Socialism

Posted: 16 Dec 2005 03:46 am Post subject:

I have posted some articles that appeared during 2000 and 2001 in the magazine DISCUSSION BULLETIN (which is no longer published). In these correspondences, the De Leonist Society of Canada (DLSC) defended the labor vouchers idea, while D.B. editor Frank Girard (born 1927, died 2004) and several others disagreed with the DLSC position.

http://www.deleonism.org/v.htm

Posted: 17 Dec 2005 03:04 pm Post subject:

You would not believe how many believe that after a revolution we all will jump right into a gift society. I am talking to one fellow who believe that workers will stop making products, that are generally made right now, after being liberated from the chains of capitalism. I told him he was trying to invite chaos since people are conditioned to want products, therefore, workers will have to continue to produce on the assembly line until society, as a whole, changes.

Also, there is something I don't quite understand is that TLVs are considered being related to Walmart Socialism. I was taken aback by this a bit. But I think the line of reasonings are askewed lacking thought out planning on what is to be done after a revolution.

Posted: 17 Dec 2005 10:12 pm Post subject:

Has anyone who has used the phrase specifically explained what they mean by Walmart Socialism?

We used to have a term - knife and fork socialists - they were folks who you'd only see at the socialist banquets.

Back on labor day I had some comments on Walmartization - there is another word for it - capitialism - that is where it is all heading. But look on the bright side - Those Walmart distrution centers and warehouse stores will work under socialism when the time comes. Time saving processes that need fewer workers mean that fewer workers are needed to take them over for socialism.

dave

Posted: 18 Dec 2005 03:23 pm Post subject:

Here is the exchange I have had with this fellow. All the quotes is me who wrote with his answering in the paragraphs following. I am going to add a bracket comment to help you better understand what the subject was about:

[This is about a general strike and I was pointing out that the capitalist class would have the president turn the armed forces on workers.]
QUOTE
Well, we will just have to see who is the greater force but I think guns and tanks most likely would win the contest.

Several factors come into play. How do you think a soldier would feel if he was ordered to turn his gun on his own countrymen? Also, from a militaristic perspective, look how shitty the US military has demonstrated itself to be in urban conflict in Iraq. Do you really think the military would roll tanks into an urban area and risk destroying their own country's infrastructure? It's not like a revolt be an angry hoard with pitchforks against the pentagon, 'no-holds-barred'. In the situation of a prolonged general strike, the state will be at the mercy of the masses.

[This is about the gift economy.]
QUOTE
I do understand what you mean by being entitled to what is created but you have to consider planning, filling orders and shipment to distribution centers which goes beyond local communities so some form of compensation has to be used for exchange of products since products are not created with equal labor value.

This is done by free association between the two parties involved. A labor voucher system could feasibly be acceptable, but personally I think it would be best to leave it up to the individuals and communities involved with said exchange. I'm not going to scheme up some sort of universal plan for everyone to use for exchange, and I'm going to be very critical of those who do.

QUOTE
I have no doubt that "one day" people will consume less. Perhaps they will become more self sufficent in the new society or rely more on automation of products. Who can say for sure? What I was asking is how is the means of production going to change from capitalist to post-capitalist society? What is the economic transition plan?

I've found that with all kinds of addictions and nasty habits, the best solution is to stop 'cold-turkey'. There is no transition plan, that's reformist, you cannot remake society within the shell of the old.

QUOTE
You better tell the people in your community what you wrote here because they are conditioned to consume. If they can't get what they want then they will use the means of violent theft against those who have them.

Again, if there ever were to be any kind of revolution, things like this would not be a priority for people. A revolution in which hierarchy and the 'spectacle'(a society in which social relations are mediated by images and commodities) still exists is not a revolution at all.

[TLVs]
QUOTE
Uuummm, I was refering to a computer program used by the union to keep track of what orders are to be filled after consumption of products.

Walmart does the same thing, which is why I refer to it as "Walmart Socialism"

QUOTE
All of this is done at the local level and not by a central authority. Of course this is networked since different communities create different products.

