Money-free world

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Are we being to Euro-centric and parochial by not discussing how (for the want of a better word because i technically don't think they are) – the peasants are involved in socialism? 

There is no longer any such thing as a peasant. A peasant is not just someone who makes their living on the land, but someone who has a certain claim to the land they work. The rights that gave them access to the land have long been eroded. A "landless peasant" is a proletarian by definition.

[SocialistPunk]

Hi KAZ,I too have been following this thread, and although I disagree with the "practical steps" being put forward I recognize the value in the discussion. However it appears you are finding it difficult to recognize the value of the free discussion of ideas.I was under the impression the SPGB believed in open discussion of ideas, not the suppression of ideas and thoughts that do not conform to party policy? That is a much more dangerous route to go down, than the free, often messy discussion of differing views and ideas. As far as I can tell there is no party policy being decided here.  

[Young Master Smeet]

KAZ wrote:

I have been following this thread for some time and have been quite as appalled by YMS's "practical steps" as by Robbo's free access fetishism. So I was overjoyed to see the mention of "workers' and community councils" by AJJ (to which the correct Party response should have been a vigorous and merciless attack rather than yet another 'practical step').

But you'll note in my 'practical steps' the central government does little, the underlying assumption is that associated producers in the workplaces and communities actually carry out the changes on the ground, politiucal pwer jkust provides the framework in which they act.  If large workplaces are co-operativised, and then begin to work out how to abolish commodity relations, that's just the same as calling for workers councils.

[alanjjohnstone]

Is there any difference in supporting nationalisation and municipalisation. Granted it is about difference in size but can it also be about the definition of community and its extent.Can we perhaps envisage that possibly some city/town councils may well have voted in a majority of socialists before other towns catch up. What will they be doing? Twiddling their thumbs waiting for the General Election and perhaps other local elections, we have Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and the smattering of mayor elections or will they begin to initiate and inaugurate changes in democracy and production and distribution. Council rents and rates abolished, will citizens be out there with their shovel and spades filling in the road pot-holes…building council houses…taking control of their communities…but what if it is several months of capitalism still to endure…will the council cash in their bonds and stocks and shares fr cash to pay money to the workers…  The Trots talk of uneven development – is this a valid criticism?

[robbo203]

KAZ wrote:

I have been following this thread for some time and have been quite as appalled by YMS's "practical steps" as by Robbo's free access fetishism. So I was overjoyed to see the mention of "workers' and community councils" by AJJ (to which the correct Party response should have been a vigorous and merciless attack rather than yet another 'practical step'). How else will the cooperative commonweath (love that term) actually be achieved? This is social revolution we are talking about. Not some bureaucratic rearrangement of economic procedures or gradual accumulation of passive measures both with the aim of the institution of super-consumerism (beer for nothing and your chips for free). Once again, I am convinced that I am in the wrong organisation.

 Thou doth protest too much methinks.  I dont have a "free access fetishism" (whatever that is supposed to mean). If I had why would I bring into the discussion the question of rationing or offer a possible model of how a system of rationing might be effected?  I believe it is the SPGB's view that in the early stages of scialism there would be both free access goods and rationed goods,  the relative proportions of each depending on circumstances at the time – and society's priorities.  Thats my view as well and I think its a fairly reasonable one to hold. My focus is less on the Day After the Revolution than on the prolonged but quite possibly exponential build up to that day. Though I disagree with him on the idea of money lingering after that day,  YMS is right to draw parrellels with the rise of  organisations  like Podemos here in Spain. Ideas and movements embodytng those ideas have a habit of taking off suddenly from almost nowhere.  This take off period is the essential training ground in which the habits, values and practices of a future socialist society will be forged. Not nearly enough attention is given to it, in my view…

[alanjjohnstone]

Across at Libcom in a topic about mutualism, AF activist, former Subversion and ex-SPGBer, Spikymike had this to say which i thought had a relevance to this thread.#6Top

