Author	Message
Jacob Richter	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 02:17 am    Post subject: Lassalle and "fair tax" under "socialism" http://www.revleft.com/vb/social-proletocracy-marx-t80882/index.html http://www.revleft.com/vb/economics-and-politics-t83454/index.html Having said what I've had to say on the more secure (electronic) labour credit (the modern equivalent of the old labour-time vouchers), I recall a remark made by Led Zeppelin regarding the Lassallean concept of "undiminished proceeds of labour" (from the Gotha Programme itself, and critiqued by Marx). Perhaps this is a good agitation-and-propaganda slogan (since Marx thought of "common fund" deductions only in terms of income), when coupled with a either a socialist concept of the bourgeois "Fair Tax" sales tax scheme in the US or this "poll tax" being raised as a concept by Paul Cockshott: http://reality.gn.apc.org/polemic/socmod.htm Quote: For ideological reasons we have advocated fixed poll taxes rather than proportional income taxes. This advocacy is a relatively secondary issue but we see it as having 3 advantages: 1. In the absence of significant income differentials, the redistributionist argument for income taxes in a capitalist economy is lacking. 2. Poll taxes maintain a high incentive to work, by paying workers the full value of their product at the margin. 3. Poll taxes emphasise the general duty to perform work for the community before work for oneself. Thoughts on Lassalle's slogan ("undiminished proceeds of labour")?
mikelepore	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 04:34 am    Post subject: advantage #1. I don't know what the redistributionist purpose in a capitalist economy has to do with the subject. True, that argument is lacking. I don't see how that fact helps a socialist planner compare the income tax versus the poll tax methods. advantage #2. The poll tax does increase the incentive to work on the margin, but it's not clear why the author thinks it would be an advantage. Society receives no benefit from the additional work, and all it does is increase consumerism for the individual. (I don't need to prove that much because the definition of "poll tax" inlcludes that fact.) I say it's a disadvantage, that it would be better to encourage people to produce less material "standard of living" for themselves and to expend more time with their families, as well as artistic hobbies, etc. advantage #3. It sounds like someone's moral value judgement, not part of the definition of socialism, and I've never heard of it before today. So whether it's an advantage is worth discussing, but the answer shouldn't be assumed in advance by an author, as thought it were a well-known topic. I can see this advatage of the poll tax method: there are some consumptions that are independent of my work time. For exmaple, if I collapse on the street an ambulance will pick me up. It desn't make sense that the person who works 12 hours per week should pay for that service at a rate that's twenty percent higher than a person who works 10 hours per week. That's a new realization for me ... Just now ... At 12:51 AM eastern time, this 31st day of July, in the year of our lord 2008. Thank you for the idea! o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Scarecrow: But that's so easy, I should've thought of it for you. Tin Man: I should have felt it in my heart. Glinda: No, she had to find it out for herself.
davesearles	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 05:28 am    Post subject: Good to see you back Jacob. I know that you are ever so busy and all but there seems to be a couple of things missing from your above post: JR: Having said what I've had to say on the more secure ... labour credit ..., I recall a remark made by Led Zeppelin regarding the Lassallean concept of "undiminished proceeds of labour"... Perhaps this is a good agitation-and-propaganda slogan ...when coupled with a either a socialist concept of the bourgeois "Fair Tax" sales tax scheme in the US or this "poll tax" being raised as a concept by Paul Cockshott. DAS: If you said anything at all on labor credits it was under another topic. Were we supposed to remember what you said? Can you? Inside joke re Led Zeppelin? Someone buying a stairway to heaven? Is there an actual slogan that you were going to tell us about or are we supposed to guess that too? bourgeios sales tax a socialst conception??
Jacob Richter	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 05:42 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: If you said anything at all on labor credits it was under another topic. Were we supposed to remember what you said? Can you? I apologize. This was clearly a double-post from the RevLeft thread. Instead of physical vouchers, which can be circulated "under the table," what I propose is electronic labour credit: http://libcom.org/forums/thought/would-there-be-exchange-value-anarchist-society-28012008?page=2 Quote: Inside joke re Led Zeppelin? Someone buying a stairway to heaven? Again, sorry for the double post (that's the username of a RevLeft user). Quote: Is there an actual slogan that you were going to tell us about or are we supposed to guess that too? I refer you to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm Quote: the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society How can the "common funds" (infrastructure, disabled, miscellaneous development, etc.) be funded? The Lassalleans wanted "undiminished proceeds of labour," not taking these funds into account. Quote: bourgeios sales tax a socialst conception?? How will the "common funds" be funded? Upfront, through "income" taxation from labour credit, or at the back, through sales taxes (goods and services would be subject to regular labour credits plus tax)? If they're gonna be funded from the back-end (countering Marx's front-end suggestion), does that rehabilitate the Lassallean slogan?
davesearles	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 03:57 pm    Post subject: Quote: Quote: (das wrote quoted by JR) If you said anything at all on labor credits it was under another topic. Were we supposed to remember what you said? Can you? (JR replied) I apologize. This was clearly a double-post from the RevLeft thread. Instead of physical vouchers, which can be circulated "under the table," what I propose is electronic labour credit: http://libcom.org/forums/thought/would-there-be-exchange-value-anarchist-society-28012008?page=2 Quote: (das wrote quoted by JR) Inside joke re Led Zeppelin? Someone buying a stairway to heaven? (JR responded) Again, sorry for the double post (that's the username of a RevLeft user). Dave responds to the whole thing:Thank you for your apologies Jacob but, this is starting to get annoying. Perhaps we need a rule of no double posting if only to avoid the waste of time we have to go through to straighten things like this out.
davesearles	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 04:18 pm    Post subject: JR wrote: "Perhaps this is a good agitation-and-propaganda slogan ..." das asked JR: Is there an actual slogan that you were going to tell us about or are we supposed to guess that too? JR replies: I refer you to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. das answers: Jacob - I asked you for the slogan that you were referring to. You then "referred" me to the COTGP, apaprently 1st chapter. Is this supposed to be a guessing game? Do you have an answer? Do you even have a slogan in mind, or was it that you thought you had a slogan in mind but now don't know where you put it? If you are able to please quote the slogan that you were referring to when you wrote: "Perhaps this is a good agitation-and-propaganda slogan ..." Thank you.
davesearles	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 04:20 pm    Post subject: JR wrote: Quote: I refer you to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm Quote: the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society How can the "common funds" (infrastructure, disabled, miscellaneous development, etc.) be funded? The Lassalleans wanted "undiminished proceeds of labour," not taking these funds into account. DAS asks JR: You use the term in qutoes: common funds Where did that phrase come from?
davesearles	Posted: 31 Jul 2008 11:23 pm    Post subject: JR also wrote apparently that bourgeios sales tax is a socialst conception. I asked about this before, where did that come from?