Again, the workers themselves implements the computer program locally through the international union. The workers run the union in the absence of the political state(s). There is no central authority. What I am trying to get accross is that people will consume what is created, therefore, an inventory has to be kept so that orders can be filled when there is a demand for twinkies or some other product. Also, there has to be products created and set aside for disaster relief. Union Socialist economic planning is vital for the well being of everyone

I can tell you right now that something like this could require a centralized union bureaucracy and authority. Who would dispense said vouchers? Who would maintain this computer? Who would do the planning? If I could see such a system proposed in detail streamlined and automated enough to gauge how much of a good or service is needed, to assist in production, perhaps I'd be more inclined to go along with it, but as an abstract concept it sounds awfully fishy.

QUOTE
Ahem, I do understand that the present production is based on profit. Because of this people are artifically conditioned to behave in a certain way and to consume what is advertised through different media outlets. Many in the U.S. believe this is freedom.

They are wrong.

QUOTE
If a new society is to emerge from the old then the laborers, being liberated from the chains of capitalism, will have to return to the same boring uncreative shit because people will still have demands for different foods, computers, flat screen TV's, lawn sprinklers, cars, etc.

That's not liberation. That's social reformism, a practice that has failed in the past will continue to fail.

QUOTE
You think a general strike is going to change people overnight and made to wait for products?

No.

QUOTE
I think you are asking for chaos.

Is it really that hard for you to think outside the capitalist consumer mindset?

QUOTE
It's going to have be a gradual change.

That's not revolution.

QUOTE
I don't think people will be very supportive when they are told that what they once expected will no longer be available. That will just go against the grain so to speak.

When faced with the decision of liberation or the 'same old shit all over again', one can hope that people would choose liberation. Nobody said this revolution business would be easy.

Posted: 18 Dec 2005 10:15 pm Post subject:

Posted: 18 Dec 2005 10:24 pm Post subject:

Posted: 21 Dec 2005 06:21 am Post subject:

Posted: 21 Dec 2005 04:01 pm Post subject:

Posted: 21 Dec 2005 11:46 pm Post subject:

Posted: 22 Dec 2005 07:19 am Post subject:

My view is a bit different. I think socialism should compensate the more tedious or strenuous jobs at higher hourly rates. With enough adjustment to the compensation, the yucky jobs will be attractive to the necessary nmber of people.

But this is very different from capitalism. Inverted, in fact. Capitalism pays the lowest incomes for the most unpleasant jobs, since the labor is a commodity.

Posted: 22 Dec 2005 07:50 am Post subject:

Posted: 22 Dec 2005 10:33 pm Post subject:

Hi, Vince --
I believe that hourly compensation of the individual for work, with multipliers according to an estimate of the strenuousness of the type of work, is needed to introduce the factor of personal motivation to perform that work, which otherwise socialism would lack and productivity would diminish to a level unable to sustain a technological society.

Posted: 22 Dec 2005 10:36 pm Post subject:

Announcement: I have uploaded the three sections of De Leon's 1914 pamphlet Fifteen Questions About Socialism where he discussed his proposal for socialism's use of labor vouchers.

http://www.deleonism.org/v.htm

Posted: 23 Dec 2005 04:12 am Post subject:

Vince wrote:

Posted: 23 Dec 2005 08:09 pm Post subject:

Hegel's idea of alienation worked on Marx's mind in his younger days. In Hegel's version, all of history is the result of God being alienated from himself and struggling to reunite himself in perfection. When Marx wrote his manuscripts of 1844, he wasn't yet a socialist but primarily a rebel against religion and monarchy. He took Feuerbach's idea of religion as a narcotic self-delusion and incorporated it into his own thinking. He wanted to keep the idea of alienation but to get all of the religion out of it, so he put forth the idea of alienation as human industrial products being turned against us, like Frankenstein's monster. We are outsiders and lack control in the industries that we ourselves have built.

Some modern socialists have taken this idea of alienation to such extremes that they say that the beginning of socialism will mean that all elements of alienation will vanish. They believe that work in a socialist world will be such fun that people will enjoy working in factories, mines and mills just as much as they enjoy their hobbies and vacations.

