Labour Time Vouchers vs Money

[Dóchas]

so what i understand labour time vouchers to be is that the longer you work the more you get (im not even sure if this is right) so that you get rewarded for your work and the vouchers enable you to obtain supplies etc

on the other hand when you do your job you get paid in money so that you can buy supplies, so whats the point in having labour time vouchers if the same happens with money?

if iv said anything wrong im sure you will let me know

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch18.htm

"In the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate." (Karl Marx)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/question-private-enterprise-t85742/index2.html



I hope proponents of labor vouchers do realize that private currency could come into circulation with the need for bartering. It would be murky water to introduce LV at a time when large niches exist outside of the socialized, participatory economy.Yes, people may well use some small and relatively valuable objects as private currency on a black market, but the absence of easily transferable, government-backed money would still greatly hinder any such black market. When you can use official money on the black market, you can then take your black market profits and use them to buy goods from legal shops. But if you are forced to use your own private currency on the black market, that currency is worthless in the legal shops, so there are much fewer things you can buy with your black market profits - making the black market far less attractive.

[...]

The point is that if you force the black market to use alternative currency, that means that whatever money you make on the black market can't be used to buy stuff from legitimate, legal shops - which makes that money, and the black market itself, a lot less attractive.

[...]

That means that the LVs you earn - your paychecks - are tied to your name, and only you can use them to buy things. Think of them as money in a bank account, except the bank won't let you transfer it to anyone else's account.

[...]

LVs will not be paper money. They will be data in a computer - like the money in your bank account. And they can't be transferred from my account to yours. So how exactly are you going to "buy" them from me? How could I give them to you?

Only I can use my LVs to buy things. Now, presumably you could ask me to use my LVs to buy stuff for you, and give me something for my trouble - but that's such a hassle that I really don't see it going very far. And it would still have to depend on barter, because you can't give me money. I'd have to go buy stuff with my LVs, you'd have to go buy stuff with yours, and we would then exchange our purchases.

But then why would I agree to such an exchange unless the stuff you give me and the stuff I give you are worth the same amount of LVs? And if they are worth the same, then why am I going through all this trouble with you instead of just buying what I want for myself?

[...]

But it depends on whether the collective wants to use LVs for internal accounting or not. If they are to be used for internal accounting, then they will circulate in a closed loop like money. If internal accounting will be done using something else, then LVs don't have to circulate in a closed loop, and they can be "created" when you get your wage and "destroyed" or cancelled when you use them to buy stuff.

[mikelepore]

The main idea is, at least as a nominal starting point, to have a known relationship between the time to produce goods and the time to acquire goods. If the label says it takes eleven minutes to make a certain chair, you can work at any job of your choice for eleven minutes, and then go to the store and exchange your credit for the chair. With traditional money there is no measured relationship between these variables. Socialism would have some deviation from the nominal, because any services that individuals don't pay for, say, education, have to be funded out of the same inventory of all of society's products. There will be additional deviation if more stressful kinds of work are compensated at a higher than average rate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ While I myself am not so sure on deviations regarding "more stressful kinds of work" (the other side can counter with job rotations), here's the other side (again, I'm not sure):

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/735/transition.html


Comrade John Bridge argued that labour tokens mean equal pay for equal hours worked, the end of the wages system and the abolition of money as a universal equivalent. Labour tokens can only be used for consumption. They reflect the fact that in a socialised system work can only be measured in time. Skilled work will be sought after not because of the reward of increased consumption. Rather because it is inherently more interesting and challenging. Dangerous and unpleasant jobs can be either shared out or phased out through automation.

[mikelepore]

Some kinds of work being "phased out through automation" doesn't matter because the subject is immediacy. We're talking about, if the workers seize the means of production next Wednesday, what kind of distribution system we can have next Thursday.

I think it's a humane solution to say that the people who volunteer to be firefighters, and other stressful activities, may be credited for an hour of work for some duration of less than an hour actually performed. Say, for each twenty-five minutes they actually perform, credit them for an hour. Society can adjust the coefficient as necessary to induce the desired number of people to choose that career.

What makes it a humane solution is that sacrifice is the specific thing that is compensated. Harder work for a shorter time, and easier work for a longer time, represent the same personal sacrifice. What else could an economic system possibly want to compensate workers for, other than some estimate of the sacrifice made by each person?

[davidasearles]

I think that it doesn't matter what Marx may have written or how that may be interpreted, labor vouchers CAN circulate with no effect on their book keeping use between individual laborers and the social store.

Gold or other metal bullion could circulate without affecting the use of labor vouchers by an individual laboror aquiring product at the social store. If I take a labor voucher and convert it into bullion at the social store and circulate it - what's the difference if the voucher to bullion conversion is skipped and the labor voucher circulates directly? Exactly none.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Dave, please read the chapter in the Anti-Duhring regarding distribution:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch26.htm

Your proposal tantamounts to the mere "labour money" criticized in the Grundrisse.

[bruce]

Would there be any differences using these vouchers electronically relative to traditional money? Or is this all based on using actual paper or other tangible goods?

[Charles Xavier]

Keep in mind this is just guess work on a future society, guesswork of a brilliant mind but guesswork none-the-less.

[bruce]

I agree it's all speculation but it seems like this would have been discussed here before. I'm not sure why I'm interested in a detail like paper vs digital when I don't fully understand the theories behind it, just popped into my head as I was reading through this

[Dust Bunnies]

So, wait, just want to make sure/learn, is labor "credits" in some ways like food stamps? You work, but you can't give them to other people, they can only be exchanged for yourself or your household. Once they are "cashed in" that credit is gone forever. Right?

[gla22]

Wqual wages are not the important part, it is an equal relationship to the means of production that needs to be achieved. More skilled, harder working members get paid more, lower skilled, lazier workers get paid less, but they are all owners of the means of production.

[davidasearles]

I think that it doesn't matter what Marx may have written or how that may be interpreted, labor vouchers CAN circulate with no effect on their book keeping use between individual laborers and the social store.

das:

Gold or other metal bullion could circulate without affecting the use of labor vouchers by an individual laboror aquiring product at the social store. If I take a labor voucher and convert it into bullion at the social store and circulate it - what's the difference if the voucher to bullion conversion is skipped and the labor voucher circulates directly? Exactly none.

++++++++

the person who identifies himself as "Jacob Richter":

Dave, please read the chapter in the Anti-Duhring regarding distribution.

Your proposal tantamounts to the mere "labour money" criticized in the Grundrisse.

+++++++++++

das replies:

Heaven forbid that anything that anyone suggests should in anyway be contrary to what the holy texts have previously prescribed or proscribed.

I asked in my post:

what's the difference if the voucher to bullion conversion is skipped and the labor voucher circulates directly?

And I answered, exactly none.

Other than a reference to the holy texts tell us why the workers should go to the extraordinary device of issuing a labor credit to a worker and not letting the worker spend that credit with whomever will accept it for an agreed upon product or service in exchange?

Why shouldn't a worker be able to exchange his or her credit with some private person who provides a hair styling service? Or are we going to consign workers to "Ye Olde Industrial Hairdresser" to be able to spend the credits that they have worked for?

[BIG BROTHER]

Money, labor vouchers, we'll learn just like a scientist learns after trial and error what works best and in what way. That's the beauty of the planned economy if we see that we did something wrong, we can modify our plan or use a new one all together.

That' and whether we use money or LV we'll have to do away with them eventually, and replace material incentives with moral ones.

[davidasearles]

Sure if there is some particular reason to restrict circulation, then so be it. The determination could always be revisited. What I object to is the slavish use of Marx - Marx under a particular circumstance didn't think that allowing labor credits to circulate would be a good idea - so therefore for all eternity the workers must adopt that idea- and the mere quotation or reference to Marx or any of the other writers given sanctified status is enough to settle any question before the workers.

[BIG BROTHER]

Sure if there is some particular reason to restrict circulation, then so be it. The determination could always be revisited. What I object to is the slavish use of Marx - Marx under a particular circumstance didn't think that allowing labor credits to circulate would be a good idea - so therefore for all eternity the workers must adopt that idea- and the mere quotation or reference to Marx or any of the other writers given sanctified status is enough to settle any question before the workers.

You got it dude, Marx words are supposed to help us as a guide, but they ain't holy words that we must blindly followed.

[mikelepore]

Would there be any differences using these vouchers electronically relative to traditional money? Or is this all based on using actual paper or other tangible goods?

Electronic accounts would be superior, because the total labor time represented by all credits issued but not yet redeemed by consumers should be equal to the total labor time represented by all of the goods sitting in inventory which people are entitled to remove from the inventory at any time but they haven't yet taken possession of those goods. Accounting systems need to keep rechecking numbers like this. The calculation is easiest if you're adding up the numbers in a computer database.

[mikelepore]

Why shouldn't a worker be able to exchange his or her credit with some private person who provides a hair styling service?

I believe that some of those no-capital no-employee forms of private business will probably continue to exist after large scale industry is socially owned. Society will probably make the labor-based credits transferable among individual accounts, because it's the easiest analog to the liquidity of capitalist money. For us to expect another outcome would be for us to hope in vain that the people of the future won't think of an idea that will be the easiest for them.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Electronic accounts would be superior, because the total labor time represented by all credits issued but not yet redeemed by consumers should be equal to the total labor time represented by all of the goods sitting in inventory which people are entitled to remove from the inventory at any time but they haven't yet taken possession of those goods. Accounting systems need to keep rechecking numbers like this. The calculation is easiest if you're adding up the numbers in a computer database.


I believe that some of those no-capital no-employee forms of private business will probably continue to exist after large scale industry is socially owned. Society will probably make the labor-based credits transferable among individual accounts, because it's the easiest analog to the liquidity of capitalist money. For us to expect another outcome would be for us to hope in vain that the people of the future won't think of an idea that will be the easiest for them.

On the first comment, I would like to comment on its realizability by pointing out the wonders of the electronic food "stamp" program in the US.

On the second comment's first sentence, I have no problems with your qualifications. After all, people will have more time to do things besides "socially necessary labour." On a practical note, however: to add to my comments against circulation, you still have to go through a lot of red tape to initiate a wire transfer between non-business accounts.

[mikelepore]

a lot of red tape to initiate a wire transfer between non-business accounts.

Huh? Computers were meant for such an easy transaction. Here Alice gives Bob 3 credits, and their totals reflect the change:



Before:

Alice 50
Bob 60
Cathy 70
Dave 80

TOTAL 260

After:

Alice 47
Bob 63
Cathy 70
Dave 80

TOTAL 260

[davidasearles]

Originally Posted by Jacob Richter http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-time-vouchers-p1311861/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-time-vouchers-p1311861/showthread.php?p=1317718#post1317718)
a lot of red tape to initiate a wire transfer between non-business accounts.

m.l.

Huh? Computers were meant for such an easy transaction. Here Alice gives Bob 3 credits, and their totals reflect the change.

das:

I work in a business where we transfer customer credits/debits all of the time. You can set up a thousand accounts per customer if you wanted to. Group the accounts however you want to. It's all very transparent with a high degree of, for lack of a better word, accountability. What's more the system seamlessly can deal with electronic credits/debits and paper credits/debits or any combination of such.

[Revy]

Neither.

Rather, abolish wages and prices and all forms of currency, paper or electronic, and you'll have an easier system to deal with.

I'm sorry, but I'm nauseated by all this talk of "credits", "labor time vouchers", "energy based credits". Stop it. Just stop it.

We don't need that. The system would be a mess. You'd need a system with a lot of control, not necessarily a dictatorship but rather an elitist system. I think that's what technocracy was all about anyway.

People should get what they want and need. Employment, education, this would all be easier under a system with no money. "Get what you put in" just sounds like another version of the current profit system.

[mikelepore]

There's an important place in social science, as in any science, for drawing conclusions from observations.

Consider the issue: In a classless society, will a sufficient number of people be willing to perform a sufficient number of work hours, to match the rate at which goods and services are consumed by that society?

The question branches in this way --

(1) If people are paid by the hour to work, will they perform work? Yes. How do we know: Empirical observation -- it is what has been done for thousands of years.

(2) If people are NOT paid by the hour to work, will they perform work? To this form of the question, there are two possible answers:

(2a) "Yes, they will. How do we know? We don't know -- it's my own speculation about human nature."

(2b) "No, they won't. How do we know? We don't know -- it's my own speculation about human nature."

To me this set of permutations makes the choice. The working class majority will always know this about the socialist movement: any branch of the movement that proclaims that it's known that people will work in sufficient quantites without being paid by the hour is asking people to depend on an untested and inherently untestable solution to a critical problem. The working class will not support any untestable recommendations from socialists. The case for socialism should be composed only of elements that can be proven in advance to be viable. When I suggest a description of the workings of a future classless society, I won't include a single aspect that can't prove to be viable before it gets implemented.

Opinion by Mike Lepore in the snowy Hudson River Valley of New York.

[Revy]

The working class doesn't need to be convinced of what to do after the revolution. They will decide after they do what is necessary.

They are not going to have "labour time vouchers" imposed on them.

The phrase "To each according to his ability, to each according to his need" doesn't mention "deed". And for a good reason, capitalism is commonly called "wage slavery" because you have to work or starve. That is the same kind of system you're proposing.

[mikelepore]

Wage slavery requires two things: wage and slavery. "Wage" means that the people who do the work aren't the same people as the owners. Slavery means that people do work for the benefit of others, not for themselves.

[mikelepore]

The working class doesn't need to be convinced of what to do after the revolution. They will decide after they do what is necessary.

They are not going to have "labour time vouchers" imposed on them.

Some people (who were "born yesterday") would fall for that old debating trick. It is to say that, when _I_ suggest a method that I think is the best, I'm said to be imposing it, forcing, demanding, etc. Then when _you_ insist that my idea is out of the question, and your specific suggestion is certainly needed instead, you're not imposing anything on anyone, you're just leaving it up to others to decide for themselves. I've been around too long for ancient tricks of rhetoric to trip me up.

[mikelepore]

The phrase "To each according to his ability, to each according to his need" doesn't mention "deed".

Actually the Bible is inconsistent on the subject. The version in 1 Corinthians 3:8 speaks of people being rewarded according to their labor, but the version in Acts 2:45 and 4:35 speaks of distribution to everyone according to their need.

But most people here didn't know that the 19th century people who discussed the proposition "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" were arguing about the interpretation of Bible passages.

[ComradeOm]

The phrase "To each according to his ability, to each according to his need" doesn't mention "deed"Well yes, but then no one is talking about a communist society in which scarcity has been abolished. Labour vouchers have been proposed as an alternative to currency in immediate post-revolutionary economy. In socialism it is the principle of "an equal amount of products for an equal amount of labour" that will hold sway

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well yes, but then no one is talking about a communist society in which scarcity has been abolished. Labour vouchers have been proposed as an alternative to currency in immediate post-revolutionary economy. In socialism it is the principle of "an equal amount of products for an equal amount of labour" that will hold sway

Regarding that last sentence, yes and no. The remarks in Gothakritik that suggest this are qualified elsewhere ("social funds"). Indeed, here's something from the Anti-Duhring:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch26.htm


So have your choice: Either the economic commune exchanges "equal labour for equal labour", and in this case it cannot accumulate a fund for the maintenance and extension of production, but only the individual members can do this; or it does form such a fund, but in this case it does not exchange "equal labour for equal labour".

[davidasearles]

stancel:

The working class doesn't need to be convinced of what to do after the revolution. They will decide after they do what is necessary.

They are not going to have "labour time vouchers" imposed on them.

das:

"Socialism" means so many things to so many people that I don't find it to be a very useful word in speaking of anything specific. For myself I have adopted an approach of using more operation definitions. For instance in practice instead of advocating socialism I try to advocate something specific - I have settled upon advocating for collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

This works for me. When I refer about the revolution and after I refer to the period of worker collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution. Using that as a standard. To me collective control refers to what Stancel has said above about workers collectively calling the shot on everything that pertains to production. If that would be the case, then we have to leave to the workers of that time to decide specifically what and specifically how much to produce in a given period AND to decide how and to whom the specific products shall be distributed.

Scarcity abolished in every circumstance whatsoever seems that it would imply that the workers would not have the authority to determine the how, how much and the for whom of production.

(That's one example of the benefit of keeping to an operational definition - it allows you to not have whatever it is that you do advocate be stretched out of the proportions of your original intent.)

For myself, since I specifically advocate collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution, workers must be free to decide, and they must be free to be able to alter their decisions as they see fit.

