What else but markets?

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by co-[email protected] 08, 2007 06:00 pm
I would like to distance myself from those here who propose 'market socialism' (an oxymoron) and the idea that they are anything other than the antitheses of collective production and workers control/liberation. If socialism is, as I see it, workers and communities controling their futures, where does a market fit in to that model? What possible place can it have? A market by definition means workers have to be robbed of surplus value and control over their workplaces and produce. A market is not an innocent place where freely aquired goods are swapped. Its a place where the stolen labour of the proletariat is sold and it has to have an ruling class and state to benifit and enforce their power.


However, after the seizure of the state by the working class, it shall be used to regulate and constrain markets in order to minimise the negative effects (thus, actually prolonging the existence of markets).

What tired out pointless rubbish. You are either proposing capitalism lite or gradual state capitalism. Niether care about the interests of the proletariat and what you are basically saying is that workers should spill their blood to achieve nothing in their interests.
So, let's come out from the "ultra-leftist" empty generalities, and talk a bit about how things must work immediately after a proletarian revolution.

"Market" is nothing else than an instrument of distribution of goods. Evidently it is a limited one, a flawed one, as we can see by the periodical crisis of capitalism. However, a society needs distribution of goods. We would simply starve if goods weren't distributed. What other mechanism of distribution of goods do you envision, that could be put into place from night to day, immediately after a revolution, that could instantaneously improve the distribution of goods?

Luís Henrique

[co-op]

Luís Henrique;
You have ideas which do not surprise me but do disappoint me when ever I see leftists put them forward. Why have you this idea that markets are esential to distribute goods? What is the imaginary line in your head whereapon markets will cease to exist and the classless gift economy begin? Is this the natural transitional process authoritarian communists often talk of, with no disregard for the history of proletarian revolution?

I propose that workers seize the means of production immediately and produce all goods socialy for distribution through the existing infrastructure. As the workers will have control of the factories in their syndicates they will work with other plants in the same industry, the distribution industry and the community to decide best how to increase production, where to deliver goods to if prioritisation is required, and in overview, generally make the whole process a collective, social, highly efficient effort. Markets may carry on for some days or weeks where workers have not yet taken control, but understand that all the aspects of the capitalist economy that served to enslave us, and empower and enrich the bourgeoise have to be dismantled without delay.

You propose that markets continue indefinitely because your politics actually have no room for proletarian and community control of society. Your politics will either empower the new coordinator class (USSR state capitalism) or see a quick return from simple revisionism to private capital. History shows that the systems that allow exploitation and class society are not to be wished away or magically disappear and power given up by a controlling class. They have to be destroyed by the exploited and when that time comes they should kill it completely, not keep it on life support or just change the bosses.

If you look you will see that markets are actually a inefficient way to produce and distribute goods. Shake off these ruling class ideas and liberate yourself and your class. Workers self-management and control has no place for 'markets'. This is the 21st century in advanced capitalism with an advanced proletariat, the libertarian-communist ideas are practical and they work. We should only talk about markets in the sense that we must get rid of them as soon as the chance becomes available to us. Ask your self what markets need to exist and you will see they are incompatable with the vision of an emancipated proletariat.

[sanpal]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 09, 2007 03:49 pm
What other mechanism of distribution of goods do you envision, that could be put into place from night to day, immediately after a revolution, that could instantaneously improve the distribution of goods?


I subscribe to Luis Henrique's question.


I propose that workers seize the means of production immediately and produce all goods socialy for distribution through the existing infrastructure. As the workers will have control of the factories in their syndicates they will work with other plants in the same industry, the distribution industry and the community to decide best how to increase production, where to deliver goods to if prioritisation is required, and in overview, generally make the whole process a collective, social, highly efficient effort. Markets may carry on for some days or weeks where workers have not yet taken control, but understand that all the aspects of the capitalist economy that served to enslave us, and empower and enrich the bourgeoise have to be dismantled without delay.

This quote tell us that co-op doesn't know any nonmarket mechanism.
Only workers' control under means of production is not a mechanism of production and distribution of goods but only wishes of such mechanism. (Too long road between wishes and realities)

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by co-[email protected] 09, 2007 06:33 pm
You have ideas which do not surprise me but do disappoint me when ever I see leftists put them forward. Why have you this idea that markets are esential to distribute goods?
But who said I consider markets essential to distribute goods?

They aren't. But goods must be distributed, or people will simply starve. Markets are a mechanism to do it. If we are going to get rid of markets, we should be able to tell what other mechanism for the distribution of goods we are going to substitute for markets.

What would it be?


What is the imaginary line in your head whereapon markets will cease to exist and the classless gift economy begin? Is this the natural transitional process authoritarian communists often talk of, with no disregard for the history of proletarian revolution?

Well - when are markets cease to exist? The day after "the Revolution"? How do we supply people with goods, until we implement an alternative to the market?


I propose that workers seize the means of production immediately and produce all goods socialy for distribution through the existing infrastructure. As the workers will have control of the factories in their syndicates they will work with other plants in the same industry, the distribution industry and the community to decide best how to increase production, where to deliver goods to if prioritisation is required, and in overview, generally make the whole process a collective, social, highly efficient effort. Markets may carry on for some days or weeks where workers have not yet taken control, but understand that all the aspects of the capitalist economy that served to enslave us, and empower and enrich the bourgeoise have to be dismantled without delay.

Oh, yes? And how exactly the workers will be informed about where which goods are needed?


You propose that markets continue indefinitely because your politics actually have no room for proletarian and community control of society.

Stop the slander, now.

Nowhere I said that markets should continue indefinitely. I said, and maintain, they cannot be superceded from night to day. We will have to rely on them for some time, before we can get rid of them. And that process will be a gradual one.


Your politics will either empower the new coordinator class (USSR state capitalism) or see a quick return from simple revisionism to private capital.

You don't know what my politics is, so stop slandering me.


History shows that the systems that allow exploitation and class society are not to be wished away or magically disappear and power given up by a controlling class. They have to be destroyed by the exploited and when that time comes they should kill it completely, not keep it on life support or just change the bosses.

Yadda, yadda. You just don't know how to distribute goods, you pretend it is not a problem, and you go slandering people who question your stupid arrogance.

