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Perhaps a ""bullshit job" could be defined minimally as a  job that wouldnt exist if capitalism didnt exist – that is to say, if production for use was the sole criterion of production – although Graeber seems to mean by BS jobs something more than this.  Also, it has to be born in mind that much useful non BS work goes into supporting and underpinning BS work.    What proporrtion of the electricity generated by power stations goes into supporting the acitvities of the armamanets industry.  How many constructon workers are involved in building banks  and so on,  Are these jobs which apprear to be socially useful, by extension, BS jobs as well? Perhaps Graeber needs to be sent  a copy of this Party pamphlet in which a whole lot of socially useless prpducts and activities are listed   http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/capitalism-socialism-how-we-live-and-how-we-could-live Once again,  this is yet another example of where having a specific well-researched pamphlet on a particular topic – in this case, on the extent pf capitalism's structural waste – could be invaluable and serve as a reference which people like Graeber could draw upon 

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44099540I'm not defending Livingstone but i have difficulty in tracing any BBC fact check on his claims, surely a news agency if they wish to be balanced does it own history research and can judge who is more correct, Livingstone or his critics.

 On Livingstone this might be of interest  mondoweiss.net/2017/04/twisting-livingstones-zionism/

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Once again, it seems that the forum users are dropping in number. Take myself and Marcos out and it would appear for much of the time the forum is inactive except for the occasional posting of WSM internal matters.If my posts are too frequent even if they are mostly follow-ups to previous threads and apt news-items are discouraging others from commenting, i will readily reduce the frequency of the contributions.

 I, for one, greatly value your contributions and the numerous interesting links you provide.  I'm sure many others here do as well.  So keep up the good work!  The fortunes of the forum tend to be cyclical so I wouldnt worry too much about the current lull in acitivity

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Bijou Drains wrote:

ALB wrote:

I don't think we can use that argument as the intention of the movers was clear (it goes without saying that we can't give money to non-socialists). Personally I voted against it and didn't and still don't agree with it. I am imagine you are in the same position. In fact at that Conference most of the delegates were against it too, but the membership vote didn't back them and the motion was carried. Democracy is democracy and we have to abide by resolutions that we don't agree with.As I mentioned, when the Indian party asked for money (I think it was them — our retiring Treasurer will know) provision was made for individual members to pay.

The motion states “groups and individuals”, the SPC is neither of things, it is a political party and part of the World Socialist Movement. I would argue that the motion doesn’t and was never intended to cover this situation.

 Yes I would agree.  A companion party is not the same thing as a group and I cannot imagine anyone objecting to sending some money to the Canadian Party,   The EC would  be perfectly in order to allow such a thing.  Perhaps some branch could put forward a proposal to that effect.  Does it need to wait till ADM?

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Maybe do Sylvia Pankhurst's two essays Future Society and Socialism with an intro by ourselves?Just an idea

.  As a member of the Publications Comm, I support this suggestion.  Quite apart from anything else, it brings home the point that socialism as the Party defines it is what was generally understood to mean socialism prior to the Bolsheviks and Lenin (with his peculiar concept of socialism as meaning a "state capitalist monopoly" run in the interest of the whole people).  That apart, we need a much greater diversity of pamphlets in stock in my view so anything in that direction gets my support 

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Marcos wrote:

Prakash RP wrote:

 I've already explained it. Compulsory labour, in the communist mode of production, consists of only socially necessary labour and is duly rewarded. For this reason, it's outright wrong to view it as ' coerced ' or ' forced ', OK ? 

