Radical change, along “green” and “spiritual” lines

[Young Master Smeet]

Stuart,we already have 'within firm communism' so most of the supply chain is communised, the only matter is to open that out to a within society communism.  We don't charge co-workers for our time, and we don't engage in market activity when we co-operate within firm, we carry out instructions and tasks as concretely defined, and get our paycheck at the end of the month.  Large firms have already outscaled the intentional communities Engels described.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Stuart,we already have 'within firm communism' so most of the supply chain is communised, the only matter is to open that out to a within society communism.  We don't charge co-workers for our time, and we don't engage in market activity when we co-operate within firm, we carry out instructions and tasks as concretely defined, and get our paycheck at the end of the month. 

[my bold]Perhaps that is stuart's point, YMS.'Paycheck AT THE END of the month'.Not during or before, at the whim of the worker, prior to having produced anything, but after the worker has produced.'Free access communism' suggests 'access to the paycheck' (to continue the analogy, not to suggest 'money') at the discretion of something other than the firm.I'm a Democratic Communist, so I'd suggest the 'discretion' is social, not individual, and so is democratic, not whim, but I know that my views do not find favour with the non-democrats, like you, here.So, you have to answer stuart's reasonable objection with a 'non-democratic' answer.

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird,hmm, that kind of was my point that the paycheck is radically dissociated from the work, there is no payment for each operation performed at work, it is generalised.  The next step is to generalise it even further, and break the link between work and reward altogether.  At work I have free access to water (and a kettle) in some other firms a whole canteen is laid on: but its easier to allocate buffet style than it is to tell everyone they must have custard on their pudding.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

The next step is to generalise it even further, and break the link between work and reward altogether.

That is not Communism."From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" links social labour with social rewards, and 'abilities, needs, labour and rewards' can only be determined democratically.Not individually, as I think that you and robbo have argued.stuart should ponder the differing positions that we're taking.I'm taking a Democratic Communist position, but I'm not sure how you or robbo will characterise your position(s). From what I've read from youse, I think stuart's criticisms are well-founded.'Individual decisions' requires an 'impersonal' mechanism to co-ordinate, and that can only be a 'market mechanism'. If stuart is in favour of both 'individualism' and 'markets' (as I think he is – he can clarify this later), I think he is at least being consistent, even if I disagree with him.I have problems with you and robbo, because I find you both to be inconsistent, claiming to be both 'individualists' and 'socialists'.[edit] that is, the 'generalisation' you speak of, has to be collective and democratic.

[stuartw2112]

Ha, it is interesting that LB is chipping in here, isn't it? LB is wide open to the Hayekian/Misean critique. (Democracy adds enormous complications to a Stalinist command economy, but does nothing to resolve the issues.) The Robin/YMS point of view has been developed in trying to answer that critique, ie, to take into account consumer needs and markets and coordination and all the rest of it. So for LB it's turned basically into free market capitalism. Interesting! 

[stuartw2112]

I've already given the answer to your question YMS. All societies organise some things communistically (internal organisation of capitalist firms say). None organise everything like that (you can help yourself to the stationery cupboard, but not to the coal stocks at a mine – even if that mine belongs to "the workers"). 

[alanjjohnstone]