Quote:

Indeed we cannot predict exactly how a revolutionary transformation might start out and it's initially sporadic and geographically dispersed nature might well see experimentation in hybrid forms of collectivised production and distribution. The essential point is for organised pro-revolutionaries to promote the rapid expansion of such a movement (outside of any state control and across national borders) by subverting attempts to stabilise the process into separate and competing collective 'enterprises', encouraging the planning of useful production for common use and it's distribution according to needs without recourse to monetary or other forms of private property exchange. In that struggle libertarian communists would be in conflict with any ideologically based 'mutualists'. Failure to win that battle would surely see a reversion to some form of what might be seen, at best, as a form of 'self-managed' capitalism.

 

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

AF activist

AF activist? I didn't think he'd gone that far off the rails. 

[alanjjohnstone]

I may be wrong but i thought MB was involved with the Anarchist Federation. But i stand to be corrected and have no wish to ascribe to him membership of AF if he hasn't been. 

[ALB]

This article, which he had something to with, on "Workers' and Peasants' Collectives in the Spanish Civil War", orginally published in Wildcat in 1986,  is also good and relevant to this thread:http://www.af-north.org/Subversion/subversion_18.htmNote the subtle, but revealing, change of title from the original "The End of Anarchism?" to "The End of Anarchist Syndicalism?" Clearly, the AF doesn't like the anarcho-syndicalists.

[alanjjohnstone]

Fair-dos, ALB.In the context of this discussion, during the Sanish Civil War more commonly called the Spanish Revolution by anarchists, proponents of free access existed and to a far more limited extent, models of free access did exist also. (Next month happens to be the 100th anniversary of its beginnings so it is apt it is once more on the discussion agenda). But were outnumbered by those who advocated half-measures with the price-system continuing. And the article speculates that the compromise would prevail and eventually dominate as n exchange-economy again. …Something i think some on this thread suggest (such as Robbo) would happen with YMS concessions.More importantly, for me, it's confirmation that Wolff's and others Cooperative workers self-managed enterprises offer little alternative to the capitalist norm 

[KAZ]

Almost certain that MB never was in the AF or its predecessor the ACF. The late Bob Miller, MB's long time compadre, certainly was. In fact, according to hearsay, he wrote the AF's Aims and Principles (afed.org.uk/about/aims-principles), which bears traces of the SPGB's D of P. Though obviously highly extended to cover all the bases. Note the clauses about unions and religion. Incidently, there is no mention, even implicitly by the omission of "exchange"  (as in means of production, distribution and exchange) as per the D of P, of free access or the abolition of money.ALB: I wouldn't say the AF doesn't like anarcho-syndicalists (it shares a sensibly small office with the SolFed). But it is not a syndicalist organisation itself (note the remarks in clause 7 of the A&P). The anarchism of the SCW was most peculiar and labelling it anarchist-syndicalist in the article's title might well be fair comment as well as being a way of distancing it from main stream anarchism. The change of title might also indicate a change in political allegiance of the authors.Incidentally, in relation to Punk's accusation that I am some sort of fascist, trying to close down 'free' discussion, I would point out that all of this nonsense, which stinks of utopian-idealism, is freely available to anyone wishing to criticise the Party. It is not just idle pub talk. The Forum, being internal, has zero propaganda value. At best, it is a diversion from this purpose. At worst, useful only to those who, consciously or unconsciously, wish to discredit the Party.

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

the Sanish Civil War more commonly called the Spanish Revolution by anarchists

Technically "The Social Revolution" refers to the CNT led collectivisations mainly around Catalonia and Aargon, not the civil war as a whole. Incidentally, there wasn't one civil war but three. The "anti-fascist front" versus the military insurgents, the central government versus the CNT in Catalonia (more people in Barcalona were killed in the "May Days" than in the initial battle against the military) and finally, on the Republican side, a coup against the Communists which led to the end of the war.

