On wolffism

we should try it, as it would genuinely be a better society than we have now.
I just think it would still be subject to many of the contradictions of capitalism. Crisis would still happen (maybe less severe), falling rate of profit is still a problem (although less severe because coops could operate on low or no profit without mass layoffs), average labor power would still be forced to subsistence by competition, class struggle would still exist but it would be more obfuscated (and admittedly be less severe), overproduction would still exist (perhaps less severe due to higher wages), the environment would still be under threat (fossil fuel coops would still fight regulation theoretically), unemployment would still exist (maybe not as bad), production for exchange would still exist (and therefor you can still have speculative production on things like houses where people buy them for the sake of selling them when the price goes up and a bubble is created).
still support it though

While Wollfism is perhaps not "pure" socialism in-of-itself, there's a pretty good argument to be made that the kind of localized community control that is present in a cooperative will bleed into the public sphere and then create a democratic localized economy. Of course it's not quite socialism if the local communities do not have a say in what ggoees on with the local cooperatives operating within them, but the mentality fostered within a coop is the exact same one that needs to rule at the local community level, and they are thus a huge step in the right direction, if not the only step that has to be actively taken.

mutualism.
although historically mutualism is anarchist, wheras wolffism would have a social democratic state

ehm, excuse me.

again, what's the big difference between wolffism and anarcho-collectivism?
thanks.

You mean, the ideas that had been tried in 19th century ad nauseum?

The only Socialism that proved to be workable within this concept is Amish "Socialism", and I'm no big fan of it.

Wolff pretends that if the slave-driver is democratically elected by slaves, there is no slavery. But if you want to participate in industrial economy, you need to have Capital. It doesn't matter how you are organized, as long as you are economically enslaved.

I.e. the choice is between the "seize the means of production" and going pre-industrial. If Wolff is not admitting it, he is deliberately lying to people.

Populism.

Wolff needs to commit to some ideology for term to be "legit". However, he pretends to be Marxist - which he clearly isn't.

His ideas cannot be easily defined, since they are simultaneously Social Democrat and Anarchist (he is taking the worst bits from both).

Just like trade unions (organizations which serve to embolden the strength of labor) did not get us towards post-capitalism, neither will co-operatives (the democratization and establishment of equal shareholding of private enterprises). A constitutive break of the capitalist mode of production must involve the socialization of the means of production, i.e. producing for use instead of exchange. (1/2)

Yes, with the added benefitnthat some unions and o-ops still exist

Unlike the warsaw pact nations lol

Holla Forums won't let me post any more than a few lines, so see pic related (and WEBM).

There is production for exchange in central planned economies

see (you never replied there, so do it here)
(And pic related.)

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We are all Antigone (talking about Anouilh's version here)

We would rather die than live a life of compromises, fighting for a bit of happiness and be content with it. It's why we're also against welfare states, against social democracy, it's just not good enough.

Co-ops could be a stepping stone. Capitalist production without the capitalist class would be far easier to transition out of commodity production than with capitalists. However, it must be kept in mind that as long as we keep exchange-valued commodities, co-ops or not, we are not out of capitalism.

Capitalists also exist.

Does this mean that the Left lost and should obediently slave away forever?

A mix of contrarianism, dogmatism and 20th century nostalgia makes them believe that socialism can only strictly be built with unions and parties, even though those things are hardly socialism themselves.

Just did fam, been very busy

No? You've yet to reply to my post.

Makes me go hmmmmmmm

Apparently can't post PDFs right now either. Get it here instead: golibgen.io/view.php?id=1173038.

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you are full of shit

The point about cooperatives is that the surplus will be used to fuel worker's unions and worker's parties and advance their control in other spheres.

i mean, it sounds just perfect that after the workers organize themselves in a totipotential conglomerate of industrial,mediatic and militar co-ops, they decided to use labour-vouchers instead of money, in direct democracy and voilá, we have socialism.

what can go wrong?

Fag

I reckonn USSR 2.0 wuld go down as hard as the first time :^}

I reckon you would go down much harder, if you ignore 70 years that happened before that.

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Because some of us our idiotic tankies while others are apathetic accelerationists who think the key to getting support for socialism among people is to make their lives worse.

"Anarcho-liberal" is the term I think you're reaching for m8

socialism: workers own the means of production
wolffian cooperativism: workers owns the means of production

what's the big difference?

coops =/= workers as a whole
coops compete with one another in a market environment

Tbh what we need is a combination of syndicalist, marksoc, and Leninist type praxis. What we need is essentially a trade union that doubles as a political party, supported and funded by a network of associated co-ops and all within a democratic framework. Co-ops would produce and sell products, and use the profits to subsidize goods that can be sold within the union for dirt cheap. Union locals would procure the goods and sell them to union workers at extra low prices, giving workers an alternative to supporting capitalism and producing on the basis of need rather than profit. You essentially create a planned socialist economy within the union. As co-ops and unions grow they will be able to provide more and more goods and services to their members, eventually being able to provide things like healthcare, insurance, or other services subsidized through the union. They could also recruit artists, musicians, etc to create and proliferate a unique working class culture with anti-capitalist themes so as to create a unique sense of working class identity. Eventually, they should begin forming militias and arming themselves. All this while waging political campaigns to get /ourguys/ in office so they can legislate in favour of the union.

