Labor = Money?

[clockradiospeakers]

I was discussing with a friend that a goal of communism was the abolition of 'money' as we know, and that labor would be compulsory (in that, if you don't work, you aren't fed). He very slyly noted that this would make labor just another form of money, which you must trade for food.

Although I don't see the relevance of this point, it is a point nontheless, and I'd like some help in forming a reply to it.

Thanks in advance.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Right now labor is a commodity that you sell for money to use the money to eat. In a communist society if you didn't use your labor you wouldn't go unfed. That is capitalism. In communism if you need food than your needs will be met if there is an ability to meet that need.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 09:37 pm
I was discussing with a friend that a goal of communism was the abolition of 'money' as we know, and that labor would be compulsory (in that, if you don't work, you aren't fed). He very slyly noted that this would make labor just another form of money, which you must trade for food.

Although I don't see the relevance of this point, it is a point nontheless, and I'd like some help in forming a reply to it.

Thanks in advance.
It is human labor-power that manifests all means of subsistence, therefore, we can come to the conclusion that under the logic that your friend is using, all forms of labor, whether it is under the grasp of capital, or if it is freed, is a function mandated in any breathing and healthy society.

[clockradiospeakers]

And if there isn't that ability?

(Edit- this is in reply to Chicano Shamrock)

[Janus]

He very slyly noted that this would make labor just another form of money, which you must trade for food.
I would think that the hiring of labor would either be taboo or banned. There's no reason to sell your labor power to someone when you could just as easily get the needed material from the distribution system for free.

[clockradiospeakers]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 10:53 pm
I would think that the hiring of labor would either be taboo or banned. There's no reason to sell your labor power to someone when you could just as easily get the needed material from the distribution system for free.
Would the 'needed material' (in this case, food) be provided for free if you weren't working or contributing to society?

As under the system of compulsory labor (as laid out by Trotsky, I believe), one must do their days work in order to get their days food.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 01:49 pm
And if there isn't that ability?

(Edit- this is in reply to Chicano Shamrock)
From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. If the ability isn't there then you can't reach someones needs.

[LSD]

I was discussing with a friend that a goal of communism was the abolition of 'money' as we know, and that labor would be compulsory

Except that what you were describing wasn't communism, it was some kind of planned market econony.

Your friend is entirely correct in that if services, essential or otherwise, are made conditional on meeting production or time quotas, it's functionally no different from what we have now.

Replacing one form of coercive employment (wage-slavery) with another (quota-slavery) is just swapping tyrannies. Worse, it's the betrayal of everything the working class would have just fought for.

A proletarian victory will not come cheap. The worst thing we can do is to repeat the mistakes of the past and turn the revolution over to "leaders" who would pervert it into their own personal game of "sim city".

Requiring work for food would would require someone to monitor whether that work is being done and someone else to enforce food bans. And that means government and cops and systemic violence against an economic underclass defined primarily by its relation to the means of production.

In other words, it's just another oppressive class society, and possibly an even less stable one.

***

If you're curious as to how communism could possibly function without such draconian coercive regulations, I would suggest that you read this thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48269).

Hopefuly it will clear up some of your misconceptions. :)

[Janus]

Would the 'needed material' (in this case, food) be provided for free if you weren't working or contributing to society?
It would really be for the community to decide though I doubt that people would be happy with those who simply refused to work. But since work is oriented towards people's interests in a communist (rather than the other way around) I doubt this kind of problem would occur. I certainly don't envision a society based on such authoritative measures as starving people into submission.

[yns_mr]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 09:37 pm
He very slyly noted that this would make labor just another form of money, which you must trade for food.
There is not trade in a socialist society, either

[abbielives!]

i think a socialist society should reward for effort/sacrifice
(capitalism rewards for output, property, and bargining power)

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!@May 27, 2007 09:42 pm
i think a socialist society should reward for effort/sacrifice
(capitalism rewards for output, property, and bargining power)
Aren't you an anarchist? Shouldn't you be opposed to socialism?

Anyway, what metric do you intend to use to measure "effort/sacrifice"?

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by SovietPants+May 29, 2007 04:14 pm--> (SovietPants @ May 29, 2007 04:14 pm)
abbielives!@May 27, 2007 09:42 pm
i think a socialist society should reward for effort/sacrifice
(capitalism rewards for output, property, and bargining power)
Aren't you an anarchist? Shouldn't you be opposed to socialism?

Anyway, what metric do you intend to use to measure "effort/sacrifice"? [/b]
"Socialist society" can cover a broad range of political beliefs. Anarchists are not opposed to socialism. We are opposed to what is called state socialism.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by SovietPants+May 30, 2007 12:14 am--> (SovietPants @ May 30, 2007 12:14 am)
abbielives!@May 27, 2007 09:42 pm
i think a socialist society should reward for effort/sacrifice
(capitalism rewards for output, property, and bargining power)
Aren't you an anarchist? Shouldn't you be opposed to socialism?

