Socialism

Posted: 16 May 2007 06:20 pm Post subject: The State

The Marxian meanings of such terms as "political" and "state".

This first post will be edited later to add a list of links. (Maybe I ought to gather the relevant quotations from Marx and Engels into one file and then post a link to it.) Comments of opinion begin with the second post in the topic.

Posted: 16 May 2007 06:20 pm Post subject:

There's so much confusion produced by the way Marx and Engels use the word "state." I'm not talking about the state supposedly being based on "geographical" units, which De Leon got from Morgan, and not from Marx. I'm talking about the parts of the definition where the state is (1) a device of a ruling class to suppress the ruled, and (2) a thing with coercive agencies such as legislatures, police, courts and penalties. I think it's grossly unscientific to have a single term to denote both (1) and (2), as Marx did, but not to have terms for (1) and (2) individually. It has made all subsequent discussion utterly confused. Of course a socialist society will have coercive agencies. The day there is no loner a penalty for a driver not yielding at a yield sign will also be the day there is a thousand percent increase in traffic collisions. Society must enforce rules. But will that same socialist society have a "state"? No, according to definition (1), and yes, according to definition (2). It shows a lack of preparation to use the term "scientific socialism" and not even have the vocabulary straightened out.

Posted: 16 May 2007 10:08 pm Post subject:

state (n.2)

"political organization of a country, supreme civil power, government," 1538, from state (n.1); this sense grew out of the meaning "condition of a country" with regard to government, prosperity, etc. (c.1290), from L. phrases such as status rei publicæ "condition of the republic." Often in phrase church and state, which is attested from 1589. The sense of "semi-independent political entity under a federal authority" (as in the United States of America) is from 1856; the British North American colonies occasionally were called states as far back as 1634. The states has been short for "the United States of America" since 1777; hence stateside (1944), World War II U.S. military slang. State rights in U.S. political sense is attested from 1798; form states rights is first recorded 1858. Statesman is from 1592.
Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 16 May. 2007. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/state>.

Posted: 16 May 2007 10:22 pm Post subject:

see also the rise of the state in Athens - commodites and the state seem to materialize jointly.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch05.htm

Posted: 17 May 2007 03:06 am Post subject:

Maybe we should rethink our old habit of figuring out what something is by reviewing where it oriignally came from. It may be the case that how the state came into being thousands of years ago is no longer helpful in understanding what it is today.

Several thing developed around the same time. Commodity production, as you mentioned, very important -- consciously prodicung more than you intend to use, so that you will have a surplus that you can sell -- an idea that may have had to be "invented" at some point. Also, nomads settled into walled cities. War took on more of a direct objective of taking captives that could be used for slave labor. Private property as a legal institution, along with the ideas that go along with property, such as inheritance and divorce, became formally defined in written codes. Tribal chiefs were replaced by kings. Religion dropped nature-worship and adopted king-worship. Division of labor, by which I mean specialization, became more of a habit, so I suppose if an ancient Roman took one glance inside a Henry Ford factory there would at least be an immediate recognition of, oh yeah, specialization, we do that too.

Most interesting, perhaps, is that today, just as back then, the state is nominally a preserver of harmony among the people, and sometimes it actually does that, but, for every one time that it does that, there are a large number of times that it just steps on the people to make us all shut up and keep working.

Apart from where the state came from, and the convolutions it has gone through, here we are now, in the 21st century. We now know that human behavior is a bell curve, as indeed just about everything in biological systems is a bell curve. Even in the most perfected society of the future there will be the occaisonal killer or assailant. There will be a need to enforce laws. De Leon and his followers provide virtually no discussion of how that function might be handled.

The SLP "Questions Most Frequently Asked" pamphlet (now out of print, but with no announcement of which of the content prompted them to take it out of circulation) claims that a socialist society will have laws but it won't have police. As a young person I used to wonder: then who are going to enforce those laws - magical little elves?

Some say a "people's militia" instead of a full-time police force. Not an adequate answer, or, at least, not a full answer. A classless society would get better results having certain people who make a full time job of the policing function, because then a pre-qualification process could make sure that they have studied advanced psychology and ethics along with practicing with their restraining skills.

As it stands now, we are open to ridicule and charges of being disingenuous. The critic of socialism says, ha-ha those socialist say their won't be a "state". They are merely playing with words. I guess the jail won't be called a jail; it will be called a humane reeducation center. What new name are you going to give to handcuffs - perhaps you will call them circular motion inhibiting instruments?

Until we fix our terminology, every time we say that socialism will be stateless, the working class listener thinks we are either dishonest, utopian, or plain bonkers.

Posted: 17 May 2007 08:01 am Post subject:

I must say that you make damned good points that I have no answers for at 4 a.m. (except for my comment elsewhere on the damned bell curve.

dave

Posted: 17 May 2007 12:03 pm Post subject:

It seems like we are looking for some kind of switch - easy to explain - where sovereignty over production and distribution is transferred to the workers in the industires and all titles of ownership to such are simply disolved - possibly small family conducted concerns optional.

Posted: 17 May 2007 09:35 pm Post subject:

Another thing is value judgement. Say, the argument about whether certain methods or experiments are ethical. Or "experts" might disagree among themselves about whether certain technologies are safe or hazardous. There has to be a political decision. In this kind of area, Thomas Jefferson is more useful than Daniel De Leon. The all-industry congress can determine best _how_ to do it, but has no special qualification to say whether it's ethical to do it. De Leon claims that the job of the all-industry congress will be "... the easy one which can be summed up in the statistics of the wealth needed, the wealth producible, and the work required...." [from 'The Burning Question.'] Did he really think all the policies would be technical ones? Perhaps he was more influenced by anarcho-syndicalism than he thought he was. It's clear that he couldn't have foreseen the arguments about stem cell research, or designer babies, but surely he should have foreseen problem behaviors, the occasional outburst of violence. The only way he wouldn't have foreseen violence in a socialist world would be if he made exactly the kind of error that the critics of socialism charge us with - an assumption about whether "human nature" is "basically good" or"basically evil" good" (in this case, "good" being the one, if it were really true that society could get along without a law-making body). My opinion, there's nothing to indicate that socialist society can do without political government.

Posted: 17 May 2007 10:55 pm Post subject:

Actually it was George Washington who was more useful than either of these because he grew hemp at Mount Vernon. Any of these problems can be summed up in how much pot is required to be produced to get everyone on the same wavelength on all of these seemingly intractable problems. Q. What decsion do we makle about such and such? A. Produce more pot.

Posted: 19 May 2007 10:34 pm Post subject:

And then there was the theory developed by Lewis Henry Morgan, 19th century law professor turned amateur cultural anthropologist, and author of _Ancient Society_. He said all of human history to date fits into these broad categories: the first plan of government, based on the gens (tribe or clan) and classlessness, and the second plan of government, based on territory and property and class rule. The first he calls 'societas' and the second he calls 'civitas.' Every substage is marked by the invention of something (bow, pottery, etc.), with one of the real biggies being "civilization", which gave us class rule and the state, being marked by the invention of phonetic alphabets. He concluded his book with the prophetic remark that "a mere property career is not to be the final destiny of mankind." Engels was so impressed by Morgan that it made him write his own book about the same subject, _Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_, much of which is a paraphrase of Morgan. De Leon, very enthusiastic about Morgan, called his own idea for a confederation of industries "the third plan of government." Until late in the 20th century this theory was pounded into the heads of SLP members, who were expected to familiarize themselves with the structure of the Iroquois confederacy, the early political structure in Greece introduced by Solon and Cleisthenes, etc., all finally commencing, of course, in the third plan of government, the SIU, which will recover the immediate and direct council democracy of ancient tribal society, but now on the higher plane of modern technology.

Question:

Valid or horseshit?

Posted: 20 May 2007 09:17 pm Post subject:

Since we are talking about the history and charcater of the thing called the state ... I have a digital version of Lewis Henry Morgan, _Ancient Society_, acquired years ago from marxist.org (not marxists.org), which is now a dead domain name. I'll put it online in case anyone wants to make a copy. It has a .doc extension and my computer opens it with wordpad. File size 1.55 megabytes. A very small number of typos in it.

http://www.deleonism.org/text/ancient-society.doc

Posted: 21 May 2007 12:53 am Post subject:

What in Sam Hill is scientific socialism anyways? I would gather that the state protects citizenry and to make sure society is safe for all. Got to have stop signs and penalize those who drive drunk and kill someone. A socialist society won't have an absence of state but will determine how that state is conducted in everyone's interest. That why I reject the Dictatorship of the Proletariet because this term alone has been made to justify authortarian junkies of Lenin rights of rulership. How do we straighten out the terminology?

I do think police will exist. Someone going to have to arrest those who harm others or even theft. Don't think for one minute that identity theft of TLVs won't happen. Some people would rather steal than work and I met a few people who did. Socialism is not a panacea for everything but a beginning of a more sane world. At least we would hope and that it would evolve to a classless state but I even wonder what institutions would be created to bring that about. If it can be. I think we have to start being more honest concentration on what is NOW and say that government will continue but it would be a republic of labor containing civil courts and promotes equality and justice. The industrial public ownership of production is a whole new ball game and some sort of boundries have to exist and civil government may have to step in to make better safety rules or settle disputes between industries, individuals or whatever else may come up. Kinda strange we come to this point on the board. The talk of the state and what it is or suppose to be. I do think it will continue. It may never ajourn but evolve (rather than revolution) into the Republic of Labor. Perhaps the fight is not so much in the work place--though we still have to fight for better wages and benefits--but in the existing government of the U.S. by getting people into public service who a genuine socialist. I will have to read the link supplied.

