Many people mistakenly believe that money has always existed and that it therefore always will. Many people think that money has always existed and therefore it always will. Wrong. Human beings have lived on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years without using money. When they were hungry, they ate. When they were thirsty, they drank. Whatever was available to anyone was available to everyone.
When people first hear of a new radically different society being proposed, with all work being voluntary, and free access to whatever we need, most immediately view this as bizarre and impossible. Unsurprising, given that we have spent our entire lives being brainwashed and conditioned by the education system, by the media, by politicians and employers, into swallowing capitalism’s propaganda that this is the natural way of things. We are even influenced into accepting the capitalist employment-wages-money-buying status quo by our own parents. Which is why capitalism is so utterly vile; perpetuating itself by getting the preceding generation of indoctrinated victims to raise the following generation to become victims themselves.
Many people see money simply as a useful tool to facilitate the exchange of goods giving people a wider choice of things to consume and there is an element of truth in this. Without cash, and bank accounts and credit cards, exchange at existing levels would be impossible, and wage and salary earners are better off being paid in money than in kind as it means that they, not their employer or the government, can decide what to consume. Money is a social relation. It links together people and their work, but, it's an insidious social relation. Once introduced into society it tends to spread and undermine and ultimately dissolve all other social relationships. Removing money from the current economic equation would strike most people as impossible, unthinkable, absolutely imponderable. Everything we do, every transaction we make, from a simple cup of tea to sending a space probe to Mars, from birth to death and at every step in between, money has become a necessary part of getting what we require. It has become an accepted, entrenched method of acquiring anything and everything. Money is vital to the capitalist system, if you have capitalism people need money, but capitalism is not indispensable to human society.
A “World Without Money” describes one essential aspect of socialism. But to get a clearer idea of how society can function without money we need a better understanding of money and why it must exist under capitalism. Money – its origins, its nature, and its functions – is a subject laden with superstition and wild theory. Even those who are supposed to know all that is worth knowing about it, the economics experts, frequently find themselves tangled in the intricacies of their explanations. Most economics textbooks more or less try to define money by listing up a number of its functions as reflected by the Wikipedia entry: “Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, and occasionally, a standard of deferred payment.”
True enough, but listing the functions or attributes of something is not equivalent to arriving at an essential or conceptual definition of something. We need to understand the fundamental role of money and its reason for existing. That fundamental role comes down to what might be called the expression of a commodity’s value. That is, money gives tangible shape to the worth of a commodity. Marx in Capital revealed that the value of a commodity is in fact determined by the amount of (average socially-necessary ) labour expended on its production. Yet there is no way to hold a commodity up to the light to see exactly how much labour it contains. Instead of that “substance” of value being directly expressed, it is expressed in a more roundabout way, with money serving as the material for expressing value. We all know that money is used in this way to express the worth of any commodity. Money, then is the universal unit of measurement, the "general equivalent" that allows everything to be compared with everything else under all circumstances but, only in terms of their labour-time cost or the total time needed on average to produce them from start to finish.The power of money and the great mystery surrounding it stems from its role as the material used to express or give concrete shape to value. The strange power of money is not the result of a human weakness for shiny metal objects. So long as production is designed for the purpose of sale on the market with a view to profit money will be necessary. Value will have to be estimated in order that the commodities can exchange, one with another. A universal equivalent will also be needed as a standard of price and as a means of payment.
