Paul Cockshott

Because the intelligentsia, or a significant group of them, calculated that they would benefit more from a higher degree of social inequality.

I have a question, how exactly can an individual commodity's labour value be calculated? Only within a completely socialised, centralised economy where the socially necessary need can be calculated into it, correct?

I have been thinking more about the state-capitalist transition versus labour-voucher economy. One thing that bothers me is that assume that it is correct that we have reached the "Point of no Return", markets not being able to expand and soon reproduce material wealth; if the "transition" (as there inevitably will always be one) fails and cannot provide any kind of progress, how practical will a still-competing economy be to manage and plan? If you have economic sectors in which there are still various competing enterprises, how conjoin them if there is no feasible alternative to labour voucher planned economy? Since effective monopolisation of industries takes quite a dozen months, is there a way to have a not completely centralised planned economy function within a L.V. economy? There seems to be quite divide here as complete socialisation of sectors and economy seems to be a prerequisite to implement a functioning L.V. socialism.

Yes, i agree that we should not underestimate the ruling class to adapt to new material conditions, but the vast majority of people in western society are proletarians while the capitalists are few, and in a crisis of the expected mass scale, the majority of people would protest the injustice.

What is though clear, is that ruling classes in history have always grown very attached to their institutions, and i can only with difficulty imagine capitalists getting rid of markets, which their abolition will be necessitated to sustain material industrial production, life itself, by a planned economy. Socialism is inevitable, at least "I'll see you either in Hell or Communism" as Zizek wisely said.

Check out today's news on Merkel calling for political union.

why have 6 workers work 8 hours and there be 6 unemployed workers on the street. when the factory can have 12 workers work 4 hours.

I meant that labor done by workers will reduce by
1. gains in efficiency
2. workers will be accepted into factories no matter how many workers are in the factory, with workers being distributed by need, so there will be no unemployment.

why have 6 workers work 8 hours and there be 6 unemployed workers on the street. when the factory can have 12 hours work 4 hours.

with unemployed workers being assigned to factories, based on the demand of workers the factory has.

what do you think of my latest blog entry, feel free to poke holes.

That is true to some extent in the developed countries particularly with respect to technologies associated with information and the internet, but we should not be too quick to write off the ability of the system to adapt