On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 10:20:34PM -0700, sartesian wrote: > I don't just allude to a reference, I pointed out the historical failure of > such notions as "venture communism."
No, you've only aluded to such failure, not given any details or applied analysis. > Your entire argument is based on a > form of voluntarism: "Currently my labour enriches capitalists. If I stop > doing this then my family faces poverty. Should I feed my child Das Kapital > instead of food?" What does this have to do with Voluntarism? Do you not believe that my labuor can be assest to the struggle of labour against property? Whithout Venture Commmunism, my labour is an asset to the enemy. The surplus value of my labour helps fund the guns and prisons and rents that support the ruling class. Why are you against my effort to take this surplus value away from them and put it instead towards the accumulation of democraticly controlled communal wealth? > This sort of "me-ism" has nothing to do with the actual > development of capitalism or class struggle. There is no me-ism here, all workers are faced with the same question. Venture Communism provides an answer, an answer that for all your historical posturing, you have not helped me see the error of. While I admit the plan is in its infancy, and could use a great deal of criticism, it seems you are simply against anything other than waiting around for the crisis that will finaly bring the revolution. Who is waiting for the comet to come again? > The "commanding height" of > the society is the organization of the economy, which is class relation, > property and labor. You cannot supplant that organization without > overthrowing that class relation, without expropriating the property that > encapsulates the means of social production. How are we ever to overthrow the class relation while making the ruling class more powerfull with our own labour? Please explain how overthrowing the ruling class will come about. It seems you believe that we can overthrow them by reading history book alone. > What do I propose you do? Sorry to be so blunt, but I couldn't care less. Then why are you discusing this with me? > What do I propose workers do? That's a voluntarist question which has > nothing to do with the actual concrete reality. What people //do// has nothing to do with reality? Are you serious? > What workers do do is > struggle with and against exploitation. That's what they will continue to > do, just as they are forced to continue to be workers. The more they provide their surpluss value to the Capitalists, the more they build their own prisons. > From those > immediate, real, concrete struggles, revolutionary programs emerge, > articulating the necessary expropriation. Exactly, I propose Venture Communism is such a program. What is your alternative? > To say there is nothing wrong with "capital," but all is wrong with > capitalism is fetishism to the max. As if one could exist without the > other. Capital is not some product, material, inventory. It is a social > relation of production. Capital is exactly that, some kind of product, what makes it Capital is that it is an input to production, rather than a consumer good. There is nothing wrong with Capital. What is wrong is the idea that a person can have sovereign rights over Capital, as I said. Your refutation is nothing but a semantic argument invoking fetishism and not making any clear point. > Money is an abstracted value, nothing more, nothing less? OK, but that > abstracted value is exchange value, which means wage-labor, which means the > appropriation of surplus-value in the service of further empowerment of > private property . That's somewhat more than an "artifact." If the owner is the worker it is no longer surplus-value, it is social accumulation. Money is an invention of the political system, it is just an artificat, nothing more. A usefull token for rationing. It is the system of distribution where the politics lie, not in money itself. > Your "system" will exist, if it ever exists, inside the system of world > markets, Yes, in fact the system //is designed// to exist in the system of world markets, because that's where we all exist. And therefore a transitional strategy must begin in the here and now. > inside the demands of exchange value and will necessary absorb > those demands if and when it ever attempts to expand, if and when it > reproduces itself-- the realization of your "equal profits" will not be > coincident with the costs of production. Venture Communism imposes nothing novel on the idea of profit, profit is what's left over after the costs of production are paid. Because all shareholders in the Venture Commune are equal, they each get an equal share of this. > Your labor money and peoples banks > won't mean shit when it comes to paying your suppliers-- It is only the purchase of shares in the Venture Commune that is exclusively done in Labour. Otherwise the Venture Commune, like all other investment funds, seeks to aquire the other kinds of Capital that it needs through the application of the Capital that it has. It will pay it's suppliers just as any other organizition. > see for example the > history of Poland 1970-1992. Once again, thanks for your feedback, especialy for the Historical references which I will investigate. Regards, Dmytri.