Jacob Richter	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 01:53 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: JR wrote: "Perhaps this is a good agitation-and-propaganda slogan ..." das asked JR: Is there an actual slogan that you were going to tell us about or are we supposed to guess that too? The Lassalleans' "undiminished proceeds of labour."
mikelepore	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 08:42 am    Post subject: Marx in "Critique of the Gotha Programme": "He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another." This is certainly equivalent to a paying a tax. But that fact isn't obvious to all of Marx's readers. The only difference between what Marx said and a tax is: with a tax, you supposedly receive a certain amount and then you have to give some of it back, so they may hand each worker a paper that shows you a gross income minus tax equals net income, or they may post consumer prices with a sales tax rate indicated. With Marx's idea, you don't necessarily see any representation of the gross in the first place, because the deduction is easier to build into the length of the work day relative to the individual's expenses at the store. Perhaps the reason some of Marx's readers don't realize that the procedure that Marx described is equivalent in every way to paying taxes is because we have heard ourselves trying to explain the method to other people in overly simplistic terms. When people have asked us what kind of system Marx was talking about, we gave them the example: If it takes 10 hours to make a gizmo, and you want one, you can work 10 hours, and then exchange your credit for the gizmo. That description is wrong and misleading. The truth is more likely to be: If it takes 10 hours to make a gizmo, then the gizmo may be labeled with the price "11 hours", you can work 11 hours, and exchange your credit for the gizmo. To say otherwise would violate the physical law of conservation of mass and energy. We must overproduce everything that goes into physical inventory if we are to have for the common fund, because the workers who work in the common fund sector will take wealth out of physical inventory without adding anything to it. For example, education and medical workers use paper and metal, but they don't put any paper and metal back into society's physical inventory. So when the rest of us work some requisite length workday for the paper and metal for our personal consumption, we also have to work at it a little bit longer to also produce the paper and metal that will be used by the education and medical workers, both in their production process and in their leisurely personal consumption. To some of Marx's readers, it's not clear that this is identical to paying income taxes or sales taxes --- but that's exactly what it is. Furthermore, mathematically we are unable to distinguish at all between income taxes and sales taxes. They will be synonymous because what matters here is the ratio between the length of the individual's work day and the amount of physical goods the individual carrries out of the store. Only this totally-new-to-me suggestion to use a poll tax is distinguishable from an income tax or sales tax, because then the deduction becomes explicit and cannot be contained within the work duration / consumer prices ratio.
mikelepore	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 09:02 am    Post subject: I understand the British term "poll tax" to mean any tax where every person pays a flat amount, unlike income/sales taxes where the more you work and consume the more you pay. When talking to United Statesians, we will need to avoid this term and call it something else. In the U.S., "poll tax" has a different meaning. It was a tax that voters had to pay otherwise they were not permitted to vote, a practice that was made illegal by the 24th amendment to the constitution in 1964.
davesearles	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 10:59 am    Post subject: JR originally wrote: Perhaps this is a good agitation-and-propaganda slogan ...when coupled with a either a socialist concept of the bourgeois "Fair Tax" sales tax scheme in the US or this "poll tax" being raised as a concept by Paul Cockshott. And then JR identified: "undiminished proceeds of labour" as being the slogan he considers to perhaps be a good "agitation-and-propagana slogan" when coupled with either a socialst concept of the sales tax scheme or poll tax as raised as a concept by Paul Cockshott. Thank you for clarifying that. I was afraid that I had missed something.
davesearles	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 12:04 pm    Post subject: ML: I understand the British term "poll tax" to mean any tax where every person pays a flat amount, unlike income/sales taxes where the more you work and consume the more you pay. When talking to United Statesians, we will need to avoid this term and call it something else. das: we would use the more latin: capitation tax. It's seems that it's always a politically difficult tax, in the UK and US anyway. To me the topic is mostly a quibble after we eliminate the tax of taxes, the alienation of the workers from control of the means of production.
mikelepore	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 10:01 pm    Post subject: Capitation sounds too much like decapitation. People would think we want to send them to the guillotine.
davesearles	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 10:39 pm    Post subject: That's why you would pay a capitation tax so you can get your back back on. That's like fenestration and defenestration. Fefenestartion is to get thrown out through a window. Fenestration is to get thrown in.
Jacob Richter	Posted: 01 Aug 2008 11:39 pm    Post subject: mikelepore wrote: This is certainly equivalent to a paying a tax. But that fact isn't obvious to all of Marx's readers. The only difference between what Marx said and a tax is: with a tax, you supposedly receive a certain amount and then you have to give some of it back, so they may hand each worker a paper that shows you a gross income minus tax equals net income, or they may post consumer prices with a sales tax rate indicated. With Marx's idea, you don't necessarily see any representation of the gross in the first place, because the deduction is easier to build into the length of the work day relative to the individual's expenses at the store. The Lassalleans were known for cozying up to Bismarck and the Prussian "state socialism" (state capitalism plus welfarism) so they employed this confusing "revolutionary" rhetoric of "undiminished proceeds of labour" while cozying up. As for the obviousness of this taxation, I was under the impression that he was very crystal clear. After all, non-socialist governments need to maintain infrastructure, too, and tax $$$ is used for the infrastructure. TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch Quote: When people have asked us what kind of system Marx was talking about, we gave them the example: If it takes 10 hours to make a gizmo, and you want one, you can work 10 hours, and then exchange your credit for the gizmo. That description is wrong and misleading. The truth is more likely to be: If it takes 10 hours to make a gizmo, then the gizmo may be labeled with the price "11 hours", you can work 11 hours, and exchange your credit for the gizmo. Instead of money, goods and services are measured in labour-hours. mikelepore wrote: I understand the British term "poll tax" to mean any tax where every person pays a flat amount, unlike income/sales taxes where the more you work and consume the more you pay. When talking to United Statesians, we will need to avoid this term and call it something else. In the U.S., "poll tax" has a different meaning. It was a tax that voters had to pay otherwise they were not permitted to vote, a practice that was made illegal by the 24th amendment to the constitution in 1964. Head tax? Census tax (like in the Gospels)? Quote: Furthermore, mathematically we are unable to distinguish at all between income taxes and sales taxes. They will be synonymous because what matters here is the ratio between the length of the individual's work day and the amount of physical goods the individual carrries out of the store. Only this totally-new-to-me suggestion to use a poll tax is distinguishable from an income tax or sales tax, because then the deduction becomes explicit and cannot be contained within the work duration / consumer prices ratio. Actually, I lumped sales taxes together with poll taxes. Another possible suggestion that I haven't brought up to Paul Cockshott yet is "property taxes" - the socialist equivalent (personal property such as your house, obviously). Again, unlike income taxes, which are deducted on the front end (your labour), all these other taxes are collected elsewhere. So, any additional thoughts on the Lassallean slogan? P.S. - Thanks for the replies so far (both you and Dave), because the RevLeft Theory thread on this same subject is getting no responses. Not a lot of people know about labour-time compensation, much less about Lassalle and his followers. [On the other hand, I've chatted with comrades who are receptive to resurrecting this slogan in the qualified form that I've mentioned above.]
