What do you mean by "voting?"

[tuwix]

I don't think that bartering in the way that you describe necessarily follows in this scenario. For example, say you're at my home visiting and you'd like something to eat. I'm not going to ask you to barter with me, I'm going to show you what food I have around to snack on and let you pick whatever you'd like. Similarly, if you need a pen, there's no reason why you can't just borrow mine and give it back later, or just take it because it's just a pen and there are plenty more where that one came from. This kind of gifting between persons happens even in a capitalist economy so there's no reason to think it'll suddenly be replaced by this strange convenience bartering that you're talking about once things become more readily available.

Nonetheless, someones will offer something in exchange and in advance. There will nothing eliminate a barter in small scale. For example, children will exchange toys.

[consuming negativity]

Nonetheless, someones will offer something in exchange and in advance. There will nothing eliminate a barter in small scale. For example, children will exchange toys.

Will they exchange them permanently, or along the lines of "hey, I'd like to play with that, but you're playing with it, will you let me play with that and you play with this for a while?" Because I don't really consider that bartering either. Sharing materials and playing games and such aren't really a market... it's just two or more children taking turns with things. They may even let each other borrow each other's toys for a while before returning them, but there's not much point in bartering when you can pretty much get anything you want if you're willing to wait a little while to get it. And I don't think a few isolated cases of children being impatient or wanting to swap toys for a while really constitute a market in any meaningful sense. Sure, I suppose it's possible, but why should I care?

[tuwix]

Will they exchange them permanently, or along the lines of "hey, I'd like to play with that, but you're playing with it, will you let me play with that and you play with this for a while?" Because I don't really consider that bartering either.

When it is temporary, it's exchange of services. Yes, it is barter.

But lack of awareness that market in some form will always exist is unfortunately something usual on this forum...

[Primagen]

No, a market specifically involves exchange through buying and selling -- which has disappeared in communism. Nor is communism based on barter. You will not exchange pens for two apples, you will either get the pen and two apples for free, or they will be rationed through some point system using labour-vouchers/credits. There's no exchange or barter, nor do I believe an advanced industrial system can be sustained by a comparatively primitive method of disposing of the total product such as barter is.

I'm going to assume that you'll opt for the labor-credit system, because a system where anyone could take whatever you wanted for free whether you work or not sounds completely unsustainable to me, no matter how systematically rationed it is. The labor-credit system seems to me like just another source of contention. These credits will surely lead to countless disagreements over how much credits should be worth, how much certain items should cost in credits, how credits should be allocated, etc. This also must disempower producers from deciding how their own workers should be rewarded.

Could you elaborate further on your argument that monetary trade couldn't sustain future industries?

I don't think those are particularly useful definitions. If I make a sand castle for a child to play with I don't think it qualifies as commodity, or a berry picked by a gatherer in primitive society is not a commodity. A commodity is a good or product subject to buying and selling. I also don't think that, say, a (non-profit) church run by volunteers can qualify as an enterprise. Enterprises and businesses have a commercial purpose.

Sand-castles and wild berries are commodities, it's just that nobody puts them on the market because nobody would want to buy them. If you paid someone to build you a sand-castle or pick you some berries, they'd do it for you. A Church could also be considered an enterprise since it offers the services of religious gatherings, sermons, etc. to people who demand them. I just looked at the Merriam-Webster definitions for “commodity” (something that is useful for valued) and “enterprise” (a project or activity that involves many people,) and went with the broadest one.

The free association of producers and consumers involves everyone, and there is an equal distribution of decision-making power. The producers can function as planners, and the community can install a bureau of statisticians and such to aid in the planning process, with a mandated accorded to them by a general assembly.

If the producers function as planners, then the people who are demanding the products are not. You must choose between allowing the workers to produce how they see fit, or allow consumers to choose what they want to be produced for them. One is not the same as the other.