On this side of the revolution of course for purposes of argument we might suggest in advance that sane and civilized persons would do this in a certain way and not another - but we have to keep a grip on ourselves because we are not the ones having to fulfill ideals and expectations established by others.

It has been said that history is a lie about yesterday told by someone who wasn't even there. If that statement conveys even an ounce of caution about how we burden the present with unwarranted determinations about the past, it would seem that our responsibility to not burden the future with unwarranted conditions and requirements as to what must happen is at least a thousand times greater.

I think that we can all say that we hope that scarcity will not exist in the future but we must leave our children and their children’s' children with the abity to make the specific determinations concerning production and distribution as best as THEY see fit. If it means free distribution without limit or with some limit, or if it means a system of labor shares or something in between that's what they need to do.

From our vantage point we might think and even hint that one way or another would more called for than some other course, but we must recognize that to those of the revolution our opinions of today shall be part of the dead past that they of course must be able to rid themselves of if they can be able to progress beyond where we are today.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Dave, why don't you say "collective worker ownership and control"? Are you perhaps flirting with workplace democracy as a reform measure? ;)

[mikelepore]

".......... leave to the workers of that time to decide .......... must be free to be able to alter their decisions as they see fit .......... not burden the future with unwarranted conditions and requirements as to what must happen .........."

I've already said this to David A. Searles in prior years, but I'll repeat it here for other readers.

I believe it's necessary to propose a variety of very specific blueprints for a future society, and I list the reasons for my favorite suggestion, while others list the reasons for their favorite suggestions. I consider this necessary because one of the main objections I always hear working class people express is that they can't visualize how any new socioeconomic system "could possibly work." Without these blueprints, such generalities as "collective" or "social ownership" don't form any associations in most people's minds. You can't effectively go up to people and advise them to fundamentally change the world, and then, when they ask you exactly what you would propose, merely tell them to go and decide for themselves. It has to be: compare this picture to that picture, and now let's compare those to this other one.

What Dave said also seems to indicate the assumption that merely to suggest a starting point for something implies some degree of loss in its subsequent flexibility and subsequent democracy. This baffles me. Everything needs proposed starting points, no matter how many times it may later be changed.

Finally, I suggest specific blueprints for a future society because I think the common fear that "socialism wouldn't work - it would collapse" isn't simply a binary true or false statement. I think there are some models of socialism that would work very well, and some models of socialism that I think would be unstable and collapse. Naturally, then, I'm compelled to be the kind of socialist who proposes a particular type of system, while advising against several other types.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It seems to me here that a sort of "minimum-maximum" divide does exist amongst DeLeonists, too, since Dave Searles starts off with "collective worker control" (not addressing the ownership issue at all). ;)

[griffjam]

The major difference between collectivists and communists is over the question of "money" after a revolution. Anarcho-communists consider the abolition of money to be essential, while anarcho-collectivists consider the end of private ownership of the means of production to be the key. As Kropotkin noted, "[collectivist anarchism] express[es] a state of things in which all necessaries for production are owned in common by the labor groups and the free communes, while the ways of retribution [i.e. distribution] of labor, communist or otherwise, would be settled by each group for itself." Thus, while communism and collectivism both organize production in common via producers' associations, they differ in how the goods produced will be distributed. Communism is based on free consumption of all while collectivism is more likely to be based on the distribution of goods according to the labor contributed. However, most anarcho-collectivists think that, over time, as productivity increases and the sense of community becomes stronger, money will disappear.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think you're complicating the picture a bit too much. I always thought that "anarcho-communist" or "libertarian communist" was an umbrella term to include all shades of revolutionary-leftist anarchists.

[griffjam]

then you thought wrong

[ckaihatsu]

The working class doesn't need to be convinced of what to do after the revolution. They will decide after they do what is necessary.


Agreed. While we can freely discuss in the here-and-now it's ultimately not *our* decision to make, so at best we can only be prescient advisors.



They are not going to have "labour time vouchers" imposed on them.


A workers' revolution would have to be bottom-up, and given the precedent / reality of the information revolution workers would *at least* have to have a system available for planning and decision-making. Organically we can only be in one place at one time so we need to figure out what's worth doing, individually and collectively. *That* requires a material system of some sort.



The phrase "To each according to his ability, to each according to his need" doesn't mention "deed". And for a good reason, capitalism is commonly called "wage slavery" because you have to work or starve. That is the same kind of system you're proposing.



Rather, abolish wages and prices and all forms of currency, paper or electronic, and you'll have an easier system to deal with.

I'm sorry, but I'm nauseated by all this talk of "credits", "labor time vouchers", "energy based credits". Stop it. Just stop it.


Stancel, I have to respectfully disagree. While I appreciate the high-minded goodwill of what you're saying, the issue is one of simple accounting. As long as there's a surplus we will have to differentiate among all the variables associated with producing, administrating, distributing, and consuming that surplus. (It's debatable whether we'd have to do the same thing in a post-capitalist, communist economy / society if we engineered it so that there was minimal, or no, surplus.) (I, personally, would argue for certain mass-based projects that would require the production of a surplus.)



We don't need that. The system would be a mess. You'd need a system with a lot of control, not necessarily a dictatorship but rather an elitist system. I think that's what technocracy was all about anyway.

People should get what they want and need. Employment, education, this would all be easier under a system with no money. "Get what you put in" just sounds like another version of the current profit system.


You're forgetting that, in the short term, the goal would be *very* concrete -- denying *all* outstanding claims to (inherently disproportionate) private control of the means of mass production, and to all major assets (including wealth). This would provide a profound focus for the working class, a kind of focus we've only previously seen orchestrated by the ruling (capitalist) classes, for the purposes of settling their own, internal disputes with world war.

In the medium- to long-term, once exploitation and oppression have been eliminated, laborers would realize, and retain, the full value of what their labor is worth. In this way the system of accounting used wouldn't really matter that much, as long as it simply reported the facts, because the rest would be political. Labor itself would decide what that labor meant, how long it should continue, where the products of it should go, and so on.

Since all material can be reduced to assets, labor, and resources, the only independent variable would be labor. Labor itself would determine *how to use* assets and resources, which would be *political* decisions. In a post-capitalist environment we might even be able to eliminate numbers altogether for managing assets, in favor of *qualitative* descriptions -- a Wikipedia page for every asset...! Resources would still require quantitative, number-based valuations, along with qualitative ones, but they, too, would be subject to the worker-based decision-making of the political economy.

This following diagram is a depiction of Jack London's description of where material value comes from, and where it goes. *All* goods and services come from human effort, and that *has* to be from either (1.) labor or (2.) capital.

So, simply put, the total amount of capital investment, divided by the number of items produced will give you capital's contribution, per item, for each item. The rest of the input necessarily comes from labor, so the total labor value can be computed from the total production cost per item, minus capital's contribution.

(The dollar value of the selling price per item, above the production cost, is *all* markup, and should really be distributed back to labor and capital in the same proportion as their inputs into creating the products.)


Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://tinyurl.com/6bs6va



The main idea is, at least as a nominal starting point, to have a known relationship between the time to produce goods and the time to acquire goods. If the label says it takes eleven minutes to make a certain chair, you can work at any job of your choice for eleven minutes, and then go to the store and exchange your credit for the chair. With traditional money there is no measured relationship between these variables. Socialism would have some deviation from the nominal, because any services that individuals don't pay for, say, education, have to be funded out of the same inventory of all of society's products. There will be additional deviation if more stressful kinds of work are compensated at a higher than average rate.


Right. I agree with this, again noting that all material quantities that are *not* labor (assets, resources) would *not* require ongoing valuation (as is the case under capitalism), since they would *not* be commodities, and would only be called into the political economy upon political decision-making and implementation.



Some kinds of work being "phased out through automation" doesn't matter because the subject is immediacy. We're talking about, if the workers seize the means of production next Wednesday, what kind of distribution system we can have next Thursday.

I think it's a humane solution to say that the people who volunteer to be firefighters, and other stressful activities, may be credited for an hour of work for some duration of less than an hour actually performed. Say, for each twenty-five minutes they actually perform, credit them for an hour. Society can adjust the coefficient as necessary to induce the desired number of people to choose that career.

What makes it a humane solution is that sacrifice is the specific thing that is compensated. Harder work for a shorter time, and easier work for a longer time, represent the same personal sacrifice. What else could an economic system possibly want to compensate workers for, other than some estimate of the sacrifice made by each person?


I suggest deciding on a difficulty coefficient for each task (like a difficulty rating for Olympic sports events), based on the results of public surveys. This coefficient would then multiplied to the *actual* labor-time put in -- one's time that is *not* pleasure, or politics (administration).


Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://tinyurl.com/5mjhhh




Scarcity abolished in every circumstance whatsoever seems that it would imply that the workers would not have the authority to determine the how, how much and the for whom of production.


David, I have to disagree with this, for the same reason I disagreed with Stancel -- the abolition of scarcity would only bring *more* into necessity the need for some kind of system of accounting. While many revolutionaries might be tempted to imagine the end of scarcity as being synonymous with a return to a carefree, Garden-of-Eden type of existence, I have to point out that a post-capitalist economy would have a *greater* need for an overall political direction than for the (mis-)management of capitalism / imperialism.

Common expectations would run much higher in a worker-run world, where, even if everyone had as much leisure time as they could stand, thanks to near-total automation and the ending of exploitation, oppression, and waste, they would probably *not* be content with the regular, regional games and hobbies we associate with the use of leisure time today.

The freeing-up of surplus value on a global scale would beg for the administration of the same, raising the politics of the day to a whole new, higher, level.



I believe that some of those no-capital no-employee forms of private business will probably continue to exist after large scale industry is socially owned.


Mike, could you explain this? If there's no capital (assets, resources) involved, then you are simply providing a service -- otherwise it's a hobby, or a barter trade.



Society will probably make the labor-based credits transferable among individual accounts, because it's the easiest analog to the liquidity of capitalist money.


Someone else addressed this when it came up in another thread -- this is a superfluous concern, because all credits will directly reflect one's own work.

You *cannot* "get" someone to do work *for* you, because that would be exploitation, and why bother "swapping" labor-credits when you would just wind up having to work for the difference in credits anyway? (Someone could always *gift* their labor-credits to you, on a personal basis, but that would be very personal and probably regulated / limited anyway.)



For us to expect another outcome would be for us to hope in vain that the people of the future won't think of an idea that will be the easiest for them.


Mike, I appreciate your overall approach to politics, because it is reductionist -- it's very appropriate in a material world with finite quantities.

Each of the almost 7 billion people on earth have specific "start" times (births), and specific "end" times (deaths). In between we all have 24 hours in the day, each and every day -- this time, at any given time, can only go to either pleasure, or work, or politics / business (administration / management).

Likewise, the material world is premised on human-based management -- animals don't build up a surplus, so it's entirely us at the wheel here. Inputs are assets and resources, used by labor to produce the outputs of goods and services.

Once we've achieved the end of exploitation and oppression I think we would have a much-improved material society by using full transparency of accounting over assets, resources, goods, services, and labor, including the quantity and quality of everyone's work, through time.


Chris





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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

[mikelepore]

Mike, could you explain this? If there's no capital (assets, resources) involved, then you are simply providing a service -- otherwise it's a hobby, or a barter trade.

....

You *cannot* "get" someone to do work *for* you, because that would be exploitation, and why bother "swapping" labor-credits when you would just wind up having to work for the difference in credits anyway? (Someone could always *gift* their labor-credits to you, on a personal basis, but that would be very personal and probably regulated / limited anyway.)

I'm refering to barter which forms a steady pattern because people like to do certain tasks, and other people like something about what others are doing.

Mike to Alice: I'll fix your snowblower if you'll teach me how to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano. Mike to Bob: I'll fix your snowblower if you'll style my hair. Mike to Charlie: I'll fix your snowblower if you'll bake me a pumpkin pie.

If this keeps up, then, for all practical purposes, I have a business fixing snowblowers. No investment in special equipment is required. There are no employees.

Many, and perhaps most, people won't do such things, but some will. Among those who do, some of them will soon realize that one side of the barter can be timeshifted. Mike to Charlie: I'll fix your snowblower if you give me one hour credit, and then, perhaps six months in the future, if we are still in the same mood by them, I'll give you back the hour credit when you bake me a pie. All of the participants find that kind of option to be the most flexible.

With that change, the labor time credits are now being exchanged as a form of currency. All it takes is a small number of people who want to do that, and for the majority to realize that it has no socially harmful consequences, and therefore the crediting system can be set up to accommodate it.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm refering to barter which forms a steady pattern because people like to do certain tasks, and other people like something about what others are doing.

Mike to Alice: I'll fix your snowblower if you'll teach me how to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano. Mike to Bob: I'll fix your snowblower if you'll style my hair. Mike to Charlie: I'll fix your snowblower if you'll bake me a pumpkin pie.

If this keeps up, then, for all practical purposes, I have a business fixing snowblowers. No investment in special equipment is required. There are no employees.


Got it -- thanks, Mike.



Many, and perhaps most, people won't do such things, but some will. Among those who do, some of them will soon realize that one side of the barter can be timeshifted. Mike to Charlie: I'll fix your snowblower if you give me one hour credit, and then, perhaps six months in the future, if we are still in the same mood by them, I'll give you back the hour credit when you bake me a pie. All of the participants find that kind of option to be the most flexible.


This doesn't require a socialist revolution, as I'm sure you realize. You wouldn't even need to keep track of credits for this -- just emailing among a small group would establish an ongoing history of "dids" and "would-likes". As long as no one felt taken advantage of then the barters would keep going forward, and if someone did feel taken advantage of then they could simply call in a favor to even things out.

Really this is more like local Green stuff, which is fine for what it is, but it isn't a socialist revolution. The political critique of this is that it lets the big fish out of the net -- if they aren't held accountable and dispossessed of their private control of the means of * mass * production then they will continue to exploit, oppress, hog, pollute, waste, profiteer, and dominate.



With that change, the labor time credits are now being exchanged as a form of currency. All it takes is a small number of people who want to do that, and for the majority to realize that it has no socially harmful consequences, and therefore the crediting system can be set up to accommodate it.


The only problem with this is that an economy is only as good as the goods and services it pools together. If your established dozen people in your trading circle were to get the idea of issuing your own currency people would want to know what they could get access to with that currency. If the snowblower-fixing, piano recitals, and pumpkin-pie-baking was all there was, then there's not much of an economy there to shop around to wider circles.

And what if people in the local economy want access to the fruits of * mass * production, like electronics? No one can simply cobble together a DVD player in their basement, so ultimately * someone * has to interface with the larger, cash economy and use a mainstream currency that's honored by major manufacturing (and financial) firms. (Ditto for rent, mortgages, utilities, appliances, and so on.)

If the workers of the world could set up their own global currency and get away with using it and supplying to it from capital-based production, I'd be impressed! It would be a massive syndicalist network -- the revolution's got to start * somewhere *, right?

[ckaihatsu]

Also, just wanted to recommend using this following system for any kind of bartering-type networks, like what Mike described. As long as one person updated the spreadsheet regularly and distributed it, it would serve as a bank ledger of sorts for small-scale economic activity.


Affinity Group Workflow Tracker

http://tinyurl.com/yvn2xq

[mikelepore]

Chris, that's right, all those things you said.

I'm not suggesting that the system should be *based on* these transfers of credits. I'm only suggesting that the system should be programmed to *allow* them, among the list of options in the electronic menu.

I used to argue that labor credits, to be what they are intended to be, must be nontransferable among individuals, but about two years ago I reversed myself about this. Now I think they should be transferable electronically, in a way similar to today's process where I log onto PayPal and transfer funds from my account to your account.

There's no sense in causing people to establish a secret "black market", which they would if the system didn't accommodate their activities.

Other than having an accounting unit that has money characteristics, no infrastructure for capitalism should be extablished. It should remain impossible for individuals to acquire enough land to have mines or factories. The law should not enforce contracts, grant patents, etc.

[Coggeh]

Doesn't money just make it easier to exchange goods ? I know money is power etc but surely in a socialist society that would be different .

How else are your going to say buy a lego truck without some for of credit voucher/money .

[ckaihatsu]

Chris, that's right, all those things you said.

I'm not suggesting that the system should be *based on* these transfers of credits. I'm only suggesting that the system should be programmed to *allow* them, among the list of options in the electronic menu.

I used to argue that labor credits, to be what they are intended to be, must be nontransferable among individuals, but about two years ago I reversed myself about this. Now I think they should be transferable electronically, in a way similar to today's process where I log onto PayPal and transfer funds from my account to your account.


