Question for Marxists, Socialists, ect...

Post for JimmyJazz or whoever else wishes to engage.

 

First off I know that since you are vastly outnumbered on this forum your placed at a disadvantage at the rate of which you can respond to every single individuals point. No matter how frivilous their argument may be. I realize that there are children everywhere. Posting on a forum with opposing ideologies while keeping your composure tells us bounds about your maturity and character. I'd just like to recognize that quality about you and remind others here to keep that in mind and police their own posts with a tone of respect.

That said you made a post about on another thread where you stated.

JimmyJazz Said,

I will give a very broad type of answer to how I think production might be planned "under socialism": it would be coordinated using, at the minimum, all of the same methods that General Motors has at its disposal to plan production internally.  Corporations don't have an internal market; they don't have internal prices.  Corporations are giant islands of planning in a sea of markets, of cooperation in a sea of competition.  Also, central "planning" is of course not the only option available to a democratic society for directing the productivity of whatever wealth it controls.  I'm sure you are familiar with Lange's ideas, and it's unclear that "planning" which follows market inputs as he proposes is really engaging in "planning" at all.

 

First off I would love to contend this point as I think in my opinion it is very easy. However I'd like to present an entirely different angle at you and get your opinion and comments from you if you would be willing to share.

Lets say hypothetically speaking that we live in a world where the political and economical ideologies that you promote(True stateless communism, or any other ideology you agree to) are in practice. Lets even go so far as to say that the system in place actually works and that natural resources are adequately distributed around the area where this system is being practiced.

My questions are as follows In the context of this utopian world:

1) Would it be permited for me to optionally leave this society to live in isolation on my own outside of the system. Far  out in the country by my own rules, far away from all others in the modern commune. Hypothetically assuming I could do no harm to anyone else and realizing I would have to tend the land myself to provide for myself? Would this be allowed?

2) Could others join me by their own will choose to live by me and my land producing their own fruits. Hypothetically assuming we would not effect the modern commune as we know it?

3) Lets say a small village decides to form around my area deep in the mountains and isolated away from the modern commune. We create our own trading system based on the Anarcho-Capitalist ideologies. We keep our beleifs, ideologies, and economic systems to ourselves confined in our own village. Would this be permitted by the modern commune?

3a)IF yes, would we be granted or allowed to trade with the Modern Commune?

3b) For the sake of argument we may find that the Modern Commune is capable of providing all the needs for itself, and that there is no desire to trade with my village as we would have nothing to offer. Would we still be permitted to live by our own rules in our own way completly isolated from the systems you promoted and live by?

 

Thanks for your time.

JimmyJazz :

I will give a very broad type of answer to how I think production might be planned "under socialism": it would be coordinated using, at the minimum, all of the same methods that General Motors has at its disposal to plan production internally.  Corporations don't have an internal market; they don't have internal prices.  Corporations are giant islands of planning in a sea of markets, of cooperation in a sea of competition.  Also, central "planning" is of course not the only option available to a democratic society for directing the productivity of whatever wealth it controls.  I'm sure you are familiar with Lange's ideas, and it's unclear that "planning" which follows market inputs as he proposes is really engaging in "planning" at all.

This is still a centralized system, with less planning than state-socialism, but it's still planning anyway. Its clear that a commune can produce goods. But its production just can't handle the great complexity of today's standards, because you've abolished division of labour, and, as you don't have private property, your economic decisions are not "constrained" by the economic decisions of others, which I believe is the main issue in the "socialist calculation problem". Your analogy with General Motors is not right, because GM has to coexist with millions of other market participants (not only car producers), which have a lot of impact on GM internal decisions (prices, wages, interest rates are not determined by a single authority, but by the aggregation of all individuals acting in the market process). With only one actor (for example, a democratic commune) deciding everything, economic production is just like a game, without real economic meaning.

Let's not forget that GM went bankrupt.

Insofar as "corporations" (I assume that this means large limited liabilty joint stock companies integrated into the white market, in this context) don't have internal markets or internal prices, they are islands of calculational chaos.  The only thing that then keeps them from being out-competed by alternative organizational forms is state violence, whether direct or indirect.

I ma not too sure we will see JJ here, but I will repost my questions to see if he answers...