REPEATING THE SAME SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN

 Indeed.  This authoritarian troll never seems to answer the criticisms made of his model of compulsory labour  such as how do you ensure that those who monitoe enforce this whole elaborate and costly  system of compulsion will not themselves abuse the system and emerge as a new ruling class.  Likewise  he has no idea of what metric he proposes to use to ensure that everyone does exactly the same amount of work.  Is it equal hours or equal intensity of work or what?  He thinks compulsory labour is not coerced labour becuase it is "duly awarded" -(the same argument could be used to justify wage labour)  even though the whole point of the exercise to withold consumer goods to those who do not work or work enough.  What is that if not coercion? He has little to no understanding of Marxist terminology and terms such as "necessary labour"  – that portion of the labour performed by the worker under capitalism for which she receives a wage to produce and reproduce her labour power – and seems to think that necessary labour, and therefore the sale of labour power for a wage, will continue in a communist society.   In fact he seems to think that necessary labour can be prised apart and separated out from surplus labour as different segments of labour time much like the way the feudal serf perfomed compulsory labour for her lord some days of the week while labouring for herself on other days of the week.  That is precisely the view that Marx attacked which was expressed by those who feared that shortenening of working week would reduce the amount time available for the production of surplus value under capitalism Above all what we have not had from this individual is a single sensible coherent argument raised against the principle "from each according to abilty to each according to need"  –  only a boring and inane repetition of the same old mantra  that it is "silly" or "immature"  Claiming something is "silly is not a serious argument against the communist case for free access and voluntary labour.  Ive met dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who have made more of an effort trying to refute this case on the grounds of "human nature" than this troll though quite evidently he is cut from the same cloth  as them –  an unreconstructed conservative incongruously posing as a "communist" So yes Marcos I agree – he is just repeating the same shit all over again and there is little point continuing the discussion.  Im done with him 

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Prakash RP wrote:

My ideas about communism are wholly based on the thought of Marx & Engels. I've already provided my ideas with incontestable citations from CAPITAL VOL I & III  to show that there's no contradiction between my view of communism and that of Marx's and Engels's. It's only Marx's view of the basic principle of the higher phase of communism occurring in the Critique of the Gotha Programme that I find irreconcilable with his view of the classless communist

 I have already demonstrated the absurdity of this claim. Just because you believe that the principle “from each to ability to each according to need” is not feasible, does NOT mean the principle is "irreconcilable" with communism.  It merely means it is unfeasible, in your eyes.  You don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word "irreconcilable" 

Prakash RP wrote:

 ' People are not lazy in general but you have opted to make a generalised statement … ' ( ibid ) This is an instance of misinterpretation of my views. I never said anything to the effect that people in general are workshy.

 I didn’t say you said everyone is workshy.  I acknowledged that you said some people are not.  However, it must be the case that you think that on balance people are workshy otherwise why would you advocate a system of compulsory labour for everyone?  Clearly you believe a system of voluntary labour would not work because people as a whole would not come forward in sufficient numbers to perform the work and so would have to be forced to work. My argument is not to deny that some people, probably a tiny minority, may be disposed to be lazy and free ride.  Rather, I contend that this is not going to be problem given the sheer productivity of modern production.  If anything the problem will be finding enough work to go around (particularly since the need for most kinds of work we do today will disappear with the disappearance of the capitalist money economy).  If the so called problem of the workshy in a communist society ever became a problem then it will be addressed informally by a change in attitude towards such people – that is to say by social pressure and social opinion which is a very effective mechanism – perhaps the most effective mechanism we can think of given that human beings are by nature, social animals.  You do NOT need a state-like system that micro-manages every citizen to ensure that they put in their requisite number of hours per week as determined by some technocratic elite I note that you have not responded to my point that actually , and there have been numerous studies to back up this point, paying people to work corrodes the intrinsic motivation to work.  You effectively want to pay people to work by linking their consumption to what they contribute to society by way of labour input.  You want to impose compulsory labour even on those – the majority – who are not workshy and would not be in a communist society by your own admission.   If anything is calculated to make people more “workshy” it is exactly what you propose I also note that once again you have failed to explain how you are going to measure people’s labour contribution.  If I turn up to office and do 8 hours labour, sipping coffee and surfing the internet, will I get the same bundle of consumer goods as someone who works down a sewer shovelling shit?   

Prakash RP wrote:

 ' Excuse me but you are the one arguing for a system of compulsory or coerced labour.   How are you going to implement this compulsion? ' ( ibid ) ou've certainly raised a sensible point : how to implement this compulsion ? But you seem to be outright unaware of the distinction between the two points : what we have to do and how we have to do it. The fact of the matter is the workshy, the crafty and crooked, and all other elements opposed to communism must be dealt with successfully if we are for communism. You seem to be all for, unconsciously, abandoning communism if you must choose between communism ( with compulsion meant to check up on anti-communist elements ) and not communism. My dear friend, compulsion and the application of force are inseparable from life. As a responsible guardian or teacher, you can't avoid using compulsion or force to deal with unruly and disobedient kids, can you ?