Posted: 23 May 2007 07:48 am Post subject:

Posted: 24 May 2007 01:02 am Post subject:

Posted: 24 May 2007 04:09 am Post subject:

However, I don't think that socialism "is" a science. Engels used to say it is, but Marx didn't. Marx said "scientific socialism ", which is saying something different. Socialism is scientific in that it accepts science. It has the goal of using science whenever it can. That doesn't mean it "is" a science. The socialist movement can't conduct its own hypothesis-testing experiments, or not very often at least. But it looks at the discoveries of sociology and anthropology to see if they are relevant to understanding capitalism and socialism.

I'm not sure this distinction is clear. Suppose you're a car mechanic. The car won't start. You don't beat a drum and chant magic words. Instead, you hook up some diagnostic equipment. What you're doing is scientific in that it accepts and uses science. That doesn't mean your own task "is a science." I feel that this is the sense in which the socialist movement should be scientific -- it is obligated to gather many real facts, not myths, and use them to diagnose how things generally operate.

(In particular, I reject the claim that the dialectical method makes socialism " a science", and I reject the claim that the dialectical method is a "type of logic." Logic is something that allows a person to distinguish between a valid proposition and an invalid proposition, and there is no record of the dialectical approach ever providing that advantage to anyone.)

Posted: 24 May 2007 10:12 am Post subject:

John wrote:

Well that does not mean that socialism is something as a result of a number of negatives or positives of the present capitalist system or those earlier systems.

dave writes:

The next society (whatever it is is going to be) is going to (analogy alert) emerge from the present. The knowledge base, the physical infrastructure (that is not under water) the basic organization of production of goods and services by workers will be carried over into the next society, I would expect, would be carried over. In other words it is not likely we are going to invent the next society from scratch. But that the next society will be some development of the present.

I would expect the 'state" to still be around but not as a sovereignty but as an administrative expression of the SIU. FOR EXAMPLE: Courts of limited jurisdiction under the present system - family court, justice of the peace court only have such jurisdiction as is expressly set out in statute as to issues, procedures and available relief, in addition the judge is elected by the people of some defined geographic area and presides generally in that area. Although under the current system these courts are for the support of capitalism, it doesn't seem outrageous to believe that these courts couldn't be authorized by the SIU instead of the state legislature and operate almost in the same manner that they do now.

Many of the current government functions currently carried out by courts and commissions of strictly limited authority I can see simply being re-organized under the sovereignty of the workers:

All Industry Congress determination number 14584 - for the establishment of geographic courts of limited jurisdiction ...

All Industry Congress determination number 14637 - for the reorganization of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission

dave

Posted: 24 May 2007 10:39 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 25 May 2007 01:04 am Post subject:

No group, whether claiming "statehood" or not can do much without the workers. I believe essentially that there would be a general strike against any group seeking to usurp workers' sovereignty - no supplies whatsoever.

Posted: 25 May 2007 02:34 pm Post subject:

Posted: 26 May 2007 01:59 am Post subject:

Administrative bodies create behavioural type rules all of the time. The power granting authority actually needs very little expertise, it can set the parameters within which the administration is to operate. Why would a political based body have more expertise on the matter than a production based body? To tired to write more.

Posted: 26 May 2007 06:17 am Post subject:

Sometimes a rule is an economic one. Suppose society adopts a universal policy that says electronic designers are required to make things that use less energy. The designers, who are already accustomed to proceeding within given parameters, would add that new rule to their existing list of several design parameters. Because it is about work procedure, it is economic.

We need a separate way to refer to society's rules that are not economic, such as a law against an act of violence. I called the latter the subject of "behavior" because I can't think of another word for it.

Posted: 26 May 2007 10:43 am Post subject:

That does not mean there needs to be more than the "economic" as the ultimate (sovereign) earthly authority of the commonwealth. The economic can authorize an administrative body to do such if required, along strict procedural parameters.

Posted: 26 May 2007 04:36 pm Post subject:

"Authorize" sounds like "appointees" to me. The law-makers have to come from somewhere.

Say there's a meeting of a hundred law-makers deciding whether it should be considered ethical and legal to use cloning to produce a half-human half-horse.

(Note, parenthetically, I would like a system where a direct vote of the whole population makes a lot of the major ethical decisions, but, even if there were direct democracy, the people would choose to make time for themselves to determine some fraction of the issues, and would delegate the rest of the issues, perhaps the issues considered to be the lesser ones, to representatives.)

So imagine this controversial project to create a half-human half-horse gets delegated to the assembly of law-makers. I repeat: these law-makers must have come from somewhere. How did they find themselves in that position?

If these law-makers were elected by the whole adult population, then we might as well use the extant word "politics" for it. There are just a few hundred people in the world who will object to use of the word "politics" for this, because of their reading of Lewis Henry Morgan, but I think it would be ridiculous to fight to change the popular meaning of that very common word.

I hope you're not suggesting that the industrial congress should appoint the people who sit in the law-making assembly, so I have to ask for clarification of your term "authorize." I'll go along with the all-industry congress authorizing the initial foundation of an assembly of, say, one hundred law-makers, but the real issue is how the representatives thereto get selected, the only two general methods that come to my mind being election and appointment.

Here's a good political debate for a highly developed technological society, socialist or otherwise: I propose that we should use genetic engineering to create a variety of half-human monsters. We will learn so much from the results. The analysis of the genome has given us only a string of molecules. Somewhere in that code are all the differences between a human and other living things. If we could read that language, we could be like gods, changing kinds of humans who inhabit the earth, popping out Mozarts like cookies. To learn that genetic language we have to test each information bit to see what it does. Producing a variety of monsters is the best way to perform those tests. Of course, the offspring will have feelings and emotions, and those who may be born with horses hooves or insect antennae, and may not live long -- if they are lucky -- and will undergo terrible suffering, but how else can science learn the effects of all possible genetic combinations?

Mark my words -- the suggestion given in the preceding paragraph will definitely be a major political debate in the next few centuries. I'm not really suggesting that such experiments should be conducted, but each of us should hear what it sounds like when such an idea is put forth in the form of a political proposal, along with supporting arguments.

Someone is going to decide, one way or another. Who will get to decide? To try to answer that question is to address the issue of what kind of political system should exist.

I'm interchanging the words "legal" and "political." I don't see a clear distinction between the two words. Both words refer to the setting of policies which are something other than routine industrial management.

Posted: 26 May 2007 05:00 pm Post subject:

Generally ignored by De Leonists so far is the fact that SIU representation may deny equality of representation. Let's suppose you and I both have a 12 hour workweek. You decide to do 6 hours as a veterinarian and 6 hours as a gardener. I decide to do 4 hours as a computer programmer, 4 hours as a bus driver, and 4 hours as a house painter. So you have decided to join two associations hwile I have joined three, but same number of hours. Do you get two votes toward representation in the all-industry congress, while I get three votes, because those are the number of associations we have decided to join? Or does each of us get twelve votes, one for each weekly hour? Now, suppose my wife supports the family, and I haven't worked in many years, perhaps never. Do I get no vote at all? If I don't work at all, it's one thing to be denied a vote in the matter of how to run an industrial plant, because, after all, I'm not a staff member at that industrial plant, but do I also get no vote at all in electing the representatives who decide on the penalty for murder?

In my experience, these kinds of problems are obvious to many readers of SLP literature. SLP writers seem to be oblivious to it, and don't answer many of the real objections that critics have.

***

Any lurkers or new site visitors: Please see the 1992 (?) position paper of the De Leonist Society on Canada, proposing a new policy on the need for political government in a socialist society: http://deleonism.org/dlsc2.htm

Posted: 27 May 2007 12:08 am Post subject:

Mike wrote about what I wrote:

I hope you're not suggesting that the industrial congress should appoint the people who sit in the law-making assembly, so I have to ask for clarification of your term "authorize." I'll go along with the all-industry congress authorizing the initial foundation of an assembly of, say, one hundred law-makers, but the real issue is how the representatives thereto get selected, the only two general methods that come to my mind being election and appointment.

dave replies:

bullshit, that's exactly what you are hoping so can can knock it down and kick dirt all over it.

Oh well, no I am not suggesting that, not even close.

i gave as an example before the justice of the peace in New York State. The line between a court and an administrative hearing officer is very fuzzy. Many things that a j.p. does in new york an administrative hearing officer handles in Vt. such as traffic infractions.

So lets call a justice of the pease in NY an administrator for all intents and pyurposes. The state legislature is the power giver to justice courts. The jurisidictional facts must show in the case, and the procedure specified by the legislature must show or the court simply has no jurisdiction. In mist cases the justice if the peace is elected.

If there needed to be some group of officers to do something or sugeest something - the power could be delegated by the SIU with a procedure for filling the offices, popular election, one option.

My point beng that the ultimate authority be the workers.

Posted: 27 May 2007 02:30 am Post subject:

Traffic infractions are about transportation, so there can be a case that traffic court can be under the auspices of the transportation industry. I'm concerned about issue that are not related to industries or services. I gave the example of violent behavior.

Posted: 27 May 2007 04:40 am Post subject:

I have to agree with Mike on this one because most problems people have would be where they live at rather than where they work. I am sure there would be disagreements among those at work and an inside agency (or department) would have to come in to bring the peace. But in the new society, as I understand, people would be no longer having to fight for their individual existence being that there is no extraction of profits. The idea of civil government would continue to address negative moral and ethical behavior that occur between people. Humans are not going to transform into a new creation where everyone just loves one another. Basically, police and courts would continue to function but not as they exist today since they would serve the interest of community and protect people from those who are violent. To maintain freedoms and civil rights outside the industrial sector. As far as industrial sector goes I think that the transportation department handling traffic tickets is a good one since the behavior is speeding or going through a stop sign. However, if a person kills someone with a vehicle then civil authority would have to step in. I can understand Dave's concerns looking at how the present system is not so much in favor of workers, families and ordinary people.

Posted: 27 May 2007 11:14 am Post subject:

Why should workers be the ultimate authority as to government? ... The workers collectively organized are the ultimate governmental authority.

Ultimate analogy warning!!

