Coordination in an economically fragmented world

What I am saying is that are using the point system to determine where to prioritize production, while at the same time claiming that everyone's basic needs will be provided anyhow. A two tiered method of production is being proposed, which require explanations of how they coordinate.

The points do not solve anything in this context, as the points themselves need to have some sort of value attached to it.
Which is otherwise known as money.

Sure -- the specific answer is that there shouldn't be any bottlenecks to your getting a plasma TV (or whatever) *whatsoever*. That's because of the free-access premise of a post-capitalist abundance, etc. (Doubtlessly such common items as TVs would always be produced, and available.)

We're used to thinking of cash *these days* as being the most expedient way to get things done, but the whole idea for a liberated world is that there is no longer any material-logistical *need* for monetary-based exchanges, as for purchases and items, since such can just be made freely available by a liberated labor according to mass demand.

The more *general* answer parallels something I already mentioned to Baseball:




No prob -- varying types of labor are accounted-for in the model:




For a post-capitalist society that controls all production in common, "unemployment" and/or "idleness" wouldn't be an issue, because the overarching goal or ethos of such a society wouldn't be for 'the economy', as it is today -- rather, such a people would truly be 'liberated' and would have a politically proportionate claim to co-control over any kind of productivity imaginable, free from any and all anxieties over personal well-being, regardless.

So this means that, at the individual level, it wouldn't matter *what* one does -- one could pick at the dirt for a lifetime and live well doing so. Of course this probably wouldn't be the norm, but it would certainly be socially possible.



Big of you to acknowledge it. (grin)

Since I don't advocate any market socialism, including any 'points' system, I'll pass this one along to argeiphontes....

And I advocate actual greenbacks (or whatever color they are in your country). Real, debt-based fiat money. So I'll punt as well. Sorry, Baseball. ;)

Okay, I'll take a shot, then, since the cafe's not close to closing yet....

How would the currency be issued, and in what quantities, and how would the total quantity (money supply) be managed -- according to what rules, that is -- ?

Also, would finance be allowed at all, perhaps to facilitate the creation of production goods -- ? And how would the decisions over the creation of new production goods be made -- ?

There could be credit but no equities so that outside "investors" couldn't affect the management of firms. There would be a system of public community banks, perhaps similar to credit unions, that would handle savings and investment. A country would have a central bank that issues currency just like today.

Obviously bank lending decisions would go a long way to determining investment in capital goods so they could perhaps have wider community ownership or some federal system rather than being owned solely by their workers. This could depend on what goals the community had for these banks or how wide of a control was optimal. Maybe people in a community could even vote on their favorite ideas to be funded if they thought the area could use something.

Hmm. Well I think this post-capitalist / post-scarcity idea is science fiction to say the least. I can't imagine an economy in which demand wouldn't exceed supply for some items.


This I think rests on the assumption that social deviance is simply an economic issue. All the research on the topic suggests otherwise. The correlation between criminality and economic class is actually rather small, even less than I imagined when I first read about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devianc...onflict_theory

I remember I did an essay at university once where I had to "compare and contrast the theories of deviance" or something like that. I can't remember what I wrote though. Anyway, the 'conflict theory' has a lot of holes in it.



OK, but that's only taking into account the danger of the job.

What motivates a person to invest 10 years of their life to learn how to be a neurosurgeon, when at the end of it they get the same wage as everyone else?



Right, well this is all extremely futuristic and contingent on the 'post-capitalist' / non-scarcity idea, which ..you know my opinion on that.


haha. Well, most of us who support capitalism don't sell it as a utopia (Ayn Rand being and especially dumb-headed anomaly).

Oh, okay -- so you draw the line at equities....

Let's say there's overwhelming mass sentiment supporting the construction of a new, better kind of semiconductor fabrication plant, but the funding for such a factory can't be found among the banks from simple wage-savings.

Since your system would allow for credit, would the public community banks be allowed to issue bonds at all -- ? Bonds would allow the banks to raise more funds, more quickly, for development projects, but the banks would then have to pay interest to the bondholders over time.