  It is so telling that you should use the example of unruly and disobedient kids to argue the case for universal compulsory labour in communism.  You want to treat every adult in a communist society as a child in some kind of parent-child relationship in which you see yourself as performing the role of the parent.  Once again, this demonstrates the contempt you have for your fellow workers.  They can’t be trusted to do the work so you and your fellow members in your Leninist style vanguard have to patronisingly direct them to do what needs to be done in a communist society if it is not to collapse. You have still not explained why those who compel others to labour and oversee/manage the latter’s labour performance in this system of compulsory labour you wish to enforce,  will not themselves become a new ruling class and bring about the very collapse of a communist society you claim to want 

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Prakash RP wrote:

The irreconcilable contradiction between the communist aim of the classless society and the principle at issue shows the impracticability of this principle and why it's incompatible with free communist society. Your silence on this point is intriguing and might be taken to mean silly evasion, I'm afraid to say. 

Now you are just being ridiculous.  There is no “irreconcilable contradiction between the communist aim of the classless society” and the principle “from each according to ability to each according to ability”.  That principle is the perfectly logical expression or outcome of common ownership of the means of production.  Common ownership which even somebody as deficient in his grasp of logic as you must realise, is the negation of all forms of economic exchange.  Exchange implies private property.  Common property implies the absence of exchange which is precisely what “free access” entails.   And free access, as I explained, goes hand in hand with voluntary labour. So where, oh, where, Mr “Originator of a THESIS on money's incapacity” (LOL) is the contradiction? C’mon spit it out and tell us in plain English? I think you have so tied yourself up in knots over this issue that you can’t seem to understand what it’s about anymore Whether the principle is “impracticable” is your opinion.   You are entitled to express it but you are not entitled to infer from this that the principle is therefore in irreconcilable contradiction with classless communism which is what you are trying to do in your usual cack-handed clumsy fashion. I completely repudiate your claim that the principle is impractical.  Far from being silent on the point I have demonstrated several times in this exchange that your arguments are weak and unconvincing.  I have repeatedly cited evidence to support my case such as the fact that, even under capitalism, there is a huge amount of voluntary labour going on.  There have been numerous well researched empirical studies bearing out the point about the intrinsic motivation involved in work and how paying people to work has a corrosive impact on this intrinsic motivation.  What has been your response to these arguments? Zero! Zilch.  Complete silence!  You would do well to respond to my arguments before accusing others of being silent about yours.  Not only have I defended the principle of voluntary labour as a basic structural characteristic of communist society and one that is eminently practical, I have also asked certain questions concerning your proposed alternative for a communist society – namely compulsory labour.  Unlike you, I am not a dogmatist.  I don’t say compulsory labour is logically incompatible with a communist society or completely inconceivable but I do believe it goes against the grain of a communist society and that there is a high probability that it could bring about the reinstatement of some form of class society.   Who is going to do the compelling in the case of a system of compulsory labour? Who is going to compel the compellers? How are you going to enforce the rule that all should put their fair share of labour?  What metric are going to use to determine what a “fair share” is? Is an hour’s work by a janitor the same value as an hour’s work of a neurosurgeon?  You refuse to answer these questions and that is because I suspect you realise that to go down this road that could backfire on you badly. At the end of the day I think your basic ideology is a sort of quasi-Stalinist authoritarianism.  You seem to like talking a lot about “backbone”  and dealing with the “workshy” in the same contemptuous manner that you might expect a Tory Minister of Employment to do in a Party Conference rant.   Certainly, you seem to share the same core bourgeois assumptions that are to be found in most mainstream economic textbooks – like the idea that labour is a “disutility” that needs to be compensated.  Or that human beings are naturally greedy with insatiable appetites so that allowing them free access to goods in a communist society would mean they would strip the store of goods in minutes like some plague of locusts Little wonder you get such short shrift on this forum.  In case you haven’t noticed, this is a forum for communists, not conservatives! 