Mike, if we're talking about the context of a socialist / communist economy, then the transfer of labor credits between individuals would *still* be unnecessary. This is because there would not be a commodities economy the way there is now, under capitalism. The labor credits would just serve as a way to keep track of one's time spent contributing to the collectivized economy, and that's all. Labor credits would *not have* to function like the money-commodity of today since they would not be money. (As you know, money itself is a commodity which fluctuates in value depending on the markets' need for liquidity.)

Perhaps you're pressing this point because you're coming from the perspective that people could still "fall through the cracks" or somehow be denied access to food, housing, electricity, or education (etc.) in a socialist society. I can only maintain that a socialist society would *first* -- by definition -- redistribute formerly privately owned assets and resources in the direction of alleviating basic, outstanding human needs.

The working towards the acquisition of labor credits would be strictly for customizing one's lifestyle, or personal possessions, from an array of possibilities in the global economy. One would *not* have to work for labor credits to avoid starvation or homelessness or illiteracy.



There's no sense in causing people to establish a secret "black market", which they would if the system didn't accommodate their activities.


Black markets only come into formation because the value (and scope) of money can be issued officially / politically, separate from the functioning of the markets. If one can get more in exchange from the markets than what the official policy allows, then you have "black" markets.

Without a nationalist agenda of any sort -- as a socialist revolution would overthrow all nations and national authority -- the economy could first *redistribute* *existing* wealth. This would go a long way in filling unfulfilled human need, whether for housing, land, etc.

A socialist revolution would supersede market-based exchanges and commodity-oriented production altogether, bringing all laborers to the table in a mass political economy to decide on how existing assets, resources, and labor should be used to eliminate any leftover scarcity.

Workers themselves would have to create authority over the definition of various kinds of labor. This authority would have to take into consideration the real material inputs and outputs of different production runs -- in one location an hour's worth of construction labor might go further, in terms of completing a fully functioning factory, than for another location's project of the same type. I can only speculate on the particulars, of course, but in the end what would matter is simply one's time put in on actual labor (mental / emotional / physical).



Other than having an accounting unit that has money characteristics, no infrastructure for capitalism should be extablished. It should remain impossible for individuals to acquire enough land to have mines or factories. The law should not enforce contracts, grant patents, etc.


Right, absolutely. I tend to imagine a Disneyland-type approach to the administration of collectivized property and services -- if you will -- meaning that virtually *all* goods and services outside the home will, by definition, be public property, and will be under public administration.

This raises a good opportunity to destroy the bullshit right-wing argument that we can only properly take responsibility for property through private ownership -- as if "too many cooks spoil the broth" when it comes to public administration. I'd like to point out that it would be a *good*, natural thing if many types of property / administration fell to the wayside from lack of interest under a collective, socialist political economy. These days we have instead a limbo-like, absentee-landlord type of existence for *many* kinds of property, including apartments and homes, that remain vacant and unused, yet officially owned by someone on paper.

If a literal Disneyland happened to fall out of public interest and regular usage it would immediately become a political issue, since the workers there would *not* want to waste their time in its upkeep for nothing. They, as the labor force of the place, could decide to shut it down at a certain point and either repurpose it or look into a remodeling project to add construction labor to convert it / repurpose it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think I'll "give up" here for a moment. In the immediate transitional economic situation (either first or second "stage" per Cockshott's Czech preface (http://reality.gn.apc.org/germanpreface.pdf)), I suppose the "labour money" (http://books.google.com/books?id=vve_ekMAt7oC&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=lets+local+exchange+marx&source=web&ots=mEzkYzbJnd&sig=p0-Yru7PkcMv4rYJC_Cq_y_0EKA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result) criticized in the Grundrisse but advocated nevertheless by the DeLeonists in this thread would be worth a try (basically a socialized extension of various local exchange trading systems).

If the circulation of this labour money somehow doesn't result in the accumulation of money-capital (that's the capital that needs to be abolished, BTW), then the DeLeonists will be correct. :)

[davidasearles]

ckai:

Right, absolutely. I tend to imagine a Disneyland-type approach to the administration of collectivized property and services -- if you will -- meaning that virtually *all* goods and services outside the home will, by definition, be public property, and will be under public administration.

das:

Vermont where I live is so poor in industrial type jobs it seems that we have a much higher proportion of folks who have a family business like family farms and artisan type proprietorships. When I drafted the amendment proposal I thought about what I could do to allow people to keep family business some of which no doubt go back to the American Revolution.

The solution that I came up with (for my own satisfaction anyway) was not to have social ownership completely but to have each workplace determine for itself to go into the collective. If a particular workplace was happy with private ownership, then fine. As long as it obeyed the laws concerning pollution, job safety, minimum wage, heath coverage, and paid typical taxes - who are we to insist that everyone and every workplace has to be in the collective. Especially for such circumstances it would be nice to have a circulating "currency". It allows for the flexibility of having a small private sector and provides a medium through which it may pay taxes.

One way to ensure that socialism will be sure to fail will be to deny it flexibility.

[apathy maybe]

This is a very interesting discussion.

The question comes down to, is everyone going to be forced into a communist system, working as much as they are able, and getting what they require? Is all the "means of production" currently used by individuals and small groups (small family farms for example, or a car repair shop) on an equitable basis going to be taken over?

Is there going to be forcible collectivisation?

I think that to force collectivisation is a bad thing (and obviously not anarchistic). In such a case I would argue that the system is not better then capitalism (the labour of the worker being forcibly appropriated).

OK, so assuming we aren't going to see such bullshit (though I know some people advocate it), what will happen in those sections of society that don't collectivise?

Whatever the fuck they want. I can easily see old state money continue being in use for possibly years after the revolution (not so easy to duplicate etc.), as it makes barter so much easier. Alternatively, you might see a system of "obligations" being setup (and "traded"), as mentioned in the second story link in my sig. (Freedom - I won't.)

But, whatever system is setup, it will be established by the people who live at that time, in that place. Not by the people a hundred years before (or whatever).

[ckaihatsu]

This is a very interesting discussion.


Yeah, it is -- may as well leverage the information revolution for the proletarian revolution, eh?



The question comes down to, is everyone going to be forced into a communist system, working as much as they are able, and getting what they require?



The solution that I came up with (for my own satisfaction anyway) was not to have social ownership completely but to have each workplace determine for itself to go into the collective.


The overall need for a socialist / communist revolution is to deal with the issue of * surplus labor value *, embodied in the * means of mass production * -- and, additionally, the land and natural resources of the planet.

(I'd like to note that the development of the (industrial) means of mass production is the highest, greatest level of technology that human civilization has come up with so far, and is also the source of our current production of surplus labor value.)

The overriding concern of a socialist / communist system is to abolish (inherently disproportionate) private claims to the means of mass production. Another way of putting this is to say that *every single person on earth* would have a legitimate claim to a *proportionate* say over their own labor power, collectivized in the factory / workplace setting in which they're working, *if* they want to work at all.



Especially for such circumstances it would be nice to have a circulating "currency". It allows for the flexibility of having a small private sector and provides a medium through which it may pay taxes.


It follows that, collectively, those who *do* decide to work could *not* produce for * private * concerns. All of the output from (inherently collectively owned) factories and workplaces would *necessarily* have to be socialized -- that is, made freely available, without allowing private claims to the control of *any* of it. The use of currency and taxes would be superfluous, and therefore irrelevant, because the determination of *all* value would reside in the worker-run political economy.

(* Personal * claims are limited to those in which one consumes or uses * oneself * -- as soon as one cannot * personally * use or consume something for * oneself * then one forfeits it, either to other persons for individual use, or to the collective communist economy for political administration.)

It also follows that labor itself would come under the same definition -- one can use one's own labor for one's own, * personal * purposes, but as soon as one's labor begins to benefit a * private * (non-self, leveraged) concern, then that labor, and its proceeds, would have to be collectivized back into the communist political economy.



When I drafted the amendment proposal I thought about what I could do to allow people to keep family business some of which no doubt go back to the American Revolution.



If a particular workplace was happy with private ownership, then fine. As long as it obeyed the laws concerning pollution, job safety, minimum wage, heath coverage, and paid typical taxes - who are we to insist that everyone and every workplace has to be in the collective.



Is all the "means of production" currently used by individuals and small groups (small family farms for example, or a car repair shop) on an equitable basis going to be taken over?


I would say no, because only the means of * mass * (industrial) production is at issue for society as a whole. I think society would continue to have an interest in general human welfare, as it does today, under bourgeois government (to varying degrees of success). This means that a communist * economy * would be primarily -- possibly solely -- concerned with the industrial means of mass production, while a communist * government * would be concerned with the social services / oversight required for the general human welfare of all of society.

For example, people shouldn't be * stuck * with having to * rely * on small family farms or (presumably mom-and-pop) car repair shops, when a ubiquitous, communist economy exists all around. Obviously food production and car production / repair can be done much more simply and easily using economies of scale, and especially using automation.

We have to honestly ask if the people laboring on small family farms and in mom-and-pop car repair shops have other options for employment and self-direction in their lives. If they have been working there since before the revolution and then continue to work there *after* the revolution, then the larger communist society would have an interest in contacting them and letting them know what their newly available options are for other types of employment or self-directed living.

If, after being advised of their options, the workers at the small family farms and car repair shops decide that they really don't *want* to continue in those jobs, then they may decide to leave, resulting in the closure of those small-scale businesses, if other workers can't be found to fill those roles.

This would have to be accepted as the natural course of things in a communist economy.



Is there going to be forcible collectivisation?

I think that to force collectivisation is a bad thing (and obviously not anarchistic). In such a case I would argue that the system is not better then capitalism (the labour of the worker being forcibly appropriated).


Again, I think it's useful to focus on the definition that communism is concerned with the means of * mass * production.

The means of mass production * must * be collectivized into a communist political economy -- no matter what our political orientation is, or what our personal preferences are -- because capitalism has no way forward for the management of the means of mass (industrial) production. We saw in the twentieth century what happens when the major imperial powers of the world run out of economic momentum -- instead of being able to move forward they finally have to stop. Once stopped they look around and all they see is their political rivals to their sides -- other nations -- and they begin to whip up their own, nationalist war campaigns to eliminate any competing claims to whatever's left over -- local industrial production, workers, raw materials, markets, whatever.

We just can't afford to let the imperial powers do this all over again, so it's paramount that the working class of the world take control of the means of mass production -- if *only* so that it's *not* used for war production for imperialist campaigns (that only destroy working people's lives and property anyway).



OK, so assuming we aren't going to see such bullshit (though I know some people advocate it), what will happen in those sections of society that don't collectivise?

Whatever the fuck they want. I can easily see old state money continue being in use for possibly years after the revolution (not so easy to duplicate etc.), as it makes barter so much easier. Alternatively, you might see a system of "obligations" being setup (and "traded"), as mentioned in the second story link in my sig. (Freedom - I won't.)

But, whatever system is setup, it will be established by the people who live at that time, in that place. Not by the people a hundred years before (or whatever).



One way to ensure that socialism will be sure to fail will be to deny it flexibility.


If small-scale communities can be self-sufficient then from an economic point of view I don't see any problem with that. As I noted above I think the overarching communist government would continue to have an interest in the general welfare of the entire population, so there would probably be (worker-approved) standards for nutrition, health, sanitation, education, safety, transportation, and so on, which would be enforced.

[davidasearles]

a.m.

But, whatever system is setup, it will be established by the people who live at that time, in that place. Not by the people a hundred years before (or whatever).

das:

It is like I have died and gone to heaven to see at least one more person advocate that. There will be a revolution after all.

[apathy maybe]

a.m.
But, whatever system is setup, it will be established by the people who live at that time, in that place. Not by the people a hundred years before (or whatever).

das:
It is like I have died and gone to heaven to see at least one more person advocate that. There will be a revolution after all.

Almost all true anarchists advocate not writing blue prints for future societies. The fact is, we can't know the conditions of the future, we can guess, we can try and extrapolate (which is what Marxists try and do) from the past, we can read entrails. But we can't know the future, and while it is great to discuss possible options for the future, we should not make the mistake of thinking that they are blue prints.

[davidasearles]

ckai:

If small-scale communities can be self-sufficient then from an economic point of view I don't see any problem with that. As I noted above I think the overarching communist government would continue to have an interest in the general welfare of the entire population, so there would probably be (worker-approved) standards for nutrition, health, sanitation, education, safety, transportation, and so on, which would be enforced.

das:

I don't even see them having to be self sufficient or even communities at all - something as simple as a hair dresser with his or her own shop. Someone who baked pies with fresh fillings, and an assortment of available crust types of one's own preference. (A process that in my mind can never be industrialized). They don't need to be in the collective although there should be some combination of reasonable taxation or fees so that the person or small shop is not getting a free ride with the industrial workers doing all of the societal work. For this you'd have to have some medium that circulated and was accpted without hesitation throughout the economy.

[mikelepore]

Chris, people give each other money for any number of reasons. I had a birthday in December so my father-in-law gave me some money. I went to a wedding last August and gave the couple some money. People use money to play poker and bingo. We can't go around saying that people can't give other people money anymore. If society begins to use quatloos * instead of dollars, then we'll need a way for people to give each other quatloos if they want to. Labor time vouchers, no difference.

It's hopeless to try to define the new society in terms of expected changes in human behavior. We have to define the new society in terms of institutions which would go on functioning just as well regardless of whether there are any expected changes in human behavior or not.

Perhaps you've heard the joke satirizing the socialist point of view:

Speaker on soapbox: Come the revolution, you'll all eat strawberries and cream.

Heckler in crowd: But I don't like strawberries and cream.

Speaker on soapbox: No, you don't understand. Come the revolution, you'll eat strawberries and cream, and you'll like it.

That has always been our mistake -- basing the vision on the idea that people will supposedly change what they like.

--

* Quatloos, from the Star Trek episode, "The Gamesters of Triskelion" , 1968

[sanpal]

I am awaiting when debaters finally will have designed economic model of transitional (socialistic) period in transition from capitalist to communist society (proletarian socialism). It undoubtedly will be combination of two sectors: 1) market sector, with using monetary system, with state regulation, the state and private property, etc. (NEP) and 2) communist economic sector based on the state property on means of production which is donative to the commune within the Proletarian State, with using planning and LTV production/distribution system. This direction let to emancipate proletariat from wage slavery dialectically, based on their freedom to choose one of two economic sectors: either communist or NEP. And also it let to avoid contradiction between different left views (sectarianism) on the road to communist society.

[RebelDog]

This v that. It is context that counts.

[sanpal]

This v that. It is context that counts.

Not "this vs that" but "this" and "that" simultaneously for transition period while the State with monetary system will 'wither away'

[ckaihatsu]

I don't even see them having to be self sufficient or even communities at all - something as simple as a hair dresser with his or her own shop. Someone who baked pies with fresh fillings, and an assortment of available crust types of one's own preference. (A process that in my mind can never be industrialized). They don't need to be in the collective although there should be some combination of reasonable taxation or fees so that the person or small shop is not getting a free ride with the industrial workers doing all of the societal work. For this you'd have to have some medium that circulated and was accpted without hesitation throughout the economy.


How about this, David: Call it an artistic endeavor and let the proceeds from a global communist economy fund it to whatever extent is needed. The supply of * value * would be entirely top-down -- as opposed to the situation under capitalism, where labor value is leeched *upwards*, unendingly. The proceeds from any artistic endeavor / small-scale "shop" would be made freely available to the public. Bottom-up taxes or fees would be unnecessary because there wouldn't be currency / commodities at all, and automation would mean that industrial workers would be doing minimal work anyway to supply all of the personal, artistic endeavors (including small-scale "shops") with all needed supplies.



I am awaiting when debaters finally will have designed economic model of transitional (socialistic) period in transition from capitalist to communist society (proletarian socialism). It undoubtedly will be combination of two sectors: 1) market sector, with using monetary system, with state regulation, the state and private property, etc. (NEP) and 2) communist economic sector based on the state property on means of production which is donative to the commune within the Proletarian State, with using planning and LTV production/distribution system. This direction let to emancipate proletariat from wage slavery dialectically, based on their freedom to choose one of two economic sectors: either communist or NEP. And also it let to avoid contradiction between different left views (sectarianism) on the road to communist society.


I agree with this, on democratic grounds -- the workers, as a whole, should develop a solid, agreed-upon strategy that will be effective to defeat capitalism. That said, I would like to emphasize the direction that I think is best, which is here:



If the workers of the world could set up their own global currency and get away with using it and supplying to it from capital-based production, I'd be impressed! It would be a massive syndicalist network -- the revolution's got to start * somewhere *, right?