I'd be interested to know how the decision-making over the issuing of bank bonds -- or *any* credit, for that matter -- would be handled, to avoid the influence of 'outside investors' who have more-active roles in the provisioning of funding, as for much-needed large-scale projects.



'Perhaps' banks could have wider community ownership -- ??

*This* is the core of what you espouse concerning political economy -- ?

I just don't see how any system of populist "co-ownership" over public finance could prevent *private interests* from building up wealth, resulting in massive influence over the banking system.

The rule of thumb in any situation where mass demand exceeds supply would be to *increase capacity* -- I'll recycle from a recent exchange here to provide the overall societal ethos that this would all be based on:



---




We *had* just been discussing labor credits, and now you're shifting the topic to something else.





No, if you'll look again, you'll see that the labor-credit rate is based on *difficulty*, or hazard.



Sure, and if the world were perfect as it presently exists we wouldn't have to bother with *any* of this, but, well -- it isn't.

Yeah. Bonds are equities but I meant stocks and other fictitious capital. No mortgage derivatives ;) The problem with those things is that they are forms of ownership of the means of production, which can't be allowed.

I don't know, I'll have to reread what Schweickart says about this and give it some though. Maybe it's possible for the federal bank at the appropriate level to just issue the credit by fiat rather than backing it with bonds. Just print the money or credit the requestor's account. After all, new money is created by banks, so why can't it be backed by real investment instead of debt instruments?

It's possible to get rich in market socialism, but it doesn't derail the whole system because it's limited to what an individual can accomplish themselves. Even if your business was to sell gold bars, and you made a handsome profit, as soon as you needed to expand your business you have to bring in a co-owner, thus diluting your earnings. There are no hierarchical pyramids of wealth acquisition where a capitalist(s) gets to siphon surplus value from tens, hundreds, or thousands of people.

So I don't see how these individuals are going to get undue influence over the banking system. There is no reason why banks have to be one-dollar, one-vote institutions. If the coops in a region where all members of a particular bank, there would be pressure to ensure fair dealings. Bribery or corruption are possible, but those things happen in all systems. No system is perfect.

Hey, market socialism isn't some utopian construction! Nobody knows what the exact political economy of the future will be like! I can't predict that! It would be too abstract and idealist! Even if I could specify details, they would surely change in market socialist practice, so it's pointless to speculate on what market socialism will really be like.

Just kidding, couldn't resist though... ;)

Well, I don't mean to quibble, but my understanding is that bonds are *not* equities since the interest rate (return) on them is fixed. Therefore bonds are debt-based financial instruments -- the equivalent of credit, for the bank, and allowable within the framework of market socialism.



Either way it would just be a formality in this scenario of yours, if the entire banking system is truly under public control. (Although 'credit' means extending value *outward* from the banks, while issuing bonds is bringing value *inward*, at the expense of having to pay interest into the future.)



Now you're sounding like a monetarist, more than anything else.



This is a good example that you've chosen -- if a business in your 'market socialism' was into gold mining, it would be employing laborers to do the actual work of mining gold.

But you're not indicating any sort of co-ownership of the business by the miners / workers. According to your description here it sounds like one individual could be the sole owner, employing labor, and profiting richly from it.

So, according to this, it can't *possibly* be socialism *of any sort* since this system you're describing implies the exploitation of labor.



Let's say the gold-mining business owner wanted to expand -- they would look for investment capital, and could go to the public banking system, but there'd be nothing *limiting* that person to just the public banks. Any other person with wealth could readily take on the role of a lender, providing a business owner with the necessary access to capital for business expansion.

This process, reiterated over and over, *would* result in a gradient of differing wealth ownership among those with excess money who engage in finance.



Bribery and corruption aside, the main issue here is whether private ownership of business is allowed or not, and if financial-type operations are a part of this system. According to what you've said so far, the answer to both is 'yes', meaning that laborers can simply be paid a wage for their work by the owner of any given private company, and that businesses can grow and merge thanks to their use of available capital reserves.