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Prakash RP wrote:

  Most of the debaters against me seem to believe the above excerpt from CAPITAL Volume III is also replete with silly mistakes made by Marx and Engels. In their view, Marx and Engels actually meant ' a realm of freedom ' by ' a realm of necessity ' and the ' lengthening of the working-day ' by the ' shortening of the working-day '. They also seem to believe that Marx and Engels actually meant that there'll be nothing like the ' realm of necessity ' in the communist order, and that everyone in the communist order will have free access to the ' realm of freedom ' where they'll stay as long as they please and enjoy wealth to satiety— none will ask them to do any work or to squander wealth a bit less. They seem to be certain that there'll exist an unlimited store of wealth created by capitalists, which they must take possession of during the communist revolution, and so none of them would have to do any work meant to create wealth for their enjoyment. You also agree with them wholly on these points, don't you ?  

 This is incorrect.  Quite apart from the absurd suggestion that your critics "seem to be certain that there'll exist an unlimited store of wealth created by capitalists,  which they must take possession of during the communist revolution, and so none of them would have to do any work meant to create wealth for their enjoyment"  you  misunderstand the point about Marx's realms of freedom and necessity In simple terms Marx's expression, the "realm of necessity" alludes to the general need to work – to produce the goods and services we depend upon.  Communism does not eliminate this need – unless you suppose the very unlikely sceanrio of a totally automated system of production that completely relieves us of the need to work,  However this need to work  which applies to communist society as a whole expresses itself at the level of the individual in the form of voluntary labour. Voluntary labour is the logical corrollary of a form of distribution based on free access.  To fail to see this is to fail to recognise the central point that Marx is making – that the "antagonism"  between "the individual" and "society" ceases to apply in a communist society.  Consequently to postulate the need for any form of compulsory labour implies the continuation of  such an antagonism,   It implies a divergence of interests between the interests of the individual and others. There can be no doubt that Marx endorsed the communist principle, "from each according to ability to each according to need" – volunteer labour and free access to goods and services,   Though he made few direct references to the nature of a communist/socialist society the few that he did points to this as being based on the free association of the producers. His whole theory of alienation (estrangement) and his critique of the compulsory of enforced division of labour only makes sense in the light of this.  Hence the famous passage from the German Ideology, where in present day society with its enforced division of labour one may be a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; whereas in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic This is clearly incompatible with the idea of compulsory labour Marx's point that the realm of freedom grows out of realm of necessity and begins where the latter ends simply means that the disposable free time available to us depends the level of prpductivity that society has achieved.  This is very clear from the Gotha critique itself: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 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! What you are doing is to quite illegitimately equating the "realm of necessity" – the generalised need for people still to work in communism –  with the need to institute a system of compulsory labour that in practice will boil down to the reinstatement of  class form of society. 

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Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

 Can you identify which of these activities for me is voluntary labor in the current economy and answer some simple questions.  I'd like to understand how much of the average personsl life (measured in minutes or hours) they are engaged in voluntary labor vs coorced labor as defined by Marx in a capitalist society. 

In  this context, compulsory or coerced labour refers to work arising from the class nature of  contemporary capitalism where one class owns the means of producing wealth and the other does not and is therefore obliged to sell its working abilities to the former.  In other words, it is work perfomed for the benefit, and at the behest, of a particular section of society called the owning class – the capitalists. This work takes the form of wage labour. Human beings in general need to work.  The fact that they need to do so might be construed as "compulsion" and so someone arguing along these  lines might be tempted to say that all work is based on compulsion.  But I would say this is a meaningless way of arguing the point.  If the only colour you could see in your field of vision was red or different shades of red, then the concept of "redness" would be meaningless.  Redness only acquires meaning when it is compared and constrasted with some other colour such as green, along the colour spectrum. The necessity to perform wage labour under capitalism is not universal.  It is partial and based on class membership . The capitalists dont need to perform wage labour to acquire money to purchase the means of living; the workers do.  It is from this basic structural fact of life under capitalism that the notion of compulsory labour arises and which, given the nature of capitalism, takes the form of wage labour. So "non compulsory" labour in this context is all labour that does not take this form.  Meaning it does not take a monetised form – that is to say, it is not performed in exchange for money If we look at productive work as a whole (there is the point as to whether you can really make a sharp distinction between leisure/play and work in a socialist society but I will ignore that for the moment) there are 3 distinct sectors that we can identify today under capitalism The White economy –  the official monetised economyThe Black economy – the unoffocial/illegal monetised economyThe Grey economy –  the non-monetised economy Some statistics I have come across from the UN and other sources suggest that the grey economy in terms of the number of hours worked is slightly larger than the white and black economies combined, at a global level.  The forms of activity that comprise the grey economy are numerous and diverse – from agricultural self povisioning to all forms of volunteeering and charitable work to the domestic or household sector.  Come to think of it , computer nerds such as myself who spend hours on the computer trawling for data to put togther posts such as this one – completely gratis and for the presumed benefit of others – are yet another example of what is meant by the grey economy