I think that is all unverifiable speculation. Work is work, and play is play. The way socialism will help is to make administration democratic and make workweeks much shorter. Still, work will be a personal sacrifice. It won't automatically become fun. A system of purely voluntary and uncompensated work would be a disaster, since production levels would crash. There would be no shortage of poets and musicians, but a serious shortage of people who show up at refineries, factories and mills because they "enjoy" it.

The working class knows this too. To go to the working class with an overly utopian idea of socialist economics introduces greater risk that the working class will not give the case for socialism a fair hearing.

Posted: 24 Dec 2005 03:36 am Post subject:

Thanks for the link Mike. Happy Holidays to all of you here on deleonism.org, Dave, Mike, Vince, et al. My grandaughter's name is Arwen.

Yep, from the Lord of the Ring

Posted: 24 Dec 2005 08:13 am Post subject:

Posted: 25 Dec 2005 03:36 pm Post subject:

Hi Vince,

John would be find and once in a while I have been signing my name to some posts. My wife's health issues are the result of medications over the years to keep her transplanted kidney functioning. Though her transplant is working as expected, the imuran medication caused colon cancer. The surgery resulted in an infection which the surgeon had to re-open and had a wound threapy vacuum pump to speed up the healing and to remove any remaining infection and bacteria. However, after the wound healed a small pocket re-opened. That small pocket is getting deeping despite what the doctor told me to do to help promote healing. She has seen an infectious disease doctor who took blood culture samples from the wound. She is also schedualed for a "cat scan" to help the doctor understand what is going on and , hopefully, why the wound is not healing.

I have read your response to what Mike wrote and what you describe resembles a true communistic society. However, what I have read over the past months I have come to the understanding that socialism is a "transition phase" from capitalism to communism.

If by chance the revolution happened today, the chances of going straight to a "free access society" would have disasterous results. A lot of workers would not have a clue to what "free access" is and most likely would refuse to work without compensation. Also, would not the Leninist try to take political power? And, if they do, would they not continue the wage system and dictate to workers what they can and cannot do? Then you have the white nationalist who will be trying to take control as well and lead a reactionary campaign against the Leninist. Of course the capitalist would also be on the war path to reclaim their private property and we all know that there are pro-capitalist workers who believe they will be rewarded for their services.

John

Posted: 25 Dec 2005 11:51 pm Post subject:

Posted: 27 Dec 2005 03:04 am Post subject:

One possibility is that acquisitiveness toward personal property and resistance to personal work is a result of historical and social conditioning. First we can consider that:

New economic systems (feudalism, capitalism, socialism, or other) result in new kind of human consciousness and behavior, but not instantaneously. These changes in people can take at least one generation, and usually more. Just because a point in time is reached when a majority have become socialists, that doesn't mean that habits long conditioned by class divided society can be swept away on the day socialism is adopted. The babies newly born into a socialist world are likely to think and act quite differently from previous generations. Before society can get to that point, it must organize itself to get through a period of several decades in which old habits remain challenges.

Another possibility is that acquisitiveness toward personal property and resistance to personal work is a normal and a continuing condition for intelligent animals like us. That case may be considered next.

Socialism would need an institutional form that funcitons within that reality. Vouchers provides the ability to acquire increments in personal property according to the personal motivational responses. It accepts as normal the idea that some people want a lot of material gadgets, and it doesn't need to ostracize them or put peer pressure on them. Individuals are notified by an objective rule that they have to provide the equivlalent input to the economic system, in the form of work.

So which is it? The first case or the second? We cannot know for sure. People who assert that it's certainly the first case often accuse the people who assert that it's certainly the second case of making an unfounded assumption about "human nature." Conversely, people who assert that it's certainly the second case often accuse the people who assert that it's certainly the first case of making an unfounded assumption about "human nature." The truth is this: On both sides, there is only an intuition which can't be tested empirically until after socialism is already in operation.

