Mike Ballard wrote:
> What I'm indicating is that classes and a State have always
> developed out of commodity production
DK: As the State historically predates commodity production, you will have a very hard time substantiating this premise *************** MB: The information I have is different. First commodity production then city States like those of Sumeria develop some 4,000 years ago.
***********
In any case, free exchange and "commodity production" are not synonyms, I have not said that "commodity production" is the essence of socialism, rather that free exchange is. ************
You do seem to indicate that the free exchange will involve prices for object though.
[...]
> Can you point to historical successes?
Depends on how you define success, certainly from the point of view of accumulating Capital co-operatively, and the point of view of organizing production efficiently, and distribution humanely, there are many examples from the co-operative and syndicalist movement of success.
From the point of view of overthrowing Capitalism, obviously not. Yet. ********************
Are you thinking of Mondragon or what?
***********
> MB: What I'm saying then is that mere good will cannot not hold this
> kind of project together. DK: I am unclear of what "good will" you are referring too, as neither of us has referred to any project requiring good will. What am I missing here? ******* MB: I'm referring to private/co:operative ownership of goods and services for sale and how this affects the will to keep the exchanges equal and free. **********
> There is someting about the excahnge of private property
"there is something about" is a perfect example of mystification. ********** MB: Sorry, I meant that the history of exhange vis a vis owning goods and services which are for exchange/sale to others i.e. the market as opposed to being just for the use of the community owning said goods and services.
******** DK: Further, as I understand the Socialist critique of Capitalism, exchange goods (i.e. commodities) are not "private property," but rather "the means of production" are (land and capital). Socialism has no private property, so it is not property but products that are exchanged. **************
I go along with Marx's conceptualization of what a commodity is. Essentially, this is that a commodity is owned by someone and is not owned just for use, but for eventual sale i.e. exchange.
see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
********
> which propels some people to accumulate more than others and as that
> happens there are other people who will feel unjustly treated and want > some of the other's accumulated wealth and that's where you get the
> protection racket/force known as the State arising, to separate the
> classes according to the wealth DK: Beyond being ahistorical conjecture, this lacks any explanation of how inequality can arise of voluntary (and therefor presumably equal) exchange or how an unequal class can reproduce itself without the force required to guarantee property rights (that is the right to control the use of land and capital you do not personally possess). ************* MB: So many people, including Marx have written about this historical process that I tend not to want to attempt to "reinvent the wheel" here. For brevity's sake: I can't identify one attempt in human social history where the production of private property for sale or exchange did not result in the erection of classes and a State.
see e.g.: http://ancienthistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_sumerians_of_mesopotamia
***************
> Warning: proletarian pipe-dreaming time coming up. I can envision a
> society where there is no exchange-value, DK: What you mean is that you can envision a society where goods are not traded at their exchange value, the exchange value none-the-less exists as the production of goods has real costs that can not be wished away.
What is the advantage of hiding the cost of production from the consumer?
Keep in mind that "because some people can not afford it" is not an answer, selling things at exchange value doesn't imply that income disparity can not be addressed through other means, i.e. welfare benefits, basic incomes, citizen's dividends, etc.
***********
Hmmmmm....The "cost" of production is the labour and raw materials from the Earth which are used to produce a good or a service. I'm not hiding anything. How many hours you put in, in terms of socially necessary labour is how many hours of goods and services you can take out.
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[...] MB:
> I'm aware of the fact that people have to perceive that something is
> useful before they will buy it. What I'm concerned with is stripping
> exchange-value away and leaving only the use-value of the good or
> service as a deciding point as to whether one wants to spend one's
> labour time producing said good or service.
Once again, use-value is _higher_ than exchange-value, if you strip exchange-value (subtract) from use-value, what remains is surplus value. **********
No. What you have when you strip exchange-value from use-value is a qualitative good or service, not a good or service which is masked with market price.
**********
DK: I have no idea what you are suggesting. *********** MB: I understand that you are not a communist.
************** It is capitalism that wants to price things at use-value ("marginal utility") and socialism that wants to price things at exchange-value ("socially necessary labour" + value of scarce resources)
The reason that capitalism needs to price things at use-value (or at least above actual exchange value) is to capture surplus value. *********** MB: Surplus value is captured because wage labour exists. Wage labour guarentees that the capitalist will have the worker producing goods and services for more than just the first few hours the worker is employed. Worker's wages=2 hours employment; workers product=the other 6 or 8 or 10 hours work.
> Because the history of commodity production has always given rise to
> classes, property in the means of production and the State.
DK: Again, bot logically and historically, this is backwards, the capitalist mode of production and classes both arise out of the agrarian institution of the State, which itself arises out of the need to defend land for subsistence agricultural before you have any surplus for trade. ********* MB:
I think this is a fundamental difference between our interpretations of the hisotry of class society and the State. Mine begins with the collapse of primitive communist society about 9,000 BC and yours begins a *bit* later.
********* The State came first. Both property and exchange of any sort came afterward. Because the State came first, it has always regulated exchange and thus the economy has always been dominated by unequal exchange. Thus, it does not logically follow that it is exchange, per se, that is the source of inequality.
> I think, you're expecting that there will be just self-defense (karate > or guns, knives allowed or not?) no prisons or police or hired
> security guards because
No, I made no comment about the means of defense, simply that the need for coercive force is not needed for free exchange, and that the capacity for coercive force is neither logically nor practically the same thing as the capacity for mutual self-defense.
Capitalism, which needs to control the use of property not in the possession of the "owner" requires coercive force to guarantee such rights.
[...]
> Will a neurosurgeon want to be given the same amount of money for what > she does to buy her commodities on the market as a prostitute?
I am really having a hard time following what you are talking about. I made no comment about the relative reimbursement alloted for neurosurgery and prostitution. In fact, my argument is that these are best set by the market.
The rest of your comments seem similarly disconnected from anything I have written or proposed, and in no way related to my contention that the belief that free exchange leads inevitably to class inequality is bunk.
***********
Never mind, DK...free exchange sounds good. Let's exchange use-values between ourselves without value, price and profit.
Good luck on your project.
Yours for the end of pre-history, Mike B)
http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
Skype mike.ballard66
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