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There is also this article by Varoufakis which I came across recently in which he claims capitalism is ending becuase it has made itself obsolete.  Unfortunately, he seems to mean by capitalism just the "neoliberal system" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/yannis-varoufakis-capitalism-ending-obsolete-former-greek-finance-minister-artificial-intelligence-a8006826.html. Maybe it is worth trying to contact this guy to engage with him in some sort of political discussion/debate.  He may have some questionable ideas and theories but also others which are not and has quite an inspirational way of putting these across.   Didnt he used to be at the LSE? Has the SPGB attempted to get in touch with him before?

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  Prakash's nonsensical and  distorted views of Marx, and Marxism on the subject of labour in a  communist society kind of reminds me of what Trotsky wrote  in Terrorism and Communism: "As a general rule, man strives to avoid labor. Love for work is not at all an inborn characteristic: it is created by economic pressure and social education. One may even say that man is a fairly lazy animal" and  "Man, as I have already permitted myself to point out, is lazy; that is, he instinctively strives to receive the largest possible quantity of products for the least possible expenditure of energy" This idea that work in and of itself is a "sacrifice" and  "disutility"  is a commonplace in bourgeois economic literature which our " bourgeois" friend faithfully echoes with his obsessive mantra about the need to make all work compulsory.  Like Prakash, Trotsky argued that "the only way to attract labour power necessary for our economic problems is to introduce compulsory labour service".  To that end  Trotsky was put in charge of the infamous "militarisation  of labour programme" to crush independent working class resistance and discipline workers in the interests of the Soviet capitalist state  This is where the logic of such thinking takes you.   If you feel the need to coerce labour you will inevitably end up with a coercive authoritarian class based society .  The means determine the end.   It is worth noting that Trotsky's view of work closely resembled the view held by Adam Smith and others which Marx fiercely attacked:  "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou labor! was Jehovah’s curse on Adam. And this is labor for Smith, a curse. “Tranquility” appears as the adequate state, as identical with “freedom” and “happiness.” It seems quite far from Smith’s mind that the individual, “in his normal state of health, strength, activity, skill, facility,” also needs a normal portion of work, and of the suspension of tranquility. Certainly, labor obtains its measure from the outside, through the aim to be attained and the obstacles to be overcome in attaining it. But Smith has no inkling whatever that the overcoming of obstacles is in itself a liberating activity—and that, further, the external aims become stripped of the semblance of merely external natural urgencies, and become posited as aims which the individual himself posits—hence as self-realization, objectification of the subject, hence real freedom, whose action is, precisely, labor. He is right, of course, that, in its historic forms as slave-labor, serf-labor, and wage-labor, labor always appears as repulsive, always as external forced labor; and not-labor, by contrast, as “freedom and happiness.” This holds doubly: for this contradictory labor; and relatedly, for labor which has not yet created the subjective and objective conditions for itself…in which labor becomes attractive work, the individual’s self-realization, which in no way means that it becomes mere fun, mere amusement….Really free working…is at the same time precisely the most damned seriousness, the most intensive exertion. The work of material production can achieve this character only (1) when its social character is posited, (2) when it is of a scientific and at the same time general character, not merely human exertion, as a specifically harnessed natural force, but exertion as subject, which appears in the production process, not in a merely natural, spontaneous form, but as an activity regulating all the forces of nature. Adam Smith, by the way, has only the slaves of capital in mind." (Karl Marx, Grundrissse (London: Penguin, 1973), 611–12) However, in one respect Trotsky and Prakash differ.  For Trotsky at least acknowleged that in socialism or what might be called Marx's higher phase of communism  there would be no labour compulsion"True, Abramovich demonstrated to us most learnedly that under Socialism there will be no compulsion, that the principle of compulsion contradicts Socialism, that under Socialism we shall be moved by the feeling of duty, the habit of working, the attractiveness of labor, etc., etc. This is unquestionable.Only this unquestionable truth must be a little extended. In point of fact, under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. None the less, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State. And you and I are just passing through that period. Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction"(Terrorism and Communism ch8 )

