Alan Kerr
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@Bijou Drains The means to work have now grown too big for the household. We can use big means only in common. We need to both own and to control big means in common. This does not refer to the private household.
Thank you Robbo, yes I said "There is no question of attaching a value to the product. Total social product already contains social labour." Crusoe does count his labour better than the market. For Crusoe one hour of skilled = 1 hour of simple labour. We need to do as Crusoe does but counting with computers.It's true that Crusoe can miscount and mishap is possible. In practice, builders expect 10 per cent waste on materials. Crusoe must likewise work out probabilities and keep a reserve to cover for this.The answer is please compare what Crusoe does with a market and with what you want.
@Bijou Drains buy some raffle tickets from me and you will be likely to win a prize.Solving workers' problems is too important to leave to guess, and more so since guess will not work. By counting, we do not need likelihood. We get security.
Robbo203 and ALB,By Justus von Liebig's "Law of the Minimum" we may learn 2 ways to grow a tonne of corn.By the same law we may learn that we use a different size land area to get a tonne of corn for each way.Now which way saves and which way wastes labour?I see three ways to count labour 1) price or 2) count social labour itself or 3) guess it.
Thank you Robbo, Then let's be clear. There is no question of attaching a value to the product. Total social product already contains social labour. It was inevitable that we lost count of how many social labour hours our products cost. This is why we must now make things for exchange as commodities. Only in a commodity producing society does it seem as if value in exchange is attaching to the product. That is illusion. Really, value is social labour-time that it takes to produce, or to reproduce the product. In a society, that knows what its products cost in labour-time (and such knowledge is now un-stoppable) that illusion is impossible. In a society, that knows what its products cost in labour-time the production of commodities and the market are impossible. See above and Crusoe solves all of your unsolvable labour counting problems. ALB, see my comment #136. I already assume the whole distribution question open. You guess everything. It is without counting at the time that you are guessing that your unworkable production will work.
But we also have another way to take care. The way is not and can never be complete as we improve our way all the time like a machine. But do we have a way. And our way serves us well. How does this work?Yes, it's true, our way to take care may involve pure guesswork. We may guess, that this x seems true to us. And we may find that other people also guess or say the same. But did we check yet? No.So next, at the right place and time, we take care to measure; count, compare and check as best we can. Most times our first guess is not true. That’s unless we already measured; counted, compared and checked enough to narrow down to just 2 likely possibilities. In that case, our first guesses may be partly true perhaps just 50 per cent of the time.Just about everyone, especially if they went to school, gets this plain need to check with care. That’s until we find this forum,–and here we try to discuss this issue of the alternative to a market.Here we find three or so writers demand some whole different way to check.What different way is this?We might call it guess-ology.1) You just hazard a guess at what seems to you to be true. And, to you, (with a straight face?) that's proof enough.2) You become all religious, sorry, I mean "Talmudic" over your guess.ALB finds that x seems to be true to ALB since x seemed to be true to Pieter Lawrence. Pieter Lawrence, on the other hand, finds that x seems to be true to Pieter Lawrence since x seemed to be true to ALB.If you repeat this crude guess-ology over enough, I hope you will see why you fail to convince. Please try to convince Dave b to use your guess-ology in his work, as analytical chemist, in the food industry. You will fail as you are also failing right now to convince Aeiough. Or please try to convince the schools that guess-ology is the more exact way to prove truth in maths and science. Or please try to convince all industry that guess-ology is the more exact way to prove key facts. First, convince everyone to trust in guess-ology, in all problems of life. And if guess-ology is workable in practice then, yes, I'll push my copy of Marx' Capital aside and trust in guess-ology too.But until then, why should we bother with your guess-ology? What has your guess-ology to do with changing from one whole economic system to another? Why should we trust in your way to prove as we switch to Crusoe's way to labour,–full scale?You would have no right to risk your unworkable way in practice without checking, as Crusoe does, by counting our labour-time too.Please see the Socialist Standard for Sep. 2017.
@ ALBLet's say that Crusoe notes, from his books, that it takes him 3 average hours to fetch a dozen oysters at low-tide. Next Crusoe finds new oyster-beds so 3 average hours will now get him not just one but two dozen oysters. So now, Crusoe can eat more oysters and fewer nuts. What's wrong with the practice of counting labour hours so far? I do not get your point here.Or look at it the other way. Oyster-beds get run-down so 3 average hours will only get Crusoe 6 oysters. For now Crusoe will eat fewer oysters and more nuts. What's wrong with that?