Before money existed people satisfied their everyday concrete needs (meals, clothes, a roof over our head) directly by concrete means, by themselves working or by sharing the fruits of the work of the other members of their community. With money this changes. Because money is a universal equivalent—something that can be spent on anything—the needs of its owners cease to be concrete and limited and become abstract and limitless. A money-owner's desires are no longer limited to what they can personally consume but only by the amount of money they possess. The more money they possess the greater their "needs" and, since there is no theoretical limit to the amount of money they can own, there is also no limit to their needs or, more accurately, to their "desires". Put another way, people come to desire more than they reasonably need or consume. However, although there are no theoretical limits to the amount of money a person can own there are severe practical limits to what most people can. So, with money, most people are going to be constantly and permanently dissatisfied, and they are generally, without hope of relief. Although money does give people a wider variety of choice, it is only a choice of things that have a price tag on them and so doesn't—in fact can't—include non-monetary considerations such as friendships, relationships, sense of belonging to a community, artistic values and other non-material satisfactions. In fact, the choice of these things, which most people value higher than material things, is diminished since they don't count in a monetary economy which either makes them disappear or else devalues them by trying to pin a price tag on them. At first money freed of people from all obligations towards other people and was a liberating process: serfs and workers were freed from dependence on feudal and religious hierarchies; women's dependence on men was reduced. But the process didn't stop there and continued and still tends to dissolve all non-economic relations between humans not just hierarchical and discriminatory ones, everything coming to have a monetary price and to everything being judged in monetary terms. Instead of recoiling in horror from the prospect of all relations between people being reduced to monetary ones, society now positively welcomes this and indeed proclaims and preaches it, arguing that the pursuit of short-term monetary gain by individuals is the most efficient way to organise the production and distribution of wealth. This leads not only to all social relationships being poisoned but to nature being raped.
Given a new and different type of social system, however, money will no longer be required. How can one measure value for exchange when goods are produced for use and not for exchange? The very concept of value will not arise. For what reason is a standard of price required when goods will have no price? Wherein lies the need for a means of payment when all the earth is commonly owned by all mankind instead of – as now – the property of a minority? Money has been an unnecessary, wasteful and divisive way of ordering world communities. Actually, socialists don’t want to “abolish” money. What we want is to see established a system of society where money would become redundant, as it would in a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means for producing wealth. In such a society the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” could apply. People would cooperate to produce what was needed to live and enjoy life and then have free access to this. Socialism will have no need to abolish money. The need for money will have vanished with the abolition of capitalism.
Although money will disappear in socialism this does not mean that there will no longer be any need to make choices, evaluations and calculations. Our argument is that these evaluations and calculations, including those conceding the non-monetary "cost" of objects in terms of the effort and materials used to produce them, will be done directly in kind, without any general unit of account or measurement, neither money nor labour-time. Wealth will be produced and distributed in its natural form of useful things, of objects that can serve to satisfy some human need or other. Not being produced for sale on a market, items of wealth will not acquire an exchange-value in addition to their use value. In socialism their value, in the normal non-economic sense of the word, will not be their selling price nor the time needed to produce them but their usefulness. It is for this that they will be appreciated, evaluated, wanted… and produced. So estimates of what is likely to be needed over a given period will be expressed as physical quantities of definite types and sorts of objects. Decisions apart from purely personal ones of preference will be made after weighing the real advantages and disadvantages and real costs of alternatives in particular circumstances. The belief that without money nothing can work is flawed. The truth is that production is carried out by people not money. Problems are solved by human beings, not money.
To advocate monetary calculation is to advocate that only one consideration—the total average production time needed to produce goods—should be taken into account when making decisions about which productive methods to employ. This is patently absurd but it is what is imposed by capitalism. Naturally, it leads to all sorts of aberrations from the point of view of human interests. In particular it rules out a rational, long-term attitude towards conserving resources and it imposes intolerable conditions on the actual producers. Socialists, as opponents of monetary calculation, say that it is not monetary or market values, in the end total average production time, that is the most important thing about a good but its usefulness in satisfying some human need; that the real values are use-values, human values. We are saying that these are the factors that should be taken into account when making choices and calculations about production, not simply production time. This presupposes that calculations concerning production can be carried out without money or without some money-substitutes some other general unit such as labour-time. (Such non-monetary calculation of course already happens, on the technical level, under capitalism. Once the choice of productive method has been made according to expected profitability as revealed by monetary calculation then the real calculations in kind of what is needed to produce a specific good commence so much raw materials, so much energy, so much labour.) In socialism choice will be made in real terms, in terms of the real advantages and disadvantages of alternative methods and in terms of, on the one hand, the utility of some good or some project in a particular circumstance at a particular time and, on the other hand, of the real "costs" in the same circumstances and at the same time of the required materials, energy and productive effort.