You would happily starve people to make a political point.


If you look you will see that markets are actually a inefficient way to produce and distribute goods.

Here:


"Market" is nothing else than an instrument of distribution of goods. Evidently it is a limited one, a flawed one, as we can see by the periodical crisis of capitalism.

So you don't need to teach me what I already know.


Shake off these ruling class ideas and liberate yourself and your class. Workers self-management and control has no place for 'markets'. This is the 21st century in advanced capitalism with an advanced proletariat, the libertarian-communist ideas are practical and they work. We should only talk about markets in the sense that we must get rid of them as soon as the chance becomes available to us. Ask your self what markets need to exist and you will see they are incompatable with the vision of an emancipated proletariat.

And so, how will be goods distributed? You didn't answer, because you don't know how to answer - you have to rely in empty generalities that do not solve the problem.

And then you slander those who call you to task. :angry:

Luís Henrique

[marxist_ghost]

I think we need markets as in the SHOPS, to distribute goods to the people. One big community store can be opened for each society where goods are available at state-declared prices. Thus, the shops would exist only to serve people and not to make profits by increasing the price of goods for their personal gains.

[LSD]

"Market" is nothing else than an instrument of distribution of goods. Evidently it is a limited one, a flawed one, as we can see by the periodical crisis of capitalism. However, a society needs distribution of goods. We would simply starve if goods weren't distributed. What other mechanism of distribution of goods do you envision, that could be put into place from night to day, immediately after a revolution, that could instantaneously improve the distribution of goods?

Immediately following the revolution, I don't imagine there will be much in the way of any institutionalized mechanisms in place. We'll probably see a patchwork of improvized ad hoc and legacy solutions to the problems and needs that will inevitable crop up.

But within a short time, we should be able to establish a coherent system for triaging economic and practical nescessities, which can then be transititioned in to a more permanent structure.

Obviously it's all going to be a bit disorganized at first, and I freely expect a few mistakes to be made along the way, but I see no reason that from the day we start back up production, we can't do so on a decentralized democratic basis.

Certainly all the essential tools will already be in place as is the infastructure. As soon as we get the lights back on and the networks running again, we'll be plenty set to start managing production and distribution.

That all assumes, of course, that we're talking about a revolution in an advanced post-industrial first world capitalist country. I know that we disagree on this point, but in my view, that's the only place where a proletarian revolution can successfully occur.

If we're talking about somewhere in the third world, then you're entirely correct, markets are pretty much the only way to do. As, incidently, is a republican state model. The point, however, is that such a setup cannot help but lead to capitalism.

It might be a hampered capitalism, like what's going on in Cuba, but it certainly won't be anything approaching communism.

[syndicat]

what we're talking about here is allocation of scarce resources in production in order to produce what we want. There are two parts to this: Individuals want to consume things, and communities want things -- schools running, health services, housing, public transportation. The workers can take over the management of the various industries. But people who rely on these industries to produce things must have a way to articulate what they want so that this then becomes a part of the social plan which the various worker organizations are a part of. This means that people who want things produced will need to have an institution through which they can decide what they want and then make requests to the production organizations. If the people are organized into their communities, through something like assemblies based on small neighborhoods and on out to whole cities, these can work as the institutions through which requests are made. There then needs to institutionalized a system of negotiated coordination so that producers can "adjust" to what people want produced. The social plan for production over, say, a region can be worked out by the community and regional organizations planning what they want, based on the decisions of communities about what they want, and then modifying these requests in response to what worker self-management organizations say about what it would cost, availability of production facilities and so on.

We could also create a price system based on how total requests matches total proposals of worker groups for production of supply. This would assume that individuals and communities are restricted to a budget in what they request. We could get a budget based on what the people in that community do by way of work effort in producing things. consumption entitlements could be measured in units of work effort, such as hours worked. but this isn't just the consumption of the individual workers, because the community has to provide for everyone whether they work or not. Because individuals and communities have a finite budget, their judgements about how to use up that entitlement in their requests for production gives us a measure of how much they want things, and that is what a price system should measure, because the idea is to measure value to people in the sense of desire or utility. A price system should measure the social cost to us of producing or consuming something, and cost to us is in terms of what we want. A price system needs to be able to measure the cost of producing things if we're to have an effective economy. But it isn't necessary to have a market in order to have a price system. A system of negotiations in developing a social plan isn't a market system.

it might take awhile for the institutional situation to stabilize enough to set up this system, but once workers are in control of everything, they should be able to set it up.

[VukBZ2005]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 04:52 pm
That all assumes, of course, that we're talking about a revolution in an advanced post-industrial first world capitalist country. I know that we disagree on this point, but in my view, that's the only place where a proletarian revolution can successfully occur.


The main problem with this assertion is that it negates the fact that if a country is not at a high level of industrial manufacturing capacity anymore and therefore, is in a situation in which the main issue that would be facing it would be its absolute re-industrialization, which is very similar to total industrial development in a non-industrialized country that is developed enough to have the working class as the majority and which were to have a successful working class revolution.

Therefore, the main challenges that both the non-industrialized regions of world that are developed enough to have a working class revolution, because there is a working class majority and the industrialized regions of the world that have a history that is based on industrialization but are now mostly de-industrialized, face lie with the development and re-development of productive forces, in addition to making them work in a fashion that is truly Communist in every aspect possible.

[Chocobo]

I'll stick to the title description instead of the debate for now.

"What else then Markets", you ask? Why, the complete and total use of technology of course!

Technological advising, sustaining, and organizing can all be done with the technology we have today. A computer system based solely for the operation of a community could keep records of each and every inch of commodity export/import, resouce locating, housing, etc:.

A market (Which has numerous definitions) is unavoidable if your talking distribution, because division of labour is going to continue no matter what, and rightfully so. Capital and wage-labour, though, are of course able to be removed. The intricate system of technological engineering would be based solely on the aspect of statistical development within the workplaces and communities. The technology would do the apparent wage-labour for you, would remove the need for "Time labour vouchers" in that the workplaces would have complete recognition of all that is done, for both the individual and total, and keep the system completely free of unjust distribution (A fully automated society, in some senses.)