 

I have questions, this coming from a "worker" mind you....

1. Exactly how does your beliefs justify stealing from me to benefit others? 
2. How does your beliefs contrast with the claim that justice can only be found in voluntary exchange, and not with state mandate or social coercion?

 

filc:

First off I know that since you are vastly outnumbered on this forum your placed at a disadvantage at the rate of which you can respond to every single individuals point. No matter how frivilous their argument may be. I realize that there are children everywhere. Posting on a forum with opposing ideologies while keeping your composure tells us bounds about your maturity and character. I'd just like to recognize that quality about you and remind others here to keep that in mind and police their own posts with a tone of respect.

Thanks.  I'll probably just reply to whichever comments jump out to me as something I have a good answer for.  I'm not going to stretch myself too much to try an answer a question that really isn't in the realm of what I've spent my time considering before, because I wouldn't even be giving a very quality answer if I did.

filc:

Lets say hypothetically speaking that we live in a world where the political and economical ideologies that you promote(True stateless communism, or any other ideology you agree to) are in practice. Lets even go so far as to say that the system in place actually works and that natural resources are adequately distributed around the area where this system is being practiced.

My questions are as follows In the context of this utopian world

To be honest, I wonder if you understand in what way Marxism was a break from previous socialist thought.

This will be frustrating to some people, as it was once frustrating to me when, as a pretty free-market guy, I engaged with socialists.  However, here is my honest answer: I don't have a blueprint for the "future" socialist society.  I've read some interesting books that float ideas, and I've read a bit about the economies of the Soviet Union (central planning) and Yugoslavia (workers' self-management), as well as Oscar Lange's version of "Market Socialism" (not a mixed economy, but rather one in which a single central producer used a 'market', i.e. trial and error pricing, to assess demand for various goods).  But ultimately, I no longer identify myself with any one of these.  My viewpoint is grounded in the labor theory of value, and the consequent entitlement which I believe that the producing class(es) have to whatever value they create (which is all value).  How they end up doing that is a matter of history.  I'd like to see the movement be very grassroots and bottom-up; and I'd like it to be as peaceful and as libertarian/non-statist as possible.  But I am open to any type of society which the working class might devise in which no one commands the labor of anyone else.

This is the difference between Marxism and the so-called (by Engels) "utopian socialists", who believed that socialism would be the result of implementing the ideas of "this or that universal reformer" (to paraphrase from memory).

Now that that point is out of the way, I promise not to bring it up again.  Because it can tend to be used as an excuse not to give a better answer, and makes some Marxists very slippery debaters, at least seemingly so to those who want concrete policy proposals to argue with.  But it is a fundamentally true thing about my perspective and had to be said.

filc:

1) Would it be permited for me to optionally leave this society to live in isolation on my own outside of the system. Far  out in the country by my own rules, far away from all others in the modern commune. Hypothetically assuming I could do no harm to anyone else and realizing I would have to tend the land myself to provide for myself? Would this be allowed?

2) Could others join me by their own will choose to live by me and my land producing their own fruits. Hypothetically assuming we would not effect the modern commune as we know it?

3) Lets say a small village decides to form around my area deep in the mountains and isolated away from the modern commune. We create our own trading system based on the Anarcho-Capitalist ideologies. We keep our beleifs, ideologies, and economic systems to ourselves confined in our own village. Would this be permitted by the modern commune?

3a)IF yes, would we be granted or allowed to trade with the Modern Commune?

3b) For the sake of argument we may find that the Modern Commune is capable of providing all the needs for itself, and that there is no desire to trade with my village as we would have nothing to offer. Would we still be permitted to live by our own rules in our own way completly isolated from the systems you promoted and live by?

All of this is fine with me. 

In fact, I am against the nation-state as such; no single entity should have a monopoly of power on such a large territory.  I'd prefer to have cities--or something equivalently large--be granted political autonomy.  (And as a matter of fact, I'm convinced that if they were, most cities would have gone socialist by now.  See: Paris 1871, St. Louis 1877, Petrograd 1917, Seattle 1919, parts of Germany 1918-19, parts of Spain 1936...).