Anyway, what metric do you intend to use to measure "effort/sacrifice"? [/b]


yes i am an anarchist, it really depends on how you define socialism whether or not i am opposed to it.

effort and sacrifice are thing like working longer, harder, in poor conditions

[bezdomni]

effort and sacrifice are thing like working longer, harder, in poor conditions

Right...and how do you quantitatively measure these things? What are three units of "hard work" and what is the conversion into x units of "poor conditions"?

I'll save you a lot of trouble and tell you that you cannot, and even trying to do so is gross idealism. "Hard work" is not something rooted in material reality, it cannot be objectively defined. Labor, however, is something that is easily objectively defined and quantitatively measured. Use-value is something easily measured (with Marxist economics, at least).

I suggest you do some serious reading on the Labor Theory of Value, to break yourself of this weird idealist notion that "hard work" can be measured and appropriately rewarded.

At any rate, the goal of socialism is to eliminate long, hard work in poor conditions - not to reward participation in it. Putting this economic theory of yours into practice would do nothing more than create a criminally ineffecient version of the bourgeoisie.

And you call Lenin an idealist. :lol:

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by abbielives!+June 02, 2007 04:40 am--> (abbielives! @ June 02, 2007 04:40 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 12:14 am

abbielives!@May 27, 2007 09:42 pm
i think a socialist society should reward for effort/sacrifice
(capitalism rewards for output, property, and bargining power)
Aren't you an anarchist? Shouldn't you be opposed to socialism?

Anyway, what metric do you intend to use to measure "effort/sacrifice"?


yes i am an anarchist, it really depends on how you define socialism whether or not i am opposed to it.

effort and sacrifice are thing like working longer, harder, in poor conditions [/b]
And where this valuing of "sacrifice" comes from? The Bible? Some Stalinist manual on Stakhanovism?

Luís Henrique

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 06:12 pm
how do you quantitatively measure these things? What are three units of "hard work" and what is the conversion into x units of "poor conditions"?




you can't value is subjective

[la-troy]

Call me stupid but what you guys are talking about is state capitalism. I mean working to have the goods handed out to you by how hard you work. That just means that they don't own shit. So how is this communism?

I have always saw, or you could say pictured, a Communist society being one in which the people work for the greater good of the community. That is to say since the farmers need tractors, we produce tractors, they need pesticides we make pesticides. The farmers produce to food because the population needs food. They use the pesticides and the tractors provided by their brothers in factories.

Now i real problem i have with communist society is luxuries. I can see in a socialist society how it can be handled but how in a communist society. They are not a need so do we provide?

[ComradeR]

Originally posted by la-[email protected] 03, 2007 12:38 am
Call me stupid but what you guys are talking about is state capitalism. I mean working to have the goods handed out to you by how hard you work. That just means that they don't own shit. So how is this communism?

I have always saw, or you could say pictured, a Communist society being one in which the people work for the greater good of the community. That is to say since the farmers need tractors, we produce tractors, they need pesticides we make pesticides. The farmers produce to food because the population needs food. They use the pesticides and the tractors provided by their brothers in factories.

Now i real problem i have with communist society is luxuries. I can see in a socialist society how it can be handled but how in a communist society. They are not a need so do we provide?
Well one way i have pictured it is that peoples basic needs are provided regardless, but luxury goods i.e. items that fulfill wants rather then needs, will be obtained by going to work and getting your labour values worth of said items.

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!+June 02, 2007 11:10 pm--> (abbielives! @ June 02, 2007 11:10 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2007 06:12 pm
how do you quantitatively measure these things? What are three units of "hard work" and what is the conversion into x units of "poor conditions"?




you can't value is subjective [/b]
That's exactly my point. With your idealist system, commodities would have no real value. Thank you for admitting it and conceeding the point to me. You cannot measure sacrifice or effort, therefore it is foolish to base the value of commodities on those arbitrary concepts.

However, what you said is technically incorrect. There is an objective way of determining value (to an extent). Commodities must have a use-value (ie, they must be useful to SOMEONE), otherwise they are not commodities. It's quite simple. If something has a use-value, then it has value. If something does not have use value, then it has no value. Use-value exists as a boolean, either it is useful or it is not useful.

Now, if something is useful, you can determine its value by calculating the amount of socially necessary labor that went into its production. It's really incredibly simple. This is called the Labor Theory of Value.

I suggest you read Kapital (at least parts of it) before you start talking about economics again.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 04:30 pm
With your idealist system, commodities would have no real value. You cannot measure sacrifice or effort, therefore it is foolish to base the value of commodities on those arbitrary concepts.

