No money? What?

[RisingDawn]

Ok, so I think i have that right. Ive known for a while that in a true marxist society there would be no money (or rather capital), but I want to know how exactly would that work? On a barter system? Wouldn't that collapse in todays world which is just so large? Why did it fail in Soviet Russia? After all even Lenin had to "reform" the economy.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

There would be no money (capital or otherwise). It would however not be a barter system, because there would not be exchanged in kind. The Soviet Union was integrated into and dependent upon the world market. You cannot simply detach fragments of nations of the world from the market system - the market logic continues to prevail.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Ok, so I think i have that right. Ive known for a while that in a true marxist society there would be no money (or rather capital), but I want to know how exactly would that work? On a barter system? Wouldn't that collapse in todays world which is just so large? Why did it fail in Soviet Russia? After all even Lenin had to "reform" the economy.

Soviet Russia was never socialist - nor did Lenin consider it as such, as he was well aware that socialism as a mode of production can only be global, there can't be pockets of socialism in the world market. And it always had money - the chervontsy, then the rubles.

Barter would not be used - that would entail autonomous enterprises exchanging products. Rather, distribution, once the possible need for rationing has passes, would be based on free access. You want a banana, you take a banana.

[RisingDawn]

Soviet Russia was never socialist - nor did Lenin consider it as such, as he was well aware that socialism as a mode of production can only be global, there can't be pockets of socialism in the world market. And it always had money - the chervontsy, then the rubles.

Barter would not be used - that would entail autonomous enterprises exchanging products. Rather, distribution, once the possible need for rationing has passes, would be based on free access. You want a banana, you take a banana.

Ive never really thought about this before but what would you define as "Socialism"?

But what about when the bananas run out? Whats stopping me from slapping someone in the face and stealing their Banana?

[Lord Hargreaves]

Some people would argue that if you eliminate the labour market and expansion of capital (M-C-M) you'd no longer have capitalism. You could have a "Marxist society" that retains a market, as in market socialism. But I believe most people on this forum are communists.

[Illegalitarian]

It's kind of like fallout, you just blow up people who have shit that you want.




















(but really though look up gift economics, that should give you an idea of the distribution model we advocate, in essence)

[Loony Le Fist]

There would be two things necessary for such a realization of a pure gift economy:

• Greed must be tempered
• A post-scarcity society

We have to temper greed, because that is the first prong in tackling scarcity. Scarcity can be tackled next with automation. In order to do this, our thinking and value systems have to change. Capitalism is more than just an economic system--it's a value system. Not only did people give form to capitalism, capitalism also gives form to them. A system can create it's own evangelists.

To break the grip capitalism has, we have to destroy it's value system. Marx made the excellent philosophical observation of how economic, political and social systems work holistically--the individual influences the system and vice-versa. Combining this with the concept of memes from Dawkins (which many of you hate, I know) and one gets an idea that there is some kind of oscillatory momentum set up between the memes themselves and those conveying them that serves to explain why bad ideas stick around, despite being detrimental.

TL;DR: The gift economy is ideal. It also only feasible if you are post-scarcity. You can't really get to post-scarcity unless you are post-greed.

[DOOM]

Barter means that you exchange a commodity/a service for something which has a (nearly) equivalent value. Value is defined by exchange and use value. This means barter underlies the same dialectical rules as buying stuff with money. So no, there is no basis for the assumption that in communism barter will replace the exchange of commodities using money.

[Illegalitarian]

and we can't get post-greed until we're post capitalism.

So what are you waiting for? Smash capitalism!

[Illegalitarian]

Relatively recently it was discovered by anthropologists that it was the gift economy, rather than barter, that drove trade in the ancient world.

Which is what Marx told us 100+ years ago by simply looking at how productive forces had developed into what there is now from the feudalist system. That's astute as fuck

[tuwix]

Ok, so I think i have that right. Ive known for a while that in a true marxist society there would be no money (or rather capital), but I want to know how exactly would that work? On a barter system? Wouldn't that collapse in todays world which is just so large? Why did it fail in Soviet Russia? After all even Lenin had to "reform" the economy.

Len has made many errors. Many his successors too. The economy without money is undoubtedly hard task. But it's not impossible. IMHO it's inevitable.

There will come a time when money will become obsolete. In some areas they became obsolete now. Education on lower levels is free in many countries, for example.
Besides prices of the most products are going down comparing to income due to technological progress. Then price of them is less and less relevant. Them there will come a time that charging for all items will give more effort than giving them free. Money will just become obsolete.

[ChangeAndChance]

Ok, so I think i have that right. Ive known for a while that in a true marxist society there would be no money (or rather capital), but I want to know how exactly would that work? On a barter system? Wouldn't that collapse in todays world which is just so large? Why did it fail in Soviet Russia? After all even Lenin had to "reform" the economy.

I would highly recommend anarchist anthropologist David Graeber's book "Debt: The First 5000 Years". It explains why for most of human history people have operated on gift economies and barter was a rare occurrence, only happening between foreign bands or tribes. In a communist society, this isn't even necessary. Goods produced in one commune are distributed according to demand to other communes in return for other produced goods.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Ive never really thought about this before but what would you define as "Socialism"?

The global, stateless, classless society based on the complete socialisation of the means of production and social planning.

But what about when the bananas run out?

Why would they run out? Production would be planned so that they don't run out - so that production matches and exceeds demand.

Whats stopping me from slapping someone in the face and stealing their Banana?

Other people, presumably. I mean, how does money prevent you from "slapping someone in the face and stealing their banana"?

In socialism, there would be no need for slapping people in the face (unless they want and like it), and you couldn't steal their bananas as bananas would be given out free and wouldn't cost anything.

[Tim Cornelis]

i know i like to be slapped in the face for bananas, hopefully its compatible with socialism

if you have a party where each visitor needs to bring something for the collective table to snack from, you can:

- have everyone bring something and exchange them for money (market)
- have everyone bring something and exchange in kind, chips for soda (barter)
- have everyone bring something and share it freely without measuring each's exact input or consumption (free access communism)
- have everyone bring something and award points for, travel I guess (analogous to labour), and the points are used to ration the snacks (first phase communism)

[Ferret the Anarchist]

What are you people talking about!? This communism stuff is scary, yo.

We need to revert back to full feudalism today!

[Ritzy Cat]

Relatively recently it was discovered by anthropologists that it was the gift economy, rather than barter, that drove trade in the ancient world.

Just out of curiosity, where can I read up on this?

Resources as simple as bananas would never run out. When we get into stuff like super-rare earth metals, there just isn't enough of it on the surface of the Earth. So even in communism, sorry, you can't have a pure yttrium 100 carat ring.

This kind of stuff isn't falsely scarce (like almost every resource in capitalism), it is literally scarce.

Anything necessary and anything reasonable (and reasonable goes very far) is easily obtainable in a gift economy under communism because there is no 'hiding' of resources by corporations to manipulate the market.

[Rafiq]

Relatively recently it was discovered by anthropologists that it was the gift economy, rather than barter, that drove trade in the ancient world.

What? Can we get a source for this?

[Tim Cornelis]

Source = David Graeber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years .

[Rafiq]

Source = David Graeber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years .

So just a heap of nonsense, then?

[Illegalitarian]

No, peer reviewed and substantiated research based on the previous work of Marcel Mauss