Everyone thinks they can control money until it starts to control them. Today, money is an integral part of the capitalist system. Yet a civilised society in which people’s needs are routinely met absolutely does not need money to function: only trade and commerce needs money to function. Human beings do not need money to operate combine harvesters, to run power stations, to build houses, to drive delivery trucks, to carry out surgical operations, and do all the other necessary work. We are perfectly capable of working for ourselves, and producing goods and services for direct use by whoever requires them without the requirment of handing over money or a bank or credit card. You just take what you need. For those who can get beyond the initial shock of first hearing about moneyless real socialism, by simply comparing what both the present and new system offer the majority of us, it should be obvious that outdated capitalism must be scrapped and replaced with the real socialist alternative.
Showing posts with label moneyless society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moneyless society. Show all posts
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Pareconitis
Continuing the saga
1 . Max says "humans cannot organize properly in groups of people larger than approximately 100 persons without having the need for leaders on top of leaders in a hierarchical chain."
Since Max Price has read about the Socialist Party of Great Britain then he will be aware that we pride ourselves upon being an organisation of equals without a leadership . Nor do we possess an executive committee which can impose its will on policy or even submit motions upon conference . It has a simple housekeeping administrative function . Decisions are made by branches and conferences and referenda . All EC minutes are there to be read at our website , in full keeping with our practice of democracy and openness.
We have existed as an organisation for over 100 years with membership exceeding Max Price's 100 member benchmark .Over these years we have had charismatic orators , skilled writers and knowledgeable theoreticians but never did these members ever form a hierarchy within the organisation .
The longevity of the SPGB as a political organisation based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles which has produced without interruption a monthly magazine for over a hundred years through two world wars is an achievement that most anarchist ( and Trotskyist and Leftist ) organisations can only aspire towards .
2. Tom "..This idea was first proposed in the World War 1 era by the British guild socialists, like GDH Cole (a libertarian socialist at that time). .."
Tom just for background info , the only union to really take up Cole's idea was my own , the post office union , who went against the current trend of thought of the miners and railwaymen who were arguing for nationalisation because as an already state owned industry which the others weren't the postal workers understood first hand the State as an employer and ruthless exploiter and sought an alternative means of organisation . The Postal union's commitment to some form of guild socialism remained until the 1970s .
3. However , Tom ( and Max too) , i am still awaiting a Parecon critique of the practical workings ( the general mechanics of it ) presented at my blog of the free access model which does claim "to each according to need" is a very feaseable idea and that it is the necessary pre-requisite for human liberation .
So far , all i have heard is that won't work because people just ain't like that ...
Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society.
In a society such as capitalism, people's needs are not met and reasonable people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organized in such a dog-eat-dog manner.
If people didn't work society would obviously fall apart. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society.
If people want too much? In a socialist society "too much" can only mean "more than is sustainably produced."
If people decide that they (individually and as a society) need to over-consume then socialism cannot possibly work.Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs.Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and drives us to consume up to, and past, our ability to pay for that consumption.In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising.There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. As Marx contended, the prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It is this which helps to underpin the myth of infinite demand. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the more the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular.
For socialism to be established, there are two fundamental preconditions that must be met.
Firstly, the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point. However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by "enough" and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism.
Secondly, the establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. It is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. Would they want to jeopardise the new society they had helped create? Of course not.
If people cannot change their behaviour and take control and responsibility for their decisions , not only will socialism fail but Parecon itself will not succeed then either .
4. Tom , you ask "... an industry that has far flung supplier and customer links, such as manufature of steel products. fhow is this to be linked to communities throughout north america for example?...so presumably there needs to be a way to link decisions about allocation of resources to steel manufacture and power generation to what people actually want....they will have to make tradeoffs and prioritize as they won't be able to obtain every thing they might want because of the limits of productive capactiy relative to possible wants."
The first and most important point is that we are not starting from the beginning . Its not a blank sheet . We are taking over and inheriting an already existing economic system which has in place various means of determining allocations and trade-offs .
There are countless professional and trade associalitions and marketing boards and government departments which have the research and diagnostic tools available , not just the trade union movement of the syndicalists . All those bodies may be at present based on commerce but can be quite easily democratised , socialised and integrated organisationally .
Planning is indeed central to the idea of socialism, but socialism is the planned (consciously coordinated i mean , and not to be confused with central planning concept ) production of useful things to satisfy human needs precisely instead of the production, planned or otherwise, of wealth as exchange value, commodities and capital. In socialism wealth would have simply a specific use value (which would be different under different conditions and for different individuals and groups of individuals) but it would not have any exchange, or economic, value.
