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A note on Labour Vouchers.
The question (on the listo f threads now atm) based "wont a gift economy mean people will take more then they need" comes up every other week I'd say, if not more often then that. The question assumes that we don't yet have an adundence of goods so I'm assuming that throughtout this thread..
Often, in these threads, someone will point out labour vouchers and how they could be used in communism to ration goods, this is often unpoular, some of the reasons are unfounded, if not most.
I say "ration goods" because the purists of this forum and so turned off by the word "voucher", ergo, money that they must immediatly claim, to the appluase of comrades that paying someone is a characteristic of capitalism OR we would have capitalism if people were paid OR labour vouchers would lead to capitalism OR it's a form of wage slavery.
I want to explain how none of this is actually through I want those learners to understand this.
First, is paying someone based on work done a characteistic of capitalism? No, the only defining characteristic of capitalism is the extraction of surplus value cupled with private ownership.
Paying someone based on how much they work isn't a characteristic of capitalism, it is the characteristic of a scarity society.
In a scarity society, we all agree rationing of good is needed, yes? How shall we ration them? Perhaps we should use some type of filing system, a mobile one, voile! Labour vouchers.
Claiming that labour vouchers are infact a feature of capitalism is no more accurate then saying that rationing is a feature of capitalism, because that's exactly what labour vouchers are, they are a form of rationing system.
This isn't wage slavery because a society based on libertarian principles would be based on voluntary relationships, you can't force someone to work, they will not starve if they do not work.
Now can we please get past our purist atitude towards labour vouchers, replace the word "labour voucher" with "rationing in a scarity society" and I get the feeling it would be more popular, if not consensus.
This post just made me re-think my position on labour-vouchers, thanks
Who prints the vouchers, how do you earn them, and who prevents counterfeiting?
Most schemes I've seen have labor vouchers being given on the basis of labor time. For counterfeiting, I've read ideas from tickets to checks with your signature on it and a credit card. Labor vouchers are not "labor dollars". They apply only to you and they can not be exchanged.
The DeLeonists on this board are pretty knowledgeable on this topic and they will soon find this and they will give a better answer (they swayed me in favor of it).
In other words, paraphrasing Marx, reciting that capitalism has lived through a progressive phase and is today decadent, that it is a transitory economic form like all those that have preceded it, and that it enters the decadent phase when it is no longer able to develop the material productive forces which come into conflict with the existing relations of production, is absolutely not sufficient, neither from a political nor an analytical point of view.
- Fabio Damen
If that is true, then wouldn't we just wind up back at, "Goods exchanged for work done" and not a Gift Economy?
Labor vouchers are not exchanged or exchangeable. They are a claim on goods.
In other words, paraphrasing Marx, reciting that capitalism has lived through a progressive phase and is today decadent, that it is a transitory economic form like all those that have preceded it, and that it enters the decadent phase when it is no longer able to develop the material productive forces which come into conflict with the existing relations of production, is absolutely not sufficient, neither from a political nor an analytical point of view.
- Fabio Damen
We can't distribute on mutual trust and solidarity? Sometimes it seems that we damage our ideals by trying to hard to make them more realistic. Just a thought.
"The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and getting stronger in their fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the educated classes, the lackeys of capital, who consider themselves the brains of the nation. In fact they are not its brains but its shit."
—Lenin
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy."
—Albert Einstein
ergo, rationing
get past your knee twitching, a gift econonomy is suitable for a post scarity society, or for goods which are already abundant (water).
I'm not knee twitching anything. I never said that rationing would be a bad idea. In fact, I completely agree with the concept. All I'm asking is, how would we create as system were all the vouchers are interchangeable no matter where you travel? And if you do have to do work to receive vouchers, how do does it still qualify as a gift economy if you have to "pay" in vouchers to receive goods?
You put foward an international idea "lets all use this type of labour voucher with this process" and try to get everyone to agree with it, if a minority of regions decide not to then they would have problems economically trading wth other regions.
It's not hard, considering we all agree it's pretty rational, we all use the same time zone form, it's not really any different.
It's not a gift economy, that's the point, gift economy style economics would be used for that which is abundant.
The only problem I have with rationing based on work done is that people who can't work for whatever reason would get a lower ration, unless there was a security type system for those people, in which case why bother rationing based on work in the first place? If certain resources were scarce, couldn't a community acknowledge that fact and agree on how much would be realistic for people to take?
And any rational society would have one
Yes, and that's rationing. labour vouchers are a way to efficiantly do this and they encourage hard work. I don't buy into the idea that every worker deserves the same or should get the same wages.
I might make another thread about this.
I know that it's rationing, but I think that it would be a fairer way of doing it. I think that it's unfair to have a system where workers who are more capable of doing more work can easily get a bigger share of the resources than those less able. For it to be a fair system it would have to be scaled to take into account each worker's ability at the job they were doing, and the social usefulness of each job, which I don't think is practical.
coincendently I made a new thread tackling this very argument.
The way you propose is fair to, but I believe in incentives, there is to much evidence showing how they work, which is almost enough to send me to opposing ideologies!
However I should add, incentives don't work in creative jobs.
Ok, I see what you're doing there.
I wouldn't have any objection to to labor vouchers being exchanged or transferred. It's only important that the means of production are not placed up for sale, and therefore individuals cannot become owners of them -- not because a rule forbids them to buy them, but because individuals do not find shares of ownership in the means of production to be presented for sale, regardless of how much savings they have available. Do that and there is no danger of human exploitation coming out of the act of exchanging.
