Supply and Demand

[grove street]

Heres my own system to meet supply and demand and I welcome criticism. First of all I'm talking from the perspective that society is within the highest stage of Communism, currency and the market no longer exists. First I'll start with home consumption material goods (TV's , clothes ect). There will be surveys, panales, research ect, to discover what consumers want and need, once this has been done and products are designed and trialed, before they go into mass production there will be expo's, adverstisments, demonstrations ect to gain consumer feed back. From there consumers will be able to order what they want and as much as they want over the internet ect. This will give producers a good indication of what is the demand level. For food and home estentialls ect people will go to supermarkets ect, choose what they want and their items and quantity will be recorded (digitaly) and sent over to producers/central planners to help meet supply and demand. Producers, medical, defense, educational institutions ect will just tell central planners what they want/need. Housing will be mostly meet on a local level and will be based upon need, this might upset some people, but the fact remains 1 person doesn't need a 12 bedroom house, while a 12 person family more likely does.

Alot of you will be thinking that people might order far too many goods, but because they will be unable to sell them or barter them (whats the point when everyone can just get it for free anyway) people will be left with no other choice, but to get only enough for themselves and their families. There will of cause be limits put on more expensive goods, like cars ect. Others will be thinking if everyone can get almost everything for free then what's the point of working? Well the point is that people will also be thinking that without in-put this system will not work and they will not have free access to goods ect, so they will be encouraged to work to keep and improve such a lifestyle, plus time and technology will be invested into making work shorter and eaiser so people have to work less time and less harder.

When Karl Marx talked about the benefits of a Communist society he didn't like to go into great dealer because he wanted to avoid sounding like the many other utopian Socialists, so he just said that the main benefit of a Communist society is more free time. He did talk about the many ways in which such a soicety could work and function, but the overall benefit remained the same, more freetime. I will do the same, the main benefit will be more free time, the freedom and ablility to do what you want (as long as your not endangering others).

[Sickle of Justice]

hmmmm... i dunno. i think things should be more "need based" than that. i think that a truly communist state (i am anarcho communist, so this might be more like an anarcho comm state) would be sort of a "take what you need, pool the rest." type thing. also, i dont think this is realistically possible. obviously your being utopian, but even in a high form of communism, people will often pay more attention to they're own wants than to others needs.

also i think you're taking it too large scale. the best way to make sure everyone gets what they need is to handle things on a small level, by communes aproxiamatly 500 strong.

as far as the housing and food goes, that mostly makes sense. the digital recording thing makes me uncomfortable, but in a realistic way it makes some sense.

the environmentalist in me doesn't like some of the ads and stuff. i think society should aim for some more simplicity, a down to earth, respect for nature sorta thing. we dont NEED tvs. they are the biggest opiate of the masses, in modern day, surpassing religion by far. i guess theres some primitivist in me, but i dont think a free society would actually accomodate the consumption of tvs, provide maybe, but not advertise.

[grove street]

Originally posted by Sickle of [email protected] 22, 2007 10:04 pm
hmmmm... i dunno. i think things should be more "need based" than that. i think that a truly communist state (i am anarcho communist, so this might be more like an anarcho comm state) would be sort of a "take what you need, pool the rest." type thing. also, i dont think this is realistically possible. obviously your being utopian, but even in a high form of communism, people will often pay more attention to they're own wants than to others needs.

also i think you're taking it too large scale. the best way to make sure everyone gets what they need is to handle things on a small level, by communes aproxiamatly 500 strong.

as far as the housing and food goes, that mostly makes sense. the digital recording thing makes me uncomfortable, but in a realistic way it makes some sense.

the environmentalist in me doesn't like some of the ads and stuff. i think society should aim for some more simplicity, a down to earth, respect for nature sorta thing. we dont NEED tvs. they are the biggest opiate of the masses, in modern day, surpassing religion by far. i guess theres some primitivist in me, but i dont think a free society would actually accomodate the consumption of tvs, provide maybe, but not advertise.
You are coming from a more primivitist point of view, I beleive that things like housing should be meet on a level of need (size), but the houses them selfs should be the best quality that technoloy can offer. The means of production is already so high that if all goods were equally spread out, there would be enough food to feed the world 12x over, the ablity to provide everyone with decent housing, clean water, healthcare, education, clothe everyone in the latest fashion and make sure everyone has the latest gadgets and to top it all off this could be acheived within a working day of minutes rather then hours.

This example about the means of production was researched by the Situation Internationalist and with backing from the U.N.

We already have the ability to create what most would desrcibe as a utopia (hate the word) with the technology that we have, so why would you want to take a step backwards?

[VukBZ2005]

Here's my view of Supply and Demand in a real Communist society:

When we discuss the concept of "Supply and Demand" in a real communist society, we have to do so while taking into account the following: THIS IS NOT SUPPLY AND DEMAND UNDER CAPITALISM!