Socialism does presuppose that productive resources (materials, instruments of production, sources of energy) and technological knowledge are sufficient to allow the population of the world to produce enough food, clothing, shelter and other useful things, to satisfy all their material needs.
Conventional economics and Parecon deny that the potential for such a state of abundance exists.
Another important point not to overlook is that we are seeking a 'steady-state economy' which corresponds to what Marx called 'simple reproduction' - a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market. Of course, technical research would continue and this would no doubt result in costs being able to be saved, but there would be no external pressure to do so or even any need to apply all new productivity enhancing techniquesGiven that socialism will still need to concern itself with the efficient allocation of resources this will be achieved mostly through calculation in kind.Decentralized production entails a self-regulating system of stock control. Stocks of goods held at distribution points would be monitored, their rate of depletion providing vital information about the future demand for such goods, information which will be conveyed to the units producing these goods. The units would in turn draw upon the relevant factors of production and the depletion of these would activate yet other production units further back along the production chain. There would thus be a marked degree of automaticity in the way the system operated. The maintenance of surplus stocks would provide a buffer against unforeseen fluctuations in demand .
As i said , more of the details at the blog http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/pareconfusion.html
or here http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-socialism-can....html
or here http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=4018139&blogID=125680221&MyToken=e74668d4-db9d-4bf3-a533-674f54df3b09
1 . Max says "humans cannot organize properly in groups of people larger than approximately 100 persons without having the need for leaders on top of leaders in a hierarchical chain."
Since Max Price has read about the Socialist Party of Great Britain then he will be aware that we pride ourselves upon being an organisation of equals without a leadership . Nor do we possess an executive committee which can impose its will on policy or even submit motions upon conference . It has a simple housekeeping administrative function . Decisions are made by branches and conferences and referenda . All EC minutes are there to be read at our website , in full keeping with our practice of democracy and openness.
We have existed as an organisation for over 100 years with membership exceeding Max Price's 100 member benchmark .Over these years we have had charismatic orators , skilled writers and knowledgeable theoreticians but never did these members ever form a hierarchy within the organisation .
The longevity of the SPGB as a political organisation based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles which has produced without interruption a monthly magazine for over a hundred years through two world wars is an achievement that most anarchist ( and Trotskyist and Leftist ) organisations can only aspire towards .
2. Tom "..This idea was first proposed in the World War 1 era by the British guild socialists, like GDH Cole (a libertarian socialist at that time). .."
Tom just for background info , the only union to really take up Cole's idea was my own , the post office union , who went against the current trend of thought of the miners and railwaymen who were arguing for nationalisation because as an already state owned industry which the others weren't the postal workers understood first hand the State as an employer and ruthless exploiter and sought an alternative means of organisation . The Postal union's commitment to some form of guild socialism remained until the 1970s .
3. However , Tom ( and Max too) , i am still awaiting a Parecon critique of the practical workings ( the general mechanics of it ) presented at my blog of the free access model which does claim "to each according to need" is a very feaseable idea and that it is the necessary pre-requisite for human liberation .
So far , all i have heard is that won't work because people just ain't like that ...
Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society.
In a society such as capitalism, people's needs are not met and reasonable people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organized in such a dog-eat-dog manner.
If people didn't work society would obviously fall apart. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society.
If people want too much? In a socialist society "too much" can only mean "more than is sustainably produced."
If people decide that they (individually and as a society) need to over-consume then socialism cannot possibly work.Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs.Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and drives us to consume up to, and past, our ability to pay for that consumption.In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising.There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. As Marx contended, the prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It is this which helps to underpin the myth of infinite demand. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the more the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular.
For socialism to be established, there are two fundamental preconditions that must be met.
Firstly, the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point. However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by "enough" and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism.
Secondly, the establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. It is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. Would they want to jeopardise the new society they had helped create? Of course not.
If people cannot change their behaviour and take control and responsibility for their decisions , not only will socialism fail but Parecon itself will not succeed then either .
4. Tom , you ask "... an industry that has far flung supplier and customer links, such as manufature of steel products. fhow is this to be linked to communities throughout north america for example?...so presumably there needs to be a way to link decisions about allocation of resources to steel manufacture and power generation to what people actually want....they will have to make tradeoffs and prioritize as they won't be able to obtain every thing they might want because of the limits of productive capactiy relative to possible wants."
