Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 09:38:54 +1000
From: sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Wright)
Subject: Re: Economics of Communist Society


Graeme wrote:

>Now although I reject individual remuneration as defined above [and I am
>not impressed by the assertion that labour vouchers 'do not circulate' -
>almost anything will be used as a store of value, if peoples consumption is
>not 'free'], I do still think that we need a unit of calculation for a
>communist economy. This is because initially, at any rate we need to avoid
>the massive waste of resources which would flow from a rejection of any
>attempt to co-ordinate our activities. But this unit of calculation only
>needs to operate at an aggregate level - individual enterprise to whole
>society. That is it will tell us how much of whatever type of product, our
>present level of technology will deliver, and on that basis we can choose
>the aggregate level of consumption.
>
>Looking further ahead [or if you like from a lower stage to a higher stage
>of communism, and doing away entirely with any notion of transitional state
>and any intermediary economic forms] we know that technological development
>in a capitalist society is not neutral, but that it is a function of the
>capitalists need to re-assert their control over us. As early as possible
>therefore, we would need to make decisions on which technologies to
>dispense with for whatever reason, which we might retain and which we might
>need to develop. In the parlance of modern economists, we will be faced
>with 'opportunity costs' which may restrict present consumption for a
>projected future social gain. A single, simple unit of calculation will
>enable such a choice to become transparent. Above all it will reveal the
>unity of a fully socialised productive process, so that any centrifugal
>tendencies can be 'costed' and if required resisted. This is not an
>'automatic' process, merely a tool, whose results can be ignored if we
>wish, but the costs of such ignorance can be predicted in advance.

Having rejected the idea of *renumeration* via labour-time vouchers for
similar reasons to those expressed by a range of people on this list, I
must say that I have never thought of retaining (hopefully for only a very
short time) the use of labour-time as a measurement for "planning" in the
sense suggested by Graeme.

So I'm also curious what others think of this . . .

And Michael and Chris: you've made me intrigued enough about Vandana Shiva
to follow up your comments with some reading. Anyone else have thoughts on
this writer?

Steve




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