Originator of a THESIS on money’s incapacity

[Alan Kerr]

@ALB Thank you for comment #105 You say that you are "… not advocating that we only count the labour-time expended at the last stage of the production of something. That would be absurd and lead to the anomalies that you point out. But this is what those who like the idea of labour-time vouchers are committed to as their scheme is based on recording the time spent by "living labour" producing goods and providing services and on fixing the "prices" of goods the vouchers can be used to claim to reflect of this…" Yes, that is commodity production for market. Why is that? The answer is that there is no counting (any better than a market) for what kinds of labour, and how much labour is socially necessary. Hence, need for market price continues. You say that you are "… not at all arguing against calculation but just against the need to calculate the labour-time content of everthing, i.e the need for some general unit of account. Of course socialist society will have to count what work resources are available to produce what is needed, but it will also have to count what other resources are required but in specific units. Labour is counted by time (and particular skill), steel in tonnes, electricity in killowatt-hours, and so on…" But, when we all count our labour hours (the last stage plus previous stage) then we all know, or work-out, the labour time content of everything. Students (where possible) gain from linking training with practice. The new society needs multi-skilled workers. Still, to cost in labour time, the new society has to do with its average labour-hour of no particular skill. You ask "Why try to reduce all producive resources to a laour-time content and to make a point of minimising this — that's what the economic laws of capitalism work to bring about. Even work-time itself need not be minimised when the work is interesting and satisfying. Socialism allows humans precisely to escape from the tyranny of minimising costs that capitalism imposes and allows other thngs to be taken into account such as working conditions and impact on the environment. Labour-time counting and minimising would tend to bring about the same result that capitalism's "law of value" does." The new society always tests substitute ways and means, and there it also wants to know the labour-time costs. Labour-time costs have always asserted themselves. The question here, for the working-class, is shall we let this happen blindly, or make it happen openly.

[ALB]

That's what I thought you thought.

[Alan Kerr]

 Prakash we are pleased, of course, that you brought your thesis here. That’s so even though your thesis is not right. Your thesis got you this far but now don’t let it hold you back. Please keep on with Marx' book. To come-up with original discovery first we need good clear view of what others have done. You can do this. Then we need to see what others fail to see in past or current history. For that, we need work and good luck, so good luck to you.

[Alan Kerr]

@ALB, Then which thought does Ludwig von Mises attack and where?

[Anonymous]

northern light wrote:

I wholeheartedly agree with Marcos. While there must be discourse at all levels, let us not scare off curious, or even doubtful members of the working class, who take the trouble to find us.

Well, if we want to call ourselves a school of socialism. What is the purpose of writing so many articles and compiling pamphlets and public meeting? We must motivate our potential members and sympathizers to go and study those resources. We have our own textbooks, therefore we must use them

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@ALB, Then which thought does Ludwig von Mises attack and where?

Baron von Mises's objection to labour-time accounting can be found here:https://www.mises.org/library/economic-calculation-socialist-commonwealth/html/c/16#currentI think he has a point when he brings up the practical difficulty, in the absence of a market for labour power (i.e of the wages system), of reducing skilled labour to so many units of simple labour. In theory it could be done but in practice it would be an arbitrary, administrative decision.Of course he is completely wrong when he writes:

von Mises wrote:

Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism; without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation.

That is simply assumng what is to be proved, though I dare say you might agree with his definition that "without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation".

[Alan Kerr]

Then Mises has no point against Crusoe. Does Crusoe use prices? No. Does Crusoe keep count? Yes. Does Crusoe need to reduce 1 hr of skilled into more hrs of unskilled labour? No. All Crusoe does small-scale we can do but full-scale. To be fair I’ll read Mises’ point as I get the chance.

[Anonymous]

Marcos wrote:

One of the reason is that we are wasting too much time in intellectual discussion, and we are not addressing issues that are related to the actual interests of the world working class. 

 and  again. But then I would be repeating myself.I have made a number of suggestions relating to this and which is why we need to start threads of importance to our class interests and ignore inane bull. 