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Prakash RP wrote:

 ' There is no suggestion at all in Marx [ sic ] that the "social workload" cannot be shared  on a completely voluntary and unforced basis. ' ( #307 ; comment by robbo203 ) My dear friend, Marx & Engels really and truly did not envisage that communists of the 21st century will be so stupid as to fail to realise something as simple as the arithmetic logic that two and two makes four and see the truth that is blazing like the mid-day summer sun before their eyes. You need only a clear concept of the ABCs of the theory of communism in order to see the fallacy of the principle of  “from each according to ability to each according to need ”. The citation ( #305 ) from the CAPITAL Volume III suggests clearly that the ' socialised man ', if it wants freedom, must enter into the ' realm of freedom ' ( i.e. the realm in which everyone* is free of any compulsion to do or not to do something ) from the ' realm of necessity ' ( the realm that necessitates everyone* doing work ). None in the ' realm of necessity ' have any other choice than to share work with all others* , OK ? And by the communist formula, the ' basic prerequisite ' meant to ensure everyone's entry into the ' realm of freedom ' , is the compulsory ' shortening of the working-day ' to make it equal to its ' minimum length ' ( see CAPITAL Volume I , chapter XVII, section IV, subsection 2, to know what Marx meant by the ' minimum length ' of the working-day under the communist mode of production ). Thus, it ought to be clear as day to every sensible man or woman that communism means the compulsory working-day of the shortest-possible length as well as the compulsory sharing of the social workload by everyone* . And since both the working-day ( of definite length ) and the sharing of the social workload ( which is also limited in quantity ) are compulsory for all* , the latter has to be equal.   * bar all those entitled to exemption from work 

 You are clutching at straws  in your desparate bid to put a Stalinist gloss on Marx and Marxism I dont know how many times it has been pointed out to you that the principle of from each according to ability to each according to need is absolutely fundamental to the Marxian conception of communism  and in particular what Marx called the "higher phase of communism".  The quote from Marx (from the Criitique of the Gotha of the Gotha promgamme) actually says as much but incredibly  you persist with this utterly stupid claim of yours that the principle has nothing to with what you call the "ABC of communism".   There are no none so blind as those who do not wish to see, I guess  Yes Marx makes a distinction between "realm of necessity" and the "realm of freedom" but the latter corresponds precisely to the aforementioned higher phase of communism .   That higher phase – the realm of freedom – is predicated precisely on the existence of a technological capacity to produce abundance which is something we have long had,   Meaning  free access  communism based on voluntary labour has been a material possibility for several decades; all that is lacking is the mass socialist consciousness to make this  happen .  A more intelligent, and possibly understandable, approach would have been for you to question whether  we actually possesss that technolological potential and hence, by extension, whether a communist society based on vounteer labour which Marx endorsed is feasible at the present time.   But you didnt adopt that appraoch did you?   Instead like some bull in a china shop  you blustered and ranted on about the principle of "from each according to each according to need" being "silly,", "immature"  totally impractical and contradicting what communism per se is about. Which is ignorant nonsense Little wonder no one takes you seriously on this forum 

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 I don’t think there is much point in trying to push the case for a society based on the principle "from each according to each according to need” in the face of dogmatic resistance from our resident Stalinist, Prakash R P, whose only attempt at argument seems to be to childishly dismiss his opponent’s arguments as “silly and immature” as an all-too-obvious attempt to evade them. Amusingly he asserts

Prakash RP wrote:

I really and truly don't expect you and the army of the silly who are right behind you in this debate to think so as all of you are disgustingly lacking in the clear concept of the ABCs of the theory of communism. “