The first and most important point is that we are not starting from the beginning . Its not a blank sheet . We are taking over and inheriting an already existing economic system which has in place various means of determining allocations and trade-offs .
There are countless professional and trade associalitions and marketing boards and government departments which have the research and diagnostic tools available , not just the trade union movement of the syndicalists . All those bodies may be at present based on commerce but can be quite easily democratised , socialised and integrated organisationally .
Planning is indeed central to the idea of socialism, but socialism is the planned (consciously coordinated i mean , and not to be confused with central planning concept ) production of useful things to satisfy human needs precisely instead of the production, planned or otherwise, of wealth as exchange value, commodities and capital. In socialism wealth would have simply a specific use value (which would be different under different conditions and for different individuals and groups of individuals) but it would not have any exchange, or economic, value.
Socialism does presuppose that productive resources (materials, instruments of production, sources of energy) and technological knowledge are sufficient to allow the population of the world to produce enough food, clothing, shelter and other useful things, to satisfy all their material needs.
Conventional economics and Parecon deny that the potential for such a state of abundance exists.
Another important point not to overlook is that we are seeking a 'steady-state economy' which corresponds to what Marx called 'simple reproduction' - a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market. Of course, technical research would continue and this would no doubt result in costs being able to be saved, but there would be no external pressure to do so or even any need to apply all new productivity enhancing techniquesGiven that socialism will still need to concern itself with the efficient allocation of resources this will be achieved mostly through calculation in kind.Decentralized production entails a self-regulating system of stock control. Stocks of goods held at distribution points would be monitored, their rate of depletion providing vital information about the future demand for such goods, information which will be conveyed to the units producing these goods. The units would in turn draw upon the relevant factors of production and the depletion of these would activate yet other production units further back along the production chain. There would thus be a marked degree of automaticity in the way the system operated. The maintenance of surplus stocks would provide a buffer against unforeseen fluctuations in demand .
As i said , more of the details at the blog http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/pareconfusion.html
or here http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-socialism-can....html
or here http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=4018139&blogID=125680221&MyToken=e74668d4-db9d-4bf3-a533-674f54df3b09
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Michael Albert's Failings
Similar to Anarcho's reservations , Parecon appears to me to be about building a massive (and socially unproductive) administration for policing all the wage levels, labour outputs , prices etc. In contrast , the practical aspects of a (world- and not national as has been already pointed out ) socialist revolution is not about creating ever greater bureaucratic structures, but quite the opposite.
It must be terribly deflating for a person to have devoted so much time and energy in creating an elaborate , complex , complicated construct to offer an alternative to capitalism and then to have others declare that it was totally unnecessary and that the answers and solutions already existed and stood on firmer foundations . This is the case with Michael Albert when he helped design the Parecon model . He rejected free access socialism , or as others describe it , anarcho-communism on the grounds that it was an unachievable utopia . Without quite knowing what he was rejecting .
And Michael Albert's reasoning reveals exactly why i am not a Pareconista - his reasoning is deeply and profoundly conservative . In fact , most of his objections to a society without buying and selling , without money and without wages and without prices derives at their root from the theories of Von Mise and the Economic Calculation Argument .
In his responses to the case for free access socialism , he confuses the abolition of the Law of Value to the abolition of valuations ie "... it will always be very desirable to make judgements about what we want to do with our time, resources, energies, etc..." even though the article clearly stated "...In any economy there needs to be some way of prioritising production goals..." and offered various details on the means to achieve this using the tools and methods of to-day's society that are able to be adapted and transformed and carried over to socialism to determine and satisfy needs and wants in a rational way in socialist society - all conveniently ignored by MA .
What was being stated in the article which MA seemed to overlook was , to now use the words , of Paresh Chattopadhyay.
"The problem of rationally allocating productive resources in an economy is common to all human societies at least as long as these resources remain relatively limited compared to needs. However, there is no need to assume that this allocation could be effected rationally (if at all) only through the exchange of resources taking the value (price) form."
