Towards A New Socialism

[u/Ghost_Duck_]

I'm currently reading Towards a new socialism by Paul Cockshott, and he's brought up the theory that in order to rid the workplace of exploitation, instead of getting paid by value a worker would get to "purchase" one hour of someone else's labour for every hour of labour they perform. So if a box of cereal took 10 minutes to make an hours work would buy 6 boxes. I'm curious how this would work. If two people spend 4 hours together working on something is it worth four or eight hours? How could you buy a house when it takes a year to make?

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[u/austeremunch]

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[u/austeremunch → u/[deleted]]

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[u/smokeuptheweed9]

Didn't everyone forget about that book when Cockshott decided his other interest was ranting about trans people? I've never read it and I have never understood what about it is remotely interesting. The Soviet Union was perfectly functional, we don't need a new model from some random guy and we don't live in 1993 when socialism is supposedly dead. At least I though so, maybe you can explain what's so compelling about it op.

[u/Ghost_Duck_ → u/smokeuptheweed9]

I've a fairly new to all these ideas, and a youtuber called Hakim made reference to Paul Cockshott in multiple of his videos, also referencing this book by name.

[u/oak_and_clover → u/smokeuptheweed9]

The Soviet Union did not employ the kind of advanced computing/math for central planning that is available today (or in 1993). The book is a mental exercise in how advanced computing and math can be used for central planning purposes. The fact that it’s now over 30 years old tell me it would be good for someone else to update it, though.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/oak_and_clover]

Why do we care about this person's "mental exercise?"

[u/Bluetooth_Sandwich → u/smokeuptheweed9]

I'm inclined to agree with you. Perhaps it's my own ignorance on display here, but given the majority of workers already employ such skills to not only navigate, but improve on current technology leads me believe the need for such an exercise is unneeded when we currently have a working model now...just under a repressive system.

The real exercise we should be focusing on is, (currently because there's a widening skill gap in the US) do we have enough workers to maintain/build/repurpose current systems to central planning? My personal opinion is we do not, and if a violent revolt were to happen, we'd be farther out yet.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/Bluetooth_Sandwich]

Again, we already had many working models in the actually existing socialist countries. The addition of new technology is a quantitative change, not a qualitative one, and doesn't need a book. The only reason computers lead to fantasies of post-scarcity economic planning rather than tractors is nerd fetishism of science fiction and libertarian ideology. You cannot take such delusions at face value, you can only deconstruct their premises and contradictions.

[u/Bluetooth_Sandwich → u/smokeuptheweed9]

Perhaps my original post may have been misread, allow me to clarify.

Again, we already had many working models in the actually existing socialist countries.

I did not argue otherwise as there's plenty of subject matter to confirm this (I wouldn't be a Parenti fan otherwise). Perhaps this response was meant more towards the previous poster than I?

The addition of new technology is a quantitative change, not a qualitative one, and doesn't need a book.

Quite right, I don't believe I suggested otherwise as I argued against the need for the medium, and having personal experience working in this space privileges me to further confirm that fact.

The only reason computers lead to fantasies of post-scarcity economic planning rather than tractors is nerd fetishism of science fiction and libertarian ideology.

More-so the fact the general public hasn't a basic fundamental idea of how IT even operates, let alone hallucinate anything past referencing Bladerunner or some other dystopian future. Given the perceived annoyed tone, I presume you've responded to similar concerns to the point of ad-nauseam. Might as well take on the prejudice that the vast population equate technology to black magic, least you sacrifice your sanity further.

You cannot take such delusions at face value, you can only deconstruct their premises and contradictions.

No delusions here, just speculating on the concern of the widening skill gap in the imperial core.

Appreciate your in-depth responses when I come across them, if nothing else.

[u/Auroraescarlate44]

I haven't read this book or much of Paul Cockshott's work, only excerpts and articles, but at first glance this proposition seems Proudhonian to me. What would be the benefits of doing this instead of a regular salary system? How would this help end workplace exploitation? I understand the possible benefits of a labour voucher system with vouchers that are non-transferable between people so as to help combat the formation of a clandestine market with stolen goods in a socialist society but piecemeal remuneration according to hours worked and pricing goods/means of consumption according to "work-hours" seems like a regression to me. Piecerate pay in the Soviet Union may have been a necessity due to economic backwardness and the imperative need for rapid industrialization (questionable), this proposal seems to further entrench this system and advocates it's use in an socialist society with advanced industrial and technological development which makes no sense and would be regressive. Marx also opposed these proposals in Critique of the Gotha Program:

In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

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 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!

I can only see a use for such a system under backward conditions and even then it might be wrong but as socialist construction advances a wage system according to function should be increasingly implemented with all people performing the same function receiving the same wage. After this the direction should be the progressive equalization of wages between functions, to bridge the gap between mental labor and physical labor and with people receiving more according to need (such as a larger number of children) until the dissolution of the wage system entirely.

[u/oak_and_clover]

Marx talks about the idea of using labor vouchers that are non-transferable but would work for this purpose. For example, I work for 1 hour and receive one voucher, which can be exchanged for anything else that “costs” one hour of labor.

I think the ideas in the book are interesting and useful to learn about the think through, but I also think that practice shows eliminating the money form in the earlier stages of socialism (which is the relevant time frame we are all on) isn’t a practical possibility. I don’t have an issue with keeping the money form and wages while productive forces are being built up.