"Excuse me. Do you take Proletarian Express here?"
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While I admire the OP for the time and effort put into the idea, I believe we are looking at this backwards.
One cannot plan an economy when said economy is to be based upon conditions which do not yet exist. For the conditions which give rise to the economy in question (the overthrow/fall of capitalism, the possession of the means of production by the working class, the organization of said class in their own interest) necessarily establish the nature and process of the economy itself. One has the proverbial cart before the horse.
It is relatively useless and futile to abstract into a context which we cannot fully understand in any meaningful sense as our conclusions drawn will have no real relevancy. Our time would be better spent, in my humble opinion, working within our own context and figuring out how to change said context towards the better.
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
"Excuse me. Do you take Proletarian Express here?"
From a past thread:
I'm being accused of utopian blueprinting it seems. I don't think that's the case, because this plan doesn't assume things to be true that may or may not actually be true after a revolution. Regardless of the conditions that lead to the revolution, and the conditions after the revolution, resources that are naturally scarce (i.e. more demand than supply) will need to be distributed through some means other than "just take whatever" as can be done with post-scarce resources. That - and the fact that we need to strive to be sustainable, is all that this plan assumes about the type of world that will exist after a revolution.
FKA Chomsssssssky, Skwisgaar, The Employer Destroyer, skybutton
You know what else allows capital to exist? Humans. If we were to abolish humans, we would be pretty sure that capitalism wouldn't exist. This pop-economics nonsense wrapped in quasi-marxism about how commodity production is capitalism and therefore it should be abolished (instead of surpassed) makes the saying "throwing the baby out with the bath water" an understatement. Commodity production can exist without any capitalism and capitalism can exist without commodity production. Markets in themselves are not bad, capitalist, exploitative or whatever, they're just inefficient and unstable, market forms of socialism like anarcho-individualism and mutualism are not viable, but that doesn't make them non-socialistic.
I didn't say you were. I just said that it's an objection to communism, which the OP mentions.
Don't know why you would have concerns. "An amount" is whatever the commune decides, e.g. everyone gets 100 credits, and a scarce product X is assigned a price of 10 credits.
Restriction of consumption (being given a certain amount of credits instead of having free access) by definition inhibits aggregate consumption.
No, it doesn't. It is called by some "artificial market" because something like money and prices exist, but it's not a market mechanism by a long shot, the prices are (decentrally) planned, the amount of credits everyone gets is planned, and it is enacted inside a system where the production is planned.
No, it would not, exactly the opposite. The very point of the list existing is not to end up with first-come-first-served, but let anyone who wants the product sing up for it, and distribute it only after all the signed up are ranked.
That's always a hazard in any group, the only way to eliminate the hazard is to not have groups, which is worse then having the hazard.
pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
previously known as impossible
Very well, only I am not talking about a 'higher stage' of communism. I'm saying that communism represents a fundamentally different human context. We can't speak to what labor credits would look like in communism any more than a serf could speak of what derivatives would look like under capitalism. This is simple logic.
This is not a pressing question (evidence: everything), nor is it of interest to the working class what-so-ever. It is nothing other than abstract navel-gazing. The pressing question is: how do we get possession of the means of production. From this point and this point only can we can begin to discuss material accounting and luxury goods because it is only from this point that we have the physical means to discuss them. Until then this discussion will remain contextualized by capitalism and hence will exist within the very framework which it attempts to escape.
When the working class possesses the means of production this discussion is moot one way or the other. Only then will actual discussion on this issue take place.
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
Not "humans" but "workers". Not "abolish" but "supercede". Now what I just quoted makes sense. You're the one who put the word "abolish" into my mouth.
As for the rest, I didn't bother reading after "pop-economics". Your entire argument rests on a misinterpretation of my previous post.
"Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs."
- Guy Debord (Panegyric)
"Guided by the Marxist leader-dogmas of misbehaviourism and hysterical materialism, inevitably the masses will embrace, not only Groucho Marxism, but also each other."
