Mark Baugher asked, Tom, do you think a reduction in working time can be accomplished without > planning?
No. As I said in my previous post, planning is inevitable and I am not against it. What I was criticizing in John Bellamy Foster's essay was the notion that centralized planning (by 'experts') has to play the leading role in a degrowth process. The market plays an "unplanned" directing role through the imperative of creating surplus value based on surplus labour time and the "blind rule" of supply and demand. As I interpret Marx, in the *Grundrisse* he argued strongly for disposable time as the measure of wealth to replace labour time as the measure of value. In his Inaugural Address to the first International, Marx described the political economy of the working class as “social production controlled by social foresight." One could interpret that as referring to some form of centralized planning but I would argue that the background of this social foresight is “the rich, all-sided individuality” of the social individual. Marx's vision was that "the development of the social individual... appears as the great foundation-stone of production and of wealth.” Thus social foresight is not something that is delegated to a distinct agency but becomes an intrinsic part of the everyday activity of the associated producers. Admittedly this may sound very different from the way the world we are used to is organized. Perhaps we might view it as a "thought experiment" rather than a feasible political program. My sense, though, is that Marx viewed it and presented it as a real political program. Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30697): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30697 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/100605945/21656 Mute #degrowth:https://groups.io/g/marxmail/mutehashtag/degrowth Mute #planning:https://groups.io/g/marxmail/mutehashtag/planning Mute #disposabletime:https://groups.io/g/marxmail/mutehashtag/disposabletime -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