This is basically advocating a global syndicalist currency that would be worker-controlled, cut across national boundaries, retain full labor value, and provide a broad range of trans-national goods and services through regular distribution channels.

All labor provided towards supplying the currency would necessarily be revolutionary acts, and could take place on a variety of scales, in a mixture of patterns of participation, gradually growing in size as cities once did. Transparency of accounting and operations would provide ongoing credibility, with worker-controlled decision-making -- call it stochastic soviets, if you like...!


---



Chris, people give each other money for any number of reasons. I had a birthday in December so my father-in-law gave me some money. I went to a wedding last August and gave the couple some money. People use money to play poker and bingo. We can't go around saying that people can't give other people money anymore. If society begins to use quatloos * instead of dollars, then we'll need a way for people to give each other quatloos if they want to. Labor time vouchers, no difference.


Mike, under a communist economy even gifting itself -- if you can imagine this -- would become obsolete. Do we currently gift water to each other? How about pieces of lumber for home improvement projects?

Neither, and not just because these are mundane examples, though that's part of it. Both of these things are usually funded in comprehensive (collective) ways already -- water, through the city-wide (municipal) supply, and lumber as part of a whole contracted-out service package. Both are critical to life and would be useful and welcome gifts, right? But in a society where both are in * ready supply * we instead turn to the conventional channels for acquiring these things.

Now if * everything else * was like this, money would be superfluous, gambling (and arguably *all* entertainment) would be involved around smallish groups, for an ongoing micro-economy of poker chips, and habitual gifting would quickly seem masochistic.



[A]ll credits will directly reflect one's own work.

You *cannot* "get" someone to do work *for* you, because that would be exploitation, and why bother "swapping" labor-credits when you would just wind up having to work for the difference in credits anyway? (Someone could always *gift* their labor-credits to you, on a personal basis, but that would be very personal and probably regulated / limited anyway.)


I re-posted this excerpt to point out that gifting in a bountiful, communist economy would actually *have* to be regulated, because excessive gifting would border on exploitation, even if it was self-exploitation. *No one* should be in a habit of routinely working for others' benefit, no matter how close the personal relationship. I do hope you can appreciate this point, Mike.



It's hopeless to try to define the new society in terms of expected changes in human behavior. We have to define the new society in terms of institutions which would go on functioning just as well regardless of whether there are any expected changes in human behavior or not.

Perhaps you've heard the joke satirizing the socialist point of view:

Speaker on soapbox: Come the revolution, you'll all eat strawberries and cream.

Heckler in crowd: But I don't like strawberries and cream.

Speaker on soapbox: No, you don't understand. Come the revolution, you'll eat strawberries and cream, and you'll like it.

That has always been our mistake -- basing the vision on the idea that people will supposedly change what they like.

--

* Quatloos, from the Star Trek episode, "The Gamesters of Triskelion" , 1968


If the new society also ushered out the old, antiquated institutions and brought in new, more-relevant institutions, then I agree with you on this last part, Mike. We shouldn't expect to change people's attitudes or behavior -- rather we should build better institutions that are more appropriate to contemporary social realities and needs.

[SocialRealist]

Being the realist that I am, I honestly dont think labor time vouchers are a real option, due to the fact that the system would most likely be completely corrupt. I think, money would be the way, as history shows it works. A well handled currency does wonders.

[ckaihatsu]

Being the realist that I am, I honestly dont think labor time vouchers are a real option, due to the fact that the system would most likely be completely corrupt. I think, money would be the way, as history shows it works. A well handled currency does wonders.


As with any system, it's the credibility or legitimacy that makes or breaks it. Greece just experienced an insurrectionary political movement because of the actions of its police, killing a youth.

Likewise we saw the legitimacy of chattel slavery go bankrupt because the economy (in the U.S.) shifted to factory production, in the North. This benefitted the Northern ruling class with the side effect that slaves in the South were freed when the North won the Civil War. Also the slum conditions for the immigrant workers in the North slowly, gradually improved, which would have been impossible under a chattel slavery economy.

Whether the mechanism we favor is a syndicalist currency or labor time vouchers -- which I see as synonymous, by the way -- what counts is its underpinnings. Using either would require a transparency of accounting so that everyone can see the full labor time going into either. As things are now banks and governments assist in the heist of labor value not only by enforcing capitalist (private property) rule, but also by allowing the use of anonymous money and opaque record-keeping, as we're seeing with the bailout bubble.

We really *need* a worker-run, labor-time currency these days because capitalism's only solution is to fork over public funds, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, just to legitimize financial-imperial hegemony / order.

We can't get away with *not* using currency because the world's economy is so complex and spread-out, and it should be. But it should work for workers, *not* for bureaucrats and financiers. We also don't want to wind up working at jobs that supply the ruling class with the physical means of destroying solidarity and workers' lives and families.

Without a movement for an alternative way of organizing the economy on a full-labor-value basis we're just going to continue this default trajectory of being slammed into the wall in slow-motion.

[davidasearles]

To the above: hear, hear!

[mikelepore]

Being the realist that I am, I honestly dont think labor time vouchers are a real option, due to the fact that the system would most likely be completely corrupt. I think, money would be the way, as history shows it works. A well handled currency does wonders.

Suppose we call it a currency or any name. Then, as long as workers incomes are set by a consciously-adopted accounting algorithm, and prices of goods are set by a consciously-adopted accounting algorithm, when what's the difference? Money, or labor vouchers, "that which we call a rose, by any other name...."

[mikelepore]

We shouldn't expect to change people's attitudes or behavior -- rather we should build better institutions that are more appropriate to contemporary social realities and needs.

In my view, your previous paragraph, just ten centimeters above that one, proposed precisely that people should get some new attitudes and behaviors. You just got finished saying that you consider it a goal that people stop giving each other money as gifts.

[ckaihatsu]

A side benefit of a socialist revolution is that it would mark a definitive starting point of workers' rule. This point on the timeline would allow us to clearly separate, for the purposes of running a socialist economy, that which are *assets* from that which are *resources*.

The only definition that might be a little tricky would be the delineation of that specific labor time which is used to reproduce the labor force, or "socially necessary labor time". Once we have defined this as a baseline, any extra labor hours put in would be officially considered as a surplus, producing surplus goods and services. These could either be consumed in leisure / pleasure, or else they would go into the *assets* (or possibly *resources*) category, as additions to the infrastructure of the communist economy.



Suppose we call it a currency or any name. Then, as long as workers incomes are set by a consciously-adopted accounting algorithm, and prices of goods are set by a consciously-adopted accounting algorithm, when what's the difference? Money, or labor vouchers, "that which we call a rose, by any other name...."


If, by an "accounting algorithm" you mean use of a spreadsheet -- or of a series of nesting spreadsheets, from local to regional to global -- then I agree with you. We don't need *mathematical* sophistication -- we just need to keep track of shit, that's all.

All labor hours can be tracked as inputs into specific production runs that have specific outputs of goods and services. The goods and services can be defined by the number of labor hours ("man-hours" in the current, questionable terminology) that go into producing them. So in this way, each tangible good or minutes of customer-consumed service can be specifically, definitively quantified.

We can also account for the use of specific assets / equipment, and resources, and attach this information to each good or service from each production run.

Obviously certain locales will have better infrastructure (factories) than other locales for the production of the same goods or services -- this means that efficiencies in production will vary, and will not necessarily correspond appropriately to outstanding human need in the nearby area. The workers will have to coordinate outputs from a generalized regional to figure out the logistics of redistributing the outputs from various production runs, from various locales, so as to best supply the most pressing human needs. (On the flipside similar logistics will have to be calculated for obtaining resources to supply the production runs.)

[ckaihatsu]

It's hopeless to try to define the new society in terms of expected changes in human behavior. We have to define the new society in terms of institutions which would go on functioning just as well regardless of whether there are any expected changes in human behavior or not.



If the new society also ushered out the old, antiquated institutions and brought in new, more-relevant institutions, then I agree with you on this last part, Mike. We shouldn't expect to change people's attitudes or behavior -- rather we should build better institutions that are more appropriate to contemporary social realities and needs.


I need to amend this statement to distinguish on the basis of time -- in the short-term, while we're still living under capitalism's hegemonic rule, we can't realistically hope to be utopian in the way we live. Many people would like to -- and even attempt to -- live the way that they think people should, "naturally", free of constraints. The problem, of course, is that there *are* constraints, since the system is based on exploitation and oppression.

Worse yet, many of us make our livelihoods in some way by *perpetuating* the system of exploitation and oppression -- normalizing it through our professional roles.

So in what proportions do we participate in / legitimize the status quo, rebel against it, constrain others' behavior for the sake of order in the here-and-now, liberate others' behavior for the sake of rebellion, adhere to institutional conformity for the ease of fitting in and being "successful", and fight collectively for a different societal framework of institutions?

Reconciling the past with the present, and the present with future plans is probably the most difficult thing there is to do in life -- it's always about navigating a rushing river to a desired destination while also knowing that you're in it and that you can't move too quickly for fear of capsizing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm reading this wiki right now on "commodity":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_(Marxism)


The 7 basic forms of commodity trade can be summarised as follows:

1) M-C (an act of purchase: a sum of money purchases a commodity)
2) C-M (an act of sale: a commodity is sold for money)
3) M-M' (a sum of money is lent out at interest to obtain more money, or, one currency or financial claim is traded for another)
4) C-C' (countertrade, in which a commodity trades directly for a different commodity, with money possibly being used as an accounting referent, for example, food for oil, or weapons for diamonds)
5) C-M-C' (a commodity is sold for money, which buys another, different commodity with an equal or higher value)
6) M-C-M' (money is used to buy a commodity which is resold to obtain a larger sum of money)
7) M-C...P...-C'-M' (money buys means of production and labour power used in production to create a new commodity, which is sold for more money than the original outlay).

And my questions are these: to what extent does electronic labour credit eliminate commodity trade (I'm already sure about the elimination of #3, 5, 6, and 7), and to what extent does it retain such?



Some quotes for thought:


He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.


But in the trading between the commune and its members the money is not money at all, it does not function in any way as money. It serves as a mere labour certificate; to use Marx's phrase, it is "merely evidence of the part taken by the individual in the common labour, and of his right to a certain portion of the common produce destined for consumption", and in carrying out this function, it is "no more 'money' than a ticket for the theatre". It can therefore be replaced by any other token, just as Weitling replaces it by a "ledger", in which the labour-hours worked are entered on one side and means of subsistence taken as compensation on the other. In a word, in the trading of the economic commune with its members it functions merely as Owen's "labour money", that "phantom" which Herr Dühring looks down upon so disdainfully, but nevertheless is himself compelled to introduce into his economics of the future. Whether the token which certifies the measure of fulfilment of the "obligation to produce", and thus of the earned "right to consume" {320} is a scrap of paper, a counter or a gold coin is absolutely of no consequence for this purpose. For other purposes, however, it is by no means immaterial, as we shall see.

If therefore, in the trading of an economic commune with its members, metallic money does not function as money but as a disguised labour certificate, it performs its money function even less in exchange between the different economic communes. In this exchange, on the assumptions made by Herr Dühring, metallic money is totally superfluous. In fact, mere book-keeping would suffice, which would effect the exchange of products of equal labour for products of equal labour far more simply if it used the natural measure of labour-time, with the labour-hour as unit — than if it first converted the labour-hours into money.


In the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate.

[Lynx]

They are not like 'traditional money' because they do not bear interest (3) and do not lose exchange value. Their value is tied to labour-time, thus a zero sum exchange consumer economy without speculation or notional values. (5,6,7)
They can circulate but I think they should have an expiration date.
(4) would be for accounting purposes only with regard to intermediary commodities and expressed as bartering at the consumer level.
This is my understanding, please correct if necessary.

[davidasearles]

Over the last 100 years or so the left has pretty much operated under the idea that government forms that look a lot like the current political democracies (which can or may issue currencies) were incompatible with the existence of a workers' collective issuing labor shares to its workers.

In the last couple of years a small group of us has been challenging that idea.

We had thought that the industrial collective would be so powerful and all encompassing (as well as the cultural revolution that probably would accompany it) that of course it would simply sweep away the governments of today and render the form of those governments obsolete supplanted by some totally new form.

But now the notion has struck us that the industrial collective will be of such unquestionable influence that it can safely exist in combination with political democracies in the form of today (albeit without the over development and improper use of of some of the agencies of these governments as exits today) for the people to express their ultimate governmental sovereignty.

This suggests that the structures of the current political democracies shall be continued and shall survive, concurrent with the workers' collective(s). If that in fact will be then there is little reason that even the present currencies issued by the present governments cannot exist (if it is found to be convenient or beneficial) alongside of labor shares.

Example two farmers within the collective swap a bushel of potatoes for 5 pounds of beef of roughly equal labor values (directly or through the medium of labor shares or credits) or these products are sold outside of the collective to individuals not in the collective who may not have labor shares or to the democratic political government itself for some reason in exchange for currency issued by the government.

[mikelepore]

Lynx, what would be the advantage of having an expiration date, or the problem with not having one? Here's an example without an expiraition date: I work for a few minutes at age 20 so that I can eat a certain box of candy at age 70. Would this introduce a problem? Every economy already has a limitation that there's no way to know what a consumer will want. There's a positive but small probability that every shopper could simultaneously want exactly one kind of candy, causing every store and warehouse to run out. But the large size of the population shoothes out this random noise in human behavior, so no kind of product will get all of the impact. Every product has to be slightly overstocked, but not severely overstocked, unless an environmental disaster has been predicted . Given that, isn't the random effect caused by the lack of an expiration date already built into the slight overstocking that's needed in the inventory in any event?

[mikelepore]

This suggests that the structures of the current political democracies shall be continued and shall survive, concurrent with the workers' collective(s). If that in fact will be then there is little reason that even the present currencies issued by the present governments cannot exist (if it is found to be convenient or beneficial) alongside of labor shares.

I'm on the same wavelength as David A. Searles when it comes to believing that such political forms as the legislative, judicial and executive branches can continue to exist well into the age of the new classless society. He and I have previous discussed the matter that we are unconvinced by Karl Marx's comment: "The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes."

However, Dave hasn't convinced me of his idea that government can continue to print money of the present kind. First, I see a need to keep government distinct from most things economic, so that government is that which outlaws the assault of one person by another, and economy is that which provides products. Secondly, money has no way to form any corrrelation between its amount and the corresponding labor, so that, when TV celebrity Jay Leno gets paid $32 milion per year, the concept of money can't offer any formula that tells us that it's the "wrong number". Thirdly, I see the need to enforce the socialist revolution by having the stores redeem only the credits that the socialist economy has issued, and refuse to recognize the old style money. This is what will require the ousted capitalist, who has a buried stash of money, to go to work like everyone else does.

[Cunning_plan]

Are time vouchers not just money by a different name. Still allowing workers to fall prey to the money trick. Whilst something needs to fill the time it takes for social eduction would no money not be a better eventual aim?

[Dóchas]

Are time vouchers not just money by a different name. Still allowing workers to fall prey to the money trick. Whilst something needs to fill the time it takes for social eduction would no money not be a better eventual aim?

yes that is the eventual aim but this is for during the transition from having money to no money

[Lynx]

Lynx, what would be the advantage of having an expiration date, or the problem with not having one? Here's an example without an expiraition date: I work for a few minutes at age 20 so that I can eat a certain box of candy at age 70. Would this introduce a problem? Every economy already has a limitation that there's no way to know what a consumer will want. There's a positive but small probability that every shopper could simultaneously want exactly one kind of candy, causing every store and warehouse to run out. But the large size of the population shoothes out this random noise in human behavior, so no kind of product will get all of the impact. Every product has to be slightly overstocked, but not severely overstocked, unless an environmental disaster has been predicted . Given that, isn't the random effect caused by the lack of an expiration date already built into the slight overstocking that's needed in the inventory in any event?
If people do not hoard their labour time vouchers there ought not to be a problem. LTV still act as debt claims, so we would want to avoid possible long term distortions? The answer will depend on human behavior.

[ckaihatsu]

If people do not hoard their labour time vouchers there ought not to be a problem. LTV still act as debt claims, so we would want to avoid possible long term distortions? The answer will depend on human behavior.


I agree here. The build-up of labor credits / vouchers would be the gradual re-emergence of private property, however limited in size.

If one has nothing to work for, in terms of material rewards, under a communist system, then one should either not work, or else just work for oneself or on a volunteer basis.