- Bob Black (Theses on Groucho Marxism)
"I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem."
- Slavoj Žižek ("Year of Distraction" lecture)
I'm sorry, but I still don't see how this is workable -- even with the best intentions and attentions I think that groupthink could easily be the shortcoming with this. In other words, if a commune decides that everyone gets 100 points and a scarce resource is equal to 10 points, there may be 1,000,000 people who would gladly put in their 10 points to get the scarce thing, but there happens to not be enough of it for a million people anyway -- that's why the whole points regime is *arbitrary* in relation to actual material quantities.
Whatever. It's far from being a solid approach.
Smacks of elitism -- again there's no criteria set for how either people or goods are to be 'ranked'.
But what you're saying *is* to leave it to the group -- the 'commune' -- and without any pre-specified criteria.
Well, I'll respectfully differ with you -- I see material realities such as mass production, human needs, labor, and consumption as being quantities that will continue to exist, post-revolution. Therefore we can 'logically' discuss them in the here-and-now, in preparation for what the working class -- including ourselves -- may want to do regarding such productive dynamics.
I would rather be able to explain to someone what the proletariat would be able to do for itself, through its own political economy, while in-control-of the means of mass industrial production. My proposed framework is here:
To presuppose such a disastrous scenario where a million people want something but there's enough only for a tiny number of people (otherwise the price of it would be 80 or 90 or 100 credits, being that scarcity is that huge because of the huge demand) would presuppose a total failure of the commune (of federation of communes, being that there's more then a million people there) to plan it's production. If this were to happen in a communist society, that communist society shouldn't think about fail-safes, but should start thinking about instituting markets in some sectors of it's economy; but I don't think anything like that would happen. When I'm talking about communism, I am presupposing a (anarcho) communist society with modern technology where planning production goes reasonably smoothly, meaning that appearances of scarcity are rare and minor.
That's just your opinion. To which I can say whatever with much more justification then you can say that to a proposed system of anarchist economy given by anarcho-collectivists as a mechanism to be applied not just exceptionally but as a rule. I would rather point you to read books that explain Parecon, which goes into great detail and shows the solidness of that approach.
I don't see what's elitistic in a directly-democratic decetrally planned society deciding to distribute a scarce product to those it agrees need it the most, it's basically the exact opposite of elitism, and btw in perfect accord with the principle "to each according his needs".
pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
previously known as impossible
Okay, I don't mean to put forth a *disastrous* scenario -- rather, I'll just reiterate that 'points' are too arbitrary for accurately representing real demand across a wide variety of items (see post #40).
Would it really be equitable for the same 'points' to cover unmet mass demand for just-developed flying cars, for example, along with unmet mass demand for truffles or caviar -- ? The reasons for scarcity for each are vastly different, and using 'points' to represent an 'economic' status for anything is really just a money substitute, and still with no provision for how one acquires points in the first place.
I find it less-than-encouraging that you, and other anarchists, would be so willing to use the market mechanism as a fall-back, albeit in dire circumstances.
Of course.
No, if it was only my opinion then you could dismiss it as such, but I'm actually making *arguments* that point to how the reasoning / rationale / premise underlying any 'points' system, including Parecon, is faulty.
The reason I said it 'smacks of elitism' is because of the arbitrariness of social decision-making over material quantities -- you're actually ready to assign a blanket '100 points' to everyone *regardless* of actual material quantities on-hand. This requires a market-faith-like belief that everyone's acquisitive intentions will just somehow "match up" to what's out there, with no shortages or mismatches whatsoever as a result.
As soon as your new 'invisible hand' fails *once* to properly allocate everything, the social conditions for elitism will emerge as a consequence.
