On Marx's Definition of Economics.
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I heard one a few years ago who stated that the aim of economics was for all countries in the world to have a positive balance of trades, where they exported more than they imported, I mean, for crying out loud!!
China is already doing that, and the USA is imposing protectionist tariff on the Chinese capitalists, it is clear indication that the so called free market doesn’t exist
Brian, of course there will be shortages, some temporary, some permanent, in a socialist society but the solution won’t be “economic” (in terms of money costs, prices, etc) but technical, a question of organisation and conscious choice.
If the solution won’t be “economic” (in terms of money costs, prices, etc) but technical, a question of organisation and conscious choice this obviously means stating socialist society will economise in a material sense rather than in a value sense.
Lewis Morgan book The ancient society give us an idea of how this society will function. The natives only took from nature what they needed for their society, they never finished the whole supply of Buffalo, salmon, bass, medical herbs, deer, and trees. At the present time the natives have been conducting a big struggle because capitalism is destroying all the supply of salmon from the rivers in their reservation, they never had that kind of problem when they had control over their own society, their society was based on use values. We have a lot to learn from them
In one letter sent to Engels, Marx said that he was working on his books on political economy, but he said that he wanted to finish with that trash, the great theoretician of the school of political economy was not so crazy about economy either, even more, at the beginning the economist was Engels instead of Marx
There has been many scarcity arguments put forward that we have reached peak-this or peak-that.
Somehow that means there is no alternatives for us to use.
There is always second-best and third-best options to choose from. No one thing is indispensable, (well maybe oxygen and water and the latter has shortages and rationing right now)
I am a shameless cornucopian socialist, abundance is my aim. If I am rationed in one item, so be it, because the compensation will be plenty in everything else.
But look through forum archives when the definition we sometimes use “according to self-defined needs” was challenged on the grounds that it will be society as a whole and not individuals which will decide free access.
Marshall Sahlins in Stone Age Economics
For there are two possible courses to affluence. Wants may be “easily satisfied” either by producing much or desiring little. The familiar conception, the Galbraithean way, makes assumptions peculiarly appropriate to market economies: that man’s wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited, although improvable: thus, the gap between means and ends can be narrowed by industrial productivity, at least to the point that “urgent goods” become plentiful. But there is also a Zen road to affluence, departing from premises somewhat different from our own: that human material wants are finite and few, and technical means unchanging but on the whole adequate. Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can enjoy an unparalleled material plenty-with a low standard of living. That, I think, describes the hunters.
(https://libcom.org/files/Sahlins%20-%20Stone%20Age%20Economics.pdf)
Why cannot socialism be a combination of both – a sort of dialectical “interpenetration of the opposites” so to speak? The impetus to restrain consumption will come not only from a concern for the ecological consequences of untrammelled consumerism but also from the realisation that we all depend on each other for our common wellbeing. That is a question of ethics, values and empathy
alanjjohnstone wrote: “But look through forum archives when the definition we sometimes use “according to self-defined needs” was challenged on the grounds that it will be society as a whole and not individuals which will decide free access.”
Yeah, ‘self’ refers to the ‘subject’ that creates, and the creating subject for Marx was humanity (ie. ‘social individuals’, not ‘biological individuals’ as for bourgeois ideology), and any ‘defining’ by the creating subject must be democratic.
Within democratic communism, ‘self-defined needs’ will be determined democratically.
Anyone who wants ‘individuals’ defining their own isolated needs for themselves, should stick to the system of ‘social production’ most suited to that ideology, ie. capitalism.
‘Freedom’ in any sphere is a social, not an individual, definition. And all definitions are always social, because definitions are a social product.
I think we need some Greek.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy
“The English words “economy” and “economics” can be traced back to the Greek word οἰκονόμος (i.e. “household management”), a composite word derived from οἶκος (“house;household;home”) and νέμω (“manage; distribute;to deal out;dispense”) by way of οἰκονομία (“household management”).
The first recorded sense of the word “economy” is in the phrase “the management of œconomic affairs”, found in a work possibly composed in a monastery in 1440. “Economy” is later recorded in more general senses, including “thrift” and “administration”.” (Raymond Williams in his book Keywords looks at how the word economy has shifted over time in meaning).
In fact, what is called economics today is what yer actual ancient Greeks would have called chrematistics:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chrematistic
Anyway, as for Charlie Marx:
“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.” Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/quotes/index.htm
Anyway, Socialism means an end of chrematistics and the birth of household management.