It's very difficult to even fathom the hoarding mentality in a communist society since one would be able to freely move around and do what one likes for leisure / pleasure, and if one wanted to become part of a project then that would be a collective, state-sponsored thing, by definition.


Chris




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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --

[Die Neue Zeit]

Mike, also consider your own example. "Eating a certain box of candy at age 70" would result from society issuing *you* the retirement pension equivalent of labour credits that you need to purchase that box from the store (remember the "social fund" stuff).

Chris, what's your opinion on commodity trades #1, 2, and 4 above?

[davidasearles]

I don't recall that it was ever agreed upon that future classless society must at all times and in every instance be absolutely fair and equitable from every aspect and angel.

Oh dear we could never have a 70 year old man turning in a 50 year old labor credit for a boxes of candy. Just think of how unfair that would be that in these 50 years due to increases in production that the old fart will be able to acquire two boxes of candy whereas 50 years ago his labor credit could have only bought one.

And god forbid that some tight ass stuffs their labor credits under a mattress for 50 years - why that would mean that that person would have MORE than someone else! Oh dear oh dear! What shall we do? Does the end of capitalist exploitation mean that we simply must spend our waking hours trying to discern just what else in the universe is inequitable, no matter how microscopically socially insignificant?

[Lynx]

On the issue of expiry I'm content to take a wait and see approach.

[ckaihatsu]

Chris, what's your opinion on commodity trades #1, 2, and 4 above?


You mean these: -- ?



1) M-C (an act of purchase: a sum of money purchases a commodity)

2) C-M (an act of sale: a commodity is sold for money)

4) C-C' (countertrade, in which a commodity trades directly for a different commodity, with money possibly being used as an accounting referent, for example, food for oil, or weapons for diamonds)


In a communist economy there would be *no* commodities -- just goods and services produced by utterly voluntary labor using assets and resources liberated from private ownership, globally, and run collectively.

There would be *no* money -- just labor credits, and a centralized account for every person on earth. All one would need would be *one* debit card (or one of those keychain-fob thingees) to effortlessly swipe past a machine to approve a purchase.

In terms of production, projects would be budgeted for at any level (small-group to community to municipal, regional, global), knowing that, when finished, they will produce X number of G goods, and Y hours of S services consumable by customers. So in this way X-number times G-goods, and Y-hours times S-services produces a credit -- possibly a surplus -- of specific material into the local economy.

On the debit side, the project will incur costs, namely H number of labor hours times D difficulty multiplier, equalling the C labor credits paid out to *one* worker for their input into the project.

The D difficulty multiplier would have to be arrived at politically, and would most likely be published locally and globally. I would imagine that it would float freely as a rate compared to the difficulty multipliers for similar (and different) types of labor throughout the global economy.

Assets and resources would be tracked as well, though separately, including depreciation of utility, costs of collection and usage, (post-revolution), and so on.

There would be administrative costs incurred in the planning of any and all projects, but particularly for broader, large-scale ones, where many, competing scenarios would have to be considered. Attached administrative costs would have to be politically approved as well, so as to differentiate between politics and administration. (Politics would be self-selected activity and necessarily unpaid.)

This means there would be *no* "commodity trades" -- if goods or services were needed at a different location it would necessarily be a political issue and the laborers who work to produce for a more-distant location would collectively take that into consideration. Over time certain supply routes would probably be normalized so that not every little thing would have to be produced locally, but, again, all of it would be made transparent and politically decided-upon.



I don't recall that it was ever agreed upon that future classless society must at all times and in every instance be absolutely fair and equitable from every aspect and angel.


I guess we'd have to take these on a case-by-case basis -- issues of social policy might be particularly difficult to extrapolate to, compared to economic functions -- I wouldn't want to speculate here.



Oh dear we could never have a 70 year old man turning in a 50 year old labor credit for a boxes of candy. Just think of how unfair that would be that in these 50 years due to increases in production that the old fart will be able to acquire two boxes of candy whereas 50 years ago his labor credit could have only bought one.


Yeah, we don't need to nit-pick -- overall the point is that people have just *one* account, which is their *personal* account, which is centralized. Maybe after ten years of account inactivity there might be a reminder sent along to advise someone that they have unused credits, but what else would be required, really, along the lines of "banking" or "customer service"? For *everyone* it would be that you either work to acquire labor credits or else you spend them on yourself -- that's *all*!

People could incur debts to the communist state, but probably only for short periods of time since work could always be made locally available -- larger numbers of debtors, if they existed, could even serve as a ready pool of labor with which to catalyze new projects, maintain or improve existing assets, research new methods of resource allocation, etc.



And god forbid that some tight ass stuffs their labor credits under a mattress for 50 years - why that would mean that that person would have MORE than someone else! Oh dear oh dear! What shall we do? Does the end of capitalist exploitation mean that we simply must spend our waking hours trying to discern just what else in the universe is inequitable, no matter how microscopically socially insignificant?


Yeah, this is a good opportunity to again make the distinction between * personal property * and * private property *. Personal property is anything that you are using yourself, for your *own* pleasure or projects. Private property is quasi-collectivized assets and resources which are independent of personal usage -- usually put towards the function of realizing a profit.

I'm sure a communist state would develop policy that covers living arrangements. Perhaps everyone would have a time limit on how long they could keep their stuff somewhere without actually living there. After a certain amount of time your stuff would be moved and the place would be re-collectivized and made available for someone else's personal use.

Many locations, everywhere, might just be made available, perpetually, as guest quarters for anyone, anytime. The line between temporary and permanent would really blur since it wouldn't matter much how long or how short someone stays in one place -- and by spending some labor credits one could find assistance in moving one's stuff around, too.... Everything that you don't move with you would be the property of the communist state, whether for living arrangements or production / service.

[davidasearles]

First, I see a need to keep government distinct from most things economic, so that government is that which outlaws the assault of one person by another, and economy is that which provides products.

What like a state church thing?

Forget for a moment that we're talking about our own political govt. Suppose the US workers for the most part went workers' collective but that Canada didn't. We want to use a particular type of Canadian timber but Canada doesn't those nasty labor credits, but because of the great amount of cross border transactions it will agree to a currency balance system based upon the goods and services being transferred being valued in dollars. Wouldn't it be handy to have a money currency issuing agency to issue or take in currency from a foreign entity?

[davidasearles]

Thirdly, I see the need to enforce the socialist revolution by having the stores redeem only the credits that the socialist economy has issued,

Probobly a good thing for the stores to only redeem labor shares, but why couldn't people sell their labor shares to the government's central bank in exchange for currency that it issued?

[davidasearles]

This is what will require the ousted capitalist, who has a buried stash of money, to go to work like everyone else does.

That would be up to the govt. to figure out solutions to if there was some kind of problem or glaring inequity.

[ckaihatsu]

First, I see a need to keep government distinct from most things economic, so that government is that which outlaws the assault of one person by another, and economy is that which provides products.



I'm on the same wavelength as David A. Searles when it comes to believing that such political forms as the legislative, judicial and executive branches can continue to exist well into the age of the new classless society. He and I have previous discussed the matter that we are unconvinced by Karl Marx's comment: "The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes."


It's inconceivable how *any* remnant of the bourgeois state machinery could be retained in the midst of the coming to power of the workers over all assets and resources.

A communist government would just be the outgrowth of worker control of local assets and resources, from local levels up to the global level. I think violent crime would be the least of its worries since all workers would have a direct stake in the healthy functioning of the local labor collectives they're in, and, during the socialist transition period the workers would be *fighting* collectively to beat back the forces of private capital. This would *necessarily* mean dispossessing the capitalist-allied politicians, and personnel of all types, from their positions -- the proletariat would have to decide, on a case-by-case basis, what treatment each individual person from the bourgeois machinery might receive in the interests of revolution.

Overall, I'd imagine that social policies under communism might be *nested*, roughly analogous to classroom policy within school policy, within district policy, today. As long as there weren't glaring contradictions from one level to the next it would probably work out fine and allow for the continuation of local traditional cultural practices within larger frameworks of work policy and economic exchanges.



What like a state church thing?

Forget for a moment that we're talking about our own political govt. Suppose the US workers for the most part went workers' collective but that Canada didn't.


I do have to say that this is an unrealistic formulation, but for the sake of argument, so be it.



We want to use a particular type of Canadian timber but Canada doesn't those nasty labor credits, but because of the great amount of cross border transactions it will agree to a currency balance system based upon the goods and services being transferred being valued in dollars. Wouldn't it be handy to have a money currency issuing agency to issue or take in currency from a foreign entity?


I think this would be extremely problematic and, for the most part, counter-revolutionary. Why? Because it is effectively a compromise with capital. In lieu of spreading a revolutionary momentum, collectivizing the means of mass production to the north, it is acquiescing to private property and making deals with it.

It would be far more preferable to build up the strength and reach of a global syndicalist currency, backed by full, unexpropriated labor value, and enjoying the credibility that comes with transparently published accounts. Given these qualities it should be easy to see how this currency {would} be absolutely incompatible, both economically and politically, with any existing, capitalist currencies.

[davidasearles]

It's inconceivable how *any* remnant of the bourgeois state machinery could be retained in the midst of the coming to power of the workers over all assets and resources.

What is a machine?

[ckaihatsu]

What is a machine?


A political machine is any organization of people, both formal and informal, that is coordinated so as to make an impact on the functioning of political and social life.

The agents in a political machine give up a portion of their individuality and self-motivation in order to carry out roles and orders per the instructions of their higher-ups.

The very act of cooperation within the functioning of a political machine is problematic since it's inherently counter-revolutionary. At very least it is synonymous with acceptance of the political order as it is, and only goes into closer degrees of collaboration with the power structure from there.

A revolutionary movement would have to investigate the degrees of collaboration that people have had with the power structure -- most importantly the most visible agents, like politicians.

[davidasearles]

The agents in a political machine give up a portion of their individuality and self-motivation in order to carry out roles and orders per the instructions of their higher-ups.

Like a baseball game? You're playing center field the coach motions for you to shift forward in, you think that you should stay where you are. You either shift in or get thrown out of the game and perhaps off of the team.

I don't see where that would be giving up individuality, the team machine doesn't allow for such individuality in the first place, so you exercise your individuality up front and decide whether to play organized sports in the first place. Does that mean no one ought to play baseball because of the way that you may wish to express your own individuality?

[davidasearles]

But my question about a machine had to do with your comment:

"It's inconceivable how *any* remnant of the bourgeois state machinery could be retained in the midst of the coming to power of the workers over all assets and resources."

Is it fair to say that a remnant of a bourgeois state machine is bourgeios only becuase the bourgeoisie controls it?

[ckaihatsu]

I _guess_ the baseball metaphor is valid here, David -- I'm sure you understand what a political machine is, and I doubt that you really need clarification.

You *then* shift from using baseball as a metaphor to using baseball literally -- hey, I don't know what to say except that *I'm* not the guy who tells you what to do with your free time -- ! (Although I *am* the Cyberspace Sovereign, so *nothing* goes out over the Internet without *my* say-so...! <grin>)

If you've been playing on a baseball team -- or as part of a political machine -- when you shouldn't be, well, then, shame on you, and our revolutionary spies will be knocking on your door in... 3... 2... 1... <knock> Ah, there it is...!

: D


The bourgeois state machine is active and functioning as long as the bourgeoisie, as a class, is in power. Maybe a good way to picture this is in terms of the competition between the manufacturing-based ruling class in the North versus the slavery-based ruling class in the South, in the U.S. Civil War. After the war the Southern bourgeoisie was dispossessed (to varying degrees -- many say not enough), and their state machinery was handed over to elected officials from the population of former slaves, in Reconstruction.

Considering that this was basically an internal dispute, within the ruling class of the United States, I can see why the Southern slaveocracy got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist -- not that I agree with the decision myself, but the idea was to retain the Southern states in the Union and keep the nation as a whole moving forward.

A working-class revolution would change the economic *and* political basis of the world, and it would *not* be in its best interests to retain *any* part of the former, bourgeois apparatus.

[davidasearles]

The bourgeois state machine is active and functioning as long as the bourgeoisie, as a class, is in power.

Yes.


A working-class revolution would change the economic *and* political basis of the world

Yes.


and it would *not* be in its best interests to retain *any* part of the former, bourgeois apparatus.

I am not as expansive as that in thinking about the revolution.

In my own mind I am limited to one of three choices as to what I should advocate for concerning governmental structure:

1.) Would I rather that before advocating for worker control we first work out and reach a concensus on what kind of governmental structure shall replace the present when the workers come into collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution?

2.) Would I rather that before advocating for worker control not worry about what kind of governmental structure shall replace the present one when the workers come into collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution?

3. Or would I rather resolve in my mind how the present governmental structure could perhaps aid in allowing the majority to implement worker collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution; as well as utilizing the present governmental structure during the time of the workers' collective ownership of the industrial means of production as the method by which the majority could express democratic political will even outside of the collective.

I have chosen the third option.

At some point after the revolution in the ownership of the means of production the majority feels compelled to significantly alter the structure of governement or even substitute another form for the presnet, that of course would be up to a fututure generation.

[ckaihatsu]

3. Or would I rather resolve in my mind how the present governmental structure could perhaps aid in allowing the majority to implement worker collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution; as well as utilizing the present governmental structure during the time of the workers' collective ownership of the industrial means of production as the method by which the majority could express democratic political will even outside of the collective.

I have chosen the third option.

At some point after the revolution in the ownership of the means of production the majority feels compelled to significantly alter the structure of governement or even substitute another form for the presnet, that of course would be up to a fututure generation.


David, do you *really* think that the current, imperialist, bourgeois government apparatus -- though majority Democratic -- will even do as much as support the Employee Free Choice Act (to make it easier for workers to join unions) -- ?! Obama has already wiggled past the demands for this Act, so why would you think that "the present governmental structure could perhaps aid in allowing the majority to implement worker collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution" -- ?!

If something as mild as the Employee Free Choice Act does not even constitute the left wing of the present governmental structure, how could you possibly think that it would go *further* left than the EFCA???

For the sake of accuracy you should remove the designation of 'Revolutionary' from your name because your politics are *not* consistent with revolutionary politics.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade, this board doesn't restrict Lassalleans or neo-Lassalleans (the UK Labour Party's Clause IV during the more radical periods of that party). ;)

[ckaihatsu]

Comrade, this board doesn't restrict Lassalleans or neo-Lassalleans (the UK Labour Party's Clause IV during the more radical periods of that party).


Well, I never said anything about * restriction *, Jacob -- please don't put words in my mouth. Reformism isn't revolutionary leftism, though...!

[Die Neue Zeit]

No apologies, but this board is for *revolutionary* leftists for a reason (the "social-democrat" spetsnaz got restricted just today, only after begging for such, long after CC requests for his restriction were ignored).

[davidasearles]

David, do you *really* think that the current, imperialist, bourgeois government apparatus -- though majority Democratic -- will even do as much as support the Employee Free Choice Act (to make it easier for workers to join unions) -- ?!

It is possible that in the 111th Congress that bill will pass as it did in the House of representative in the 110th.

But why such a low standard?

As is shown by the text in my signature I am advocating recognition of the right of workers to abolish private property in the means of production by the oganization of a workers' collective.

I maintain that if workers and others have sufficient political clout to come anywhere near forcing passage of the Employee Free Choice Act that with not too much more in the way of direct advocacy (instead of continually beating around the bush wth reform/minimum/transition etc. demands) that sufficient clout could be built for contitutional recognition of the workers' right to collective control of the indutrial means of production and distrbution.


For the sake of accuracy you should remove the designation of 'Revolutionary' from your name because your politics are *not* consistent with revolutionary politics. I appreciate your concern for integrity concerning use of the word revolutionary. Words are very important. Thank you.

But I think that there is confusion over the determination of how revolutunary a person is by their advocacy of certain tactics.

To some the revolution simply cannot have occurred if the present governemental structure or processes are utilized at all in the pronouncment by the people of the change in organic law concerning private property and the means of production, or as a mechanism for the expression by the people of their collective political will. Except for a few well worn statements by Bakinin/Marx/Engels/Lenin and others that engender far more heat than light on the nature of political governement I see damned little if any cogent analysis that would be helpful in the present day. For the most part Marx and Engels were pragmatists as to how the workers ought to oragnize. I only ask that we consider pragmatics in attempting to discern an effective solution or solutions to resolve the continuing problem of class ruled society in favor of the workers.

[mikelepore]

Terms like "bourgeois state machine" and "imperialist, bourgeois government apparatus" are only meaningful to describe the set of economic conditions that the political process is currently reflecting.

