Re: economics of communist societies

[Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba@xxxxx>]

I will write an answer to the questions raised by Jerry and Franco, but
decided to put down what I thought would be a short reply to Jock first. To
give a proper response, it would have had to be much longer, but this will
have to do for now.

Jock wrote: "Marx did not view labour time vouchers as necessary for the
fully fledged communist society (although Harald B seems to think that this
was the case). Furthermore Marx stated that labour time vouchers were
personal and therefore non-exchangable so they would not lead to
accumulation of anything. If you are going to criticise revolutionaries from
the past like the GIK or Marx you could at least do them the courtesy of
reading carefully what they said and understanding why they said it."

Then in his reply to Bob, Jock wrote: "Harald (who is the real villain here
for suggesting under the title "economics of communist society" that Marx
and the GIK advocated them as the methods of distribution under communism
itself)..."

Jock, why don't you do me "the cortesy of reading carefully what" I said? I
never argued that Marx viewed labor-vouchers as neccessary for the fully
fledged communist society. What I did say was: "The idea of labor vouchers
[...] always seem to reappear, and as mentioned in the excerpt from Visconte
Grisi's article, also in Marx's much overrated Critique of the Gotha
Programme. There Marx put on his Proudhonian clothes and imagines them to
wither away along with the state." I then contended that the labour vouchers
system is more likely to develop into a fully fledged capitalist society
than into a "more advanced phase" of communism, whatever Marx and others
with him thought.
        Basically the same critique was directed against Bakunin by among
others the italian communist anarchists, and latter by Kropotkin. The views
of Marx and the collectivist anarchist of the First International were very
similar on this issue. Bakunin wrote: ".... to organize such a society that,
rendering impossible the exploitation of anyone's labor, will enable every
individual to enjoy the social wealth, which is in reality is produced only
by collective labor, but to enjoy it only as in so far as he contributes
directly toward the creation of the wealth."  James Guillame, Bakunin's
close friend and co-traveller within the First International, thought that
once the problem of property was solved - through the workers and peasants
collective expropriation of the means of production - the question of types
of distribution and remuneration becomes secondary, and had to be decided on
a community level, but that one "to the greatest possible extent should
institute and be guided by the principle of from each according to his
ability; to each according to his need." Even though first when "the
progress of scientific industry and agriculture, production comes to
outstripe consumption" - some years after the revolution - would this
principle be generalised, according to Guillame. The last quoted sentence
sentence seems also pretty much to cover the view of Marx.
        I am in no way denying that the transition from capitalism to
communism poses a variety of challenges, but the labor voucher illusion just
covers these up with an simplistic formula. Its attraction to many lies
exactly that it does not break with the logic of capital. History should
have though us that revolutions halted in midway are the most utopian of
all. They are the harbingers of economical "anarchy" on one side and the
frenetic efforts to gain absolute control on the other.
        Marx actually believed that while the equivalents in commodity
exchange only exists on the average, in the first phase of communism it will
also do so in the individual case. With all due respect to Marx
contributions to our understanding of capitalism, this is science-fiction.
It brings Marx to the very core of Prodhounian thought - much closer than
Bakunin ever gets. What Marx is suggesting is the artifical reproduction of
the market with all of its absurd divsions. A system which would entail an
ever increasing state bureaucracy.
        According to Marx the individual producer gets back from society
[the state] exactly what he has given, that is after the deduction [taxes]
of surplus labor to the communal fund. The worker is given a certificate [a
wage] stating he has done such and such amount of work [from which the the
income tax is deduced], and with this certificate [money] s/he can withdraw
[buy] from the social suppply of the means of consumption [at the
supermaket] "as much as cost an equivalent amount of labour" [as much the
worker's wages allows him or her to buy]. Furthermore the intensity of
labor, not just its duration, should be measured.

        How should the the labor value of each product and the
        contribution of every single individual be calculated, and by
        whom? Where goes, who draws and who controls the border between
        certificated work and non-certificated work?  What is work and
        what is not? What is consumption and what is production? (This is
        not as obious as it may seem.)

Here follows a few more questions? A list which could be forever extended of
questions which could be systematised and elaborated.

        How do you find the social necessary labor time for the
        production of a product, its relation to others products of the
        same category (but with their proper particularities), most of
        them produced below or above the real or imagined social necessary
        labor time, and the product's everchanging value-relations to
        millions of different products of other categories?

        What is the correspondence of hours of work deduced as a tax to
        supply the communal fund and the actually material needs of, let's
        say, education and medicine? How does the working hours put into
        production of caterpillars or chewing gum convert into the
        satisfaction of these needs? Since the relation is just abstract
        work-time there need not be a relation at all between accumulated
        surplus working hours and needs. Or can you through labour
        vouchers convert water into wine? But then again some of the magic
        of money consists in that they can be used as a means of
        commanding the labour and time of others.

        How do you account for the infrastructure, climate, increased
        efficency through cooperation, or decreased efficency when
        operations get too large, how are knowledge and skills - the
        products of past labor (and for the most the labor of others)- to
        be calculated, etc etc?

        How to you see to that their is a real correspondence between the
        pieces of papers of certificated hours of work and the actual
        available means of consumption? Apart from the various time lags
        between production and consumption, the everchanging social
        necessary as well as actual labor time, there are all that other
        work lumped into the communal fund that has to be accounted for.
        Also, what happens with all these relations between things and
        services when the percentage of what is drawn to support the
        "communal fund" increases?  (And shall a single women with 5
        children have to stand before the bureaucratic masters of poor
        relief to satisfy this system of abstract imagined equality?)

None of this variables would be constant, rather constantly changing, and
all these variables and many more would influence and penetrate each other.
To keep account of all this becomes a hopeless task which is sure to produce
a ever growing bureaucracy. Political prices will be tried introduced to
serve now this, now that end. So who will be the masters of consumption?
        What disappears in all this is any questions of human needs. What
emerges is the same purely quantitative relations between things we are all
too familiar with.

                                                        Harald


  in solidarity,
  Harald Beyer-Arnesen
  haraldba@xxxxx



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