Sebrof

It's a Hexbear thing. It grows annoying, but it will pass. Just to come back with the next <<bad thing that just happened that will definitely and inevitably lead to a millenium of Western domination>>

Though I understand some of the pain of the Doomers, things are emotional and heavy, and I have my own personal moments of doom from time to time. But I think a good grounding in historical materialism and realizing that this is a long, very long, revolution toward communism helps in keeping the eye on the long-term without getting too sidetracked. But even then, I get the Doom, but y'all gotta not let the Doom consume y'all.

Doomers? On my Hexbear?

news bulletin tradition

As someone in STEM, I can say, we suck

My in-laws and I had a scare with fire a few years ago. Someone lit a firecracker near some dry hedges and if went up quickly. It's terrifying how fast everything goes from 0 to 100. We made a quick team where we got pots and pans and filled with water to try to do whatever we could to stop the fire from spreading toward the houses. It was terrifying and it felt like trying to stop the tide. Luckily the fire department came before the fire spread to the house (we were not in America, so the fire department was nearby and functional), the whole thing felt surreal and it was so quick.

That adrenaline hits hard. Take a breath, and congradulate yourself. ~~It's over.~~

[Edit, I second the opinion about watching over any smoldering. If there is smoke, you got to nip it in the bud.]

Thanks for the response!

I'm trying to think of how that would work with the limited knowledge I have. I'm trying to piece together all these scattered teachings into something coherent in my brain lol. I don't have an education in political economy so you'll have to bear with me. I preface my response with this because I feel like in online writing everyone defaults to assuming bad intentions or hostility. I'd just like to try to better synthesize everything I'm slowly learning.

Is the following one way of approaching why Stalin's plan worked: So the full job guarantee would allow the available labor of the economy L~total~ to be maximally allocated to production of use values at some volume Q~max~ given the productive capacity of the economy.

Given the equation of exchange, which to my knowledge is a tautology re. how the velocity of money isdefined. So it is (trivially) always true by definition - which may make if a pointless equation lol

M v = P Q

Rearranging for the price level given full employment,

P = v M/Q~max~

So the price level shouldn't increase as long as the maximal allocation of labor can keep up with money production, i.e. increases in M are matched by increases in Q~max~ given static v (which I know in practice is never static though). If Q~max~ can't increase, then the only way to increase if is to improve productivity, L~total~ is already allocated. How does Stalin's dual circuit monetary system break this equation, or overcome it? As it is a tautology I thought it would be true by definition, but is it built on assumptions that the dual circuit can bypass? Thanks!

Going on a tangent regarding the allocation/distribution/division of labor to various sectors, the above just discusses aggregate quantities, like the aggregate labor L or aggregated volume produced Q. This labor myst be reallocated to sectors, and this reallocation would have to be commanded or allocated via a law of value. Soviet textbooks post Stalin do mention that the law of value still regulates the economy, and Stalin in his Economic Problems of the USSR mentions the law of value as operating in the economy, but as a limited regulator, or if not a regulator then an influencer.

It is sometimes asked whether the law of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system.

Yes, it does exist and does operate. Wherever commodities and commodity production exist, there the law of value must also exist.

In our country, the sphere of operation of the law of value extends, first of all, to commodity circulation, to the ex-change of commodities through purchase and sale, the ex-change, chiefly, of articles of personal consumption. Here, in this sphere, the law of value preserves, within certain limits, of course, the function of a regulator.

But the operation of the law of value is not confined to the sphere of commodity circulation. It also extends to production. True, the law of value has no regulating function in our socialist production, but it nevertheless influences production, and this fact cannot be ignored when directing production. As a matter of fact, consumer goods, which are needed to compensate the labour power expended in the process of production, are produced and realized in our country as commodities coming under the operation of the law of value. It is precisely here that the law of value exercises its influence on production. In this connection, such things as cost accounting and profitableness, production costs, prices, etc., are of actual importance in our enterprises. Consequently, our enterprises cannot, and must not, function without taking the law of value into account

It appears that for consumption goods the law of value appears and regulates, but in the production of intermediate goods the law of value does not regulate, but since consumption goods are required to reproduce labor, the law of value (in consumption goods) does have an impact, or influence on intermediate goods.

Does the above relate to the dual circuit you were discussing?

Thanks again!