The political process is like a white screen, capable of diffuse reflection. When you illuminate a white surface with green light, the surface is green, and, when you illuminate it with purple light, the surface is purple. Green and purple are not what the surface "is" essentially, but the conditions that it's under at various moments.

Precisely so with the political process. When you have economic class rule, government is the ruling class's device for control over the ruled class. If we had a classless society, government would be the general expression of the will of the people. In both cases it could be the same political structure, in the sense of having legislative, judicial and executive branches, voting on a Tuesday in November, and similar matters of form. I would prefer the enaction of several changes to the political form, but such changes are not prerequisites of the attainment of a classless society.

Marx and Bakunin both got this wrong. Two ideological enemies at each other's throats, and both of them wrong.

[davidasearles]

"Marx and Bakunin both got this wrong. Two ideological enemies at each other's throats, and both of them wrong."

I would cut them both some slack. I don't think that either of them said how it MUST happen, especially how it must happen even 140 years into the future. If they did in that age of questioning there would have been be at least some record of dissention concerning either of these two making such unfounded pronouncements.

They lived in an age of revolution in practically everything. I am amazed at how they could even attempt to keep up intellectually. One good example (from memory) is of Engels demonstrated grasp of the laws of electricity and magnetism in Family Private Property and the State, laws that were of only recent discovery.

They would have been gods if they hadn't made misstatements, especially not having today's communications resources to better be able to gauge the validity of one's pronouncements with the collective knowledge base that is afforded by the internet for example.

But yes, I think that we can do better. Despite Marx' ability to set forth the basis for understanding exploitaion of labor in the capitalist system, Marxism is not a religion. We must make these determinations the only way possible, upon informed logic with as little bias or pre-judgment as possible.

[ckaihatsu]

It is possible that in the 111th Congress that bill will pass as it did in the House of representative in the 110th.

But why such a low standard?

As is shown by the text in my signature I am advocating recognition of the right of workers to abolish private property in the means of production by the oganization of a workers' collective.


I do stand corrected on this, David, but I'm still concerned about your choice of direction, or strategy.



I maintain that if workers and others have sufficient political clout to come anywhere near forcing passage of the Employee Free Choice Act that with not too much more in the way of direct advocacy (instead of continually beating around the bush wth reform/minimum/transition etc. demands) that sufficient clout could be built for contitutional recognition of the workers' right to collective control of the indutrial means of production and distrbution.


I just can't countenance the gradualist approach to revolutionary practice. We've seen time and again that the incremental path plays right into the hands of the bourgeoisie where they can spin their lies and do bait-and-switch for eternity.

The *point* of being a revolutionary is to use militant actions to redefine the politics of labor -- these actions then set the pace, forcing the bourgeois politicians to play catch-up -- the Republic factory take-over from early December is an excellent model for this, as limited as it was (couldn't take worker ownership of factory, didn't spread struggle to other factories, etc. -- not saying that's it's easy, either).



I only ask that we consider pragmatics in attempting to discern an effective solution or solutions to resolve the continuing problem of class ruled society in favor of the workers.


"Pragmatism" is a word used by bourgeois politicians -- also "realpolitik" -- both meaning that they're *only* going to deal with what's directly in front of their desks, and that's it. This is why I question your 'Revolutionary' tagline, because it's a contradiction to advocate revolutionary goals but only push for reformist actions.



When you have economic class rule, government is the ruling class's device for control over the ruled class. If we had a classless society, government would be the general expression of the will of the people. In both cases it could be the same political structure


I'm sorry, Mike, but I just think this is too far-fetched -- when feudalism was overthrown the new mercantilist class did *not* hold court and use the ancient practices of the monarchs they overthrew as the forms for their new rule -- they used parliament. The fight for the parliamentary political process went hand-in-hand with the new economic practice of using (portable) money.

It's really *academic* to "consider" how older political forms could be adapted to new, revolutionary economic practices and rule, as of the proletariat. Why bother?

[mikelepore]

I'm sorry, Mike, but I just think this is too far-fetched -- when feudalism was overthrown the new mercantilist class did *not* hold court and use the ancient practices of the monarchs they overthrew as the forms for their new rule -- they used parliament. The fight for the parliamentary political process went hand-in-hand with the new economic practice of using (portable) money.

Bad analogy. Monarchs aren't elected by the people. Once society begins to have representatives chosen by the people, socialism as well as capitalism can use that political form.


It's really *academic* to "consider" how older political forms could be adapted to new, revolutionary economic practices and rule, as of the proletariat. Why bother?

I don't see how you can ask me "why bother" when the point I just made is equivalent to asking "why bother" to others. A lot of people are going around insisting that "the state" must be "smashed," insisting that those who say otherwise need to be denounced as counterrevolutionaries, etc. What I did was to explain why the socialist movement doesn't have to bother with the whole issue that those people are so concerned about.

[mikelepore]

I would cut them both some slack. I don't think that either of them said how it MUST happen, especially how it must happen even 140 years into the future.

Marx and Bakunin kept up a silly feud, based on Marx saying that class division must be abolished first so that the state can then disappear by itself, and Bakunin saying that the state must be abolished first so that class division can then disappear by itself. Because of that unnecessary argument, the International Working Men's Association was destroyed.

[ckaihatsu]

Bad analogy. Monarchs aren't elected by the people. Once society begins to have representatives chosen by the people, socialism as well as capitalism can use that political form.


"The people" wouldn't be the public-in-general when it comes to a communist economy -- the people who would form the basis of the society's economy, and therefore of its politics, would be the *proletariat* -- that is, those who are actively working, especially on the means (factories) of industrial, mass production.

I continue to maintain that the political form for workers' rule would look more like the soviets of 1917 than bourgeois parliament.



I don't see how you can ask me "why bother" when the point I just made is equivalent to asking "why bother" to others. A lot of people are going around insisting that "the state" must be "smashed," insisting that those who say otherwise need to be denounced as counterrevolutionaries, etc. What I did was to explain why the socialist movement doesn't have to bother with the whole issue that those people are so concerned about.


Mike, you're acting like it would *strain* our abilities to come up with a new political form in which to carry out workers' control over the means of mass production. I have detailed my own, favored model for this, the global syndicalist currency, which would be one option, on this thread. The soviet model of 1917 *emerged* from the nascent worker control in the factories of St. Petersberg (Leningrad).

Parliamentarism doesn't lend itself to the quick recall of workers' representatives as well as the soviet model does -- if your representative is working alongside you in the same workplace, doing the same job duties as everyone they represent, they are much more likely to provide appropriate, informed representation -- and with the proviso of immediate, democratic recall -- than a professional politician in parliament / Congress would.

[mikelepore]

in which to carry out workers' control over the means of mass production.

Are you talking about control of the means of production? I have been talking about the need for a political government to handle issues other than the means of production.

[ckaihatsu]

Are you talking about control of the means of production? I have been talking about the need for a political government to handle issues other than the means of production.


I guess I really see these two spheres of policy -- industrial, work policy & asset / resource administration *and* social policy -- as being compatible with each other and therefore falling under the same "jurisdiction".

Don't you think that all of these issues -- *all* economic / political issues, really -- could be settled in the context of one's workplace, among one's co-workers? The reason for this focus is because of the workplace being the locus of production. To even move *physically* away from it for very long, or to have one's living space *away* from the workplace, as is currently the case, is to invite the emergence of private property claims over the means of mass production.

Because of the reality of industrialism / industrial production it is in our *direct* interests to be as *directly*, collectively in control of our respective factories / workplaces, on a 24/7 basis.

[davidasearles]

I guess I really see these two spheres of policy -- industrial, work policy & asset / resource administration *and* social policy -- as being compatible with each other and therefore falling under the same "jurisdiction".


Don't you think that all of these issues -- *all* economic / political issues, really -- could be settled in the context of one's workplace, among one's co-workers? The reason for this focus is because of the workplace being the locus of production. To even move *physically* away from it for very long, or to have one's living space *away* from the workplace, as is currently the case, is to invite the emergence of private property claims over the means of mass production.

Because of the reality of industrialism / industrial production it is in our *direct* interests to be as *directly*, collectively in control of our respective factories / workplaces, on a 24/7 basis.

In the US we have 225 years of experience with formal system of binary sovereignty between the people through state (as in the 50 states) government and the people through the federal government. Moreover we have experience for the same length of time in having those governments divided into three specialized branches. The governmental levels and divisions having constitutional limits upon their ability to control the private means of production.

And in addition to the constitutional limitations on government's ability to control the private means of production, the private owners because of the wealth they have extracted from the workers in the main have political protection (which they are willing to pay handsomely for) from even constitutional meddling with the private means of production by government "of the people."

Call it incrementalism, call it less than full communism, but I think that we can make a case before the people for them to subscribe to and mandate a change in the organic law of the nation dissolving private property in the means of production in favor of the organization of workers at workplaces throughout the country.

This change essentially would put the collective of workers in the same place that the owners of private property in the means of production are now vis a vis the political government.

The workers and their collective would now be in direct 24/7/52 control of the industrial means of production (where the workers have chosen to so organize).

The workers and their collective would now be by far the most potent economic and political forces. However the limited constitutional political government could still have its say.

For example:

While we would hope that with the end of class rule and dire economic circumstances ever present or at least on the horizon, that people will not drink and drive, or drink and operate industrial machinery. I suppose the workers collective would do some enforcement of sobriety standards at work but suppose a worker while under the influence of alcohol killed another worker while operating a forklift. Sure the co-op might ban the person from working with any large machine for a period of years - but beyond that what could it do, what should it have the authority to do?
Under this kind of circumstance I think we would find it beneficial to have a political government and its agencies with the ability to step in. Perhaps fine the person, perhaps lock the person up for a period of time (after affording the person due process under the constitution.)

For example:

A manufacturing plant emits some nuisance smoke or noise that really doesn't affect the workers in the plant but affects the people living around the plant. The people in the neighborhood petition for relief to the workers collective, the workers collective commiserates with them but it feels that because of much more pressing matters in trying to keep the labor input as low as practical that it couldn't possibly spare the labor power or the materials to fix the problem within the next 5 years. Shouldn't there be a political solution available to the neighbors - in the form of a representative body of residents with authority to legislate within certain boundaries, with available judicial relief to determine if there has been a violation and governmental authority to issue a cease and desist order - and lets go one step further - with the availability of police intervention if necessary?

[ckaihatsu]

Call it incrementalism, call it less than full communism, but I think that we can make a case before the people for them to subscribe to and mandate a change in the organic law of the nation dissolving private property in the means of production in favor of the organization of workers at workplaces throughout the country.

This change essentially would put the collective of workers in the same place that the owners of private property in the means of production are now vis a vis the political government.


So you're basically saying that -- especially in the current financial climate -- there would be broad-based support for a move to nationalize, or socialize (and not just give handouts to) all financial institutions? And, with these finance-based levers of control, the public as a whole would be able to effect policy over industrial / manufacturing plants, while at the same time turning over the ground-level operations to workers themselves?

Well, sure, I'd be all for that, of course...!



I suppose the workers collective would do some enforcement of sobriety standards at work but suppose a worker while under the influence of alcohol killed another worker while operating a forklift. Sure the co-op might ban the person from working with any large machine for a period of years - but beyond that what could it do, what should it have the authority to do?

Under this kind of circumstance I think we would find it beneficial to have a political government and its agencies with the ability to step in. Perhaps fine the person, perhaps lock the person up for a period of time (after affording the person due process under the constitution.)


I don't think we'd have to be too concerned with accidents and haphazard behavior on the job -- if you've ever worked in a close-knit "task group" in your life you'd know how several people working in close quarters together tend to balance out each other's more individualistic urges, well before they would actually become problematic.

The downside to this type of organization (in the workplace) is the emergence of groupthink as a dynamic, where everyone may want to rush to be at the same plateau, to minimize disruptions to the group's cohesion. I'd imagine that if each group was also working in conjunction with other work and social groups, and all were *nested* within larger, more-collective groupings at broader levels of coordination -- like all similar, local factories -- then there would be a larger, *societal* system of mores that would discourage certain types of behavior.

Please keep in mind that currently, under the capitalist system of labor, workers are often just thrown disparately into their various tasks at work, and while they may be in touch, commonly, through some work routines, or ultimately through management, while they're working they may be quite separate, since workers are just separate, interchangeable parts in the larger machine of production. They're not * co-owners * or in any way collectively invested in the workplace as * their own *, with co-management authority over the infrastructure and themselves as co-managers / co-workers.

Really, the whole looking to some outside political government or authority is problematic since it would only outsource and professionalize some function of the workplace which really should remain sovereign and internal to the workplace itself. Extraordinary events would simply require the respective workers collective to deal with that situation, hopefully with some relevant, pre-existing guidelines or policy in place.



For example:

A manufacturing plant emits some nuisance smoke or noise that really doesn't affect the workers in the plant but affects the people living around the plant. The people in the neighborhood petition for relief to the workers collective, the workers collective commiserates with them but it feels that because of much more pressing matters in trying to keep the labor input as low as practical that it couldn't possibly spare the labor power or the materials to fix the problem within the next 5 years. Shouldn't there be a political solution available to the neighbors - in the form of a representative body of residents with authority to legislate within certain boundaries, with available judicial relief to determine if there has been a violation and governmental authority to issue a cease and desist order - and lets go one step further - with the availability of police intervention if necessary?


I do agree to the political empowering of the consumers in society, since they are the final destination of all goods and services. Offhand I'm not sure what formal political roles they might have, but I think -- given a society of workers collectives -- it might be enough for them to provide consistent, respected feedback to the supply chain, as with Amazon.com-type feedback pages for consumer products. If all else fails there would always be the option of engaging in mass political movements to gain general visibility.

[davidasearles]

Call it incrementalism, call it less than full communism, but I think that we can make a case before the people for them to subscribe to and mandate a change in the organic law of the nation dissolving private property in the means of production in favor of the organization of workers at workplaces throughout the country.

This change essentially would put the collective of workers in the same place that the owners of private property in the means of production are now vis a vis the political government.



So you're basically saying that -- especially in the current financial climate -- there would be broad-based support for a move to nationalize, or socialize (and not just give handouts to) all financial institutions?.

Holy Christ how did you make that leap?

I don't think that there is broad based support at all for handouts to the banks.

A move to nationalize the banks?

If after the workers collectivize the industrial workplaces and the workers then feel that there would be some need to nationalize banks, and they are able to convince the political government to pass legislation for that - it really wouldn't keep me up at night one way or the other.

But while I as an individual may favor one reform or another concerning certain issues (as I would for a rewriting of the federal special education law), the revolutionary side of me won't have any of it. And I DO NOT ADVOCATE anything less than collective worker control as a way of sucking people into the movement. If the idea can't stand on its own merits there must be something wrong with us in how we deliver the message, (or that for the most part the left simply has given up on delivering the message) would be my guess.

I have seen some discussion on nationalization of the industrial means of production, depending on the specifics I might throw support to that idea (I probably wouldn’t be wild about it) but I don’t see banks as part of the means of production. But again if there was a convincing argument for bank nationalization I MIGHT reluctantly support it. (I don’t see it as likely though.)

[ckaihatsu]

Holy Christ how did you make that leap?


Holy Shit, David A. Searles, I got more leap than every fourth calendar year! (applause)



I don't think that there is broad based support at all for handouts to the banks.


Holy Savior of All That Is Glowing, I agree with you -- why did you think I was saying that people *support* the bank bailout? Of course they don't.



A move to nationalize the banks?

If after the workers collectivize the industrial workplaces and the workers then feel that there would be some need to nationalize banks, and they are able to convince the political government to pass legislation for that - it really wouldn't keep me up at night one way or the other.


Dude -- do you *realize* that the nationalization thing is a *tactical* demand??? If the entire banking / financial system were to truly be put under full government control the freaking Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would make a guest appearance on the late night talk show circuit and fire would rain down from the skies.

The government has *zero* interest in stepping on the toes of the financial sector -- right now it's handing over hundreds of billions to them in taxpayer money and they didn't even have to say "please." Meanwhile, liberals have their lips caught on the hook of the Obama inauguration rock fest and on some rumors about a round of possible, maybe-we-will-maybe-we-won't, how-'bout-that, why-don'tcha-all-wait-and-see, FDR-type of "New Deal" social spending.



But while I as an individual may favor one reform or another concerning certain issues (as I would for a rewriting of the federal special education law), the revolutionary side of me won't have any of it. And I DO NOT ADVOCATE anything less than collective worker control as a way of sucking people into the movement.