Nice visual. Very helpful. I guess one way of at least trying to keep on top of what you're talking about would be to have a simple, visual representation (something like what you have there) which initially would start off with the pies showing resources to which people would match the next level, their desired production, using resources available as a guide. Then as things like production and consumption etc are undertaken the database could be given live updates each day at the close of business at factories or in food markets etc showing, in real time, whether the pies are lining up as you say. This is one of the things that excites me most, how new technologies like the internet might alleviate some of the problems that socialist and communist experiments had in the past. Imagine how many deadly famines or wasteful surpluses could have been avoided in countries even as large as China and Russia if people from one end to the next could see supply emergencies in their infancy and start focusing more the very next day on production of things that were falling behind by taking excess labour from things that were being overproduced.I appreciate the overall ethos here, but my reservations from 6 months ago (post #35) haven't changed. The process of *quantifying* anyone's work into labor vouchers / points / tokens / whatever is problematic because there's no criteria proposed for how differing types of work would be valued in relation to each other (mining coal vs. picking berries, for example).
Here's an illustration of my critique:
Pies Must Line Up
Eventually such a real time database could avoid the need for any mass gatherings of citizens to vote on production for the coming year. Even if you had to 'meet' online initially to get things running smoothly I bet once it was up and running the pies could eventually be made to line up. But as you say there is still the necessity of objectively defining some operational definitions for very important concepts like effort and credit.
I think that there cannot be such scarcities in properly organizad communist collective. I have noticed that a lot of communists haven't read Kropotkin and seem to have some picture of a planned economy being some caricature of USSR with everything being produced on a single plan, only without the party. The USSR didn't actually ever have such a system, nor will communism look like that supposed model minus the party. The commune will have a set of different, some connected, some not, production plans for basic needs, for stuff which have continuous and steady demand. The commune itself will decide what basic needs are, but supposedly that will encompas certain food, clothing, housing, furniture, infrastructure, and similar things, of course- both production and maintenance. Other things, like flying cars and maybe also truffles and caviar, will be produced not by the commune, but by production affinity groups (i'll abbreviate to PAG). E.g. Kropotkin gives the examples of pianos- pianos are not going to be produced by the commune as a whole, but by an affinity group of piano enthusiasts who will make pianos because they like pianos, and if someone wants a piano, he will join the piano PAG and ask for such an such a piano, the piano PAG will (make and) give him that piano, and presumably that person will contribute some labor the piano PAG to keep it going, as an act of reciprocity and desire that other people can have pianos too.
You gave an example of basically a complete failure of not only communism but of planned economy in itself, so if that were to happen, the logical step would be to start introducing unplanned economy in certain sectors of production.
There basically only two options- either it's decided democratically, or it is decided by a minority that is ruling over the majority, in either case you can call it arbitrary. You seem to be calling "arbitrary" my view that it's the people of the commune that are supposed to decide, I don't see what would not be arbitrary- for me to in advance proclaim specific and supposedly necessarilly true answers to situations that some people in the future will have?
pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
previously known as impossible
Okay, acknowledged. I have no differences with this general approach, except to bring us back to the more-logistical aspect of how to handle a flood of demand for discretionary items like pianos.
If the piano enthusiasts make pianos because they *like* to make pianos, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will naturally make enough pianos to satisfy a mass demand for them. Of course I don't presume to say that I know the specifics of such, as to how long some might have to wait for their pianos, or if some kind of rationing would be advised as a deterrent, but nonetheless the question of how to handle such scarcities remains.
I'll maintain that a 'points' system is -- as far as I can see -- tantamount to having faith in the market system, and that's why I find that whole approach lacking.
No, I didn't -- you're mischaracterizing it, and here's the proof:
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This is off-topic, to put it generously.
I don't think a once-socialist social order would *have* to regress to a more-backward mode of production, even in the midst of a natural catastrophe -- our world, for example, doesn't think of *slavery* as being the fall-back go-to method if all else fails, because it's simply too barbaric and anachronistic, regardless.
What I'm finding 'arbitrary' is the method proposed for handling scarcities around discretionary items -- the 'points' system -- as I've already explained.