  But the ABC of the theory of communism very definitely embodies the very principle he repudiates and which Marx very clearly endorsed.   I will post once again the quote from the Critique of the Gotha Programme where the latter does just this : 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 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!(Critique of the Gotha Programme) There is little more that needs to be said that hasn’t already been said.  Our resident Stalinist misunderstands the point at issue.  It is not a case of condoning or respecting the so called workshy.  Rather the question is whether the existence of such people in a communist society will present a serious problem enough to bring that societyto the point at which it would collapse. I don’t believe it would and I presented various arguments to show why this would not be the case, all of which Prakash has simply evaded.  I note that he now seems to have shifted his grounds somewhat.  He says

Prakash RP wrote:

 I'd like to replace the second statement in the above quote with this : If all of the working community were workshy and allowed freedom to shun work, the system would collapse. The truth is not all workers are workshy nor are all of the workshy are free to shun work. The workshy have to work for money they need in order to survive 

 Previously he was arguing if only some of the working community were workshy then a communist society would collapse.  Now it seems it requires the whole working community to be workshy for this to happen.  These are the people who had previously striven to set up a communist society, knowing full well the implications of what they are doing and would now somehow be intent on sabotaging that self-same society by refusing to work on a voluntary basis.  Even in capitalism, I pointed out, most work is unremunerated – falls outside of the money economy, and carried out without any kind of external compulsion.  To this Prakash responds

Prakash RP wrote:

 “I've got no idea either of the ' sorts of things ' that are not included in the ' money economy ' but deserve to be reckoned ' work”.

He would do well to read up on the so called Grey Economy which includes such things as the domestic household, sector, voluntary and charitable work, subsistence production and so on Finally in response to my question about how one might compare the labour of a janitor with the labour of neurosurgeon  in a communist society to ensure an equal sharing of the workload which he claims needs to be done,  he write as follows  

Prakash RP wrote:

The work of a janitor, an engineer, a professor, or a porter have got one thing in common, and it happens to be ' human labour in the abstract. ' ( Marx ; CAPITAL Volume I, Part I, Chapter I, Section 1 ) Different products consume different quantities of human labour. Therefore, under communism, we can easily compare different kinds of goods and services through the socially necessary labour spent for their production. For example, if a writing pen is the product of x hours of socially necessary labour and 1 metre of cloth is the product of y hours of socially necessary labour, we can easily find the equation y= nx and say 1 metre of cloth is equivalent to n writing pens, OK ? Your ignorance of these points shows you're lacking in the knowledge of the ABCs of communism, IMHO.  

 Turning to my ABC of communism  I find Marx saying something quite different – that one cannot directly measure socially necessary labour time and this only has meaning within a capitalist economy in the context of market exchange: "Social labour-time exists in these commodities in a latent state, so to speak, and becomes evident only in the course of their exchange…. Universal social labour is consequently not a ready-made prerequisite but an emerging result’   (tMarx, K, 1981, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) So the procedure that Prakash imagines is available to a non-exchange economy called communism is simply not available to such in such a society and even if it were, it would still not get around the problem of how to evaluate different kinds of labour in these terms  Nor does it get round the problem that those who do the monitoring of peoples labour input and are in a postion to chastise them when they are not pulling their weight,  will also be in a postion of being to abuse the system  and eventually emerge as a new ruling class themselves.  Only a system of voluntary labour can circumvent this possibility   

[robbo203]

Prakash RP wrote:

 I'm a communist that claims to have a clear concept of the basics of communism. 

