Re: Economics of Communist Society

[Michael Novick <mnovick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 07:43 AM 5/10/97 GMT, you wrote:
>I am somewhat disappointed at the turn this thread has taken in so far as
>it has retreated slightly from an attempt to confront the of question the
>nature and form of a communist economy and turned into a somewhat sterile
>discussion of what we all acknowledge was a FAILED attempt by the working
>class to socialise the economy in the post First World War period. I
>suppose I should have expected this, since it is exactly what happened here
>in Liverpool when we attempted to approach this question.
<<snip>>
>The GIK recognised this and thought that in and of itself, the purely
>technical unit of average social labour hour, could overcome such a
>problem, because the unit, they argued flowed from and was an expression
>of, the social control of the working class. That is they were looking for
>a purely technical solution to what is in my view an overwhelmingly
>political question.
<<snip>>
 this unit of calculation only
>needs to operate at an aggregate level - individual enterprise to whole
>society. That is it will tell us how much of whatever type of product, our
>present level of technology will deliver, and on that basis we can choose
>the aggregate level of consumption.
>
>Looking further ahead [or if you like from a lower stage to a higher stage
>of communism, and doing away entirely with any notion of transitional state
>and any intermediary economic forms] we know that technological development
>in a capitalist society is not neutral, but that it is a function of the
>capitalists need to re-assert their control over us. As early as possible
>therefore, we would need to make decisions on which technologies to
>dispense with for whatever reason, which we might retain and which we might
>need to develop.>ATB
>
>Gra

I thought this was a very lucid and helpful comment, but it brings to light
my frustration with this list -- the lack of any content related to either
the contributions of indigenous societies or the insights of
environmentalists.  the treatment of the Zapatistas on this list tends to
sharply discount any of the aspects of their politics and critique based on
the pre-Colombian character of the Mayan and other indigenous peoples of
Mexico.  The treatment of Marx and of capital on this list seems to ignore
entirely Marx's insight that there are several different forms of capital,
and that rent on land (based on private ownership) is a separate and
independent form of capital, with its own set of attendant social
relations) than the capital which grows out of private expropriation of
wage labor.  I have seen little or no discussion of Vandana Shiva's
tremendously insightful work about the continuing expropriation by capital
of the commons.  And all this discussion of pricing and labor time has not
given an ounce of consideration to what the capitalist economists refer to
as "externalities"  the costs to the planet, the environment, air , water,
the genome, etc etc of doing "business."

These are all vital aspects of economics and politics, and without
considering them there is no hope of answering -- even in theory, let alone
practice -- the questions being posed.


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