My "heresy" is that i seek to make socialism an "immediancy" not an ultimate distant objective (a term i read but forget where) and that there are now a compelling urgency for it in regards to the predictions of many environmentaalists about the forboding future of the human species. We won't have socialism ever if there is no society around to change or if remnants of civilsation and scattered homo sapians  have reverted into survivalists and scavengers….oh, so many dystopias have been written about that because it is becoming more and more a likliehood. Because i see the end of the exchange economy as something that is possible and desirable, here and now, so just like the SPGB i depend on a change of consciousness of people for its realisation.My argument against reformism, is that it it is superfluous [EDIT], that it is unnecessary and a diversion, slowing down the actions of workers by dissipating their time and energy and resources instead of concentrating on one issue. In the hierarchy of desirable reforms or political campaigns to make a priority, wouldn't it be those changes that be part of a socialist society … and they, to concede a point, i think, very very few on the present currrent activists agenda.Our role as eco-sociaists is to be part of the environmentalist campaigns to present the ideological arguments and to deter reliance upon such false solutions as carbon-taxes (and Robin Hood taxes on the inequality protesters). Stuart and others may well doubt we are capable of such a "spritual" transformation collectively and quickly. I don't. Mass world thinking has taken place …for a starters music tastes have changed and been adopted, often without the assistance of the media until they jump on the band-wagon (band-stand) for commercial reasons…Blues, Rock and Roll, Reggae, Punk all crossed borders. I am sure others can suggest other ideas that took a life of its own and grew seemingly out of nowhere and spread like a prairie fire involving apparently culturally different groups but tapping into a common spring of experience. Because i want our socialism to be treated as something feasible and realistic …it means answering NOW peoples questions upon what socialism means and how it will work. The get-out clause used by us and the Left that it is for the generation of revolutionaries to decide upon aspects of socialism and we do not do blueprints does not apply. Because we are we are the makers of history  – not our children, not our grand children.  I think we do need to write the cook-book of socialism. For sure we can add so many caveats and qualifications to our socialist model, generalise instead of describing specifics, but e do need to put meat on the bone if we are to besuccesful in persuading people to consider socialism as a practical movement. We don't need to invent sci-fy technology. YMS has indicate we have those Star Trek replicators now. The only thing holding us back is that the majority are not convinced we can achieve socialism because of "human nature" .Cut out all the Buddhist "spiritual"imagery, and the supposedly more materialististic sociological terms such as class and socialist consciousness, and we end up in the same place…won't work because people are greedy, lazy, etc etc. But as i indicated in an earlier post, we possess contadictory beliefs…the spirit of the blitz…shared sacrifice…On a personal note when i was a youngster i have vague memories of white-sheet collections in the council estate i was born …when someone died, people went door to door with a sheet and neighbours threw in what money they could afford for the funeral expenses. A long lost tradition? No. When my wife died, neighbours in the estate where i lived did a collection, and also where i worked colleagues did another collection. For sure someone must have suggested it..someone must have took on the task and went around getting the cards signed and the money collected. No one assumed or asked…has he got life insurance out on his wife …(i didn't, btw, so the money raised was much needed) It was a form of showing solidarity …compassion…sharing in someone's grief… A personal anecdote but easily expanded to other event such as accidents … people care…the flowers don't appear from nowhere at a scene of a tragedy. Capitalism has the same contradictory essence…It's production process as YMS says is already socialised, its distribution means as Robbo says is easily democraticised. But we don't recognise our "human nature" or they invest great resources into trying to get us to deny it…and to no avail. Religions i think mostly simply shine a light on what already exists …enlightenment……the golden rule is shared by all …"do unto others as you would have them do to you." Reading history, socialism offered an ideal and people did translate that dream into something they could relate to. They still do. The Paul Mason/Richard Wolff/Occupy want to build the kernel of the new within the shell of the old…not a particular novel aspiration considering the IWW sought to create the administrative structures and we may fault their knowledge of actual capitalism..C-M-C1 etc etc but surely early advocates of municipalisation – sewer socialists as they were disparagingly called – reflect the modern trend for localism and communalism. (Who can ignore Bookchin's invaluable contribution to this.) We have to make socialism something tangible…we strive make the nebulous thing called the "socialist movement" something real by forming a socialist political party…we need to make the socialist future it exists for as real. Sunday sermon over…

[stuartw2112]

Thanks for the sermon Alan, very uplifting! I'm very sorry to hear about your wife. And I don't doubt the things you think I do, but no doubt I have not made myself very clear. That's because I'm not all that clear in my own mind what I do think. But thanks everyone for indulging me. I am off on holiday very soon, but see you all down the road no doubt. All the best

[alanjjohnstone]

