Wobbly times number 197

Writings of Daniel Deleon: A Collection of Essays by One of the Founders of American Revolutionary Socialism by Daniel de Leon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best introduction to socialism you can get. DeLeon deals with reformist tactics, revolutionary unionism, the abolition of wage labour, the change necessary in the mode of production and the establishment of common ownership of the collective product of labour...aka socialism. From here, go to "Value, Price and Profit" and then to "CAPITAL" v.1-v.4 THEORIES OF SURPLUS VALUE.

The reader can safely disregard DeLeon's bitter rejection of the post-1908 IWW. In this reader's opinion the Preamble to the Constitution of the IWW actually improved after 1908 and was in no way an endorsement of anti-political sects.

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Wobbly times number 196

                                 

Once more, I shall attempt to clear up some confusion with regard to the conceptual framework within which Marx, Engels and indeed, many communists were working in the 19th century. To accomplish this task, I shall refer the reader to what Engels wrote about their interchangeable use of the terms socialism and communism i.e. why he and Marx sometimes used the term "socialist" and why "communist" in their writings over the years of their lives. Both terms meant the same thing to them, however why they preferred communist identity at the beginning of their studies and organization whilst socialist at the end remains well stated in Engels’s Preface to the English edition of 1888 as well as his Preface to the German edition of 1890 of the Communist Manifesto:

“Nevertheless, when it appeared, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. In 1847, two kinds of people were considered socialists. On the one hand were the adherents of the various utopian systems, notably the Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France, both of whom, at that date, had already dwindled to mere sects gradually dying out. On the other, the manifold types of social quacks who wanted to eliminate social abuses through their various universal panaceas and all kinds of patch-work, without hurting capital and profit in the least. In both cases, people who stood outside the labour movement and who looked for support rather to the “educated” classes. The section of the working class, however, which demanded a radical reconstruction of society, convinced that mere political revolutions were not enough, then called itself Communist. It was still a rough-hewn, only instinctive and frequently somewhat crude communism. Yet, it was powerful enough to bring into being two systems of utopian communism — in France, the “Icarian” communists of Cabet, and in Germany that of Weitling. Socialism in 1847 signified a bourgeois movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, quite respectable, whereas communism was the very opposite. And since we were very decidedly of the opinion as early as then that “the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the working class itself,” [from the General Rules of the International] we could have no hesitation as to which of the two names we should choose. Nor has it ever occurred to us to repudiate it.”

Neither Marx nor Engels ever used the term "socialist State". Socialism yes. But socialism for Marx and Engels meant a classless democracy and the political State was always meant to describe class ruled government. Included in this description would be a workers' State--the now infamously used term, "dictatorship of the proletariat". A workers' State would not be socialism. It would be class rule by the overwhelming majority, in reality, a proletarian democracy. Marx and Engels used the word State to indicate the governing structure of class rule whether the ruling class was the slave owning class, the land owning class of feudalism or the modern day capitalist class.  All political States were and would be class ruled. With the establishment of socialism by the working class, the State would die out because the social relation of Capital would no longer exist, common ownership and democratic control over the collective product of labour would necessitate the abolition of the wage system, commodity production and with it Capital as a social relation of political power.

A political State controlled by workers would include other classes. For instance, if the workers as a class controlled the State, they could get legislation passed which would tax the wealth of the capitalists and landlords in order to use that revenue to benefit people who had to work for wages in order to make a living. An example might be something like free healthcare paid for by the government using the aforementioned revenue. A proletarian democracy would be run by the workers in the class interests of the useful producers. The Paris Commune of 1871 was an example of a proletarian democracy or "dictatorship of the proletariat".


A worker controlled democratic republic is what Marx and Engels are proposing in section II of the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. The reforms listed at the end of this section are general proposals which a workers' State might implement in 1848:


"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.


"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

"Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."

Further, it should be noted that even after the Paris Commune of 1871, Marx and Engels would speak in terms which many think they renounced after that workers' revolt. On September 8, 1872 more than a year after the Paris Commune was drowned in the blood of the proletariat, Marx said:

"But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.

"You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor."

As for the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat", it was never Marx's or Engels' intention that it would be Lenin's dictatorship of a party. In fact, that's just what they were arguing with the anarchists about in terms of the interpretation of the concept. If there has been any doubt as to whether the USSR was a dictatorship of the party, as opposed to being a proletarian democracy after the 10th Party Congress of the CPSU (B) in 1921, then I would suggest reading the well documented work by Maurice Brinton titled, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control .

The point of writing all this is to get people who "know" to understand what Marx and Engels actually wrote about the question of communism. Without reading what Marx and Engels actually wrote about socialism or communism, if you will, many, if not most people calling themselves "Marxists" have failed to grasp that they might be taking off from a conceptual base which does not correspond to the conceptual base Marx and Engels were taking off from. So, to reiterate:


1. A workers' State is controlled democratically by the workers. It is not common ownership and democratic control of the collective product of labour after the wage system has been abolished i.e. it is not the lower stage of communism/socialism. It is not a classless democracy. It is, like all political States, the dictatorship of a class, in this case, the still existing working class. Commodity production for sale can still exist in a such a proletarian democracy. A wage system can still exist. Under the wage system, labour power is a commodity.


2. Communism or socialism, if you will, signals a change in the mode of producing wealth from the capitalist mode which depends on wage labour and commodity production to the communist mode in which a free, classless association of producers democratically decide how to distribute the collective product of their labour. Socialism/communism means that commodity production for sale with a view to profit no longer exists, whether in its initial stages or in its more advanced stage. You can begin to see the outlines of this in various writings of Marx and Engels. Wobbly times number 88 contains some quoted examples.