No, my response to this is I don't foresee this problem from occurring on any major scale at all, and therefore consider the dilemma between worker autonomy and consumer demand to be a false one. I don't dabble in idealist narratives about 'real' or 'untrue' communism or socialism. I also don't see why a labour shortage would lead to repressive measures, since coercive mechanisms would need to be reinvented and installed in the first place, and more logical and positive measures exist. (1) If there's a shortage of producers, then it can be asked for consumers to engage in the productive activity themselves: bake your own bread. (2) With more specialised work like physicians and engineers (although, again, I see no reason why there should be a shortage of these) additional incentives can be given. In a lower or first phase of communism, sectors or industries with a labour shortages could get 1.5 or 2.0 or whatever multiplier of the average labour voucher distribution, in a higher phase of communism scarce goods can be prioritised toward such work or it'll be automated. (3)

(1) Even if we assume that the physical means of oppression have been mostly destroyed, the overseers of the new system could easily persuade people to produce military gear once there is enough dissent within the system for them to establish a certain group as “the bad guys.” And with all the disagreements that would come with common control of production, it probably wouldn't be too hard for a good rhetorician to convince people that a certain demographic is to blame.

(2) Metaphorically speaking, when you say that people should bake their own bread, you're only speaking for the people who want more bread. A lot of other people might think that we have plenty of bread, and we should focus on fruit farming. Other people think we should make more pastries, and others think we have plenty of food, and we should make more smartphones, while engineers in the smartphone industry want to slow down production to give them time to develop a new model. And as long as everybody's working for labor-credits, nobody has any incentive to change their own production. So who gets to decide?

You might be able to get a majority vote on a decision, but that's not the same as a real consensus. If 2% of people vote for one plan, and the other 98% vote equally for 98 different plans, then the 98% is going to be disgruntled and convinced that they need someone with the power to use more forceful means to get them what they want.

(3) There's another source of contention between voters. Even on this very board, there are members who wouldn't even agree that one job deserves a greater reward than another. If you took the members who think so, and had them privately write their own list of the top ten jobs that deserve the highest multipliers and post it simultaneously, I don't think anyone would have the same list as someone else. Forget about reaching a consensus on exactly what multipliers any particular job deserves. So who ultimately gets to make the decision?

¿Que? You argue that there will be a shortage of producers that can produce on a sufficient scale to foresee in consumer demand, i.e. a labour shortage. If not, I've misunderstood your argument.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with how much labor is available. If we assume that there are plenty of laborers, the problem isn't how much work is available, but what they'd do if they weren't held accountable to consumer demands. If there are plenty of bakers, they're not helpful to people who want new smartphones. And if workers are completely autonomous in their work, then consumers who demand what workers don't want to produce will become disgruntled.

That's not what I said though. I said that many professions that exist in capitalism are obsolete in communism, which includes the PR-industry, banking sector, military, police, lawyers, and retail jobs. These people will find different productive activities to engage in, or work, which is why I say I find it very unlikely there'll be too few bakers or whatever.

I personally think communism would be voted into totalitarianism long before that happened, but now that you mention it, what makes you think there would be enough production to make up for all those jobs?

[synthesis]

I personally think communism would be voted into totalitarianism long before that happened, but now that you mention it, what makes you think there would be enough production to make up for all those jobs?

What do you mean by "make up for those jobs"?

[Lowtech]

No. Markets would not exist after moving to communism. Markets began with agricultural society which simultaneously developed protocapitalist class systems. The removal of artificial scarcity and the notion of capital will eliminate "markets" as the primary means to utilizing resources and labor.

Markets can be seen as disorganized production. But that itself is too nice of a term being that markets' primary function is not production, it is to provide an environment that fascilitates profit for the owners of capital. E.g. an environment that perpetuates the cultute of city dwellers that are made dependent on capital centric production.

