>What I'm proposing to those who ask what socialism is:
>
>
>The wage-system is based on selling labour power, making it a commodity
>which the workers sell to the boss. In exchange, the worker gives up
>ownership and control of the product of labour which he or she has
>produced during their hours of labour time. I think this is a rip off.
>Wages in no way come close to equaling the the wealth created over the
>time labour is employed. That social relation has to be broken down, at
>first by a movement based on shortening the work week and curbing petty
>authoritarian power trips which bosses bully workers into obeying. The
>whip they carry is the power they have been given, to dismiss/fire/layoff.
>Shortening the work week will not only free workers for more time to do
>with as they please. It will also shrink the labour power available for
>purchase at any given moment thus, putting upward pressure on wages. It
>will also strengthen labor's hand in the workplace in relation to hired
>wage-slave drivers aka, managment.
>
>In a saner set up, there should be no classes; but a free association of
>producers who democratically decide what to produce, within the bounds of
>living in harmony with the Earth. Whether labour vouchers might be used to
>keep track of the socially necessary labour time expended would be up to
>democratic vote. But essentially, if used, the formula would be four hours
>in gets you four hours of goods and services out of the social store of
>socially produced wealth.
>
>Hi-ho,
>Mike B)
and Shag responded:
sure. but people were doing something very different. they weren't speaking in abstract generalities, as you do here: shorter work week; no classes; producers who decide what to producer; labour vouchers; democratic vote.
but those who object will then ask for specific details, and then give you all kinds of reasons why your details aren't good enough because they don't consider some detail or other. **********************
Ah, but the basic principles of socialism are all based on these concepts. Socialism would be a revolutionary act of abolishing wage labour or it would not be socialism. This is why Marx advocates labour vouchers in the Critique of the Gotha Programme and abolition of the wage system in that speech he gave to the IWMA in 1865. Marx was a communist revolutionary, not a mere reformist concerned purely with immediate demands to fix e.g. the sanitation system. Labour vouchers aren't wages: they are directly connected to the social product of labour. Wages are the price of your skill on the labour market. Understanding that is basic to understanding what socialism means i.e. that common ownership and control of the social product of labour is a necessary condtition for the existence of communism. Explaining what the wages system is, takes it from the realm of mere abstraction to the content of everyday life e.g. 90% of the wealth is owned by 10% of the
people and 90% of the people produce the wealth using resources found in Nature.
As for the specific details concerning the recipes of for the cookshops of the future, this is where the democratic 'uncertainty principle' comes in. Will we have laws concerning traffic control? Will production be centralised here and de-centralised there? And so on...
The real problem comes at about 2am, when you've got the proles agreeing with you and saying as they leave the local Oasis, "But nobody else would agree." It's like a pre-programmed, psychological block. Next morning, it's back to another day of wage-slavery.
I liked the rework of THE CAINE MUTINEY. ;p
Luv and smoochies, Mike B)
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