We are not baking a cake here where each baker has their own vision of what the cake should contain, how it should be put together and how long it should stay in the oven. In the time of crises we are not going to be having a constitional convention over the internet. The current US Constitution which did not have to deal with the end of class rule in the economic sense, nor the fact now of the almost complete disinteragtion of geographical/political boundaries, took almost 4 months to complete and then it took another year for the thirteen states to ratify it.

We are not going to have any such luxury.

If we are not clear that the workers (analogy alert) are riding this horse we'd better stop right now.

Posted: 27 May 2007 05:01 pm Post subject:

That's the moment of revolution. What I'm opining about is the ongoing way people should continue to live.

These two things tend to get blended conceptually. The electoral college is an example. It's purpose was to persuade several states to establish a federal government in the first place. Now that this persuasion is no longer necessary, it has no continuing purpose. It's a counterproductive artifact that has become difficult to remove.

At the moment of revolutionary transition, the workers will have to take control of everything, very assertively and suddenly. The best way to run a democracy on an ongoing basis is a separate subject. Soon after the revolutionary change, society will finally have the leisure to plan things without having to worry about conquering power. Today we have to say "take and hold", words that call for prepositions, but within a few days after the revolution there will no longer be a ruling class to take "from" or hold "against". Giving his own definition of "politics", Aristotle began a writing: "Let us consider the ways in which we organize our lives together."

Posted: 27 May 2007 05:59 pm Post subject:

Perhaps you are right. Get me to the moment however and I will be happy. The next generation can deal with the effect of our lack of omniscense. We don't want to take all of their fun away.

Posted: 27 May 2007 10:17 pm Post subject:

On another subject ... I assume that Marxists today find the following comment to be an embarrassment? ....

"It must be regarded as a marvellous fact that a portion of mankind five thousand years ago, less or more, attained to civilization. In strictness but two families, the Semitic and the Aryan, accomplished the work through unassisted self-development. The Aryan family represents the central stream of human progress, because it produced the highest type of mankind, and because it has proved its intrinsic superiority by gradually assuming the control of the earth."

- Lewis Henry Morgan, Ancient Society, in the last paragraph of Part 4, Chapter 2

Posted: 28 May 2007 12:23 am Post subject:

sad, for further on this read:

Race and the Concept of Progress in Nineteenth Century
American Ethnology
[originally published in American Anthropologist, 73:710-724, 1971]

JOHN S. HALLER, JR.
Indiana University

http://www.aaanet.org/gad/history/040haller2.pdf

Posted: 28 May 2007 10:05 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the link, Dave. Man, that "race" concept sure is a duck with one wing, huh?

Now, for my next trick, I decided I'll seek out some places where the SLP talks about its concept of "government", so I added a bit to my page of articles from The People. Now here they answer a question: "Will full-time housewives be represented in the socialist industrial union government?" IMO, in their answer they seem do everything they can think of to procrasticate answering it. For example, they claim that the question "assumes that there will be substantial numbers of 'full-time housewives' in socialist society....", which is plain wrong -- the question is perfectly valid even if even one such person exists, and the questioner is justifiably concerned that this one or more individuals will be represented in what is purported to be a democracy. Then they get into all sort of totally irrelevant discussion of domestic relationships, etc. I think the plain truth is that the party has no prepared answer about this, because SIU representation as hitherto conceived is insufficiently democratic in structure. That's why the SLP is flapping around this question like a one-winged duck.

http://www.deleonism.org/cgi-bin/text.cgi?j=91032302

Posted: 28 May 2007 10:17 pm Post subject:

Now here the SLP answers (or with some strain attempts to answer) the question: "How would the judicial system be structured in a socialist society?"

Again, they go flapping around the issue, with all the customary modules, like how a socialist society won't have poverty-caused crime. It reminds me of when you ask a child who broke the lamp and they wiggle around and change the subject. Even if there were just a couple criminal cases in many years, our occasional Charles Manson over here and Richard Speck over there -- not poverty caused, of course, but brain-defect caused -- the question is just as valid as if there were millions of such cases.

The big embarrassment is in the answer, "We cannot say precisely how a judicial system would be structured in a socialist society, for it will be up to the people, through their socialist industrial union government, to make that determination." (My emphasis.)

Only one-person one-vote is democratic, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with the SIU!

http://www.deleonism.org/cgi-bin/text.cgi?j=91061501

Posted: 28 May 2007 10:29 pm Post subject:

Same article. I mentioned earlier about playing with words, fooling ourselves into thinking that by using the unconventional Marxian definition of the word "state" we thereby add insight to everything. Here's another example of it. The questioner asks about capital punishment. The SLP replies: "Where there is no state, there will be no more state-sanctioned murder." My objection: such a sentence has no content whatsoever because it relies on the technical use of the term "state" to mean "a government which isn't the instrument of a ruling class." This has no relevance to the genuine issues. The genuine issues are that capital punishment is based on revenge, the violent criminal probably has an organic defect in his brain, the penalty is irreversible if new evidence shows that the conviction was erroneous, etc., etc. Inserting "no state" into the answer seems to many socialists to add insightfulness but in fact it adds nothing. Either a socialist society does or does not need laws and enforcement (I personally believe that it does), and, when they throw "no state" in there, is only adds confusion. Oh, okay, society will have no classes, so there can't be a "state" in the Marxian sense, therefore there can't be "state-sanctioned murder". Well, then, how about "humanity-sanctioned murder" -- is that any different? Socialists need to stop pretending that rewriting the dictionary is automatically a form of clarification.

http://www.deleonism.org/cgi-bin/text.cgi?j=91061501

Posted: 29 May 2007 03:33 am Post subject:

Good to see this discussion is continuing. Among socialist there is the avoidance of establishing a dialog of what sort of government should exist and if crime would be addressed. A communist would shoot criminals and dissidents at a drop of a hat but may hold a kangaroo court hearing to make it look legit.

The avoidance of these issue is what keeps anyone from taking socialist seriously. Workers would listen to a conservative because he/she has substance in what would be done. Socialist want to be all warm and fuzzy but the reality is that hard decision would have to made when dealing with individuals who would cut your throat. Perhaps mental disorders are the reason but then there are individuals who work on being nasty and violent for whatever reason they have.

I have doubts that socialism would come through a revolutionary method of pissed off workers. It may be legislated instead if and when socialism has a vision of what the government of labor would be and what societal rules the population would want in civil government. The U.S. Constitution may actually continue but with some changes.

Posted: 29 May 2007 06:32 am Post subject:

Posted: 29 May 2007 11:32 pm Post subject:

But then agin there is the problem of falsely accused, impropperly identified, and instances where a crime in fact did not even occur but a person is convicted anyway.

We had an interesting case in Vt. where a male and female at a party at which there was much booze and whatnot ended up in the sack and he ended up inside of her when she supposedly became conscious of what was going on. it was and is and will always be a who knows situation - however the jury decided that he had sex with her without her consent and the state supreme court upheld it. I don't understand it, but draconian sentences are essentially life sentences.

Posted: 30 May 2007 02:22 pm Post subject:

A some point the law began to assume that there's either guilty or not guilty, and I don't think that binary outcome is consistent with justice. There should be more choices available to a jury.

In addition to "guilty" and "not guilty" there should also be another one that means "there is sufficient evidence of guilt that, to protect the community, we can't let you out of jail, but there is also enough doubt that the case remains open, and investigators will continue to look for indications of your innocence." After all, a trial is supposed to be a fact-finding process, and we wouldn't have a binary outcome in other fact-finding processes, say, when looking for life on another planet. The law makes the verdict binary only because they want to close the case to free up the detectives to go on to other cases -- an economic consideration.

Plus there should be the possible verdict "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" that we have now, but with some sort of controls. After Rubin Carter and John Artis were falsely convicted of murder in the 1960s based solely on the description "we're looking for two black men in a white car", with no other evidence at all, and then the police paying various local gangsters "witness fees" (bribes) to deliver perjury that they had seen the suspects at the scene, more people should have awakened to the fact the concept of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is severely broken. When the police and prosecutors get promotions and raises according to how many convictions they "win", that alone breaks the system, because they will try to "win", although exonerating an innocent person is also a "win" for justice and truth.

In addition to "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" then there should be a possible verdict "guilty with certainty." Some serial killers have admitted the guilt, in addition to foresnic evidence (the followers of Manson thought it was all a big joke). Now is when the investigators should close the case. This is totally unlike the someone being convicted solely because their car is the same color as the killer's car. The important difference needs to be recognized if a trial is truly to be a fact-finding process, and today's binary outcomes conceals the distinction.

Another option for the jury should be to return verdicts that distinguish between: "Not guilty, but the arresting office probably made an honest mistake", and a separate type of verdict, "Not guilty; in fact, the arresting police office didn't have any reason to arrest this person in the first place." When the latter verdict is returned, that should be fully equivalent to convicting the police officer of kidnapping someone at gunpoint. There have been cases in which that latter option would have been useful. People will ask me: Then who in their right mind would ever become a cop? My answer: the honest ones. Any cops who woulldn't have become cops under such a system are the bad cops, we are better off without them.

Jury nullifiction should also be formally adopted into the system. That's the verdict, "The suspect is gullty, but guilty of violating an unjust law, and therefore the case is dismissed." The public should view that outcome as a mark against the elected law makers. Some law makers probably need that kick in the pants to give them a reason to do the right thing.

Who the hell ever made up the rule that there can be only two possible verdicts?

Posted: 30 May 2007 02:34 pm Post subject:

And who made up the rule that a witness isn't allowed to make a statement in their own words? There have been cases in which witnesses were prohibited form telling the court what they knew because the lawyers for both sides insisted only on yes/no answers to yes/no questions.

That kind of system failure is produced by the assumption that an adversarial system reveals the truth. Who says so? There can be three or four or more theories about what events took place. To have exactly two sides that face each other with "I'm completely right and you're completely wrong" isn't a search for the truth.

And who made up the rule that a witness can't testify unless one of the two parties wants them? Maybe the truth is that third theory that the two parties are uninterested in. Real life isn't a contest.