This is also true of skill sets. Skill sets (jobs) today are designed for profitability, not productivity. Communism would require that all skill sets were productive and constituted solely of skills directly necissary to sustaining a civilization.

a civilization, based on population size requires a certain number of positions to be filled in each such required area of production. As it is now, under the burden of artificial scarcity (inverse of concentration of wealth) that necissary number of positions is increased. Hammered with high unemployment levels, people are further forced to be paid even less so that necissary production levels are met. The rich literally create poverty.

regarding voting to make certain decisions. Things that are determined scientifically or logistically do not require a vote. Where to found a new city or its name would be good things to vote on. And any system that eliminates artificially scarcity and economic subjugation would instantly be far more "democratic" than any employer today (who are the de facto governments of our time)

[Primagen]

What do you mean by "make up for those jobs"?

There has to be enough production to provide labor to everyone who loses their position in the military, government, PR, retail, law enforcement, legal system, banks, etc.

[Lowtech]

There has to be enough production to provide labor to everyone who loses their position in the military, government, PR, retail, law enforcement, legal system, banks, etc.

Who would require a military in a world without artificial scarcity and economic subjugation?

EDIT: unless you meant "lost" thier positions due to them being obsolete. In such case, the logistics of sustaining a civilization is more than enough to employ everyone.

[tuwix]

No. Markets would not exist after moving to communism. Markets began with agricultural society which simultaneously developed protocapitalist class systems. The removal of artificial scarcity and the notion of capital will eliminate "markets" as the primary means to utilizing resources and labor.

Yes. They will exist. As I wrote previously, market is a place where exchange of goods and services happens. Market has been existing even in stage of primitive communism. Primitive tribes exchange goods and place where it's done is called market.
Artificial scarcity won't remove need of exchange. When some products will be forbidden, there will emerge a black market. Even when money in all forms all be eliminated. Besides for the sake of convenience there will occur an exchange. A reiterate this example over and over again: One must wait some too long for him time for a pen from distribution center. Then s/he goes to his friend and exchanges it for three oranges. Such transaction will happen always and they constitute form of market called barter.
And it won't exist even after inventing a Star Trek replicator. Because it isn't portable. So in the move people will exchange goods and services.

[synthesis]

There has to be enough production to provide labor to everyone who loses their position in the military, government, PR, retail, law enforcement, legal system, banks, etc.

Why would you need to "provide labor to them"?

[Primagen]

I'm not sure if your first post was addressed to me, Lowtech, but I'll respond to it. I'm not going to be very thorough with my response to your first post, because I'm on a mobile phone and what you're saying is kind of beside the point.

No. Markets would not exist after moving to communism. Markets began with agricultural society which simultaneously developed protocapitalist class systems. The removal of artificial scarcity and the notion of capital will eliminate "markets" as the primary means to utilizing resources and labor.

Markets can be seen as disorganized production. But that itself is too nice of a term being that markets' primary function is not production, it is to provide an environment that fascilitates profit for the owners of capital. E.g. an environment that perpetuates the cultute of city dwellers that are made dependent on capital centric production.

Okay, contrary to what communists have you think, the boergeoisie don't pick and choose what you buy, and you're not at the mercy of their production. If clothing companies started making hot pink leggings that they expected men to wear, you'd have entrepreneurs open companies to sell you the blue jeans that you demand, and the old companies would go out of business because you'd stop buying from them. When businesses compete, the consumer wins. It's not disorganized production, but naturally organized production, as opposed to the artificial organization of fascism and communism.

This is also true of skill sets. Skill sets (jobs) today are designed for profitability, not productivity. Communism would require that all skill sets were productive and constituted solely of skills directly necissary to sustaining a civilization.

a civilization, based on population size requires a certain number of positions to be filled in each such required area of production. As it is now, under the burden of artificial scarcity (inverse of concentration of wealth) that necissary number of positions is increased. Hammered with high unemployment levels, people are further forced to be paid even less so that necissary production levels are met. The rich literally create poverty.