Furthermore, I think it can be projected that people of the future will want the option to transfer labor vouchers, for continuation of such cultural practices as giving money as wedding gifts or graduating-student gifts. As with any implementation detail, if people will want such an option then that is the only thing required for the option to be included; that is, our opinion here don't count.
I believe there would be a mechanical delivery system at the store. You say, "Computer, give me a video camera, model number 995x." Either the item comes out of the warehouse on the conveyor belt, or else the computer screen says "there is insufficient credit in your account." Your number of hours at work (with any sort of adjustments that public policy calls for) are the credits in your personal account.
Well, this criticism that you're talking about is based on the faulty reasoning of attributing personality characteristics particular to a Capitalist society to a communist society (or in the least any society that's based around a gift economy). Hypothetically, any society based on the free exchange of goods and services would necessitate a complete change in morality and ethics, thus there probably wouldn't be problems of people taking more than their fair share - or at least these people wouldn't be endemic and would be easily managed, as it were. Medieval peasants circulated goods and services amongst themselves without the need for money, and they had even less of a surplus than we do in our contemporary society.
Secondly, I believe a gift economy is technically based on the free exchange of goods and services where there is no immediate good or service received in exchange. If one is using labor vouchers, then there is no gift economy - one cannot obtain a good or service without "spending" labor vouchers. Whether or not there is a massive surplus is not the issue, here. I know you said that it wouldn't be a gift economy if there were labor vouchers, but it's not exactly clear from what you've written. It reads like you want labor vouchers with a gift economy.
Thirdly, for a gift economy to become widespread there has to be a massive surplus. If there is scarcity, there needs to be a way to ration good or services (either through direct bartering or using money), which would invalidate any possibility of there being a gift economy (as I've said above).
GLS/SS d- s-:- a- C+++ P+ L+++ W+++ w-- PS+++ PE t R+++ tv+ b+ D++ e+++ h+ r---
The admin-mod team lacks standards.
"[...]driving down the highway screaming 'Ploterait of the world, unite!'."
I think folks are looking at the question wrong, if only because it's so difficult to conceive of a classless society of material abundance while living in capitalism.
Labor vouchers are still a representation of value, since the value of a product is determined by the amount of labor that went into it.
The connection between the direct act of producing and the direct act of consumption needs to broken. Elderly folks may not be as capable of producing as younger folks, while at the same time having increased needs (medicine, medical care, special foods, special shoes, walkers, etc.). Are we going to say "too bad pops, you don't have enough labor vouchers for that?" How about people working on cures for the latest disease who spend hours doing independent research without anything to show for it at the moment?
People have to want to labor instead of needing to labor. As Einstein put it, "Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."
Labor vouchers as a claim on goods is just a form of rationing. It's like what existed in the USSR.
If there is scarcity we have a major problem. Material abundance is key to classless society.
If we are short on something people want or need our answer should not be to put restrictions on what does exist, but to immediately rectify that situation and produce enough to satisfy those wants and needs!
Of course there is scarcity and then there are production delays. There's a big difference between not being able to satisfy your needs and having to wait 2 months for a new laptop you want. The main thing is that the means to satisfy everyone's wants and needs are in existence.
But with modern technology we can organize production with relative ease. The consumption habits of people are already being recording by online retailers, retail stores (with "loyalty" cards), etc. All we really need to do is expand that (and integrate other useful inputs, including direct requests), producing for need and sweeping away the economic mechanisms of the old society in the process.
The better we become at this, the more we can eliminate production queues to the point where everyone can labor freely without worrying about how their wants and needs will be met.
At most we'll need a way of divvying up socially necessary labor. For example we would divide the total amount of labor required to meet the needs and wants of all among all the able bodied folks, adjusting for individual circumstances where required.
That amount will be greatly lowered by the integration of countless people who now work jobs we will have no need for (insurance agents, tax collectors, etc.) as well of those excluded from the production process (unemployed, etc.).
You could swipe your card to track the socially necessary labor you preform.
Satisfying your social responsibility will then allow you free access to all of society's product.
Have you heard of hoarding, black markets, etc?
In a post-scarcity society of course this would be absurd and unnecessary. But in a post-scarcity society so would rationing.
Mike's socialism is a strange mix of utopianism and pragmatism. At any rate, it's no more likely to lead to human emancipation than it is to become a reality.
"Getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't." - Harvey Pekar
The problem with talking about "post-scarcity" is that the technology needed to make it possible may not be invented until 500 years in the future. If you're going to talk about a "gift economy" in a "post scarcity society", why don't you also talk about how it will relate to interplanetary travel on star ships? It's just as removed from the present day potential of technology. its basic requirement is the replicator device seen on Star Trek, so that people will be able to consume all they wish to, without any requirement to work, because anything that you ask for will automatically pop out.
A labor time compensation system is something that the workers could implement a week from next Tuesday, or any time the workers become ideologically prepared to make a fundamental change. It's not waiting for any new technology to be invented. It just uses the facts that technology knows about now, and these facts are: the production of goods always occurs at a finite rate, the rate of consumption does not have any known upper limit, and these two rates have to be forced artificially into correlation. Using proportionality to labor time isn't the only possible method to limit the consumption rate to the production rate; society could also use fixed rations or other methods, but I think using proportionality to labor time is the method with the most advantages.