Not directly related to this, and perhaps a tangent -- after JFK was killed in 1963 there were people whose perceptions were that the sounds of gunshots came from a variety of directions. They couldn't get the legal system to take their statements at all. They asked the Warren Commission to subpoena them and they were turned away. Something's wrong with the formal meaning of "witness". Even in the corrupt Roman empire someone was allowed to come forward and speak.

Posted: 30 May 2007 02:54 pm Post subject:

Dave, the case you mentioned, something going on in the law where the desire to take the side of groups that have been victimized traditionally is pushing the government to weaken the criteria. If a woman claims it wasn't consentual sex, the law is giving weight to the fact that the history of rape muts not be allowed to continue, making them overlook the fact that this is a case of "your word against mine", or the lack of clarity about whether there was a crime.

Arecent copy of "Popular Photography and Imaging" magazine that I read in the dentist office has a story about the law's strict crackdown on parents and grandparents who take innocent-intended pictures of their naked babies. IMO, the automatic assumption that they are pornographers is absurd, and my own adoring parents had a photo of bare-ass Me on the scale. But today, according to the article, whenever somoeone takes their computer to a repair shot, the standard procedure is for the repair technician to search their entire hard disk to see if any picture of nude babies can be found on it, then if they find one they call the police. Parents have lost custody of their children because of those classic bear-rug pictures. My opinion, it's in the law-makers where the obscenity can be found. If someone thinks that the human body is inherently evil and ugly, all of the obscenity is in their mind. It's the judge and prosecutor who are slimey perverts.

Posted: 30 May 2007 03:09 pm Post subject:

I don't know f you subscribe to Showtime, but the Penn and Teller program called "Bullshit!" is rather good. They are laissez faire "libertarians" which, as usual, means that, while they are imbiciles on any topic that has to do with economcs, they are also very perceptive about unjust government power over individuals. Their show about breasts and the first amendment was interesting. As we all know, one of their great social probems of the age, threatening to bring down all of human civilization, is the problem of women either sunbathing with their breasts uncovered, or their need to unbutton in public when it's time to feed the baby. The woman who leads the Top Free organization took this to court. She was arrested when she removed her shirt at a street demonstration. The court's ruling would be funny if it weren't so tragic. The court ruled that it's perfectly okay to imprison women because their breasts were uncovered, but, in this particular case, the reason she did it was as a protest against the government's practice of imprisoning women because their breasts were uncovered, and that makes it symbolic speech under the First Amendment, resulting in her acquittal. Now, are these law-makers and judges a bunch of sicko or what? They skipped right over the fact that the human body was here for millions of years before there even was a government. They didn't even admit that it was Nature that they were putting on trial.

Posted: 30 May 2007 09:08 pm Post subject:

I do not think that I agree with you about your court ideas. You have very little experience with which to make well informed opinions - but the case of the topless woman - I am sure that is very dear to you. I had thought that even total nudity was free expression. Have no idea what the courts say. In Vermont there is no nudidy law at all.

Posted: 31 May 2007 04:28 am Post subject:

Dave -- "You have very little experience with which to make well informed opinions." -- Why is experience needed in such things? My conscience tells me that some things are right and some things are wrong. I thought experience was for "how" skills.

Posted: 31 May 2007 05:00 am Post subject:

Okay, here's my suggestion for the ideal method for human society to make laws.

An assembly of 100 representatives makes all the laws for the world. Every adult person in the world gets to vote for any 100 candidates, and the 100 with the most votes wins.

There is no election day or term of office. People log into a computer at any time and set their votes. These preference stay in effect until people log in and change them. The computer daily tabulates the results and announces the membership of the law-making assembly.

This assembly is above the industrial congress in authority, and has the power to override its decisions.

The highest authority of all, able to override the decisions of the law-making assembly and the industrial congress, is the direct vote of the population. This is done by allowing anyone to write a proposition and put it into the computer. The computer displays them all by category. If any proposition is signed electronically by 51 percent of the population, the computer immediately announces that it has become universal law. In practice, people have to band together and get behind common proposals, because people know that, if everyone wrote their own minor revision, then there wouldn't be much chance to get noticed by, much less signed by, 51 percent of the people. This voluntary banding together takes the place of today's concept of political organizations and lobbies.

That's my "Plato's Republic".

Am I nuts or what?

Posted: 31 May 2007 11:38 am Post subject:

No not nuts at all. To me however it is idealistic. If the SIU endorsed the matter and gave authority to a body that superceded it, I would look at that as an impropoer surrender of worker authority. One of the legal developments under capitalism has been the growth of something called administartive law. Look at the present Federal govt., of all of the agencies there must be one that is doing a good job for the public. (How people get on thise commissions and secreatiets is another matter) Let's pick the agency that is in charge of the national archives as a non-controversial one. Now one could say that we need to have a law that the entire population of the US has a vote in who is a member of the body that controls this agency, and that the agency decsions should supercede federal law. Do you really think that the agency would run any better than it does right now? of course we would expect that it would run better under socialism but that is not the point here. It is hard for my fingers to type these words but I would expect that a lot of admistrative structure will survive the revolution - revamped totally, of course - but the basic idea of administartive law (analogy alert) just like the basic idea of criminal law seems that it would or could be a workable proposition.

Posted: 31 May 2007 05:52 pm Post subject:

It may be managed by the law today, but I think the national archives is an industrial department, so I would not want the entire population to elect its governing board. Doesn't it use skills like what they call library science, or curatorship or something? Using specialized skill makes it an industry. Society's representatives may set some top guidelines, but, within those guidelines, the staff should manage it.

But making laws as I'm using the term "laws", labeling certain behaviors as crimes, don't require any skills. A citizen who knows almost nothing about social studies has just as much right to elect the law-makers as someone with a dozen college degrees. One-person one-vote makes them equal.

Posted: 31 May 2007 06:15 pm Post subject:

Posted: 31 May 2007 10:28 pm Post subject:

But making laws as I'm using the term "laws", labeling certain behaviors as crimes, don't require any skills. A citizen who knows almost nothing about social studies has just as much right to elect the law-makers as someone with a dozen college degrees. One-person one-vote makes them equal.

Drafting laws that affect behaviour is highly technical. Change a singe word or even word position and decades of decision law into total confusion.

No we should not have as one of our reasons for wanting socialism - "Boy we are really going to staraigten out that stupid system of criminal justice that we have." of course thigs shoud change, but you won't find too many in the criminal justice system who will tell you that it's the damned stautes that are off.

Posted: 31 May 2007 10:36 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

It may be managed by the law today, but I think the national archives is an industrial department, so I would not want the entire population to elect its governing board. Doesn't it use skills like what they call library science, or curatorship or something? Using specialized skill makes it an industry. Society's representatives may set some top guidelines, but, within those guidelines, the staff should manage it.

dave:

But there are numerous matters of public policy beyond the technical: "what is the best way to preseve the copy of the declaration of independence."

Posted: 31 May 2007 10:41 pm Post subject:

dave wrote:

If the SIU endorsed the matter and gave authority to a body that superceded it

Mike wrote:

Would that be necessary? I thought the program was for a political mandate to assign authority to the SIU, not the other way around.

dave writes:

Once it's asigned to the SIU, the SIU has it. IMV

Posted: 31 May 2007 11:38 pm Post subject:

I think what you described would be De Leon's scenario: "What should there be for them [socialists in Congress] to do? Simply to adjourn themselves, on the spot, sine die. Their work would be done by disbanding." But if the attitude at that time is that the new society needs some kind of political and legal procedures, maybe the old Congress should go through the rigamarole to create the new legal structures, more in line with Engels's scenario "the state is not 'abolished' -- it dies out".

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 03:09 am Post subject:

The State dies out? The world is run by many governments. I would have considered the adjournment of the existing government a great idea. However, I don't believe that would be a wise decision. Society would have issues on crime, safety, environment and anything else. Some issue would be resolved under the socialist industrial government as it relates to production and safety of products while addressing a safe working environment. But a socialist civil government would have to address things in a political manner when it comes to those who harm others and to make sure those convicted are to make restitution for their crimes. Lock up facilities would have to continue to exist but make them actual places of rehabilitation rather than places of continued violence.

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 03:30 am Post subject:

Maybe "the state ... dies out" would mean more by refering directly to how government today overdoes the part about ruling people. For example, the U.S. govt isn't content just to spend more on the miitary than any other country; no, it has to actually spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined. It's a kind of obsession. Victimless crimes are another example. e.g., no sooner did they stop imprisoning people for forming trade unions then they started imprisoning people for making beer. Government is a huge octopus. If we suddenly found ourselves with a sane and logical form of government, a lot of it's "urgent" tasks could be thrown out. In that sense, I can see Engels' comment "the state ... dies out."

But, let's face it, Marx and Engels were part of their own times. It was fashionable in the mid 1800s for a lot of social movements to speak of the "infinite perfectibility" of "human nature." M and E seem to have believed, just as the anarchists Bakunin and Proudhon did, that a new social system will change people so profoundly that we won't need to have laws anymore. So on the subject we have discussed here, I'd have to grant that "although I'm a Marxist generally, I'm not a Marxist on THIS issue." It doesn't bother me to say that. I don't need a label as my security blanket. I know too much about how science constantly scraps one model and begins to use an improved one.

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 11:08 am Post subject:

If only on a practical level it seems impossible

Congress will have authority over the industries?

If Congress does, then it is subject to the Supreme Court and the Constitution - the same Constitution that allowed for chattel slavery?

And all it takes to block an amendment that would allow the means of production to be the workers without compensating the capitalists is just one legislative house in only 13 states.

And then the whole thing starts to look like a government solution.

If I run for Congress next year I'll be god damned I'm going to tell people that I'm going to go down there with Bernie Sanders and legislate on behalf of the workers. My candidacy will be purely a referendum campaign on the issue of SIU.

Remember at one time the country was referred to as a union? That was of states - this one will be of industrial workers.

