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Re: [ox-en] There is no such thing like "peer money"



Hi Raoul,

thank you for your thoughtful summing up of some debates taken place 
weeks ago. Although it is a long mail, I like to make some comment 
spread over the whole text, so I don't shorten much.

On 2008-10-10 20:16, Raoul wrote:
In order to try to understand the possible relations between
peer-production and money, I have focused on that specific moment of
the transition from capitalism to a fully-developed "peer-society,
(4th step in the 5-Step theory) in which a significant share of the
material means of production have fallen into the commons but
ampleness of produced goods is still insufficient to allow
distribution following the principle: "to each according to his
needs/desires".

Your description rather fits to the much more important transition from 
the 3rd to the 4th step, where the peer economy becomes dominant. If 
commons-based peer production (aka commonism) once is dominant, then 
the restructing of the entire society according to the new principles 
is just a somewhat reconfiguring and "cleaning-up" process.

And I focused on the questions: within the 
peer-sector, how can be distributed the goods collectively produced?
Is money necessary?
During the discussion, Paul Cokcshott proposed an answer to the first
question and Graham Seaman made important objections.  Some comments
on that interesting exchange.
Paul writes: "the individual consumer would purchase them [the
collectively produced goods] from the community by the performance of
an equivalent amount of labour to that contained in the goods, with
some system of electronic accounting keeping track of the labour each
person performs and indirectly consumes."
Electronic aside, Paul's answer takes up the same principle than Marx
and Engels and which could be summarized by the formula: "to each
according to his work". Marx's famous "Critique of the Gotha Program"
reads:
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm) "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. (...) 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. " (...) The "deductions" for the "common funds" are:
"/First/, cover for replacement of the means of production used up.
/Second/, additional portion for expansion of production. /Third/,
reserve or insurance funds to provide against accidents, dislocations
caused by natural calamities, etc.
(...) There remains the other part of the total product, intended to
serve as means of consumption.
Before this is divided among the individuals, there has to be
deducted again, from it: /First/, the general costs of administration
not belonging to production. (...) /Second/, that which is intended
for the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health
services, etc. /(...) Third/, funds for those unable to work, etc.,
in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief
today."

I don't what to start an exegetic debate about how to read Marx. But in 
my view Marx got a lot of pressure from the existing workers movement 
to deliever nice handy concepts about how to do the first steps into 
the direction of communism -- which is "understandable". One result is 
the Gotha Programme Critique. The big problem was, that the workers 
movement took this Critique as a directive to act. Marx himself was not 
very happy with that (you brought up some points).

The idea of exchanging abstract labour equivalently is the very core of 
capitalism. Thus, this can not be the basis for any emancipatory 
approach.

Before dealing with Paul's propositions, I would like to make a few
remarks about the Marxian proposition as described in the Critique of
the Gotha Program.
Marx's system, based on labor account, is an overtaking of capitalism

A Freudian mistake? You mean "overcoming" of capitalism? Overtaking 
sounds like "be faster then..." in the sense of "be more 
capitalist" ;-)

since the goal of production is shifted from profit to human
usefulness and that the wage system is abandoned: what the producer
receives directly and indirectly is not any more the value of his
labor force but "the same amount of labor which he has given to
society".
But, first, the system is still very close to capitalism since it
remains strictly based on symmetric exchange and, second, it is
hardly practicable.

Indeed.

About closeness to capitalism, Marx has no illusions and is very
clear in that respect: "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."
And labor is here understood as abstract labor, which means that the
quantity received by a producer is also proportional to his own
capacities, education, experience, etc.: "labor, -writes Marx- to
serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity,
otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. (...) it tacitly
recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive
capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of
inequality, in its content, like every right."
Marx shows also how that system is unequal at another level: "Right,
by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal
standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different
individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal
standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view
(...) Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more
children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal
performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption
fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer
than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead
of being equal, would have to be unequal."