davesearles	Posted: 02 Aug 2008 12:22 am    Post subject: JR: So, any additional thoughts on the Lassallean slogan? ...I've chatted with comrades who are receptive to resurrecting this slogan in the qualified form that I've mentioned above. das: undiminished proceeds then means exactly what to you? Resurrect the slogan? Heavens yes! I have long thought that the only thing that has kept the revolution from happening was lack of just the right combination of slogans - and we've been sitting on this one for so long.
mikelepore	Posted: 02 Aug 2008 08:25 am    Post subject: Marx was reading the Gotha programme with the intention of finding faults with it, not only faults in the ideas but also faults in the wording -- an irritating habit. A critic should try to comprehend the writer's points. I don't see a problem with the phrase "undiminished proceeds of labor." Lassalle, not being an child, must have realized that there's always going to be operational overhead. The use of the word "undiminished" could only have been been a short way of saying "what genuinely must be deducted will be deducted, the amount that is socially useful to deduct will be deducted, but several additional deductions that capitalism artificially makes 'necessary' will no longer be deducted."
davesearles	Posted: 02 Aug 2008 10:33 am    Post subject: You are quite right Mike. However even if I were to make up a placard that states: "Workers demand undiminished proceeds of labor" and walk down the street with it, what is it going to mean to anyone? A commom lefty tactic is to try to get a demonstration going on something like universal health care or some pollution concern or on some police action and then get a couple of "vangaurdists" to try to make it appear that the demonstration is about something else by throwing up a few placards with "revolutionary" slogans on them and starting their inane chant: "What do we want? (fill in the blank)! When do we want it? Now!!" as in?: +++++++++++++ What do we want? The full proceeds of labor!! When do we want it? Now!! ++++++++++++++++ Oh my lord Jesus, I'm creaming my jeans just thinking about it!
davesearles	Posted: 02 Aug 2008 01:26 pm    Post subject: JR: Head tax? Census tax (like in the Gospels)? das: just as the English-English word poll when referring to humans refers to "head" (when referring to cattle or horses refers to the high part of the head between the ears) (When I get to the library I'll try to get an OED cite.) Capitation tax is in Article I of the US Constitution: "no capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."
mikelepore	Posted: 03 Aug 2008 08:43 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: However even if I were to make up a placard that states: "Workers demand undiminished proceeds of labor" and walk down the street with it, what is it going to mean to anyone? The phrase sounds clunky, but perhaps it flows better in the original German language. Or perhaps the concept was more meaningful to Germans in the 1870s. I have seen both the SLP and the IWW use the slogan "Labor produces all social wealth -- labor is entitled to all that it produces." There's no essential difference between that and the phrase published the German Social Democratic Party, which Marx criticized: "Labor is the source of wealth and all culture, and since useful labor is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society."
Jacob Richter	Posted: 09 Aug 2008 05:10 pm    Post subject: RevLeft responses so far: Quote: Whether or not they are given a pension, their needs would be met from a surplus. If there were no surplus (amount of goods & services produced by workers < amount of goods & services consumed by workers + non-workers) then rationing would be necessary. Or taxes! This would be my current understanding. After all, when we speak of achieving communism, when use of labour credits is no longer needed due to people's confidence in having their efforts duly reciprocated, how would 'taxes' be collected? Quote: Right, and they would be compensated in labour credits like everyone else. Remember that as long as labour credits act like vouchers, in the sense that they are redeemed, cancelled or destroyed when used to make a purchase, they are also "created" when workers receive their wages (or pensions). When you get paid a wage or pension in labour credits, those labour credits don't have to come from somewhere else, like capitalist government money has to come from taxes. Labour credits are created on the spot. Having said that, it is true that a socialist state needs to maintain an internal balance of payments, so that the amount of labour credits it gives out to workers is roughly equal to the amount they spend on consumer goods. Otherwise you get repressed inflation (or deflation). Yes, in order to pay pensions or disability benefits to people who cannot work, you need to give those people labour credits. The value of those labour credits must come from somewhere, but the labour credits themselves don't have to. So instead of taxation, what would happen is something more akin to inflation. If the state gives out more labour credits than the total value of the work performed in the country, the labour credit effectively loses purchasing power, suffering inflation (which may or may not be repressed depending on the state's pricing policy). Hmmm... you know, until now I thought it would be a good idea to have the inflation I described above, and no taxes. But maybe it would be better to have taxes and no inflation. And me: Quote: Anyway, I was actually referring to people working in government research, heavy construction, and so forth. The folks producing consumer goods and services would be entitled to only a fraction of them (perhaps a significant fraction, depending on the amount of non-consumer work being performed), since there are workers elsewhere. This was what I meant by "taxation." :)
davesearles	Posted: 09 Aug 2008 07:16 pm    Post subject: Anonymous: Right, and they would be compensated in labour credits like everyone else. Remember that as long as labour credits act like vouchers, in the sense that they are redeemed, cancelled or destroyed when used to make a purchase, they are also "created" when workers receive their wages (or pensions). When you get paid a wage or pension in labour credits, those labour credits don't have to come from somewhere else, like capitalist government money has to come from taxes. Labour credits are created on the spot. das: I think that way too much is made of whether after the revolution currency (that which is "currently" accepted in exchanges for goods) is not reused once it gets back to the issuer. Give me a note that says this entitles dave to goods that contain 10 hrs. socially necesarry labor time - or give me a coin containing that amount of gold that others will readly accept - it makes no difference that I can see. Too many of us make like the workers on the other side of the reevolution just won't be able to figure things out for themselves without our oh so wize advice from this side.
