"As you point out, even the most unskilled worker on the production line expresses that labour value of all the hours that go into rearing a person to adulthood too. Its the same principle. except that everyone has to be reared through childhood, so the differences in value are more subtle."
I utterly reject this. Life is not an achievement contest. No one has more value than anyone else. An hour of my life is worth an hour of your life. That's the only sane basis for an economic-social system. Everything else devolves into self-justification contests, is a waste of time, and reinforces the worst aspects of being a verbal and calculating being.
An hour of my life is worth an hour of yours, and we support whoever for whatever reason can't work. If you keep it simple, it may even be doable.
Joanna
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I'll drink to that, Joanna.
A discussion from my unsaleable novel:
“As our production and distribution system is based on use and need, when I’m hungry, I go to the grocery outlet to pick up what I can use. When I need a pair of sandals, I go to the dry goods outlet and choose a pair which suits me.
“It is true that sometimes one must wait for some things to become available–for example, to get lessons on how to pilot a glider or instruction on parachute packing for sky-diving. In other words, goods and services which aren’t used on an everyday basis by lots of people may require a little patience before they can be obtained. It goes without saying that if these goods and services are to be available from our social stores, then we must have democratically decided to provide them in the first place. After all, we’re the ones who will be committing our labour-time to making the item or providing the service. We do that by measuring demand.”
“And how do you ‘measure demand’?” I asked. “Certainly, you don’t mean ‘the market’.”
“We are the market. We’re producing for ourselves.”
“Exactly my sentiments!” I said triumphantly.
“First of all, for things which we have already decided to put into circulation, we
measure demand by producing the inventory for such a good or service and registering
the speed at which that inventory is being depleted and adjusting production
accordingly.”
“And who does this registering?”
“Those who put their community time in by stocking the shelves. If there isn’t
enough to stock the shelves or provide a service properly, that information is communicated to the general and specific associations of producers.”
“And, what if some shelf never needs restocking?”
“If some part, some item or some service in the inventory is not used for a lengthy
period of time, then the service or good is put up for a generalized consumer vote to
determine whether we want to reduce production of it or even eliminate it from the
pool of required social production time. Whatever we take away from the social stores
translates into an immediate gain in free-time for us as producers.”
“I gather that you don’t have maids and servants,” I smiled.
“Universal self-management is the rule of thumb around here,” he replied. “Of course,
the physically and/or mentally impaired are given the assistance which they need.”
“Health care is provided on the basis of need?” I half-asked.
“Bettina, this should go without saying,” he stated.
“Just checking,” I replied with a smile.
“Second, we measure requests for new goods and services electronically. A person
might say to herself, ‘We should really be providing parachute packing instruction on a regular basis. Having it done by a volunteer during free-time is just not meeting
demand. We’ve reached a point where demand is greater than this sort of haphazard
method can fulfill.’ So, that person will register a demand to get that service added to
the total expenditure of socially necessary labour time or, ‘snlt’ for short, associated
with the service industry. These consumer demands are then voted on by the associated producers on a weekly basis. In order for a demand to be added to the pool of already existing snlt, it must have attained at least a 51% yes vote.”
“What about people in the community who are not ‘producers’?” I asked. “How do
they get their demands met?”
“Everyone in the free association of New Earth is considered a producer.”
“Even in terms of voting on things which will increase socially necessary production
time?”
“Yes.”
===== ***************************************************************** "--why do you slack your fighting-fury now? It's hard for me, strong as I am, single-handed to breach the wall and cut a path to the ships--come, shoulder-to-shoulder! The more we've got, the better the work will go!"
One of Sarpedon's speeches in THE ILIAD--The Trojans storm the rampart http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
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