Marta
On Mar 11, 2008, at 1:50 PM, Charles Brown wrote:
>
>
>>>> Lew
>
> The phrase "to each according to work" is not Marx's. He did suggest
> labour vouchers, similar to those advocated by Robert Owen, but he was
>
> clear that these would not function as money:
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: You are correct. I don't find "to each according to work" ,
> literally, but the concept is there. "The same amount of labor
> which he
> has given to society in one form, he receives back in another. "
>
> and
> "Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates
> the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal
> values"
>
> and "certificates" for labor time.
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
>
> What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has
> developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it
> emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect,
> economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the
> birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly,
> the individual producer receives back from society -- after the
> deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has
> given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the
> social
> working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the
> individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the
> social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a
> certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount
> of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with
> this
> certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as
> much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor
> which he
> has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
>
> Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates
> the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal
> values.
> Content and form are changed, because under the altered
> circumstances no
> one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other
> hand,
> nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual
> means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter
> among
> the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails
> as in
> the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one
> form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
>
> Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right,
> although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while
> the
> exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the
> average
> and not in the individual case.
>
> In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly
> stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is
> proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the
> fact
> that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.
>
> But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and
> supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time;
> and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or
> intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This
> equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no
> class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone
> else;
> but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus
> productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right
> of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very
> nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but
> unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if
> they
> were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as
> they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one
> definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded
> only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else
> being
> ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more
> children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal
> performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption
> fund,
> one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than
> another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of
> being
> equal, would have to be unequal.
>
> But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist
> society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs
> from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic
> structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
>
>
> "
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