[ox-en] Re: No-trade society (was: Re: herrschaft)
- From: Robin Green <greenrd greenrd.org>
- Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:55:08 +0000
On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 09:54:14AM -0500, Graham Seaman quoted:
The key question is: How can a free society be self/organized, if there is
no invisible hand at all (no exchange, no money, no market, no state)?
Woah, I recently joined this list, and I didn't realise it was going to be
some kind of anarcho-communist list! You should put up some kind of warning
sign for the unwary!
Just kidding ;-)
It's a good question, but I think a better question is, how are you going to
have no exchange in the first place? My aunt is a sculptor and she makes
very nice minature 3D caricatures. Let's assume that I would like to commission
a particular piece, and let's further say that she is willing to produce works
to order. Maybe I am also an artist, and she would like for me to do a piece
for her in return. That's trade, is it not? How can you call it anything other
than a trade? In what kind of society would such arrangements never arise?
I would go further and say that in any case where money is "abolished" it
would be quickly reinvented (through barter, if money were in some way
actively repressed).
Perhaps you are groping towards the notion of no _compulsion_ to trade to meet
basic needs (which is my current focus). But that's of course a _very_
different kettle of fish. That could in principle be met by a Basic Income,
without getting rid of capitalism at all (that's assuming a Basic Income is
sustainable under so-called "global capitalism" - I think we will soon find out,
when Brazil introduces it, as a recent law they've passed mandates them to!)
Or perhaps you are groping towards trade being marginalised, but far from
eliminated, the opposite of today where human generosity is increasingly
marginalised (except in some contexts like Free Software!) Even then, I
find this highly implausible. Trade/money can be, but in very many ways is not,
a proxy for some kind of measure of the social usefulness or social
appreciation for a person's work. Even considering how laughably detached
today's distribution of wealth is from such a goal, I don't think the idea
should be dropped. I don't think the typical hairdresser or night bus driver
or miner wants to drop it, either. They would like to remain _rewarded_ for
the work they do, not just given the same as everyone else, I suspect.
To summarise, I believe in a basic income, but I also belive in significant
rewards over and above the basic income (i.e. wages and payments) for
socially useful work done.
(Of course, the "over and above" is a bit
redundant - if the rewards are completely clawed back by the state then in
effect they are not rewards and the basic income is not a basic income,
because a basic income must be unconditional by definition, unlike today's
means-tested unemployment benefits.)
I agree in general but I'd put it a bit differently: How *does* a Free
Society organize itself.
I always used to be very against libertarianism. Now I'm finding the logic
of my own positions is pushing me in that direction. I'm not happy about
this, so would gladly be told why the following suggestion is wrong:
There is an 'invisible hand' in a free society. It doesn't work
through the medium of money, but directly through need. If I (for large
enough values of I) need some software, but that software doesn't exist
in free form, I will write it. If the software already exists in just the
form I want it, I won't bother. The supply of programmers for particular
types of program is regulated by need: this invisible hand is the hand
that scratches your own itch...
For large enough values of I? What about too small values of I? The supply
is then regulated incorrectly, is it not?
Or what about (cases exist today!) very large values of I, but none of them
have both the ability and the time to devote to writing the code / doing
any necessary prerequisite learning? Because they have more important things
to do, you see. That doesn't mean the need doesn't exist, it's just not
important enough on their scales (compared to, say, getting fed).
Libertopians would say the need doesn't matter then, but that's nonsense.
"I can't afford to do it / pay for it" DOES NOT mean "I don't care about it",
as any fool knows.
Two possible problems with the revised 'invisible hand' (only 2?? ;-):
a. Nobody finds working in a sewage farm fulfulling. Then people will have
to get together and find alternative ways of dealing with sewage that
don't require sewage farms. But maybe in some cases there are no
alternative ways?
I think you're right, there will be such cases where TINA (There Is No Alternative).
At least for some period of time.
b. There is a shortage of doctors. No problem, lots of people would love
to be doctors. But it takes 10 years to learn to be a doctor...
ie. the invisible hand is, in general, incapable of planning ahead.
Right. That is why we have farm subsidies and tariffs. Seriously.
I wish both this were more appreciated amongst both the left and the
libertopian right. Whether you're talking about Smith's invisible hand
or your apparently unmediated "hand of need" it's equally true.
OK, apart from those two objections, is this idea too absurdly simple to
be possible? Like Adam Smith's invisible hand turns out to be more
ideological wishful thinking than anything else, does this version too?
Sorry, yes.
--
Robin
"it's FREE and we get the ability to modify the source code ourselves,
something that is extremely dangerous to do, was discredited decades ago..."
- Howard Strauss writing in Syllabus magazine
http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=8460
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