Therefore, socialism needs a sturdy structure that will continue to function regardless of whether acquisitiveness toward personal property and resistance to personal work are, as the philosophers say, "our nature or our nurture." Which proposed form of socialism has that structure?
I say that socialism with labor crediting to the individual is the one. It's the form that has the built-in stability to remain operating regardless of whether or not we have a "human nature" and, if so, what that nature might be.

Once socialism is instituted, it can gradually test the practice of free distribution of the types of goods, starting with life's necessities and goods which are least likely to be hoarded or to be subjected to irrational individual uses. Socialism can gradually test the use of noncompulsory honor systems for seeing to it that people are willing to perform work. The most important thing is to adopt social ownership and democratic control of the industries, and that system can later be adjusted and perfected.

Posted: 27 Dec 2005 06:54 am Post subject:

Posted: 27 Dec 2005 02:21 pm Post subject:

Hi VInce and Mike,

We have been out of town visiting family. Vince, I live close to the Southern Western Tier of the state of New York. I am terrible when it comes to talking on the phone but I find myself very creative and expressive when I write. I do find what you say to be facinating about what a socialist cooperative society would be like and how different humans would behave.

Considering that there is a trend toward Anarchy and the desire for a "gift economy" we could very well see that form of economy after the revolution. So, keep doing what you are doing Vince and I am going to read a lot more of your website.

Of course, Mike has to keep defining SIU and TLVs as well because things may go in that direction after the revolution. Mike may be right that it could take decades before a "gift economy" is phased in. Mike did make a very good point, since we live in a capitalist class structured society, that it will take time to unlearn those behaviors which are considered normal.

I have much to learn as well and I would like to see this conversation continue.

John

Posted: 11 Feb 2006 04:45 pm Post subject:

I found this interesting when this 64 year old communist wrote this:

Posted: 11 Feb 2006 05:24 pm Post subject:

A little humor here:

http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=idiotson

Posted: 12 Feb 2006 07:08 pm Post subject:

Mike and Dave. Are either of you aware of this website that talk about TLVs?

http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/gik1.htm

I find it interesting that it was written by a group of international communist who wrote this:

Posted: 13 Feb 2006 06:03 pm Post subject:

“Our sole aim has been to show that the proletarian revolution must summon forth the power to implement in society the system of Average Social Reproduction Time (ASRT); should it fail in this, then the end outcome of the revolution will inevitably be State communism.”

John - I haven't seen the site before - I look at the words and my first impression is negative - but I am willing to maintain an open skepticism.

Why change Marx's wording of socially necessary labor time?

And the tone just throws me off - It's got to be our way specifically or catastrophy!! I get tired of that stuff real quick.

dave

Posted: 14 Feb 2006 06:53 pm Post subject:

That is why I brought it to you guys attention. I have not really read it yet.

Posted: 14 Feb 2006 11:28 pm Post subject:

I quote from that site:

"To achieve this, a party dictatorship is an absolutely inappropriate and inadequate instrument. A party dictatorship can be a product only of a development towards State communism."

I didn't read it all either, but I might start by questioning whether any group hase a sufficiently democratic concept of what social ownership and control is supposed ot be all about. If a goal isn't democratic enough to suit me, than nothing that they might propose in the way of a labor compensation system would suit me either.

It can take me some time before I complete a reading of 400,000 bytes of text, and that's just the text on the page, not the source code.

Perhaps I shall list their url, and many others, on my vouchers.htm index page, under a heading of "other people's conceptions." I will also list parecon there, and whatever else we can find. Thanks, Social.

Posted: 15 Feb 2006 04:58 pm Post subject:

I just got back on line. Trouble with the server. Anyways, what is to stop authoritarian types from trying to take over after the revolution?

Posted: 15 Feb 2006 07:32 pm Post subject:

> what is to stop authoritarian types from trying to take over
> after the revolution?

I think we might list some minimum principles, then, admitting that we might not have thought of everything, continue to consider whether that list is complete.

(1) No blind trust in "leaders" to begin with. The working class majority must be fully conscious of everything they want and how to get it. Then they will want delegates and not "leaders." This has to be a do-it-yourself program for social change.