Just an idea which goes much much deeper.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 09:52 pm
Immediately following the revolution, I don't imagine there will be much in the way of any institutionalized mechanisms in place. We'll probably see a patchwork of improvized ad hoc and legacy solutions to the problems and needs that will inevitable crop up.
Immediately after the revolution (and immediately before), there will be a general crisis in distribution. Typically, immediately before, people will hoard as much goods as they can, to avoid starvation; immediately after, there will be on-spot requisitions, with commerce and industry being forced to hand over their products to prevent shortage.

Evidently, such things cannot last for long. As the majority of the companies fall in the hands of workers, those will be increasingly interested in the finality given to their product. "Political" requisitions, even if backed by the political organs of revolution (soviets) will thence probably face opposition from factory committees and unions.


But within a short time, we should be able to establish a coherent system for triaging economic and practical nescessities, which can then be transititioned in to a more permanent structure.

Hopefully. The problem is, how long a time is a "short time"? Some weeks? Some decades?


Obviously it's all going to be a bit disorganized at first, and I freely expect a few mistakes to be made along the way, but I see no reason that from the day we start back up production, we can't do so on a decentralized democratic basis.

Unfortunately, that's not so easy. Without a global comprehension of the whole productive process, it is impossible to consciously control the distribution of goods. That's the point of markets: they function in an automatic way; they work like a "supercomputer", the pieces of which are human beings. Thus they allow a centralised control of the whole economy to be exerted without rational comprehension of the processes. That's why some call the capitalist society social environment a "second nature"; in fact, it is like an artificial ecology.


That all assumes, of course, that we're talking about a revolution in an advanced post-industrial first world capitalist country. I know that we disagree on this point, but in my view, that's the only place where a proletarian revolution can successfully occur.

A proletarian revolution can only be successful if it is international. Evidently, I can accept that a proletarian revolution can be successful even it fails to take power in Zambia, or Belgium, or Taiwan. But the failures will have to be exceptions, not the rule. If the proletariat takes power in Europe, Japan, the United States and the other Anglo countries, but fails in the rest of Asia, Africa, and America, the odds are that the revolution is in harm's way.


If we're talking about somewhere in the third world, then you're entirely correct, markets are pretty much the only way to do. As, incidently, is a republican state model. The point, however, is that such a setup cannot help but lead to capitalism.

I fail to understand the theorical base of such claim. Third world countries are as capitalist as the first world; they are just poorer. Feudalism does not exist any more, not even in Nepal. What makes you think that a proletarian revolution in the first world would be less dependent on markets? Certainly the problem of distribution cannot be solved by the technology capitalism developed for production.

Luís Henrique

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 09, 2007 05:49 pm
"Market" is nothing else than an instrument of distribution of goods. Evidently it is a limited one, a flawed one, as we can see by the periodical crisis of capitalism. However, a society needs distribution of goods. We would simply starve if goods weren't distributed. What other mechanism of distribution of goods do you envision, that could be put into place from night to day, immediately after a revolution, that could instantaneously improve the distribution of goods?
Markets are not merely instruments of distribution - they are also used to make decisions regarding the production of goods. In fact, production and distribution are always two sides of the same coin. If you've chosen a mode of production, you've also chosen a mode of distribution, and vice versa. Only social democrats believe they can separate production from distribution, by maintaining the capitalist mode of production but seeking to achieve a more "just" or "fair" distribution of goods.

Now, the word "market" can be used with at least two different meanings:

1. Capitalist, "free" markets - these are social structures used by people to exchange private property, with money serving as the medium of exchange. Prices are set by supply and demand, but be careful to note what is being supplied or demanded and who controls it. For example, in commodity markets, supply is controlled by the capitalists and "demand" is measured by the amount of money that people are willing and able to pay for a good (in other words, if you can't afford it, you need or want for it does not count as "demand" in a capitalist market).

2. "Markets" defined as any social structures used by anyone to exchange anything under any conditions. Under this generic definition, markets have existed everywhere at all times - including the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea - and will always exist.

It is pointless to talk about markets under the second definition. Of course that people will always exchange things. Even a gift economy involves exchange of gifts. It is much more useful to use the first definition, and ask how socialism would alter the conditions of exchange so that a socialist distribution system would not look like a capitalist market.

Well, first of all, and most importantly, the means of production will be controlled by the working class rather than by private capitalists. That's the whole point of the revolution after all. The means of production will be consolidated in the hands of the working class and the distinction between separate companies will be abolished. Some kind of production plans will be set up for all sectors of the economy (if you're wondering what to do on the next day after the revolution, all factories should probably start by keeping production at the same levels as before the revolution; changes can be made later). Now, with no separate companies, a lot of markets will vanish - markets for industrial machinery, intermediate goods, capital and so on; basically all the things that capitalists used to trade with each other will no longer be traded.

A market involves trade, and things can only be traded between two separate property owners. All the things that will be placed into collective property after the revolution will no longer be traded on the market, since there will be no one to trade them with; a collective cannot trade with itself.

But you were probably interested in markets for consumer goods - stuff like food, household appliances, and other such things that will remain personal property after the revolution and can therefore be traded between individual consumers and the collective.

Well, in the period immediately following the revolution, people will continue to buy them with money; but the only seller of goods will be the collective, and the only employer will also be the collective. In other words, a worker will receive money from the collective for his labour, and he will give that money back to the collective in exchange for certain goods and services. The collective itself, unlike a capitalist company, does not really need the money; therefore socialist money is more like a receipt than anything else. A worker receives "money" as proof that he worked, and he presents that proof to a shop in order to buy things. Prices and "wages" can be determined by the collective, but the relationship between them should always be such that the amount of money needed to buy something is equal to the amount of money paid to the worker(s) who produced it. In other words, the collective should not exploit workers - obviously.

In time, it would probably be useful to move away from the concept of money; first by making it more obvious that we're dealing with receipts and proofs of labour rather than anything else. Terms like "dollars", "pounds" or "euros" should be replaced with papers stating that the bearer has performed X hours of work. Eventually, such proof should become unnecessary, and the disappearence of those pieces of paper will mark the transition to full communism.

