>>> Carrol Cox
They aren't good for _any_ of the uses of money.
^^^ CB: This is a good way to analyze it. Marx sets out about 7 or 8 functions of money. Actually, socialist certificates for labor time that can be exchanged for other products of labor, other use-values than the ones produced by the producer's own labor , do have a function similar to the "storage of value" function of money and the "means of exchange " function of money that Marx notes. They also seem to retain something of the universal equivalent function; the certificates still represent labor time as a universal value equivalent in this suggestion of Marx for the first phase of communism. Look at Marx's "suggestion" ( as Mike Ballard puts it) in the Gotha program critique.
"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."
CB: Marx says explicitly that these "certificates" in his general and abstract suggested first phase of communism are based on the same principle that prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities in capitalism and other commodity exchange societies. That is, the labor chits _do_ have one of the functions of money. The certificates do not have the function or characteristic of money in capitalism by which capital can be accumulated.
Carrol:
They merely entitle their possessor to goods & services which the community offers.
But as I said in my previous post, this sort of speculation (recipes for cook shops of the future) is mostly useful as a way of understanding the present. Those who want to participate in creating _any_ future at all must learn that keeping capitalism is not a choice -- unless one counts death as a choice.
CArrol
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