mikelepore	Posted: 10 Aug 2008 07:39 am    Post subject: I see no reason for the labor-time currency to be anything but a system of computer accounts. Your identification number and your secret password, that's the currency that you possess. The units measured are a mathematical fiction. Your currency is only a quantification of your permission to fill up shopping carts at stores and walk out with them.
mikelepore	Posted: 10 Aug 2008 07:46 am    Post subject: Some of the people at revleft, who didn't understand the point about the taxes, failed to realize that the taxes are always there anyway. The length of our workdays have to be somewhat longer than they would have to be in other circumstances, longer than if there were no such thing as illness and therefore no medicine, if there were instant learning and therefore no schools, if floors were always cleaned without being mopped, if we could teleport ourselves so that we needed no trains. Because reality is what it is, and not something else, therefore the length of everyone's workday is what it is rather than significantly less. That IS taxation. All this labour credit system is doing is putting some measurements to it. It's expressing the situation. It says: because the people get this service and that service and this service, therefore our workday and our consumption patterns will have to be this and that. There is no way around it.
davesearles	Posted: 10 Aug 2008 10:28 am    Post subject: If all production is done by the union of industrial workers that makes sense. But my labor credit means a lot less to me if I can only spend it at the company store. We could have a duel currency system where the union issues labor credits and the state issues dollars. I can't see how that's not going to happen anyway for some period of time during the transition. It could just as well be continued. Or the state could adopt the labor credit if the union would allow it to circulate either through notes or electronic transfer. And the state as usual (now the workers' state) could/would determine the mechanics of taxation. Sure the industrial workers will have to work longer to pay for societal infrastructure etc. But because I believe we will allow and even encourage production outside of the industrial union, out of equity the state will have to figure out the mechanics how to put the touch on the non-unionized sector of the economy as well.
davesearles	Posted: 10 Aug 2008 11:55 am    Post subject: Tax policy can be an effective state tool for accomplishing ends other than the collection of wealth. e.g. a tax model could be worked out to ecourage equitable distribution of real estate. Another aspect is federal policy regarding mortgages. My tenants would be much happier, and so would I, if they owned my buildings as co-op apaprtments. The problem is that federal mortgage policy is that an owner of a mortgaged property (which mine are all heavily mortgaged) cannot enter into anything other than short term leases with the tenants or else the entire mortgage comes due if the bank wants to call it in. My tenants have no abilty to get mortgages on their own, so we are all stuck.
davesearles	Posted: 10 Aug 2008 03:20 pm    Post subject: anonymous: when we speak of achieving communism, when use of labour credits is no longer needed due to people's confidence in having their efforts duly reciprocated ... das: This biblical communism somehow seeks to be the ideal by default - that somehow this is what all good socialists are strivng for in the ultimate. As long as we are on this side of the workers collectively owning and opearting the industrail means of production, put me on the nay side of that question. After the revolution ask me again and based upon material consditions at the time I will give an opinion if biblical communism is desirable. I probably have my mind made up for the duration of my lifetime on this but I have been known to alter a position or two during the course of 3 or 4 decades.
mikelepore	Posted: 11 Aug 2008 05:30 am    Post subject: I think it's the fashionable 19th century "perfectibility of human nature" concept. Supposedly, make a nonexploitative society and all human imperfections will cease to exist. People will volunteer to work without pay because "they will realize" that work is necessary.
mikelepore	Posted: 11 Aug 2008 05:36 am    Post subject: Maybe paper certificates, yes, but definitely not rare metal coins. It seems to me that the use of rare metal coins is an immediate drop in efficiency of the whole economy to a peak of 50 percent. That's because, to manufacture x dollars worth of money, people have to perform the labor to extract x dollars worth of rare metals, and then not even use those metals as metals at all, but just let the metal sit in their pockets in the form of the coins. So each hour of labor has to be performed twice, one for whatever product the money gets spend on, and once to maufacture the money itself.
davesearles	Posted: 11 Aug 2008 09:44 am    Post subject: Yes metal coins are inefficient and for THAT reason we would reject them, not because they would "circulate". There's nothing inherently exploitative in currency that circulates. That's why our revleftian friends scare me - half baked notions of economic structure based mostly upon repetition of what they perceive to be edicts from Marx Engles, Mao, Lenin or whomever. The very oposite of science.
Jacob Richter	Posted: 12 Aug 2008 03:04 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: Yes metal coins are inefficient and for THAT reason we would reject them, not because they would "circulate". There's nothing inherently exploitative in currency that circulates. That's why our revleftian friends scare me - half baked notions of economic structure based mostly upon repetition of what they perceive to be edicts from Marx Engles, Mao, Lenin or whomever. The very oposite of science. If physical vouchers are circulated, they can be hoarded and also counterfeited (in order to facilitate black market hired labour on the side, the basis of money-capital formation). Electronic labour credit, on the other hand, is directly attributable...
mikelepore	Posted: 12 Aug 2008 05:49 am    Post subject: I don't think circulating is the problem. It's just that labor vouchers are measurements of how much work has been done where the products are still in stock and not yet delivered to the consumer. For that reason, the units should come into existence when the work is done and go out of existence when the goods are delivered to the consumer. But as I said in the past I believe people want the units to be transferable for two reasons I can think of, (1) the custom of giving people money as graduation gifts, wedding gifts, etc.; (2) People who want to barter in the form of "I'll give you some garden tomatoes if you'll cut my grass" might want to transfer currency to defer physical delivery, which is why money was invented in the first place thousands of years ago. To make this possible, the units, which I believe should be numbers in a computer, may be ejected from the computer as paper certificates. It would still be true that the units should come into existence when the work is done and go out of existence when the goods are delivered to the consumer. This would remain true because the associated goods that are in stock in socially owned industry would still be in stock. Any transfer, including paper forms, would actually be changes in identity of who will have a future right to accept goods from the social store. The transfer of that right would be the value that is being exchanged.