"The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves...the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule." - Marx, 1864

Wobbly times number 190

      On the question of unionism

An address delivered by Daniel DeLeon at
the New Auditorium Hall, Newark, N.J.,
April 21, 1904

Wobbly times number 189

Wobbly times number 170

What is socialism aka communism?

Socialism is not based on the wage system even a transitional 'socialist' wage system. Socialism isn't even about an equality of wages. To paraphrase Marx-- Where there is wage labour, there is Capital.  Capital is fundamentally a social relation of power, the power of the appropriator to own and control the product of labour.  This power is codified and enforced by the bureaucracies of the political State e.g.: the police, the military, the courts and the prison system.  

Socialism is based on the producers' common ownership and grassroots, democratic management of the collective product of their own labour.  Production is carried out for use and distributed on the basis of need.  Production is carried out in such a way as to ensure that the classless community can live in harmony with the Earth.  As with labour power, the Earth is no longer a commodity to be bought and sold as it was under the rule of Capital.  In fact, commodity production itself ceases to exist.

Under the wage system, the producers market their labour power to employers for the price of the skill any particular producer is selling.  These skills differ in their price in money depending on: their value i.e. how much socially necessary labour time is embodied in them e.g. education/training and price i.e. what the supply/demand dynamics of the labour market are for the particular skills. To sure their price also depends on the relative strengths of organised labour verses those of the organised capitalists. Capitalists control most of the wealth and therefore are able to dominate the political State.  The State is primarily the organised political expression of the ruling capitalist class and their allies in the landlord class.  The more organised power the workers are able to bring to bear against the capitalists in the struggle over the wealth the producers create, the more political power they are able to exert and the better their working conditions, the shorter their hours of labour and the higher their wages will be. 

Under communism, the associated producers plan what they want to enjoy in terms of goods and services, knowing that it is their labour time which will go into creating the total social store of the wealth they own in common. They also know that each producer can withdraw goods and services from the common store of wealth on the basis of how much socially necessary time the individual producer has put into wealth creation, regardless of their particular skill, as it is obvious that the production of this wealth could not be accomplished without every producer's participation in the necessary division of labour in an industrialised democracy.  Of course, there will have to be deductions from this time-based access to wealth used to replace the means of production as they wear out and to allow for those who are unable to participate in production e.g. children, invalids, the sick and those still undergoing training for skills needed in the society to have their needs met. As such, the wage system is abolished as soon as socialism has been established. 

In a socialist society, gains in productivity will translate directly into increases in free-time. Freedom like this could be used to spend more time with family and friends or just doing whatever an individual wants e.g. artistic activity, sports or just plain relaxing.  

Under capitalism, productivity gains left in the control of employers allow for greater and greater accumulations of capital (the wealth workers produce) and power for the employing class.  As the capitalists politically press to lower wages and working conditions in order to achieve higher rates of profit, productivity gains made by the working class lead to redundancies, insecurity and servility.  All talk amongst workers of organising to legally shorten the work day is met with cries of horror from the capitalist class and their hirelings in the corporate and State media. Imperious pleas for increasing productivity multiply as the blame for whatever current economic slump capitalism is undergoing is laid directly at the 'lazy', 'pampered' workers' door. Unorganised workers tend to be bullied by employers into doing unpaid overtime.

Only the workers acting as a class for themselves can establish socialist self-managed governing structure.  As the history of the 20th century has demonstrated, socialism was never able to be established, although many attempts were made. Parties claiming to have established 'actually existing socialism' for the workers through capitalist State action and 'communist' wage systems have utterly failed to do much more than maintain class rule over the producers and further fetishise the social relation of Capital.  

  

Wobbly times number 163

“It is above all necessary to avoid postulating ‘society’ once more as an abstraction confronting the individual."  Karl Marx



MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND

Money is a commodity.  The commodity is the seed from which the collective product of labour is turned into private property.  Money is the commodity which allows traders to trade their wares and services for something easy to carry and which can be used to obtain other commodities and pay taxes.  To abolish money, you need to abolish commodity production and institute production of goods and services for use with distribution of natural and human created wealth based on need. Money exemplifies the abstraction of commodification which rules today.  Everything which can be commodified will be turned into a commodity under the rule of the capitalist class, while the actual power relationship between the producers and the collective product of their labour will continue to be mystified.  

"How?" you ask.

How much labour time is embodied in a Euro, a hog, a dollar, a Mercedes Benz, a yen, a can of beer, a house and so on?

This is why Marx would promote 'labour time vouchers' to replace money in a socialist society, as labour time vouchers would make the relation between product and producers' time at wealth production transparent, just after the social revolution from class dominated society to a classless democracy of social ownership of the collective product of labour. 

Commodity production itself would be abolished in a classless association of producers who would democratically plan what they themselves need in the way of goods and services.   Abstractions confronting the individual today are e.g.: 'debt', 'the government', 'corporations', 'bureaucracy' and 'human nature', all of which are used by conservatives ideological justifications for all the social ills which flow from unequal political power between people. 'The economy' which is actually produced by employing commodified human and using private property in nature, is THE ABSTRACTION.  Embodying abstractions with human power is the stuff of reification.  It is the bane of revolutionary subjectivity.

Common ownership of the collective product of labour is socialism, in my book. There is no socialism as such in the world, nor has there ever been more than attempts to establish it, beginning with the Paris Commune of 1871. With wage labour, the producer sells his or her skills on the labour marketplace for a price over an amount of time. In this sense, labour power, just like any other commodity, is sold for a price. The difference is that commodified labour power produces more wealth, when at work, than it is bought for in wages. This social relation of product and its producer is obscured by the vast division of labour necessary for industrial production; still it applies. 

