Originator of a THESIS on money’s incapacity
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Prakash RP wrote:Hi Adam, what's your position on this point ? Do you approve of this statement by Marcos ? I wish you stopped hiding behind the shield of silly silence and behaved the way befitting a man with backbone, a true communist.
Adam already it made clear to you.
Quote:I apologise profusely, but this correspondence must send now. I wish you the best of success in your endeavours.Prakash RP wrote:' I think he's more [ like ] what Marx called a "crude communist". ' ( comment #274 by ALB ) You seem to be over-certain that Marx created this expression to mean people like this lone guy who's perhaps the first to enlighten humanity about the irreconcilable contradiction between the idea of a classless society and the principle of ' from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs '.You have NOT enlightensed anyone, you are being SILLY.The contradiction is in your notion, that there can be a classless society and yet still have compulsory direction OVER the workforce.Your idea of "equal recompense" for "equal work" is a reflection of the exchange of equal values in commodity society and makes NO SENSE in a socialist/communist society where there won't be commodity-production. The basic socialist/communist principle is "from each according to ability, to each according to needs".That's part of the ABC of socialism.Production will be for use of everyone..Production will be by voluntary 'self determined' labour, cooperatively organised locally, regionally and globally by free men and women.Access to the social wealth will be free for all according to 'self determined' needs.
In the communist manifesto Marx also wrote about the bourgeois communism
gnome wrote:Prakash the crude TrollHe is also a Stalinist and this forum is for socialists. Don't blame the trolls.
Prakash RP wrote:' You're thesis is wrong. ' ( comment #297 by Steve-SanFranci… ) Then you believe money is not meant, by its definition, to measure the value of a commodity ?!! 1. Well, would you let us know what led you to question the truth of the view that money is meant to measure the value ( exchange-value ) of a commodity ? 2. Would you let us know what you think money is truly meant to measure ?3. Would you let us know what you believe the right definition of money is ?4. Would you let us know how you're paid for your work ( if you're a worker ) or what you receive in exchange for your merchandise ( if you're a trader ) ?5. Would you let us know what led you to believe that money can measure the worth of a commodity ?6. Would you let us know what you think your right worth in money is ? And what are your criteria you've used to find it ?7. Would you let us know how much the exact price of a pair of shoes that you consider worthy of you is and how you justify it ? ' … the value of your personal time is stated in $/hr. ' 8. If money cannot measure the value ( exchange-value ) of a commodity, how can any statement giving the value of ' your personal time ' in '$/hr ' be reckoned correct ? I'm very much impressed by your comment #297 which led the questions listed above to come into my mind. I wish you'd oblige me with your kind replies to all the above questions. Thanks a lot for responding to my comments.@Prakish, Thanks for asking.1) The question of what money was meant to do is largely irrelevant to me and I concern myself with what people actually use money to do in current times. Money has a lot of definitions and can be used in a lot of different ways (affordance). I would say that money is currently used mostly to measure only the capital value in any sale or exchange. All other value besides capital value is discarded and not counted in any exchange unless it can be somehow converted into money via a mode of exchange before purchase. That's just how I see money being used and what it's doing today. If you count food stamps as money then the definition changes a little since food stamps often get extra discounts on healthy food like fruits and vegitable. I use my food stamps at the farmers market and get matching dollar tokens I can use only to buy fruits and vegitables. "food stamps" as a form of money do not work the same way as "cash" as a form of money. There's also coupons which are kind of like money but require money to work too. Coupons are a complementary form of money that are rarely used alone without some other form of money to help. Each form of money comes with it's own laws and terms and conditions for usage assert obligations and rights to it's users for verifying the money value and enforcing exchanges and use of the money. When I use the word "money" I'm generally refering to any accounting system that is consistent internally and allows exchange and transfer offers of any form of value using metrics. So I think of votes and a scorecard and upvotes and hours of your time and gold coins and fiat money and coupons and food stamps are all things that can be counted and given from one person to another as money. 