davesearles	Posted: 12 Aug 2008 01:40 pm    Post subject: jr: If physical vouchers are circulated, they can be hoarded and also counterfeited (in order to facilitate black market hired labour on the side, the basis of money-capital formation). Electronic labour credit, on the other hand, is directly attributable... ds: The problem with capitalism is that money circulates and because of that circulation capital forms which results in wage slavery? I don't see it that way. If all workers have a right to organze into the industrial union (taking their workplace into the workers' collective) it doesn't mean that everyone has to. Moreover while the union I believe would generally be obliged to accept all workers who wanted to apply, it probably wouldn't want to acquire all present workplaces, but at the same time not want to have them done away with. "Black market" sounds so sinister doesn't it? The very emotionality of it takes away some of our ability to deal rationally with the pros and/or cons of having a private market system exist side by side with the industrail union system. It's going to exist whether we like it or not. Unless our goal is not a workable system but an eternal game of wack-a-mole against all private economic activity we might as well get the most out of the econmic diversity and vitality that a binary economic system can bring about by embracing it (moderately taxing it). Jacob I don't think that you have been around for the discussions that have taken place here regarding mom and pop private enterprises that could very easilty and symbiotically exist along with the collective of workers. Does every bakery, barber shop, family farm have to be totally part of the workers' collective in order for socialsm to exist and to thrive? I would argue that it does not. That's part of the reason why I think that the SLP's idea of SIU and similar totalitiarian ideas by other groups as being the entire shebang of revolution way over-shoots the sensible goal of elimination of an economically enforced wages system and allowing for establishment of workplace democracy. ml: Any transfer, including paper forms, would actually be changes in identity of who will have a future right to accept goods from the social store. The transfer of that right would be the value that is being exchanged. ds: it would be a transfer of a present right of access.
Jacob Richter	Posted: 13 Aug 2008 04:32 am    Post subject: mikelepore wrote: for two reasons I can think of, (1) the custom of giving people money as graduation gifts, wedding gifts, etc. Or even lunch money. In principle, I have no problem with people exchanging GIFTS. Quote: (2) People who want to barter in the form of "I'll give you some garden tomatoes if you'll cut my grass" might want to transfer currency to defer physical delivery, which is why money was invented in the first place thousands of years ago. To make this possible, the units, which I believe should be numbers in a computer, may be ejected from the computer as paper certificates. It would still be true that the units should come into existence when the work is done and go out of existence when the goods are delivered to the consumer. But in the case above, unequal labour is performed. In terms of deferring physical delivery, I'm sure that working-class folks will be honest with each other in terms of honouring on-the-side contracts or whatever. With circulation, if some guy happens to own a one-man small restaurant and decides to hire labour, he can hire at less than full labour value - hence capital formation (surplus value and what not). Quote: Jacob I don't think that you have been around for the discussions that have taken place here regarding mom and pop private enterprises that could very easilty and symbiotically exist along with the collective of workers. Does every bakery, barber shop, family farm have to be totally part of the workers' collective in order for socialism to exist and to thrive? I would argue that it does not. That's part of the reason why I think that the SLP's idea of SIU and similar totalitiarian ideas by other groups as being the entire shebang of revolution way over-shoots the sensible goal of elimination of an economically enforced wages system and allowing for establishment of workplace democracy. ml: Any transfer, including paper forms, would actually be changes in identity of who will have a future right to accept goods from the social store. The transfer of that right would be the value that is being exchanged. ds: it would be a transfer of a present right of access. That mom-and-pop example is exactly the kind of example I'm talking about. With the circulation stuff you guys are for, why not just be Trotskyists? According to them, all that was needed for the money-riddled Soviet Union to be "socialist" was workers' democracy from the workplace up. The mom-and-pop enterprises could exist (but someone else objected below, I think), on the condition that they do NOT hire labour (either formal labour or under-the-table). Non-circulable labour credit means that they only way hired labour is possible is through barter. :) http://www.revleft.com/vb/question-private-enterprise-t85742/index2.html Quote: Yes, people may well use some small and relatively valuable objects as private currency on a black market, but the absence of easily transferable, government-backed money would still greatly hinder any such black market. When you can use official money on the black market, you can then take your black market profits and use them to buy goods from legal shops. But if you are forced to use your own private currency on the black market, that currency is worthless in the legal shops, so there are much fewer things you can buy with your black market profits - making the black market far less attractive. Quote: Actually, no, you wouldn't have a business, since you wouldn't have any actual employees, or means of production, or anything. You'd be one guy buying stuff for other people in exchange for the stuff they buy for you. I don't see anything un-socialist about that, so go ahead and have fun with it.
davesearles	Posted: 13 Aug 2008 06:38 am    Post subject: jr: With circulation, if some guy happens to own a one-man small restaurant and decides to hire labour, he can hire at less than full labour value - hence capital formation (surplus value and what not). ds: But you are providing an example in isolation of the premise that the economic necessity of selling one's labor power for a wage has been eliminated. If you don't want to work in the restaurant at the proffered wage (perhaps at a stated percentage of an hour per hour labor credit) and learn from the master first hand the exquisite art of preparing a proper breakfast then don't work there. Go on down to the union of industrial food preparers and get a job for labor credits. My point in the previous post was that the boogie man IS NOT CAPITAL per se but the economically enforced relationship between capital and labor in the wages system. jr: Non-circulable labour credit means that they only way hired labour is possible is through barter. ds: Or the state could issue non-labor credit notes. But except for narrowness for the sake of narrowness there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason why the non-union corner flap jack joint should not be encouraged to operate on a private basis. And why not allow the labr credits to circulate. By non-circulation you would be essentally trying to restrict the union workers from only beng able to spend their labor credits in the company store. If the company store has a superior product I would just might expend my credits there. But if there is a private non-union shop that I like the owners of and I would rather spend my labor credit there, why shouldn't I? Or is it your idea that worker purchasers should be captives of the company store?