Yes.

In modern capitalism, "Welfare state" systems have created some
mechanisms that take into account the differences between individual
situations (child or household benefits, unemployment benefits, etc.)
If strictly applied, the system described by Marx, in some aspects,
would be less "fair" than some aspects of capitalism.

About the practicability. In order to function, that system needs a
complex and huge effort of measuring. On the one hand it must measure
the value of each producer's "contribution", calculated in
abstract/simple-labor hours. On the other hand, the value/price of
each product . That poses difficulties at a qualitative and a
quantitative level.

The calculation is impossible. You can't break down "complex labour" 
to "simple-labour" -- how could this be done? Again, it is a 
misunderstanding, that "value" is something, which can be calculated or 
even transformed in prices, because it is a societal relationship and 
not a "thing". Yes, I know, that have been thousands of economists who 
tried this, but nobody reach success (sorry, Paul).

At a qualitative level it poses, first, the question of making a
distinction between "work" for necessity and "work" for pleasure.
I agree with Graham Seaman  when he objects to Paul's proposition:
"This reproduces the world of job divided from life, of abstract
labour. At most I can hunt in the morning and criticize in the
evening, but only as long as someone is there with a stop watch to
measure what I do."(13aug08) Second, it poses the difficulty to
evaluate the "intensity" of  supplied labor according to each
producer's education, experience, etc. Not only that needs to find
"objective" criteria to measure that "intensity", but further it
creates a steep slope to reintroduce a labor-force value, and thus a
sort of wage system. At a quantitative level, measuring how many
hours everyone is working and on the other side what is the "value"
of each product and each service, but also what are the values of all
the "funds" that must be deducted from each labor-voucher, etc., all
that implies a quantity of effort which one can wonder if its not a
hindrance rather than a factor of fluency.

Yes.

On the side of labor "input", the measurement of labor contributions,
is supposed to create (or maintain) a motivation for participating in
social production. But as such, this "motivation" is based on the old
bourgeois principles: if you do not work, you do not eat; if you
don't work enough,  you won't have enough, and this, regardless of
the social possibilities.

Indeed an important implication.

<snip>
On the side of the "output", Marx and Engels do not consider it as
commodities. The produced means of production circulate directly,
taking into account only their usefulness. The means of consumption
are sent to "the social stock of means of consumption" and from there
they can be taken with labor vouchers. They specify that these
vouchers "are not money. They do not circulate." "They are no more
'money' than a ticket for the theater" (Engels, Anti-Duhring).

Not more, but even not less.

In that sense, they do not envisage a market mechanism.

But they got it.

Paul's proposition differs from that vision for some specific kind of
consumption goods. He sees two types of distribution according to the
kind of good, one is free distribution, the other through markets:
"I specified that I thought that the role of a consumer goods market
was limited to
those goods whose labour of reproduction remained considerable, and
for which no objective assessment of need can be arrived at.
Where either of these criteria are absent, a market is not
appropriate. (...) Goods that require substantial labour input but
for which need can be objectively assesed, should be free but not ad
libitum..."

Graham, objected: "Who would the people be doing this 'objective
assessment' of my needs if not a new set of rulers? (...) This kind
of separation of 'need' and 'want' is only possible by sleight of
hand: take current family, number of tvs per head, cars per family
etc as given, and you can claim that this presupposed existing system
shows what people objectively 'need', and anything else is just
'desire'. The British will then have lots of needs, and most of
Africa mere desires." (26aug08)
I agree with Graham that the distinction between needs ans desires is
dangerous, especially if its evaluation is made by a "set of rulers".
But the question remains: is a market, and thus money, necessary
during such a period of transition?

Well, the more crucial question is: Is a market unavoidable during a 
transition period?

