> The information I have is different. First commodity production then city
> States like those of Sumeria develop some 4,000 years ago.
Dmytri Kleiner replied: As we disagree on the history, let us make our case logically.
"city States," are developed as markets develop, sure, but these are the outcome of State development. States are not born as Cities, they must start as primitive subsistence agrarian society before they develop into cities, and then nations, and then empires.
First hunting and gathering nomadic society needs to become a subsistence agrarian society, before any surplus or property can exist.
And thus needs to defend territorial sovereignty, thus the emergence of the State and the development of a "'monopoly on legitimate violence' over a specific territory."
The existence of a market presupposes the social conditions exist for producing and exchanging surplus goods. In other words, markets where born regulated in the interests of maintaining an already existing social order.
What is your version? **********
MB: About the same.
Are you saying that "commodity production" existed among pre-agrarian societies? Or are you denying that agrarian societies had a social order, including rulers with recourse to force and traditions, customs and laws that governed distribution? *************
MB: Yes and no. Yes, things were produced for trade with between tribes. When your social organization produces things for trade/barter, they become commodities in my book and when these things start to become traded for a universal equivalent of some kind then commodity production has become a full blown reality. I'm not denying the class ruled order which grew out of the agricultural revolution. I think that's the one of the points Marx is making about commodities in the first chapter of the first volume of CAPITAL.
***********
> You do seem to indicate that the free exchange will involve prices for object
> though.
********
Dmytri Kleiner:
Yes, however with labor able to capture it's entire product, I don't see free exchange as being synonymous with "commodity production." Which, at least to me, implies the capitalist mode of production where labour itself is a commodity sold at it's reproduction cost.
********* MB:
I think this is a point on which we differ. Simple commodity exchange goes back to the beginnings of agricultural surpluses, including animal husbandry. *************
> Are you thinking of Mondragon or what?
Dmytri Kleiner: Why are you trying to reduce the argument to some actually existing co-operative or syndicate?
********* MB: I'm only trying to get you to give me an historical or contemporary example of what you're proposing. If there are none, fine.
***************** Dmytri Kleiner
Are you of the belief that nothing that doesn't already exist can?
********* MB: No. ************ Dmytri Kleiner:
The point remains that self-organised workers have formed Capital, implemented efficient production and humane distribution in different ways at different times to varying degrees of success. ************
MB: Could you sight some concrete historical examples then?
********
> 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.
Dmytri Kleiner: What does "good will" have to do with it. Free exchange works because both parties benefit, not because one extends good will to the other.
MB:
I do think that socialism would benefit most people who live in a capitalist society now and that therefore, it is in their/my interests to be for such a system. I don't think it a question of "good will". "Free exchange" with prices remains an abstraction for me. I don't understand it as prices indicate commodity production to me. I don't understand how prices reflect buying power amongst the participants. *********
> 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.
> **************
MB:
> 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.
Dmytri Kleiner: In what way does this relate to the quoted passage? I am talking about Property, you present a definition of commodity that matches exactly how I have used it ("exchange goods"), yet you phrase your statement as if your are refuting or disagreeing with something.
I am really not following you. *******
MB:
Sorry. A commodity is something produced and/or owned for exhange. I could be the means of production; it could be a piece of land; it could be a broom you made in your backyard. The point is that you don't produce the object or service without having in your mind that you are going to exchange it for money or, on a very primitive level, for something you consider to be its equivalent--say my three pigs for your cow.
> 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.
DK: Nor can you identify one attempt in human social history where the production of exchange goods for sale or exchange predated the existence of a State to regulate such exchange. ************
MB: Here's something: The historical development of the state The earliest forms of the state emerged whenever it became possible to centralize power in a durable way. Agriculture and writing are almost everywhere associated with this process: agriculture because it allowed for the emergence of a class of people who did not have to spend most of their time providing for their own subsistence, and writing (or the equivalent of writing, like Inca quipus) because it made possible the centralization of vital information.[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State#The_historical_development_of_the_state
DK: And yet you still seem more interested in basing your arguments around unsubstantiated appeals, rather than logical investigation.
****** MB:
Hmmm....I was trying to have a discussion without appealing to authority;
however...
> see e.g.:
> http://ancienthistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_sumerians_of_mesopotamia
DK:
From the very article you cite:
Though they shared the Sumerian language as a form of communication,
these city-states shared little else, and were in a constant state
of warfare, often battling each other for control over water
supplies and the fertile land. A typical Sumerian city was well
fortified with thick, tall walls, which the king was responsible for
maintaining, in hopes of deterring would-be attackers
This makes it clear that the origin and purpose of the city states and their rulers was the territorial sovereignty required to protect water supplies and fertile land, in other words the prerequisite for an agrarian society. ***********
MB: That's because water and fertile land had become commodities which could be sold for money to gain wealth or to employe peasants or slaves on to gain wealth.
> 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.
>
> ***********
MB:
> 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.
************
DK:
Yes, exchange value is the value of labour plus the value of scarce resources required to produce a good, if you are not charging this price to the consumer, what are you charging? What do you mean by "how many hours," are you implying consumption is tied directly to your labour time? I am still not following.
MB:
It's hard for people who have been living within capitalist social relations and commodity production to fathom the notion of free access to the social wealth which is created through necessary labour time. So.....I propose that we measure the labour time put into necessary production and that that be the standard upon which we judge how much can be taken from the social store of goods and services e.g I put in four hours a day of necessary labour time in the library and am then able to withdraw four hours "worth" of goods and services from the social store. Labour time becomes the universal equivalent and unlike the wages system where the price of labour is dertermined by its market value, the producer receives (after deductions for replacement of the means of production and other assorted social servives like education) the equivalent of what the worker has put into the social store of goods and services. Once we have gotten beyond having to measure these kinds of things, we can just take what we need and put our time into necessary labour a la the society in NEWS FROM NOWHERE.
DK:
> Once again, use-value is _higher_ than exchange-value, if you strip
> exchange-value (subtract) from use-value, what remains is surplus value.
> **********
MB:
> 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: You are confused, IMO. I will not restate what has already been plainly stated, other than to say that market price _reveals_ and does not _mask_. This is basic economics. Privilege backed by force masks.
> DK:
> I have no idea what you are suggesting.
> ***********
> MB:
> I understand that you are not a communist.
DK: *sigh*
What is a "communist?"
Was Marx one? Was Kropotkin? Was Lenin? Was Most? Was Mao? Was Tito? Was Luxemburg? Was Tolstoy? Was Trotsky? Was Goldman? Was Stalin? Am I? Are you?
Please do not pretend that all "communists" agree with you, or that "communism" can even be divided cleanly from the broader Socialist movement.
Communism is a property-less, state-less society.
MB:
A communist is the same as a socialist.
****************
DK:
> 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.
DK:
No, Surplus value exists because Property exists. There are plenty of examples of non-"wage" Surplus value theft, i.e. sharecropping. **************
MB:
We disagree.
***********
DK:
> 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.
DK: Please feel free to explain.
******** MB:
See above.
> Never mind, DK...free exchange sounds good. Let's exchange use-values
between ourselves without value, price and profit.
DK: This statement is so confused it makes my head hurt, "exchange use-values" without "value, price." yikes.
I agree with the spirit though! Yes, we need to work together, trade and share. ********* MB:
I'm okay with that, DK. ;p
OBU, Mike B)
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