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 02:47 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: But except for narrowness for the sake of narrowness there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason why the non-union corner flap jack joint should not be encouraged to operate on a private basis. But the flap jack joint needs a place for it. As I complained i the past, socialists have never suggested a logical plan for individuals to acquire land. Is one person gets a 1500 square foot house with the same degree of difficulty that another person gets sufficient room for a flap jack joint, there's a problem. Do I have to put three or four little tables in my 14X18 living room, and that's my shoppe?
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 02:52 am    Post subject: Jacob - I said "I'll give you some garden tomatoes if you'll cut my grass", and you replied "But in the case above, unequal labour is performed." How could you know that about an example that contains no numbers?
davesearles	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 04:58 am    Post subject: The eternal land problem in the present is not a problem in literally thousands of towns and cities across the country. Moreover without the redundancy engendered by capitalism along with the building better transportaion systems, there will be more land available than there is now. Why is land all of a sudden a problem when we're talking about private flap jack shops but not a problem with socialist industry?
davesearles	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 10:08 am    Post subject: jr: With the circulation stuff you guys are for, why not just be Trotskyists? According to them, all that was needed for the money-riddled Soviet Union to be "socialist" was workers' democracy from the workplace up. ds: Well, was there collective ownership and control of the industrial means of production by the workers in the Soviet Union? It never happened because the soviets had money that circulated? That's rich.
davesearles	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 12:51 pm    Post subject: jr: With the circulation stuff you guys are for, why not just be Trotskyists? According to them, all that was needed for the money-riddled Soviet Union to be "socialist" was workers' democracy from the workplace up. ds: Well, was there collective ownership and control of the industrial means of production through a democracy of the people actully doing the work in the Soviet Union? It didn't happen because the Soviets had money that circulated?
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 01:46 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: The eternal land problem in the present is not a problem in literally thousands of towns and cities across the country. Moreover without the redundancy engendered by capitalism along with the building better transportaion systems, there will be more land available than there is now. Why is land all of a sudden a problem when we're talking about private flap jack shops but not a problem with socialist industry? The problem isn't a shortage land. The problem is deciding on a method for individuals can acquire the land without using sales to the highest bidder, or an "it's who you know" system, or inheritance from one's ancestors. There is probably is going to be a shortage of land, with the population of the world doubling every thirty years, but suppose enough people take anti-baby pills and the population stabilizes or drops. We're talking about a system definition problem, not a population and resource problem. I highlighted these enormous theoretical problems here a couple years ago. We can't take some total area and divide it by some number of people. I might get Okiefanoke swamp while you get Cape Cod beach. The city-lover might get put in a cornfield while the rural-lover gets put in Brooklyn. If people can buy whichever land they like best, then they will bid up Cape Cod and bid down Okiefanoke swamp, and so the level of psychological desperation makes the decision - that's great for the children of the ambitious person who bought Cape Cod, and lousy for the children of the person who was only willing to buy the swamp. To prevent such bidding, prices can be fixed, but then people have to break their necks rushing to get the $100 per acre Cape Cod before nothing is left over but the $100 per acre swamp. Although I said $100, there is no rational method to set a price for something that isn't a product, so it might as well be $1 or a penny per acre. Then the parents die -- will a family with six children divide up six acres and give each offspring one acre, while a family with two children divide up six acres and five each offspring three acres? Then we have new people born, so does someone have to give half of their land back so it can be given to the new generation? No matter what answers someone gives to my questions, I always find the answers to be arbitrary and likely to generate additional problems. In many of those newly-created problems I see a restoration of a society of haves and have-nots in a few generations. Why isn't it a problem for industry? Because whoever has been elected to make such decisions can issue the decision to take a thousand acres away from logging and giving it to mining. Nothing is a theoretical problem when the policy is to let Joe decide and then Joe announces a decision. It is a problem if you have private businesses, because all of the distribution problems I listed for residential land would now apply to business property also.
davesearles	Posted: 14 Aug 2008 04:35 pm    Post subject: And socialist slowly come to the realization that sometimes the ONLY solution is a political non-solution. This is an eternal question and always will be one. My brain would break if I tried to come up with a solution to every possible contingency pertainig to land. Luckily no one ever has to becuase land questions, trite to say are as much local issues as they are global. I do know that within 80 miles of where I live if you could show that you were going to start a business that would employ say 20 people, unless you just had to have the next space in line at the sad main road into town development, you would have land to do busiess on esstially thrown at you. (As long as it din't include too much incursion into the mountains.) I do not live on Cape Cod, don't expect to go there except for a dip in the ocean in within what remains of the rest of my life so I don't concern myself land distribution there. I always picture myself on the shore at cape cod when I read this Frost poem The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A ship keeps raising its hull; The wetter ground like glass Reflects a standing gull. The land may vary more; But whatever the truth may be-- The water comes ashore, And the people look at the sea. They cannot look out far. They cannot look in deep. But when was that ever a bar To any watch they keep?
Jacob Richter	Posted: 15 Aug 2008 02:29 am    Post subject: mikelepore wrote: Jacob - I said "I'll give you some garden tomatoes if you'll cut my grass", and you replied "But in the case above, unequal labour is performed." How could you know that about an example that contains no numbers? Isn't that the point of barter? Cutting the grass can be quantified (i.e., one cutting service or how many square feet of grass is cut). The number of garden tomatoes is a number. ;)
davesearles	Posted: 15 Aug 2008 12:56 pm    Post subject: Are there two Jacob Richters? Or does the one Jacob Richter not read his own posts? jr #1?: ++++++++++++++++++++ Quote: (Mike Lepore)People who want to barter in the form of "I'll give you some garden tomatoes if you'll cut my grass" might want to transfer currency to defer physical delivery, which is why money was invented in the first place thousands of years ago. jr # 1 stated: in the case above, unequal labour is performed. +++++++++++++++++++++ jr #2?: +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Isn't that the point of barter? Cutting the grass can be quantified (i.e., one cutting service or how many square feet of grass is cut). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ds states: Then aparently jr #2 admits (assuming logical integrity) that what jr #1 wrote about unequal labor being performed was without foundation. Adults, in an ideal world at least, in such discussions would acknowledge their incorrect statements instead of glossing them over, iwstm.