I've noticed this too and have qualms when academic Marxists throw out value from a discussion of Marx and political economy. I have tried getting a better idea of how Desai and Hudson view money, and if any hints at value may be there. After all, in academia one often must hide ones orthodox Marxism. But their views are very Chartalist.

Radhika Desai says in an earlier Geopolitical Economy Report episode, Understanding money and the dollar system’s contradictions with Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson

I’d just like to say that it is very common, actually, both among mainstream as well as critical thinkers, to tend to talk as if money is a commodity. You will even find many Marxists who say that Marx thought money was a commodity. In reality, money is not a commodity. Money is actually an ancient social institution. It arises from old practices of keeping accounts ... keeping accounts of debt, et cetera.

And then later in the Episode Radhika makes a point that gold isn't money, but is money material, material thay serves as a stand in or expression of money.

if money is debt, then money is a relation. It’s not a commodity. It is not a single object or entity or anything like that... Because gold has played such an important role in the recent and modern history, or monetary history, of the world, people think that gold and silver were money. Gold and silver were not money. Gold and silver were money material.

As long as one relates thay back to value, then I can vibe with that. But they never seem to discuss value

And from Desai's and Hudson's paper, Beyond the Dollar Creditocracy: A Geopolitical Economy

You can see their Chartalist, MMT perspective by their relating money fundamentally to debt, and not to value or commodity exchange.

No other notion sets back our understanding of money than that money is a commodity

First, all money is debt, whether issued by states or owed by households and fi rms to private creditors.

I'm okay with even the idea of looking at money as debt, but to me (and I'm an just pol econ n00b so this may be half-brained) discussing debt is another way of discussing value. If a person x is in debt to person y, then person x, or some part of society's labor that x controls, must allocate real labor toward the production of value that can satisfy that debt. And if we abstract away from money but think of an example od debt repayments in kind, x baking an apple pie for y probably isn't a good debt repayment for the aircraft carrier that x borrowed from y. Why... hmm, maybe it has something go do with value.

Maybe I'm off base here, but I see value has the true thing that underlies even debt. So value comes back into the picture because production, labor is the bedrock of any political economy. And that social labor must be reallocated in various outlets and acts as the real constraint, even if its only debts that are being paid back.

I've shared one criticism of MMT from Michael Roberts here before, but got some push back. And the push back may have been warranted. This paper may oversimplify the MMT position and I can't completely judge it's worth. Nonetheless I'll risk sharing it again. More discussion re. It is good even if it is disagreement. The criticism is again, that MMT, or at least the popularized versions of it ignores value, and hence the limits of an economy's productive capacity - while also noting that scholars within the field do recognize these limits even if the limits aren't present in the popularization of MMT

From Michael Robert's article The Modern Monetary Trick

Money only has value if there is value in production to back it. Government spending cannot create that value... Productive value is what gives money credibility. A productive private sector generates the domestic product and income that gives government liabilities credibility in the first place. When that credibility is not there, then trust in the state’s currency can disappear fast, as we have seen in Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Argentina.

The claim that governments can spend money and run deficits without the constraint of the burden of rising debt is not really new, or radical.... All MMT seems to be adding is the claim that governments don’t even need to increase debt in the form of government bonds, as the central bank/state can ‘print’ money to fund spending. 

But even MMT theorists admit that there are real constraints to money creation.

But there are constraints on government spending, that MMT admits to. According to Kelton, ‘the only economic constraints currency-issuing states face are inflation and the availability of labor and other material resources in the real economy’. Those are two big constraints, it seems to me. According to MMT, inflation arises after unused capacity in an economy is used up, so that there is full employment of the workforce for given technology. When there is no extra capacity, and supply has reached its limit, more government spending financed by printing money will be inflationary and prices will rise. The state may control and issue the currency, and governments may never run out of it, but the capitalist sector controls technology, labour conditions and the level of skills and intensity of the workforce. In other words, the state does not control the productivity of labour – real value – with its dollar printing. An economy is limited by productivity and the size of the labour force when fully employed, so if the government goes on pumping money in when output cannot be raised further, inflation of commodity prices and/or in speculative financial assets will follow. And MMT supporters are well aware of this risk.

