Joseph Green: >>> But in making these economic plans, the workers do have to quantify the >>> means of production, although not by reducing everything to a single >>> index, the amount of abstract labor.
me: >>if it's not a "single index," we're not disagreeing. Joseph: > Except that you deny every reference to keeping track of the needed amount > of labor of various types. All the examples you gave were in the direction > of saying that there is no way to calculate anything in a communist > economy. Which is right, when it comes to labor done. Lots of other things can be calculated (such as the distance from the Earth to the Sun, the 1000000th digit of pi, etc.) One can calculate the amount of time dedicated to labor on a specific job or task, but that doesn't equal the amount of labor actually done during that time period when labor and leisure are intermingled. Just as labor-power (labor-time hired) and labor (effort) differ under capitalism, the amount of time dedicated to a specific job differs from the toil and trouble suffered by laborers under communism. In fact, for the latter, the difference becomes larger. Under capitalism, labor is measured as value, i.e., by its creation of commodities that sell. The tendency is for capitalism to reduce all concrete labors to the same substance, abstract labor, i.e., to reduce all of our time and efforts to dollars and cents. Management tries to quantify all our efforts (labor) by simplifying the labor process (see Braverman) so that labor can the totally quantified in this way. Our labor-power is treated as if if were a commodity like any other, to be bought and sold on the market (with no job security, etc.) unless workers are able to prevent his process. In contrast, with communism, individuals are voluntarily doing labor because it is inextricably mixed with leisure (see, for example, William Morris' NEWS FROM NOWHERE). Measures of the amount of time dedicated to a specific task can still be done, but there's no purpose in doing so. There would be no labor-power, if that refers to a commodity that's bought and sold on the market, but we would still have the ability to work and it might still be useful to talk about the amount of labor-time dedicated to specific tasks. In Morris' ideal, there is no central planning, so that even the latter calculation isn't done. Socialism is somewhere in-between (and varies with the extent to which the transition from capitalism to communism has been completed). BTW, my view of socialism is similar to that of Charlie Andrews (the description of the "Labor Republic" in his FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY). Macro-level planning mostly concerns investment spending, not the allocation of labor-time among jobs, while the organization of production at the micro level is by not-for-profit companies, so that values and prices tend to be the same. Clearly, these organizations would find it useful to measure both the amount of labor-time dedicated to specific jobs and the benefits of individuals' efforts. The latter would ideally not be measured in terms of revenues produced or profit but instead by contribution to attaining the organization's mission, as judged by one's peers. > In fact, economic calculation will still exist in communism. It will *not* > be according to abstract labor-time, and it will not attempt to reduce > everything to a single numerical scale. But there will be economic > calculation. of course. No one said anything about abolishing economic calculation _in general_. But note that with the rise of socialism, the standard measures -- dollars and cents -- would be demoted. The democratically-decided broader goals of society would dominate them. > We live in capitalist society, and are involved in market relations all > the time. These relationships come to seem normal. They make it appear > that economic calculation must mean reducing everything to value (or some > other single indice). But in fact there are other types of economic > calculation. Capitalism will die, but economic calculation will continue. Right. Economic calculation of labor-time dedicated to any specific task and sometimes labor done will continue with the rise of socialism, but fade with the rise of communism. > Calculation involves quantification. But you seem to make quantification > into the criterion of capitalism. here, appearance is not the same as reality. > You denounce quantification by > interpreting it as reducing everything to a single scale (such as abstract > labor-hours). "denounce"??? I didn't "denounce" anything. > That's a mistake. That's only one way of quantification. > There are other ways to carry out quantification. Then you say "if it's > not a "single index," we're not disagreeing." Why, that's wonderful. So > why then did you write paragraph after paragraph disagreeing with every [sic] > reference I gave to the need to have economic calculation after > capitalism? because I was referring to communism. since our disagreement is mostly a matter of misunderstanding, I'll stop there. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