And although Paresh says it of other economic writers the following equally applies to MA and Pareconists
"The authors of the model [ read MA and Parecon ] under consideration in common with their opponents confuse the rational allocation of resources as such with the rational allocation of resources uniquely through the price system ... The point is that the allocation through the value form of the products of human labor is only "a particular social manner of counting labor employed in the production of an object" precisely in a society in which "the process of production dominates individuals, individuals do not dominate the process of production" (Marx). Only the "routine of daily life" makes us accept as "trivial and self-evident" that a social relation of production takes the form of an object" (Marx ).
http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-socialism-defence-paresh-chattopadhyay
Michael Albert still confused by the difference between allocation choices (valuations) and the abolition of value goes on to say
"What is bad about capitalism and for that matter, neoclassical economics, is not that they think economies involve choices among possibilities based on valuations. Maybe I am sheltered somehow, but I know of no serious marxist economist, or any other kind of economist - indeed radicals of any stripe at all, who wouldn't be pretty much horrified at the idea that such claims could be taken seriously."
Well , does he consider Engels a serious economist when he says value becomes redundant ?
"Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted "value". - footnote- As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value. (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch26.htm
But of course when offered this quotation MA simply dismisses it
"My guess would be there are a hundred interpretations of the above...and honestly, I could not care less...I don't believe in scripture...so to speak."
Which begs the question why MA appealed to the authority of serious Marxist economists in the first place .
As i have said , i find Parecon to be conservative in essence .
The reason that Parecon has to go to such lengths to construct such a complicated and complex (and wasteful system ) of elaborate checks and balances is ultimately that its proponents are unwilling or unable to accept that if given the right economic framework (or arguably no economic framework, as we maintain ) , then , in fact , humans can consciously co-operate, work and consume together.
In the final analysis, Parecon lack confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all , or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production & distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of rationing .
Pareconists remain fixated to the lazy person, greedy individual critique of human behaviour .
In denying free access socialism , Michael Albert simply preaches conventional bourgeois wisdom about peoples' selfish human .
"...I think you believe, instead, that there is a capacity for humanity to generate as much nice and fulfilling goods and services as anyone could possibly desire to have, plus as much leisure as anyone could want, and so on. Well, is that really your view? If so, okay, we can agree to disagree. And, honestly, I can't imagine discussing it - further - because for me it is so utterly ridiculous, honestly.... Suppose everyone would like - if the cost was zero - their own large mansion, on the ocean, with wonderful fantastic food every day, with magnificent recording and listening equipment, with a nice big boat, with their own private tennis courts, or basketball, or golf, or whatever....a great home movie system, a wonderful violin, magnificent clothes, and so on and so forth, and, also, while they like creative work a lot, they would like a whole lot of time to enjoy their bountiful home and holdings - so they want to work only twenty hours a week and of course not do anything other than what interests them. What you seem to be saying is that you think that is possible... or, even if all that were possible, no one would want it. Both are false..."
"...if something is of no cost, and I want it, sure, I will take it, to enjoy it, why not..."
"...Tell everyone that they can have a free house, a really nice car, or two, whatever equipment the like for sports or hobbies, whatever TVs they would enjoy and other tools of daily life, whatever food they want nightly, etc. etc. because it is all free, no problem for them to take what they want. And see what happens....no one will be able to conduct themselves responsibly..."
"... since they can have product, from the available social product, regardless. So sloth is rewarded. Likewise greed..."
Nor is he alone in this pessimistic view of human behaviour . Another prominent pro-Parecon advocate has previously said
"Under the moneyless scheme, those with the least social consciousness or least sense of social responsibility will win out because they will be more aggressive in taking "free" items from the distribution centers. Since there is no requirement of work the "free riders" who do no work will burden the system to the point of collapse...Why, then, burden ourselves with the risky system of moneyless "free access," with its huge dangers of being dragged down by parasitical free riders?" .
I have heard it argued that Parecon may be the transional stage towards "from each according to ability , to each according to need " and if "anonymous" is correct concerning the employement of computers then Parecon can fight it out with the Labour-Time Vouchers which also has been criticised for being impossible to deduce due to the complexity of calculating labour hours as the half-way house . For Free Access Socialists and Anarcho-Communists we will continue to struggle to create a structured society where people have accepted socially mutual obligations and the realization of universal interdependency and we understand that decisions arising from this would profoundly affect people’s choices, perceptions, conceptualizations, attitudes, and greatly influence their behavior, economically or otherwise.
