If you would like to use a kibbutz as your example, that would be ok, so long as you demonstrate how class inequality can arise out of free exchange without the use of force.
Remember that a kibbutz operates within a capitalist system, so the moment it alienates labour, by hiring wage workers for example, it is implicitly employing the force of the State, which is what guarantees it the right to appropriate the product of these workers.
[...]
> Can small efforts at creating semi-communist social relations within a sea of
> generalized capitalist social relations outside of the enclave work? Most
> especially, have they EVER worked yet? They've been tried and each time with
> some semblance of commodity production.
I think they can. I agree their have been more failures than successes in the past. The project of creating a viable program for mutual capitalization has not been realized yet.
[...]
> You implied that I was skirting that question e.g. "to be
> evaded, or the answer shrouded in incomprehensible allusions and
> mystification."
> I'm trying to be clear. IMO, commodity production will lead where it always
> has historically: to the social relation of Capital.
Yes, it is not that you are not being clear about your belief, it is that you are not being clear in presenting the reasoning for your belief.
As free exchange depends on the consent of both parties, how can inequality arise out of it unless one side has recourse to force?
> Once surplus (exchange)-value is eliminated, the associated producers can get
> on with life without classes and create the use-values they need for
> themselves.
Without free exchange, how is production directed? Scientific Management? How is the output distributed? These issues have never been satisfactorily answered.
> They can turn the mystification of "the market" and its "invisible
> hand" on its head i.e. into the registration/mutual recognition of what they
> desire.
Free exchange already does that, it is free exchange that delivers Capital and commodities at cost to labour, which is the lowest possible price.
The "Scientific Management" of production is what you have now, under corporate Capitalism. Do you like it?
Does Fordism-Taylorism work much better when it is operated by a workers-State, i.e. the USSR, the PRC, etc, rather than a Capitalist State like the USA? A little, maybe, but not really, IMO.
Also, keep in mind that use-value is always _higher_ than exchange-value, (otherwise nobody would ever buy anything) so careful what you wish for, it is exactly the difference between use-value (marginal utility) and exchange-value (reproduction cost: wages + rent) that allows for the existence of surplus-value.
Mike Ballard wrote:
> Anyway, I guess, we have been reading different history books. My
> understanding is that primitive accumulation has *always* been
> accompanied by force. That's the point. Political power is force; it
> is top down power.
Yes, so why should I conclude, given we know the role of force, that _exchange_ itself is the cause?
> Political power grows out of the need to protect by force your
> ownership of your commodities so that others don't appropriate them by > force. The governing structure of class society, the State, was born
> of this necessity.
No, that is not true. Self-defense is adequate for the protection of my personal possessions. And as self-defense is a common need, it lends itself well to mutualisation. "Banding Together." Respect for people's possession is quite common in most societies, past and present. Social exclusion and retribution being enough of a deterrent to direct theft.
It is when I want to appropriate the product of _other_ workers by way of alienated ownership of the means of production that I need political power to guarantee my right to control that which is not in my personal possession and appropriate that which is made by others.
-- Dmytri Kleiner, robotnik Telekommunisten, Berlin.
dk at telekommunisten.net http://www.telekommunisten.net freenode/#telnik