Either this minature economy would grow large enough to supersede the capitalist economy, or grow large enough to overtake it in a revolution. It would create a counter-base from which an anti-capitalist superstructure could grow.

Market socialism, mutualism and muh co-ops are all retarded ideas. Central planning or bust.

Too bad central planning is just a less efficient market

muke being retarded, what a surprise…

WEW

corporations outsource work to other countries

Does anyone actually identify as such?

Nah. It's derogatory fam.

World is not as bad as it could be (but Anarcho-Pacisim is a thing).

I'll stick to Anarcho-Wolffism then.

How can people seriously believe this?

Nice analysis there m8

t. Karl Marx.

So?

It is a necessary step.
It is insufficient.

As Wolff points out, the market is inefficient and wasteful as a means of resource allocation.
Planning is the goal.

Workers unions, Co-op enterprise unions, and consumers unions start forming once a shift to worker co-ops is underway. Theses unions come together and cooperatively PLAN their economic activity (this is a proto-socialist-government) to get ride of market/competitive wastefulness and redundancy.

Communism can growth from the bottom up starting with co-ops, then unions, then sudo-governments. I think this is Wolff's path.

You were making the argument that just because something is centrally planned that does away with capitalist relations. This is very clearly not true by Marx's standards.

Where in any Marx texts does he say that centralization in capitalism=planned economy?

Let's put this another way, what's the special sauce that makes central planning socialism and not capitalism?

Production for use value not for profit.

that's impossible with a division of labor, unless every single thing was made to order, in which case, that's also not central planning.

Because ?

co-ops anrt a means to an end, they're a mean of survival of working people in a capitalist society that's give people the tools (to some degree) to determine what they do in they're working lives. In many way's it can give people an environment to be radically political, bringing in people who may only be looking for work who are used to working in capitalist industries and services and giving them a slightly better look at what their lives could actually look like if the had the ability to actually determine what things in their life.

Production for use exists in market economies, as all the use values are used to satisfy the wants and needs of the worker and the worker only

Only when surplus value is taken away from the workers is that profiwt comes into exietance

Not a economist, fuck off.

That's not how it works my dude, only the factories that can generate profity survive in a market economy, there's literally no way to survive in a market economy if you don't produce for profit.

Because it doesn't go far enough.
When the workers find out capital accumulation and markets still fuck them over, it will end just like the unions did.

where does this "profit" come from? gaining a portion of the market share?, diseconomies of scale, falling rate of profit, the drawbacks of capital accumulation and so on are a thing, if a company is able to gain a portion of the market share, then there are several outcomes, the most common ones are that the companies driven out of profit find a new market or the bigger company buys the smaller ones to create competition

moreover, if workers can satisfy their own personal needs, whithout the necessity of getting involved in complex market chains, then the co-op can keep on existing despite having a lower rate of profit than a bigger, more specialized one

Co-ops are still affected by competition, the market isn't a bubble where you have granted profits by the mere fact of producing, is pure idealism to think that markets/capitalism is anything more than a profit driven system.

The idea of a market in a cooperative based economy is different. Instead of competing to make the most money from surplus value, coops compete to provide the most value to their workers. The coops that add the most value to workers' live will attract more workers and the ones that don't will hemorrhage them.

competition != profit

while markets are driven by competition, a market can be driven to reduce the SNLT required to manufacture a commodity, thus to increase it's productivity, not to increase profits, therefore the competition will actually be beneficial for our cause, as a lower SNLT means a command economy would be easier to achieve compared to a planned economy

a planned economy does not compete to reduce the SNLT,as it simply needs to meet production quotas

as long as the cost of production is lower than the exchange value, the workers will generate a surplus of money

no, as I explained in the first part, a market can compete to reduce the SNLT, not to increase "profits"

Holy shit, that's some next level idealism, co-ops compete for profits, that's it. This magic world were owners of capital compete for labor doesn't exist and even if it did the profit rate would die pretty fucking fast without a reserve army of labor to drive wages down.

no they don't, there is no profit asno one in the cooperative keeps the surplus value generated by others, cooperatives work to reduce the SNLT required to manufacture a commodity

basically every of the 3 sectors will do that, a logistic co-op would therefore wrk to reduce the amount of labour needed to delivery, i.e. automate delivery and so on

Dude I don't think he even knows what profit is. I think he just thinks profit is, like, revenue or something.

smh

Why do you thing that capitalism reduces the SNLT? it's because of the competition for super profits, without it there wouldn't be the drive for investement in new tecnologies, but in a planned economy you can direct part of the social product for this end without being restricted by the necessity of making profits.

Of course they do, just because you devide the revenue equally between the co-op workers doesn't mean that they don't have to reinvest part of it for the reproduction of the process if they want to keep existing, unless your talking about a country wide monoply owned by everybody that doesn't care about profit(planned economy).