(2) A well-rehearsed habit of electing those deegates to short terms of office, and exercising the power to recall them mid-term.

(3) Spread out administrative authority thinly, so it won't be all in one place. For example, if the workers elect you to coordinate the manufacture of garden hose washers, then that's the extent of your "power." You can't increase your power. (And with managers getting the same range of income as all workers, that would tend to dampen someone's desire to increase their power anyway.) So, if you do turn out to be corrupt, how much damage could you really do?

No doubt, my list isn't complete. Can you think of something you'd like to add?

It's a very important question, too. When we hear of groups like the SWP or CP talking vaguely about a "workers' state", I'm repulsed at how little attention they pay to the importance of day-to-day "grass roots" democracy. If they really cared, they wouldn't bury the issue in "scholarly journals" intended for philosophy professors, as they do now; instead, they would make it Page One material in their newspapers. They still worship the Soviet Union, and, to me, that tells it all.

Posted: 16 Feb 2006 02:15 am Post subject:

"Spread out administrative authority thinly"

The nub of this idea is that there won't be anything to take over. No state. No unemployment - so workers can't be controled by someone giving them a job or from fear of loosing a job.

Posted: 18 Feb 2006 01:53 pm Post subject:

From the page that John refered us to:

http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/gik1.htm

(I like this)

It is the proletariat itself which lays in place the foundation-stone cementing the basic relationship between producers and the product of their labour. This and this alone is the key question of the proletarian revolution. In just the same way as the feudal serf struggled in the bourgeois revolution for his piece of land and for the full right of disposal over the fruits of his labour, in the same way thew proletariat now struggles for control of the factories and other industrial establishments and for full right of disposal over production - an outcome which is only possible if the fundamental relationship between producer and product has been fought to its final conclusion in a new social legality. The decisive question at issue here is precisely that of the place the proletariat is to win for itself in society; the question as to whether, along with the right to labour in the work-places, the right of disposal over the products of these work-places is also achieved; or, on the contrary, whether the proletariat is once again to be pronounced incapable of discharging responsibility, and leaders, experts and scientists are to be entrusted with that right of disposal. In the final instance, this struggle will be fought out against those who believe that they are destined, after the revolution, to assume responsibility on behalf of the proletariat. It is for this reason that the cooperation of such people is only appropriate if the foundations of communist production have first been laid. It is this basis alone that their skills may work for society, whereas otherwise they can develop only into a new ruling caste.

Posted: 04 Mar 2006 06:13 pm Post subject:

Basically, the workers determine the use of TLVs. I get a laugh when people say that TKvs have to have a central administrative authority. If that's the case, then production and distribution has to have a central authority. Can anyone say...USSR? Rolling Eyes

Posted: 05 Mar 2006 08:27 pm Post subject:

Not any more central authority than a credit card complany is a central authority under capitalism. Obviously the SIU is going to have to designate who is going to issue and redeem TLV credits. An example of an administrative task.

Posted: 05 Mar 2006 08:38 pm Post subject:

What they refer to is a "political state." Not a department of SIU. Wink

Posted: 06 Mar 2006 03:49 am Post subject:

To speak of "central authority" as being good or bad has always appeared strange to me. Some things are "central" by their nature. Dividing the radio spectrum into allocated bands has to be centralized. Planning for satellite TV has to be centralized. Monitoring the weather over the oceans to forecast a hurricane has to be centralized. I think people fear the "central" mainly because of the Soviet catastrophe, which used centralism for control over people's entire lives. As Engels described socialism, "government over people is replaced by the administration of things". When we administer things, sometimes it's simply more efficient, and sometimes necessary, to use a universal plan.

Posted: 06 Mar 2006 04:36 pm Post subject:

You got the point Mike. Here is something written on another website conmcerning LTVs:

Posted: 06 Mar 2006 05:57 pm Post subject:

He didn't say "state" in that particular excerpt, so if he says it elsewhere I don't know how he means it.