I like the sound of that. I'd also have to assume that in a much more equitable system (without the huge administrative and production burden of a consumer culture of mass produced things we are manipulated into buying and which break soon after) there'd be much more free time on people's hands. We could decide on the things we actually need using the lower sections of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, especially the physiological needs like food, beverage, shelter etc. Then as you get up to some of the more individualist notions and esteem/self actualisation desires there could be, as you say, affinity groups or 'guilds' or whatever that work together to make their pianos, guitars, champagne, cigars or what have you. Even if these things became more popular and threatened to drag labour away from more necessary items (which could be monitored in close to real time statistics online by keeping track of production and consumption with daily updates) I guess you could attempt to lower demand and redirect production by adding a certain percentage of points or credits to the cost. You could create a commodity index based on, again, Maslow's hierarchy of needs or something like it that increased work credit price on objects the higher up you go towards things that are the luxuries of life.
PS Apologies to ckaihatsu for continuing to use vague, undefined words still like credit or points. We'll get there eventually
I understand that, and I agree that these realities will continue to exist. My point is simply that a) we can't conceptualize how we will relate to them and b) we can't speak for the working class as a whole. It is almost assured that any movement out of capitalism will be nasty and unpleasant - I believe that what organizations of production, labor, and consumption that are produced by this movement will be many and confusing at first. There's no reason to believe why a plan today will be applicable then in any sense.
I'm not trying to be rude but have you ever actually showed that to a 'regular' working class person? I've been on this forum for some years now, studied politics and philosophy for many more, I've have had conversations with you, I like you, and even I couldn't get through a couple columns. I'll give it another go later but... it's pretty obscure.
If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.
- Karl Marx
PS Apologies to ckaihatsu for continuing to use vague, undefined words still like credit or points. We'll get there eventually
I'm duly incensed, of course.... (grin)
I can only repeat that I find the 'points' approach to be half-baked, at best.
I really don't see why not.
Not on its *behalf*, of course, but everything we do as revolutionaries is in the working class' *best interests*.
I agree that any 'blueprint' *would* be premature and presumptuous. Mine is a *framework*, to address the material generalities that we both agree will continue to exist for humanity, regardless.
I *have* discussed the concepts with people on occasion, but I don't have the resources to make any routine of it. I may get to producing hardcopies of the diagrams to have with me at all times, for such occasions.
Well, I like you too -- I think it's the fur and aquatic environment.... (heh)
Let me know what eludes you and I'll be glad to fill-in as needed -- that's what a discussion board is for, after all...(!)
Here's a framework of the framework, if you will, to get you started on:
communist economy diagram UPDATE
There is nothing to handle, the point of a planned economy is by definition to plan ahead. There is not going to be some "entrepreneurial" spirit of the commune to produce pianos and hope that there will be demand for them, the whole point of having a planned economy is to have a clearly expressed demand so as to meet it as efficiently as possible, which also means to have, as much as possible, explicit demand before the start of production. If in a single day a thousand people wake up and decide they want a piano, communism doesn't promise them pianos waiting for them, it just gives them them option to acqire pianos with the least amount of labor, waste and stress that is possible in the real world.
If this becomes a problem, the piano PAG can say to newly joined members requesting a piano- if you can do some work, come and work with us, do an x amount of labor (having in mind that we have modern technology and that we're talking about communism, that x will probably be very little) on some job that contributes to making of pianos, and you can have the piano you want. Situation where someone would take the piano and then fail to contribute to the piano PAG could probably be prevented by informal social pressure.
In the small change that informal social pressure doesn't do it, explicit social pressure would do, e.g. another PAG could say to a new member requesting it's product- sorry, but what you did to the piano PAG was a dick thing to do, and we don't want to make this product for you until you go and apologize and help them out a little (and if that PAG too has a problem with having enough volunteer labor to make it's product, they could also ask new members to first contribute a little and then get the product they want).
As I already said- the points system isn't a market mechanism.
You said A. I said A amounts to B. You saying "A doesn't amount to B" isn't proof that A doesn't amount to B. And your A (there being a milion people demanding something that is so scarce that only a dozen or so people can have it) actually does amount to B (that community's total failure at planned economy). But whatever, this is totally besides the topic.