Even if capitalism is just as evil as you say it is, that doesn't mean communism would work out better. I'll bet there's not a single communist on here who initially got attracted to communism because they thought the dynamics would work out better. Most people commit themselves to communism to oppose the "evils of capitalism," then rationalize why it would work out. Anyhow, you don't seem to have noticed my arguments on why I don't think communism would work, which I reiterate below.

regarding voting to make certain decisions. Things that are determined scientifically or logistically do not require a vote. Where to found a new city or its name would be good things to vote on. And any system that eliminates artificially scarcity and economic subjugation would instantly be far more "democratic" than any employer today (who are the de facto governments of our time)

I don't see why production should be subject to democratic vote. What people say should be made today isn't necessarily what they're going to want tomorrow.

Who would require a military in a world without artificial scarcity and economic subjugation?

EDIT: unless you meant "lost" thier positions due to them being obsolete. In such case, the logistics of sustaining a civilization is more than enough to employ everyone.

Yeah, let me reiterate the OP. Communists often suggest that under their system, the people will decide on production. They don't seem to have a clear idea on whether workers will control their own production (which couldn't guarantee that they would meet consumer demands) or if consumers would decide what they want produced for them, which would lead to disagreements between producers and consumers and ultimately undermine the prospect of worker's autonomous production. Also, if everyone can decide on an economic plan, then the propositions would be so diverse that no consensus could be reached, and the only way any plan could be enacted is if someone forced it through against the will of most other people. These are problems you'll have to come up with solutions for if you want me to believe that the logistics of your proposed system would be so great. I already have my solution. It's that production should remain "disorganized," because unless you're omniscient, you can never predict what consumers will want tomorrow.

Why would you need to "provide labor to them"?

Before I was talking to Tim Cornelis, who brought up a labor shortage, and I assumed that you would concur. So do you mean to suggest that labor won't be as necessary under communism?

[Lowtech]

Yes. They will exist. As I wrote previously, market is a place where exchange of goods and services happens.

I understand you use a broad enough definition of markets to suit your assumptions. But so broad that its become useless. Functionally, your description doesnt fit "modern" markets where the "exchange" occurs among owners of capital in scales of millions or more of units of a commodity. You might believe so-called market trends are how people like you and I effect/participate in a "market," however with all things sold at a profit (all resources treated the same mathematically, to derive surplus value), our influence is an illusion or simulated, not unlike a simulation in a computer; "the matrix."

Market has been existing even in stage of primitive communism. Primitive tribes exchange goods and place where it's done is called market.
Artificial scarcity won't remove need of exchange. When some products will be forbidden, there will emerge a black market.

I dont foresee communism forbidding certain things outside of what should be regulated for our safety however many things would no longer be mass produced. Today things are produced for profit, not to meet need. And things are designed for market efficiency. Although markets aren't designed to keep people fed, healthy and 100% employed. They are designed instead to perpetuate dependence on the capitalist mode of production. Exactly as drug addiction supports the drug trade.

Even when money in all forms all be eliminated. Besides for the sake of convenience there will occur an exchange. A reiterate this example over and over again: One must wait some too long for him time for a pen from distribution center.

your "over and over" example fails. You imply that capitalism produces an distributes a pen faster than communism would. While in reality, due to artificial scarcity some people swim in pens (the rich) while others wait to get one (payday) while others rarely see a pen if at all (extreme third world countires). But artificial scarcity of pens can be looked upon as benign. No harm right? Although all resources are treated this way in our "modern" markets. When its the scarcity of food and healthcare increased artificially its harder to be looked upon as benign, unless you believe as the elite do that only the rich matter.

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm going to assume that you'll opt for the labor-credit system, because a system where anyone could take whatever you wanted for free whether you work or not sounds completely unsustainable to me, no matter how systematically rationed it is. The labor-credit system seems to me like just another source of contention. These credits will surely lead to countless disagreements over how much credits should be worth, how much certain items should cost in credits, how credits should be allocated, etc. This also must disempower producers from deciding how their own workers should be rewarded.

Free access communism is sustainable under conditions of improved productive forces, for instance improved 3D printers and automated natural resource cultivation could reduce the working day necessary for the reproduction of wealth substantially, perhaps to an hour per day per person.