As a class, those who work for wages in order to make a living and their dependents make up 90% of the population and produce 100% of the wealth. The resulting fact is that 10% of the people in the world own and control 71% of the wealth produced. A system of common ownership of the collective product of labour would see 100% of the people owning/enjoying and controlling 100% of the product of their labour.  

Wobbly times number 149

WHAT SOCIALISTS ADVOCATE

"In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

"In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time." Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

"At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!"" Marx, VALUE, PRICE AND PROFIT

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win." Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

"All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority." Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO


"With the seizing of the means of production by society production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears."  Engels, ANTI-DURHING 

Wobbly times number 135

                                         



After the abolition of the horrid wage system by the workers themselves, the transition from the lower to higher stage of a co:operative commonwealth takes place using socially necessary time (SNLT) as a measuring device.  After all, we're just out of a capitalist society and many people may still be hung up with notions of narrowly selfish individualism.  To prevent the fear of free-loading and the actual act, SNLT will show that we're all doing our part.  A modern communist society is large.  We simply don't and can't know everybody on the modern commons as we might have in our small 150 or less peasant communities in the past, before the commons was destroyed--pre-18th century in the Anglo Saxon culture.  At the current level of technology, SNLT could be recorded electronically.  A good or service would be enjoyed by swiping a card taking however many minutes it took to produce the good or service off an electronically stored balance.  Working in the production of goods and services would enable the producer to add socially necessary labour hours to the card as he or she put them in.  Those who felt a greater need for goods and services or even for work itself (face it...many people enjoy what they do for a living now, why would this not be the case in a classless society?)...these people could put more time into the social store of goods and services.  Those who did the least popular jobs could be compensated with say, double-SNLT being put on their cards e.g. one hour of underground mining equals two hours of working in a library.  But of  course, these matters would all be decided at the time by freely associated producers.  I am merely speculating and proposing from my own era.

This arrangement of using SNLT would make the whole production process transparent; it would leave the mystifications of mass commodity production behind, along with the wage-system which breeds it.  An individual producer could see that s/he was putting in so much time and just like everybody else, could draw that time back out of the common store as needed. Still, this transitional arrangement would lead to inequalities in access to goods and services; but not to classes as nobody would be able to pay others a living sum of SNLT to get control over the collective product of their labour.  Capital is essentially a social relation.  Capital becomes political as soon as one person controls/owns the labour/product of the other, in other words, instantly for as that happens, the one person is able to tell the other person what to do.  Having power over other people is the essence of political power and the foundation stone of the political State.  Socialist praxis is based on equal political power amongst all women and men living in a classless society.  There is simply no room for Capital in a transition to a higher level of a communist society.

The highest stage of socialist society that I can imagine is one where there is no longer a concern about whether someone is or is not doing a fair share of the work necessary to keep the community together and measuring SNLT or using it to obtain goods and services from the collective product of labour becomes superfluous.  Production of wealth for use with its distribution on the basis of need reaches its pinnacle.

Wobbly times number 126

For the record, I don't think the IWW was/ is an anarchist organisation.  Of course, there are plenty of anarchists, anarcho syndicalists in the IWW, along with communists, democrats and workers with various ideological preferences. How could it be otherwise in a union dedicated to classwide organisation? Workers are different, come from different backgrounds, different personal histories and from different cultures.  Workers are individuals and by definition, individuals are diffferent. There was never a time when Wobblies have been barred from voting in elections on pain of losing membership in the One Big Union; just as there has never been a time when the IWW barred members from believing in god(s). DeLeon was dishonest when he portrayed the IWW as being anarchist, all because the union didn't ENDORSE voting and instead leaving it a private matter for the member.  He took out his personal anger on the union, after being denied his delegate's credentials at the 1908 Convention of the IWW, denouncing the One Big Union as having been captured by people who would subject its members to being tartgeted by State sponsored, agent provocateurs because 'the political clause' had been dropped from the IWW Preamble by the attending delegates. While the fear of police agent infiltration is genuine in any revolutionary organisation, merely endorsing peaceful revolution via the Amendment Clause to the US Constititution is no guarantee of freedom from police spies and provacateurs in your organisation.  But more than this, the IWW doesn't endorse a lot of proscriptive ideological doctrines. For example, the IWW also doesn't endorse Socialist Realism as the only form of acceptable working class art, although some on the left would consider that a terrible misjudgement.  The truth is that the IWW doesn't endorse a lot of the left's pet reformist projects. What workers need to know is that the IWW is organised around its Preamble. What Wobblies want and struggle for is written there, out in the open for all to see.  Wobblies are individual workers (sorry, no member of the employing class allowed membership) who endorse the Preamble, no matter whether they believe in divine powers after death; the Pope's inherent infallibility or surrealism as the only revolutionary art form etc. You will find no mention or endorsement of violence, 'bombism' or 'anarcho-syndicalism' in the IWW's Preamble. On the other hand, you will find a resolution in its Constitution which was written in 1908 stating that the IWW "...refuses all alliances, direct or indirect, with existing political parties or anti-political sects." That said, DeLeon was on target in his definition of socialism and his conception of how a revolutionary political party should dissolve itself and the political State on the day of its victory at the polls, as the workers themselves, organised in democratic, socialist industrial unions take, hold and operate the means of production for themselves.

