Social Dividend

[FS98]

What do you guys think about social dividends? I don't quite understand them. If the public takes a portion of the profits made by a specific company and gives the rest to the workers, isn't that a form of wage labor?

[RedMaterialist]

What do you guys think about social dividends? I don't quite understand them. If the public takes a portion of the profits made by a specific company and gives the rest to the workers, isn't that a form of wage labor?

Yes, it is, and it has to be that way in a transition from capitalism to socialism. Marx talks about this in Critique of the Gotha Programme. The transitional society will retain some of the characteristics (Marx calls them 'birthmarks') of the old system. Wage labor is one of those. One essential difference is that the working class keeps the profit generated by wage labor and redistributes it to society in the form of reinvestment, health care, old age pensions, schools, etc. Only after society is completely rid of the vestiges of capitalism can wage labor be eliminated and replaced with "from each according..." etc.

[Thirsty Crow]

What do you guys think about social dividends? I don't quite understand them. If the public takes a portion of the profits made by a specific company and gives the rest to the workers, isn't that a form of wage labor?

Well, no, it's a form of redistribution by means of taxation. Wage labor, however, is the basis for this redistribution of produced value.

It's also a pipe dream if translated into concrete proposals in the here-and-now, much as the universal basic income. As a pipe dream, it might seal neat jobs for activists and campaigners, but it's effect would probably be something quite different.

[FS98]

Well, no, it's a form of redistribution by means of taxation. Wage labor, however, is the basis for this redistribution of produced value.

It's also a pipe dream if translated into concrete proposals in the here-and-now, much as the universal basic income. As a pipe dream, it might seal neat jobs for activists and campaigners, but it's effect would probably be something quite different.

It's not quite the same as redistribution by taxation. I think it would be best for the worker to receive the full rewards of his/her labor and then have to pay taxes based on how much money he/she makes. In this scenario the worker would pay the same into the community as everyone else in the same tax bracket. It seems like a social dividend could cause the community to attempt to maximize profits for themselves by creating poor conditions and paying low wages to those working in the public sector.

[RedMaterialist]

It's not quite the same as redistribution by taxation. I think it would be best for the worker to receive the full rewards of his/her labor and then have to pay taxes based on how much money he/she makes. In this scenario the worker would pay the same into the community as everyone else in the same tax bracket. It seems like a social dividend could cause the community to attempt to maximize profits for themselves by creating poor conditions and paying low wages to those working in the public sector.

That's why the "community" has to be dominated and controlled (by means of a dictatorship) by the working class as a whole, whether the workers are public sector, private sector or whatever.

[ckaihatsu]

That's why the "community" has to be dominated and controlled (by means of a dictatorship) by the working class as a whole, whether the workers are public sector, private sector or whatever.

While I agree with this in principle, I think the *formulation* is a bit coarse -- we can say that the relationship between the post-capitalist workers and larger community would be a *dialectical* one.

Consider:

- Would everyone in a local community *all* be workers as well, *and* all working on the *same project* for any given day -- ? (If not then that means not all people are workers for any particular day.) (And if people are not working in lockstep, on the same project, then they are doing non-homogenous / hetereogeneous work roles, possibly on projects that are inter-locality / non-local.)

- If only workers can dominate and control the productive goings-on of the community as a whole, would the workers necessarily / automatically *know* what the larger community *needs* from socialized production -- ? (If not then there has to be some *communication*, and 'relationship' between the two -- a dialectical dynamic.)

- Would there be adequate numbers of *workers* brought-forth from the local community for the fulfillment of the community's needs -- ? What if the community had outstanding, unmet needs, but with insufficient numbers of 'volunteers' to do the exact work that needed to be done -- ?