The method of remunerating labour credits should be relatively straightforward, either equal or some minor differences. In case of the latter, for instance two (or maybe 3) categories between industries, and two or three categories within industries.

Could you elaborate further on your argument that monetary trade couldn't sustain future industries?

I mean barter as modus operandi is incompatible with a modern industrialised economy.

Sand-castles and wild berries are commodities, it's just that nobody puts them on the market because nobody would want to buy them. If you paid someone to build you a sand-castle or pick you some berries, they'd do it for you. A Church could also be considered an enterprise since it offers the services of religious gatherings, sermons, etc. to people who demand them. I just looked at the Merriam-Webster definitions for “commodity” (something that is useful for valued) and “enterprise” (a project or activity that involves many people,) and went with the broadest one.

Then you are using definitions that differ from mine, and definitions that differ from my textbooks on organisational theory and economics.

If the producers function as planners, then the people who are demanding the products are not. You must choose between allowing the workers to produce how they see fit, or allow consumers to choose what they want to be produced for them. One is not the same as the other.

I don't see why not. Producers and consumers decide in concert what to be produced (quantity and quality) and the producers plan accordingly to ensure this.

(1) Even if we assume that the physical means of oppression have been mostly destroyed, the overseers of the new system could easily persuade people to produce military gear once there is enough dissent within the system for them to establish a certain group as “the bad guys.” And with all the disagreements that would come with common control of production, it probably wouldn't be too hard for a good rhetorician to convince people that a certain demographic is to blame.

I very much doubt this will happen.

(2) Metaphorically speaking, when you say that people should bake their own bread, you're only speaking for the people who want more bread. A lot of other people might think that we have plenty of bread, and we should focus on fruit farming. Other people think we should make more pastries, and others think we have plenty of food, and we should make more smartphones, while engineers in the smartphone industry want to slow down production to give them time to develop a new model. And as long as everybody's working for labor-credits, nobody has any incentive to change their own production. So who gets to decide?

In a system using labour credits, these can be used as indicator for increasing production or lowering production. Paul Cockshott and Cotrell suggest that labour credits should be labelled with their average socially necessary labour time, or labour values, and if demand is so that the 'consumption points' (equivalent of prices today) rise above the labour value (from 10 to 15), the production will need to be scaled up by 1.5, and vice versa.

You might be able to get a majority vote on a decision, but that's not the same as a real consensus. If 2% of people vote for one plan, and the other 98% vote equally for 98 different plans, then the 98% is going to be disgruntled and convinced that they need someone with the power to use more forceful means to get them what they want.

There's not going to be voting on an all-encompassing plan. Cognitive abilities and time limits put unbridgeable constraints on such a planning process.

(3) There's another source of contention between voters. Even on this very board, there are members who wouldn't even agree that one job deserves a greater reward than another. If you took the members who think so, and had them privately write their own list of the top ten jobs that deserve the highest multipliers and post it simultaneously, I don't think anyone would have the same list as someone else. Forget about reaching a consensus on exactly what multipliers any particular job deserves. So who ultimately gets to make the decision?

Because of cognitive abilities and time limits you need to be able to standardise as much decisions as possible. For instance, have some algorithm to determine whether an industry falls in category A or B. If there's a shortage of labour, then those producers fall in category A, if there's a surplus of labour, that industry falls in category B, for instance.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with how much labor is available. If we assume that there are plenty of laborers, the problem isn't how much work is available, but what they'd do if they weren't held accountable to consumer demands. If there are plenty of bakers, they're not helpful to people who want new smartphones. And if workers are completely autonomous in their work, then consumers who demand what workers don't want to produce will become disgruntled.

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean. You can have 'professional' producers' associations and 'amateur' producers' associations. The 'professional' ones receive labour credits for the social labour they perform, the 'amateur' ones do not as, for instance, they fall below a percentage of consumers that is required for them to qualify as 'professional'. This creates accountability to consumer demand.

I personally think communism would be voted into totalitarianism long before that happened, but now that you mention it, what makes you think there would be enough production to make up for all those jobs?