Industrial Unionism
by Daniel De Leon
from The Daily People, Jan. 20, 1913 

In these days, when the term "Industrial Unionism" is being played with fast and loose;

-- when, in some quarters, partly out of conviction, partly for revenue, "striking at the ballot box with an axe," theft, even murder, "sabotage," in short, is preached in its name;

-- when, at the National Councils of the A. F. of L., lip-service is rendered to it as a cloak under which to justify its practical denial by the advocacy and justification of scabbery, as was done at Rochester, this very year, by the Socialist Party man and International Typographical delegate Max Hayes;

-- when notoriety seekers strut in and thereby bedraggle its fair feathers;

-- when the bourgeois press, partly succumbing to the yellow streak that not a member thereof is wholly free from, partly in the interest of that confusion in which capitalist intellectuality sees the ultimate sheet-anchor of class rule, promotes, with lurid reports, "essays" and editorials, a popular misconception of the term;

-- at this season it is timely that the Socialist Labor Party, the organization which, more than any other, contributed in raising and finally planting, in 1905, the principle and structure of Industrialism, reassert what Industrial Unionism is, restate the problem and its import.

Capitalism is the last expression of class rule. The economic foundation of class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The social structure, or garb, of class rule is the political State -- that social structure in which government is an organ separate and apart from production, with no vital function other than the maintenance of the supremacy of the ruling class.

The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution with the Industrial Social Order, under which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for the people.

Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution being the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal.

As in nature, where optical illusions abound, and stand in the way of progress until cleared, so in society.

The fact of economic despotism by the ruling class raises, with some, the illusion that the economic organization and activity of the despotized working class is all-sufficient to remove the ills complained of.

The fact of political despotism by the ruling class raises, with others, the illusion that the political organization and activity of the despotized working class is all-sufficient to bring about redress.

The one-legged conclusion regarding economic organization and activity fatedly abuts, in the end, in pure and simple bombism, as exemplified in the A. F. of L., despite its Civic Federation and Militia of Christ affiliations, as well as by the anarcho-syndicalist so-called Chicago I.W.W., -- the Bakouninism, in short, against which the genius of Marx struggled and warned.

The one-legged conclusion regarding political organization and activity as fatedly abuts, in the end, in pure and simple ballotism, as already numerously and lamentably exemplified in the Socialist Party, -- likewise struggled and warned against by Marx as "parliamentary idiocy."

Industrial Unionism, free from optical illusions, is clear upon the goal the substitution of the political State with the Industrial Government. Clearness of vision renders Industrial Unionism immune both to the Anarch self-deceit of the "No government!" slogan, together with all the mischief that flows therefrom, and to the politician's "parliamentary idiocy" of looking to legislation for the overthrow of class rule.

The Industrial Union grasps the principle: "No government, no organization; no organization, no co-operative labor; no co-operative labor, no abundance for all without arduous toil, hence, no freedom." -- Hence, the Industrial Union aims at a democratically centralized government, accompanied by the democratically requisite "local self-rule."

The Industrial Union grasps the principle of the political State -- central and local authorities disconnected from productive activity; and it grasps the requirement of the government of freedom -- the central and local administrative authorities of the productive capabilities of the people.

The Industrial Union hearkens to the command of social evolution to cast the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in a mold different from the mold in which class rule casts nations and existing governments. While class rule casts the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in the mold of territory, Industrial Unionism casts the nation in the mold of useful occupations, and transforms the nation's government into the representations from these. Accordingly, Industrial Unionism organizes the useful occupations of the land into constituencies of future society.

In performing this all-embracing function, Industrial Unionism, the legitimate offspring of civilization, comes equipped with all the experience of the age.

Without indulging in the delusion that its progress will be a "dress parade"; and, knowing that its program carries in its fold that acute stage of all evolutionary processes known as revolution, the Industrial Union connects with the achievements of the revolutionary fathers of the country, the first to frame a constitution that denies the perpetuity of their own social system, and that, by its amendment clause, legalizes revolution. Connecting with that great achievement of the American revolution, fully aware that the revolution, which it is big with, being one that concerns the masses and that needs the masses for its execution, excludes the bare idea of conspiracy, and imperatively commands an open and above board agitational, educational and organizing activity; finally, its path lighted by the beacon tenet of Marx that none but the bona fide Union can set on foot the true political party of labor; Industrial Unionism bends its efforts to unite the working class upon the political as well as the industrial field, -- on the industrial field because, without the integrally organized union of the working class, the revolutionary act is impossible; on the political field, because on none other can be proclaimed the revolutionary purpose, without consciousness of which the Union is a rope of sand.

Industrial Unionism is the Socialist Republic in the making; and the goal once reached, the Industrial Union is the Socialist Republic in operation.

Accordingly, the Industrial Union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of Capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself.

Wobbly times number 112

What can replace the wage system?

"Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,' we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wage system.' from the Preamble to the IWW's Constitution.

I maintain that the left lost its way sometime after 1910, fishing in the vote getting markets of liberal reformism and shutting out the revolutionaries who spoke of common ownership of the collective product of labour and the abolition of the system of exploitation known as wage labour. The official Marxist-Leninist and Social Democratic left replaced the 'abolition of the wage system' with liberal reformism i.e. with accepting, 'a fair day's wage for a fair day's work' all in the name of 'borng from within' the business unions and the established political States. 'Boring from within' was meant as a tactic; but soon became the strategic goal of the left i.e. to get elected to bourgeois or Marxist-Leninist institutions of politcal power over the wage slaves of the world. To the degree that this point of view triumphed, political amnesia struck the workers' movement. Forgetting that the abolition of wage-labour was the goal of the social revolution, along with common ownership of the collective product of labour, has gotten us to where we are today: with a left composed of radical liberal moralists waiting for a Castro (or fill in some other messiah) to save them, a left that has lost all sense of being part of a social revolution made by themselves and their fellow workers, for themselves as a class. As Marx and Engels put it in THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO:

"When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished [hebt auf (aufheben)] its own supremacy [Herrschaft, rule] as a class."