However, what you said is technically incorrect. There is an objective way of determining value (to an extent). Commodities must have a use-value (ie, they must be useful to SOMEONE), otherwise they are not commodities. It's quite simple. If something has a use-value, then it has value. If something does not have use value, then it has no value. Use-value exists as a boolean, either it is useful or it is not useful.

Now, if something is useful, you can determine its value by calculating the amount of socially necessary labor that went into its production. It's really incredibly simple. This is called the Labor Theory of Value.

I suggest you read Kapital (at least parts of it) before you start talking about economics again.

our fellow workers determine how we are rewarded.
my problem with the labour theory of value is that is does not take into account bargining power.
I suggest you take your head out of that moldy old tome.

[bezdomni]

our fellow workers determine how we are rewarded.
And how do they do that? Magic?


my problem with the labour theory of value is that is does not take into account bargining power.
My problem with your idealist theory of sacrifice/effort is its complete lack of basis in material reality.

Anyway, what the hell do you mean by "bargaining power" and how is that relevent at all to the LTV? Furthermore, can you point out specifically how the LTV fails to address bargaining power?


I suggest you take your head out of that moldy old tome.
I'd rather champion an old theory that's fundamentally correct than a new one that's completely idiotic.

[arielle]

Originally posted by ComradeR+June 03, 2007 09:29 am--> (ComradeR @ June 03, 2007 09:29 am)
la-[email protected] 03, 2007 12:38 am
Call me stupid but what you guys are talking about is state capitalism. I mean working to have the goods handed out to you by how hard you work. That just means that they don't own shit. So how is this communism?

I have always saw, or you could say pictured, a Communist society being one in which the people work for the greater good of the community. That is to say since the farmers need tractors, we produce tractors, they need pesticides we make pesticides. The farmers produce to food because the population needs food. They use the pesticides and the tractors provided by their brothers in factories.

Now i real problem i have with communist society is luxuries. I can see in a socialist society how it can be handled but how in a communist society. They are not a need so do we provide?
Well one way i have pictured it is that peoples basic needs are provided regardless, but luxury goods i.e. items that fulfill wants rather then needs, will be obtained by going to work and getting your labour values worth of said items. [/b]
I agree with the idea of having to work for your luxuries but having your needs always there for you. It adds a sense of pride that you worked for that item and you have it.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 05:57 pm

our fellow workers determine how we are rewarded.
And how do they do that? Magic?


my problem with the labour theory of value is that is does not take into account bargining power.
My problem with your idealist theory of sacrifice/effort is its complete lack of basis in material reality.

Anyway, what the hell do you mean by "bargaining power" and how is that relevent at all to the LTV? Furthermore, can you point out specifically how the LTV fails to address bargaining power?


I suggest you take your head out of that moldy old tome.
I'd rather champion an old theory that's fundamentally correct than a new one that's completely idiotic.

i think the process would be differant at each work place, but you could for example set up a rating system with differant levels of work lazy, average, hard etc.
the LVT has to do with reward for labour, but some people who have needed skills can withhold their labor and go some place else where they can get a higher wage because their skills are in demand.

[bezdomni]

i think the process would be differant at each work place, but you could for example set up a rating system with differant levels of work lazy, average, hard etc.
That is an idealist economic system that would be doomed to failure if it were ever actually implemented because of the incredibly subjective nature of "hard work" and "laziness".

This essentially anti-communist platform you propose would not only fail miserably at compensating workers for their labor, but it would also fail to radically restructure society and property relations. The goal is to abolish work, not just reward workers in new ways.


the LVT has to do with reward for labour, but some people who have needed skills can withhold their labor and go some place else where they can get a higher wage because their skills are in demand.
Uhh...so workers get paid more when their labor-time is more socially useful? I fail to see how that is not explained by the LTV.

[Lenin II]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 09:37 pm
I was discussing with a friend that a goal of communism was the abolition of 'money' as we know, and that labor would be compulsory (in that, if you don't work, you aren't fed). He very slyly noted that this would make labor just another form of money, which you must trade for food.

Although I don't see the relevance of this point, it is a point nontheless, and I'd like some help in forming a reply to it.

Thanks in advance.
Your friend has a very distorted view of communism. In communism, all the basic needs of all the people are taken care of. There is even distribution of wealth and resources, and that includes food and clothes.

[abbielives!]

it looses a good deal of the subjectiveity if your institute a criteria for at what level people are rewarded at.
work is nessisary for society to function. define work.

the point is that under the LTV bargining power is not seen as hindering to the achivement of equality. so it allows those with acsess to education or training to be compensated at a level higher that their unskiled counter parts.