And how can it be both ways? Either it's going to be a union of industrial workers or a union of leftover feudal constituencies (states) which divide workers.

ISTM

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 11:44 am Post subject:

But on the other hand why don't we propose a constitutional amendment. How should it read?

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 11:45 am Post subject:

When in the course of human events ...

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 05:17 pm Post subject:

I was thinking more of... instead of the congress votes all power to the SIU and then disbands, instead of that, the congress votes all power to a new arrangement some number of branches, with a the division of powers between the SIU and a completely new political legislature, and then disbands.

Posted: 03 Jun 2007 05:33 pm Post subject:

Posted: 04 Jun 2007 12:08 pm Post subject:

At first I thought, sure, easy, a 4th co-equal branch of govt.

But then questions as to the logistics start to settle in. Damned details.

Remember the people have two sets of soverign expressions already, the federal govt. and state govt.

I guess it could be that the federal govt have 4 co-equal branches and the states have 3.

So is that it? We propose an amendment that makes the SIU a 4th co-equal branch of the federal govt.?

And essentially then As I think that I would see it, current congress looses its taxing authority becuase now all wealth is under the purview of the SIU.

We also have to look at that although not anywhere near dominant, there is still a significan non-industrial economy, and I think that it should in fact be encourged if only to efficaciously fill in the gaps in the industrial economy. I guess, but I don't know that they might be a part of the SIU. Maybe a voice but no vote in congress like the current D.C. residents.

Instructive to look at the xiii amendment as to the abolition of slavery:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

This is a simple prohibition, if we added wage slavery - that doesn't add anything to replace it.

I have never seen these issues raised anywhere, has anyone?

Posted: 04 Jun 2007 04:41 pm Post subject:

Marxists should have been discussed these issues a long time go, not to prescribe final answers, but to list a dozen possibilities, and to get started naming any recognizable strengths and weaknesses of each possibility. (And because, as I always say in my arguments with the WSM, I feel that the most common objection that working class people have to socialism is "I can't visualize how it could possibly work." So I personally like the dreaded "blueprints", and lots of them.)

I'm not sure that a term like co-equal branches describes what I'm thinking. Like a classical De Leonist I see the SIU handling everything that's economic. Co-equal branches sounds like they have routinely overlapping jobs and the constitution has to say how they overlap. The legislature outlaws murder, the executive branch apprehends the murderer, and the judicial branch puts the murderer on trial. There is overlap in that all three participate in a single process, treating murder as a crime. But in what I'm talking about, I don't see a general overlap. The industrial branch makes frying pans and clock-radios, and the legislative, executive and judicial branches (if we really do need all three) stops a murderer. With the lack of an basic overlap in their goals, I'm skeptical about calling the industrial administration one of the coequal branches.

So I have to ask if what amount of overlap would occur.

First, the trivial case of overlap would be, you commit murder at home then the law apprehends you at home, but if you commit murder at work then the law apprehends you at work. I'll call that the trivial type of overlap because it has to do merely with location.

But there is one type of overlap that I think is very significant. Whenever you have different populations voting, the opinions and therefore the results of the votes are always different -- at least slightly different. Suppose among the workers in the SIU, and/or their elected representatives, a proposal to outlaw some industrial procedure as dangerous or unethical, for example, the use of the pesticide DDT, got 45% support, 55% opposed, the motion failed, but among the population as a whole and/or its elected representatives, the proposal got 55% support, 45% opposed, the motion passed. Now society as a whole is making it a crime to use DDT as a pesticide. Several industry-related controversies can be cited, such as the mandate to install seatbelts into cars, the belief that nuclear power plants are unsafe, the ethical debates about genetically engineered babies, etc. If the society as a whole believes that the industrial system has failed to make a proper industrial policy, it should be able to intervene by using the power to make laws.

The use of this override power would be an exception, because there are millions of decisions that form the plans of industry for every one decision that results in a public controversy. This isn't entirely unprecedented, since the Marbury vs. Madison principle of judicial review is also something that is available and occasional. In that sense, one could speak of my suggestion as shared power among branches.

Posted: 04 Jun 2007 10:04 pm Post subject:

Think more upon this.

The preamble of the US Constituion:
***********
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
***********

You will note that no mention is made of the necessity of having overlapping functions among branches of governement.

But the 4th branch route provides for a way to transition to socialism while maintaining the beneficial functions of the present government during thre transition and it shall continue for as long as the people wish for it to remain.

If it does that anything else is (analogy alert) gravy. And unless there is some almost absolute fault in the system, why wouldn't it be a hell of a lot more than any other proposal?

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 01:39 am Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 04:13 am Post subject:

Dave, for what you said, can you make up an example of an interaction among branches? I can't picture it. Here's an interaction: congress passes a law and the supreme court overturns it. Here's another one: congress subpoena's Nixon's tapes and he refuses to turn them over, but then the Supreme Court says that he can't refuse. Can you think of an interaction with the SIU as a branch?

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 04:21 am Post subject:

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 12:48 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

I do believe that most Americans would want to maintain the present beneficial function of government i.e. courts of law and enforcement. But changes would occur over the common ownership of production in which we get the industrial government. I would also believe that the SIU would not be a branch of civil government but subject to the governing laws.

dave writes:

I agree except the part about the SIU not being a branch of civil govt. The present constitution is a model of shared sovereirnty through seperation of powers. First off you have a federal govt. with limited authority by the constituion with some powers beign exclusively within the purview of the states, and then there is seperation of the powers that fed. govt. does have among the various branches.

Mike: You wrote about the overlap of functions - yes and no. (Don't you love that answer?)

The judiciary is generally described as being the weakest branch becuase all it has it to make judgements in proper cases brought before it. It has no authority to enforce without the aid of the exectutive. What all it can do in ordering compliance with its judgments has never been fully answered because there are seldom if ever cases where the executive refuses to honor the judgements. What if Nixon had simply refused to turn over the tapes? Not much that the court or congress could have done could have done to him except to remove him from office, he was insulated by the seperation of powers. Moreover, the president is subject to the laws of congress - except that there are powers the president has under the constitution that congress cannot directlty control through legislation (The Tenure of Office Act under which Andrew Johnson was impeached comes to mind) neither Congress or the judiciary could enforce that law directly so the only thing that it could do was to attempt to remove the president who thought that it was unconstitutional.

That is why I envision the SIU should be a 4th branch - that it has seperate authority - the basis through which the producers collectively possess and operate the industrial means of wealth production.

Mike writes

can you make up an example of an interaction among branches? I can't picture it. Here's an interaction: congress passes a law and the supreme court overturns it. Here's another one: congress subpoena's Nixon's tapes and he refuses to turn them over, but then the Supreme Court says that he can't refuse. Can you think of an interaction with the SIU as a branch?

dave writes:

Yes I can think of an interaction. Congerss legislates concerning the national parks. The exective branch purusnt to that legislation has the park administartion draw up a plan for the preservation of the park which requires some deal of expendature of labor. It petitions the SIU for the alotment. Even the day to day opertion of the park would require labor. That labor again would be suplied via alotment by petition to the SIU. But the actual program would be under the purview of the Park administartion acting in accord with some piece of legislation. If someone thought that the park administartion was not following the statute they could go to court for a judgement aginst the park administraion. In such a case the SIU would be in the position of a contractor.

But as John implies the roles of the original three branches would be greatly diminished, pared down to a size of profile comparale to the original very limited role of government. Not exact but look at England, where they keep the monarchy mostly for a sence of continuty. The Queen has no real powers other than influence. I could tolerate a federal govt. ike that. Perhap some impass developed within the SIU - who knows over what - the proper way to crack an egg - a visit from a president of the US probably would have some if not great influence in reaching an accord. Maybe even give the president ex-officio membership on the All Industry Congress and a key to the washroom.

Perhaps it might be useful to have a "state" authority in a health crises. Sure the SIU could deal with the work, but what about legal status of someone with a communicable disease. The current govt. has done a decent job at that so I would trust it as a nuetral decider more than SIU techies.

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 02:20 pm Post subject:

Something bugs me about this part:

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 04:11 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

In my utopian blueprint, the congress would act regarding parks mainly due to urgency.

dave:

why does it have to be urgency? Just legislation to set for policy, perhaps use policy. The timber industry or someone wants some logs and the parks administartion says sorry, according to the statute, we can't give you permission to cut as many as you propose.

Mike wrote:

If the industrial departments failed to take action to prevent toxic waste dumps, congress can step in with the power of the law.

Dave: OK

Mike wrote:

In one possible way to interpret your post, you could have the Congress doing something routine and not urgent with the parks.

Dave: Not unless it was urgent. Put in the statute that the Parks Dept can take emergency action under certain circimstances.

Mike wrote:

Are you using today's political structure as a reference? In the present system in the U.S., Congress created the Department of the Interior, and then the Department of the Interior produced the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Geological Survey. My utopia was going to throw all that out. Parks would be the shared responsibility of the forestry industry and the recreation industry. They wouldn't hear from Congress until there's a public controversy about something.

Dave writes:

yes, exactly as a reference for now. Everything will stay in place on day one two and three of the revolution, maybe day 365.

Custodial adminstation based upon function doesn't bother me if it remains in place for one ten or fifty years. What will stop immediately is the extraction of surplus value. It won't be available to influence any branch or level of govt. direcly or indirectly. As long as the workers democratically control the means of wealth production and control distribution - God is in heaven and all's right with the world, or pretty much it will seem to me anyway.

Mike writes:

The same reasoning applies to the features of all products and services. I have always had this little fantasy, when we have socialism we won't have to lie on the ground anymore to change a car's oil filter because it will be located behind an access door on the side panel, like the gasoline spout. I have lots of these dumb examples in mind. My inspiration for them is there will be a way for the people to demand that any product or service have the features they want.