***
Note: In the above post I used the term "collective" as a generic name for the decision-making body of the working class.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+September 09, 2007 03:49 pm--> (Luís Henrique @ September 09, 2007 03:49 pm)
co-[email protected] 08, 2007 06:00 pm
I would like to distance myself from those here who propose 'market socialism' (an oxymoron) and the idea that they are anything other than the antitheses of collective production and workers control/liberation. If socialism is, as I see it, workers and communities controling their futures, where does a market fit in to that model? What possible place can it have? A market by definition means workers have to be robbed of surplus value and control over their workplaces and produce. A market is not an innocent place where freely aquired goods are swapped. Its a place where the stolen labour of the proletariat is sold and it has to have an ruling class and state to benifit and enforce their power.


However, after the seizure of the state by the working class, it shall be used to regulate and constrain markets in order to minimise the negative effects (thus, actually prolonging the existence of markets).

What tired out pointless rubbish. You are either proposing capitalism lite or gradual state capitalism. Niether care about the interests of the proletariat and what you are basically saying is that workers should spill their blood to achieve nothing in their interests.
So, let's come out from the "ultra-leftist" empty generalities, and talk a bit about how things must work immediately after a proletarian revolution.

"Market" is nothing else than an instrument of distribution of goods. Evidently it is a limited one, a flawed one, as we can see by the periodical crisis of capitalism. However, a society needs distribution of goods. We would simply starve if goods weren't distributed. What other mechanism of distribution of goods do you envision, that could be put into place from night to day, immediately after a revolution, that could instantaneously improve the distribution of goods?

Luís Henrique [/b]
There is of course energy accounting as an alternative ^^

[Idola Mentis]

People are going to want markets for trading. Trading in some form is a part of most cultures, so the practice will be enganged in wether the collective likes it or not. And that shouldn't be a problem, unless we're talking about an authoritarian "revolution", prepared to force the workers to "freedom".

Socialism, wether pure, communist or anarchist, doesn't need to and therefore shouldn't abolish markets. That's outside the task of socialism. The task of socialism is to take away the power which capitalists hold over our lives and hand it to a true democracy. What that democracy then decides to do with that power is really none of our business, except as participants equal to anyone else. However, I think I'd suggest something like this:

Part of the power is held by capitalists in collective trough control of the means of production, which leads to control of the means of distribution - the markets. Why wouldn't it be sufficient to just abolish capital as private control of the necessities of life, rather than abolish all private property? The distinction between property and possessions is a good one, but it doesn't follow the concept to the root. The real distinction is between stuff we need to live, and stuff we could do without, and the means of producing and distributing them. Capitalist markets do not distingush between these. We *kill* people by using our collective buying power to lay claim to resources other people need to live. Wether change comes trough collapse and revolution or trough crisis and reform, that's the first thing that has to go.

I think we can all agree that there is not such thing as having to "deserve" to live. Unless you think there's a need to use work reciepts rather than a rudimentary knowledge of basic biology to find out if each of your fellow citizens needs to eat today or not, why not simply end wages, and assign every citizen a ration card sufficient to support an average lifestyle? Keep anmonymous track of what the cards are used for, and establish absolute priority for industries which supply these needs. Let whatever form of democracy wins out decide what is a necessity and what is not.

What's then to stop the collective from leaving the iPods, realdolls and hello-kitty junk to whoever wants to play capitalist? Let them mess around with whatever resources are left after everyone's been fed, clothed and housed; maybe something that's useful enough to be reclassified as a necessity will come out of it. Don't cut off an arm if a hand will do, right?

[Dr Mindbender]

Automation will liberate the workers and solve all logistical issues.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 12, 2007 09:11 pm
Automation will liberate the workers and solve all logistical issues.
Yes, in practice, you will get either a technocracy which will satisfy the needs of the working class, or a planned economy which will satisfy the needs of party bureaucrats.

[Social Scum]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 06:45 pm
where goods are available at state-declared prices.
You certainly mean distributed according to need for free, right? Marxism abolishes money, Mr. Marxist Ghost.

[Floyce White]

Sharing. Anything else is just property exchange in other words.

"There's nothing but market" is false exclusion. It is pro-capitalist propaganda.

[apathy maybe]

Originally posted by Floyce [email protected] 13, 2007 06:30 am
Sharing. Anything else is just property exchange in other words.

"There's nothing but market" is false exclusion. It is pro-capitalist propaganda.
I thought you were a Marxist? And actually had some small knowledge of history...


Markets have been around for a lot long then capitalism has been. In fact, I would go so far as to say that trading (either barter or trade for money) has been around for more then 40.000 years (and that is a long long time...).

Has capitalism been around since then?

You can have trading and markets without profit making, without exploitation. An example: A takes an hour to make a loaf of bread, B takes an hour to make a stew, they then trade half of each for half of the other. An equal trade. I guess though that you could call that sharing... But what happens when you have bigger things that take more effort? Or strangers? Or whatever else.


Trade isn't going to disappear just because we get rid of capitalism and profit.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Edric [email protected] 12, 2007 07:23 am
Markets are not merely instruments of distribution - they are also used to make decisions regarding the production of goods.
Surely capitalists use the market to take their decisions regarding production. But people use clouds to make predictions about weather - and this does not make clouds an instrument for meteorological prediction.


In fact, production and distribution are always two sides of the same coin. If you've chosen a mode of production, you've also chosen a mode of distribution, and vice versa. Only social democrats believe they can separate production from distribution, by maintaining the capitalist mode of production but seeking to achieve a more "just" or "fair" distribution of goods.

Not only social-democrats do that; so do Stalinists. The approach is similar, though Stalinists are typical more blunt. Since they mistake "the market" for capitalism, they attempt to suppress markets, without having revolutionised the productive units. And so the sad history of economy in workers paradises: the multiple companies effectively trading with each others, while pretending to be following a plan.

Which shows that you cannot "abolish" markets until you have worked out a better way to distribute goods.


