DJP
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In capitalism the productivity of labour is increased for the purposes of increasing surplus value. In communism, the productivity of labour is increased for the purpose of increasing free time.
If “labour time accounting” (meaning the counting of actual concrete hours of labour) is the means by which individuals can draw from the stock of consumer goods (i.e if the longer hours you work means the more consumer products you can get) then where’s the incentive for this reduction of working time? And wouldn’t the tendency be for workers to inflate working hours and for productivity levels to drop?
Has Lueer even entertained this real possibility?
Any society needs to keep track of how long it takes to make things and how much labouring capacity it has in order to allocate this between different branches of production. The difference between socialism and capitalism is that in socialism this calculation takes place before the fact of production. And the amount of labour it takes to make something would just be one, amongst many, considerations not the sole guiding principle.
Unless I’ve missed something, Lueer seems wide off the mark.
“Abolishing money” is such an ass backwards way of describing it. I scanned through the article, what stood out to you?
Thought this article from Grace Blakely, former supporter of Momentum but now part of Greens’ “eco-socialist” group, may be of interest here:
“So, is it correct to say not all members of the working class produce surplus value”
Of course, for one thing not all members of the working class, proletarians, will be engaged in wage labour.
I’ll try to write a proper review but the short answer is better explanation of what was meant by the transformation of the state in Marx is in Liepold’s book. Bernes’s is worth reading as a history of the ideas of the various groups that inspired the present day “communisation” writers.
But if you’re looking for any new insights into political theory or strategy there’s nothing there. These people seem to have their own version of minority revolution – workers councils are seen as way for the communist minority to insert itself into positions of power above the non-communist majority.
There also seems to be some kind of belief that every crisis or disruption presents some kind of latent tendency towards communism. For example, they think that communism could start by an inssurection that takes hold of warehouses and logistics distributes the goods according to need – wishful thinking in other words.
It’s us who are the realists – there is a real need to consider the political questions of legitimacy and control of the coercive forces of the state. The “communisisers” just seem to think that such things will unfold by themselves due the pressure of events and this unfolding will work to the advantage of communism.
“What about reading/dictating and recording the articles of the Socialist Standard ?”
This is actually a new project that started this month.
http://www.worldsocialistradio.com
Or
Or on our revived YouTube channel
I finally got a copy of the Jasper Bernes book. “The Test of Communism” is chapter two, of three. The first chapter is something about workers councils, where he seems to be shoehorning the Paris Commune into that. Will report back…
“If you’re serious about going to a couple of bookfairs, I may be able to accompany you.”
Well it wouldn’t be that costly of a journey from the UK. Not sure what the response would be or if we could find a table to leave leaflets. Could maybe leave them in bars or cafes. Looks like we just missed the Bilbao fair.
https://anarchistnews.org/calendar
There’s one that happens in Madrid in November or December, doesn’t seem like they have a 2025 date yet
Other events might be on here:
https://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/Translated by an Argentinian at a guess? Is this for a print leaflet? If the party wants to fund me to go to some of the multiple radical and anarchist bookfairs in Spain I’ll hand it out. But we will have to change “vos” to “tu”
I think there are some passages about this in the Martov book, and Kautsky mentions it in places too.
One thing that stands out to me is this; “In the previous revolutionary wave in Russia, in the territorial soviets, the workers were represented by one delegate per 25,000 workers while the other strata had one to 125,000” So much for the supposed democratic superiority of the soviets.
I couldn’t see anything extremely objectionable in that IP piece. They are talking about a *transition period* not a *transitional society* which is an entirely different thing.
I think your sites are performing a different function.
As far as I can tell the purpose of this new was to be a short introduction with a limited amount of text, like a pamphlet.
There’s definitely a place for larger sites too
