******** Tahir: Leaving aside the political questions for a moment, I have a question about socially necessary labour time. Necessary for what? Re-production of that same product? Or expanded reproduction of the whole means of life of the species? Your reference to R&D would seem to indicate the latter. But given that we are talking about a phase in history in which 'bourgeois right' is still in operation (see Gotha Critique), what is the incentive for the individual to take on that role of expanded reproduction through research into methods of boosting productivity, etc.? Under capitalism the incentive is competition and the related possibility of increased remuneration for the individual. I don't see any incentive in the system you describe. If you then say that there 'shouldn't have to be' an incentive, then you are not talking about bourgeois right at all; you're in fact talking about communism. But if this is communism, then why should we include any concession to bourgeois right, such as reward for labour? The main question here, underlying these paradoxes, is: What drives productivity in the lower stage of communism? *************
MB: I'm assuming that in order to achieve a proletarian democracy, we have already organized (I'll use my model) One Big Union within the capitalist system. To have organized that classwide OBU (the new society within the womb of the old), we'll have to have had the class consciousness to know that we'll be abolishing the wage system. The question *may* be, "What do we replace wages/ the price of labour in money with?" My answer (as suggested by Marx): "Time." What drives productivity is our need for goods and services which we socially produce and own and can have access to is then based on how much time we put into what we producers consider to be socially necessary work. ***************
Tahir:
A secondary question (of which there many): If you are going to include measurement of SNLT how do you measure the inputs that are going to lead to productivity gains in the future? Surely not just by the amount of time that the scientist spent in her lab? Surely that is not how you are going to measure the contribution that someone made to productivity? If this were it, you would have neither a viable system of bourgeois right nor anything resembling communism. It would simply be a totally under-conceptualised flop. ************ Mike B:
I think the danger is more in line with Marx's quip about the Idealism inherent in cooking up recipes for the bistros of the future. Social revolution is, at least for me (and I think Marx too) about changing the mode of production from one based on the alienation from power and wealth inherent in wage labour to a system where the social product of labour is owned and controlled by the creators of that product. That creation is accomplished within a vast division of labour in an industrialized society, whether capitalist or communist. Scientists and electricians are included in this division of labour. One big revolutionary difference between capitalism and socialism is the conscious recogition of our inter-connectedness within the division of labour. The scientist cannot function unless the garbage is picked up and the lights work. The electrician cannot function if the scientist isn't able to discover how to deliver electric power through more efficient wind mills and so on. We all recognize and respect each other's labour time as being an expression of our social solidarity, of our lives, a solidarity which is necessary to make OUR system function. Such a consciousness flows from the pre-revolutionary era in the IWW concept of, "an injury to one is an injury to all".
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Mike Ballard wrote:
I see the broad outline of how to accomplish this goal in the IWW's Preamble. How we, the producers, decide to distribute and managed the necessary division of labour in socialist society will be decided then, by that association of producers. I do think that a proletarian democracy is possible in one area of the world and would then influence other areas to take up the same system of production. In other words, the social revolution doesn't have to happen all at once, world wide. It can, but it doesn't have to be that way and, it probably won't, IMO. *********** Tahir: I think the second sentence above hides a multitude of likely sins. Yes people will no doubt have to debate how to do many things. But if it is not even known what is being attempted then such debates, confronted with the kinds of paradoxes that I have mentioned, will end up on some very unpleasant political reefs. The idea that questions that are as vital to humanity's reproduction as productivity, environment, population, etc., can be settled through some kind of workers' vote on a day to day basis is somewhat shocking to me in its inadequacy, to put it very plainly. ******************
Mike B: Clearly Tahir, you require a more exacting recipe than I think is possible to give. What I'm saying is that the workers themselves will know "what is being attempted" as the OBU is being organized and I cannot predict what the outcome of those considerations will be: circumstances will be constantly changing. The principles embodied in the concepts of "abolishing the wage system" and "living in harmony with the Earth", I think are sufficient starting points for these dialogues vis a vis the questions you raise above. *********** Tahir:
The next sentence I can also give no credence to. The idea of proletarian democracy in some 'part of the world' strongly suggests to me a state amongst other states. But be that as it may, your suggestion certainly implies that this polity, whatever it may be, will have to get itself caught up in questions of sovereignity and defence, not to mention all the tricky questions of migration of people and goods across the 'borders' of this particular entity. Will it have a police force as well then? All of these latter points suggest that your surplus will not be going into expanded reproduction of the means of life at all, but into the maintenance of a political entity (with a low-productivity economy, rather like the Soviet Union's), an entity that is not worth supporting from a communist perspective. **************
Mike B: With Marx, I think it possible that the workers could organize sufficient might to become the dominant class and rule within a proletarian democracy where other classes were still in existence, just as the capitalists rule today within the bourgeois democracies of the world. You can see this kind of situation imagined by Marx in the program outlined in the "Communist Manifesto" and in his comments concerning the Paris Commune.
Like you, Tahir, I would prefer to see the whole of the Earth's producers organized in the Industrial Workers of the World, all at once, so that these messy questions would never have to arise or have to be dealt with. However, IF, by the grace of Joe Hill, the workers of say the oft despised "North" were to get it together and start ruling their regions before say, the workers of the much admired "South" did, I would applaud these workers and join with them in solidarity.
As for the Soviet Union, as you well know (referring to your web site), there was much enthusiasm and support for the workers in that part of the world, from other workers in the world, when the workers of the Czarist Empire first arose and created their own workers' councils. A lot of class conscious workers, both in and out of the Soviet Union, knew that that revolution would not survive on its own without successful revolutions in the more industrialized countries. The rest is history. *************
Tahir:
Anyway Mike, this thinking gives you an idea as to why I think that the communist movement can only be an international one that organises itself completely independently of all states and their territories, and refuses by to be a part of any statist solutions whatsoever. It must of course pressure those who do rule states into making reforms and various other sorts of retreats. That should go without saying. Anyway I'm not sure I can add anything further to these ideas at this stage. If you want to know a political tendency, some of whose ideas I think I share, you might check out the n + 1 people at: http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/0_english.htm
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Interesting site. I wish you and your comrades well, Tahir. On matters of principle, like the need to abolish wage labour in order to achieve socialism, I think we're closely aligned. On more specific matters, like which reforms are concealed measures of reaction and which actually give proles back more control of their lives...well, you know how it is on the left where people think for themselves...there will be argument and sometimes even, agreement.
Mike B)
"Would you have freedom from wage-slavery.." Joe Hill "http://iamawobbly.multiply.com/
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