In recognising that the law of value and the exploitation of labour power determine the value of money, Marxist Monetary Theory explains precisely what MMT obscures: that production is for profit not social need; that it is for exchange value, not use value; and that the monetary system is based on exploitation in production, not the creation of money for taxation

I'm not the one who can express it, but I'm sure there are ways to better put Desai and Hudsons views in better dialogue with Value. Academic Marxists tend to throw out value, but I think of that as a major theoretical error. You throw out the law of value, and the current through which either economy fundamentally rests on labor

Another limitation of MMT that both Michael Hudson and Michael Roberts mention is that it is a theory of domestic money creation. It doesn't help with the creation of foreing currency obviously. So there are limitations in the theory's use in international exchange. As well as for nations that have no sovereign currency, obviously.

In Rome's slave based economy, the social relations themselves do not incentive industrialization. Slaves, as an act of understandable disobedience, would break equipment. That discourages investment in expensive tools. Also, if you are a latidundia owner, you don't mind just working your slaves harder instead of investing in more productive tools. As long as slaves are cheap on the market, you can buy more.

Also, the internal market for most commodities was not very large in ancient Rome. Slaves were the most bought and sold commodity (Boer makes this point in Time of Troubles). Transportation was very cumbersome, so most products that were produced were consumed locally. Any transportation would be done by sea, so major centers had to be near the ocean. Land transport was slow and expensive. It would cost the same amount to transport grain some 30 miles on land as it would to ship it by sea from Egypt to Italy.

The economy was also largely agricultural, and the cities were not powerhouses of handicrafts and manufacturing but instead were where the rich latidundia owners lived. There was an urban proletariat, but it was not engaged in manufacturing to a large extent, at least that I am aware of. The poverty and destitution of the urban masses (see Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Ceasar), and the enslavement of those in the country side meant that a large market for commodities did not exist outside luxury items that the slave owners could afford.

The low productivity of agriculture also means that there is less surplus agricultural product that can go toward the non-agricultural laborers like handicrafts. If someone is not engaged in farming, then that is less labor extended toward growing food. So the productivity of agricultural must be high enough to compensate for a laborers moving to handicrafts, manufacturing, administration, etc.

And when thinking of structural incentives, the production of goods was not regulated by increasing profits or by the exchange-value of products. There isn't a large market due to the above reasons, except maybe in luxury goods. And a latifundia owner is more likely to be interested in buying things they (actually their slaves) can't produce on their premises or on one of the other plantations they own. But if possible, the latifundia will produce it itself. Any profits can go to buying luxury items produced elsewhere. But the consumption of the owners and their families is limited by their stomachs. So luxury consumption plateaus for each latifundia. That's less of an incentive to accumulate high profits.

There isn't much competition, nor is the market that big due to poor transportation, communication, and general destitution. So the market saturates pretty quickly in a local area. And so there isn't an incentive to produce a cheaper product, or out compete other latidundias. And as mentioned before, why invest in more productive equipment when we have slaves? Wage labor isn't a major social institution at the time either. So no need to accumulate profits for increasing production.

As Marx mentions in Capital, Instead of exchange value driving the anciemt economy, it was quantity (up to a natural limit, owners can only eat and slaves can only produce so much) and use-value. Effort was put into making a better item for luxury but not into making it more efficiently with less slave labor.

There isn't a drive to accumulate capital, there isn't a drive for ever increasing profits. There aren't many avenues for value to expand and grow, and hence no capitalism.

And the low productive capacity of their means of production (and that includes transportation), in addition to social relations (slavery) that actually disincentivize increasing productivitiy is at the heart.

Others have answered your question, and thethirdgracchi gave a good reading list. A book that I'd like to add which actually touches on much of what others have said is Perry Anderson's Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. It discusses how antiquity transitioned to feudalism and has chapters deeicated to the historical materialist paths the modes of productions of various European societies took.

It starts with Ancient Greece, to Rome, the barbarian invasions, Charlemagne, the spread of Feudalism to East Germany and Poland and eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, the impact the Mongols had on Eastern Europe and Russia, the stagnation of the Byzantines, and more. It is focused on European history though. It is a very fun book that actually uses the lens of a mode of production to discuss history.

Roland Boer also has a book on the ancient Roman economy called Time of Troubles.

Something that Anderson points out is that a mode of production will not change just because the new technology has come into being. There must be new social relations that put the technology to use in a new way. Even when Rome did improve tools and basic machines, they never applied them toward production.