Most of the this can be found at the following link [http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/pareconfusion.html ]
It must be terribly deflating for a person to have devoted so much time and energy in creating an elaborate , complex , complicated construct to offer an alternative to capitalism and then to have others declare that it was totally unnecessary and that the answers and solutions already existed and stood on firmer foundations . This is the case with Michael Albert when he helped design the Parecon model . He rejected free access socialism , or as others describe it , anarcho-communism on the grounds that it was an unachievable utopia . Without quite knowing what he was rejecting .
And Michael Albert's reasoning reveals exactly why i am not a Pareconista - his reasoning is deeply and profoundly conservative . In fact , most of his objections to a society without buying and selling , without money and without wages and without prices derives at their root from the theories of Von Mise and the Economic Calculation Argument .
In his responses to the case for free access socialism , he confuses the abolition of the Law of Value to the abolition of valuations ie "... it will always be very desirable to make judgements about what we want to do with our time, resources, energies, etc..." even though the article clearly stated "...In any economy there needs to be some way of prioritising production goals..." and offered various details on the means to achieve this using the tools and methods of to-day's society that are able to be adapted and transformed and carried over to socialism to determine and satisfy needs and wants in a rational way in socialist society - all conveniently ignored by MA .
What was being stated in the article which MA seemed to overlook was , to now use the words , of Paresh Chattopadhyay.
"The problem of rationally allocating productive resources in an economy is common to all human societies at least as long as these resources remain relatively limited compared to needs. However, there is no need to assume that this allocation could be effected rationally (if at all) only through the exchange of resources taking the value (price) form."
And although Paresh says it of other economic writers the following equally applies to MA and Pareconists
"The authors of the model [ read MA and Parecon ] under consideration in common with their opponents confuse the rational allocation of resources as such with the rational allocation of resources uniquely through the price system ... The point is that the allocation through the value form of the products of human labor is only "a particular social manner of counting labor employed in the production of an object" precisely in a society in which "the process of production dominates individuals, individuals do not dominate the process of production" (Marx). Only the "routine of daily life" makes us accept as "trivial and self-evident" that a social relation of production takes the form of an object" (Marx ).
http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-socialism-defence-paresh-chattopadhyay
Michael Albert still confused by the difference between allocation choices (valuations) and the abolition of value goes on to say
"What is bad about capitalism and for that matter, neoclassical economics, is not that they think economies involve choices among possibilities based on valuations. Maybe I am sheltered somehow, but I know of no serious marxist economist, or any other kind of economist - indeed radicals of any stripe at all, who wouldn't be pretty much horrified at the idea that such claims could be taken seriously."
Well , does he consider Engels a serious economist when he says value becomes redundant ?
"Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted "value". - footnote- As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value. (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch26.htm
But of course when offered this quotation MA simply dismisses it
"My guess would be there are a hundred interpretations of the above...and honestly, I could not care less...I don't believe in scripture...so to speak."
Which begs the question why MA appealed to the authority of serious Marxist economists in the first place .
As i have said , i find Parecon to be conservative in essence .
The reason that Parecon has to go to such lengths to construct such a complicated and complex (and wasteful system ) of elaborate checks and balances is ultimately that its proponents are unwilling or unable to accept that if given the right economic framework (or arguably no economic framework, as we maintain ) , then , in fact , humans can consciously co-operate, work and consume together.
In the final analysis, Parecon lack confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all , or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production & distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of rationing .
Pareconists remain fixated to the lazy person, greedy individual critique of human behaviour .
In denying free access socialism , Michael Albert simply preaches conventional bourgeois wisdom about peoples' selfish human .
"...I think you believe, instead, that there is a capacity for humanity to generate as much nice and fulfilling goods and services as anyone could possibly desire to have, plus as much leisure as anyone could want, and so on. Well, is that really your view? If so, okay, we can agree to disagree. And, honestly, I can't imagine discussing it - further - because for me it is so utterly ridiculous, honestly.... Suppose everyone would like - if the cost was zero - their own large mansion, on the ocean, with wonderful fantastic food every day, with magnificent recording and listening equipment, with a nice big boat, with their own private tennis courts, or basketball, or golf, or whatever....a great home movie system, a wonderful violin, magnificent clothes, and so on and so forth, and, also, while they like creative work a lot, they would like a whole lot of time to enjoy their bountiful home and holdings - so they want to work only twenty hours a week and of course not do anything other than what interests them. What you seem to be saying is that you think that is possible... or, even if all that were possible, no one would want it. Both are false..."
