Mike Ballard
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G'day ALB, I can't find you're comment by clicking on the link provided. That link always takes me back to the first page of this commentary. So, I'll just paste in what you wrote:*****G'day Mike and welcome to the forum. The reason why I mentioned De Leonismwas this passage which suggests that socialism wouldn't be entirely"money-free" as there would still be a "medium of exchange", presumablylabour-time vouchers or so-called "labour money": /Mike Ballard/wrote:Socialism is a different mode of producing and distributing wealth. Asuse-values are no longer saddled with their exchange-value in order to besold in the market for a price which fluctuates with supply and demand aroundexchange-value and instead,* use-values are distributed on the basis oflabour time put into creating the social store of goods and services, themedium of exchange is not longer a commodity*–it is not traded on themarket, it has no price, it no longer embodies the alienated wealth of theproducers as the producers sociall own and democratically manage thecollective product of their labour.I don't this system is either necessary orworkable or even desirable (as it would still tie consumption to work done).************Right. De Leon, as well as Marx, did propose a system of labour time vouchers as a way of distributing the use-values within the socialist mode of production:http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/fif_ques.pdfI think it's perfectly appropriate to have a plan ready for implementing a new mode of production, one beyond the wage system. SNLT vouchers make the relation between humans producing useful good and services to fulfill their needs transparent. The wage system and commodity sale, do not. How many hours of labour are in that ale or automobile or library service?As the SPGB currently suggests, workers would have a mindset ready to distribute the collective product of labour on the baiss of need : producers would just put in the labour time necessary to fill the social store of goods and services with no fear that some would do nothing to contribute their time and effort. If that happened, I would have no objection. The point of changing the mode of production is to free ourselves from the bondage and mystifications inherent in commodity production and sale via the wage system. Socialists began to lose that vision about the time Engels died and Bernstein became a leading light in the socialist movement. Lenin, only made matters worse.
I don't know the other Mike Ballard, although I've been mistaken for him on occasion. And yes, I did cut my socialist teeth with SLP of America's comrades, reading "Value, Prive and Profit". Helped me immensely to get into CAPITAL and grasp the notions of production for use and need. Living in harmony with the Earth came later. Later Comrades….from Perth, Ausralia.
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.
"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.