There has to be enough production to provide labor to everyone who loses their position in the military, government, PR, retail, law enforcement, legal system, banks, etc.

Make up? There wouldn't be unemployment as there is no labour market. There would perhaps be a fair degree of featherbedding permissible as there's a labour surplus. It's not as if when we abolish the military that there wont be jobs for the former soldiers, that they can't work in a bakery as the bakery doesn't have enough money as there's no money. If there's not enough production then this means the required social labour for the reproduction of wealth has been exceeded, and we can cut the working day further (a process that continues until the working day is 0), or we do some featherbedding to decrease labour intensity for a more relaxed work day.

[synthesis]

Before I was talking to Tim Cornelis, who brought up a labor shortage, and I assumed that you would concur. So do you mean to suggest that labor won't be as necessary under communism?

Well, you said that we need to "provide labor" to everyone who works in fields that would be made obsolete by communism, and that there may not be enough "production" to compensate for this obsolescence. But wouldn't all the labor that would be freed by this obsolescence - which would be a lot - be then free to assist in this production of which you don't think there will be enough? I guess I don't see how your question doesn't answer itself.

[Lowtech]

I'm not sure if your first post was addressed to me, Lowtech, but I'll respond to it.

I appreciate your input

Okay, contrary to what communists have you think, the boergeoisie don't pick and choose what you buy, and you're not at the mercy of their production.

I never called them evil. However i do make observation of thier behavior, and thier behavior speaks for itself. Also, capital only exists when people are denied needed resources so that the rich may contract them to work in exchange for those resources. And yes we are made dependent on capitalist production, our skill sets (jobs) are designed so that we are so over specialized, so that nearly all of us lack the skills to survive outside a market/capital centric system. We've been made helplessly dependent on a system designed to exploit us.

If clothing companies started making hot pink leggings that they expected men to wear, you'd have entrepreneurs open companies to sell you the blue jeans that you demand, and the old companies would go out of business because you'd stop buying from them. When businesses compete, the consumer wins. It's not disorganized production, but naturally organized production, as opposed to the artificial organization of fascism and communism.

natural to the ideology of the owners of capital. Not natural to any humane or economically legitimate system.

Demand and other concepts you describe are market dynamics which are moot. Not only do supply and demand not exist outside of markets, no matter what charade goes on within the markets, all commodities are treated the same; they are sold above production cost.

What's important is who produces value and who does not. The working class produces value while the rich produce none.

Even if capitalism is just as evil as you say it is, that doesn't mean communism would work out better.

where do I say capitalism is evil? I have pointed out that capitalism cannot be legitimized economically and I may imply they are evil but my comments are rooted in direct observation.

I'll bet there's not a single communist on here who initially got attracted to communism because they thought the dynamics would work out better.

We know concentration of wealth creates poverty. We know that the capitalist mode of production economically subjugates the working classes. So *not* wanting that IS wanting in it's place better "dynamics." So your comment is unquestionably false.

Most people commit themselves to communism to oppose the "evils of capitalism," then rationalize why it would work out.

the "evils" of capitalism are poverty and the fact that the rich do not produce value yet hoard 80% of it while over two thirds of the world population lives on $10 or less a day. Those might pass as evils. But they are undoubtedly illegitimate economically.

Yeah, let me reiterate the OP. Communists often suggest that under their system, the people will decide on production. They don't seem to have a clear idea on whether workers will control their own production (which couldn't guarantee that they would meet consumer demands) or if consumers would decide what they want produced for them, which would lead to disagreements between producers and consumers and ultimately undermine the prospect of worker's autonomous production. Also, if everyone can decide on an economic plan, then the propositions would be so diverse that no consensus could be reached, and the only way any plan could be enacted is if someone forced it through against the will of most other people. These are problems you'll have to come up with solutions for if you want me to believe that the logistics of your proposed system would be so great. I already have my solution. It's that production should remain "disorganized," because unless you're omniscient, you can never predict what consumers will want tomorrow.

you bring up valid concerns regarding the decision making progress. None of which however puts capitalism in a favorable light. People dont require money to understand the merit of thier deeds and science and technology would not vanish with the oligarchy.

