Marx on Economics. Robert Freedman
Part III - Nature of a Communist Society
Value, Rent, & Money in a Communist Society
230. "
A 1 qr = 60s
B 2 qr = 60s
C 3 qr = 60s
D 4 qr = 60s
-----
10 qrs = 240s
The actual price of production of these ten quarters is 240 shillings. But they are sold at
600 shillings, 250 per cent too dear. The actual average price for 1 quarter is 24 shillings;
the market price is 60 shillings, also 250 per cent too dear."
"The determination of the market-value of the products, including the products of the
soil, is a social act, although performed by society unconsciously and unintentionally.
It rests necessarily upon the exchange-value of the product, not upon the soil and its
differences in fertility."
"If we imagine that the capitalist form of society is abolished and society is organized
as a conscious and systematic association, then those ten quarters represent a quantity of
independent labour which is equal to that contained in 240 shillings. In that case society
would not buy this product of the soil at two and a half times the labour-time contained
in it. The basis of a class of landowners would thus be destroyed. This would have the
same effect as a cheapening of the product to the same amount by foreign imports.
While it is correct to say that, by retaining the present mode of production but paying
the differential rent to the state, the prices of the products of the soil would remain the
same, other circumstances remaining unchanged, it is wrong to say that the value of the
products would remain the same if capitalist production were supersed by association.
The sameness of the market-prices for commodities of the same kind is the way in which
the social character of value asserts itself on the basis of capitalist production, as it does
of any production resting on the exchange of commodities between individuals. What
1 qr = 60s
1 qr = 30s
1 qr = 20s
1 qr = 15s
-----
1 qr = 24s
Avg.
society in its capacity as a consumer pays too much for the products of the soil, what
constitues a minus for the realization of its labour-time in agricultural production is now a
plus for a portion of society, for the landlords."
231. "Summary: In a socialist society, money would be abolished, to be replaced by non-
circulating paper checks."
"...In the case of socialized production, the money-capital is eliminated. Society
distributes labour-power and means of production to the different lines of occupation.
The producers may eventually receive paper checks, by means of which they withdraw
from the social supply of means of consumption a share corresponding to their labour-
time. These checks are not money. They do not circulate."
The Allocation of Output and Labour in a Socialist and Communist Society
"Summary: Undeeer communism, we return to that characteristic of the primitive state
exemplified by Robinson Crusoe in which production is for use (not profit), except
that now it is for social rather than for personal use. There still remains the problem of
distribution. One portion of production will remain social, for use in further production.
The mode of distribution of the rest will vary with the historical development of the
society, but as a first approximation each will share according to his contribution of
labour-time. The social direction of labour-time would perform two functions: (1) to
allocate labour to perform the different kinds of work desired by a community; and (2)
to serve as a measure of the value of each labourer's contribution to society, as well as to
measure his share in that portion of output available for consumption.
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 Crusoe'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 a means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them
is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive
organiztion 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 indiivdual 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.
The Relationship of Man to Work, Man to Man, and Man to the State
234. "Summary: So long as a plit exists between the individual and the common interest,
the division of labour, by circumscribing man's activities to certain narrow spheres,
enslaves him. To attempt to escape is to lose one's livelihood. In a communist society,
where common production is regulated by society, an individual can choose his career
freely, moving from occupation to occupation at will. Man will be freed from the slavery
of the division of labour.
All history is the history of man's enslavement to an alien power the world
market. After the communist revolution, with the abolition of private property, this power
will be dissolved. Then genuine spiritual riches will be available to each individual. He
will be free of national and local limitations, be enabled to enjoy the 'all-sided production
of the whole earth.' The natural cooperation of men, hitherto forced by the rule of the
market system, will arise spontaneously in the wake of the communist revolution.
... the division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains
in natural society, that is as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the
common interest, as long therefore as activity is not voluntarily but naturally divided,
man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of
being controlled by him. For as soon as labour is distributed, each man has a particular
exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.
He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does
not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has
one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he
wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do
one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt int he morning, fish in the afternoon, rear
cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming
hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.
This crystallization of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves
produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our
expectations, bringing to nought our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical
development up till now...
In history up to the present it is certainly an empirical fact that separate
individuals have, with the broadening of their activity into world-historical activity,
become more and more enslaved under a power alien to them (a pressure which they
have conceived of as a dirty trick on the part of the so-called universal spirit), a power
which has become more and more 'market'. But it is just as empirically established that
by the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist property which is
identical with it, this power which so baffles the German theoreticians will be dissolved,
and that then the liberation of each single individual will be accomplished in the measure
in which history becomes transformed into world-history. From the above it is clear that
the real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real
connexions. Only then will the separate individuals be liberated from the various national
and local barriers, be brought into practical connexion with the material and intellectual
production of the whole world and be put in a position to acquire the capacity to enjoy
this all-sided production of the whole earth (the creations of man). Universal dependence,
this natural form of the world-historical cooperation of individuals, will be transformed
by this communist revolution into the control and conscious mastery of these power,
which, born of the action of men on one another, have till now over-awed and governed
men as powers completely alien to them... [from 'The German Ideology, 'Feuerbach', 1a
and b]"
236. "Summary: In the future society, men will be free of class antagonisms. Political
power, necessary only where class anagonism exist, will disappear.
The essential condition of the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of all
classes. . . .
The working class in the course of its development will substitute for the old
order of civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and
there will no longer be political power, properly speaking, since political power is simply
the fficial form of the antagonism in civil society. [The Poverty of Philosophy, 2:5]"
"Editor's Note: The third point in the programme of the German Workers' Party,
presented to the congress of this party in Gotha in May 1875, called for the
nationalization of the means of production, the 'cooperative regulation of the total labour'
and 'equitable' distribution of the output of labour.