I don't have any kind of practical idea as to how to decentralize the power of the nation-state to such a degree, however, while capitalism still exists.  I believe that the modern state evolved out of the needs of a capitalist economy for centralization over a wide territory (read as: a large market), and that imperialism arose when even these territories proved too confining for the needs of the giant modern commodity producers. (See Michael Tigar's book, Law and the Rise of Capitalism.)  So, while the material basis for large nation-states still exists, large nation-states will still exist; I don't see any way around this.

I think you'll find that I am extremely open to anti-statist ideas, and that I greatly prefer anti-statist solutions over statist ones.  But I don't base my whole philosophy around anti-statism, and I think it is silly to do so for the following reasons.  The state, like violence, is a means of struggle.  Within societies in which a great wealth disparity exists, there is a real, material conflict between rich and poor; this is especially true in those societies where the relationship between rich and poor takes the form of the former commanding the labor of the latter (I can recommend some excellent labor history books if you are interested).  So, if a real, material basis for conflict exists, then a conflict or the immediate potential for conflict will always exist.  You can't just wish this away because it happens to make your job of social analysis messier (for instance, you think capitalism perfectly serves people as consumers, and don't want to be bothered considering that as three-dimensional economic beings, humans also occupy a role as producers). 

And if a conflict exists, then the things which can act as tools in this struggle--such as the state or physical coercion/violence--always have the potential to be used.  You and I can renounce the state, or we can renounce violence; but there will always be some others on BOTH sides of the conflict between classes who will not hesitate to use the state and violence, sometimes to truly disgusting extremes. The 20th century is the evidence of this.

The only effective long term solution is the remove the material basis for social conflict, which is great disparities in wealth.  Otherwise, anti-statism, or pacifism, are akin to the stance some people took during the Cold War of refusing to take sides in that conflict and instead focusing on anti-nuclear activism.  Their stance was an admirable one, but what did they really achieve?  Nothing; the threat of nuclear war arising from the Cold War disappeared only when the Cold War itself ended.  No amount of anti-nuclear activism could have eliminated the risk while the Cold War continued.

Daniel:

Let's not forget that GM went bankrupt.

Hehe.  I was thinking as I wrote it that this might be a poor choice of corporation, but I was too lazy to even pull another name out of my hat. :)

Harry Felker:

Exactly how does your beliefs justify stealing from me to benefit others? 

A matter of perspective, or even semantics.  What justified people's "stealing" the power of a monarch?  What justifies a capitalist's ongoing "theft" of surplus value?

Too subjective a question to be seriously answered.

However, I would ask you to remember what it is, exactly, that I am proposing the working class "steal".  It is not money, through taxes; it is productive capital.  And of course when I advocate "stealing" it, I don't advocate transferring its ownership as private property of person X to private property of person Y, but rather that it should pass from private into collective ownership (=/= state ownership) and management.

The reason you threw me for a loop and made me think that perhaps you were addressing tax-and-spend liberal methods of wealth redistribution, as opposed to socialist ones, is because you said specifically that my proposed theft would "benefit" people.  Yet, we all know that every society in which the socialist form of redistribution (i.e., collectivization of productive wealth) occured was a terrible hellhole to live in!  So the word "benefit" made me think perhaps you were addressing some other form of theft besides the one I propose.

Ronald Coase kind of addressed this in his work on The Nature of the Firm.

 

Transactions costs exist, but only within smaller agencies and anything beyond that - like on a society level, simply doesn't work. 

 

It's about limiting the structure really.

GM buys metals and materials for its production on markets, and it buys the construction work to make its factories on markets as well. It designs its products to sell on markets. It simply is not correct that it is a microcosm of socialism. GM both buys capital goods and sells consumer goods on markets. It is because market prices for these goods exist that GM can plan. Or at least, it once did.

JimmyJazz:

All of this is fine with me. 

So in your ideal socialist world people are absolutely free to choose to go live and trade with eachother? Couldn't they then basically recreate the market? If people are free to choose to return to market enclaves why not just pursue eliminating the State and then seeing what people really perfer?

JimmyJazz:

I am against the nation-state as such; no single entity should have a monopoly of power on such a large territory.  I'd prefer to have cities, or something equivalently large, be granted political autonomy.  (And as a matter of fact, I'm convinced that if they were, most cities would have gone socialist by now.  See: Paris 1871, St. Louis 1877, Petrograd 1917, Seattle 1919, parts of Germany 1918-19, parts of Spain 1936...).