QUESTION NO. I.
"How will the Co-operative Commonwealth determine the income of each worker?"

ANSWER: --
In order that the answer to the question be understood, two things must first be grasped, and kept in mind. One is the factor which determines the worker's income today; and that involves the worker's status under Capitalism. The other thing is the worker's changed status in the Co-operative Commonwealth; from which status flows the factor which will then determine the worker's income.

How is the worker's income determined today, under Capitalism?

The income of the worker is his wages. That which determines the wages of the worker today is the supply and demand for Labor in the Labor market. If the supply is relatively large, the price of labor-power, that is, wages, which means income, will be relatively low. If the demand is relatively large, then the income, that is, wages, will rise. As the Law of Gravitation may be, and is, perturbed by a number of perturbing causes, so with the Law of Wages: -- combinations of workers, on the one hand, may counteract an excessive supply of Labor in the Labor market, and keep wages up; on the other hand, capitalist outrages, such as shanghaing, not to mention innumerable others, may counteract a small supply of Labor in the Labor market, and keep wages down. In the long, run the perturbing causes cease to be perceptible factors, and the Law of Supply and Demand re-asserts itself.

It follows that, under Capitalism, the status of' the worker is not that of a human. His income being his price, and his price being controlled by the identical law that controls the prices of all other articles of merchandise, under Capitalism the worker is a chattel. In so far as he is a "worker" he is no better than cattle on the hoof -- all affectation to the contrary notwithstanding.

What, on the contrary, is the worker's status in the Co-operative Commonwealth ?

"Co-operative Commonwealth" is a technical term; it is another name for the Socialist or Industrial Republic. He who says "Co-operative Commonwealth" means, must mean, a social system that its advocates maintain flows from a previous, the present, the Capitalist regimen ; a social system that its advocates maintain is made compulsory upon society by the impossible conditions which the Capitalist regimen brings to a head; finally, a social system which its advocates maintain that, seeing it is at once the offspring of Capitalism and the redress of Capitalist ills, saves and partakes of the gifts that Capitalism has contributed to the race's progress, and lops off the ills with which Capitalism itself cancels its own gifts. The issue of wages, or the worker's income, throws up one of the leading ills of Capitalism.

The Co-operative Commonwealth revolutionizes the status of the worker. From being the merchandise he now is, he is transformed into a human. The transformation is effected by his pulling himself out and away from the stalls in the market where today he stands beside cattle, bales of hay and crates of crockery, and taking his place as a citizen in full enjoyment of the highest civic status of the race.

The means for the transformation is the collective ownership of all the necessaries for production, and their operation for use, instead of their private ownership by the Capitalist, and their operation for sale and profits.

The worker's collective ownership of that which, being stripped of under Capitalism, turns him into a wage-slave and chattel, determines his new status. The revolutionized status, in turn, determines his income.

Whereas, under Capitalism, the very question whether the worker shall at all have an income depends upon the judgment, the will or the whim of the Capitalist, whether the wheels of production shall move, or shall lie idle, -- in the Co-operative Commonwealth, where the worker himself owns the necessaries for production, no such precariousness of income can hang over his head.

Whereas, under Capitalism, a stoppage of production comes about when the capitalist fears that continued production may congest the market, thereby forcing profits down, and never comes about because there is no need of his useful articles, -- in the Co-operative Commonwealth, use and not sale and profits being the sole purpose of production, no such stoppage of production, hence, of income, is conceivable.

Whereas, under Capitalism, improved methods of production have an eye solely to an increase of profits, and therefore are equivalent to throwing workers out of work, -- in the Co-operative Commonwealth, use and not sale and profits, popular wellbeing and not individual richness, being the sole object in view, improved methods of production, instead of throwing workers out of work, will throw out hours of work, and keep steady, if they do not increase, the flow of income.

Consequently, and finally --The Co-operative Commonwealth will not determine, the Co-operative Commonwealth will leave it to each worker himself to determine his income; and that income will total up to his share in the product of the collective labor of the Commonwealth, to the extent of his own efforts, multiplied with the free natural opportunities and with the social facilities (machinery, methods, etc.) that the genius of society may make possible.
In other words -- differently from the state of things under Capitalism, where the worker's fate is at the mercy of the capitalist -- in the Co-operative Commonwealth the worker will himself determine, will himself be the architect of his fate.

Excerpt from the pamphlet
"Fifteen Questions About Socialism"
by Daniel De Leon (1914)

(see also Engels' supplement to Marx's CAPITAL Volume III.  In it you will read an historical materialist analysis of how labour time developed as the socially recognised value which products of labour were exchanged.)
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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.

Karl Marx from Critique of the Gotha Programme

"The bourgeoisie has thus made irreversible historical time known and has imposed it on society, but it has prevented society from using it. “Once there was history, but not any more,” because the class of owners of the economy, which is inextricably tied to economic history, must repress every other irreversible use of time because it is directly threatened by them all. The ruling class, made up of specialists in the possession of things who are themselves therefore possessed by things, is forced to link its fate with the preservation of this reified history, that is, with the preservation of a new immobility within history. Meanwhile the worker at the base of society is for the first time not materially estranged from history, because the irreversible movement is now generated from that base. By demanding to live the historical time that it produces, the proletariat discovers the simple, unforgettable core of its revolutionary project; and each previously defeated attempt to carry out this project represents a possible point of departure for a new historical life."
Guy Debord 'The Society of the Spectacle'

My point is that the whole conceptual orientation of Marx, especially concerning the interchangeable use of the terminology of 'socialism' and 'communism' was changed in the left public mind by the weight of the Soviet propaganda machine, along with Marx's notion that socialism meant the abolition of wage-labour and its replacement with a system which would have the transparency of socially necessary labour time vouchers in the first phase of socialism.

