From: "Greg Schofield" <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 22:06:19 +0800


 Thanks Harald, unfortunately because the Critique of the Gotha program was no more than marginal notes from what I can remember, it suffers from a lack of polish which you have picked up on.

In effect you have caught Marx in mid-thought, ironically he is making the very same point you are.

The quote you have used is part oif his ridicule of the idea of a "fair distribution of the proceeds of labour" and here he picks up on the popular notion of labour certificates which he spends two paragraphs developing and placing in a context.

His immediate conclusion is:
"Hence, equal right here is still in principle - bourgeois right..."

Latte he lampoons this by an inversion "To avoid all these defects, right instead of being equal would have to be unequal".

He underscores this by dropping the stuff about  a "fair distribution of the proceeds of labour" altogether, and focuses on the "defect" as inevitable in the first phase of communism.

At the very end he states his own position (vis a vis the first phase).

"Any distribution from the analysis so far given, it was in general a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principle stress on it." [in the Gotha Program]

"Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themslves. The latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself. The capitalist mode of production, for example, rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of non-workers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personbal condition of production, of labour power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption results automatically> If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of workers themselves, then the likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one."

In otherwords Marx is saying in this first phase (as poperty of any kind, including co-operative worker's property, cannot exist in the communist mode of production) something like worker's control over means of production acts to change distribution automatically without labour certificates or any such scheme.

In effect Marx is making the same point you are. I would note in passing and have not noticed this before but there is a bit of a critique of the old Soviet system buried in this as well. Unfortunately as an unpolished piece it takes a careful read to follow his argument, at first sight I thought the old boy had gone completely off his rocker as well.

Greg


--- Message Received ---
From: Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba-AT-online.no>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:32:11 +0100
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?


Greg; I will get back with a reply to your earlier post, but I just could
not help comment on this here and now ....

    "The pedagogical imperitive in the Gotha piece is very important,
    in a sense he is hammer home some really basic stuff and this
    seems more to the point of drawing the distinction he has made. 
    Mind you even if Marx had not uttered a word on this subject we
    still would have to come to the same conclusions. ..."


So to the "Critique of the Gotha program":
 
        "What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as
        it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just
        as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every
        respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped
        with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it
        emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back
        from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly
        what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual
        quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists
        of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor
        time of the individual producer is the part of the social working
        day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate
        from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount
        of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and
        with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means
        of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. 
        The same amount of labor which he has given to society in
        one form, he receives back in another.  Here, obviously, the
        same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange
        of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. 
        Content and form are changed, because under the altered
        circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and
        because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership
        of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But
        as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual
        producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the
        exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor
        in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in
        another form."

First I think Marx should have read some Marx before writing this. There
is no way you to reckon exactly what the "individual producer" has
"given to society". On the other hand it does not take much of a phantasy
nor historical knowledge to imagine what a bureucratic nightmare trying
to put somthing like this into effect would produce. Added to this, even
in this day of neo-liberalism, most politicians in the traditional business
party here would not even dare to suggest the full consequences of
following such a principle in social terms.

Now, I am probably reading Marx a bit too literally here (as he almost
always read other though, often if not always also producing insights
and an increased degree of clarity while doing this). He surely thought
of partially underming his wonderful principle through the "social fund"
which would not make this reckoning any less complex and hopeless
adventure. The fact is that the only way such a system can function is
through the invisble hand of the market, but also then only on a general
level and not on an individual one. Anyway, apart from creating new
real-life inequalities, it would also maintain, in particular on a global
level, old ones. To compete on the basis of one starting out with sword
and the other one with a machine gun, is not quite fair.

I do not think Marx turn to the economical thinking of Proudhon was a
very good idea. A bit for utopian for me. 

Harald


_____________________


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia
g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au
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