Why is it OK then for a single entity to have a monoply of power on a small teritory like a city? Or am I misreading this?

JimmyJazz:

I don't have any kind of practical idea as to how to decentralize the power of the nation-state to such a degree, however, while capitalism still exists.  I believe that the modern state evolved out of the needs of a capitalist economy for centralization over a wide territory (read as: a wide market), and that imperialism arose when even these territories proved too confining for the needs of the giant modern commodity producers. (See Michael Tigar's book, Law and the Rise of Capitalism.)  So, while the material basis for large nation-states still exists, large nation-states will still exist; I don't see any way around this.

I think this constitutes equivocation on what capitalism is. Capitalism=the free market. Mercantilism/Corporatism=some extent of government intervention on behalf of large corporations. By contrast the free market and by extention capitalism is the complete absence of government or collective itnervention in market processes.  Large businesses do not need the government. Some do. Halliburton needs the government, whatever you think of them they rely on it. GM needs the government, whatever you think of them. However, Wal-Mart (whatever you think of them) satisfies consumer demands well and doesn't need government intervention. 

JimmyJazz:

You and I can renounce the state, or we can renounce violence; but there will always be some others on BOTH sides of the conflict between classes who will not hesitate to use the state and violence, sometimes to truly disgusting extremes. The 20th century is the evidence of this.

Not gonna even bother attacking marxian class theory and it's inconsistencies.

JimmyJazz:

What justified people's "stealing" the power of a monarch? 

Nothing. The State was a mistake. Democracy is horrendous. 

JimmyJazz:

What justifies a capitalist's ongoing "theft" of surplus value?

Capitalists do not steal surplus value. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Labor and costs do not create value. They do not. Or else me working two hours to sculpt something out of feces would have the same value as Picasso working two hours to paint. And my two hour feces sculpture would have the same value as two hours of Aerosmith performing. This is all plainly false. Value is not determined by how much one works. It is determined entirely subjectively.

Why does Aerosmith performing earn them more money than my feces sculpture ever will? Because the potential consumers of Aerosmiths performance value the concert more than anyone would likely value a feces sculpture.

Why do I earn less than a doctor? Because there are less doctors people subjectively value their rare services higher.

Why do laborers earn what they earn? Because when they sell their labor it is subjectively valued at that price. Period. Who are you to impose your subjective valuation that they should earn more on the rest of the world?

@nerditarian

tbh I rather have your scuplture than watch listen to 2 hours of aerosmith.

JimmyJazz:

What justifies a capitalist's ongoing "theft" of surplus value?

If a worker agrees to work for $38 when the "full value" of what he is producing is $40, should the worker not be allowed to do so? If not, why not? Also, if a worker agrees to work for $38, however, the good he produces sells for $36, should the worker return the $2 to the capitalist since the worker didn't produce a good whose value was on par with his wage?

Eric:

@nerditarian

tbh I rather have your scuplture than watch listen to 2 hours of aerosmith.

A good objection but for the record it doesn't disprove the point. More people would prefer to see aerosmith than have my scupture. And those who like both value a concert higher than the sculpture. So my sculpture may have the market price of $7 whilst a ticket to any concert costs upwards of $50 for nose bleed seats. 

Nerditarian:

JimmyJazz:

What justified people's "stealing" the power of a monarch? 

Nothing. The State was a mistake. Democracy is horrendous.

Lol.  It would help me to continue taking this site seriously if one or two of the regular posters were to come out right now and openly say that they find this "up with teh kingz!" perspective not only mistaken, and hilariously out of touch with the human race, but also morally reprehensible.

That said, I don't usually paint with a broad brush, so I really am assuming that most people on this site aren't monarchists.

Nerditarian:

Not gonna even bother attacking marxian class theory and it's inconsistencies.

As I said before, I can recommend many good histories of labor struggles if you need them.  Of course, I would imagine that you think these people, so perfectly rational as consumers, simply lost their minds when they decided to go on strike and engage in violent confrontations with those representing their employers' interests (this despite the fact that they were men with families).

Daniel:

JimmyJazz:

What justifies a capitalist's ongoing "theft" of surplus value?