mikelepore	Posted: 16 Aug 2008 07:24 pm    Post subject: Currency modifies bartering by making it possible to delay part of the agreement and change your mind about parts of the deal. I'll cut your grass now, but I won't want your tomatoes until next year. So you can just give me a symbolic peice of paper for cutting your grass . Next year when I need those tomatoes, I'll take them from you, and then I will give you back the piece of paper. Or maybe I'll give the piece of paper instead to the person who will clean my chimney. Currency also eliminates some transportation. Just because I receive a product from a person in who lives 100 kilometers away, that doesn't mean that I have to deliver my product to a place 100 kilometers away. People can exchange in their own locations. Pieces of paper are easier to send than truckloads of heavy cargo.
mikelepore	Posted: 16 Aug 2008 07:37 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: I do not live on Cape Cod, don't expect to go there except for a dip in the ocean in within what remains of the rest of my life so I don't concern myself land distribution there. I wasn't just telling a story. It had a point. My example illustrated the idea of some people receiving good luck or good quality things, and other people receiving bad luck or bad quality things. If those things are durable, which land is, and if their children inherit them, then you have the rule of classes.
davesearles	Posted: 16 Aug 2008 07:50 pm    Post subject: There is already an adequate remedy for such perceived problems. We don't have to break our brains to find another solution. Call in the tax man.
mikelepore	Posted: 16 Aug 2008 08:05 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: And socialist slowly come to the realization that sometimes the ONLY solution is a political non-solution. This is an eternal question and always will be one. My brain would break if I tried to come up with a solution to every possible contingency pertainig to land. You suggest modifying the socialists' goal to provide for some private businesses, but then you feel that you shouldn't accompany that with a suggestion about a method for individuals to acquire the land to put those businesses on. Well, I think it would be cool to build a new city in a glass bubble on the planet Mars. But how would people conveniently get there and live there? Don't ask me. Thinking about that makes my head hurt. I also have a problem, because we don't even have a plan for allocating land for people to live on, never mind conduct business. I also don't have a suggestion either, but at least I know it's a hole in the theory. The working class will not organize before a goal is clearly defined.
davesearles	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 01:32 am    Post subject: I don't think so but go for it. How many towns and small cities around don't have dozens of empty business spaces? Socialists are going to come with the plan where everyone is going to live? And people aren't going to go for socialism until that plan is all worked out and air tight? The only idea that I can think about is the workers collectively owning and operating the means of production. Beyond that the state is going to have to work things out or not work them out.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 04:11 am    Post subject: People assume the worst about a time of pending social revolution because they don't agree with "you have nothing to lose but your chains". People feel that they have something that they could lose -- their freedom to choose a place of residence, to choose a career, to choose a church, or anything else. Most people's attitude about socialism is: Can you give me iron-clad proof that these rights wouldn't be taken away form me if we had socialism? No, huh? Then I have to assume that my rights would be taken away and therefore I'm against socialism." Now we come along and say we say: "First, in Socialist society there will be no private ownership of the land and the industries. When we say this, we are not talking about; your house, or your clothes, or your car, or any of your personal belongings. What we are talking about are the factories, the mills, the mines, the railroads - in short, the instruments used in the production and distribution of goods. We say that these means of production and distribution must belong to society as a whole." (From AN OLD SLP LEAFLET) The novice immediately thinks: Okay, in your goal I can get a house, or the land for building a house. I guess you mean that I can buy it in the free market, perhaps through a real estate agency -- or, did you mean that I have to go down to the town bureaucrat and beg for it, or bribe a bureaucrat to get it, or what? It was we who were the weird ones. It was Lepore and Searles who for forty years never asked such questions. The typical novice who encounters a socialist speaker or leaflet thinks of such questions in the first five minutes. Socialists have failed to know what the typical novice is really thinking, and therefore we don't address most people's concerns. Partly for that reason -- but of course there are also additional reasons -- the working class has never been persuaded by socialist speeches and literature.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 04:16 am    Post subject: I apologize to Jacob for changing the subject in this topic that he started for a particular purpose. This forum has always had a lot of tangents, but real life is also like that.
Jacob Richter	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 04:28 am    Post subject: mikelepore wrote: I apologize to Jacob for changing the subject in this topic that he started for a particular purpose. This forum has always had a lot of tangents, but real life is also like that. Not at all (i.e., relax). One thing that has not been addressed by Cockshott is the "monetary" gift question.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 05:18 am    Post subject: I think you mean when my Aunt Josephine gave us money for a wedding present because she was undecided about whether we would rather have a kitchen appliance or a living room appliance. That's a strong tradition the people may wish to continue doing it. It will require a major fix to the theory of those who say thay work credits should not be transferable. In reality, the decision will be made by the people when the time comes, and that may be the 23rd century for all we know. It's not up to us now to decide on anything. It is only up to us to make sensible representations of socialism as a contribution to everyone's educational process.