"But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing farther, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”." Lenin THE STATE AND REVOLUTION.

Equality of wages is something Marx ridiculed e.g.:

"What are the mistakes committed by the piecemeal reformers, who either want to raise wages and in this way to improve the situation of the working class, or regard equality of wages (as Proudhon does) as the goal of social revolution?" WAGE LABOUR AND CAPITAL

"Indeed, even the equality of wages demanded by Proudhon only transforms the relationship of the present-day worker to his labour into the relationship of all men to labour. Society is then conceived as an abstract capitalist.

"Wages are a direct consequence of estranged labour, and estranged labour is the direct cause of private property. The downfall of the one aspect must therefore mean the downfall of the other." Marx ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHIC MANUSCRIPTS

"Lenin¹s dictum that 'socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people,' who must of course trust the benevolence of their leaders, expresses the perversion of ‘socialism’ to the needs of the State priests, and allows us to comprehend the rapid transition between positions that superficially seem diametric opposites, but in fact are quite close." I.W.W. member Noam Chomsky

As you may know, equality of wages was more or less the rule in the 1920s in the USSR and inequality of wages was introduced in the 1930s. Marx's critique of the wage system was more or less forgotten:

"One form of wage labour may correct the abuses of another, but no form of wage labour can correct the abuse of wage labour itself."
GRUNDRISSE by Karl Marx


So, nowadays after decades of boring from within, not only are we under attack from Capital, we’re not even worth being bought off. The fear that workers of the world would unite under the banner of M-Lism has well and truly gone with the wind. And what are we left with? I mean the left. We have a left which is 99% un-conscious of which class they’re in or why it would matter in the first place. We have a left hopelessly tied to liberalism, albeit a more radical form than the official liberals in the Democratic Party. We have a left in the unions and political organisations who never mention the wage system other than to demand a fairer version of exploitation. We have a left guilt ridden about the workers who they claim are suffering from ‘affluenza’. We have a left hopelessly mired in searching for identity and bowing to others’ self-proclaimed identity politics. We have an intellectual left in horror, grasping at a grand narrative which claims to be against all Grand Narratives. We have a left waiting for Godot to emerge from the less industrialised political States. We have a left which has so thoroughly become respectful of religion that it has become religiously authoritarian itself, complete with classless moral trappings and finger waving. In short, we have a left which has been tamed by the dominant ideology: TINA.

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.

Wobbly times number 89

What the word, 'revolution' means to me and what I'm for.


Revolution is a change in the mode of production based on a change in social relations. Revolution has nothing to do with the violence or peacefulness of societal change. Revolution is not a tactic. A cooperative commonwealth (aka socialism and communism) is the strategic goal of revolutionaries in the modern age. Because we human beings make history, if we're not class conscious enough to demand and organise: the abolition of the wage system; common ownership of the social product of labour, with production based on use (as opposed to commodity exchange), there will be no revolution. At best, those workers actively participating in the class struggle will achieve a continual leftist reform of the capitalist mode of production or perhaps another form of State capitalist production of commodities. [As Marx observes in CAPITAL Volume I, chapter one: "Whence, then, arises the enigmatical character of the product of labour, so soon as it assumes the form of commodities? Clearly from this form itself."] At worst, humanity will step backwards into harsher forms of dictatorship under dogmatic, sadistic rulers, out of fear of realising their own freedom and the false notion that they can best survive by embracing the authority of those they find already in established positions of political power over the majority.

In this day and age, achieving more freedom on a societal level lies in the direction of embracing: common ownership of the social product of labour; production for use and need; distribution of collectively produced wealth based on labour time (not the mystifications associated with commodified sale); abolition of wage labour (wage-labour is commodified sale); a classless association of free producers (not a class dominated political State). These are the positions I take in relation to the question of revolution for what I'm talking about is a social revolution, not merely a political revolution where one class replaces another as ruling class of a political State.

Again, my position on revolution has nothing in common with notions about violence, random or otherwise. Nor does it have anything to do with small minorities bravely seizing the State and exercising political power over the majority. I won't become another Blanquist who thinks a tiny core of activists and revolutionaries are all that is needed to effect the most profound change in history: social revolution from class divided society to a classless, free association of producers. Learn this from historical experience: Without the corresponding need for majority support, any political project based on Blanquist tactics and strategy has always ended in the maintenance of class domination, not its sublation. Class rule is the existential condition individuals find themselves under even within a capitalist democracy and its political State. The aim of a revolution is to extend democracy beyond these limitations and can only be achieved by a conscious classwide organisation of democracy within the womb of capitalist class rule. Under the conditions where producers are organised as a class of wage-slaves by employers to produce wealth for the capitalist class, there is little in the way of democratic practice in society.

A free association of producers which is capable of organising as a class, as the overwhelming majority of the population, to take, hold and operate the means of production for themselves would also be quite capable of defending itself, as an organised, classless, Stateless society, from attack from reactionary forces attempting to preserve the condition of wage-slavery over the majority. A classless, grassroots-democratic governing structure is not a political State. Face it, most capitalists and landlords would never take up arms against the majority of a population, class consciously organised and in control of both the means of production and their own collective product of labour. Outside of a few psychopaths, most of our old rulers would just put in their four hours or less labour time like the rest of us and resign themselves to lives without servile politicians and other lackeys to enforce their political power over us as they do nowadays.