Now, the word "market" can be used with at least two different meanings:

1. Capitalist, "free" markets - these are social structures used by people to exchange private property, with money serving as the medium of exchange. Prices are set by supply and demand, but be careful to note what is being supplied or demanded and who controls it. For example, in commodity markets, supply is controlled by the capitalists and "demand" is measured by the amount of money that people are willing and able to pay for a good (in other words, if you can't afford it, you need or want for it does not count as "demand" in a capitalist market).

That's true - but what makes a market distinctively capitalist is the fact that it serves a capitalist economy; ie, that it is the instrument to actualise surplus value. So it serves as a link in the cycle of capital, where capital embodied in commodities is exchanged for money that isn't capital, resulting in capital embodied in money and commodities that are no longer capital.


2. "Markets" defined as any social structures used by anyone to exchange anything under any conditions. Under this generic definition, markets have existed everywhere at all times - including the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea - and will always exist.

I am far from sure that they will always exist. On the contrary, I firmly hope that we will be able to get rid of them. However, once you remove the capitalist nature of production, the markets that eventually survive have to be of this second kind. The shop around the corner, where I buy bread and milk each morning is probably going to be there, doing that, the day after revolution. Perhaps now owned by its workers, but still functioning as a distinct unit in the economy, and exchanging commodities for money. The difference would be that its commodities would no longer be one of capital's avatars, and neither would the money it makes from selling them.


It is pointless to talk about markets under the second definition. Of course that people will always exchange things. Even a gift economy involves exchange of gifts. It is much more useful to use the first definition, and ask how socialism would alter the conditions of exchange so that a socialist distribution system would not look like a capitalist market.

I disagree. A really communist economy provides freely, with no need for exchange. The huge problem is, how to know what to provide, to whom, and when? Markets answer those questions in capitalist economies (and, to a lesser extent, in pre-capitalist ones as well). What does that in a communist or socialist economy? That is the problem co-op doesn't know how to solve, and thence declares already solved.


Well, first of all, and most importantly, the means of production will be controlled by the working class rather than by private capitalists. That's the whole point of the revolution after all. The means of production will be consolidated in the hands of the working class and the distinction between separate companies will be abolished.

That's the idea. But the abolition of the separate identity of companies isn't that easy. How will those companies become fully integrated, so that the hydroelectric plant, the bookshop, the flour mill and the luthier workshop become effectively fused into one entity?


Some kind of production plans will be set up for all sectors of the economy (if you're wondering what to do on the next day after the revolution, all factories should probably start by keeping production at the same levels as before the revolution; changes can be made later).

Exactly, provided that workers are able to figure out those levels or seize the factories' accounting books together with the physical place.


Now, with no separate companies, a lot of markets will vanish - markets for industrial machinery, intermediate goods, capital and so on; basically all the things that capitalists used to trade with each other will no longer be traded.

If we can manage to fuse the companies. But the Soviet Union wasn't able to do it in 70 years of "socialism".


A market involves trade, and things can only be traded between two separate property owners.

In the Soviet Union, again, companies traded with each others, albeit they were, theorically, all property of the same owner - the State. So either things can be traded between different properties of the same owner, or the State was not really the owner of Soviet companies...


But you were probably interested in markets for consumer goods - stuff like food, household appliances, and other such things that will remain personal property after the revolution and can therefore be traded between individual consumers and the collective.

Well, this is clearly an important part of the problem. But the allocation of goods to productive units is a problem that does not vanish in socialism; on the contrary.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by apathy [email protected] 13, 2007 11:31 am
I thought you were a Marxist? And actually had some small knowledge of history...

Markets have been around for a lot long then capitalism has been. In fact, I would go so far as to say that trading (either barter or trade for money) has been around for more then 40.000 years (and that is a long long time...).

Has capitalism been around since then?
No. But capitalists certainly do misuse the existence of markets in pre-capitalist societies as "evidence" that capitalism is inherent to human nature.

Luís Henrique

[co-op]

Surely capitalists use the market to take their decisions regarding production. But people use clouds to make predictions about weather - and this does not make clouds an instrument for meteorological prediction.


I think there are many people here who are under the mistaken impression that the market is the best, and even the only, method of distribution of goods. You are correct in what you say about capitalists and markets but there is actually only a crude, inconsistant correlation between capitalist productiona and real human need. Capitalists produce for profit. They produce useful things for everyone, like food, houses, etc which the market then naturally distributes according to what will yield the greatest profit, not actual need.


Which shows that you cannot "abolish" markets until you have worked out a better way to distribute goods.


I think there is also a trend here toward the idea that workers themselves, whom have taken control of production, would no idea what they are supposed to produce. Workers are consumers also, and together with the community groups I don't see how they could not decide with the utmost efficiency, what is needed and thus what should be produced. I live in the UK and all the distribution mechanisms exist and function right now to move goods, I see the market as interfering in this process. Workers in this chain cooperate and communicate everyday to ensure goods reach the distribution points such as merchants yards and shops.
Shops should still exist but only as a point where people can walk in and pick up goods for free in the sharing gift economy. Things like builders merchants could just be stores where construction workers sourced the materials they need. Hoarding the gifted goods would be pointless as markets would no longer exist.

Clearly the idea of of abolition of markets is one where we would require a highly advanced proletariat, but we have that in the first world and emerging in the second. The idea that my fellow workers and I would take over a factory to produce for a market is anathema to me. Over any extended poeriod the market would either allow another coordinator class to emerge or see workers turning to defend their cooperatives as owners. The revolution against our masters is a collective effort and if we can achieve that we can and should, as quickly as possible, move toward the kind of society we really want. A question for Leninists might be that if workers and communities do act themselves and abolish the market, would you interfere? It might not be your choice.


2. "Markets" defined as any social structures used by anyone to exchange anything under any conditions. Under this generic definition, markets have existed everywhere at all times - including the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea - and will always exist.

This is nonsense. The reason that these countries still have markets is not because they cannot ever be abolished. Its because they have state capitalism and no worker and community control. If markets will always exist then by definition an exploited producing class must always exist. Do such ideas have any real base in communist thinking? Certainly among the bourgeoise they do.


That's the idea. But the abolition of the separate identity of companies isn't that easy. How will those companies become fully integrated, so that the hydroelectric plant, the bookshop, the flour mill and the luthier workshop become effectively fused into one entity?