Hey, nice wording -- so in the midst of this very real crisis, while capitalism's genocide, war, oppression, exploitation, inequality, and injustice festers you're going to talk of people being "sucked" -- or do you also mean "suckered", somehow? -- "into the movement" -- ???

Don't you realize how much of a politician hack you sound like? You're going to "advocate...worker control" as a way of "sucking people into the movement" -- ??? With talk like that you're ready to sell anything -- no more training tapes do *you* have to listen to...!



If the idea can't stand on its own merits there must be something wrong with us in how we deliver the message, (or that for the most part the left simply has given up on delivering the message) would be my guess.


The idea of workers controlling the means of mass production, collectively, and directly, has plenty of merit to it -- in the here-and-now we should make sure that we can explain *why* this is in the workers' best interests, as a class, and argue that anything less is just reinforcing the capitalist status quo.

Do you remember this:



I maintain that if workers and others have sufficient political clout to come anywhere near forcing passage of the Employee Free Choice Act that with not too much more in the way of direct advocacy (instead of continually beating around the bush wth reform/minimum/transition etc. demands) that sufficient clout could be built for contitutional recognition of the workers' right to collective control of the indutrial means of production and distrbution.


This is selling the revolution short because having to build "constitutional recognition" means that we get bogged down in the bourgeois political system. How about this: If it happens, it happens, but this should *not* be the goal of a revolutionary workers movement. A revolution, by definition, *breaks* away from the existing political and economic system and carries out the liberation of the working class on its *own* terms, independent of the two-party system.



I have seen some discussion on nationalization of the industrial means of production, depending on the specifics I might throw support to that idea (I probably wouldn’t be wild about it) but I don’t see banks as part of the means of production. But again if there was a convincing argument for bank nationalization I MIGHT reluctantly support it. (I don’t see it as likely though.)


When bank nationalization took place in Britain in 2007 it became a shell game all over again, and turned into a giveaway of public funds, into the private sector, just as we're seeing now in the U.S.

Here's a good rundown on the nationalization / socialization issue, from an anti-capitalist mailing list:





Really it was just a minor point that a difference does exist but....

Socialization implies workers control, it also implies that there is a party of the working class at the forefront of a revolution and that the socialization is being undertaken by a political order of the working class. Nationalization can be undertaken by any bourgeois political order from Bismarck to Bush. The proletariat inherits a distrust and hostility towards the state, which under capitalism cannot be a neutral entity at all even though liberal minded people might want the state to be a neutral player, to stand above and apart from the exploitation and oppression of workers. Nationalization under our present order cannot lead to greater power or say for workers in organization of their own exploitation. That is to say that when capitalists undertake nationalization it means not socialization but the protection of national capital. So while capitalism "socializes" workers through exploitation, it can engage in nationalization to protect and build up its own capitalist power. In the sense that nineteenth century capitalism, by in large grew, around most of the capitalist world, not along mythological "free-market" lines but with tarriffs, subsidies and trade barriers.

Lenin in the Agrarian Question in Russia pubished first in Trudovaya Pravda 1914, speaks of this difference. Basically nationalization is a capitalist measure, especially when it is by and for capitalists. Socialization implies workers control of some sort, or social rather than national ownership. The terms overlap in the sense of outward property forms in the sense of state ownership vs individual ownership but their meaning in their material context is different.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/22.htm

"In either case the reform remains bourgeois in character. In his Poverty of Philosophy, in Capital, and in Theories of Surplus-Value, Marx amply proved that the bourgeois economists often demanded the nationalisation of the land, i.e., the conversion of all land into public property, and that this measure was a fully bourgeois measure. Capitalism will develop more widely, more freely and more quickly from such a measure. This measure is very progressive and very democratic. It will do away completely with serfdom, will break the monopoly in land, and will abolish absolute rent (the existence of which the liquidator P. Maslov, trailing in the wake of bourgeois scholars, erroneously denies). It will speed up the development of the productive forces in agriculture and purge the class movement among the wage-workers."

But, we repeat, this is a bourgeois-democratic measure. Like Mr. V—dimov in Smelaya Mysl, the Left Narodniks persist in calling the bourgeois nationalisation of the land “socialisation” and persistently ignore Marx’s comprehensive explanations of what nationalisation of land under capitalism implies.
Lenin writing in the Draft Program of the RCP(B) speaks specifically that, "the nationalisation of the banks is insufficient in itself to combat this survival of bourgeois democracy." There has to be a check beyond just state ownership, this is where keeping open records was supposed to have helped reduce the trickery and fraud inherent in capitalist finance.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x02.htm

(6) It is impossible to abolish money at one stroke in the first period of transition from capitalism to communism. As a consequence the bourgeois elements of the population continue to use privately-owned currency notes—these tokens by which the exploiters obtain the right to receive public wealth—for the purpose of speculation, profit-making and robbing the working population. The nationalisation of the banks is insufficient in itself to combat this survival of bourgeois robbery. The R.C.P. will strive as speedily as possible to introduce the most radical measures to pave the way for the abolition of money, first and foremost to replace it by savings-bank books, cheques, short-term notes entitling the holders to receive goods from the public stores, and so forth, to make it compulsory for money to be deposited in the banks, etc. Practical experience in paving the way for, and carrying out, these and similar measures will show which of them are the most expedient.

[davidasearles]

Sorry I misread your post. In part of my brain I thought that you were asking me about whether I thought people supported or would support bailing out the banks. I have more things on my mind than brain cells to deal with them.

"do you *realize* that the nationalization thing is a *tactical* demand??? "

Nationalize banks a tactical demand?

I always get confused as to the difference between tactics and strategy so I am pasting in this definition. I think that it is correct:

"Tactics implement strategy by short-term decisions on the movement of troops and employment of weapons on the field of battle."

No doubt a CALL for nationalization of the banks is tactical to some strategy, but none that I see as being useful.

My house is on fire and I want the volunteer fire department to come and put it out so instead of calling 911 and telling them to hurry on over I call out for a pizza instead? I just do not understand any strategy that wants something specific but beats around the bush, hems and haws and never trusts the workers to be able to understand the need for it.
We can't eat, can't wear, can't live in, can't drive, can't cure ourselves with, can't beautify ourselves with, can't educate ourselves with, can't entertain ourselves with, etc. the product of any bank. So I don't see why we would think that CALLING for their nationalization would be a good tactic at all.

In general I am not in favor of "nationalization" - to me it does not clarify an appropriate arrangement between the workers and the means of production. The relationship of the worker to the means of production ought to be direct - the workers working for the workers - not the workers working for the government which has nationalized the industries. In other words I would have the workers' collective supplanting capitalists as to who directly controls the means of production - not the government supplanting capitalists and the workers becoming mere government employees.

While the bourgious part of me favors strict laws limiting the amount of interest and other fees that banks charge and personally I have even written to the local newspaper about our state courts being misused in enforcing illegal interest rates by federally chartered banks, I hardly think that is the stuff of revolution. If I were writing a decalration of independence I would list high interest rates in a list of grievances - but as in the declaration there were no "demands" of the king except the implied one that if he didn't treat us as a sovereign nation that it would be formal war against an actual nation instead of against for the most part unsupported, disorganized and unrecognized bands of rebels.

[ckaihatsu]

Before I consider continuing this discussion with you, David, I would like to know if you still support the strategy of going through the existing, capitalist state to get to socialism.

As I've mentioned before I really don't see how anyone can call themselves a 'Revolutionary' and then want to make sure the revolutionary plans clear through the counter-revolutionary, bourgeois state.

This is a contradiction between goals and strategy.

[davidasearles]

Then I suggest that you discontinue now, because I advocate anything that I think will work. I consider the factually and logically supported opinons of others and frequently adjust my opinions accordingly - but I do not alter my opinions for fear that others may find that they rub their fur the wrong way.

[davidasearles]

The working towards the acquisition of labor credits would be strictly for customizing one's lifestyle, or personal possessions, from an array of possibilities in the global economy. One would *not* have to work for labor credits to avoid starvation or homelessness or illiteracy.


But this decsion it seems would be pretty much up to the workers who may decide to share wealth of their labor as they may determine.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18735

[davidasearles]

To ckaihatsu, I am not asking that you respond to these, but I do want to clarify some points.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

davidasearles:

"But while I as an individual may favor one reform or another concerning certain issues (as I would for a rewriting of the federal special education law), the revolutionary side of me won't have any of it. And I DO NOT ADVOCATE anything less than collective worker control as a way of sucking people into the movement."

+++++++++++++++++

ckaihatsu:

"Hey, nice wording -- so in the midst of this very real crisis, while capitalism's genocide, war, oppression, exploitation, inequality, and injustice festers you're going to talk of people being "sucked" -- or do you also mean "suckered", somehow? -- "into the movement" -- ???

"Don't you realize how much of a politician hack you sound like? You're going to "advocate...worker control" as a way of "sucking people into the movement" -- ??? With talk like that you're ready to sell anything -- no more training tapes do *you* have to listen to...!"

+++++++++++++++++++

davidasearles reponds:

I could have written the above more clearly.

Try this:

while I as an individual may favor one reform or another concerning certain issues (as I would for a rewriting of the federal special education law), the revolutionary side of me won't have any of it. Advocaing anything less than worker control to try to suck people into a movement that they do not support is counterproductive in the firstplace and also shows a lack of commitment to the idea of the workers' collective.

[davidasearles]

davidasearles:

"I maintain that if workers and others have sufficient political clout to come anywhere near forcing passage of the Employee Free Choice Act that with not too much more in the way of direct advocacy (instead of continually beating around the bush wth reform/minimum/transition etc. demands) that sufficient clout could be built for contitutional recognition of the workers' right to collective control of the indutrial means of production and distrbution."

++++++++++++++++++++++

ckaihatsu:

"This is selling the revolution short because having to build "constitutional recognition" means that we get bogged down in the bourgeois political system. How about this: If it happens, it happens, but this should *not* be the goal of a revolutionary workers movement. A revolution, by definition, *breaks* away from the existing political and economic system and carries out the liberation of the working class on its *own* terms, independent of the two-party system."

++++++++++++++++++++++

davidasearles replies:

If you are suggesting that I am somehow undervaluing the potential force of a revolution, I am not. There is no question that if humanity survives long enough there shall be collective control of the industrial means of production by the workers. Constitutional amendment or no.

Will the constitutional process be guaranteed to work? I think that it will, but, hard to believe, I have been wrong about things. Why should we not try the constitutional method?

Fear of getting bogged down in the political process?

I hope that you don't think that I am suggesting that we form committees to try to get politicians elected to office, especially at this stage - I do not think it a good idea. Given enough straightforward clamor by the people I think bourgeois politicians will ultimately accede to the amendment demand if only to simply get rid of us. Perhaps in the future contesting a select few congressional and senate races for a show of force might be advantageous, but definitely not for our candidates to sit with the bourgeoisie to govern, definitely not.

[ckaihatsu]

But this decsion it seems would be pretty much up to the workers who may decide to share wealth of their labor as they may determine.


You're describing syndicalism here, which is what I advocate as a militant strategy, towards the goal of socialist revolution -- a global syndicalist currency.

Once the capitalist class has been dispossessed the individual workers collectives can set to the task of complexifying and generalizing their control of the post-capitalist economy / society, toward communism. Communism builds up local-to-global and global-to-local, agreed-upon, economic relationships and generalized social policy. This would prevent the regression of social progress back to syndicalism.

[ckaihatsu]

Fear of getting bogged down in the political process?

I hope that you don't think that I am suggesting that we form committees to try to get politicians elected to office, especially at this stage - I do not think it a good idea. Given enough straightforward clamor by the people I think bourgeois politicians will ultimately accede to the amendment demand if only to simply get rid of us. Perhaps in the future contesting a select few congressional and senate races for a show of force might be advantageous, but definitely not for our candidates to sit with the bourgeoisie to govern, definitely not.


Now you're describing populism which also doesn't work. Politicians since the Vietnam War have learned to not be influenced by public clamor, and so they aren't. The U.S. military got ground down to a halt in Iraq -- and also in Vietnam -- by resistance operations in those countries, not by public clamor.

I'll admit that public opinion makes a difference, and so it's far better to have an anti-war public than not, as we've seen in recent history, but populist movements still aren't *pro-actively* effective.

[davidasearles]

Now you're describing populism which also doesn't work.

Populism without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal does not work.

Socialism, communism, or anarchism, without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal do not work.

Without such they are mere religious-like movements.

[ckaihatsu]

Populism without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal does not work.


Populism tends to be all-consuming, especially since it doesn't work for revolutionary ends -- people with the best intentions get into grassroots-type activism but it's only an inch away from the Democratic Party and machine politics. Unless people are going to keep an ultimate political goal in mind and build around them *towards* that, like to socialism, they'll just get caught up in the whirlpool of the day-to-day, with centripetal force pulling them ever further into mainstream bourgeois politics.



Socialism, communism, or anarchism, without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal do not work.


Hey, as far as I'm concerned, socialism / communism / anarchism *is* the ultimate practical goal -- bring that here and you won't have to hear from me ever again -- I'll retire to the recliner and fold my hands and sit still. : )



Without such they are mere religious-like movements.


Now you're being unkind -- any liberal hack can accuse revolutionary minded politics of being religious in nature.

[davidasearles]

Originally Posted by davidasearles http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-time-vouchers-t96793/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-time-vouchers-t96793/showthread.php?p=1337350#post1337350)
Socialism, communism, or anarchism, without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal do not work.


ckaihatsu:

Hey, as far as I'm concerned, socialism / communism / anarchism *is* the ultimate practical goal -- bring that here and you won't have to hear from me ever again -- I'll retire to the recliner and fold my hands and sit still. : )

das:

David Searles writes:

You waffled on definite agreed upon goal. Without that you might as well get on that recliner right now.

[davidasearles]

David Searles:

+++++++++++++
Socialism, communism, or anarchism, without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal do not work.

Without such they are mere religious-like movements.
+++++++++++++

ckaihatsu:
#############
Now you're being unkind -- any liberal hack can accuse revolutionary minded politics of being religious in nature.
############

David Searles:

I had written that without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Populism are mere religious-like movements.

But I was incorrect above. Without a definite agreed-upon ultimate practical goal they aren't movements at all.

[ckaihatsu]

You waffled on definite agreed upon goal. Without that you might as well get on that recliner right now.


I haven't "waffled" on anything.

[davidasearles]

good to know.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Populism tends to be all-consuming, especially since it doesn't work for revolutionary ends -- people with the best intentions get into grassroots-type activism but it's only an inch away from the Democratic Party and machine politics. Unless people are going to keep an ultimate political goal in mind and build around them *towards* that, like to socialism, they'll just get caught up in the whirlpool of the day-to-day, with centripetal force pulling them ever further into mainstream bourgeois politics.

OFF-TOPIC (on my part), but I guess that really does depend on one's definition of "populism."

http://21stcenturysocialism.blogspot.com/2008/08/programmatic-objectives-of-socialism.html

"These are both simple populist demands that benefit the majority of the population and help create a high degree of class polarisation." (Paul Cockshott)

Elsewhere on the Internet (by someone else):

"The fulfillment of these demands and more will not fall charitably or spontaneously from heaven. Therefore, all [...] are firmly convinced that their consistent, preferrably simultaneous, obviously complete, and especially lasting implementation can only be achieved by [international] class struggle."



With the first quote and the probably deficient-but-Lenin-inspired (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/draft/02feb07.htm#bkV06P033F02) second quote, I recall this:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/republicanism-democracy-and-t81553/index.html


I have been thinking about one particular instance of a shift in language for some time now, so long in fact that I haven't posted it yet. :(

The classical liberals preferred the word "republic," and equated "democracy" with mob rule. In turn, the [i]classical Social-Democrats embraced the word. Now, however, since "republicanism" is an obscure word, everyone loves "democracy," but then a new Bad Media Word has emerged - "populism":

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

We all know that the word "populist" has been co-opted by national-bourgeois elements at times, most notably in developing countries, but now even they have discarded the word [...]



FYI for North American readers:

Populist Party of America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populist_Party_of_America)
Ten Planks (http://www.populistamerica.com/ten_planks)

Not that I endorse the party's weird mix of views, per se (indeed VERY different from the "Libertarian" Party in embracing direct democracy); civic democracy is nothing without economic democracy, and even then both are nothing without a distinctively working-class emphasis.



Also, I've read on the Internet that Die Linke's 100-point "immediate" programme is populist, and that more disgruntled "ordinary Joes" who are losing out economically are taking pride in the usage of the word "populist" to describe their views.

