Date: 24 Jan 97 02:56:51 EST
From: Chris Burford <100423.2040-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-TH: Commodity exchange and markets


I completely agree with Ian that it is reasonable to discuss where we
start, provided that we also argue out the ultimate objectives. So I
welcome his comments (below) on the Engels passage. I have also 
long thought it is easier to start discussing these questions in terms 
of increasing social control rather than outright ownership (which in 
any case begs the question of what the conventions behind that 
legal ownership mean).

My hunch is that pressure for reforms would produce some results 
across the globe over the next few decades in 

* increased control of financial movements (computer systems are 
already in place)
* neo-keynian initiatives *at a global level* about the world wide 
supply of credit.
* increased control of the activities of landed capital for environ-
mental reasons.
* increased control of the production of certain commodities for
environmental or health reasons.

I agree with Ian that markets might ration some goods. Certainly
the neo-classical economic thrust for world wide laisser faire and 
ever increasing income gaps, takes advantage of the fact that it 
appears much less politically controversial to ration the distribution
of goods by money, once political parties have abandoned trying to 
win elections on the basis of socially responsible taxation including
a progressive income tax. VAT is more tactful.

But to be pedantic, not for the purpose of being dogmatic - we do 
not have to agree with everything Marx and Engels wrote - but in 
order to understand the argument - Engels says without the 
*abolition* of markets (not just their limitation) no society can 
permanently retain the mastery of its own production.

There are marxists, (more on marxism-international) who argue that
the goal of socialism has to be the abolition of markets. The problem
seems to me a deep and unavoidable one. If there is any commodity 
exchange but more so in a culture with a high and developing 
technology, certain groups or enterprises however democratic, will 
start collecting the equivalent of relative surplus value, by 
having a temporary sort of monopoly of a new method of production 
which allows them to produce commodities with less labour than
the standard in that society. Enterprising managers might well 
win the support of a committed and industrious workforce for doing
so. A managerial stratum could press for more freedom to 
implement further changes, including more access to credit on the 
basis of a good marketing cases. 

This does not have to be dreadfully undemocratic. Part of the extra
efficiency might be from promoting more effective co-operation 
among workers. Barkley has referred to the issue of what happens 
to the surplus produced by cooperation itself, which occurs in 
every society.

The core of the difficulty is that any commodity exchange leaves an 
inherent tendency to the uneven accumulation of capital, or something
that will soon develop into capital. No amount of cultural 
revolutions in China, or condemnation of the degeneration of the 
Soviet Union's nomenclatura, can avoid the tendency of a slide 
in this direction so long as a would be socialist society is 
buying and selling commodities.

I do not know the answer and I am in favour of pushing for 
reforms in the meantime, but I think this is the fundamental 
dilemma we must face.

Chris Burford
London.

____________________________________________________________
Ian Hunt:
---------
I think there is something to what Engels says, but his conclusion should
probably be "no society can permanently retain the mastery of its own
production and the control over the social effects of its process of
production unless it LIMITS exchange between individuals." In any case,
overnight abolition of commodity exchange seems utopian. Far better to
start with something like Schweickart's "economic democracy" and see where
social requirements lead you from there.



Engels:
-------
When the producers no longer directly
consumed their product themselves, but let it pass out of their hands
in the act of exchange, they lost control of it.  They no longer knew
what became of it; the possibility was there that one day it would be
used against the producer to exploit and oppress him.  For this reason
no society can permanently retain the mastery of its own production and
the control over the social effects of its process of production unless
it abolishes exchange between individuals."




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