  I don’t consider that you have a “clear concept of the basics of communism” at all.  No communist would ever come out with such a preposterous remark as you have done – namely that “ the principle of ' from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' is impractical and incompatible with the free communist society” I think you position is closer to Stalinism than it ever is to Marxism.  You claim to have read Marx but you won’t find Marx sharing your crass authoritarian ideas about “communism”. Marx fully endorsed the principle you repudiate as “impractical and incompatible with the free communist society”: 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 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!(Critique of the Gotha Programme)  Let me move swiftly on to deal with your various specific objections 1,) Yes I know you said “I want you to take cognisance of the fact that not  all humans are naturally sensible and dutiful”.  In fact, if you bothered to read my response with due attention you would have seen I fully acknowledged this.   What I was attacking was your basic claim that because some individuals in a communist society of free voluntary labour would allegedly not want to work, society as a whole is “certain” to collapse. I reject that argument completely.  Even if hypothetically what you say was true about some people being predisposed to just laze around all day doing nothing, a communist society could comfortably carry them given our technological ability to produce plenty.   It is they who are the ones who will actually lose out on the sheer pleasure of cooperation and creativity in a free society in which, to quote Marx again, labour “has become not only a means of life but life's prime want”.  I would remind you also that even under capitalism today most work is voluntary and unremunerated – referring to work that falls outside of the money economy.  People are not lazy in general but you have opted to make a generalised statement about a hypothetical future communist society – that it will collapse under a system of voluntary labour. A typical bourgeois prejudice 2,) In response to my point ' Many people don’t like the idea of being bossed around at work”  you say “I don't think I ever said anything suggesting that I'm for making people consent to ' being bossed around at work '.  Excuse me but you are the one arguing for a system of compulsory or coerced labour.   How are you going to implement this compulsion?  It is precisely on this point that your ideas come across as incredibly weak and wishy washy. If you are going to compel people to work you are also going to have to monitor their labour input.  Otherwise what’s to stop me turning up to work, doing five minutes of labour and then demanding my full day’s ration?  What’s to stop me turning on my computer screen to just surf the internet rather than do all that admin work?  To monitor my labour input you are going to have somebody doing the monitoring and chastising when I don’t pull my weight.  I short you are going to have to have bosses at work.   And then, of course, the problem becomes who is going to monitor and control the bosses. The temptation to corruption is inherent in a system of labour compulsion.  In fact , I would say the very system of forced labour which you advocate is the very system that predisposes individuals to become “workshy”.  This is because people don’t like working under a system in which their labour is forced.  Free voluntary labour is its own intrinsic reward and there have many many empirical studies that bear out this very point 3,) In response to my point  “It is coerced labour just as much as that part of the worker’s labour that goes to reproduce her labour power.”  ( #303 ) you say: “I don't think the Marxian law of value approves of viewing the necessary-labour part of a worker's total labour as ' coerced labour '. Dear bro, the necessary labour is paid labour, and so it can't be right to put it in the same category along with the unpaid labour (surplus-labour ).”  This is muddled thinking.  The point about wage labour under capitalism is that necessary labour and surplus labour are coterminous.   Unlike in feudalism you don’t have one part of the working day devoted to necessary labour and another part to surplus labour.  Both forms of labour are inseparable under the general heading of coerced wage labour.  This is the very point that Marx made against those capitalists who feared that a shortening of the working day would leave less time over for workers to perform surplus labour, thus resulting in a cut in profits.  Marx demonstrated that this was based on a fallacious model of the economy which is precisely the one you are putting forward here 4,) In response to my point “You are the one who wants a system of coerced labour” (#303) You say “This is another instance of unfounded allegation brought by you against me”  How so?  How is compulsory labour not also coerced labour?  Explain  5,) In response to my point “you can be certain that [ the ] problem will [ be ] overcome by the very simple and very effective mechanism that is called social disapproval. “ You say“So, you're for something ' very simple and very effective mechanism ', something you want to call ' social disapproval ', which is aimed at making the workshy, the ' lazy and slothful ' by nature, perform their share of the social workload duly and wholly. Thus, you accept the correctness of my position that the sharing of the social workload must be compulsory. What you mean by the ' very simple and very effective mechanism ' is what I mean by a competent body authorised to keep vigil on people in their workplace and deal with the silly, the workshy, etc.” No no no – this is NOT the same thing at all.   Social disapproval is completely compatible with a system of voluntary labour and free access to goods and services.   What you are advocating is something totally different – an external body to actively monitor the labour contributions of everyone and presumably also with the power to withhold consumption goods from those who do not perform their bureaucratically-determined quota of work.  What you are advocating, in other words, is a social arrangement which, to use your favourite word, is “certain” to evolve in a new form of class society.  Your “competent body authorised to keep vigil on people in their workplace” will turn out to be just another exploiting ruling class and the only way to pre-empt that is to institute the system of voluntary labour and free access that we call communism

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