Harry Veeder wrote:
>If Marxists want workers to have control over the system of production,
>why do they ignore the money-system?
Look I'd be sure to try this creating my own money lurk if the local
supermarket, or the landlord, etc would accept it as payment. Sadly they
won't, they prefer a universally accepted medium of exchange.
LETS is not a money-system, it is a system for bartering labour.
Unfortunately the labour being bartered is usually unaccompanied by the
tools of production which are required for potential labour to be made
fully productive. Most people would still prefer to be paid money for their
labour, as opposed to the promise of receiving labour in return, because
(as most people control none of the means of production) money is more
useful. Most capitalists won't accept it at all because they want
DISCIPLINED labour, not free labour. Since capitalists are the ones who DO
own the means of production, LETS can only ever be marginal in the context
of a capitalist system. Socialists are not looking for crumbs, we say the
working class CREATED all wealth, including the means of production. We say
we need to own and control it also.
Capitalists disagree of course and have managed to convince many others
that production for profit, rather than production to satisfy human need,
is much better, in fact unquestionably so. Some people have a nagging
feeling that this may not be in the best interests of humanity, but have
been conditioned such that they are incapable of questioning the capitalist
system itself, instead they dream up fantastic and impractical variations
of capitalism while wriggling uncomfortably whenever unbelievers question
the unquestionable.
I used to be one of those people, I didn't want to accept that capitalism
had to be ended, because that seemed just too big a job. I desperately
tried to think of some other solution. I was and am basicly a true
conservative, I hate change, the bigger the change the more I shrink from
it.
It took years, but eventually it sank in, I had to accept that capitalism
was the problem, not the people who are in it. Of course I still find
myself hopefully examining other claimed answers optimistic that they offer
another way out. I want them to be true and I hope they will be. But they
never stand up to close scrutiny, at least none have yet, but I'm still
hopeful.
I haven't given up smoking yet either, although I know that's bad for me
too. Like capitalism I know it will probably kill me, but it is the lesser
of the two evils, it only kills people who smoke, at least it won't kill
the whole bloody planet. I try to believe the tobacco industry's propaganda
too, but since it defies the evidence of my own body that is getting
harder.
Likewise of you look at the state of the world around you it is really
difficult to believe that capitalism is working, if you think it is you
only have to ask someone who isn't.
>After all it is partly their own wages which drive the production of money.
Not quite, the labour of the working class creates all value which money
represents, but wages paid only represents a fraction of value created by
labour because, despite the fact that workers create all value, capitalists
(who create no value) retain as much as they can as PROFIT.
>When are they going to assume some responsibility in this regard?
After the revolution. Workers get no say in economic matters, so can't
really be held responsible, but socialism is the act of the working class
assuming responsibility. When everyone has a say, everyone can share
responsibility.
>In regards to wages, the coporation is
>really just the middle-man between banks and the individual worker. Is it
>written in stone that only companies should be held responsible for
>>workers living wages?
"only following orders" isn't an acceptable defence since Nuremburg. But
banks ARE corporations so this is a false dichotomy.
Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tasmania
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