"...if something is of no cost, and I want it, sure, I will take it, to enjoy it, why not..."
"...Tell everyone that they can have a free house, a really nice car, or two, whatever equipment the like for sports or hobbies, whatever TVs they would enjoy and other tools of daily life, whatever food they want nightly, etc. etc. because it is all free, no problem for them to take what they want. And see what happens....no one will be able to conduct themselves responsibly..."
"... since they can have product, from the available social product, regardless. So sloth is rewarded. Likewise greed..."
Nor is he alone in this pessimistic view of human behaviour . Another prominent pro-Parecon advocate has previously said
"Under the moneyless scheme, those with the least social consciousness or least sense of social responsibility will win out because they will be more aggressive in taking "free" items from the distribution centers. Since there is no requirement of work the "free riders" who do no work will burden the system to the point of collapse...Why, then, burden ourselves with the risky system of moneyless "free access," with its huge dangers of being dragged down by parasitical free riders?" .
I have heard it argued that Parecon may be the transional stage towards "from each according to ability , to each according to need " and if "anonymous" is correct concerning the employement of computers then Parecon can fight it out with the Labour-Time Vouchers which also has been criticised for being impossible to deduce due to the complexity of calculating labour hours as the half-way house . For Free Access Socialists and Anarcho-Communists we will continue to struggle to create a structured society where people have accepted socially mutual obligations and the realization of universal interdependency and we understand that decisions arising from this would profoundly affect people’s choices, perceptions, conceptualizations, attitudes, and greatly influence their behavior, economically or otherwise.
Most of the this can be found at the following link [http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/pareconfusion.html ]
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Freeconomy
The BBC reports a man has started a two-and-a-half year walk from Bristol to India without any money - to show his faith in humanity. He plans not to touch any money and is taking no credit cards or travellers' cheques.
He says he is part of the freeconomy movement - a group which began in the US and aims to bring about a moneyless society.
He said: "My interest started five or six years ago when I was studying economics. The more we accumulate wealth, the more it leads to a breakdown of community."
"We need to get back to a more communal way of living," he said. "My mum and dad always speak about a time in Ireland when people came together and took in the harvest together, and no money changed hands."
see FREECONOMY
Freeconomy now has almost 3,000 members in 54 countries .It offers people the chance to exchange skills and labour . Ultimately, members would like a moneyless society. They also want to see more face-to-face communication .
It's about making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society. We , of the World Socialist Movement , describe that as free-access socialism .
On their website , Freeconomy states one of the guidelines is that "Photos of members are not allowed. We currently live in a society where people are judged by their appearances."
We , in the SPGB , has declined to place photographs of our political candidates on election leaflets always claiming it is the case , not the face , that is important when presenting our political views .
Perhaps those adherents of Freeconomy will come to realise that it is through the capture of the State and then the subsequent abolition of the State which will fulfil their aspirations and join us of the World Socialism Movement
He says he is part of the freeconomy movement - a group which began in the US and aims to bring about a moneyless society.
He said: "My interest started five or six years ago when I was studying economics. The more we accumulate wealth, the more it leads to a breakdown of community."
"We need to get back to a more communal way of living," he said. "My mum and dad always speak about a time in Ireland when people came together and took in the harvest together, and no money changed hands."
see FREECONOMY
Freeconomy now has almost 3,000 members in 54 countries .It offers people the chance to exchange skills and labour . Ultimately, members would like a moneyless society. They also want to see more face-to-face communication .
It's about making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society. We , of the World Socialist Movement , describe that as free-access socialism .
On their website , Freeconomy states one of the guidelines is that "Photos of members are not allowed. We currently live in a society where people are judged by their appearances."
We , in the SPGB , has declined to place photographs of our political candidates on election leaflets always claiming it is the case , not the face , that is important when presenting our political views .
Perhaps those adherents of Freeconomy will come to realise that it is through the capture of the State and then the subsequent abolition of the State which will fulfil their aspirations and join us of the World Socialism Movement
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