[lbo-talk] The SMB in a socialist economy?

[Carrol Cox]

wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
> 
>       Yes, the soviet economy was a system of exchange.  At no point did
> the fundamental system of the wage in exchange for labor get
> replaced, nor did the system of workers purchasing their primary
> needs get replaced.  No doubt, there were some different form of
> exchange occurring on the black market, and with more regularity in
> the agriculture sector, but the official logic of the economy never
> abolished the commodity form.  This is  a different question then
> the one of who is involved in controlling relations of production.
>        To follow in Carrol's tradition, you might want to look at the
> Postone book, which criticizes 'traditional marxism' for tending to
> focus on distribution, rather than the production process itself.

As I've indicated several times I haven't yet made up my mind on
Postone's work, and in any case the book has yet to be written that very
many will agree with in every detail. In particular, I do not yet know
what precise political conclusions Postone personally draws from his
work. Also I have not yet  grasped his argument in enough of its details
to compare it with the account Albritton offers of Marx, which is also
quite impressive. Both books at least serve to jolt the mind into
activity.

What I do like about it so far is (a) it's insistence that capitalism,
unlike other social systems _is_ a totality; (b) that notions of linear
progress are an unacceptable extrapolation from capitalism to history as
a whole,  (c) his denial of the preposterous  claim made today by Doug
that there are no immanent limits to capitalism, and (d)  his placing of
class struggle at the level of the daily reproduction of capittalism.
And in reference to the last point, it dawned on me as I was listening
to the account of cooperation and manufacturing and remembering the
earlier discussion of the chapters on the working day and machinery,
that at the very least Postone has written a superb work of literary
criticism. It makes me want to try to read Capital I again even if I
have to read it on the screen in 22 pt boldface, which is a hell of a
way to read. As often as I've read C1 I never felt its form as tightly
as in memory while listening to Postone being read to me. That would be
a reason even for those who reject the heart of Marx, the theory of
value, to read Postone.

Carrol


> robert wood