Review of the book ‘Make Capitalism History’
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Review of ‘Make Capitalism History’.
The book ‘Make Capitalism History’ is by Simon Sutterlütti and Stefan Meretz. A review of it: https://leftdis.wordpress.com/2026/04/19/the-blind-spot-of-commonism-labor-need-and-social-mediation/
The book, which would probably receive a (much?) more favorable review in the SS than it does from this reviewer’s GICist standpoint, is freely downloadable here as either PDF or epub: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-14645-9
You are right. This book does seem worth reviewing by us.
A bit surprising, though, that there are still some people around defending the idea of “labour time money” that circulates. I thought that money-crank theory had been dealt with ages ago. As here from 1984:
“The Grundprinzipien outlined a plan for organising the production and distribution of wealth without money but on the basis of accounting in units of labour-time. They followed Otto Leichter here, but totally rejected the technocratic structure in which he had seen labour-time accounting replacing monetary calculation. In its place they proposed a federation of workers’ councils.
But when this plan is stripped of its socialist terminology, it turns out to be a scheme for a sort of self-regulating exchange economy in which money as we know it today would be replaced as the currency by a “labour-money”; in other words, the money-prices-wages system would continue to exist but would be run by workers’ councils and without exploitation. But to believe that an exchange economy could function in the interests of the workers if labour-money and labour-time accounting were to be used in place of the coins and notes and monetary calculation we know today is to completely misunderstand how capitalism works and to fall into the purest currency-crankism.”
Hermann Lueer, apparently a voracious reader (and — who knows, maybe a speed-reader as well) has now published a review of the (500-page) Tony Smith book. After praise at the start, what he goes on to say will not be too unexpected. But again, as with his review of the Sutterlütti and Meretz book ‘Make Capitalism History’, perhaps it can be gleaned from it to what degree this book is of interest from an SPGB point of view.
I have finally finished reading the ‘Make Capitalism History’ book. It’s heavy going but the practical alternative to capitalism they outline (and which they call “commonism”) is similar to what we mean by socialism.
They also argue that such a society cannot be established for people as both gradualist reformists and insurrectionary Leninists envisage but can only be brought about by a majority who want and understand it acting for themselves.
They dismiss ‘central planning’ as unworkable and envisage production and consumption taking place in response to various non-monetary ‘signals’. I am not sure why orthodox Council Communists chose to take them on over this, putting the same arguments as orthodox economics and Leninists. A more pertinent criticism would be of their opposition to delegate democracy and to any central administrative body even an unarmed one. Their argument against this is tired old anarchist one that ‘power corrupts’. But what power could anyone exercise over anyone else where everybody has free access on the same terms to what they need?
I don’t know if this — whose ‘models’ need to be updated — has been noted on this site:
Actually, there’s quite a good summary there of what Sutterlütti and Meretz have in mind, except I think “work units” would be better than “enterprises”:
“Meretz and Sutterlütti developed this model on the basis of commons research. The abolition of all compulsory labor and distribution “according to need” is central to this model; only in this way, the authors claim, could the problems of ‘actually existing socialism’ be avoided. In terms of coordination, the approach is very decentralized, there is no central authority and the enterprises organize themselves autonomously. Various committees and locations work out solutions to conflicts, but no institution has the power to enforce them; instead, the enterprises and associations decide on solutions. Furthermore, there is no central calculation parameter, but a multitude of indicators (required work/products, labor hours, ecology, job satisfaction, etc.) allow the enterprises to operate coherently.”
Yes, that is a very good summary of a vision of a post-capitalist world…
Personally, though, I don’t mind the word “enterprise” being used rather than the more technical-sounding expression, work units or production units. I always remember Ron Cook´s description of socialism as being a “genuine free enterprise” society (if I remember correctly). I thought it was a very innovative example of a sort of “cultural appropriation” (if I could put it like that), which might make supporters of the capitalist free market think twice.
At any rate, it conveys the idea of such qualities as initiative, imagination and human agency that lies at the heart of the concept of “freely associated labour”
At the link I gave above — https://www.democratic-planning.com/info/models — if aside from looking at the summary of those few ‘models’ presented, you also then click ‘about us’, you will see a link to a twice-monthly podcast called ‘Future Histories’hosted by Jan Groos.
Some of the interviews are with the authors of such models. I see the names Muldoon, Saros, Mau … (Naturally there are also many guests who will not be attractive.) See https://www.futurehistories-international.com for clickable list of podcasts in English.
Would it not be a good thing to also get the SPGB position onto this program?
In a post above I gave the site http://www.democratic-planning.com .
Here is another:
http://www.indep.network
It says of itself that ‘We reject Command Economies’ and ‘We reject Market Economies’.The site’s name is the International Network for Democratic Economic Planning (INDEP) .
On that site — or rather in a link from it — Stefan Meretz replies to Herman Lueer’s critique of the Sutterlütti & Meretz book that ALB reviewed. The reply:
Stefan Meretz Responds to Herman Lueer’s Critique of Commonism
If you find the beginning boring (but thank God it is nothing like their book), you might skip down to section heading ‘Labor time calculation doesn’t help’.
It would be more useful if they would reply to criticism of this sort (quoting ALB): ‘A more pertinent criticism would be of their opposition to delegate democracy and to any central administrative body even an unarmed one. Their argument against this is tired old anarchist one that ‘power corrupts’ ‘.
But to do that they’d have to be made aware of it.
Recent vehicular collisions between Tony Smith and Hermann Lueer:
TM to HL:
A reply to Lueer’s second review of A socialism for the twenty-first century
HL to TM
Since it is a dispute between two advocates of different kinds of commensurate units-of-account, neither side’s arguments will resonate with readers of this Forum. That does not mean they are at all boring, as not least to me.
What’s lacking is a third voice — in-kind-calculationist, critiquing them both. In years past Robbo203 would have taken up this task with great relish.
(My apologies to anyone who has fainted at seeing yet again the name ‘Lueer’.)
What’s lacking is a third voice — in-kind-calculationist, critiquing them both. In years past Robbo203 would have taken up this task with great relish.
ZJW
Well, actually, I have written reams of stuff on calculation-in-kind versus universalistic accounting metrics (like money or labour time values) in this little work which was published last month….
Do you have a link I can click on to enable me to contribute to the debate?
Robbo203:
Sorry. I was offline for a few days.
Unilateral exposition of texts is a good thing of course — and congratulations on ‘What Comes Next?’ — but what I meant by ‘What’s lacking is a third voice — in-kind-calculationist, critiquing them both’ was actually interceding in that particular debate, yes.
So: for the Smith vs Lueer aspect, just access the latter of the two links I posted (the one I sub-titled ‘HL to TM’, and at the page that opens, at the very bottom, you see ‘Leave a comment’.
And if you have something to say about Meretz … perhaps along the lines of what ALB said? … then you can do that at the bottom of https://keimform.de/2026/the-problem-of-mediation . (That ‘Elvin’ who leaves comments there is of course me.)
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