Young Master Smeet and ALB,A red-herring is something that misleads or distracts from an issue. Do you realize that you have just brought us a red-herring here? Here we were discussing the Marx quotes above about Robinson Crusoe. See also the Socialist Standard for September 2017.There in Crusoe's way, to organize production, either small or full-scale, can you point to a commodity as in your present Marx quotes? I read Marx quotes about Crusoe. I read the article in the September 2017 Socialist Standard. There I see the alternative to a market. I still cannot see any commodities there in that alternative to a market.Now you need to show us the market with commodities – in Crusoe's way. Otherwise, your present stuff about market and Proudhon's labour-chits are just red-herring here. I do not mind discussing that but, to be clear, let's not get things mixed-up!
You would have no right to test your unworkable way in practice without testing, as best we can, by counting.
"… That future society will find in detail (counting properly with computers) what works best at the time."(From my comment #86)
There's something wrong here DaveYou wrote:"If work becomes a pleasure then it is not ‘work’ in my opinion and thus has ‘no value’ as labour time value is predicated on it being shit and something you have to do and time lost in the enjoyment of your lifetime rather than having a fun time."(From your comment #135)See ALB reply's to you"That's the only part I understood smiley It's a good point."(ALB comment #137)Ordinary economists notice private point of view. We need to see past that to social point of view."… From the subjectivist standpoint, therefore, the standpoint from which Böhm-Bawerk levels his criticism, the labor theory of value appears untenable from the very outset. And it is because he adopts this standpoint that Böhm-Bawerk is unable to perceive that Marx's concept of labor is totally opposed to his own. Already in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx had emphasized his opposition to Adam Smith's subjectivist outlook by writing "[Smith] fails to see the objective equalization of different kinds of labor which the social process forcibly carries out, mistaking it for the subjective equality of the labors of individuals." [2] In truth, Marx is entirely unconcerned with the individual motivation of the estimate of value. In capitalist society it would be absurd to make "trouble" the measure of value, for speaking generally the owners of the products have taken no trouble at all, whereas the trouble has been taken by those who have produced but do not own them. With Marx, in fact, every individual relationship is excluded from the conception of value-creating labor; labor is regarded, not as something which arouses feelings of pleasure or its opposite, but as an objective magnitude, inherent in the commodities, and determined by the degree of development of social productivity. Whereas for Böhm-Bawerk, labor seems merely one of the determinants in personal estimates of value, in Marx's view labor is the basis and connective tissue of human society, and in Marx's view the degree of productivity of labor and the method of organization of labor determine the character of social life. Since labor, viewed in its social function as the total labor of society of which each individual labor forms merely an aliquot part, is made the principle of value, economic phenomena are subordinated to objective laws independent of the individual will and controlled by social relationships…"From Rudolf Hilferding: Böhm-Bawerk's Criticism of Marx(Near start of Chapter Three THE SUBJECTIVIST OUTLOOK)https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1904/criticism/ch03.htmThat's the private point of view and the social point of view.Crusoe can see it.That’s Robinson Crusoe, but not ALB Crusoe.Note to ALB please see my question #133
ALB thank you hopefully your answers to my questions above will inspire me to read all of that long-long quote.
ALBI did not mean to give the impression that you wanted commodity production. I said that you must have workable alternative or commodity production is where you must end up.Were you just saying that the labour-time voucher scheme would not last for long? Then let's assume that we have no need for what you call the labour-time voucher scheme at all.But now which Crusoe system is workable? Is it Robinson Crusoe? Or is it ALB Crusoe?See question from my comment #133
@ALB, On another island, almost the same as Robinson's island let's meet ALB Crusoe. ALB Crusoe keeps note of all he produces. But ALB Crusoe has memory loss since a nut fell on his head. ALB Crusoe forgets to wind-up his watch and his watch works just intermittently. Can you see why ALB Crusoe can never be quite sure of labour-time cost of any product? No? The whole thing is a mess. For one product, ALB Crusoe may know just the last labour-time but not the raw materials. For another product, ALB Crusoe may know the labour-time in the raw materials but not the last labour. In the end, ALB Crusoe does not know the real cost of his products at all. Although ALB Crusoe is the owner of the means of production for all that, it is just as if we had split production between two private firms producing for a market. A kind of information black-out divides the different kinds of labour. Of course, this divide skews all ALB Crusoe's bookkeeping and his economic choices. Please note Dave's point above about raw-materials. See my comment #102 Here I just ask you, now you've seen both Robinson Crusoe's and ALB Crusoe's systems. Which will you choose as the plan for full-scale socialist society?
ALB relax it's easyYou say"… Both labour-time vouchers and labour-time accounting (counting every product in labour-time) are unncessary in socialism and, if tried, wouldn't work for long."(ALB #128)To be clear do you mean right there that Crusoe's bookkeeping would work or not?And then if not why not?