In non-industrialized, industrialized and post-industrialized Capitalist societies, the concept of supply and demand is distorted to meet the demands of Capital. Because of this distortion, Supply means how much Capital can produce without overproducing and at a profit. Demand means how much the people who are purchasing the products in question are willing to purchase these products on a consistent basis.

When we are talking about Supply and Demand in real Communist terms we are talking about something else completely. Just to make this clearer, let me use the United States as an example.

After the successful overthrow of the American Capitalist class, the first things that would be on our minds would be to suppress the counter-revolution, to rebuild our communities and re-organize them to support a real Communist society and most importantly, to rebuild our industrial manufacturing infrastructure as so to bring about a level of overabundance that would actually establish Communism.

Because we are going to be focusing on these things, the organs of working class power that would exist throughout the United States would have to impose a system throughout their communities that would prevent the re-emergence of Capital and that would ensure that people would have the greatest access possible to whatever is being rationed.

Remember, because of the decline of the American manufacturing sector and its outsourcing to industrializing regions, we are now importing more than we are exporting, like a non-industrialized country, thus leaving us in a situation that can only be solved (Molecular manufacturing, if it is completely feasible, would not be around until, at the very least, 30 years after the revolution) by rebuilding the manufacturing sector through the placement of integrated industrial manufacturing operations throughout all communities, enabling these communities to make use of the collective labor of everyone to benefit those communities, and enabling a society of overabundance.

This structure should have two sectors; a free sector and a non-free sector. The free sector would be composed of products that are abundant and that should not be in ration and thus, should be accessed without cost. The non-free sector would be composed of products that would be in short supply and that would be rationed without cost through the usage of a system that would allocate a minimum amount of each product using a ration book. This ration book would ensure that everyone would be on the same level when it comes to the accessing of rations and this would ensure that there is no currency for Capital to re-develop.

We will need build the system that would ultimately replace this temporary rationing structure that we are developing to compensate for the shortage of products at the very same time. Speaking of which, when building a permanent system I believe that we need to try for something like a modernized version of Cybersyn, a computerized system that handles supply and demand based on how much need there is for that product. We would obtain the information through the use of bar codes that are put onto the side of wrapped and boxed products. The information is obtained through scanners and that information is then sent to the factories and the farms, where it would be used to manufacture and produce products specifically according the information that is being provided from the distribution centers.

[grove street]

Originally posted by Communist [email protected] 24, 2007 12:47 am
Here's my view of Supply and Demand in a real Communist society:

When we discuss the concept of "Supply and Demand" in a real communist society, we have to do so while taking into account the following: THIS IS NOT SUPPLY AND DEMAND UNDER CAPITALISM!

In non-industrialized, industrialized and post-industrialized Capitalist societies, the concept of supply and demand is distorted to meet the demands of Capital. Because of this distortion, Supply means how much Capital can produce without overproducing and at a profit. Demand means how much the people who are purchasing the products in question are willing to purchase these products on a consistent basis.

When we are talking about Supply and Demand in real Communist terms we are talking about something else completely. Just to make this clearer, let me use the United States as an example.

After the successful overthrow of the American Capitalist class, the first things that would be on our minds would be to suppress the counter-revolution, to rebuild our communities and re-organize them to support a real Communist society and most importantly, to rebuild our industrial manufacturing infrastructure as so to bring about a level of overabundance that would actually establish Communism.

Because we are going to be focusing on these things, the organs of working class power that would exist throughout the United States would have to impose a system throughout their communities that would prevent the re-emergence of Capital and that would ensure that people would have the greatest access possible to whatever is being rationed.

Remember, because of the decline of the American manufacturing sector and its outsourcing to industrializing regions, we are now importing more than we are exporting, like a non-industrialized country, thus leaving us in a situation that can only be solved (Molecular manufacturing, if it is completely feasible, would not be around until, at the very least, 30 years after the revolution) by rebuilding the manufacturing sector through the placement of integrated industrial manufacturing operations throughout all communities, enabling these communities to make use of the collective labor of everyone to benefit those communities, and enabling a society of overabundance.

This structure should have two sectors; a free sector and a non-free sector. The free sector would be composed of products that are abundant and that should not be in ration and thus, should be accessed without cost. The non-free sector would be composed of products that would be in short supply and that would be rationed without cost through the usage of a system that would allocate a minimum amount of each product using a ration book. This ration book would ensure that everyone would be on the same level when it comes to the accessing of rations and this would ensure that there is no currency for Capital to re-develop.

We will need build the system that would ultimately replace this temporary rationing structure that we are developing to compensate for the shortage of products at the very same time. Speaking of which, when building a permanent system I believe that we need to try for something like a modernized version of Cybersyn, a computerized system that handles supply and demand based on how much need there is for that product. We would obtain the information through the use of bar codes that are put onto the side of wrapped and boxed products. The information is obtained through scanners and that information is then sent to the factories and the farms, where it would be used to manufacture and produce products specifically according the information that is being provided from the distribution centers.
I couldn't agree more.

In a Communist society supply and demand are really just want and need.