Before I was talking to Tim Cornelis, who brought up a labor shortage, and I assumed that you would concur. So do you mean to suggest that labor won't be as necessary under communism?

No. However skill sets will be redesigned and prioritized for productivity rather than profit.

[tuwix]

I understand you use a broad enough definition of markets to suit your assumptions.

It isn't broad definition. I can quote a Marxist definition of market that shows exactly what I'm writing:

Market

Originally, a kind of place where buyers and sellers gathered and agreed prices by a noisy process resembling a street-auction, with all the participants in ear-shot of one another. In modern times, the concept of market is extended by analogy to refer to a “social space” where products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted at widely separated times and places.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm

your "over and over" example fails. You imply that capitalism produces an distributes a pen faster than communism would.

Only what fails is an understanding that market is feature of capitalism. Market exist in all forms of socioeconomic systems. Primitive communism has been having it and likely its definition as place of making an exchange has his origin in town's market when goods where trades without money, feudalism has been having his market and socialism will have. Even when money will cease to exist, market in form of barter will still exist.

[Tim Cornelis]

It isn't broad definition. I can quote a Marxist definition of market that shows exactly what I'm writing:

Market

Originally, a kind of place where buyers and sellers gathered and agreed prices by a noisy process resembling a street-auction, with all the participants in ear-shot of one another. In modern times, the concept of market is extended by analogy to refer to a “social space” where products are sold and prices agreed in a way approximating the “ideal” conditions of the ancient marketplace – but in reality sales are transacted at widely separated times and places.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/m/a.htm

Right… products are sold and bought… Communism has no buying and selling and thus no market.

Only what fails is an understanding that market is feature of capitalism. Market exist in all forms of socioeconomic systems. Primitive communism has been having it and likely its definition as place of making an exchange has his origin in town's market when goods where trades without money, feudalism has been having his market and socialism will have. Even when money will cease to exist, market in form of barter will still exist.

Primitive communism did not have a market. Communism will not have a market either, not have barter as its modus operandi. There will be sharing of the total product, not exchanging.

[tuwix]

Right… products are sold and bought… Communism has no buying and selling and thus no market.

Wrong. One pen for two apples is price. Communism has been having its own market.

Primitive communism did not have a market. Communism will not have a market either, not have barter as its modus operandi. There will be sharing of the total product, not exchanging.

It had, has and will have. One pen for two apples is a price. And people will exchange even without money. Will you try to forbid it? Very well. Black market will appear.

Besides primitive tribes (during a phase of primitive communism) trade. They do it by barter. And barter is form of market. Barter although in reduced form will happen in advanced communism too. As people always exchanged something, they will always do so regardless what some ideologists would like...

[Tim Cornelis]

Wrong. One pen for two apples is price. Communism has been having its own market.

*sigh*

That'd be exchange-value, first of all. Price is a monetary expression.

It had, has and will have. One pen for two apples is a price. And people will exchange even without money. Will you try to forbid it? Very well. Black market will appear.

We have barter today in capitalism, two apples can be exchanged for one pen today. It doesn't mean capitalism is characterised by barter as it's not the predominant method of distribution. In communism we will share the total product, it will be rationed or free of charge. Barter will only happen incidentally, communism is not characterised by barter. And no it's not a price.

Again, communism will have no buying and selling and therefore neither commodities nor markets.

[tuwix]

That'd be exchange-value, first of all. Price is a monetary expression.

It's obvious that you don't know what is price.

In ordinary usage, price is the quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price

Again, communism will have no buying and selling and therefore neither commodities nor markets.

Maybe it will be discovery to you, but primitive tribes (during a phase of primitive communism) trade. They do it by barter. And barter is form of market. Barter although in reduced form will happen in advanced communism too. As people always exchanged something, they will always do so regardless what some ideologists would like...