I actually thought it was Sunday today due to the fact that the schools have been on holiday because of a Buddhist festival and temple celebrations so the "weekend" has been a longer than usual one …Better re-call it the Saturday sermon

[robbo203]

 Hi Stuart, There are a lot of points you raise, some highly contentious, which I will try to answer.  In general, I would say  that it is neither my position, nor that of the SPGB, that socialism offers some kind of magic wand solution to the economic  problems that the world faces, only that it is much better and, likely, much more effective way of going about solving those problems to the extent that this is possible. And no that doesn't necessarily mean "all those people who can't currently afford an iPhone can have one, and all those people going to be bed hungry tonight can have steak and chips tomorrow". Caricature is just a convenient  way of trying to short circuit an inconvenient argument.   Like your silly claim that I have "already worked out that such preposterous, ridiculous problems just won't arise because, well, because they're silly, dammit, and I won't have any silliness spoiling my lovely dreams of the future.  Less of these colourful rhetorical flourishes and more in the way of meaty argument, wouldn't go amiss, Stuart! But first a point of clarification. I don't know who these " millions and millions of people" are "all of whom have some understanding of and desire for socialism".  I only wish it were true but I doubt the veracity of this claim.  Its a question of terminology, I guess.  In the context of this forum, however, we are talking about "socialism" as a strictly non-market non-statist form of society in which the means of production are owned in common.  You are perfectly at liberty to define socialism – or indeed capitalism  – in some other way but then we would be talking at cross purposes.  Ultimately its not the label that counts but the contents  in the bottle I stand by my assertion that socialism as defined above and irrespective of the label you wish to attach to it, is indeed the  "only conceivable" way out of capitalism in all its guises.  What other option is on the cards? You don't spell out anything at all that we could sink our teeth into but instead cover your tracks with the vaguest of generalities  What are these other ideas that you say  are absolutely "conceivable" and "doable".  Put them on the table and lets discuss them.. Lets see whether they amount to something different to capitalism I suppose it is possible  that society could regress into some form of barbarism  brought upon by ecological collapse or global warfare.  That would clearly not be  socialism but nor would it be recognisably capitalism any longer.   However I am assuming "by way out of capitalism" is meant  an alternative that has been intentionally proposed and not one simply imposed by adverse circumstances.  You have ruled out non market socialism as "impossible" so we are left with only some form of market system . That being the case, I would say that this inexorably works to sustain and keep intact the very existence of capitalism in one form or another. I still think that you do not understand at all the argument about a spontaneous economic order in which the overall pattern or production is arrived at, not through conscious centralised direction, but through the spontaneous interaction of the different parts of the economy in the form of a feedback mechanism.  You get it the wrong way round when you assert the market creates this spontaneous order.  In fact the anachocaps with whom you fallen into some kind of strange sympathy would, oddly enough, see things differently.  They would argue that it is the complexity problem that gives rise to the need for a spontaneous order which in turn gives rise to the need for market prices to coordinate and give direction to productive activity. They are wrong as are you.  A spontaneous order does not necessitate the market (actually the opposite is true).   It is the socio economic relations of private property in the context of a spontaneously ordered system of production that gives rise to the market.   Your confusion on this question is neatly summed up by your attempt to characterise my position  as based on a "non-market market".  You cannot seem to detach the concept of spontaneity from that of the market and this explains why like the anarcho caps you are driven to declare dogmatically that any alternative to the market must ipso facto involve society wide central planning. But the argument is completely invalid.  You cant see this because like your new found friends on the Libertarian Right you cannot see that a mechanism already exists that permits the coordination of economic activity on a global scale  that is 1) fully consistent with a spontaneous order and 2)  does not invoke the bogeyman of central planning at all – namely, a globalised and self regulating system of stock control. Its not enough Stuart to acknowledge, as you do. that "all societies organise some things communistically (internal organisation of capitalist firms say)" The interrelations between productive entities can likewise be organised on this basis except that they would no longer be constituted as capitalist firms.  That involves changing the purpose of economic activity  from production for the market to production directly and solely for use. The technical infrastructure to permit this to happen and to spontaneously  coordinate production on a worldwide basis is already in place.  This will be at the very heart of a communist system of coordination and, ironically enough, were such a mechanism not to exist, capitalism itself could not exist, could not function for even a single day.  It would collapse in total chaos.  Try to imagine capitalism operating without a self regulating system of stock control using calculation in kind.  The very idea is absurd