Under socialism the setup menu of a VCR will let the user select what should happen when it reaches the end of a tape: (1) stop and power off; (2) stop and remain powered on; (3) rewind and power off; (4) rewind and remain powered on. I know it's a dumb example, but one of the reasons I hate capitalism so much is my feeling that the people have no input whatsoever into the features that goods and services shall have.

dave writes:

I had a Chevy Cavelier and I was beginning to think that it didn't have an oil filter.

people can demand - throw open the wind and yell I'mmad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!

I am sure that who ever designs these things are full aawre of the problems. I am sure that every time that they go to a picnic someone will ask them why are they so fucking stupid to design such a thing.

An easy answer would be that this is a problem that won't have to be addresed becuase your comrades at the car designing committee will be operating under a whole new schema as to priorities. So I would not assume that something from the outside would have to knock them over the head to do it right.

But at this point I don't (not that you shouldn't) worry about that taken away the profit motive and given the motive of enjoying the results of collective indutrial output that they won't be abe to bake a pizza just the way that I like it.

Mike wrote:

Hey, a tangent that will eventually end up getting back to my main point, you know the channel logo that's in the corner of the TV screen for 24 hours a day, the CBS eyeball, the NBC peacock, the Playboy TV bunny emblem. That stupid logo more than anything else, more than war, poverty and fascism, gives me the feeling that if the entire capitalist class was rounded up after the revolution and shot by firing squads it would be well deserved. They are consciously sticking it in the people's faces: "Hey, you nobodies, look how you have absolutely no control over the features that this thing shall have, and you can't avoid it by switching brands because it's identical for all brands, and we know that everyone hates it but are doing it anyway, and you will use it anyway, and you know that we are displaying complete contempt for our customers, and we know that you know!" That's what that logo on the screen says. God, whenever I think of it I would like to see the entire capitalist class slaughtered in the most gruesome manner imaginable.

dave writes:

Under Socialism we will build TV screens that have a little notch taken out of the lower right hand corner to strike back at those imperialist bastards.

Mike writes:

Anyway, what was my point? Oh, yeah. While some socialists hate capitlaism because of the way it causes militarism, pollution, prejudice, economic recessions, underfunded education and health care, etc., etc., my major reason for hating capitalism is because the public has no input of any kind into determining the features of the products and services that they buy and use. So when I concoct a utopian blueprint it will have to have treat this problem.

dave writes:

Take a look at this except from Federalist #85 by Alexander Hamilton:

Concessions on the part of the friends of the plan, that it has not a claim to absolute perfection, have afforded matter of no small triumph to its enemies. "Why," say they, "should we adopt an imperfect thing? Why not amend it and make it perfect before it is irrevocably established?" This may be plausible enough, but it is only plausible. In the first place I remark, that the extent of these concessions has been greatly exaggerated. They have been stated as amounting to an admission that the plan is radically defective, and that without material alterations the rights and the interests of the community cannot be safely confided to it. This, as far as I have understood the meaning of those who make the concessions, is an entire perversion of their sense. No advocate of the measure can be found, who will not declare as his sentiment, that the system, though it may not be perfect in every part, is, upon the whole, a good one; is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit; and is such an one as promises every species of security which a reasonable people can desire.

I answer in the next place, that I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. The compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States in a common bond of amity and union, must as necessarily be a compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations. How can perfection spring from such materials?

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 07:30 pm Post subject:

Like Hamilton, I would vote yes for an imperfect plan if it's a reasonably good plan. (Being reasonably good includes the possibility of being improved later.)

Posted: 05 Jun 2007 07:57 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Actually, yes, that's possible, when we're talking about the government's role, say, the park lands being under the Department of the Interior, etc. In the corporate owned facilities, a complete management system has to be ready on day two. Not so with the government's role, which can, to borrow a controversial phrase, wither away.

dave writes:

of course this 4th department is not conceived to be permanent - perhaps being an Articles of Confederation phase. It is not the constituion that the founders would have written but then again they had the benefit of writing the constition after the revolution but it did build upon the existing goverments that they already did have, which in most cases were simply continuations of the governements and demarcations that existed under the King. So we would have to wing it a bit. (But at the same time try to avoid the dredded one wing accusation)

Posted: 06 Jun 2007 10:25 pm Post subject:

Then let's restate what exactly was unsocialist about the Soviet Union.

(1) If you don't have free elections and free speech, then the claim that the people are in control is untrue, which means that collective ownership by the people will not be actual even if it is nominal.

(2) After the top management was established undemocratically, they also had appoinments of middle management by top management, instead of election thereof.

(3) The military build-up and repression of rights represented forms of surplus value. (Relative to those, I doubt that the limousines and summer homes of the politiburo and central committee members really cost that much.)

What else? What it also unsocialist because of structure?

Posted: 07 Jun 2007 11:11 am Post subject:

the wages system comes to mind.

Posted: 07 Jun 2007 03:59 pm Post subject:

What made the Soviet system a wages system? I think we already agreed that socialism needs hourly worker incomes, and not abolish money as the WSM proposes. The income levels were determined by a public policy, not by the competitive auction that capitalism uses. Is that still a wages system? If the choice of policy used to set those income levels was made by dictators and their appointees rather than by honestly elected representatives, then wouldn't we say that the cause of the surplus value extraction was entirely in the absense of democracy, which is a political description? If we call it a wages system, it kind of sounds like an economic description that lies outside the range of how democratic the political process is.

[Reminder - expecting that these most recent posts might get clobbered by the server problem here, I'm saving this answer in a personal file.]

Posted: 07 Jun 2007 05:16 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

What made the Soviet system a wages system? I think we already agreed that socialism needs hourly worker incomes, and not abolish money as the WSM proposes.

dave writes:

hourly worker incomes (for the forseeable future anyway), yes.

abolish money?

Well what does that mean? That were going to go round with the fire squads as in F. 451 and set fire to it?

Especially since are currency is not tied to anything material the value of a buck floats to the level of that which it can buy.

If people want to continue to exchange things for those green high tech FRNs that's up to them. And while we transition over to socialism I guess the bureau of engraving will have some function of maintaining a non-inflationary but viable supply of them in circulation.

But the labor vouchers or share certificates whether paper or electronic while may be thought of as money in a popular sense, as to the relationship between the worker and the industrial means of production I don't see it as a purchase/sale relationship, SUPER ANALOGY alert anymore than the baggage claim check they give you at the airport is money. You put your labor in, you get your labor out, but of course now in a different form. But it is not buying and selling.

USSR never had anything like, that to my knowledge. Is your understanding any different?

Mike wrote:

The income levels were determined by a public policy, not by the competitive auction that capitalism uses. Is that still a wages system?

dave writes:

Vaguely similar to our minimum wage laws?

That which the workers were paid was not that what they had produced (with some small proportion deducted for the common welfare and infrastructure as democratically agreed to by the workers).

Moreover production was being (mis)directed and (mis)appropriated by the state as opposed to the workers determining the what/how and why of production. Not being able to is a part of slavery whether it is technically wage slavery or not. So when we talk about getting rid of wage slavery getting rid the rest of slavery is implied, in my own manner of communication anyway.

dave

Posted: 08 Jun 2007 02:46 am Post subject:

I'm asking because I have never seen a good description of how wages and prices were set in the Soviet Union. But, it seems to me, if it they aren't based on the random noise of competition, then what remains is to be set by intentional policy. So we, like the Soviets, believe that a conscious policy is necessary. The difference is that the Soviet idea of making policy is to have it come out of an interlocked power base. Like in the Catholic Church, the pope appoints the cardinals, and then the cardinals elect the next pope, so power is locked in a tight circle. That's how the Soviet government worked. What we want is to clear away all such power circles, so that the people will be sovereign, not only in name but also in practice.

Let me be more explicit about my point. All these years, people have asked us, "Do you socialists want government ownership, government control?" We were trained to say, Oh, no!" But now I'm wondering if a better answer would be: It's not so important whether you want to use that term "government" for it. What is really important is where the system is to be along the sliding scale from very democratic to very undemocratic. That's what makes all the difference.

Posted: 08 Jun 2007 10:56 am Post subject:

yes the nomenclature to date has gotten us nowhere. And nomenclature can be just as powerful of a thought restricter as analogy I guess.

Sad, that for all of our supposed knowledge neither of us can come up with a reliable picture of just how pay was determined in the USSR.

Posted: 08 Jun 2007 02:57 pm Post subject:

Not much specific information about the difference between the American system and the Soviet systems was ever given out, other then "us good, them evil." Our own educational system is probably the greatest source of ignorance, with the "iron curtain" being a secondary cause.

My daughter in high school had a homework assignment with "The Soviet Union had a command economy" being the expected "correct" answer to a multiple choice question. That phrase "command economy" (which is right out of the works of right-wingers like Hayek and Mises) is a peeve of mine, and its inclusion in school curricula is even worse, because it is the insertion of propaganda into our kids' homework and test questions, you're forced to say this in order to pass the course. It should be obvious to any educated person that capitalism is a command economy. If the edicts of a corporate board of directors aren't commands then I don't know what else to call them. It's just that capitalism also has some uses for the chaotic noise of the market, in addition to the use of dictatorial command, so the working class is ruled both by dictatatorship and by the spin of the roulette wheel. The Soviet system used less market roulette and more boss power.

Posted: 12 Jun 2007 02:34 pm Post subject:

Boss power from the professional revolutionaries. I would gather that the idea of permanent revolution was to keep themselves in power. Why not when you got a good thing going for you. Good thing it did fall apart. Now everyone appears to have more commodities under decentralized capitalism in Russia but it does not mean their lives are better.

A Socialist state would only concern itself with criminal law. Laws which are not written in a language that no one understands but lawyers. Plain laws that are clearly define in English, Spanish, French, etc.

