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Sunday, December 07, 2014

Abolishing money

If you simply define socialism as merely anti-capitalism, then all sorts of things become “socialist” and ending up with absurd propositions such as a “socialist” system which would have the capitalist mode of production as dominant or a mutualist society where people enter voluntary slavery or simply sell their liberty piecemeal. How is it possible to imagine fighting an adversary without understanding its functioning and by only attacking one aspect of its domination such as the banks or financial sector? Socialism is a profoundly anti-propertarian proposition as it would prevent the basic concepts that make capitalism capitalist.

It's no wonder we can't live in harmony with the Earth as we treat this world of ours as a piece of private property, subject to price fluctuations on the stock market. It's no wonder we can't 'live in harmony with the Earth' now as we treat the Earth as a piece of real estate, subject to price fluctuations on the stock market. Most people have been taught to believe that socialism means mass poverty and a lack of liberty.  Of course, most people don't want to sacrifice their standard of living and their freedom.  Yet there is a basic proposition of true socialism that no pro-capitalist apologist will touch with a ten-foot barge pole. That proposition is abolition of the thing that is causing poverty and takes away our liberty - the wages system and its replacement with a system wherein labour will receive directly and indirectly the full fruit of its labour! Workers may well ask themselves what is fair about the conservative motto, "A fair day's wages for a fairs day’s work."? What is fair about a pickpocket economic system wherein capitalist profit derives from labour that the capitalist does not pay for? What is more, some workers are beginning to question the very thing that they are today struggling to get more of! MONEY!

Why is paying wages theft? Picture, for example, a worker paid $80 for eight hours of work, but produces goods worth $80 in only two hours, then the rest of that time, s/he is working without pay. During those other six hours, the worker produces $240 of goods. That amount (minus the other costs of running the industry) is surplus value. The capitalist, who privately owns and controls the means of production, appropriates (steals) the surplus value by asserting ownership over the new commodities. The surplus value is turned into profit when the commodities are sold, and a portion is reinvested as capital for the industry to expand. The capitalist class dominates the working class in three main ways: 1) economically via their ownership of the means of production 2) politically via their state apparatus (including the threat and use of force); and 3) ideologically via their culture (media, religion, education, traditions, etc.). The working class should not abandon its daily struggle against capital, but should continuously advance it for the appropriation of the means of production and the abolition of wages. For revolutionary socialists our criticism of capitalism is based on the identification of the exploitation of wage labourers by capital as the producer of surplus value, and not on finance capital which only valorizes itself on interest raised on the social surplus value which comes from the productive sphere as does the landowners’ rent. Logically therefore, the struggle must begin with the destruction of industrial capital. But the fact is that most “anti-globalists” defend the production of commodities (when it is not “multi-national” and, preferably, when it is carried out in the framework of nationalised industry and/or small units of artisanal production, cooperatives, etc.)

Abolish money? You socialists are mad! Not so. The thing about money that socialists find unacceptable lies outside its use as legal tender or as a medium of exchange. What socialists decry is an abominable aspect of money which appears to be inseparable from it -- its use in the producers' market as CAPITAL. So what should socialism use instead of money? Some advocate labour time vouchers! Unlike money, these will not circulate. Unlike money, the labour voucher will be non-transferable. Unlike money, whose stamp provides no clue as to how its possessor came by it, the labour voucher will record socially-necessary labour time expended by the worker, which voucher (after deductions for retirees and those unable to work, for maintenance and/or expansion of the industrial and service infrastructure, for medical research, for restoration of the environment, etc.) will be exchangeable for an equal amount of socially-necessary labour that is crystallized in consumer goods -- value for value. But some other socialists promote a system of free access according to self-defined needs.  Once free access to goods is made available, why would someone work for someone else in exchange of money? It would be useless. Why should someone buy something, when he can get it for free? Some form of barter, perhaps in cases of rare items, may still exist, but it will be unable to harm the system.

We don't want to "abolish" money, we want to simply make it obsolete. When the means of production are managed by society, they will be run for the benefit of society, which would lead to free access. This would make it pointless to work for money anymore, thus making the monetary system "superfluous." We are at a stage in which we have overcome scarcity. Therefore, goods can be distributed on the basis of free access. Should we limit access to goods merely to "incentive" people? In fact, it is the opposite. In the current system, only a minority can become doctors, for instance. In a socialist society, however, everyone will be able to study and work where he wants. The lack of free access to goods generates inequality, and if you e.g. are born in a poor family, no matter what social-democrat politics are in place, you likely will not be able to study what you want. Even in the case that studying was completely free, you may need to e.g. get a dead-end job quickly because you or your family needs money.

The abolition of commodity production necessarily means the abolition of wage labour itself. Wages are never anything other than the price of a particular commodity: labour power. If products no longer represent values, and if the allocation of labour power is no longer subject to the accidental laws of the market, then it is also impossible to consider labour power itself as an exchange value and to give it a market price. The members of society, henceforth undertaking collectively social labour, which meanwhile has been simplified enormously, will no longer be paid for services. This is what is meant by the abolition of wage labour, which has always been a synonym for socialism/communism. There is nothing utopian or impracticable about it. Men and women will work in order to live, instead of living in order to work. Whatever activities and projects we undertook, we would participate in them because we found them inherently fulfilling, not because we needed a wage or owed our monthly hours to the cooperative. This is hardly so implausible, considering the degree to which decisions about work are already driven by non-material considerations.

The reason for being a socialist is to fight the class system. Like the lyrics of The Internationale says: "There are no supreme saviours, neither God, nor Caesar, nor Tribune” and so a socialism must thus be directed by all of its members, and not entrust itself to the "leaders". The movement towards the emancipation of humanity can only be the result of the action of the majority. Marx attacked the capitalist system for the absence of all provision to render the productive process human, agreeable, or at least bearable. The demise of wage labour may seem like a faraway dream but once upon a time people actually worried about what we would do after being liberated from our daily dreary drudgery. “Economic possibilities for our grandchildren”, John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a few generations, “man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem – how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.” In a 1956 discussion, Max Horkheimer remarks to Theodor Adorno that “nowadays we have enough by way of productive forces; it is obvious that we could supply the entire world with goods and could then attempt to abolish work as a necessity for human beings.” Recent technological advances has created an even more boundless potential for abundance. With some knowledge of what lies ahead, perhaps we will be better able to avoid setting off in the wrong direction.


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