[stuartw2112]

OK, thanks Robin, nothing to add for now. I may be confused, but the ideas I'm trying to get over aren't so much so. Anyone interested in what I'm trying but failing to get over might like to try:From Marx to Mises by David Ramsay Steele The Economics of Feasible Socialism by Alec NoveSmall Is Beautiful by EF SchumacherWhat the Buddha Taught by Walpola Sri RahulaOver and out for now, and all the best

[stuartw2112]

Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

[Young Master Smeet]

Stuart,yes, true, we aren't going to have community of underpants, but you concede the point that the communistic part can be expanded (or shifted) to cover the basic necessities of life for all: we won't all have tickets to the opera; but there are non-monetary methods for dealing with these.  Mises is right up to a point (and Hayek to), there always needs to be exchange, but it is exchange of information, it doesn't have to be exchange of commodities.  Independence at the firm level within a cybernetic feedback structure should give us the scope to be able to manage.Lbird, from each according to abilities, to each according to needs does break the link between work and reward.  Someone who is unable to work still has their needs fulfilled, someone who is a poor worker may well receive more and better than a hard worker.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Lbird, from each according to abilities, to each according to needs does break the link between work and reward.  Someone who is unable to work still has their needs fulfilled, someone who is a poor worker may well receive more and better than a hard worker.

YMS, you're an individualist, whereas I'm a Democratic Communist.Thus, I don't look at 'individuals' (whether 'poor' or 'hard').Marx tells us that it is an eternal natural link for humans, between 'work' and 'reward'.That 'link' is a socially productive link, and that 'link' must be controlled by democratic means.Abilities, needs and rewards will be decided democratically.That is Communism, and it is not individualism, as you and robbo seem to think.

[robbo203]

 

stuartw2112 wrote:

OK, thanks Robin, nothing to add for now. I may be confused, but the ideas I'm trying to get over aren't so much so. Anyone interested in what I'm trying but failing to get over might like to try:From Marx to Mises by David Ramsay Steele The Economics of Feasible Socialism by Alec NoveSmall Is Beautiful by EF Schumacher

 Steele has this rigid conception of socialism as being an economy of society wide  and totally centralised planning and  the so called economic calculation argument which he peddles in a sense relies on such a conception in order to makes its central claim stick – that you cannot operate an advanced large scale economy in the absence of market prices.  But the argument is fundamentally flawed.  It rules out a priori the possibility of a feedback mechanism, which mechanism overcomes the very objections raised  by the ECA to the possibility of running society along socialist lines.  That is because a totally centrally planned economy cannot by its very nature have such a thing as a feedback mechanism – because the totality of production is necessarily planned in advance – and therefore cannot be self correcting.  However, if you drop the dogma that socialism is a centrally planned economy and take instead the view that in socialism the overall pattern of production would be spontaneously arrived at,  you are into a whole different ball game altogether which, quite simply , makes the whole economic calculation argument utterly irrelevant.  YMS is quite right to point out that it is not the exchange of commodities we need but the exchange of information and that independence of the level of the productive unit within a cybernetic feedback structure should give us the scope to be able to manage  Not quite sure why you include Schumacher in your reading list, Stuart. Would it be to counter the view that you imagine is held and endorsed by socialists that on the contrary only "big is beautiful" in line with their (supposed) belief in central planning?  Actually though you don't appear to realise this you are pushing against an open door in that respect in as much as many of us do uphold a vision of socialism in which a great deal of the decisions taken would taken at localised (and small scale) level in socialism.  This includes the authors of the "Socialism as a Practical Alternative" pamphlet whose approach you earlier appeared to scoff at.

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