Yeah, ‘self’ refers to the ‘subject’ that creates, and the creating subject for Marx was humanity (ie. ‘social individuals’, not ‘biological individuals’ as for bourgeois ideology), and any ‘defining’ by the creating subject must be democratic.
Within democratic communism, ‘self-defined needs’ will be determined democratically.I think the concept of “self-defined” needs to be properly understood in the context of how individuals in a proximate sense would appropriate their means of subsistence. That is to say, they would formally have “free access” to goods and services. Meaning there would be no quid pro quo exchange involved at all. So as an individual there would be no need for me to exchange a sum of money or a labour voucher in order to obtain a loaf of bread
This is all that self-defined needs means. It is a reference to the mode of appropriation – nothing more – and it is an attempt to differentiate free access from all forms of rationing. The distinct danger of rationing, even of an egalitarian kind, is that it can lead to corruption and the emergence of an overseeing powerful elite.
In no sense is the concept of self defined needs incompatible with your notion of the “social individual”. The latter is a reference to what shapes our perception of what our needs are which is of course social whereas the former refers simply to the mode of appropriation. In fact this very idea of the social individual in your sense supports the argument in favour of dispensing with rationing and establishing free access. Quite simply we wont need rationing in general (though I dont rule out limited rationing of certain particular kinds of items) because the kind of society we are talking about would be precisely one most conducive to responsible – and responsive – consumer behaviour.
Finally we must careful about how we phrase the argument that, in socialism, “society will democratically decide what is produced” even if individuals have free access to what is produced. This could be very misleading. I will argue to the contrary that socialist society will not and cannot decide what is produced overall because that implies centralised “society wide” planning and a single gigantic plan which is absolutely impractical and completely incompatible with the nature of socialism itself.
It is far better and much more accurate in my opinion to say that socialist society will decide on the priorities of production rather than the overall pattern of production itself . This would allow for the existence of some form of feedback mechanism – a self regulating system of stock control – without which any kind of advanced system of production would be literally impossible
Democratic “society” to me does not imply centralised “society wide” planning and a single gigantic plan although such things as dealing with global warming does involve commitment to an agreed central strategy decided via various bottom-up decision making much like the COPs but the recommendations implement at various lower levels, at the moment nationally, or city-wide or corporately by industry sector. So society to me also means local and regional communities, mostly based on geographic criteria. And society also involves another aspect of community – work/industrial/production networks. We talk of the scientific community, don’t we?
Social decisions are, of course, different, from individual choices but those individual choices do add up to collective demands and may conflict with other social needs.
Society will have some form of administration to adjudicate priority and arrange satisfaction. Todays democratic structures are currently incapable but it does not mean a socialist system will not create an effective means of carrying out the will of the majority in society, while still protecting the interests of the minority.
All we can do is generalize and lay down some broad principles and I don’t believe we are all that distant in our understanding that we should be splitting hairs over issues that there is sufficient versatility about establishing processes.
Saying society is democratic and saying that society “democratically decides” what is produced are two very different things Alan . The latter definitely does seems to refer to the idea of society as a whole deciding on what is produced i.e. society wide planning
All I am saying is we need to be careful about how we phrase our ideas so as to avoid any misundrstanding
robbo203 wrote: “I will argue to the contrary that socialist society will not and cannot decide what is produced overall because that implies centralised “society wide” planning and a single gigantic plan…”
I don’t want to go over old ground, robbo, but it’s clear we have a different political viewpoint/ideology about ‘democracy’.
I don’t regard ‘democratic’ as meaning ‘centralised’.
To me, a democratic communist, if ‘produced overall’ and ‘society wide planning’ are democratic, then they are not ‘centralised’.
You are, in effect, defining any ‘democratic’ decision that clashes with, and overrides, an individual’s opinion, as ‘centralised’ and ‘single’.
We’re going to have to disagree on this issue, and simply allow any developing workers’ movement to determine whether it can have its democratically expressed wishes (which might involve ‘centralisation’, or ‘a single gigantic plan’, regarding some profound issue facing humanity) overridden by ‘individuals’, who claim that their own interests/purposes/needs/plans necessarily precede and trump those of the majority, and that those individuals are the ones to determine this, outside of any democratic political controls.
Suffice to say, this is not my view of ‘democratic socialism’.
“All I am saying is we need to be careful about how we phrase our ideas so as to avoid any misunderstanding”
At one time there was a term to reflect our ideas clearly – “social democracy” and it is sad that it has gone the way of so much of the language of revolution – co-opted and changed to mean something else
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