Can we talk about capitalism? It's what Marx mostly did. In the 50 vol of the MEW, about 35 of which are solely or entirely by Marx, there are perhaps 50 pages total that might be construed to be about postcapitalist society. Now, I think the subject deserves more attention than the Beard gave it, but for once can we talk about his subject, the nature of bourgeois society?
"Socialism" is not a term that the Beard used to describe any transitional period. (Nor is "full communism" or any such term an expression he uses to describe a post transitional period.) In the CGP, he talks about the lower and the higher stages of communism. The passage I quoted was prefactory to a discussion of the principles of distribution in communism -- starting with the lower stage, still stamped with the birthmarks of the the society from which it emerged. But even there, the producers do not exchange their products and the concept of value does not apply. The way that the old society lingers on in in the retention of the concept of justice, similar treatment for similarly situated people. Marx says this will have no application in the higher phase of communism, when the fetters that restrain production even in the lower phase have been shattered and abundance reigns. Analytically Marx thinks that there really are no similarly situated people, so the higher communist ideal (needs/abilities) is more consonant with human nature and social reality. Value, however, was abolished at the start of the lower phase of communism,a long with markers.
Let's step back and talk about unproductive labor in capitalism, PLEASE?
--- Charles Brown <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> FWIW in the section of the GCP to which you refer,
> Marx says, "Within the cooperative society based on
> common ownership of the means of production, the
> producers do not exchange their products; just as
> little does the labor employed on the products here
> appear _as the value of these products_, as a
> material
> quantiuty possessed directly by them, since now, in
> contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no
> loger exists in an indirect fashion but directly as
> a
> component part of the total labor." CTucker, ME
> Reader
> 2d ed, at 529.
>
> ^^^^
> CB: It's not clear that this is the _transitional_
> stage. It may be
> full communism. The SU was not communism , but
> socialism, retaining
> some of the characteristics of capitalism, like to
> each according to
> work, not to each according to need.
>
> What goes "to each" is based on the labor time put
> in by each. What
> goes to each is appropriately termed "value", since
> "value" in _Capital_
> is labor time.
>
> ^^^^
>
> OK, clear enough?
>
> ^^^^
> CB: No. Read what you quote above in connection with
> the distinction in
> the same work that Marx makes between the different
> stages of communism.
> There is a transitional phase which is a sort of
> hybrid of capitalism
> and communism.
>
> ^^^^^
>
> This explains why I want to talk
> about capitalism. There is, according to Marx, no
> value in a post capitalsist society based on
> collective ownership where the producers do not
> exchange their products.
>
> I find no reference in Marx to a "mixed" system, and
> certainly not in the CGP, where he talks about the
> first state of communsim involving remuneration
> according to labor. Labor, yes. Value, no.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Value _is_ congealed labor time. There are
> plenty of references
> in Marx wherein he indicates that the first stage of
> communism retains
> some of the characteristics of capitalism, which I'm
> referring to here
> as a mixed system.
>
> ^^^^
>
>
> -
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs