<div>Ted wrote:</div> <div> </div> <div>So the "planning" through which "freely associated" "universally <BR>developed individuals" would organize the activity of meeting their <BR>"needs" (the instrumental activity that defines "the realm of <BR>necessity" of an ideal community) is not the "planning" criticized by <BR>von Mises and Hayek. The latter adopt a conception of "being" and of <BR>"human being" radically inconsistent with Marx's.<BR><BR>It also isn't the "planning" implemented in the Soviet Union, i.e. <BR>planning there wasn't part of the organization of production by <BR>"freely associated" "universally developed individuals".</div> <div> </div> <div>*****************************************************************************</div> <div> </div> <div>We haven't seen grassroots planning yet. We've only experienced the idiocies of top-down, </div> <div>bureaucratic planning (in the name of
the workers councils) </div> <div>and as the history of the USSR and other Stalinist style political-economies </div> <div>demonstrate, that doesn't work too well. Grassroots planning would have </div> <div>the "market", the associated producers, planning production/consumption for </div> <div>themselves. This "administration of things" would not be</div> <div>fettered with party power climbers or other associated backstabbers </div> <div>and bureaucratic bootlickers. </div> <div> </div> <div>And as Marx put it to the then, purportedly revolutionary </div> <div>Social Democrats in "Critique of the Gotha P":</div> <div> </div> <div>What we have to deal with here is a communist society,<BR>not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on<BR>the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society;<BR>which is thus in every respect, economically, morally,<BR>and intellectually, still
stamped with the birthmarks of<BR>the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly,<BR>the individual producer receives back from society --<BR>after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he<BR>gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum<BR>of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the<BR>sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time<BR>of the individual producer is the part of the social working day<BR>contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate<BR>from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount<BR>of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds);<BR>and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of<BR>means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor<BR>cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society<BR>in one form, he receives back in another.<BR>**********************************************</div> <div> </div> <div>Note that
the communist society emerges from the capitalist society,</div> <div>stamped, as it is, with birthmarks from the old society--shades of hegemony. </div> <div>There is no mention of a "socialist" State (a contradiction in terms) which </div> <div>through its party leadership leads/drives the proletariat </div> <div>to the new Jerusalem of communism and there is no mention by Marx of how the </div> <div>producers need to use a wage system and commodity production to get from </div> <div>captalism via socialism to communism--that is indeed, part of the Stalinist mythology. </div> <div>No, as Marx puts it, a producer gets, after deductions from the common fund, </div> <div>a certificate from a socialist/communist society that entitles her/him to goods </div> <div>and services which equal in labor time the amount the producer has put it. </div> <div>It isn't that some goods and services are commodified and
marketed and </div> <div>others aren't. No, a producer does four hours of socially necessary </div> <div>labor time on some socially designated project and withdraws goods </div> <div>and services of an equivalent amount of socially necessary labor time.</div> <div> <BR>Best,</div> <div> </div> <div>Mike B)</div><BR><BR>Watch the communist manifestoon!<br>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oGIffyVVk<p> __________________________________________________<br>Do You Yahoo!?<br>Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around <br>http://mail.yahoo.com