The people best placed to run production are there right now doing all the work with zero control over their workplaces. The workers can see everyday how things could be improved in the workplace and production increased and safety improved etc. With control of production won by workers in a libertarian proletarian revolution a new worker emerges. It is in all our collective interests that the process of production and distribution always improves and involves all in the decision making process. I think workers and communities would be desperate to get involved in this new form of democracy, and they would fight to protect it. Van drivers, train drivers, dockers, shop staff are workers also. We all know what to do already, with control we can abolish the structures of exploitation, class, privelege, quickly and this involves the abolition of the market.



I disagree. A really communist economy provides freely, with no need for exchange. The huge problem is, how to know what to provide, to whom, and when? Markets answer those questions in capitalist economies (and, to a lesser extent, in pre-capitalist ones as well). What does that in a communist or socialist economy? That is the problem co-op doesn't know how to solve, and thence declares already solved.


I do not know how we can meet the needs of everyone in the world instantly but I do know that a world controlled by workers and communities is one, and only one, that will move toward that goal. Is this the "really communist society" you talk off. When will we be ready for this society without exchange?
Where we have scarcity the workers and communities must decide what to do. The continuation of the market is just a way to sweep the problem of scarcity under the carpet. Billions of people have nothing to exchange for the simple life-saving drugs they need. Theirs is a problem caused by the mode of production and the market which, in any form, only those with the means get the goods.

I think this argument comes down to how long individual communists and anarchists think the market should last after the revolution. Can the non-libertarian communists, transitional-period supporters tell me how state-capitalism can ever abolish them?

[Floyce White]

apathy maybe: "I thought you were a Marxist?"

You thought wrong.

apathy maybe: "Markets have been around for a lot [longer] then capitalism has been."

Perhaps you will read and respond to what I actually wrote.

apathy maybe: "You can have trading and markets without profit making, without exploitation. An example: A takes an hour to make a loaf of bread, B takes an hour to make a stew, they then trade half of each for half of the other. An equal trade. I guess though that you could call that sharing. But what happens when you have bigger things that take more effort?"

A claim of ownership is a threat of violence. Violence is by definition anti-social. So you're starting out with a false premise for your argument. What follows just gets worse and worse. Your conclusion is sheer fantasy.

The only purpose for the system of claims of ownership of property, and of exchange of these claims, is unequal exchange (accumulation through exploitation). Dispossessed lower-class people do not claim to own what others use--they never exchange for the purpose of accumulation. All they know is exchange for the least possible loss. When possessing upper-class people say that they are doing the same, they are lying. "Exchange of equivalents" is not the basis of any market: capitalist, feudalist, slave, or tribal.

Similarly, it is facile to assert that exchange of equivalent necessary labor time is a basis for some hypothetical "fair trade." Necessary labor time is merely one of many possible methods of estimating exchange value. Arguing that one method of value estimation is more precise does not in any way address the issue of what is exchange--much less address the issue of whether or not there is any other method of human interaction besides property trade.

Exchange of claims of ownership is not the same as people cooperating in the use of things (sharing, looking after others, helping). Threats and violence are not cooperation. It is a bald-faced lie to assert so.

[apathy maybe]

Sorry ol' chap. I just had this impression you were some variant on Marxist.
Oh well.

Anyway, I can fully understand and appreciate your position, to a certain extent anyway.

So a question, does it matter what you call it (sharing or trade) if everyone is happy? If no one ever uses violence? If no one even threatens such?

[Led Zeppelin]

The market as a means of distribution will remain in existence for a time after a revolution. Why? Because it is impossible for a modern economy to function without bourgeois means of distribution. This was proved by bitter experience to the Russians when they attempted to switch over to War Communism, a system of enforced distribution of commodities by the state. It was inefficient and was an utter failure in comparison to the bourgeois means of distribution in the economy.

This is not because proletarian means of distribution are flawed or ineffective; this is because the material conditions for that means of distribution did not yet exist. There was still scarcity, and such a means of distribution can only work when that has been eliminated as a factor.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Led [email protected] 14, 2007 03:23 pm
this is because the material conditions for that means of distribution did not yet exist. There was still scarcity, and such a means of distribution can only work when that has been eliminated as a factor.
Exactly.

Now let's just deal with the economicist interpretation of that. Scarcity in the particular Russian case might have been due to the backward productive forces of the Russian semi-feudal economy; but any capitalist economy reproduces scarcity artificially. So it is not the case that a revolution in the first world would not face problems of scarcity. Scarcity can only be eliminated once production is regulated by demand; and so we have a chicken-or-egg problem: we cannot put up a post-capitalist system of distribution until there is a material base for it, and we cannot create such material base until we put up a post-capitalist system of distribution.

The problem exist, it is of quite difficult solution, and cannot be addressed by generalities of the kind "once the workers take power, they will know what to do".

And the temptation to shut markets and replace them by some bureaucratic dirigism is strong, leading to War Communism-like disasters.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected]eptember 14, 2007 08:30 pm
The problem exist, it is of quite difficult solution, and cannot be addressed by generalities of the kind "once the workers take power, they will know what to do".
To give a practical example.

Suppose an automobile factory. The workers have seized political power, and also taken the automobile factory. Now, should they continue to produce automobiles? How many? Of which models? How do they know if there is enough fuel to keep all those automobiles running? Supposing that they decide to keep producing automobiles, to whom will they deliver them? To the first who show up? To those who have money? To their personal friends?

See, those questions are not easy to answer, and they cannot in fact be answered in the factory floor: they can only be answered through a complete knowledge of the economy as a whole, which means a complete knowledge of something that is constantly changing; when you come to understand how it works, it is already working in a different way.

Luís Henrique

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Led [email protected] 14, 2007 03:23 pm
Because it is impossible for a modern economy to function without bourgeois means of distribution.
Hmm, I should've worded this differently. Of course it is possible for a modern economy to function on non-bourgeois methods of distribution; the most modern econonic system (communism) for example. I'd have to add the more advanced form of socialism, or real socialism (not the Stalinist states which all had bourgeois forms of distribution for most of their existence) to that.