2) Money is a counting system and like any accounting system can in theory be used to measure anything. But some counting systems (money) are better at measuring and exchanging some kinds of services and goods (such as capital value) but very poor at measuring and exchanging other kinds of good and services (like clean air). This is because the value of distributed clean air must be converted into private capital value using a mode of exchange. Most modes of exchange are innefficient and costly in losses from terms of any value exchange. So if you want to convert from money to votes and win an election you need a mode of exchange such as a political action comitee or an advertising campaign. Votes are one currency and "money (bank account tranfers)"I think the problem is that we don't need just one form of money, we need several and we need publicly controlled and managed modes of exchange between forms of money. Different kinds of money measure different things and are more or less usefull depending on the nature of what's being exchanged. For example, using capital based dollar money is a poor choice for exchanging things with near zero capital reproduction costs like one additional movie download. The production cost of the latest blockbuster movie "guardians of the galaxy" is a fixed cost distributed equally to all paying customers and represents a mode of exchanging "entertainment hours" for dollars. But we could create a different mode of distribution and costs that charged more to rich people than to poor people in dollars for the same movie download if we use a form of "money (any accounting instrument)" based on personal hours of your time. 3) The right definition of money depends on how you are going to use the money. Capital based money is good for using to trade and exchang capital goods like a ton of iron that have mostly capital value. Personal time based money is good for measuring and trading personal time based goods and services like a movie that takes an hour to watch or vacation that's going to last a week. If you want money to create a sustainable green planet then you need a form of money better suited to measuring environmental sustainability like carbon coin that prices every product based on the carbon cost to produce it and ignores any other forms of value in setting the price unless that value can be converted into "carbon cost" units via a mode of value exchange. 4) I do all my work on the project for no money at all. I get investment credit in the project and voting rights on the project based on how many hours of work I contribute and I can use that "money" to buy things with that are sold in minutes of personal time. Right now, hourly based currencies are not fequently accepted by most business so spending my hourly based money is pretty difficult. Since some business can make more money with smart pricing in hourly currrencies in some markets, I expect it will be adopted by buyers and sellers in the free market sooner rather than later.5) Well, I wouldn't say I necessarily believe that "money" can measure the worth of the commodity. I would say that the worth of any real commodity such as a ton of iron Or even a fictional imaginary commodity like "environmental sustainability" or "hours of your personal time" or "food stamp dollars" can be ranked or valued comparatively to produce a numberical value that is used similar to money. it's undeniable that we can subjectively measure the value of anything we can put a number on whether it's some block of metal (we measure it's weight and purity with tools to assign it a value) or weather it's an hour of personal time (we measure it with a survey or line waiting test), or whether it's environmental sustainability (we measure that with rather complex metrics, but we can still put a number on it and use it for money) or whether its food stamps (we measure it by counting them and it's easy). There is a convenient and easy to implement mode of exchange between hours of your time and any other currency via the method of line wait pricing of your personal time based on your value paid to be first in line in a line sorted by the secondary currency value. 6) Personally? My money is measured in minutes of time and it's value is computed based on surveys of the results that take 15 minutes to complete on average. If poeple spend their time reading what I write then I get a percent of their reading time as commision. The more peope read what I write the more the value of my time/money is worth to the world and in exchange for capital based money too. Those are the terms and conditions (aka laws) for using my money based on hours of your personal time. My hourly based form of money comes with automatic metrics that are public such as average line wait time, customer service minutes included in the purchase, sellers promised value in minutes of my time from the product, Actual value in minutes of my time as I determine after purchase, etc. Since each form of money comes with it's own accounting system and rules for exchange internally, I can create complicated rules for my money that are verified and enforced by mechanisms inherent to the money. For example, all receipts are public and can be voted on by purchasers for satisfaction and after sale price adjustments based on disputes. Disputed transactions that are made in hOEP (hOurs Equals Price) currrency are settled by a crowdsource jury paid on commision in minutes of time based on the number of minutes the jury spends deliberating. I have metrics for different things I've written or video's I've made based on the number of minutes I spent creating the video or writing or other. These metrics for production are measured in minutes and the metrics for value produced by the production is also measured in minutes.7) I found my last 3 pairs of shoes in the garbage or on the street abandoned. I paid no money for them, but they each cost me some of my personal time to find them, bring them home, clean them up and inspect, and wear them. For my most recent pair of work boots that used