> Both. Marx envisaged a transition between a first phase of
> communism and
> a higher phase of communism - but they are both *communist* societies.
Any idea on how we get there from here, or will it all happen in some lightning bolt transformative repture? How do you dispense with money when the stuff is drilled deep into our heads?
Doug
*****************
Marx suggested labour time chits. That passage from "The Critique of the Gotha Programme" has been quoted endlessly on LBO, so I won't quote it again. But while labour time chits might look like money, they don't function the same way in a socialist society because they aren't a commodity which can be bought and sold. Money is a commodity. The key element with these labour chits is time. Four hours of time gets you four hours from the social store of goods and services, with the necessary deductions to keep the means of production going. You can't accumulate these chits to buy the means of production and employ people for wages: people aren't selling their skills and time as commodities to be used by the employing class to accumulate the commodities the employed produce for them to sell for profit.
Of course, this was only a suggestion by Marx. It's not something he insisted upon as a transitional measure from the lower stage of socialism to the higher phase of socialism. Socialism is supposed to further the realm of freedom for human beings. For Marx the key to freedom is consistent with the expansion of the individual's disposable time. What needs to be worked out is how much necessary labour time is required to provide the goods and services decided by common plan to be the use and need level of the associated producers. As Marx argues constantly, surplus value is based on surplus labour time; but this relation is concealed even from most capitalists and workers within the wages system. It appears to most people that workers are getting paid for what they produce as opposed to just what their labour power will sell for as a commodity on the market. The whole arrangement of the wages system appears fair. The labour time chits thing is a way of signalling to the producer that s/he is directly connected to the product, thus sweeping away the confusion caused by the massive division of labour necessitated by industrially complex production and the wages system which supports it under the rule of Capital.
Under most forms of feudalism, the peasant, for example, can see that the product of labour comes from his/her effort and that s/he must work for the lord of the manor for three days time in addition to having to work to support his/her family for three days. The peasant doesn't get wages for his/her work.
The peasant gets only a part of the product of his/hers' total labour time and gives the rest away to the lord. For verily, that's the way the Lord wants it and His will be done...render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, even his slaves and so on....i.e. each exploitative class system has its own mystifications.
Mike B)
http://www.iww.org.au/node/10 "Would you have freedom from wage-slavery.." Joe Hill http://www.iww.org/en/join
Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address. www.yahoo7.com.au/y7mail