You not only pressupose that markets per se are non-socialistic, you compare them with slavery? The first is simply not true, and the second is just silly. There is nothing un-socialistic about markets in themselves, in theory you could have market socialism (as for example anarcho-individualism and mutualism), and if they were by some miracle to be stable, you would have a totally socialistic system in which there would be nothing oppressive or exploitative.
No, you didn't explain, you just asserted that it's arbitrary.
Kropotkin in 1892. thought that a 25-30 hour work week would be more then enough; in a communist community with modern technology, I think it's safe to assume that a 15 hour work week would be the maximum needed to fulfill the basic needs of all citizen, or maybe a 20 hour week, and I say this with the view that a large chunk of work would be the Homer Simpson jobs of sitting and looking over machines.
Last edited by bropasaran; 22nd July 2014 at 07:36.
pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
previously known as impossible
Agreed. Here's from my framework (at post #49):
Okay, but what if the reality isn't pianos but something more technical and automated, like the making of microchips for computers -- ? The case could very well be that adding one-off individuals to the labor process wouldn't really be appropriate -- what's *really* needed is an 'upgrade' to a newer fabrication plant altogether, and that would require a more focused, dedicated, large-scale effort. Yet there's currently a 'backlog' of people who are dissatisfied with existing technologies and are mass-demanding the 'upgrade'.
Sure, you could say that if there's such a large population with the same desires then they should just go ahead and implement production for that, as they see fit. But those who are used to *using* technology may not necessarily be as knowledgeable about the *production* of that technology, and would basically have to acclimate themselves to current production techniques, get up-to-speed, etc. It would be questionable as to whether they could just 'step up to the workbench' and immediately be useful, contributing laborers in such a situation.
(I don't mean to argue for a continued specialization around matters of technical knowledge -- certainly a post-commodity social environment might very well implement the use of technology in entirely different ways from what we're used to seeing today.)
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The points system is better described as 'market socialism', and a direct implication of that is the direct exchangeability of points for material goods, *without* the pre-planning that you've mentioned above. Market socialism is inherently contradictory because of this, because you can't have both a planned economy *and* an unplanned, pay-as-you-go points system.
(See above.)
I take this point but I would suggest that it is both, a decentralised planned economy which begins from a direct democratic process of setting and then maintaining production targets (with things like the environment and 'social good' in mind etc) and then, yes, some limited allowance for 'free trade' among producers and providers of goods and services but only without the possibility of profit and with only an amount of credits that backs what they have produced in the recent past. In other words if you and your colleagues have produced 50,000 kg or oranges in an orange harvest you are recompensed the appropriate amount of credits. They are now yours to use how and when you wish. You have fulfilled your end of the 'from each' principle. You have a form of social proof of this and now you are easily and conveniently able to enact your rights to the 'to each' principle of socialism. This non-fiat (because it's backed by labour), non money (because it can't facilitate profit) type of digital medium is convenient because every harvest, every production of a commodity and every provision of a service will not align so perfectly on a single day every month or year or whatever so that everyone can be seen to be making a perfectly even or just close to perfectly even trade of labour at a local communal store. It would make the problem of non contributors potentially problematic, those who might be inclined to take advantage of everyone else's labour without exerting any or much of their own (in a sense they'd be the 'tiny capitalists' of socialism taking what they didn't earn). This was always one of the potential problems with 'from each- to each' in a large socialist society, just keeping track of things to making sure the value was being upheld. What is to be done with the lazy person? Forget that! In my mind the real problem is, in a commune of thousands or a wider region of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people how do you even identify them in order to deal with them in the first place?. With such a medium of exchange the entire public could have access to the public records. This transparency would incentivise honesty while making it possible to interview people who are falling behind or not working at all. Where once people might have talked of banishment or punishment these days we realise some people can be so chemically depressed they struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Or maybe they're bravely working through an injury or illness trying to keep up appearances and social status and need to be stopped working and given treatment and whatever form of 'welfare' this society will have until they're better.