In order to justify the need of markets concerning some consumer
goods, Paul writes: "If we assume generalised public ownership the
issue arises whether markets can be completely abolished. I think no.
I think that some residual indicative function remains for certain
consumer goods markets in order to match output to community tastes."
(13aug08) I am not sure I understand correctly Paul's thinking. Here
he talks of an "indicative function" and "tastes" to be "matched".
That appears as a sort of  "opinion poll", concerning a marginal
("residual") share of goods. But if we consider the amount of goods
which could correspond to Paul's criteria to be distributed through
market, it is a real system of distribution.
In any case, Paul's justification relates to the capacity of markets
to allow output to match consumers wants.

The question of matching consumers needs assumes, that there are 
separated productions which then have to be checked via markets, if 
needs are met. If you have the needs at first, then production can be 
organized according to this needs and markets are no longer necessary. 
The peer-economy model of Christian shows, that this is possible.

As increasingly men did not produce all the goods they consumed, the
market and symmetric exchange developed as a necessity.

But this was only an historical necessity, not a general one.

Markets appear as the most efficient way to match production with
consumption, and reciprocally. This is one of the main arguments of
people defending the forever inevitability of markets and money.
But one may distinguish in markets a double aspect corresponding to
two functions they fulfill. One is at the level of use-value, of
usefulness of goods: producers are informed of the needs (and tastes)
of consumers, consumers are informed of what is available from the
producers. Even if this informations are distorted by the the
exchange-value mechanisms, (needs are only "solvent" needs,
production is only "profitable" production), production and
consumption can confront each other and products circulate. The
second function is at the level of
exchange-value. Here the quantitative aspects of circulation, how
much a producer effectively "gives" (sells), how much a consumer
"takes" (buys), are ruled by symmetric exchange, abstract labor
serving as measure. In fact,  this function simply allows the
concrete expression of the conditions in which production was
realized and purchasing power distributed. The access to goods by
wage-earner workers, for example, will be as small as the wages they
get for their labor.
These two functions, "matching-information" and regulation of
exchange have always been closely linked and seem to be intrinsically
inseparable. Without markets, men were blind. But the IT revolution
brings the means to destroy that interdependence. Internet, and more
generally P2P networks allow to fulfill the "matching-information"
function without market mechanisms nor money, on a simple usefulness
basis. And that fulfillment can be realized in a much more perceptive
way since the market-induced distortions (solvency, profitability)
are absent. We can already see that reality today for free digital
goods. In that sense, we don't need any more markets to know where to
find a product or what is to be produced.

Yes, but neo-liberals are also singing the hymn of "more information" 
via internet to be better informed about prices etc.

But what about the second function of markets: regulating the
quantity of goods that each human can take? As far as there is still
not a sufficient ampleness of goods and capacities of production in
order to allow free and unlimited distribution, how to restrict the
consumption to the prevailing possibilities of production? If we
abandon the wage principle: "to each according to the value of his
labor force"; if we refuse the principle: "to each according to his
work", what principle to use?
I only see one possibility: to each according to the social
possibilities. It is a sort of "to each according to his
needs/desires" limited, restricted by what is really possible, as in
the household/domestic economy, or as in a fishers village where
after drawing collectively the net, fishes are shared between the 
population... But, this time, on a world scale.

Will social control work on a global level? Can control be wished at 
all?

This is a conscious, direct way of dealing with scarcity.

Scarcity is not a natural thing. Scarcity is the social way of market 
economies to deal with limitedness.
 
It is not 
anymore through fetish filters and mechanisms (financial, for
example) which escape to human control. It is the logic consequence
of the fact that the means of production are collectively possessed
(in the Commons). If we participate to production as collective
possessors, production can be distributed collectively, taking into
account permanently and dynamically what is possible and what is
needed. As already said, P2P networks make possible instantaneous and
ubiquitous availability of the necessary information for such a
system. The question is then: will consumers respect voluntarily the
restrictions when they exist? Is not such a system going to collapse
because of multiple abuses?