These dynamics very much cut against any "socialist" ethos attributed to a populist administration of public central banking. I find your position to be equivalent to that of the radical *reformist* call to put current banking under government control -- nationalization, at best, and still far from a socialist-type proletarian control of society's means of mass production.

Oh ok, sorry I cogitate slowly.

Well, do you imagine this kind of economy producing a more equal society? Taking into account unequal skills, work ethic, intelligence, etc, I can't see it would produce anything like an equal society.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys are more interested in proving that a communist society is possible rather than improving the world.

Yes but it's not a question of "developmental possibilities", it's a question of where the path of least resistance lies. Under capitalism there are developmental possibilities, or their equivalent, for even the most destitute of people; A homeless crack-head could go get a job and work for a month to buy a plazma or whatever, or he could go rob a gas station and buy one.

Do you not conceive of a situation in your economy where a person might find it easier to swap his labour credits directly for a tv as opposed to joining the labour force?

This is what I was getting at by bringing up theories of deviance---your idea seems just as exploitable to me as capitalism (more-so, actually).

Why is this your aim?

It's not, it's their aim. I'm perfectly comfortable with inequality.

No prob.



Well, this may be something of a misconception -- and even a fetish projected from the right -- about what the revolutionary aim is about. Sure, we're for the *elimination* of inequality that's currently based on the social institution of private property, but I don't think it's accurate to paint revolutionaries as rabidly being for an anally-retentive *leveling* of everyone, their abilities, and their personalities.

We should probably take 'equal' to be more like the bourgeois-revolutionary 'equal in front of the eyes of the law' -- so that would be about civil society first, and the revolutionary thrust takes it to be about everyone's standing in relation to the means of mass (industrial) production, as well.

So instead of focusing on the *individual* for the measurement of a social 'equality', we should instead focus on the *social institutions*, particularly on how mass production is accomplished.



Well, it's *both* -- theory *and* practice.




This is a valid premise.



Okay....



I guess I mean to emphasize that -- for *any* social order -- we have to look at both the [1] political, and the [2] economic. Here's a graphic, merely for the sake of reference:


[7] Syndicalism-Socialism-Communism Transition Diagram

http://s6.postimage.org/jy0ua35yl/7_...m_Transiti.jpg


As I mentioned before, a socialist society would primarily feature a liberated-labor-led *gift economy*. This, politically, means that the prevailing ethos would be one of providing labor -- only if willing -- for the sake of producing for direct distribution and consumption, with no monetary layer required, or in place.

I'll remind you, and the reader, that this is *materially possible*, given today's productive capacities -- there's no lack of productive logistics for this to feasibly happen tomorrow.

So while you repeatedly uphold a plasma TV to be the 'brass ring' of an everyman's material acquisitions, its availability does *not necessarily* have to depend on monetary exchanges, including labor-as-a-commodity, for its provisioning to everyone in the world who wants one.

In other words why would anyone bother with even *labor credits* at all when they could just go to some local warehouse -- or put in an order for delivery -- and get one, since they're already freely available -- ?



Many of the discussions here at RevLeft regarding the *finer points* of how a post-capitalist society could logistically be organized -- which I tend to incline towards myself -- are just that, regarding the *finer points*. The basic revolutionary *ethos*, or goal-mindedness, covers the *bulk* of agreement amongst revolutionaries about what human society is capable of, once liberated from exploitation and oppression.

The problem remains the same-- there is no connection present between what someone is willing to produce (and in what quantity, quality ect) and what is needed, and also compared with other goods that are also needed,


today's productive capacities are based upon a capitalist mode of production. The methods, manners, means that created these capacities would be abolished in the socialist community. Those logistics therefore are non existent in the socialist community.
A replacement "logistic" of labor producing what it wants when it wants, does not seem to result in a situation that need is satisfied.

No, it isn't. You have said so yourself. The production of plasma TV's, and logically any other product, is dependent upon somebody wishing to produce plasma TV's and other products.



