reactionary filth.


You are kidding, right? Do you know anything about human nature? People are just animals that have refined communication and mastered the use of tools. How is your dismissive stance in anyway helpful?

Good book recommendation though.

What I am most interested in seeing here is an earnest proposal about how a moneyless society could be brought about.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by DougMagic+December 11, 2006 05:46 pm--> (DougMagic @ December 11, 2006 05:46 pm)
[email protected] 11, 2006 01:07 pm

Nope, people aren't naturally greedy, and your corporate-producitivity statement is reactionary and false. The concious socialist? The foundation for the communist revolution? Brush up with some Marx, get rid of that reactionary filth.


You are kidding, right? Do you know anything about human nature? People are just animals that have refined communication and mastered the use of tools. How is your dismissive stance in anyway helpful?

Good book recommendation though.

What I am most interested in seeing here is an earnest proposal about how a moneyless society could be brought about. [/b]
While you continue to believe the baseless assumption that humans are greedy you will find all ideas for how a moneyless society would work meaningless.

Try analysing that dea. Was every human being you've ever met selfish? Do you think much of the greed around you is a consequence of the system we live under?

I know Richard Dawkins has made claims that genetics actually makes us altruists, more than selfish. Since we share most of one anothers genetic material, it makes sense.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by DougMagic+December 11, 2006 12:42 pm--> (DougMagic @ December 11, 2006 12:42 pm)
[email protected] 10, 2006 04:09 pm
DougMagic - There are other ideas than shared commodities. The material foundation of communism [and technocracy] is abundance in production capacity. Let that capacity be utilised in a service with all the inhabitants of a specific area as the users, and let them get an equal amount of consumption capacity.

Just look at the link at my sig.
Great recommendation and I also recommend that everyone read Technocracy Inc's (http://www.technocracy.org) webpage fully, but there is one fatal flaw in all of these systems.

People

People are naturally greedy. It is literally in our nature to binge until we can have no more, even on material goods. Our DNA says to get as much of a good thing as we can, because we never know when it will run out.

Again I have to say how do you think Mr. Richman is going to react when we attempt to kick him out of his penthouse? People would just freak out.

Another small point to follow up is that competition breeds innovation. We would not have many of the products that we so readily enjoy if it were not for one company attempting to one-up another company. We would not have made it into space if we were not competing with the Soviets. I could only imagine that in a Technocratic society there would be a limited amount of companies making similar products.

I readily embrace all theories that lead to true equality, but always must play the devils advocate. For if we cannot defend what we believe in then how do know that we truly believe in it? [/b]
One small point...

Ehem...

Technocracy is not built upon ownership but on usership. You cannot lie in more than one bed at once, right? You have a limited ability to actually consume.

And competition in a technate is not a physical impossibility either, if we would like it so. Just put different teams in contest.

[robbo203]

Originally posted by norwegian [email protected] 04, 2006 02:48 pm
As the title says i am curios on how exactly the moneyless society functions.
And i want to know if Marx, Engels or Lenin wrote about this, if they did, in which books or articles.

Example, if i want to give my neighbor a gift, and that gift is somewhat rare, how will this be decided?
What role has the market in communism, will we exchange goods for other goods, or will we receive from "above"

Is there communists that believe in money in communism, or are money and communism against eachother, and impossible to join together.


If someone could give me a long answer with concrete examples on the function of a moneyless society, the reasons a moneyless society is necessary.
And i need examples refering to Marxist, Leninist, ext litterature.


--And last, what are the difference between a communist and a revolutionary socialist.
[QUOTE]


Communism is a moneyless society. Marx and Engels peppered their writings with such expressions as the "communistic abolition of buying and selling" (communist Manifesto) and "abolition of the wages system" (Value price and Profit)

From each according to ability to each according to need - what would pertain in full blown communism - means literally a society in which individuals have free unmediated or direct access (no barter or money) to goods and services and freely and voluntarily contribute to the production of these goods and services. All of the wasteful and non productive activities associated with a money economy - banking insurance, wage departments etc etc - would disappear releasing an enormous amout of labour and resoruces for socially productive activity

Communism and socialism used to mean more or less the same thing before Lenin and co distorted the meaning of the word, suggesting that socialism was some kind of transitional stage between capitalism and communism.

If you want to know more about the organisational aspects of a communist society I would recommend several works but I particularly like the pamphlet "Socialism as a practical alternative" from www.worldsocialism.org

Regards

Robin
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldincommon/