Communism with money?

Do any of you envision that it might be possible to achieve communism whilst retaining a monetary system? I know this is anti-Marxian, but there was still a monetary system of sorts, as much as he chose to elaborate on it--labor vouchers. Instead of the fiat system or a gold standard, is there some way labor efforts could be aligned with monetary rewards without throwing out the whole monetary system?

isnt that syndicalism? i think so atleast.

Labor vouchers only partially retain the characteristics and the significance of money, insofar as they cannot be exchanged for the means of production and are not to be transferred from one person to the next (think of it as credit cards with labor performed being directly transposed to labor worth of products people want to consume).

What is achieved this way is basically ensuring renumeration based on labor time while the productive powers of mankind are still insufficient to enable free access.

The answet is simple: no. Communism originated from Latin word that means common. And when everything is common, there can't be monetary system. There is nothing to exchange with nobody.

The economic principle of communism is from each according to his work from each according to need, which means there is no exchange of goods on some non use value basis. Money is meant to facilitate the exchange of goods for a non use value criteria. So no money won't be present.

It is somewhat hard to think of a society where money does not exist. Of course this is only because I have been raised in a strongly capitalist environment.

Perhaps there could be a monetary system, but I provide the same argument that I do with capitalists and ancaps: What's the point? I mean, money is just there and a thing. There really is no point to money, at least not a rational one.

Money is a commodity and is intrinsically linked to labour power and labour time.

"The first chief function of money is to supply commodities with the material for the expression of their values, or to represent their values as magnitudes of the same denomination, qualitatively equal, and quantitatively comparable. It thus serves as a universal measure of value. And only by virtue of this function does gold, the equivalent commodity par excellence, become money.

It is not money that renders commodities commensurable. Just the contrary. It is because all commodities, as values, are realised human labour, and therefore commensurable, that their values can be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the latter be converted into the common measure of their values, i.e., into money. Money as a measure of value, is the phenomenal form that must of necessity be assumed by that measure of value which is immanent in commodities, labour-time."

Karl Marx. Capital Volume One

Chapter Three: Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities

Yeah I guess so. I always just thought syndicalism could exist within a capitalist economy. There's no rule stating how a corporation has pay it's staff, or a commune couldn't register as a corp.

So what about if you just nationalize all the productive equipment?

I was a miner in the UK when the mines were nationalized and was on the picket line during the 1984 Miner's strike. I can tell you that nationalisation has nothing to do with communism or working class interests. I did not feel that I had any control or ownership in the mine. Coal was produced for the market to make a profit and I still received a wage slip - proof of my exploitation.

There is actually no evidence that a barter system has ever existed, hard as it is to believe. Money is one of the oldest "inventions", if you can call it that.

Allowing people to define their own needs is a little problematical isn't it? If there are more needs than resources, labor tokens or something would be one way to decide who gets priority.

I'm aware that money is just an invention. It's stupid, and quite pointless. Monetary system: Credo quia absurdum.

Yeah I don't feel like I have any real stake in my countries "public" resources either. That's why I'm happy for (most) of them to be sold off ...lol

But in communism everything will be yours and mine. That's why I'm so happy when I think about communism. :)

Honestly, why would you want one? The monetary system however devised is stupid as fuck and I think we've as a species have gotten to old to be playing with monopoly money now. What would even be the point? What purpose would it serve under full Communism?

I haven't really read most of this, but contemplating whether or not it would be possible to retain money in communist society is not only idealist, but also pointless. Communism is specifically a 'society of free producers,' not only would money be superfluous, but the idea of reintegrating it into the social system, inherently entails with it the reintroduction of markets, which itself is merely a belief that sociological evolution can be turned back (a belief also shared by many primitivists, which is no more logical then the belief that the turning back of evolution, in the realm of natural science, is possible). Similarly that is also why I am a detractor to Ticktin's theory of the USSR being a non-mode of production, although that's not very relevant. Anyways, yeah, this discussion seems somewhat futile to me.

Yeah - it's an interesting phenomenon. People assume, because it's "common sense" that money evolved from a "barter system" but it's not really true. Have you read David Graeber's Debt? He investigates the origins of money in some detail.

I don't know about other parts of the world, but there is strong evidence that barter existed all across the Australian continent prior to European contact, and indeed between Northern Australians, Papuans and Macassans from Sulawesi. Most of this involved valuable resources (e.g. dyes for plants, etc. etc.)

http://aija.org.au/Aboriginal%20Benc...hapter%202.pdf

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]

I can provide more links if you'd like.

i'd be happy to get a check for being a communist, but in a communist system, no there would not be any money. omnia sunt communia