[Mike Ballard]

"Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution." from CAPITAL volume I, chapter one        "Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning."What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another."Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."Hence, equal right here is still in principle — bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case."In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor."But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly — only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" from the Critique of the Gotha Programme"On the basis of socialised production the scale must be ascertained on which those operations — which withdraw labour-power and means of production for a long time without supplying any product as a useful effect in the interim — can be carried on without injuring branches of production which not only withdraw labour-power and means of production continually, or several times a year, but also supply means of subsistence and of production. Under socialised as well as capitalist production, the labourers in branches of business with shorter working periods will as before withdraw products only for a short time without giving any products in return; while branches of business with long working periods continually withdraw products for a longer time before they return anything. This circumstance, then, arises from the material character of the particular labour-process, not from its social form. In the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate."CAPITAL Volume II, chapter 18, page 358"Finally, there is no doubt that the credit system will serve as a powerful lever during the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the mode of production of associated labour; but only as one element in connection with other great organic revolutions of the mode of production itself. On the other hand, the illusions concerning the miraculous power of the credit and banking system, in the socialist sense, arise from a complete lack of familiarity with the capitalist mode of production and the credit system as one of its forms. As soon as the means of production cease being transformed into capital (which also includes the abolition of private property in land), credit as such no longer has any meaning. This, incidentally, was even understood by the followers of Saint-Simon. On the other hand, as long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, interest-bearing capital, as one of its forms, also continues to exist and constitutes in fact the basis of its credit system. Only that sensational writer, Proudhon, who wanted to perpetuate commodity-production and abolish money, was capable of dreaming up the monstrous crèdit gratuit, the ostensible realization of the pious wish of the petty-bourgeois estate. "CAPITAL Volume III, chapter 36, page 607And here's Engels on what socialism would first look like:"With the seizing of the means of production by society production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature because he has now become master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man’s own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the humanity's leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom."              Anti-Dühring, 1877The way I see it, the whole concept of projecting a positive view of the future has been trashed. Artistic effort has once again been channeled into an ideological foundation which upholds bondage instead of freedom. With the exception of ancient visions of a possibly grand afterlife, we non-believers are left with nothing overwhelmingly endorsing greater freedom. It's obvious to me that the reason why money is no longer necessary in a socialist society is because wealth as commodified production has been done away with. The wage system is based on commodifying labour power–different labour powers in the markeplace of commodities, different prices aka wages. As Marx and Engels suggested, socially necessary labour time vouchers are not money as they are not commodities for sale. Everyone's socially necessary labour time is equal i.e. there is no differentiation between the socially necessary labour time it takes to fill the social store within a vast, industrialised division of labour. This is something Lenin never grasped or if he did, he quickly forgot it and instead, at first, adopted Proudhon's equal wages docrtine thus retaining commodity production and sale in the so-called USSR. The point of socialism is to change the mode of producing and distributing wealth, not merely modify it. 

[twc]

Mike Ballard wrote:

we … are left with nothing overwhelmingly endorsing greater freedom.

