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

Charles Brown cdb1003 at prodigy.net
Thu Mar 5 15:04:23 PST 2009


________________________________ Charles Brown wrote:


>On the other hand, Marxist theory doesn't
>contemplate abolition of a division of labor
>in future communism, so there would still be
>exchange, but cooperative, not capitalist,
>exchange. It would be more like the
>exchanges that go on within a productive
>unit today. No more cash nexus.

  "In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co- operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"   ^^^^^ CB: I'm not sure if you think this contradicts what I said, but it doesn't. It is not that there is no division of labor, but that individuals are not enslaved to it. The division between mental and physical labor is abolished but, everybody doesn't do the same thing. Since its from each according to ability and different people have different abilities, different people will be doing different things.  Note he specifically mentions cooperation        This, by the way, is another of the innumerable passages in which the mature Marx has forgotten that the mature Marx has rejected the idea of the historical process as an "educational" process ending in "the all-around development of the individual" and the actualization of the "freedom" (understood as the actualization of "universal" ethical principles such as "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!") this "all-around development of the individual" this "integral development of the every individual producer", makes practicable. Ted

^^^^^^^ CB:  I think you have to elaborate a little more how you draw this conclusion from the wording in this passage, especially with bit about the mature Marx "forgetting".



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