Summary: What is 'equitable' distribution, and should all members of society, even
those who do not work, share in it? This question devolves into the issue of whether all
members of society are to receive the 'undiminished proceeds of labour'. Before there
is anything to divide, funds must be deducted from total production for depreciation,
for industrial expansion, insurance and reserves, for the costs of administration, for the
requirements of communal consumption, such as schools, health services, ect., and for
the unemployed.
Then to divide what remains according to productive input (labour-time) is a
bourgeois formula for equitable distribution. Some workers may have more children than
others. Thus to right the defect of bourgeois society, namely, that mere physical or
mental superiority makes one man richer than another, distribution should be: 'From each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs!'
3. 'The emancipation of labour demands the promotion of the instruments of labour to
the common property of society, and the cooperative regulation of the total labour with
equitable distribution of the proceeds of labour.'
'Promotion of the instruments of labour to the common property' ought obviously
to read their 'conversion into the common property'; but this only in passing.
What are the 'proceeds of labour'? The product of labour, or its value? And in the
latter case, is it the total value of the product, or only that part of the value which labour
has newly added to the value of the means of production consumed?
The 'proceeds of labour' is a loose notion which Lassalle has put in the place of
definite economic conceptions.
What is 'equitable distribution'?
Do not the bourgeois assert thaat the present-day distribution is 'equitable'? And
is it not, in fact, the only 'equitable' distribution on the basis of the present-day mode of
production? Are economic relations regulated by legal conceptions, or do not legal
relations, on the contrary, arise from economic ones? Have not the socialist sectarians
also the most varied notions about 'equitable' distribution?
To understand what idea is meant in this connection by the phrase 'equitable
distribution', we must take the first paragraph and this one together. The latter implies a
society wherein labour is cooperatively regulated'; and from the first paragraph we learn
that 'the proceeds of labour belong undiminished with equal right to all members of
society'.
'To all members of society'? To those who do not work, as well? What remains
then of the 'undiminished proceeds of labour'? Only to those members of society who
work? What remains then of the 'equal right' of all members of society?
But 'all members of society' and 'equal right' are obviously mere phrases. The
kernel consists in this, that in this communist society every worker must receive
the 'undiminished' Lassalean 'proceeds of labour'.
Let us take first of all the words 'proceeds of labour' in the sense of the product
of labour, then the cooperative proceeds of labour are the 'total social product'.
From this is then to be deducted:
'Firstly', cover for replacement of the means of production used up.
'Secondly', additional portion for expansion of production.
'Thirdly', reserve or insurance fund to provide against misadventures,
disturbances through natural events, ect.
These deduction from the 'undiminished proceeds of labour' are an economic
necessity, and their magnitude is to be determined by available means and forces, and
partly by calculation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.
There remains the other part of the total product, destined to serve as means of
consumption.
Before this is divided among the individuals, there have to be deducted from it:
'Firstly, the general costs of administration not belonging to production'. This
part will, from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day
society, and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops.
'Secondly, that which is destined for the communal satisfaction of needs, such as
schools, health services, ect. From the outset this part is considerably increased in
comparison with present-day society, and it increases in proportion as the new society
develops.
'Thirdly, funds for those unable to work, ect. In short, what is included under so-
called official poor relief today.
Only now do we come to the 'distribution' which the programme (under
Lassallean influence) alone has in view, in its narrow fashion; namely that part of the
means of consumption which is divided among the individual producers of the
cooperative society.
The 'undiminished proceeds of labour' have already quietly become converted
into the 'diminished' proceeds, although what the producer is deprived of in his capacity
as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a members of
society.
Just as the phrase 'undiminished proceeds of labour' has disappeared, so now
does the phrase 'proceeds of labour' disappear altogether.
Within the cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of
production, the producers do not exchange their products. Just as little does the labour
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 labour
no longer exists in an indirect fashion, but directly as a component part of the total
labour. The phrase 'proceeds of labour' objectionable even 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, 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 amount of labour. For example, the
social working day consists of the sum of the individual labour hours; the individual
labour-time of the individual producer is the part of the social labour-day contributed by
him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such and
such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common fund), and with this
certificate he draws from the social stock of meanas of consumption as much as the same
amount of labour costs. The same amount of labour 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 labour, and
because, on the other hand,, nothing can pass into 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, so much labour in one form is exchange for an equal amount of
labour in another form.
Hence, 'equal right' here is still in principle - bourgeois right, although principle
and practice are no longer in conflict, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity
exchange only exists on the average and not in the individual case.
In spite of this advance, this 'equal right' is still stigmatized by a bourgeois
limitation. The right of the producers is 'proportional' to the labour they supply; the
equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an 'equal standards', labour.
But one man is superior to another physically or mentally, and so supplies more
labour in the same time, or can labour for a longer time; and labour, to serve as a
measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard
of measurement. This 'equal' right is an unequal right for unequal labour. It recognizes no
class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly
recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as natural
privileges. 'It is therefore a right of inequality in its content, like every right.' Right by its
very nature can only consist in the application of an equal standard; but unequal
individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are
only measurable by an equal standard in so far as they are brought under an equal point
of view, are taken from one 'definite' side only, e.g. in the present case are regarded 'only
as workers', and nothing more seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one
worker is married, another not; one has more children than another and so on and so
forth. Thus with an equal output, and hence an equal share in the social consumption
fund, one will in f act 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.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society, as it is
when it has just emerged after prolonged birthpangs from capitalist society. Right can
never be higher than the economic structure of society and the cultural development
thereby determined.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of
individuals under division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and
physical labour, has vanished; after labour, from a mere means of life, has itself become
a prime necessity of life; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-
round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more
abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind, and
society inscribe on its banners 'From each according to his ability, to each according to
his needs!' [A Critique of the Gotha Programme, I]