Two ex-socialists go funny
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Ex-comrade Watkins recidives (I think that’s a word, anyway he’s done it again, this time with knobs on):
https://moneyweek.com/economy/604175/in-praise-of-capitalism-the-noble-path-that-leads-to-profits
He is ever so determined to demonstrate how clever he is with the use of a long word – discombobulated.
Lucky we all have access to online dictionaries
But what is it about the Party that results is such an intellectual transformation? Who can forget David Ramsay Steele embrace of capitalism?
Ex-comrade Watkins recidives (I think that’s a word, anyway he’s done it again, this time with knobs on):
Its pretty cringeworthy as an article and some of the stuff he writes seem questionable. Am I mistaken in thinking he implies Marx held a theory of absolute immiserisation? That would seem to follow from the view he attributes to Marx of capitalism being a zero sum game
ALB: I swear on the Bible (just kidding!) that until I tried it again just now — over many years mind you — material on the SLP site has always been ‘protected’ from copy/pasting. (At least on this Win XP I use, not that should make and iota of difference.) I might speculate that SLP member Bernard zealously reads this forum, saw what I said about the impossibilty of copy/pasting, and suggested to the party Head that this was not a clever idea.
‘Very odd, though, that they should describe a system they admit to be based on the exploitation of wage-labour as some kind of feudalism rather than of capitalism.’
A non-marxian use of ‘wage-labour’ is all that is, if that is indeed the term they used.
Those (including self-intentifying marxists) who advance the view that the myriad leninist state at one point in time or another were not capitalist (in the *marxian* sense) but some other system of undesirable,un-progressive/regressive exploitation will use such terms as ‘wage-labor’ and even ‘capital’ (when they should properly say ‘means of production’ for the latter) as a kind of set of default/analogous terms.
(As for anarchists, Kropotkin, unlike many other classical anarchists, did not believe in the marxian labor theory of value at all yet he used the terms ‘wage-labor’, ‘capitalism’ etc. Nothing strange in that.)
Regarding the booklet by L.L Men, ‘Two Texts for Defining the Communist Programme’ ( here https://libcom.org/article/ll-men-two-texts-defining-communist-programme ),
it, or rather the ‘What is Socialism? part of it, has recently (!) been published in German by Red & Black Books.
See council-communist Fredo Corvo’s ‘Critical Notes on L.L.Men, “What is Socialism?” ‘:
(If you read Spanish, also click ‘Spanish with a critique by Aníbal’.)
And here is the preface (in English) to the German translation:
First german translation of an important work on the period of transition
The two ex-comrades have still gone funny. One of them has written a book which the other has praised:
https://moneyweek.com/books/review-effective-governance-dan-greenwood
They appear to have gone over to supporting a “decentralised system of private ownership and entrepreneurship”. Which means of course that they can vote Labour instead of Tory if they want to.
It has become an anarcho-capitalist cliche that the only alternative to the market is central planning and that the only alternative to central planning is the market. It surely can’t be the case that these two ex-members, Stuart and Dan, have not heard of a third possibility – a decentralised non-market system of production.
Why then do they avoid any mention of it? The whole “informational complexity” line of argument promoted by the likes of Hayek is a complete strawman argument. If these two favour a market approach to the handling of this informational complexity then you get people on the “other side” of the debate like Paul Cockshott, who favour central planning (in the sense of apriori society-wide planning. The number-crunching capacity of modern computers makes this entirely possible, claims Cockshott.
Both sides of this debate are deeply flawed but for different reasons. Cockshott because he doesn’t understand the implications of central planning (computers can at best strive only to track changes in the real world but you can’t impose an apriori central plan on a world that is in a state of constant flux); Watkins and Greenwood because they don’t seem to appreciate that the “information” they are dealing with has to do with is effective market demand, not human needs or externalities and that even on its terms the market is prone to market failures)
Cockshott can be forgiven for thinking as he does since he comes from a background of supporting state capitalist regimes – like the Soviet Union – albeit in a qualified way (he thinks the problem with the Soviet Union was that it was not sufficiently democratic). Watkins and Greenwood have less excuse for thinking as they do, having once been members of the SPGB themselves. They should have known better than to trot out this nonsense about the market
“They should have known better than to trot out this nonsense about the market”
I wonder what the market price is to write an article in Moneyweek, this might explain the deficits in their work.
You’re not going to make the big bucks writing accurately about Socialism in a magazine owned by Bill Bonner!!
I might be missing something, but, apart from the obvious problem with Von Mises pamphlet, that he criticises State Capitalism and refers to this as Socialism, the whole exercise is prefaced with one main assumption, which he hasn’t provided any evidence to support.
In his third sentence he states –
“It goes without saying that the community will only be in a position to employ its powers of disposal through the setting up of a special body for the purpose.”
It clearly doesn’t go without saying, at all.
(Indeed, if it didn’t need to be said, then why did he then feel the need to then go on to actually say it?! It is a bit like the clowns on GB News who keep telling us that they are saying all the things they aren’t allowed to say, when they are clearly saying them)
The whole premise of his entire argument is provably false, without resorting to the SPGB’s argument.
For example it is perfectly feasible that the community could employ its “power of disposal” in lots of different ways. It could be done by lottery; it could be done alphabetically, etc.
From our point of view it would be done on the principle of “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs”, their self determined needs.
A bottom up system where those who wish to consume will inform those who produce what is required, which is clearly the opposite of the top down model Mises attempts to criticise.
Bijou Drains. FWIW You don’t seem to be disagreeing with Von Mises claim in that sentence, that a socialist society would have to have some kind of organisational structure that coordinates production and distribution, just suggesting different ways in which this body could be organised
“I wonder what the market price is to write an article in Moneyweek, this might explain the deficits in their work.”
Mouths stuffed with gold? Hah! If only! But if you hate this review, you should avert your gaze from the Christmas issue, out Thursday. As ever, thanks for your interest and best wishes to you all
FWIW? Sadly I’m not hip with the kids, not sure what it means:)
If there is a “body” which reponds to the requests of the consumers, it is not “employing powers of disposal”, it is responding to the requests of others.
I think there is a very marked difference to what is implied by Von Mises. Power of disposal is the key, it implies that the body, not the community has the power to allocate and also therefore not allocate distribution.
It is perfectly feasible to create structure and organisation that has “Power with” without having “power over”, Von Mises work is very clearly a criticism of the case for power over, however, I would argue that that is not something that Socialists are really seeking anyway.
FWIW – “For what it’s worth”. I.e I don’t think this is worth making much out of. I’ve not read the Mises essay, and was just responding to the short paragraph you mentioned. The whole of which is below:
Under socialism all the means of production are the property of the community. It is the community alone which can dispose of them and which determines their use in production. It goes without saying that the community will only be in a position to employ its powers of disposal through the setting up of a special body for the purpose. The structure of this body and the question of how it will articulate and represent the communal will is for us of subsidiary importance. One may assume that this last will depend upon the choice of personnel, and in cases where the power is not vested in a dictatorship, upon the majority vote of the members of the corporation.
The “powers of disposal” just means “abilities to decide how to make use of”. Looking at the last two sentences, it seems Von Mises thinks his criticism would apply equally whether this power is concentrated or not.
But as far as know, Von Mises is just saying that without a single unit of account (i.e prices in units of money) you wouldn’t be able to make calculations and allocations based on this single unit of account. The question for us to ask is if such a single unit of account is as necessary as he thinks.
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