From a revolutionary perspective, can there be benefits at all associated with using the word "populist" in regards to "immediate" demands (notwithstanding the typical demagoguery of attaching the strings of social conservatism)?

[Lynx]

If a revolutionary demand falls into several categories, what's the problem?
Successful revolutions are ones that tend to have enduring popular support, I would imagine...!

[ckaihatsu]

This is really the crux of it right here:



civic democracy is nothing without economic democracy, and even then both are nothing without a distinctively working-class emphasis.



If a revolutionary demand falls into several categories, what's the problem?

Successful revolutions are ones that tend to have enduring popular support, I would imagine...!





P.S. I did up a handy political spectrum to deal with this very issue of political ideologies. Please keep in mind that in the real world we routinely build platforms with near-like-minded people, but our own support is grounded in certain principles that grow out of our political worldview.


Ideologies & Operations

http://tinyurl.com/yqotq9

[Lynx]

Ideologies > Platforms > Operations
(There's a word between Platforms and Operations that is obscured - what is it?)

[ckaihatsu]

Ideologies > Platforms > Operations
(There's a word between Platforms and Operations that is obscured - what is it?)


"Strategies". The anvils are the strategies, the idea being that it's often difficult to formulate as something as solid as a strategy (anvil), and just as difficult to move it into place. Your platform must be well-supported enough, on the basis of solid principles / positioning, with enough political and economic capital, to sustain the strategy, and even after that you still need to marshall additional material (in the form of those catapult-hammer thingees) from to the left and/or right of your strategy so that you can employ effective tactics in conjunction with your strategy.

If you can't line up your tactics with your strategy well enough to make a solid hit then you haven't really made an impact. Note that all the elements in this schematic arrangement are relative -- sizes of various elements will vary in relation to one another depending on the scenario.

[ckaihatsu]

Speaking of diagrams, I've just added * yet another * one to the collection.

This is a follow-up to the elements of a communist economy that we've been discussing here on this thread. Please feel free to have a look:


communist economy diagram

http://tinyurl.com/bom9ca

[Die Neue Zeit]

If a revolutionary demand falls into several categories, what's the problem?
Successful revolutions are ones that tend to have enduring popular support, I would imagine...!

Except, comrade, that I wasn't talking about revolutionary demands at all, but rather about the character of the immediate "dynamic maximin/oppositionist" demands ;)

[Lynx]

Except, comrade, that I wasn't talking about revolutionary demands at all, but rather about the character of the immediate "dynamic maximin/oppositionist" demands ;)
If their character is populist, that may carry with it both benefits and pitfalls.

Chris: thanks for the clarification

[Die Neue Zeit]

If their character is populist, that may carry with it both benefits and pitfalls.

Indeed - just look at some of the demands in the Nazi program:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/fascists-1956-hungarian-t98321/index6.html

[ckaihatsu]

If their character is populist, that may carry with it both benefits and pitfalls.

Chris: thanks for the clarification


Yeah, no prob, Lynx. There's been good discussion of worker-control-oriented politics at the thread called 'Revolution and after it', at

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=99875&goto=newpost


The following just dropped into my Inbox, and is a good example of * populist * demands:


Gmail Chris Kaihatsu <[email protected]>

Not One More Penny for Wall Street! No Tax Cuts for the Corporations!

The Organizer <[email protected]> Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:27 PM

To: List Suppressed <Recipient>

THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217.
To UNSUBSCRIBE, contact <[email protected]>
PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
------------------------------------------------

Not One More Penny for Wall Street!
No Tax Cuts for the Corporations!

By ALAN BENJAMIN
Over the past three weeks, President Barack Obama has signaled his intent to promote corporate interests at the expense of working people in the name of addressing the growing economic recession that is sweeping our country.

In relation to both the disbursement of the second half of the Paulson bailout package for Wall Street and the tax cuts contained in the proposed economic stimulus plan, Obama has bent to the pressures of the corporations and the ruling rich. In both cases, working people -- and the trade union movement, in particular -- need to weigh in immediately to defeat the corporate attacks contained in these plans.

1. - Not One More Penny to Bail Out the Bankers!
On Jan. 9, 2009, then President-elect Barack Obama publicly asked George W. Bush to request that the U.S. Congress release immediately to the banks and financial institutions the second half of the $700 billion Paulson bailout fund. Bush promptly honored this request, and, two days later, the release of this fund was approved by the U.S. Senate -- without any hearings or much discussion. The matter is now before the House of Representatives.

Nationally syndicated columnist Robert Scheer explained in his Jan. 14, 2009, column why working people and the Congress should oppose releasing these $350 billion to the banks and speculators. Scheer writes, in part:

"Why rush to throw another $350 billion of taxpayer money at the Wall Street bandits and their political cronies who created the biggest financial mess since the Great Depression? And why should we taxpayers be expected to double our debt exposure when the 10 still-secret bailout contracts made in the first round are being kept from the public?

"We don't have time, President-elect Barack Obama's key economic adviser Lawrence Summers insisted in a letter to Congress on Monday [Jan. 12], promising that the new infusion would not be squandered as was the first installment. But given that Summers is personally as responsible for this meltdown as anyone, why should we trust him on this? Yes, it sounds wonderfully bipartisan that Obama is backing President Bush's request for spending the money now, short-circuiting congressional inquiry, but it was just that sort of bipartisan politics that created this nightmare.

"How insulting that we must now accept Summers' assurance that the Obama administration will 'move quickly to reform a weak and outdated regulatory system to better protect consumers, investors and businesses.' This from the guy who, as President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, pushed the deregulation legislation making the subsequent financial crimes of Wall Street legal. The 'toxic derivatives' that we taxpayers are now forced to purchase from the Wall Street hustlers were deliberately shielded from all government regulation, thanks to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Summers got Congress to pass in the closing days of the Clinton administration with the same urgency that he now pushes for the new Wall Street handout. Š

"Where is the openness and accountability that Obama promised? Why not pause for a few weeks for congressional hearings on how to spend the new money? We don't even know where the last batch went. Š That is outrageous. This is our money we're talking about." (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 14, 2009)

Not one more penny should be earmarked to bail out Wall Street. It's time to bail out working people.

This demand has been echoed in a report adopted unanimously by the delegates' meeting of the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) on Jan. 12, 2009. The report states, in part:

"Any bailout must be for workers, their families, children, students, seniors, small farmers, small business -- the everyday folks. This financial collapse can be traced to the three-decade suppression of workers' wages and living standards. A massive stimulus is required to stabilize, retain and employ the working class in productive work, and to keep businesses, small farmers, and goods and services which serve ordinary people from further decline or economic 'wipe out.' Š
"Bailing out Wall Street is pouring tax dollars down a sinkhole. Wall Street and Main Street cannot both be bailed out at the same time, because Wall St. is about profiting from speculation, and the bail-out is funding the speculation. We need to fund Main Street by sustaining the public sector, building a productive economy -- not financial speculation -- and by halting foreclosures and defaults."

The first time the Wall Street bailout was sent to the Congress, it was defeated - as millions of people sent letters to their representatives urging a "VOTE NO ON THE WALL STREE BAILOUT!" This can and must happen again today.

2) No Tax Credits to the Corporations and the Rich! Make Them Pay Their Fair Share!

On Jan. 15, House Democrats rolled out the details of Obama's $825 billion economic stimulus package. The package calls for $550 billion in new spending and $275 billion (or 33%) in tax cuts, mainly for Big Business. The mainstream media explained that the tax cuts were included in the package to appease the Republicans.

Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote an article titled "Do Not Squander America's Stimulus on Tax Cuts" (Financial Times, Jan. 16) in which he takes issue with the Obama's tax-credit plan. He wrote:
"Obama has proposed to use nearly 40 percent of the stimulus for tax cuts [note: that percentage was lowered to 33% in House version of stimulus plan -- A.B.]. Š Tax breaks for business may prove to be a sinkhole as bad as the troubled assets relief program. Particularly worrisome are rumors that companies will be allowed to set off their losses against profits made in the past five years to get tax rebates -- a big gift to those who mismanaged risk, including banks such as Citibank. Š

"And there is a more fundamental point that the Bush team missed. Tax cuts have increased our national debt. Š"

The report adopted by the San Francisco Labor Council on Jan. 12 also noted that these cuts "would have little impact," while pointing out that the Obama plan would not be big enough to create the number of jobs needed in the current situation. "This [proposed stimulus package of $550 billion] is far short of the $1+ trillion stimulus that virtually all the 'outside' economists and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are insisting is needed at a minimum."

But the Labor Council report opposed the tax cuts for the corporations and rich from a working class perspective. "The recovery plan must put people first. Putting forward a workers' recovery plan becomes our job, Labor's job, in coalition with existing and potential allies and community allies already engaged in fighting the crisis. To implement this recovery program, Labor will need to mobilize union members and their organizations."

The Labor Council report went on to propose the following planks regarding taxation. It called for the following measures to be taken immediately:

"a) Obama must reverse the tax cuts for the rich -- immediately upon taking office. There is no justification for giving public money to the rich. Instead the highest income earners and the corporations should be taxed at a much higher rate.

"b) The new administration must retroactively tax Windfall Revenue on the oil-energy industry, on executive compensation and on corporate foreign retained earnings.

"c) The new administration must roll back capital income taxation to 1981. Capital gains, dividends, interest and rent income taxation and inheritance taxes have been, according to Jack Rasmus, PhD, the central factor responsible for the radical shifting of wealth to the top 1% of tax paying households, or 1.1 million households. This 1% now own 20% of the IRS reported income, equivalent to what the 1% held in 1928, and this shift, according to two economists at UC Berkeley, is heavily responsible for the runaway speculative investment that contributed to the current crisis.

"d) The new administration must repatriate an estimated $2 trillion from 27 offshore tax havens. The German government has moved on its wealthy investors diverting income to avoid taxation. The U.S. government must do the same."

Now is the time for labor to mobilize its members and community allies in support of these basic demands in defense of working people!

[Die Neue Zeit]

It suffers from so much economism that I honestly don't know where to start. :(

[davidasearles]

"If all else fails there would always be the option of engaging in mass political movements to gain general visibility."

Or simply have an elected representative body to legislate against such nuisances in the name of the people and the avilability of a court to enjoin the nuisance, and if that fails a sheriff to padlock the gates until a compliance plan is agreed to.

[ckaihatsu]

"If all else fails there would always be the option of engaging in mass political movements to gain general visibility."

Or simply have an elelcted representative body to legislate against such nuisances and the avilability of a court to enjoin the nuisance, and if that fails a sheriff to padlock the gates until a compliance plan is agreed to.


Currently, with the existing system of nation-states and various jurisdictions of laws, what you're describing is how (capitalist, private-property-oriented) law plays out.

Again, David, I fundamentally disagree that the existing political system could simply be adapted to the economic administration of a world of workers' collectives, in a post-capitalist society.

The structure of production, globally, would be revolutionized and concentrated around factories / workplaces, run by the workers at each respective factory / workplace. These workers' collectives would be the basis of production of all goods and services, of all economic administration, and therefore of politics as well.

You're beginning to revisit issues that we've already covered. Please refer back to our past conversations so that we don't have to be repetitive here.

[davidasearles]

CKAIHATSU:

"You're beginning to revisit issues that we've already covered. Please refer back to our past conversations so that we don't have to be repetitive here."

DAVIDASEARLES:

And God forbid that we "revisit issues already covered"! Has a worldwide shortage of pixels been discovered?

CKAIHATSU:

"These workers' collectives would be the basis of production of all goods and services, of all economic administration, and therefore of politics as well."

DAVIDASEARLES:

Production of life's necessities forms the basis of all society. If workers have formed into collectives to control the means of production (ensuring themselves material abundance), presumably with organizational structure running along "industrial lines," how does that suggest that humans cannot or should not also constituionally organize or remain organized along the lines of polity for non-productive functions and even limited oversight of production if it decides those are beneficial?

Should the polity of the people not have a formal say and a veto if necessary in genetic engineering, for example? Or must all such concernes be expressed as "Jacob Richter" has described above only through: "the option of engaging in mass political movements to gain general visibility"?

[Invincible Summer]

I posted a video on FB about Spanish Anarchism, and it mentioned the use of labour vouchers.

My friend (a staunch Friedmanite), commented with the following:


It's a disincentive to productivity on the worker's level because there's no possibility of upwards mobility (ie. why work hard when there's no way to increase your material well being).

On the level of the industry as a whole, without an actual monetary unit, capital investment would be inefficient because it would have to be determined by a central planner - not as a means to optimize resources to increase productivity. The labour market is the same as any other, the price mechanism tells you what different forms of labour are worth.

Very crudely put, the more in demand a certain occupation is, the more you get compensated. Without prices to serve as information, how does labour get allocated? Otherwise complex societies would be homogenized because there's no need to invest in an education. If you get the same amount of credits digging a hole as you do performing neurosurgery, some central entity would have to FORCE people into different lines of work because there would be a huge surplus of unskilled labour and huge shortages of professionals etc.

Therefore the labour theory of value is incompatible with Anarchism because you would NEED a coercive institution of some kind to allocate resources (and we all know how this approach has turned out historically).
I've already replied explaining how the means of production would be controlled by the workers themselves, so it would only be in their best interest to work and be productive, as well as how labour credits may be exchanged for material goods and therefore one can indeed "improve their material well-being" through labour. Also, I mentioned the labour multiplier thing that someone talked about earlier in this thread, and how that would aid the "Doctor and janitor being paid the same" issue.

The underlined, italicized portions are what I need help refuting.

EDIT: This is what I wrote up so far:


Some people have proposed that more educated jobs would have a multiplier that would allow them to earn more labour credits due to their more educated work; therefore, education (in whatever form it may take in an Anarchist society) will still be valued.

Furthermore, one would want more time for their own personal activities, and therefore being efficient/productive is a motivator. For example, the average output for a given industry in a given amount of time is used to encourage efficiency and productivity. If a Syndicate A can produce this average output with at least average quality in less time than the agreed average/minimum (without social/environmental problems) then the members of that syndicate can and should have that time off.

This ties into lazy/inefficient workers/workplaces. Anarchism is based on free association; if Syndicate B has a reputation for producing shoddy goods, then others would simply choose to not associate with them (e.g. request their goods, provide them with materials, etc). This sort of "peer pressure" would encourage them to work better.

As the product of one's labour is valued directly according to how much labour one has put into it (as opposed to making a profit for the capitalist), work is more rewarding and fulfilling. Anarchism aims to turn "work" into an activity in which the individual can develop their humanity. Therefore, giving everyone a single "wage" (consisting of labour credits, I suppose) would be to treat individuals as a single collective being and contrary to Anarchist belief.

A central figure would not be required to allocate labour or distribution of goods, as syndicates and collectives would be in communication with each other. If a certain industry required additional workers, they could send a request to any other industry in the syndicate and those workers who wished to experience work in that industry would volunteer to go. If it was a really nasty job, incentives would obviously be given (in the form of additional labour credits or more time off work, etc).

How is that?

[ckaihatsu]

On the level of the industry as a whole, without an actual monetary unit, capital investment would be inefficient because it would have to be determined by a central planner - not as a means to optimize resources to increase productivity.





Without prices to serve as information, how does labour get allocated?





you would NEED a coercive institution of some kind to allocate resources


Just covered this topic last month:



My concern with your insistence on a leveling of labor rates across the board is that it might very well be too top-down, or bureaucratic, and miss out on the particulars of this-or-that local economy. Perhaps being a firefighter in a city is a much more demanding position than being one in the suburbs. Production of shoes at one plant may be much more efficient than the same shoes at a smaller, less advanced factory with resources spread further out.

I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I do think that we might want to have a floating system of labor rates, *after* the world's assets have been collectivized and put under workers' control (no private property). Keep in mind that in this kind of economy all of labor's claims to certain labor rates would implicitly be political demands against the communist state, so it would play out politically anyway.

If one particular city seemed to have extraordinarily high labor rates, due to successful political demands, that might play at the local level, but when it came to larger projects that city might get passed over by central planning in favor of a group with relatively lower labor rates. (This *is* still materialism, after all...!)

The overall administration (central planning) would be bottom-up, in terms of pooling workers' political initiatives together into an overarching, societal policy.

The overall *execution* of that administration would be top-down, in terms of coordinating among the industries into a single network of social planning, by project, tapping local assets in a rational manner to effect policy.


Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://tinyurl.com/5mjhhh


communist economy diagram

http://tinyurl.com/bom9ca


Syndicalism - Socialism - Communism Transition Diagram

http://tinyurl.com/bgqgjw


Chris





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