Communism means individualism. Not narrow individualism, the 'hooray for me, devil take the hindmost' individualism. Capitalist or narrow individualism is based on a negative dynamic for freedom: My freedom is your un-freedom. We need communist individualism, an individualism firmly based on the principle of equal political power amongst all men and women. Nobody should have more political power than anyone else in a classless association of free producers. This principle, consciously enforced by the association of free producers themselves in a spirit of solidarity will ensure that people attempting to impose political power over others are shunned by consensus, up to and including exclusion from the society for periods of time.


"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the intercourse.


"The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the development of the *individual capacities* corresponding to the material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the development of a totality of capacities in the *individuals* themselves."

from THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY


Again, I was inspired by Marx's notion of communism. I was not attracted to Lenin's nor his followers notions of socialism. Unlike Marx, Lenin, his followers and other ordinary non-leninist social democrats (for example: those in the Social Democratic Party of Germany) all these self-described socialists and communists continually make the case that socialism and communism are different systems. Marx and Engels made the case that socialism and communism were interchangeable terms identifying the same system: a classless society where production would be based on creating use-values with distribution taking place on the basis of the socially necessary labour time put into the creation of total wealth in society. In other words, commodity production would cease in a communist organisation of society. I'm really not that interested in living in a State capitalist society, a society where wage-labour and commodity production continues nor, am I interested in promoting any of the existing State capitalist societies.

My position is that you'll never, 'implement a new society' or 'find ecologically-sustainable solutions' without changing the way social relations are arranged and you can't do that without abolishing wage labour and instituting a mode of production based on what humans find to be useful (for example, it is useful not to destroy the Earth with climate changing technology), as opposed to marketing commodities for sale as is the case within the capitalist matrix of market wage-slavery. Anything less than changing the mode of production, is merely another proposal for the reform of the capitalist mode of production, the mode of production based directly on wage-labour. To be sure, liberal reform is preferable to conservative reform; but reforms do not overturn the set of social relations which result in the vast majority of the population having little or no political power over their own conditions of existence including the enormous quantity of wealth they produce: Wealth which politically empowers ruling classes to control government and the laws we are all supposedly equal under.

I also think that socialism can only come from a conscious act/praxis (the unity of theory and practice) of the workers themselves organised as a class for themselves. Thus, socialist praxis precludes the need for 'goons' or other monsters, like secret police or for that matter for ruling elites. In a classless, democratic society, politically equal human beings can discuss the issues which surround the distribution the product of their collective labour. As for myself, I prefer socially necessary labour time as a transparent solution for handling distribution and contribution in a newly created communist society and that's where my vote goes for the moment.

Commodity production and wage-labour fetishise the individual's social relations within the community of producers. We see ourselves as workers or 'middle class' 'worth' so and so much money. Worth is tied up and mystified with sale: I fetch this and so price on the labour market whereas Joe Blow only gets this much in wages at his job. Alienation of each from each becomes the rule of everyday life. The reality is that we all participate in a giant division of labour to produce the wealth of society and that if one part in the division of labour stops, say through a strike, the other parts suffer which can even lead to a breakdown of society. This reality is forgotten in the narrow indvidualists' fetishised rush to keep their own jobs in the rat race and impress their masters, their employers, and perhaps get a rise in pay in recognition of subaltern obedience. Meanwhile, in spite of all our supplications, mutual throat cutting (in our negative pursuit of freedom) and efforts at liberal reform, the social relation of Capital reproduces the exploitation inherent in the wage system with 10% of the population owning and controlling 88% of the wealth which 90% of the population produces. Along with the unequal distribution of wealth, goes a similar UNEQUAL share of political power in capitalist democracies.

Of course, in a communist democracy 100% of the wealth is owned and controlled by 100% of the people. In such a classless society, where labour time is obvious and open, everyone can see that they put in so an so much time into the creation of the social store of goods and services and that they are entitled to withdraw what they've put in from their own communal store of wealth. The specifics of how this is accomplished is left to the free association of producers deliberating at that time, in other words the society of that time. Unfortunately, there are no such societies today. This is what Marx meant when he quipped that he wasn't about making up recipes for the cook shops of the future as a Utopian Socialist might. The details are left up to the democratic organisation of the people who make the revolutionary change in the mode of production. For instance, a society-wide free association of producers decides how much labour time to deduct from the individual producer's time share in the social store in order to maintain and develop the means of production and social infrastructure. These formulas are not made up in advance of the functioning communist society by self-appointed vanguards.

The concrete knowledge that one contributes, one is actually the producer of society, is a very important aspect of daily life to maintain as it would solidify the philosophical basis of the socialist mode of production and distribution. The subject-object relation would finally be put right-side up in a classless society because this can only be done in a society based on the principle that the product belongs to the producer. Despite the propaganda of the various rulers in the history of class societies, neither kings nor slave masters nor captains of industry have created the wealth of society. Wealth is produced at the grassroots of class society, no matter what sort of class society is under examination. There is nothing against human nature in this principle. Before class societies began to appear some ten thousand years ago, our ancestors associated freely on the basis of kinship, without class division between haves and have not. They enjoyed a direct social relation with each other and held the collective product of their labour in common. This went on for tens of thousands of years. To be sure, class societies were historically necessary to achieve the level of wealth production required to create the potential for modern socialism's level of free-time from necessary labour. But, class societies have reached an historical point where they have become fetters on the greater freedom possible in the here and now and have even become dangerous to the survival of the human race.