to be for motocross riding protection I spent about 1 hour because the zipper on the side was busted and I had to replace it. they're great boots and have saved me over 1 hour of annoyance and reduced my foot injuries and improved my physcial security and abilities worth about 3 hours. They're a bit hard to get into and a little tight, but very durable for when I go out and collect garbage for my workfare (workfare is like welfare and is a subsidy program to get poor people to work for 2 days a week @ 3 hours a day in return for up to $467 that they pay towards my rent to keep me from living on the streets where they'd have to pay for city services and deal with me being homeless. Prior to the boots, I found some rich techie shoes that I wear when I present my project to San Francisco techies. the Techie shoes took only half an hour too find and clean up and repair, but they only produce value in minutes for me when I wear them once a week to go to the code for san francisco hackathons where I work on my project and I don't know how much they impress the other techies. I think maybe I value the techie shoes at 3 hours of my time too? Finally before that was another techie pair of shoes that didn't fit well and I rarely wear. They look great but just aren't comfortable and wearing them is a negative 3% value that I count for all my minutes when I wear them. I guess that makes my first pair of techie shoes a negative value over all and I don't wear them much. I might throw them out. I have declaired zero dollars on my tax statement for the last 3 years and the government tax collectors seem to accept this and I believe it's true.. 8 I'm not sure I'm arguing for or against money having a set value in measuring a commodity. I'm more aguing that money is a useful tool for measuring some specefic aspects of value. Capital based money is useful for measuring capital based value of a commodity. popularity based money (upvotes) is usefull for measuring the value of popularity. But the exchange rate between popularity based money and capital based money is determined weird. Exchanging between most currencies like popularty converted into dollars or dollars converted to popularity is tricky and requires a mode of exchange. the most of exchange could be market, legislation, free, etc. Some modes of exchange work better for exchanging some things than others. When I say somoene time is worth $5/hr, then I mean a person is wiilling to wait in line for an hour in exchange for saving $5. However the next day or the next week a person might not be willing to wait an hour in line for the same $5 discount in dollars. So I want to distinguish between money having a set value and money being a usefull tool for agreement of the value and exchanging the value. p,.s You also mentioned. "the irreconcilable contradiction between the idea of a classless society and the principle of ' from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' I think to understand this it helps to realize that socialist and communist use what others consider a very limited and weird definition of a class society. Socialist do not generally acknowledge or accept class as a spectrum based on hourly rate or net worth or race or religion. Instead socialist define class based on a persons role in society or a business organization. Class is determined by a panel of socialist experts applying socialist preconceptions to declaire a person to be a member of a class. A society where the some people have a lot and some have little might not be a class society in the definition of socialism because socialist don't define class based on income. In a socialist society it might be that black people choose to live in junk yards and garbage piles and white poeple live on likefront cottages, but that would not necessarily be a class based society on socialist terminology. For poeple who use the common definition of "class" to mean "any group or collection with similar properties" then what you say makes sense, but that is not the interpreation or language socialist generally use or accept as legitimate.What I expect from introducing hOEP (hOurs Equals Price) technology into the economy is a viral evolution of the technology which produces something like socialism. It would be very strongly based on your income but with high class mobility to become rich or poor very very quickly. You could for example upgrade to a rich class for one hour and live as pauper class for 5 hours to pay for it. Some people will still be better off because they're more productive per minute of their time in minutes of value. But if you are poor, you could literally live comfortably just by waiting in line for approximately 25 hours a week. Imagine a world where everybody pays for transportation with "hours of their time". In such a hypothetical economy a person who is destitute and worth $0/hr could ride for free on busses and plains anytime anywhere. But there's a cost for this benefit because in a free market sellers will sell to the highest bidder first, so if you're time is worth $0/hr you have to go to the end of the line and wait till their is excess capital capacity for you to get your free ride to anywhere. In markets where there is significant excess capacity the line waits and convenience could be very low even for very poor people. Effectively, by introducing hOEP (hOurs Equals Price) money into an economy, we get the emergent result of an automatic Universal Basic Income built into the currency rules using these carefully crafted terms and conditions for the money.