To me, however, the state is regimentation of people to control them. This comes down from when ancient times when tribal or nomadic people first made permanent settlements, the first cities, and rule-making authority initially intended just to keep harmony was taken control over by self-interested landowners. Political aristocracy developed alongside economic aristocracy. You were only considered a citizen if you were a direct descendent of one of the original founders of the city. Especially, when they invented the idea of turning war captives into slaves, the class-ruled character of the state became very firm and noticable. So we have a good 5,000 years of the word "state" being associated with the task of handling the behavior of the working majority so that property owners could increase their power more conveniently. Everywhere Marx and Engels are found to use the word "state", they're refering to a class-divided culture in which the governing power tramples down the general population so that a ruling class can prosper. With this connotation carried by the word, (genuine) socialists have frowned on the popular use of the word "state" simply to mean society and its tradiitons. At least in the terminology pushed by Marx and Engels, if the new system we make is classless and democratic, then the word "state" shouldn't be applied to it. In that sense, the SIU would not be a state. Opponents of socialism won't get this point at all, since they think its "tyranny" to be "forced to cooperate", and the similar nutty things they tend to say. Being careful with the use of the word "state" is part of the process of promoting clearer understanding of the principles of socialism. The phony "socialists" of the many variants of the so-called Communist Party misuse the word all the time, but, then again, they don't seem to be too interested in promoting any real social education.

Posted: 07 Mar 2006 11:00 pm Post subject:

Here is something I just did not understand: The first paragraph is about SIU.
The reply is something I am not getting when the writer advocates for a "state." I don't know what sort of organized structure would exist.

Posted: 08 Mar 2006 11:58 am Post subject:

John quoted:

"The principles of workers' democracy--i.e., the right and power of the majority to recall all elected representatives, the abolition of bureaucratic privileges, etc.--would ensure that control of the socialist industrial government remained in the hands of the rank and file.

"Representative democracy is trash. We have the means and the need for direct democracy."

Dave asks: John, when you quote something can you give its source, if possible a html? Thanks.

I would add a comment to that which you did quote -

These "principles" are nice sounding statements - but the real power is the workers collectively producing for themselves. It would be difficult to imagine that control of production will really get down to issues of direct vs. indirect control. If it's a question of the allocation of radio frequencies I would vote for Mike, or a sytem that picks people like Mike to make those determiantions. That every final decsion could be sumitted to world-pop for ratification - but even that becomes a burden - and in not too long of a time, an impossibility. Does anyone really expect that each person on the planet is going to review even a condensed version of the rationale for the proper allocation of radio frequencies in addition to the myiad of other issues. That idea is trash in itself.

dave

Posted: 08 Mar 2006 04:30 pm Post subject:

When talking about administering industry, I think much of the democracy has to be representative, that is, indirect, largely because many of the details are trivial. How best to do all the steps needed to make sewing needles? How best to do all the steps needed to make furniture polish? There will be some details the workers will determine spontaneously, and other details where they determine that they want to delegate the detail-thinking to a management committee. Wherever the workers elected their own supervisors, even if it's only to offload some of the drudgery of handling details to someone who can do nothing but think about those details, that is a system of indirect, that is, representative, democracy.

There will be times when people judge that an issue isn't a trivial detail at all, but, on the contrary, it is a major policy decision, which I can see happening with something like solar power versus nuclear power, or mass transportation versus automobiles. In policy-setting matters, I would be more comfortable with direct democracy. It's feasable to have a system in which direct democracy can, when considered necessary, take authorization away from representative democracy, such as a direct referendum being a higher authority than an act of delegates, according to a written constitution. In such a system, delegates could administer by default, until such time as the whole group views an issue as more fundamental, and uses direct voting to take charge of it.

When I say "referendum", I'm thinking of a relatively simple mechanism in which anyone can write a petition at any time, and many of those petitions which are unpopular will simply be forgotten, but those which attract larger support will tend to be further discussed and occasionally ratified as passed motions. I would prefer a system in which an electronically-distributed petition is actually the same thing as a bill up for vote, in the sense that refraining from signing it (or having never heard of it) is the same as voting "no" on it, but if and when a majority sign it, it is then recognized as a passed motion.

