Wellsy wrote:
it's labor for labor in full rather than based on the average.
Non-exploited, *internal* labor, for each other, instead of for the capitalist employer. Of course, no argument.
And you're saying that, on the whole, all variations will even out (over a 'normal' / bell curve), with actual compensation provided back to the individual worker on a strictly *individualized* basis -- again, understandable.
Wellsy wrote:
The difference is that, here, labor is “directly” or “immediately” social. Unlike in the formulations of Proudhon and unlike in our own commodity-producing society, where the exchange of equivalents exists only in the average, here there would actually be an exchange of equivalents in the individual case. “[N]ow,” as Marx notes, “in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor.” So here, right from the beginning, Marx is telling us that the law of value will not hold. The labor, Marx says, employed in the production of products will no longer take the form of a material quality possessed by them; the products of our own hands will no longer have control over us.
Right -- I understand that the medium of exchange, conventionally currency, will not itself be commodified (and subject to financialization). Of course that's a major plus.
Wellsy wrote:
And to which the difference in people's ability to work seems in part to reflect a necessary inequality int he compensation as noted in Marx's critique of the gotha programme, but such a step is considered necessary to dissolve class relations in production.
Sure -- I don't mean to quibble if allowing any such 'wiggle-room', especially in our present tech-enabled age, would enable the definitive overthrow of the oppressive exploiting capitalist class.
Wellsy wrote:
I don't quite follow what mismatch you're stating here in your emphasis on the compensation being based on the work of individuals.
Again, though, I'm not taking issue with people's own varying *work* abilities, and the varying individualized *compensation*, per individual, indexed to the overall average rate of socially-necessary productivity, per work role, per hour -- what I'm finding lacking, technically-speaking, is what the most fundamental, key-indexing factor / variable is to be. With all labor notes / labor vouchers / labor chit proposals, it's work-role time (hours), indexed to *other* work-role time (hours), and I'm saying that, technically, that's *problematic*, because people are still being incentivized *individually*, with labor notes, while there's an overarching socio-political political interest in collective *egalitarianism*, for all rates of productivity, to the common good, to be equivalent (per work role, per hour of work).
In other words the *politics* of collectivism is lacking and taking a hit if the post-capitalist political economy isn't taking per-hour varying *productivity* into account, which these conventional labor-notes-type proposals / frameworks *don't*.
To be stark, if I work at the factory for 8 hours doing socially necessary work that produces 1,000,000 widgets, while the next person does 8 hours of the same but only produces 800,000 widgets, and we both get the same compensation, of an 8-hours-note, this is *not* equal productivity to *the collective*.
There would be a macro-level (socio-political) *societal* interest in all 8-hour-notes being issued to workers for work done with the same *productivity* resulting. Why should one person be off by 200,000 units compared to someone else, for the same compensation *from* the social commons?
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Wellsy wrote:
Is your point here in the vein that those who can laborer more productively and be compensated as such could amass their labor notes in such a way that it'd result in a problematic level of inequality that would undermine the system?
No, this is *not* my concern here, and I have *not* said anything like this -- I know that orthodox labor notes would only confer extents of *personal* consumption, and would not / could not be applied to any kind of private ownership of productive infrastructure.
Wellsy wrote:
What would you consider the example of a collective material incentive? Something in the vein of pooling resources to make things accessible like with universal healthcare but as applied to all sorts of services?
Yeah, of course, and you've already cited the cases of children and infirm people who *wouldn't* work but would still have to partake, for individual consumption, from the 'commons', meaning from the work of others who *did* produce goods and services.
As I said, the use of individualized-scale *labor notes* means that labor / labor-power is being formally / politically recognized as originating from *individuals*, and the compensation provided for work done is back to *individuals*, via individual-issued labor notes. This can be termed 'rewards-for-work', which I find to be politically *problematic* since work is being indexed to material rewards, thus incentivizing individual work efforts for individual material compensation, for individual material consumption.
Again, there's nothing that similarly incentivizes *collective*-scale material work / inputs, so the 'collectivism' of this labor-notes-type political economy is *lacking*.
Wellsy wrote:
Are you saying that while it may serve a small community well enough, it is insufficient for a larger society because it wouldn't provide some sort of baseline productivity index? Because it would be difficult to compare labor on such a scale within this framework?
I'd say that the labor-hours-notes approach is lacking even on an individual-vs.-individual basis, or scale, since the hourly productivity of any one person may vary significantly to the next, per hour, per work role, which deprives the collective *societal* interest of any consistency of inputs from person-to-person, even though every post-capitalist worker person is getting *compensated* the same hourly despite yielding differently in material output per hour to the collective good. (See the 'factory' example I provided, above.)
Wellsy wrote:
Are you saying that it is unable to deal with actual productivity because it is focused on time which can be considered independently of how much one produces and thus some will be incentivized to be lazy and be rewarded the same amount of labor notes for less production?
Yes, exactly.
Wellsy wrote:
I can't access that RevLeft content, its as if the site is somewhat down or inaccessible for some reason so I can't see what you shared there.
Yeah, no prob -- the RevLeft site has been defunct. You show that you understand my critique.
Wellsy wrote:
. . . Owen’s ‘labour money,’ for instance, is no more ‘money’ than a theatre ticket is.
This is actually a very good example, since it's basically saying that all post-capitalist labor would be *services*, such as what actors do on stage for the arts, for any-given-sized audience.
Even 'services' at a post-capitalist collectivized factory could be socially considered the same way, though I think my critique of such would *still* be valid, because of the discretely *quantitative* material results of specifically mass industrial production -- the productivity of tangibly-measurable 'widgets per hour' due to certain individual and/or group material work productivity, versus the varying productivity of *any other* individual and/or group work efforts / productivity.
Wellsy wrote:
We have already seen what Marx had in mind when he refers to “juggling with money.”
My critique could be termed 'juggling with varying rates of productivity / material-outputs'.