' You fully deserve that allegation in my opinion. ' ( comment #303 by robbo 203 ) No, I don't deserve that allegation . On the contrary, I think it's you that deserves to be accused of bringing false charges against me. In my comment ( #301 ), I clearly stated that ' I want you to take cognisance of the fact that not all humans are naturally sensible and dutiful. ' It's implied that some humans are naturally silly and neglectful of their duty. It's you, and you alone, that happens to be to blame for missing or pretending to miss the term ' not ' in the expression ' not all humans '. I also stated plain and point-blank that there're and there'll be for all eternity the workshy alongside of workaholics ' in keeping with laws of Nature as there are and there will always be flowering plants, nonflowering plants, and cold-blooded animals alongside of the warm-blooded, OK ? ' ( #301 ) What I said implies that by Nature's design, humanity consists of the good, the bad, the progressive, and the reactionary as well as the hard-working and the lazy and slothful. The distinction between my view and the ' typical bourgeois prejudice ' that cannot see or pretends not to see the good, the sensible, the hard-working, etc is glaring like the mid-day summer sun. You seem to have chosen, to the pleasure of the bourgeois, to make such mistakes. And you don't seem to be sensible enough to realise that by such mistakes you're actually fooling yourself and squandering your own precious time too. ' You now try to wriggle out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself … ' ( #303 ) I'm not trying, nor do I feel I need try, to wriggle out of any hole. I still stick to my earlier position and believe that participation in economic activities ( i.e. activities meant to produce wealth ) can't be, be it in the capitalist order or in the communist order, voluntary ( #281 ), and that if the workshy are allowed freedom to shun work under communism, it'd threaten, without doubt, the survival of the communist order ( #281 & #301 ). ' Many people don’t like the idea of being bossed around at work … ' ( #303 ) I don't think I ever said anything suggesting that I'm for making people consent to ' being bossed around at work '. ' you can be certain that [ the ] problem will [ be ] overcome by the very simple and very effective mechanism that is called social disapproval. ' ( ibid ) 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. The point is the principle of ' from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' is impractical and incompatible with the free communist society where life must be free from exploitation, deprivation, domination, discrimination, and all other sorts of injustice. Thus, freedom under communism is well defined, and it by no means means freedom for the silly and the wicked to do whatever they like. ' What on earth are you talking about? Your thinking on this matter seems very confused and muddled. … ' ( #303 ) I was talking about communism, and what I said was aimed at enlightening you about the ABCs of communism because you all proved to be lamentably lacking in this knowledge. No wonder that my comments seem ' very confused and muddled ' to you. ' It is coerced labour just as much as that part of the worker’s labour that goes to reproduce her labour power. ' ( #303 ) 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 ). ' You are the one who wants a system of coerced labour , … ' ( #303 ) This is another instance of unfounded allegation brought by you against me. It's also another silly instance of your intellectual immaturity. I'm a communist that claims to have a clear concept of the basics of communism. I know communism is meant to rid the capitalist working-day of the unpaid-labour, and thus do away with the exploitation of the poor millions by the 1% . Under the communist mode of production, the compulsory ' minimum length of the working-day ' consists of only necessary-labour time that must be rewarded with its equivalent amount of wealth. Communism doesn't pay for any work. But then, it never refuses to reward any piece of work duly. For this reason, your share of the social workload, although it must be compulsory for every able-bodied man or woman, you included, of working age, can't count as ' coerced ', IMHO. Only if viewed from the perspective of the workshy and the silly, should the compulsory necessary labour under communism appear ' coerced '. And so it's only the silly and the workshy that should view communism as the worst system.
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
@Robbo, Prakash, Anyone interested in reading. This is a response to http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/originator-thesis-moneys-incapacity?page=33#comment-46979 and to save space and reading I only include the parts of the convo below relevant to my reply.
robbo203 wrote:, , , 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) 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 prejudiceI agree with your about this robbo203. But I want to focus on on particular form of work you're describing but don't name, "waiting in line". Waiting in line to buy something or even get it for free is volutary labor that fits the definition of the gothe programme critique? 1) not renumerated in a capitalist or socialist society currently. "most work is voluntary and unremunerated – referring to work that falls outside of the money economy."2) Geting to the front of the line has become "not only a means of life but life's prime want"
robbo203 wrote: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 pointIs waiting in line compulsory coerced labor? waiting in line and line order is generally enforced and done by others in line, not a boss. It's cooperative production. Waiting in lines to buy or get things for free are genrally self organizing and not a paid form of work, but it is meaninfull work of "getting along and forming a line and waiting" as understood by sociologist. So "waiting" is a form of work you can do in a line. I should mention that you're absolutely right people don't like waiting in line because it's a system where their labor (waiting patently) is forced and they'd rather just go directly to the front of the line, but others in line force them to get in line in the order they arrived. Notice this is not a boss forcing people to work, it is other people forcing the people to wait in line using a mutually agreed system of order and no financial market compensation. Can we consider waiting in line no more forced than doing dishes? Waiting in line seems like a natural system and line waits exist in socialism dont' they?
robbo203 wrote:. . . How is compulsory labour not also coerced labour? . . .Any labor that is compulsory is required by natural or man made law. Coerced labor is only that labor which is required by man made law. So washing your dishes at home for no money so you have clean dishes to eat with at your next meal is compulsory, but no coerced labor. Washing someone elses dishes on the job for money is compulsary labor AND coerced labor. Waiting in line to buy something or get it for free is "compulsory, but not coerced labor".
robbo203 wrote: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 communismConsider "waiting in line" again to test your arguments? Social disaproval for line breakers is strong and can result in fights or road rage and lead to murder in extreme cases. Waiting rules and norms are freely chosen by the people waiting in line and not part of the capitalist money system of renumerated labor, and enforced freely by free individuals. Consider, what would happen if we used "waiting in line minutes" as a form of currency? and we had a way to measure line waits and the line waiting method system were evolved to allow things like voting in line so people can vote who goes ahead of them in line or not and for what reasons.
