This is an example of how Marx’s version of communism would not work in theory, even if you assumed away informational and motivational problems.
Marxian exploitation is where workers are paid less than their average product. Sounds okay, the remainder is supposedly unearned capitalist profit. But it falls apart very quickly.
Let us suppose that the firm produces holes, that there are 10 workers and that the firm produces 10 holes which sells for $1 each. Non-exploitative wage is $1.
However, it also takes shovels to dig holes. In order to pay non-exploitative wages, the price of shovels must be $0. This makes paying non-exploitative wages to shovel makers a bit tricky.
Don’t get me wrong, Marx was a great economist. What he attempted to do was no less than to try and find a theory of endogenous institutional change over all history. This was never going to be easy, and he failed.
He also saw great suffering and wanted to find an economic system which worked and was just. He failed in this too. His proposal could never work even in theory and attempts to bring it about have been and always will be a disaster.
This does not mean however, that there are no egalitarian policies that could work, nor that there are none which might command some respect.
This is an added degree of complexity that I hadn’t thought of: the planners would have to take into account head-lice.
A modern example is perhaps more appropriate: the Internet. A lot of it is just hype, but phenomena like e-commerce are changing the way businesses view things in deep (for businesses) ways. And most of it has happened in just the last few years. There seems to be some cases in history where an idea’s time has come and it spreads quickly. There’s no guarantee that any post-capitalist idea will have this happen to it, but there doesn’t seem to be any historical reason why it couldn’t spread quickly.
You’ve got to be kidding. While I concede that the Dumas were not representative of the majority, I think you must concede that neither were the Soviets. IIRC, the peasants (the vast majority of the population) had no real representation in either body. Of course the Bolsheviks would have more appeal to city workers; that was the target audience, as they were to hold the reins of power.
Furthermore, while I’m sure Trotsky has some interesting insights on those events he participated directly in, any of his writings are going to be extemely prejudiced in the Soviets favor. I seriously doubt that all the Bolsheviks came to the party because they liked the ideas it stood for–again, it came down to whether or not you were for or against the war. For the average person, politics boiled down to the basics: “Bread, Land, and Peace.” The peasants were oppressed and dying due to the war and starvation. If you are oppressed, but alive with a full stomach, that was better than what you had. The majority would support the Bolsheviks out of their self-interest to survive, not because of communist doctrine. If a communist was given the choice between probable death under corrupt monarchy or possible life under corrupt democracy, which do you think he would choose? Without the Red Army, Lenin becomes a mere footnote in obscure Russian History books.
I really need to clarify what I’m trying to say (in case I wasn’t clear enough). My main points are:
Saying the Bolsheviks were the most popular is misleading, and in fact irrelevant because:
The “popularity” of the Bolsheviks did not indicate the popularity of communism in 1917 Russia, but instead the unpopularity of dying in a Czarist war.
picmr’s point needs reiterating. The reason an auto worker is worth maybe $20/hr while a ditch-digger is worth $5/hr has very little to do with unionization or other social efforts. The main reason is because the labor of the auto worker is magnified by the capital investment of his employer. Not just in machinery, but money spent on management to allocate his resources efficiently, etc.
The transaction looks like this: I offer you my labor, worth $10/hr. You offer to hire me and employ me in an infrastructure which makes my labor worth $30/hr. You and I split the difference. You make $10/hr for every hour I work, and I in turn make $10/hr more than I could if you didn’t exist. Both parties benefit. No one is exploited. Even if you offer me $21 per hour and earn $19, no one is being exploited. I’m still better off trading with you than working on my own. But you’d better not get too greedy, or your competitors will offer me more, still make a profit, and be able to expand their businesses at your expense. In the end, the marketplace will decide how much of a split is equitable - not the individual worker, and not the individual employer. They are each guided, “As if by an invisible hand” (to quote Adam Smith) to the ‘proper’ amount.
This is the essense of the capitalist transaction - if the transaction is purely voluntary, it won’t take place unless BOTH parties perceive a benefit. In the real world this sometimes breaks down due to local effects and market inefficiencies, but it is the OVERWHELMING transaction model. Free people, freely trading with each other to their mutual benefit. What a wonderful way of doing things.
Today, worker dissatisfaction comes not so much from their own poverty, but from the extreme wealth of the employers. Capitalists have gotten so good at building valuable systems that they are reaping big rewards. The workers are getting richer too (a rising tide lifts all boats), but not in the same proportion. But what they should recognize is that any alternate system that punishes the rich folks will almost certainly punish them as well, perhaps not to the same degree.
picmr’s point needs reiterating. The reason an auto worker is worth maybe $20/hr while a ditch-digger is worth $5/hr has very little to do with unionization or other social efforts. The main reason is because the labor of the auto worker is magnified by the capital investment of his employer. Not just in machinery, but money spent on management to allocate his resources efficiently, etc.
The transaction looks like this: I offer you my labor, worth $10/hr. You offer to hire me and employ me in an infrastructure which makes my labor worth $30/hr. You and I split the difference. You make $10/hr for every hour I work, and I in turn make $10/hr more than I could if you didn’t exist. Both parties benefit. No one is exploited. Even if you offer me $21 per hour and earn $19, no one is being exploited. I’m still better off trading with you than working on my own. But you’d better not get too greedy, or your competitors will offer me more, still make a profit, and be able to expand their businesses at your expense. In the end, the marketplace will decide how much of a split is equitable - not the individual worker, and not the individual employer. They are each guided, “As if by an invisible hand” (to quote Adam Smith) to the ‘proper’ amount.
This is the essense of the capitalist transaction - if the transaction is purely voluntary, it won’t take place unless BOTH parties perceive a benefit. In the real world this sometimes breaks down due to local effects and market inefficiencies, but it is the OVERWHELMING transaction model. Free people, freely trading with each other to their mutual benefit. What a wonderful way of doing things.
Today, worker dissatisfaction comes not so much from their own poverty, but from the extreme wealth of the employers. Capitalists have gotten so good at building valuable systems that they are reaping big rewards. The workers are getting richer too (a rising tide lifts all boats), but not in the same proportion. But what they should recognize is that any alternate system that punishes the rich folks will almost certainly punish them as well, perhaps not to the same degree.
The internet isn’t an idea, but a thing, and a new one at that. Swapping one religion for another, especially with pressure from the top added into the mix, still doesn’t seem to me to fit the Marxist model. In any case, Communism certainly won’t work if imposed by the top down.
Christianity started as a small, often secret and persecuted, religion that gradually came into fashion. It only was allowed to flourish when it began to appeal to the ruling class and became state sanctioned. 300 years may seem like a long time because of the nature of travel, but I submit to you that Christianity’s acceptance was still a matter of many generations even in the places where it was first known. Communism as described in this thread cannot work like this. It has to happen rapidly and practically universally. Most importantly, it has to be voluntary. If you have communists seizing power and forcing everyone to make the change you get right back to the USSR way of doing things again.
Obviously, this would be absurd and Marx never said that the shovels could be without value. The value of the labor of the shovel makers must be factored into the equation, as must the value of the steelworkers labor be factored into the value of the shovel, etc.
Obviously, this would be absurd and Marx never said that the shovels could be without value. The value of the labor of the shovel makers must be factored into the equation, as must the value of the steelworkers labor be factored into the value of the shovel, etc.