So yeah, in general it has to do with the material conditions of the society. In isolated cases, with scarcity still existing, the economy has to inevitably be run with the bourgeois method of distribution. Only when the means of production have surpassed capitalism, which can only happen when several advanced capitalist states become socialist, can a non-bourgeois form of distribution take place.

War communism would've worked if it was in a society with sufficient material conditions.

[piet11111]

its with threads like these that i really miss redstar2000 :(

anyway basicly everyone should just continue doing their job during and right after the revolution ?

i think the biggest problem would be the hoarding of foodstuffs because honestly speaking thats what i would do.

[syndicat]

Markets are not just any system of exchange. Markets presuppose that you have a production organization that has unilaterial control over its production decisions, over some resource, such as a factory. It must survive by revenue from sale. The production facility tries to use its bargaining power -- the power it has from unilateral control (effectively a property-like relationship) over its resource -- to extract as much of the total social product as it can. This might occur even if the facility is nominally "socially owned". in fact this is what "market socialism" is.

Markets also presuppose a labor market. People who have some special expertise, or who have been successful in guiding a production organization to success, can get production groups to give them high remuneration and other privileges, to keep them in an environment where it is "win or die" in competition.

Meanwhile, workers are atomized, forced to compete with each other. They may initially have control over some facility, but that doesn't give them control over the economy as a whole.

This situation tends to lead to the emergence of an elite of professionals and managers who control the production organizations, even if they started out with some formal industrial democracy to begin with. In the Mondragon cooperatives, as in the old Yugoslav self-management, the class of elite professionals and managers -- the class I call the coordinator class -- dominates. Workers who work all week, week after week doing nothing but running a milling machine or driving a bus or cleaning, will not learn what they need to know in order to challenge the managers or educated professionals, who will be able to snow them.

Workers need to create industry-wide organizations to control industries so that they aren't atomized into competing groups, and they need to force a reorganization in the jobs and education and training so that ordinary workers have the time and training to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to participate effectively in decision-making.

Secondly, a different system of decision-making about how to allocate resources to industries, deciding what to produce, etc. needs to be worked out to replace the market. The criterion of what to produce has to be based on what people, the residents in the communities throughout the region or country, want produced.

This means that communities and regions need some way to articulate and present their own plans, their own ideas about they want produced, not to impose this unilaterally on the worker organizations, but to have some sort of structured negotiations so that they can work out a deal -- a social plan -- on what will be produced.

So, what's needed is a system of social planning, but a democratic and horizontal system of social planning, not a top down system of state administrators giving orders to production facilities.

[sanpal]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 01:40 am
Markets are not just any system of exchange. Markets presuppose that you have a production organization that has unilaterial control over its production decisions, over some resource, such as a factory. It must survive by revenue from sale. The production facility tries to use its bargaining power -- the power it has from unilateral control (effectively a property-like relationship) over its resource -- to extract as much of the total social product as it can. This might occur even if the facility is nominally "socially owned". in fact this is what "market socialism" is.

Markets also presuppose a labor market. People who have some special expertise, or who have been successful in guiding a production organization to success, can get production groups to give them high remuneration and other privileges, to keep them in an environment where it is "win or die" in competition.

Meanwhile, workers are atomized, forced to compete with each other. They may initially have control over some facility, but that doesn't give them control over the economy as a whole.

This situation tends to lead to the emergence of an elite of professionals and managers who control the production organizations, even if they started out with some formal industrial democracy to begin with. In the Mondragon cooperatives, as in the old Yugoslav self-management, the class of elite professionals and managers -- the class I call the coordinator class -- dominates. Workers who work all week, week after week doing nothing but running a milling machine or driving a bus or cleaning, will not learn what they need to know in order to challenge the managers or educated professionals, who will be able to snow them.

Workers need to create industry-wide organizations to control industries so that they aren't atomized into competing groups, and they need to force a reorganization in the jobs and education and training so that ordinary workers have the time and training to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to participate effectively in decision-making.

Secondly, a different system of decision-making about how to allocate resources to industries, deciding what to produce, etc. needs to be worked out to replace the market. The criterion of what to produce has to be based on what people, the residents in the communities throughout the region or country, want produced.

This means that communities and regions need some way to articulate and present their own plans, their own ideas about they want produced, not to impose this unilaterally on the worker organizations, but to have some sort of structured negotiations so that they can work out a deal -- a social plan -- on what will be produced.

So, what's needed is a system of social planning, but a democratic and horizontal system of social planning, not a top down system of state administrators giving orders to production facilities.
Well, syndicat!
Your post is the thought in right current.
It looks as a first step in creation of the 'planned economy' mechanism which is an alternative to a market mechanism.

Of course the planned economy must carry out all functions of reproduction (production and distribution) which market economy does now.

This task must be solved in theory.
Otherwise none has the right to intend to stir the masses to greater activity.

Go on deeper ;)

[syndicat]

The theory of how to have a planned economy without centralized control has already been developed. A number of radical political economists in the '70s began working on this. This is the concept of "participatory planning." A number of economists such as Pat Devine and Robin Hahnel have worked this out. For a theoretical exposition, see "The Political Economy of Participatory Economics" by Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert.

[sanpal]

May i add to this?

Every member of (communist) society have to take a part in planning. He/she have imagine what stuff is needed to him/her during definite period.

For example:
what kind and how much food is needed to him/her (or any member of the family) during a next month;
what clothes could be needed during next half a year;
what furniture, computer, car, etc. could be needed during next 1 or 2 or 3 year(s)

Information about people's needs has to gather in the central planning organization for organizing production of goods in industry

But planned economy is not gift economy. Every member of such society have to plan needs of his/her 'consumer goods' according to his/her labour ability, i.e. that everyone has to know abt how many labour hours she/he could give to society as a labour during next month, 1 year or 3 years, etc.
(Children, sick people, old people, etc must be considered as conditionally working persons)

The cost of every unit of goods must be determined in labour time units by production organizations. This determination is the very difficult task which was not solved nor by Lenin nor other great theorists and practical men. This have to be solved theoretically by revleft's dreaming about proletarian revolution

[sanpal]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 05:45 am
For a theoretical exposition, see "The Political Economy of Participatory Economics" by Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert.
I have to look for it in russian translation otherwise i hardly learn it

[co-op]

Suppose an automobile factory. The workers have seized political power, and also taken the automobile factory. Now, should they continue to produce automobiles? How many? Of which models? How do they know if there is enough fuel to keep all those automobiles running? Supposing that they decide to keep producing automobiles, to whom will they deliver them? To the first who show up? To those who have money? To their personal friends?