[Dave B]

i I think some people do like writing posts about not liking other peoples irrelevant posts- which must be more irrelevant than writing irrelevant posts? I suppose the answer is to write an interesting post oneself. Maybe something on something like this. With the capitalist class don’t like the NHS because it is ideologically linked to socialism and something that is free and provided accorded to need? She is quite correct in her way as the capitalist US neo- liberals have said the same thing in bald terms. A nurse friend of mine who so happens to live less than a mile away got sacked a fewyears ago for saying stuff like that one was saying. For bringing the NHS into disrepute even though she was saying it anomalously in radio interviews and as a shop steward etc. She won her case after a long legal dispute; her union disowned her.  https://www.rt.com/shows/going-underground/416490-nhs-privatisation-may-session/   On dissenting views re capitalism I have no illusions as to the material in the following however the capitalist class are spooked and they probably have good reason to be. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/thought-police-21st-century/   

[Anonymous]

Dave B wrote:

I think some people do like writing posts about not liking other peoples irrelevant posts- which must be more irrelevant than writing irrelevant posts? I suppose the answer is to write an interesting post oneself. 

Well, 'some people' do write interesting posts  And some don't.

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

Dave B wrote:

I think some people do like writing posts about not liking other peoples irrelevant posts- which must be more irrelevant than writing irrelevant posts? I suppose the answer is to write an interesting post oneself. 

Well, 'some people' do write interesting posts  And some don't.

Since I was one of the ones that raised the same issues. I am going to give my opinion, and since the shoe fits me I am going to wear it too. I agree with Vin there are many posts that are very interesting, and we have thousands of articles and pamphlets that are very interesting too, but some posts in this forum are just a wasting of time and space. This forum is not a committee to try academic thesis, this is a forum to educate the working class, for them to understand that this stupid economic system must be uprooted and it must be sent to the dumpster, This is not a place to try some socialist innovations, or new experiments which have been tried by others and they never worked, or they were a total failure, we know what we want, we know what we are looking for, and we know our main objective, we only have one program, one single program which is socialism, our business is to educate and make socialists.    

[Anonymous]

Dave B wrote:

i I think some people do like writing posts about not liking other peoples irrelevant posts- which must be more irrelevant than writing irrelevant posts? I suppose the answer is to write an interesting post oneself. Maybe something on something like this. With the capitalist class don’t like the NHS because it is ideologically linked to socialism and something that is free and provided accorded to need? She is quite correct in her way as the capitalist US neo- liberals have said the same thing in bald terms. A nurse friend of mine who so happens to live less than a mile away got sacked a fewyears ago for saying stuff like that one was saying. For bringing the NHS into disrepute even though she was saying it anomalously in radio interviews and as a shop steward etc. She won her case after a long legal dispute; her union disowned her.  https://www.rt.com/shows/going-underground/416490-nhs-privatisation-may-session/   On dissenting views re capitalism I have no illusions as to the material in the following however the capitalist class are spooked and they probably have good reason to be. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/thought-police-21st-century/  We do not have to be so sarcastic because Leninist groups or Leninist forum will not publish or post that kind of articles either.   

[Anonymous]

Marcos wrote:

Dave B wrote:

i I think some people do like writing posts about not liking other peoples irrelevant posts- which must be more irrelevant than writing irrelevant posts? I suppose the answer is to write an interesting post oneself. Maybe something on something like this. With the capitalist class don’t like the NHS because it is ideologically linked to socialism and something that is free and provided accorded to need? She is quite correct in her way as the capitalist US neo- liberals have said the same thing in bald terms. A nurse friend of mine who so happens to live less than a mile away got sacked a fewyears ago for saying stuff like that one was saying. For bringing the NHS into disrepute even though she was saying it anomalously in radio interviews and as a shop steward etc. She won her case after a long legal dispute; her union disowned her.  https://www.rt.com/shows/going-underground/416490-nhs-privatisation-may-session/   On dissenting views re capitalism I have no illusions as to the material in the following however the capitalist class are spooked and they probably have good reason to be. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/thought-police-21st-century/     

We do not have to be so sarcastic because Leninist groups or forum will not post that kind of articles either

[Alan Kerr]

 The above quote from Marx, about Robinson Crusoe, is “… in essence the production relations in a new socialist world…” (Mike Schauerte Socialist Standard for September 2017.) http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2017/no-1357… I've read Mises' point on this now and I still agree with Mike Schauerte. If workers, like Marcos and Vin, really think that the essence does not matter, then they have no alternative to the market and its problems.

[Anonymous]

Democratic control of production and free access. As Marcus said, you don't need a PhD, it's not rocket science. Children understand it until they are conditioned by capitalism .

[Author]

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