Posted: 15 Jun 2007 03:20 pm Post subject:

For the purposes of this web site, my own writings are going to avoid the word "state" to refer to the law-making branch of a socialist society, following the technical terminology of Marx, where a state is agency of a ruling class. However, I still think this redefinition of a common word has led to some confusion, e.g., so that Stalin and Mao could operate prolice states with the excuse that this is what one might see as the state gradually withers away. Now that the confusion is out there, not only does an educational venue have to discuss the original points about capitalism versus socialism, but the added areas of confusions have to be discussed also.

Posted: 16 Jun 2007 03:45 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 18 Jun 2007 10:36 am Post subject:

How about "the law making branch of socialist society?"

But careful what power this may have - does the "law making" branch have a power to by statute to interfere with the econmoic branch? Tell the workers that thry must do a certain thing when the workers say no we don't want to do that?

dave

Posted: 18 Jun 2007 03:56 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 18 Jun 2007 07:06 pm Post subject:

What we have to look at is how the workers are going to exercze soverirngty over the means of production if some group not the workers can write a law and say that half of all the wealth produced has to go for such and such a purpose?

how can they control if a "law" can control?

Dave

Posted: 18 Jun 2007 10:26 pm Post subject:

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 02:19 am Post subject:

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 02:29 am Post subject:

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 06:49 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 11:42 am Post subject:

John wrote:

"I think the word "government" is a bad word now"

ave writes:

Always has had a bit of a bad tatste.

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/-lyrics-Roger-Miller/D68C242B388B5DD348256E5C000DFE75

Well you dad gum guv'ment you sorry so and so's
You got your damn hands in every pocket of my clothes
...
Well you soul sellin' no good son of a shoe fittin' fire starlers
I ought to tear your no good preambulatory bone frame
And nail it to your guv'ment walls all of you you bastard
You dad gum guv'ment you sorry rakafratchits
You got yourself an itch and you want me to scratch it
Well you dad gum guv'ment....

The great Roger Miller!

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 04:11 pm Post subject:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 04:23 pm Post subject:

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 12:57 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 04:55 am Post subject:

Does it seem that the promotion of socialist ideas is being held back considerably because the names that have been chosen for things carry unfortunate connotations? Or are other reasons more significant?

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 11:34 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 02:07 pm Post subject:

Maybe the right answer, just because it is observed to be the truth, is that socialists don't have a consensus about what the form of government should be. We have some points of agreement, having to do with such principles as majority vote and individual rights, in the most general terms, but opinion about the specifics are all over the place. So maybe we have no business recommending a form of government. We have a detailed analysis of the economic side, a vast library of commentary about why social control of industry would be superior to class rule, and, while socialists have some disagreement there, we can at least discuss them intelligently, e.g., some socialists prefer a centralized solution and some prefer a decentralized solution, each side cites certain reasons, etc. In the economic discussions, socialists always shine. Even conservatives have to admit that, which is why the idea of socialism is always feared, as Marx put it, as a spectre that must be exorcised. In the economic discussion, socialists have all of the coherence. However, what are we even doing recommending this or that form of government? I have only my personal opinions (my post of May 31), but get ten people in a room and we will get ten different answers. I'm starting to get the feeling that socialists should strive for consensus about the economic question, the workers' councils and unions and so forth, but then express to the public that the political and legal issues will have to be revisited when a greater portion of the public begins to seek change. We should continue to study comparative political systems, but do it to gather an anthology of ideas for everyone's reference, and not to get to some point where we can pretend that we have arrived at answers with finality. When I talk about an economic issue, say, when I poke myself into a debate to challenge someone's assertion that capitalism's property inheritance is consistent with the meritocracy that they claim to have, I can speak with resolution. I also have opinions about the political system, for example, I think the present structure of a two-house congress and fifty states is completely unnecessary, but these are personal preferences. To expose the exploitative character of the present economic system isn't merely an opinion -- our body of knowledge is way too developed to reduce it to that. My views about the political and legal system are the views that are most likely to be influenced strongly by my own life circumstances and personality charcateristics, and therefore the kinds of views that are most likely to be subjective opinions. It's crucial to replace class rule by self-management: that's something more that my own measly opinion. I can make a good case. But the absurdity of retaining the two-house congress and the fifty states, that is precisely my personal opinion, not too far from other matters of personal taste, like the superiority of pepperoni on a pizza. Why do we socialists so often act as though we have derived profound answers to all public issues? We have always exaggerated the extent of our "social science".

End of my morning blog Smile

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 10:37 pm Post subject:

One nice large paragraph there Mike. One has to look at Rev-Left gallery of clowns to see the nonsense of Marxist-Leninist view of authoritarian government or Anarchist view of no government with the attitude of we will kill you if you have any leadership abilities. Just bake an extra loaf of bread to give to your neighbor instead and volunteer to pick up garbage and clean sewers. They don't even agree with the social control of industries and totally reject Daniel De Leon's theories. Government runs the industries or just a volunteer group to produce what society needs. The big thing is no one wants to do things along industrial lines except for De Leonist, Worker Council supporters or the SLP. The capitalist don't have as many pathetic morons as we have on the Left.

I've been reading a PDF file by John Spargo (I had a cousin John Spargo) and what he described in 1907 is identical to conditions today. He actually had a better explanation of socialism than the clowns over on Rev-Left. It was never about ideology but just social ownership of production. On the other hand, we are no closer to Democracy Day than in 1907. Workers are as much in the dark as they were then. Capitalism has no worries from people like us. If they did this website would have been shut down long time ago.

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 01:23 am Post subject:

Yeah, the revleft forum is a disappointment. I still go there, mainly to scan the new headers in the scence and philosophy forums, but trying to talk to people there is frustrating. When people say some of the whackiest things, and then I take out the time to tell them something otherwise, there is often no response at all, not even to argue with me, but just silence for a week, then the next post is another person being totally whacky. Plus, revleft has a bad record of banning people, or moving someone's posts to the trash area, just because on of the many moderators didn't like someone's views.

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 01:34 am Post subject:

Would that be the book "A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles" by John Spargo?

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 08:37 am Post subject:

From: "Jack Straw from Wichita" <jack_straw_67201@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.tv.sopranos
Subject: Re: Best Lines 6/10
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:49:36 -0400

Meadow: "The state can crush the individual."

Tony: "New Jersey?"

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 09:35 am Post subject:

No, that would be the Common Sense of Socialism. He does a fine job of explaining how beneficial socialism would be compared to the present, 1907, capitalist society. He used some charts and graphs and if he were alive today he would find that very little has changed today except for the new technology.

The Rev-Left group is like an international forum and if this is what the Left is about then we are in trouble. Both Commie and Anarchist want to use force at gun point to change society except the Leninist want to run every aspect of society and set up cameras in people's home to monitor them for counter-revolutionary tendencies according to their definitions and the offenders sent to slave labor camps or shot right on the spot. The Anarchist might as well do the same thing because anyone displaying leadership qualities would be shot. Decision about work would be like playing "Rock, Scissors, Paper. The Three Stooges had better organization skills.

If you want a response call the whack poster a "f**king idiot" and everyone will respond. Rev-Left is whacked. Remember the Beatles song..."When you go around talking about Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow". Or, "When you talk about destruction, don't you know you can count me out". They had it right because workers don't want an authoritarian commie government nor would they take up arms just to go to prison if the so-called revolution failed. Clearly we have to do things in a non violent manner through political action and workers at their place of employment to lock the capitalist out when the day comes. That's what attractive about De Leonism.

I don't see anything wrong about clarifying the role of the "state" as being law makers when it comes to people harming other people, i.e., assault, theft, rape and murder. This needs to be stressed. As far as worker running the means of production the SIU concept is logical. The thing is workers have to know that the new society would be run by them and they would be taught the concepts of cooperative local industrial management. That has to be done in the here and now. What political government, if it can be considered political, that would exist would protect them from violent people and don't allow it to become anything more than that.

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 10:56 am Post subject:

John I probably don't even want to look at that forum -

Mike and John, you both make good points about the "state" as opposed to the economic structure. Very doubtful that changing both at the same time would be that great of an idea anyhow.

(Analogy alert) Broken record time. Then go back and look at my most excellent proposal - leave the "government" as it is until people really get a good idea of what changes if any should be made. But put the workers congress out of the direct control of the three branches much as they are separated from each other.

That discussion kind of tapered off when we couldn't quite figure how the firth branch would fit into the checks and balanced system that exists within the current constitution.

Could we look at that some more? My main concern is independence of the wealth production and wealth producers so that workers within this (analogy alert) sphere are the democratic sovereigns.

perhaps instead of a 4th branch, look at the current relationship of the several states to the federal govt., maybe a some kind of (get this word) analogous relationship to the relationship currently existing there.

Just some thoughts to throw out. On a federal reservation such as the Castle Point Veterans hospital property - local police have authority only as invited in by federal regulation of the Veterans Admin. (I think that this is the case anyway.) There very seldom seems to be any kind of problem with this arrangement. I think that the police are very respectful of the notion that they are only there essentially as guests of the federal govt.

Perhaps looking at the congress of workers as a constitutionally chartered - what would we call it? entity? with its own mandate - I would hate to have it called a corporation - that seems so top down and association seems so loose. I would like if we could to come up with some better way of describing the relationship.

dave

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 02:42 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 07:03 pm Post subject:

Calling the industrial system another branch of government makes it sound as though the sizes are comparable. I feel that, if it's done right, even supposing that the legislative, executive and judicial branches continue much as today, ther total size should be less than a thousandth of the size of the economic administration. Making decisions about growing food, making appliances, running trains, etc. has to be done very regularly. Compared to that, very little human time needs to go to noneconomic matters, incarcerting murderers, debating the ethics of cloning. Do you want to call the economic side the fourth branch, then depict the first three branches about the size of a pea along the side of a big chart, and the fourth branch taking up all of the rest of the space on the chart? The relative magintudes point to a problem with that nomenclature.