Again, I'm for* common ownership* of the collective product of labour. Private ownership of personal goods is fine and in keeping with the individualism of communism e.g. one's home, one's garden, one's shovel, one's vehicle. Private ownership of nature is out of the question. The Earth is not a commodity. One does not own land or the means of production or cities in a classless society. One uses the land one's home is on. One uses the means of production in combination with other producers to create wealth and use that wealth for needs. These collective products of labour are owned socially: They are not sold. Labour time vouchers demystify our relation with what we produce. They are not traded on markets. They are not money. They are not accumulated and passed down in wills; neither is the land we used while we live.

How much labour time is in a dollar or a pound or a euro? Of course, money is a commodified, mystified abstraction. How much labour time is in a voucher which says one hour of labour time? This relation is transparent. How much labour time is in a can of tuna, a house, a car, a bottle of beer? Not many know. They do know how what the prices of various commodities are, including their skills. Skills are commodities in the market for wage-slaves thus, our labour time is estranged in our minds from each other in the division of labour and further, from the total product of labour. And where does this put us but into a mode of selfish, narrowly individualist thinking where each is potentially at the competitive throat of the other in the labour market.

As for slackers in a classless society, they can go off and live on their own as far as I am concerned. I doubt whether many people would be averse to shunning them. I certainly wouldn't be averse to it. Of course, some may feel guilt ridden enough to continue to support them through their own charity. Go ahead. However, my view is that if we don't do our bit, the revolution will never be made. Solidarity is about doing your bit to get a free society going. Scabs and slackers act the role of thieves within the working class movement for freedom from wage-slavery and for social ownership of the common product of labour. A four hour day max is all we need put in, probably a whole lot less. Four hours or less, shouldn't be a problem for anyone, unless they're sick or too young or too old and of course, solidarity with those members of society is a given. A classless society cares for its own. As with everything else, it takes nothing but our labour time in solidarity and love: There are no prices. Production is carried on for use and need and with a view toward, 'living in harmony with the Earth.'

Wobbly times number 88

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You'll hear a lot of people say that Marx never had a vision for a communist society. It's true that Marx didn't presume to write down exactly how a communist society would function in its particulars--he didn't write the all the receipts for the cook shops of the future. You will also hear that he concentrated on presenting a ruthless critique of capitalist political-economy. This is true. It is also true that he and Engels ruthlessly critiqued the utopian socialists of the earlier 19th century. But this is not to say that he had no vision of what a post-capitalist, socialist society would look like nor that anything positive was to be said of utopian socialist visions. The only visions we have of what socialist societies would look like today are the ones we get, mostly filtered through hostile lenses beaming from Marxist-Leninist party directed forms of wage-slavery and of bourgeois socialist parties which have succeeded in representing the capitalist class every once in awhile after being elected as, 'The Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law' e.g. the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Australian Labor Party. Granted, some of these societies are more appealing than others e.g. Cuba versus the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea or Norway versus Singapore.

Ask yourself this question as you read these three expositions by Marx on how communism/socialism would operate, according to Marx's own vision: "Do Marx's descriptions resemble what I've been told about how actually existing socialism operates? If not then, why not?"

The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of the first volume of CAPITAL by Karl Marx.




"Let us now picture to ourselves, by way of change, a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution."

from CAPITAL volume I, chapter one

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

"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.

"Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.

"In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.



"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

from the Critique of the Gotha Programme

"On the basis of socialised production the scale must be ascertained on which those operations — which withdraw labour-power and means of production for a long time without supplying any product as a useful effect in the interim — can be carried on without injuring branches of production which not only withdraw labour-power and means of production continually, or several times a year, but also supply means of subsistence and of production. Under socialised as well as capitalist production, the labourers in branches of business with shorter working periods will as before withdraw products only for a short time without giving any products in return; while branches of business with long working periods continually withdraw products for a longer time before they return anything. This circumstance, then, arises from the material character of the particular labour-process, not from its social form. In the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate."

CAPITAL Volume II, chapter 18, page 358

Finally, there is no doubt that the credit system will serve as a powerful lever during the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the mode of production of associated labour; but only as one element in connection with other great organic revolutions of the mode of production itself. On the other hand, the illusions concerning the miraculous power of the credit and banking system, in the socialist sense, arise from a complete lack of familiarity with the capitalist mode of production and the credit system as one of its forms. As soon as the means of production cease being transformed into capital (which also includes the abolition of private property in land), credit as such no longer has any meaning. This, incidentally, was even understood by the followers of Saint-Simon. On the other hand, as long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, interest-bearing capital, as one of its forms, also continues to exist and constitutes in fact the basis of its credit system. Only that sensational writer, Proudhon, who wanted to perpetuate commodity-production and abolish money, was capable of dreaming up the monstrous crèdit gratuit, the ostensible realization of the pious wish of the petty-bourgeois estate.

CAPITAL Volume III, chapter 36, page 607

And here's Engels on what socialism would first look like:

With the seizing of the means of production by society production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature because he has now become master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man’s own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the humanity's leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.

             Anti-Dühring, 1877

The way I see it, the whole concept of projecting a positive view of the future has been shit-canned. Artistic effort has once again been channeled into an ideological foundation which upholds bondage instead of freedom. With the exception of ancient visions of a possibly grand afterlife, we non-believers are left with nothing overwhelmingly endorsing greater freedom. Our vision is blinded by an either/or ideology which presents only dystopian possibilities for the future of living, human beings. The possibility of creating a classless commonwealth of democratically organised producers is fenced off under the general heading of the dreaded 'grand narrative'. We all know what the 'grand narrative' ends up as: 1984 and a BRAVE NEW WORLD.

My novel is the dialectical opposite of this dogma. Human beings can, do and will make history and depending on how class conscious they can become, they have the possibility to rid themselves of social relations based on unequal political power between all men and women.