If a worker agrees to work for $38 when the "full value" of what he is producing is $40, should the worker not be allowed to do so? If not, why not? Also, if a worker agrees to work for $38, however, the good he produces sells for $36, should the worker return the $2 to the capitalist since the worker didn't produce a good whose value was on par with his wage?

I'm afraid that you and anyone else who replied to this missed the point of why I said it.  My point was "let's not go down that road" of talking about what is "theft", because both sides can do it, and both sides reject the other side's attempt to do it, so it's not going to go anywhere.

JimmyJazz:

Daniel:

JimmyJazz:

What justifies a capitalist's ongoing "theft" of surplus value?

If a worker agrees to work for $38 when the "full value" of what he is producing is $40, should the worker not be allowed to do so? If not, why not? Also, if a worker agrees to work for $38, however, the good he produces sells for $36, should the worker return the $2 to the capitalist since the worker didn't produce a good whose value was on par with his wage?

I'm afraid that you and anyone else who replied to this missed the point of why I said it.  My point was "let's not go down that road" of talking about what is "theft", because both sides can do it, and both sides reject the other side's attempt to do it, so it's not going to go anywhere.

You were making a point? I thought it was a question. However, I think you're dodging the question, because I am assuming that "capitalists" "steal" "surplus value". It's a perfectly reasonable question. I didn't even question what theft was; I simply wanted clarification on this issue. If you don't want to answer these questions, please direct me to an article that does.

Daniel:

JimmyJazz:

Daniel:

JimmyJazz:

What justifies a capitalist's ongoing "theft" of surplus value?

If a worker agrees to work for $38 when the "full value" of what he is producing is $40, should the worker not be allowed to do so? If not, why not? Also, if a worker agrees to work for $38, however, the good he produces sells for $36, should the worker return the $2 to the capitalist since the worker didn't produce a good whose value was on par with his wage?

I'm afraid that you and anyone else who replied to this missed the point of why I said it.  My point was "let's not go down that road" of talking about what is "theft", because both sides can do it, and both sides reject the other side's attempt to do it, so it's not going to go anywhere.

You were making a point? I thought it was a question. However, I think you're dodging the question, because I am assuming that "capitalists" "steal" "surplus value". It's a perfectly reasonable question. I didn't even question what theft was; I simply wanted clarification on this issue. If you don't want to answer these questions, please direct me to an article that does.

If you thought it was a non-rhetorical question, that was because you didn't carefully read the context in which I said it.  If you wish to stop being confused, I suppose I would suggest you go back and read that context now.

 

Of course, my questions had nothing to do with the context in which you said whatever it is you said. Nevertheless, please link me to articles (I am assuming you know where they are) where I can read answers to my questions. Thanks.

P.S. I was being sarcastic in the first two sentences of my previous post.

wombatron:

Insofar as "corporations" (I assume that this means large limited liabilty joint stock companies integrated into the white market, in this context) don't have internal markets or internal prices, they are islands of calculational chaos.  The only thing that then keeps them from being out-competed by alternative organizational forms is state violence, whether direct or indirect.

Could you elaborate more on this, Wombatron?!

Do you say that corporations/large companies only exist, because there is state violence? What would be happening, if there is no state violence anymore.

 

 

 

 

JimmyJazz:

Lol.  It would help me to continue taking this site seriously if one or two of the regular posters were to come out right now and openly say that they find this "up with teh kingz!" perspective not only mistaken, and hilariously out of touch with the human race, but also morally reprehensible.

What perspective is that?

Daniel:

Of course, my questions had nothing to do with the context in which you said whatever it is you said. Nevertheless, please link me to articles (I am assuming you know where they are) where I can read answers to my questions. Thanks.

P.S. I was being sarcastic in the first two sentences of my previous post.

In that case, stop trying to derail every thread I post in with your own discussion agenda, please.

JimmyJazz:

Daniel:

Of course, my questions had nothing to do with the context in which you said whatever it is you said. Nevertheless, please link me to articles (I am assuming you know where they are) where I can read answers to my questions. Thanks.

P.S. I was being sarcastic in the first two sentences of my previous post.

In that case, stop trying to derail every thread I post in with your own discussion agenda, please.

It sure is easy for you to dodge questions.