Young Master Smeet
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It might be worth looking up this book about Rojavahttp://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/193866017X?keywords=a%20small%20key%20can%20open%20a%20large%20door%20the%20rojava%20revolution&qid=1445327114&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1The introduction is free online:http://www.tangledwilderness.org/a-mountain-river-has-many-bends/
Oh, and a non-rebuttal rebuttal from a volunteer, taht seems to be saying, yes, the things happened, but, y'know, it's a warzone:http://kurdishquestion.com/index.php/kurdistan/west-kurdistan/open-letter-to-amnesty-from-uk-ypg-volunteer/1173-open-letter-to-amnesty-from-uk-ypg-volunteer.html
Quote:When we entered a village sometimes we had to use people's properties. This involved fortifying them with sandbags and earth (using diggers). This was as a necessity of war and because of the risk of an ISIS attack. There was never a deliberate policy to damage property.Interestingly, Juan Cole takes a look at who is supporting the Syrian state (perhaps, he's right to suggest that that's not the same thing as supporting Assad, though in the short term, it is):
Juan Cole wrote:It is not clear exactly what the Syrian Arab Army is fighting for. Probably not, by now, the ruling Baath Party or war criminal President Bashar al-Assad. A mixture of Alawite Shiites and secular-minded Sunnis, my guess is that the SAA is fighting against the Salafi fundamentalists who they know would gladly oppress or even kill them. Syria is likely 10-14 percent Alawite, 5 percent Christian, 3 percent Druze, and it has some Twelver Shiites as well. Along with these minorities, probably a half to a third of the Sunni Arab population (about 60% of the whole) is standing with the regime. Another 10 percent are Kurds, who are also fighting the fundamentalists and sometimes have alliances of convenience with the al-Assad regime against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). So the demographic weight of Syria has so far told against the conservative rural Sunnis and the urban lower middle class Muslim Brotherhood adherents.http://www.juancole.com/2015/10/advances-russian-support.htmlAt least he brings class into the question, as well as ethnicity (and I suppoe there is a long standing correlation between the two out there).
Ah, Freedom refute:https://twitter.com/Freedom_Paper
You mean more like the wartime ration book? the critique of that approach is obviously th amount of effort and faff involved, especially where gods are relatively widely available: it's another option.Other options are queuing, lottery, shadow system prices, voting systems, preference games and simple free access. Each has its attractions and demerits.
SocialistPunk wrote:If Marx made it so…err…clear what he meant by socialism/communism, then why is it we have so much disagreement as to what socialism/communism means?Well, partly, some people muddied the waters. One was Kautsky:https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt2-1.htm#s4
Quote:These objections would be sound if the social revolution proposed to immediately abolish money. I maintain that this would be impossible. Money is the simplest means known up to the present time which makes it possible in as complicated a mechanism as that of the modern productive process, with its tremendous far-reaching division of labor, to secure the circulation of products and their distribution to the individual members of society. It is the means which makes it possible for each one to satisfy his necessities according to his individual inclination (to be sure within the bounds of his economic power). As a means to such circulation money will be found indispensable until something better is discovered.A couple of paragraphs later he says[qoute]In a communistic society labor will be systematically regulated and the labor power be assigned to the individual branches of production according to a definite plan. In the production for exchange this regulation is obtained through the law of value.[/quote]Here:https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_j.htm#sbHe expressly deals with labour time vouchers:
Quote:I do not doubt that such a monetary system is conceivable. But is it practicable? Let us ignore the complications which would arise from collective labour or from different scales of wages, as heavy or unpleasant work would have to be more highly remunerated than easy and pleasant work. Consider what colossal labour would be involved in calculating for each product the amount of labour it had cost from its initial to its final stage, including transport and other incidental labour.[…]This involves a two-fold calculation. The worker’s remuneration would be fixed according to the labour-time he actually expended, while the price of the product would be fixed according to the labour-time socially necessary for its production. The results of these calculations ought to be identical. But this would almost never be the case.The proposal of labour-money is beset with initial difficulties, because it is based on a mechanical conception of the law of value.And the killer line:
Quote:But this fact would not exhaust all the functions of money. Thousands of years passed before a capitalist mode of production came into existence. As the measure of value and means of circulation of products money will continue to exist in a socialist society until the dawn of that blessed second phase of communism which we do not yet know whether will ever be more than a pious wish, similar to the Millennial Kingdom.Obviously, he was not alone, but he was a significant populariser of Marx, and this reading will have had a substantial effect.