Would like to add the following points to my comment #336. ' And again I see you make no attempt to relate the point I make about the workload that a communist society will face to the idea of motivation to work. ' ( #303 ) I'm not against ' the idea of motivation to work ', but I don't think it's a cure for workshyness or neglectfulness, a natural trait of some people. ' You sound like the Conservative Government’s Employment Secretary … ' ( #303 ) The truth remains true always, regardless of who states it and where it's stated. ' Personally I consider the very term "workshy" which you have chosen to use here reveals the same kind of contempt for the workers that you might expect of a capitalist politician. ' ( #303 ) Personal respect and contempt has got nothing to do with the truth of a statement or an idea. Because the capitalists detest the workshy that, by some SPGB members' standards, deserve great respect, it doesn't follow that workshyness deserves respect or that if the workshy are allowed freedom to shun work, they won't cause any harm to the foundation of the social order. And by this lone communist's standards, neither the workshy nor the working community on the whole that find nothing wrong with their wage-slavery deserve respect. They're benighted, lowly, and foolish— so much so that they aren't aware that wage-slavery doesn't fit in with the Principle of HEALTHY & MEANINGFUL LIVING . ' Workers are not workshy. If they were, the system would collapse tomorrow. ' ( #303 ) 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. ' Many who you malign as workshy will be found working hard at all sorts of things which a capitalist politician might not consider to be work – since it is done outside the money economy – but it is still nevertheless very clearly “work”. ' ( #303 ) As I see it, workshyness is defined as natural aversion to all sorts of work. I've got no idea of what, other than the compulsion like need for money to buy necessities and luxuries of life or something that makes jailed people work, can make the workshy turn into hard-working people. 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 '. Nevertheless, I'm not aware of what in the theory of communism may be useful to cure workshyness and turn the workshy into work-loving, hard-working guys. ' Once again you seem to have no comprehension of this point in your enthusiasm to smear your fellow workers as “workshy”. ' ( #303 ) Once again you make a false and silly allegation against me. And it's another instance reflecting your silliness and intellectual immaturity. The sensible know that by such silly comments, the commenters lower themselves and turn into objects of scorn and ridicule. ' Of course you are adopting a pessimistic view … ' ( #303 ) This is another instance showing how silly and immature you are. I still stick to my point ( i.e. humanity consists of the sensible, the dutiful, the workaholics, etc alongside of the silly, the neglectful, the workshy, etc, etc ; for this reason, if the silly and the workshy are allowed freedom to shun work or do whatever they like, it's certain to endanger the very foundation of and thus the entire communist order ) and hold that I'm a hundred percent correct on this point. This is an incontestable argument showing the hollowness of your position and the principle of ' “from each according to ability to each according to need ". ' Would like to know by what definition of pessimism, the truth deserves to be viewed as pessimistic. ' I don’t think you are a communist. ' ( #303 ) 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. ' No communist would repudiate the principle “from each according to ability to each according to need ”.' ( #303 ) I've already thrown enough light on the irreconcilable contradiction between the idea of classless communist order and the silly principle at issue. For this reason, communists cannot stand for this principle as long as the way of reconciling the two ideas remains undiscovered. ' The way I see it the kind of society you advocate will reproduce the very system of class exploitation you claim to oppose. It will inevitably concentrate power in the hands of a techno-managerial elite … “equal sharing of social workload for an equal share in social wealth”. ' ( #303 ) The issue of whether my view of communism, the classless communist order, and the contradiction existing between the classless communist order and the principle “from each according to ability to each according to need ” is right or wrong is quite different from the issue of what sort of social order with my view as its basis will truly emerge. It seems you're aware of the correctness of my view. You're still opposed to it as you fear that it'll lead to the concentration of ' power in the hands of a techno-managerial elite '. Nevertheless, I don't see eye to eye with you on this point. ' How for example, do you compare the labour of a janitor with the labour of neurosurgeon … ' ( #303) 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. Any more questions ? Please try to put forward sensible questions.
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 survivePreviously 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 wrote: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 assertsPrakash 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 survivePreviously 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
It was Lenin who argued that the Communism society might collapse or that the communist society might return to establish capitalism again, it was just a justification to repress their opponents.
' 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
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 workYou 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
robbo203 wrote: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 workYou 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 possess that technological 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
You can give him a recipe for Chinese food, and he will cook and serve Greek food. It is a wasting of times and wearing out the keyboard. He will repeat the same mistakes over and over again and he will change the phrases, but they are the same mistakes and distortions. Masturbation is more fruitful
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