Christian asked the same question himself (I think), and he answers, 
that instead of exchanging goods via markets after production, it is 
better to distribute contributions prior to production, where each 
person can take as much as s/he contributes in his/her way. This is a 
coupling of giving and taking (which in my view should be overcome in 
the long run), but a completely different one compared to market 
exchange.

Such a system means a great degree of collective consciousness, of
self responsibility. That may seem wishful thinking when envisaged
from the point of view of the capitalist social jungle. But we should
not underestimate the change in mentalities which would be induced by
a society where production is oriented directly and exclusively
towards human needs, where orientation of production is permanently
collectively agreed.

We should not underestimate the change of mentalities, yes, but we 
should not overestimate the degree of change to be reached in the next 
necessary steps.

One of the most important contributions of Free Software and
peer-production has been to prove with facts that humans can
cooperate, share and produce the most complex things without money
profit incentive and without State coercion. Some people thought that
Wikipedia would never develop because it would be permanently
destroyed by "vandals". The intelligence of Wikipedia has been to
have confidence in the collective spirit of contributors,  to base
its rules on the needs of that confidence and not on the danger
represented by vandals. Vandals exist since the beginning of
Wikipedia, but they remain a small minority and the care of the
majority has allowed to neutralize their negative action.
Collective consciousness will be a key element in managing the
transition into a post-capitalist society.

No, I don't think so, at least not in that absolute sense. It can only 
be a kind of a dialectical process: Mind changes do only come in given 
practicies, which then itself do enable new practicies and so on. We 
can't rely on collective consciousness as a driving force, it is rather 
a result of a long-term process.

But, what about money? If symmetric exchange is absent from the main
economic mechanism in the peer sector, is it absent from the whole
society in transition? As I said in the first part of this text,
there will be inevitably a coexistence of  the peer sector and the
remaining of capitalist and even pre-capitalist forms. The exchange
between the different sectors will certainly tend to be, at least at
the beginning, a symmetric exchange. And thus, a mean of exchange, a
sort of money will be required.

In my view, this is one of the traps we can step into. Commons-based 
peer sectors can only evolve and remain commons-based at the same time, 
if peer sector and market sectors have asymmetrical exchange relations: 
Money has to go into the peer sectors, but goods must not flow out of 
the peer sector, in order to make money and finance the peer sector. If 
the latter occurs, then sooner or later peer projects transforms ifself 
to are more efficient market agents, namely normal capitalist firms.

But also, inside the peer-sector, we cannot exclude the possibility
of the need of more or less marginal symmetric exchange. For example,
between consumers wishing to exchange products that have not been
produced in sufficient quantities.

Nope, inside the peer sector there must not be exchange relations at 
all. This does not mean, that there is only flatrate taking, but as 
Christian showed, there can be other mechanisms of distributing efforts 
and goods.

If symmetric exchange is needed, money is required. And if money is
needed we must assume it and try to find the ways to prevent all its
most negative aspects, and in particular the possibility to
accumulate money and the power of the issuing organs.

Your argumentation is really consequent, but as you can see yourself, it 
leads backwards to the same old market and money relations including 
alienation and fetishism -- everything you want to avoid before.

I don't know much about what Michel calls "newly designed money" but
electronics and P2P open here a lot of possibilities
By the way, answering to Michel, Stefan Meretz wrote "Gesellian
approches are **really**dangerous."(14aug08) I would appreciate to
know longer about his criticisms.

Ok, I'll try to write a post about these types of money botching. This 
is not funny stuff.

In any case, any money should disappear as these two needs of
symmetric exchange vanish. The dynamic should be one of progressive
marginalization of exchange.

But how, if you reinvent it?

Historically, symmetric exchange developed first not at the center of
the primitive communities but at their fringes, through the trade
between them. Its movement was from the periphery to the center. The
disappearance of exchange and money should follow the reverse
process, from the center to the periphery.

But how?

Ciao,
Stefan

-- 
Start here: www.meretz.de
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Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
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