This need to get a majority in terms of (electronic) signatures would cause people to band together, so that, for example, there would tend to be be one major "solar power instead of nuclear power" petition, or a few, and not a thousand minor variations of it. This banding together might be what we end up with in place of today's form of political parties, that is, the solar faction and the nuclear faction, each seeking to persuade the majority to support their respective petitions. My example here, the issue of where to get energy, happens to be an economic or industrial issue -- again, the words of Engels' pamphlet inspire me: "The goverment of people is replaced by the administration of things, and the conduct of processes of production." As people band together to promote various ideas, I think there might be organization into several industrial parties, as we today have organization into political parties.

Posted: 09 Mar 2006 12:15 pm Post subject:

You'd have to have representatives body if only to frame the questions. And the outcome of probably all questions can be influenced by the wording of the question. If anything direct decsions are more of a show. IMHO

I just had an idea. This probably belings in another space - Some states in the US have referendum and recall. E.G. in California you can circulate a petition to get a certain question on the ballot. If it passes it becomes law.

As opposed to putting candidates on the ballot in thise states, why did the SLP or other groups ever attempt to put on the ballot the question of the workers revolution?

Posted: 09 Mar 2006 08:43 pm Post subject:

Sorry Dave, the thread that I posted on had only two responses. Here is the original html.

http://www.slp.org/siu_ism.htm

Posted: 09 Mar 2006 10:51 pm Post subject:

Thanks, John, but where did this come from which you quoted:

"The principles of workers' democracy--i.e., the right and power of the majority to recall all elected representatives, the abolition of bureaucratic privileges, etc.--would ensure that control of the socialist industrial government remained in the hands of the rank and file.

"Representative democracy is trash. We have the means and the need for direct democracy."

dave

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 12:37 am Post subject:

I would but the server on Revolutionary Left is not responding.

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 09:16 am Post subject:

Somewhere in http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/

I've posted there a few times. Interesting forum structure, categories called theory, history, science, etc.

Posted: 12 Mar 2006 11:17 pm Post subject:

Here you go Dave. Rev Left often is off-line.

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46700

Posted: 12 Mar 2006 11:35 pm Post subject:

From the Fundamental website:

Posted: 28 Mar 2006 05:53 am Post subject:

Hi,

I've been reading Capital as you know. How do write this....the division of labor exist and always existed. In primative time labor was divided among tribe members. Today, the capitalist has refined the division of labor. From raw material to the finished product the work flows from one department to the next. Each work person doing a task that is either below his talents and education. We all know that the worker sells his labor power to the capitalist and becomes a chain in the production process. All the while the workers are in cooperation with each other. On the other hand, the laborer has no clue that he is exploited at the point of production. His/her surplus labor creating surplus value which becomes profit for the capitalist. The laborer does not get a fraction of those profits.

Where am I going with this? Well, first of all there is a belief that after the revolution the division of labor will no longer exist. I don't agree with that form of thinking. If anything, when the means of production are socially owned what comes with it is the division of labor in its many forms. Why, because it already exist in every factory, etc. I would have no clue as to how the division would become something else. The division of labor will exist for many years after the revolution which I have no doubt. So, the LTV will have to play a part during the socialist reconstruction of society until science comes up with better forms of meaningful labor.

Posted: 28 Mar 2006 01:54 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

Well, first of all there is a belief that after the revolution the division of labor will no longer exist.

dave writes:

DOL as it has been understood in historical terms (I think anyway) meant an enforced division rather than a voluntary selection of what a person likes to do. In that sense there won't be
a DOL.

In my humble opinion I have seen people go nutty with capital. Marx's purpose (I believe) was to show the underpinnings of the capitalist system to demonstrate tat labor and not any captialist magic is the source of modern wealth. I've seen people get up into vol III and TOTALLY loose their bearings as was demonstrated in some of the discussions at WSM.