davesearles	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 01:39 pm    Post subject: ml: Quote: People assume the worst about a time of pending social revolution because they don't agree with "you have nothing to lose but your chains". People feel that they have something that they could lose -- their freedom to choose a place of residence, to choose a career, to choose a church, or anything else. Most people's attitude about socialism is: Can you give me iron-clad proof that these rights wouldn't be taken away form me if we had socialism? No, huh? Then I have to assume that my rights would be taken away and therefore I'm against socialism." ds: I do not disagree with this one wit. However trite, what is true and immutable today, as conditions change, tomorrow become but a memory of a distant and unreachable past. How does it give anyone any confidence in the things that we do know when we start (ANALOGY ALERT) talking out of our asses about things we actually know very little about? Hell a lowly real estate agent would know 10 times more about land distribution questions than we do. We have a bit of insight that the economic setup as we know it shall be reordered, in favor of the common human or against. That's about all we know. Want people to have confidence in what we say? We should never put ourselves in a position that what we say on anything other than what we actually know has one bit more insight to it than the people who pick up bottles along the highway. ml: Quote: Now we come along and say we say: "First, in Socialist society there will be no private ownership of the land and the industries. When we say this, we are not talking about; your house, or your clothes, or your car, or any of your personal belongings. What we are talking about are the factories, the mills, the mines, the railroads - in short, the instruments used in the production and distribution of goods. We say that these means of production and distribution must belong to society as a whole." (From AN OLD SLP LEAFLET) The novice immediately thinks: Okay, in your goal I can get a house, or the land for building a house. I guess you mean that I can buy it in the free market, perhaps through a real estate agency -- or, did you mean that I have to go down to the town bureaucrat and beg for it, or bribe a bureaucrat to get it, or what? ds: exactly why we shouldn't make such statements without explanation. Such statements ought to be prefaced with remarks like: "In our pipe dreams this is how we see society after the revolution." And then in closing state: "These are merely our idea as how things could play out once the workers own and control the industrial means of production as the workers have determined, what are your ideas?" ml: Quote: It was we who were the weird ones. It was Lepore and Searles who for forty years never asked such questions. ds: You couldn't be more right. This seems self serving to write it, but sometimes it takes a person coming to full adulthood and even well beyond to allow ideas to gravitate toward what might be a natural order. Or we (I) could finally be coming totally and unalterably unhinged. ml: Quote: Socialists have failed to know what the typical novice is really thinking, and therefore we don't address most people's concerns. ds: People need to know that the revolution will not only be of their collective doing, but it will be of their collective design. There is not a book of instructions, there are not profound thinkers from the past or even the present whose words we can incant to open the gates. ds continues: When the amendment proposal came about (which I, stupidly, perhaps think is A if not THE solution for building working class cohesion sufficient to allow for the option of collective worker ownership and control of the industrial means of production) it was a fluke. It didn't develop from us sitting down and asking ourselves what secondary idea can we come up with that will help advance the main idea of socialism. It came about because of our own analysis of own contradictions concerning the nature of governmental structure that in our pipe dreams we thought would come about through the revolution of the workers. (You far more than me always knew that there had to be a political solution.) We are good at discussing principles. People will believe us for our principles far more than our ideas as to specifically how title to land will be affected other than to say that the political government of the people acting under the constitution as the people amend it will have to deal with any problems if they arise and as they arise. What more could we possibly say other than to offer pipe dreams? There're nothing wrong with pipe dreams as long as wr're able to discern that it is a pipe dream and don't advertise it as anything other than that.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 Aug 2008 08:43 pm    Post subject: I don't think it's a pipe dream. It's the fact that people who want to change society are complainers. We are the ones who are grumbling that present conditions are inadequate. Most people think the present system is the best of all imaginable systems in all of the past, present and future, in need only of the passing of a few laws to combat evil human nature, but the structure of the system itself is, they believe, as perfect as possible. And they find us complaining about it. That puts the burden on us to describe a better system. And what we say had better make a lot of sense, otherwise we're just crackpots.
davesearles	Posted: 18 Aug 2008 03:00 am    Post subject: ml: Quote: I don't think it's a pipe dream. It's the fact that people who want to change society are complainers. We are the ones who are grumbling that present conditions are inadequate. ds: Workers collectively owning and operating the means of production a pipe dream? Not at all. The pipe dream aspect is a group of advocates of such trying to figure out solutions to problems that people are going to have to figure out as a whole. People who have read and studied Marx Engels and the rest are going to be just as stupid (maybe stupider) than everyone else on thee questions. Will I live in my same house? Will I keep my same job? Be able to obtain gasoline for the my gas guzzler? My pension, insurance policies, yada yada. I will not use my time tested (and failed) powers of foresight to tell people how things can or should or perhaps can play out other than as mere suggestions except to say that political democracy will have to provide the solutions. if they want or need something more than that, I ain't got it, never will and don't want to pretend that I do or ever will.
mikelepore	Posted: 18 Aug 2008 05:19 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: trying to figure out solutions to problems that people are going to have to figure out as a whole. First, the people never make any plan as a whole. It's always a case of invididuals make various suggestions to the people and then the people approve some of them. More often, the pattern is: Individuals make various suggestions to a committee, the committee adopts some of the suggestions, then the committee passes on some of these things to the people, and the people approve some of them. And that's the _best_ case, with persuasion but no coercion. That pattern dominates all government, industry, business, science and technology. Secondly, it's okay not to have all the answers, but then we should say that. Our program should say we recommend this and that, but we don't have any recommendations in the other areas that have been recongized as being less clear. For example, we want social ownership of industry but not of residential land, but it remains to be seen what could replace today's real estate market, one of the problems that's yet to be resolved. We're being dishonest if we don't put that in our recommended program.
davesearles	Posted: 18 Aug 2008 08:33 pm    Post subject: ml: Quote: For example, we want social ownership of industry but not of residential land ds: Hard to belive there are probably about a dozen definitions as to ownership, probably more when it applies to land. We've talked about this before - within a established country there is not ownership of land, but to title. Titles derive from social acquiencence of the original grant and social acceptanceof any chain of conveyances. So ownership is going to have to be totlaly re-thought, I should think. A person want socials ownership of the means of roduction with a guarantee that real estate distrbution isn't going to be totally rethought possibly with a result to their displeasure? I would shush them away. Maybe on their own with others like minded they may come up with a great plan for dealing with this but I just don't have any tolerance for such concerns. That's just me. ml: Quote: First, the people never make any plan as a whole. ds: We could break it down furhter to the synaptic level, but I was implying the whole process by which we come up with a plan - a constition, e.g. Sure some people, probably everyone, is going to be a suggester. My point is that we as socialists do not have anything unique to add other than workers for the most need to secure the major means of production. Maybe everyone will get a lease to a house for 10 years by lottery or some other method. I really do not care, nor is my input other, than I don't care, much value, - the same as I would consider anyone's opinion on the suject. For the love of Christ the last thing that we need is an offical "Marxist" position as to how land distribution should be accomplished or just what the tax structure is ought to look like from a dielectial viewpoint.
mikelepore	Posted: 20 Aug 2008 07:43 pm    Post subject: Not an official position but a collection of suggestions. People can't reach the point of saying let's all vote on some options if they haven't even gone through the stage of hearing a lot of suggestions bounced around.
davesearles	Posted: 20 Aug 2008 08:52 pm    Post subject: agree 100%. What color should the houses be under socialism?
mikelepore	Posted: 21 Aug 2008 05:59 am    Post subject: Whatever the supreme commissar commands.
davesearles	Posted: 21 Aug 2008 09:06 am    Post subject: That will save the workers endless hours trying to come up with the right colors. I finally had to come up with the brilliant idea that the only colr I would paint any of my apartments was white. I never have half used cans of colors that I don't need. Now was there anything in Marx about this? I can't find anything.
Jacob Richter	Posted: 28 Aug 2008 02:02 am    Post subject: ^^^ Well, consider the prefabricated housing market. ;)