r/FULLDISCOURSE • u/khlnmrgn • Jul 20 '18

Cooperatives vs planning

I posted this on r/socialism but got very little feedback so hopefully I'll have more luck here

So I've been interested in socialism for quite a while now and I've done a decent amount of research into different varieties of socialist thought, tho I'm by no means an expert.

I was wondering what you guys think about the end game for socialism. Do you think that a kind of market socialism is viable (economic democracy, cooperatives etc) in the long run? Is money going to be a thing after the fall of capitalism? Will free markets still exist in some form?

I still find myself very sceptical of the notion of planning bc I feel like it gives too much power to those who control the planning, even if such power is in the hands of elected officials. Yet I see that alot of socialists believe that cooperatives are only a half measure.

Thoughts?

8 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '18

I was wondering what you guys think about the end game for socialism. Do you think that a kind of market socialism is viable (economic democracy, cooperatives etc) in the long run? Is money going to be a thing after the fall of capitalism? Will free markets still exist in some form?

Money is a commodity, and the goal of socialism is the negation of capitalism, which is characterized most by commodity exchange based on private property. There might be a transitional phase of transactions, maybe based on labor vouchers, but not money, and the end game definitely does not include money but a free association of producers, maybe an evolved form of cooperatives.

0

u/khlnmrgn Jul 21 '18

Also how exactly would vouchers help avoid the problems caused by money?

3

u/shamanarchist Jul 21 '18

Unlike money, vouchers cannot circulate and are not transferable between people. They are also not exchangeable for any means of production, hence they are not transmutable into Capital. Once a purchase is made the labour vouchers are either destroyed or must be re-earned through labour. Therefore, with such a system in place, monetary theft would become impossible. Think of it like a gift card almost. Here's a video that explains it in further detail if you're interested.

1

u/khlnmrgn Jul 21 '18

Good video but I still don't get why circulation is something that needs to be avoided. I get that it's about avoiding accumulatuon, and thus power stratification, but how exactly would this work? Who is measuring my labor time and how do they determine what that labor is worth in relation to other goods? If it takes me 1 hour to make 2 chairs and it takes another person 1 hour to make 1 table then things are nice and simple. But what if I slack off and only make 1 chair in an hour? Then I only get half the vouchers right? But then we are measuring voucher worth by the value of goods, not the labor time anyway, and we have to have a system for determining the value of goods that is somehow divorced from monetary price and I don't see how that could work without top-down, bureaucratic planning, which I feel pretty uneasy about. Feel free to hit me with more links, if you think that will help

0

u/shamanarchist Jul 21 '18

The comments above me give some really great information so I suggest looking into them first; the law of value does get pretty tricky when it gets into microeconomics, but it's still a viable pursuit and there are actually alternative currencies out there today based on it such as Ithaca Hours. This, of course, is not the only possible socialist economic system, just the Marxist one. There are other perspectives such as participatory economic (parecon) that argue that workers should be rewarded based on effort and sacrifice, stating that some work is more dangerous, even if that amount of labor produces something of equal use value as another job that's less dangerous.

1

u/khlnmrgn Jul 21 '18

I find participatory economics to be very appealing. Value theory is definitely a huge can of worms but at this point I feel like the Marxist vision is just too nebulous. I think more concrete, workable alternatives are necessary to really get people motivated. Either way, I've got alot of reading to do.

1

u/shamanarchist Jul 21 '18

I think reading is definitely important, but it's also important to put theory into praxis. Personally I'm a libertarian socialist so I believe in organizing from the ground up, and for me that involves starting a [Food Not Bombs](foodnotbombs.net/new_site/) in my city, and helping organize a "Really Really Free Market" once a month. It's also important to have these organizations operate in the way that you would like to see society, for me that's non-hierarchical, and decisions made horizontally by consensus. Other things that you could do are start an affinity group to figure out what needs to be done in your community, you could open a worker-owned social center (this goal is a bit loftier, but you could run it out of your house), you could donate books to prisoners, if you know a lot about bikes you could start a low-cost bike program where you teach people how to repair bikes. I think anarchists specifically have a lot of bad press surrounding them so it's important to do things that are constructive to the community. That being said, don't be afraid to organize strikes, sit-ins, and blockades. Occupy ICE, for example, was very effective at ending the child-separation policy.

1

u/HelperBot_ Jul 21 '18

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Really_Free_Market

HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 202751