Have you read Value Price and Profit? Do you understand that? I would totally assimilate that before wandering off into capital especially beyond vol I

Just a suggestion.

dave

Posted: 28 Mar 2006 02:56 pm Post subject:

I think Marx didn't fully appreciate how much science itself imposes a division of labor. The more science learns, the more jobs will become specializations. Just try entering entering into electrical engineering today -- from the day you start taking Circuits 101, you won't be a competent worker for at least eight to ten years. You're a trainee all that time. There's just too much to learn.

When I say 'science', I mean this to refer to any skill where the training is very time consuming, so I could as well speak of the science of playing the piano, etc.

Socialism will solve some of the problem but not all of it. In socialism, I can be an electrical engineer on Monday, a gardener on Tuesday, and an artist on Wednesday. But I think the complexity of skills, and the length of a human lifetime, will prevent a person from having a lot of variety in the technically skilled careers. You can pick one or two skilled careers, and fill in the other days with careers of a more intuitive nature. I wouldn't have time to learn to be an engineer and a pharmacist and a piano player, but maybe I could be an engineer and a gardener and an artist.

So capitalism imposes some of the division of labor, and the necessities of skill imposes some of the division of labor.

This isn't the only place where Marx overgeneralized. For example, elsewhere, he asserts that capitalism produces, and therefore socialism will end, the contrast between urban environments and rural environments. Bullshit.

Posted: 28 Mar 2006 10:28 pm Post subject:

I have not read Value, Price and Profit but I have the actual book "Capital vol. 1." What I was conveying is that since the capitalist, through science, already has made the division in labor at the work place, the process from raw material to the finished product will continue for a number of years after the revolution. You know, each process that is put into a product up to packaging and shipping. I was not writing about people who will do one job one day and a different one the next.

Posted: 29 Mar 2006 01:56 am Post subject:

VP&P is on the Marx archive - more of a pamphlet than a book.

The division of labot that you write of , I didn't know of anyone who was suggesting that would end with capitalism.

Posted: 30 Mar 2006 02:18 am Post subject:

Posted: 30 Mar 2006 02:26 am Post subject:

Posted: 01 Apr 2006 12:33 pm Post subject:

Ah, I understand now. To change the subject from the division of labor back to the topic. I've been really reading through the SLP website and have taken up reading the articles here. I saw this gem:

http://www.deleonism.org/cgi-bin/text.cgi?j=91101901

I've seen it touched on at the SLP website but I had no idea the SLP actually had the LTV as part of the program of SIU. I agree that there would be many capitalist and their supporters who would cause economic harm in the new society among other concerns such as shortages of life's basic neccessities.

John T.

Posted: 01 Apr 2006 10:26 pm Post subject:

When Dave and I were first attracted to the SLP in the 1960s, they had a pamphlet called "Socialism -- Questions Most Frequently Asked and their Answers." There was a question/answer in there that promoted the idea of labor vouchers. Years later, the SLP voted to withdraw that pamphlet from publication, meaning that they had later come to disagree with the way something in it was worded, but no public indication of what that change might be. But, because of that, I'd consider it unethical to reprint parts of that pamphlet and claim that it represents the SLP's current views. So what I did instead was to reprint a more recent (1991) article from "The People" that said basically the same thing about labor vouchers that the pamphlet had said.

See also my reprint from De Leon's "Fifteen Questions about Socialism." This is where De Leon originally showed an indication that he had read the related clause in Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Programme" and put his own spin on the meaning of it.

Posted: 02 Apr 2006 12:45 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 02 Apr 2006 02:40 am Post subject:

John would you please re ask that Amish question. I didn't understand it.
thanks,
dave

Posted: 02 Apr 2006 12:51 pm Post subject:

I was wondering if paper vouchers were to be used for people who don't have much to do with modern technology like the Amish folk? Most likely they would tally their hours on paper.

Posted: 02 Apr 2006 07:55 pm Post subject:

Our beloved Amish.

This brings up a point about people who would just rather opt out of the industriall system. There is no need what so ever for uniformity. The Amish and many others might want to hang back of years and decades to see how things play out independent farmers, craftspeople artists, whatever. An independent farmer wouldn't receive labor vouchers. He or she would produce what ever it is that they produce, and barter it for goods or someone else's labor voucher, it would seem to me.