Your logic is flawed. Your giving the impression that suddenly the workers find themselves with control of an automobile factory and are clueless as to what do next. The car workers would work with other connected industries like oil, metal production etc and ajust production to cater for need. If there is not enough fuel to keep the cars running then they should refit the factory for electric cars, its easy to see that coming right now. Assemblies of workers and community reps would get togther and discuss what is required in the communities. This information would be used to plan production for local need and to plan what surplus could be shipped to other areas of the world where most needed. If we had a world where workers and communities had total control over the economy then we would not have the hoarding of information. All industry assemblies would have access to the information they need to best plan their production in terms of whether to increase production and diversify etc.
Cooperation and democracy in all aspects of the production process is the real key to the elimination of scarcity, not top-down orders.


See, those questions are not easy to answer, and they cannot in fact be answered in the factory floor: they can only be answered through a complete knowledge of the economy as a whole, which means a complete knowledge of something that is constantly changing; when you come to understand how it works, it is already working in a different way.


I think these questions are easier to answer than most think. Workers and communities are capable of running society, I strongly believe this. What is hard is to imagine this society because it represents such a transformation from the one we currently endure. I want to get in to much more depth about the question of markets but I have little time at the moment. I will post a better response tomorrow.

[syndicat]

Information about people's needs has to gather in the central planning organization for organizing production of goods in industry

we shouldn't want to concentrate decision-making into a central planning agency because this will end up trampling on workers self-management and also will eliminate our control over what we want produced. It only necessary that each production group make a proposal for what it will produce, and community organiztations collect the aggregates of what everybody wnats produced, for individual consumption or community benefits (a new school, whatever).

There needs to be a workers organization that tallies up what everyone has requested and what all the production groups propose to produce, and tell us where there are mismatches. To capture the scarcity value if more people are demanding something -- a washing machine -- then the workers are proposing to make, we we can raise the social accounting prices. And if all communities are required to stay within budget, where this is what they have earned in terms of benefit they have provided thru their work, then they will adjust their requests, reducing where they have asked for more than their budget would allow, etc.

And in this way the production groups and people as consumers, communities, can "adjust" to each other without having to have a central group make a plan.

Central planning tends to lead to a new layer of bosses because the central planners will monopolize information and they will want to appoint bosses in workplaces to make sure their plans are carried out. Better to have a horizontal system of adjustment via plans of individuals, communities, and production groups.

the idea is that individuals, communities, production groups have their plans and they must adjust their plans to everyone else, and that is how the overall plan is created, not from above by a central planning agency.

[Floyce White]

Apathy Maybe, better to simply say that the abstract concept of property goes along with the concrete application of violence. One is meaningless without the other.

There is a famous quote by Clausewitz where he said that war is economics by other means. Violence and the words that excuse violence are inseparable.

On this message board, many threads are basically confused college students trying to use Economics 101 nonsense. That's why pro-business, anti-worker economic terminology such as "free rider problem" and "scarcity" cause extremely polarized debates.

[apathy maybe]

Right oh, I understand your point.

I've never done any economics courses at all.

(And I think that quote was about politics, not economics.)

[co-op]

When workers are at the point where they can actually act collectively to destroy class society, and install true political and economic democracy in the communities and workplaces, a key factor in that success will be the ending of markets. Everyone can see that the strength of such a society will grow exponentially as it continues in the great human effort of conquering nature and decreasing the burden of labour needed to produce our human needs. Markets sap that strength.

Markets have no place in the society that lives by the maxim: “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” and they can only play a stifling part in any attempt to reach that society. Markets gauge the production needed to fulfill the needs of those with the means to fulfill their needs. Democratic proletarian control of production would be hindered by production need quotas that didn’t reflect the reality of what society actually needs. Where there is a human need we can harness the awesome collective, cooperative power of economic and political equality and democracy, to fulfill those needs and eliminate the stress and wastefulness of competition.

Markets help cover up the problem of scarcity, and in the model of state capitalism, they erode democracy and empower the managers/bureaucrats who will in turn protect their position against any worker control. This is a highly undesirable situation and it is clear from history that the managers/bureaucrats will crush any proletarian attempt to right this situation. Also, history shows us that the managerial/bureaucratic elite, when faced with economic crisis, will make the transition back to private capitalism as owners. This was reflected in the demise of the USSR when after 70 years of ‘socialism’ workers didn’t rise up to save a tired old top-down system that they never had control over.

The market allows the ruling class to always access goods and services as they have their greater share of surplus-value due to either ownership or managerial control. Worker and community control over society and thus the abolition of markets would cut off their access to the surplus-value overnight and allow empowered people to make practical decisions based on need and not on irrational market whims. Markets are not part of the society I envisage, and I think it is wrong to think of them as efficient distributors, they clearly are not. Why not empower the workers and communities and let humans decide what should be done in areas of material scarcity, and how to fix the problem? The market is completely amoral. If it is a form of distribution, then it is one that takes the side of the strong against the weak. It has therefore no place in economic and political socialism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Suppose an automobile factory. The workers have seized political power, and also taken the automobile factory. Now, should they continue to produce automobiles? How many? Of which models? How do they know if there is enough fuel to keep all those automobiles running? Supposing that they decide to keep producing automobiles, to whom will they deliver them? To the first who show up? To those who have money? To their personal friends?

See, those questions are not easy to answer, and they cannot in fact be answered in the factory floor: they can only be answered through a complete knowledge of the economy as a whole, which means a complete knowledge of something that is constantly changing; when you come to understand how it works, it is already working in a different way.

I think you're saying in the abstract what I am about to ask:

How big of a role will standardized information-communication systems play in the DOTP? As large as Lenin said regarding raw accounting (the "IT" of his day)? There are systems now that allow suppliers and customers to view each other's info (suppliers' production schedules, customers' automated supplies management).