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 07:10 pm Post subject:

Trying to fit the idea of socialism into the U.S. constitution also aches me. Socialism has to be a worldwide system. Socialist countries can have trade conflicts and trade wars just as readily as capitalist countries can. A world government is desperately needed. Socialism has to be adopted within each country but it can't stay that way. The socialist countries have to merge quickly. So, sure, let's fit it into the framework of the U.S. constitution -- for a couple years at the most. Any longer than that and we might not have bothered with the socialist reconstruction in the first place, because competitive market chaos will still rule the world.

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 09:41 pm Post subject:

Oh it aches the death out of me as well. However what you said twitches my brian abit - yes whatever is established neeeds to be quickly internationalable - 4 th branch concept then would definitely be out then. Perhaps the workers congress (or whatever) receiving a charter from the U.S. via the constitutin, this woud set a model for other countries as well to also charter the org as it becomes established exta US.

Posted: 24 Jun 2007 09:49 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 25 Jun 2007 12:03 am Post subject:

Well, it's one of this situations where you both are right and wring at the same time.

You have to look at several things - One, look at gold. I assume that your are talking about gold bullion. That is a commodity just lie any other.

The value of gold is pretty stable. Usually when price fluctuates it is becuase of changing faith in the currently used to purchase the gold but let's assume that some new use for gold was found that made people want it more - (say swallow a gram of gold at every meal would guarantee all men over 40 erections that an 18 y.o. is capable of. The price of gold in the short term would rise dramatically, no doubt - but then becuase the price of gold increased, gold mines would seek to take up the slack and do what they could t increase productivity. Theoretically eventually the price would be back at the starting point. (Gold is not rare, it merely takes a lot of labor to extract it.) It's supply is elastic.

Through many millions of gold/dollar and dollar/gold transactions assuming no great crises driving the value of the dollar momentarily up or down, theoretically an ounce of gold would contain as much labor in production as any commodity that you could buy with the amount of dollars the gold exchanged for again assuming nothing dramatic in the market for that commodity either.

Now a painting by Picasso you can only theorize that vaguely speaking the value system world work for a Picasso painting in the same way as gold - However it cannot be proven - remember one ounce of gold is the same as every other ounce of gold in bullion form and there are literally millions and millions of gold/dollar and dollar/gold transactions to even things out as to variations in supply and demand. There is only one of the paintings and it only gets sold once in 50 years, if that. Basically you can throw any traditional work/value analysis (analogy alert) out the window. Whatever you say it cannot be proven or demonstrated no mater how plausible it is, it is just not science. The only thing that you can say is if the painting sells for $10,000,000 and you take the dollars and purchase gold with it, the gold will have value. But whether you can say that the value of the painting and the value of the amount of gold you can get with the money you got for the painting are equal - it simply is not established beyond speculation. Remeber prices are but momentary reflections of what a particualr person is willing to pay on a particualr day under particualr circumstances.

Did I do this right Mike?

dave

Posted: 25 Jun 2007 12:52 am Post subject:

Dave, I would agree that gold is like any other commodity. When I wrote about it being rare I mean it is not a metal that can be found as easily as copper. I understand that it take a lot of labor time to extract it as well. The Piccaso painting is much more rare being the only one in existence and sell for a lot of money. What would its value be in a Socialist economy?

Posted: 25 Jun 2007 11:04 am Post subject:

Gold is "rare" because of the amount of work that it takes to extract it. As extraction techniques improve the labor embodied per ounce would tend to decrease. But then counterbalanced by the easy gold to extract being used up and so extraction techniques have to improve just to keep up. The same with petroleum. This stuff about "peak" oil - I have to agree with Rush Limbaugh is hype.

Picasso paintings do have some work involved in them but the price as you point out is inflated due to rarity on one hand and also demand. So don't confuse price and value, it is very easy to do, especially when money gets involved. Generally it's thought that value is pretty much stable and that if supply equaled demand that the price would settle at the value level.

Well, when you strip all of the speculation forces around it away, what is a Picasso painting? A piece of canvas with some paint on it that requires a whole lot of time and effort to keep it in good condition. And then the painting doesn't really mean much unless it is put on display, and occasionally moved to to allow another set of people to appreciate it..

Now come the revolution and in going through your attic you find a Picasso painting among your personal possessions, what are you going to do with it? Put it up for auction for LTVs? I suppose that you could (provided that they have some degree of transferability) What you will get is exactly what the highest bidder will give you for it and what you will accept. Or some prestigious museum will come to you and say John, if you would so graciously donate that picture to us we will commemorate your name by putting a small brass plaque under the painting and invite you to one of our dinners and sit you up front near a rehabilitated Paris Hilton. I am hoping that you would donate the painting and skip the brass plaque and dinner; or you could go on the LTV ebay and get what you can get. Does the 10,000 hours of LTVs that you might get for it mean that the painting has a value of 10,000 labor hours - you could say that it does and someone else could say that it doesn't. It's really immaterial.

The Marxian analysis of value provides a hypothesis to explain the process of exploitation under the wages system. Eliminate the wages system and what remains is the obvious: material goods do not produce themselves, they are the product of people working in coordination with each other and/or nature.

dave

Posted: 25 Jun 2007 01:13 pm Post subject:

Okay, I understand what you are explaining. I was just curious about rare paintings and other items that are considered valuable under the present system. I don't doubt that those rare artifacts would still be valuable. Under Socialism those values would be very different but not in a sense of LTV value.

Posted: 25 Jun 2007 04:51 pm Post subject:

That's my take on it.

dave

Posted: 25 Jun 2007 06:41 pm Post subject:

Prices are determined by the factors that the capitalist economist points to: by supply and demand. There is an upward effect on price caused by more demand or less supply, or a downward effect on price caused by less demand or more supply. The difference is, the capitalist economist speaks as though these factors were making the price fluctuate from no particular base line, just a resultant from upward and downward forces, but not a departure from any specific level. In Marxian economics, supply and demand are said to cause the price to depart from some central line, which is called the value, so the price is the sum of two terms, the positive value plus the positive or negative fluctuation. The amount of labor time made necessary by the historical state of the tools determines the value, the central line, which prices, due to supply and demand, deviate from.

*****

"You would be altogether mistaken in fancying that the value of labor, or any other commodity whatever, is ultimately fixed by supply and demand. Supply and demand regulate nothing but the temporary fluctuations of market prices. They will explain to you why the market price of a commodity rises above or sinks below its value, but they can never account for that value itself."

-- Marx, in Value, Price and Profit

*****

I think the empirical evidence that prices are departures from some central levels is that the existence of the base lines is already admitted when we recognize that commodities have price RANGES. Suppose I told you that we don't know what the supply and demand conditions, high side or low side, will be ten years in the future for either a car or for a loaf of bread. You would say, yes, that's right. Then suppose I said, I predict that, ten years from today, a new car will be priced at two dollars, and the loaf of bread will be priced at twenty thousand dollars. You would say to me, hold on there, crazy Lepore, you must have that backwards -- didn't you mean the loaf of bread will be two dollars, and the car will be twenty thousand dollars? But what make you respond in that way, if we had already agreed that we have no idea what the supply and demand conditions will be in ten years? If we really don't where each commodity will be in its supply and demand cycle, isn't what I said just as probably as what you said? No? Why not? The answer is: prices have observed ranges. One commodity, even at its cheapest moment, is still priced higher than another commodity at the latter's most expensive moment. The lowest valley of one is still higher than the highest peak of another. That could only happen if the wiggling of prices due to supply and demand were oscillations about different objective levels.

The point is, Marx gave us a theory about the central level about which prices oscillate. Right or wrong, at least he went directly after investigating that. But capitalist economics as studied at the university never mentions it at all, not once, ever. As I said in another article I wrote many years ago, imagine you went to the lumberyard and told the clerk, "You have 2-by-4 planks here, huh? Please cut me a board whose length is precise within a tolerance of an eighth of an inch. Well, what are you just standing there for?" The clerk would complain, "You didn't even tell me what nominal length you want -- you only told me the necessary tolerance about that length." That's what the capitalist economics professor does -- places all of the attention on the fluctuation of the price, and would never, ever, ever, under penaly of being accused of being a Marxist, mention the basic level about which that fluctuation has occurred. What always goes unmentioned is the proverbial elephant in the living room.

Posted: 26 Jun 2007 03:52 pm Post subject:

Posted: 26 Jun 2007 04:59 pm Post subject:

I understand what both of you have written. Sorry I took this thread off topic. Just curious about scarcity.

john

Posted: 26 Jun 2007 07:41 pm Post subject:

It's better to get off-topic than to restrict the train of thought. Topic coherence is a mere nicety. But the far reaches of the imagination, hey, just ask Leonardo da Vinci!

Posted: 27 Jun 2007 12:17 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

In Marxian economics, supply and demand are said to cause the price to depart from some central line, which is called the value, so the price is the sum of two terms, the positive value plus the positive or negative fluctuation. The amount of labor time made necessary by the historical state of the tools determines the value, the central line, which prices, due to supply and demand, deviate from.

dave writes - true that, and I do belive that the concept is pre Karl. I can't recall where I saw it.

Posted: 27 Jun 2007 03:13 am Post subject:

Generally Marx didn't come up with new ideas. He sorted through many ideas of others to identify the ones that could be assembled into an overall world view related to people freeing themselves. It's an interesting recipe. The idea of the class struggle was already around, but not as a determinant of history. The historicism, the assumption that history develops toward a specific outcome, this came from Hegel, but in Hegel it was based on a self-discovery in God's mind.. The materialism was mentioned in ancient Greece but it developed faster after the Renaissance. Then Marx moved to London and routinely spend each day in the library with every book on economics he could find, probably plagiarizing a few of them in his notebooks that modern Marxists go through and find what they think are excellent phrases. Mix it all together in a big couldron and stir slowly, and we call this recipe Marxism.

I never understood why many authors denounce eclecticism. The phrases appear from time to time ... so-and-so has been belittled as performing mere eclecticism ... so-and-so never suffered from the fault of eclecticism ... what the hell is this? All progress in human knowledge is based of sifting through everything that has been done before and adapting selected pieces into new combinations.