I wasn't making a point, you asked where Marx said there wopuld be no money, and I pointed to two sentences in the quotes I'd posted which said just that. The problem is, as with one of the other quotes showed, it could overall be interpreted as suggesting there would be some money (he talks of the community buying back produce).There are criticisms to be had to labour time vouchers, I'm not entirely against them, and think we should be prepared to accept some sort of labour certificate, even it is just (as in the Spanish revolution) that you can use it like a club membership card, rather than a time voucher to be exchanged for goods. I think the objections are practical ratherthan principled.Anyway, the clearer line is there would be no money-capital, you can ram that line down their throat, and ask if there' no money capital, how can there be money for consumer goods?
Vin,certainly the line in the one from C. II (post #7): "In the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated." indicates there will be no money capital. In the same paragraph he says, on Labour Vouchers: "These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate." So, there is definitely no money capital,and labour vouchers are clearly distinguished from money. He only posits labour vouchers as a possibility, but I think overall its pretty clear that he thought there would be no money in socialism.
Quote: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.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch18.htmMy bold.
And another one
Charlies wrote:Secondly, after the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense that the regulation of labour-time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the book-keeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch49.htmIt does feel slightly Jesuitical to note that this is an express statement that value doesn't exist, and really seems to be consistent with material accounts/inventories.In any case, it can't be said that Marx never discussed hwat he meant by socialism, as these three quotes do illustrate.
And it's common partner quote:
Charlie Says wrote:(It is only where production is under the actual, predetermining control of society that the latter establishes a relation between the volume of social labour-time applied in producing definite articles, and the volume of the social want to be satisfied by these articles.)https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htmThat quote appears in a general discussion on the exchange of goods at their value, which leads the above being read as Marx supporting labour time vouchers. Note, though, that within the quoted paranthesis above, Marx doesn't talk about value, but labour time and wants.
Ah, coincidence, I was just wanting to talk about a Marx quote:
Charlie Says wrote:This is determination by market-value as it asserts itself on the basis of capitalist production through competition; the latter creates a false social value. This arises from the law of market-value, to which the products of the soil are subject. The determination of the market-value of products, including therefore agricultural products, is a social act, albeit a socially unconscious and unintentional one. It is based necessarily upon the exchange-value of the product, not upon the soil and the differences in its fertility. If we suppose the capitalist form of society to be abolished and society organised as a conscious and planned association, then the 10 quarters would represent a quantity of independent labour-time equal to that contained in 240 shillings. Society would not then buy this agricultural product at two and a half times the actual labour-time embodied in it and the basis for a class of landowners would thus be destroyed. This would have the same effect as a reduction in price of the product to the same amount resulting from foreign imports. While it is, therefore, true that, by retaining the present mode of production, but assuming that the differential rent is paid to the state, prices of agricultural products would, everything else being equal, remain the same, it is equally wrong to say that the value of the products would remain the same if capitalist production were superseded by association. The identity of the market-price for commodities of the same kind is the manner whereby the social character of value asserts itself on the basis of capitalist production and, in general, any production based on the exchange of commodities between individuals. What society overpays for agricultural products in its capacity of consumer, what is a minus in the realisation of its labour-time in agricultural production, is now a plus for a portion of society, for the landlords.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch39.htmI've bolded the line where Marx seems to give a clear and conscise definition of socialism; hwoevr, sadly, the rest of the quote seems to assume some form of buying and selling in socialism.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/10/recognizes-democratic-transition.htmlJuan Cole writes it up, and shows just how important the Unions were not just to the details of the porcess, but providing the muscle that kept a Conservative Islamist party engaged in democracy.
Quote:The Renaissance Party deserves enormous credit for its commitment to dialogue, and for compromising with its critics. But it has to be admitted that the party was pushed in this direction by the labor unions, youth and other activists, women who demonstrated in the streets, and human rights organizations. The 2013 Egyptian military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government in that country may also have put al-Nahda into a mood to compromise.Technical administration is not the same thing as moderation, and even then, for a third paty to be used we'd need a commercial contract. As a party resource, we need a chair familiar with the party case, and with a demonstrable commitment to the party. This forum does not belong to its regular users, it belongs to the socialist party, and it's democratic institutions.