 Prithee, why so pale and wan?ConsideringThat human society must reproduce itself continually, because its constituents—we life forms—are compelled to replenish life continually.That this compulsion for society to reproduce itself imposes temporal persistence upon the social modes of its reproduction.That these social modes of reproduction are constrained by the historically developed means available for society to reproduce itself.That these social modes of reproduction manifest themselves historically—in their pure form—as persistent moments in an evolving dialectical process.That these persistent moments are grounded in persistent forms of social-class relations of ownership and control of the means available for society to reproduce itself.That when persistent social-class relations of ownership and control of the means available for reproducing social existence are overturned then the entire social formation, which has been raised upon these persistent social-class relations, is transformed into a new mode for reproducing social existence that is raised upon, and appropriate to, the changed social relations of ownership and control.That a social process that is grounded in persistent social-class relations is not grounded in our will, but rather grounds our will.That ownership and control of the means of social reproduction by a class of society—the ruling class—is the foundation upon which the ruling class exploits the dispossessed social class—the working class.That the capitalist ruling class has transformed the social reproduction process into the reproduction of capital, and has simultaneously transformed the working class from a producer of goods into a producer of capital, independent of its will, but determining its will; independent of each worker’s conceptions, but transforming those conceptions into misconceptions.That so long as the necessity of the process of social reproduction is not comprehended by the dispossessed class, the current social form prevails.That Marx and Engels gave their working lives to comprehending the necessity of the social process as a deterministic science, with the practical aim of ending the persistence of the current mode of production and establishing social relations of common ownership and democratic control of the means of social reproduction to ensure the persistence of a socialist mode of production.That the capitalist ruling class has hijacked the necessary process of social reproduction and converted it into a socially parasitic private process that subverts necessary social production into a universal mechanism for generating nothing at all social, but private crass unfree return on investment.That the capitalist social process has converted working life into a mere moment in the expansion of capital, and has produced the producer as a witless non-producer of goods, i.e. as no more than the essential agent of the ruling class’s capital, being the unwitting producer of the very capital that productively enslaves him/her.That a persistent social system driven by private return on investment is not driven by social freedom, but is necessarily driven by the negation of freedom—un-freedom—for those compelled to labour persistently at producing commercial proxies for the capitalist class’s return on investment.That the delusion that producers actually produce goods is the sustaining illusion of an unfree working class—a captive class that is productive only when it is ‘lucky’ to be employed, i.e. when it is ‘fortunate’ to be productive of private capital.That the persistently prevailing motive force of private return on investment overrides consideration of sex, colour, health, disability, intellect, security, love, community—in short, humanity.That the persistently prevailing motive force of private return on investment generates obfuscation, lying, brutality, cheating, swindling, war—in short, anti-humanity.On considerationCapitalist society gives us zero freedom to control it.  Mere human willpower is powerless to intervene successfully in a process it fails to comprehend.  Society remains, as before the act of will, at the mercy of its uncomprehended process.Gravity likewise acts independently of our will.  We no longer engage in merely willing freedom from a gravity that is totally indifferent to us.  We have learnt through long and bitter historical experience to unleash gravity’s inexorable necessity for our ends.  The modern motor car relies on gravity’s necessity, comprehended in the form of general relativity, to help it navigate by GPS.This is precisely what Engels (following Hegel) means by his deep enigmatic gloss “Freedom is the recognition of necessity”.  Think it through.  Engels, like Marx, assumes a reader willing to think for him/her-self.Necessity must be comprehended for us to be able to bridle her, for us to gain freedom through her.  There is no freedom independent of riding its concomitant necessity.  The illusion that we can ignore necessity is blind ignorance—anti-human utopian dreaming.Willed ‘freedom’ is zero freedom, so long as prevalent necessity remains uncomprehended.  That’s precisely why humanity needs science—the genuine powerful science of dynamic processes driven by persistent necessity, not the imaginary pseudoscience of things, objects, stasis.Then be of good cheerConsider the ignominious inhumanities we will free ourselves from as soon as we free ourselves from our currently persistent necessity to drive society as a social engine for generating, first-and-foremost, private return on investment—when we free ourselves from the insatiable necessity of capital to expand itself at the expense of the socially crippled working humans whose socially necessary task it is to perform this compulsion for the benefit of the capitalist class.  Those working humans are us, you and me!Freedom is the recognition of necessity!

[Mike Ballard]

Socialism is a different mode of producing and distributing wealth. As use-values are no longer saddled with their exchange-value in order to be sold in the market for a price which fluctuates with supply and demand around exchange-value and instead, use-values are distributed on the basis of labour time put into creating the social store of goods and services, the medium of exchange is not longer a commodity–it is not traded on the market, it has no price, it no longer embodies the alienated wealth of the producers as the producers sociall own and democratically manage the collective product of their labour. 

[Author]

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