This very interesting piece reminds me of a statement
attributed to another marxist engineer, namely Amadeo
Bordiga, that all of Marx's critique of capitalism is
actually about communism. Or perhaps, one should say, about
the objective possibility of communism. If value is indeed a
scientific concept, which can be separated from the external
forms of prices and markets, then value exists independently
of capitalism in the sense that it can be externalised in
different ways. In other words, a world without markets, a
socialist world, can signal the value that has been produced
through work without this having to be externalised as a
price. Without this fundamental insight the marxist notion
of socialism is not comprehensible, in particular the
principle of 'each according to his work'. This principle is
trashed as unworkable and therefore we supposedly need
prices as such, but the semiotic systems of socialism would
have to be different, although based on the same underlying
law. One should give Plato his due here - the appearance is
not the whole of reality, but rather its most superficial
aspect. (Roy Bhaskar's whole theory of science is based on
this insight.) I think that I first encountered Cockshott's
and Bordiga's work through the same web link, the Reality
Links home page, so this one was very resonant for me. Viva
the engineers!
Tahir
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