The former is required to demonstrate the truth of the latter. the details need to fit the narrative. Which is why, i think, for the most part, there is that lack of curiosity of socialism by socialists.

I'm thinking that perhaps the influence behind this line of reasoning is derived from *current* economic practices -- the market system is very much dependent on financial-return *speculation*, and not on real data about 'what someone is willing to produce', 'what is needed', and '[what is needed] compared with other goods that are also needed'.

In a *post*-capitalist context, however, the latter kind of data would be *integral* to societal functioning and its productive activities -- people could simply *communicate*, as on wiki pages, about all kinds of capacities and tangible possibilities.

I'll also refer to excerpts from my model as well:


---


---




You're ignoring the material *technology* that exists and would be immediately usable upon its being seized by the world's proletariat.



Only according to you, with your vacuous assertions.




Yes, the availability of *any* good or service would be dependent on liberated laborers being willing to do the work to make it available -- you see this situation as an *impediment*, while revolutionaries see it as a *potential*.




I, for one, tend to agree on this point, but I've found that *most* revolutionaries are content to say "We're not directing the revolution right now, so let's let those who *do* conduct the revolution handle those particulars at that time, and not sooner."



(No comment.)

These solutions to current economic practices exist because the problem is universal.
Its not enough to post on some sort of wiki pages that you personally prioritize X,Y,Z. One also has to know if X,Y,Z is still prioritized at the cost A,B, and C.



Available for how long? It has existed, improves, and was maintained based upon the logistics of capitalism.

A hundred television sets that are needed are supplied only if people are willing to produce a hundred television sets. If not... people go without TV sets. This logistic has to apply to all production. You have not established a connection between production and consumption. And there needs to be one. It is not a vacuous conclusion.


Workers willing to work to produce needed goods and services is indeed potential for those goods to be produced, in both capitalism and socialism.
I am asking that the "potential" be described and defined, in a socialist context.


And meanwhile, one can read how Trotsky was a fool to do X, how Lenin was forced to do Y, why people should have listened to Luxemburg when she said H.
These "revolutionaries" of today are repeating the same mistakes made 90 years ago- showing a lack of curiosity of how a socialist community might actually function on a day to day basis- thus being unable to determine what they wished to do when the Big Moment arrived.

Sure, I hear ya -- and, the good news is that such can be finally, definitively decided by those who would do the actual (liberated) labor.

So, for the #1, #2, and #3 rankings of demands X, Y, and Z, respectively, there would be the proposals or policy packages of A, B, and C, on a decreasing scale of cost (of labor credits), that each addresses demands X, Y, and Z, combined.

(Perhaps proposal 'C' says that demand 'Z' is altogether bullshit and won't include it whatsoever. Perhaps proposal 'A' addresses the demands in a very detailed way, and that's why it would require more liberated labor, and more labor credits, to fulfill those demands. Perhaps proposal 'B' simply found a halfway point between proposals 'A' and 'C' -- etc.)

Here's from the model:



Over time and successive iterations the 'raw' demands would be *refined* to indicate a favoring of one or another proposal or policy package that's currently active, so that there would be an ongoing dynamic interaction between demands and proposals. Successive mass rankings of these proposals-in-play would show which one (or more) are more favored than others, for final implementation by willing liberated labor, which would undoubtedly also be a part of the proposal-refining process.

See 'A world without money' for a sample scenario:

tinyurl.com/ylm3gev


---




True, and will exist in whatever state of advancement at the time of its being seized.




Again:




I'm not sure what you're asking for -- either liberated laborers would be available and willing to put in the work to produce a called-for quantity of demand 'X', or they wouldn't. Much would depend on what the 'X' is, exactly, since not everyone would be willing to work to produce just *anything*.




You're mixing apples with oranges here -- historical lessons about the relation of politics-strategies-and-tactics, to historical contexts, can be found by studying revolutionary history, but then you're casting socialists as being *passive* beings who would *passively* experience some kind of future historical occurrence. The point of being revolutionary is to be *actively* participating in the course of history. I'll confidently say that the revolutionary socialist cause is not at a loss for theory.