So what is profit?

Profit is what's left over from revenue after Porky has paid for overhead and has paid wages to workers. In a co-op, this money just goes to the workers so there is no profit.

It only does this within very narrow confines. Capitalism will reduce SNLT such that the cost of production is minimized without lowering it so much that proles can't afford to return their wages as payment for commodities. In a co-operative the drive to lower SNLT exists because people would rather work less for the same amount of money. If any one person can find a more efficient way to work, everybody benefits when it's implemented so you lose the cutthroat competition you normally get in capitalism where people hide that information so they can use it as a bargaining chip to climb the ladder.

Co-ops are a planned economy in the sense that the workers have democratic control and plan what to do. It's more decentralized than if there's a communist party planning things, but it's still planning as opposed to doing whatever the market dictates.

This gets paid first. The money left over goes to the workers. This also creates an incentive to lower overhead because that means the workers will get more money.

Again, there's no profit. What people care about maximizing is the value of their time. They want to lower the SNLT and raise the efficiency of production because it means more money in their pocket relative to time spent at work. If you have a state power planning the economy you will get people upset about this and try to fight it. If you restructure the economy from the ground up they will be glad for the power they personally now enjoy. It's also a lot easier to explain this system to people who are used to capitalism and they tend to be a lot more willing to "be their own boss" instead of cede power to some spooky state.

and why do you think markets reducing the SNLT is a drawback? the competition of super profits exists because of property rights, not because of the reduction of SNLT alone

you can, sure, but that doesn't mean they will, in a market economy, the desire of lowering the SNLT exists by design, in a planned economy, the desire for lowering the SNLT comes from intent, if the planning authorities do not intent to reduce the SNLT of the production of a certain economy, they social product won't be directed there

It is easy to understand how the party will use their authority to direct the social value towards a sector that will help them mantain their position of power, Bakunin literally told you about this, dog, and it happened in the soviet union

except that cycle still exists under planned economies, the difference is the revenue is distributed according to the descisions of the planning authority, the surplus product obtained after labour is injected into raw materials, after every productive cycle, cannot be lower than the intial amount of product, otherwise the workers wouldn not have create any use values

the planner must therefore understand that part of the surplus product must be re-invested, so that labourers can re-start the productive cycle at the end of the consumption cycle of the values just manufactured, in the intial productive cycle. the planning authorities still have to reinvest part of it in the reroduction of the process

as an example,let's take fuel, central planners do not only have to produce enough fuel to power the trucks for the work necessary in the current productive cycle, but have to produce a surplus so that the trucks are able to function when the next productive cycle starts

same with any other commodity, we can't produce just the necessary food for today, as we have to eat breakfast tomorrow, and we will have to eat lunch at mid-day, while the production of commodities, for the next day is still an incomplete process

there is still a "profit" in central planned economies it is simply distributed by the planning authority, therefore the workers do not get to keep the fruits of labour

what the fuck, how do you engage in a productive cyclo and not end up with a surplus of product?

Yes, but it is not a planned systsme because workers do not produce X amount of commodities, despite the idea that perhaps they won't sell nearly half, or that they might need twice the amount of product to meet demand curves

co-ops respond to market forces, they plan the qualitative aspects of a commodity, but they do not plan the quantitive aspects of commodities

there, made that sentce a bit clearer

Yeah, that's an important clarification.

It is possible.

Assuming only popular opinion can determine "use value", his answer is correct, since managers (of Central Planning) get themselves evaluated not according to the "profit", but according to the opinion of the population (even if it might be expressed indirectly).

I.e. population "orders" products postfactum.

I distinctly remember something along the lines of "Socialism is not about state doing things".

And you can't have Planning outside of state. Socialism is explicitly about "state doing things" (except it's Socialist state doing things, of course).

Reminder.

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Actually, yes. That's what it means.

The idea is that "profit" (surplus product) in Planned economy can be spent either on improving life of workers, or on increase of productive forces - which will, eventually, increase amount of surplus and, consequently, increase absolute amount of surplus spent on worker well-being.

Wrong.

What exists is the desire to pay less. As extinction of Europeans shows it is quite possible to pay below SNLT - people don't have enough money to reproduce.

What happened in Soviet Union? Are you seriously trying to tell that Soviet economy collapsed because all the money went to some "Secret Police"?

Why do I think it's the same poster?

Yeah I'm not read or anything but i listened to Wolff as he was posted here and he seems to go with the "Democracy and then we will see approach". An approach which seems pretty ironic, in ignoring the environment and external factors that "democracy" is happening in.
It's kind of funny how he recycles the "economists ignore things outside the market" meme while advocating for co-ops, and nothing else.

Hell, you need only live through an election cycle in the first world to see what happens when "democracy" is used to legitimize.
But, I'm sure all the coops will not be beholden to the will of the market, or maybe the market is , as libertarians claim a neutral entity that allocates worth according to merit /s

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He was talking about the liberal notions about socialism, "its just big government!" meme.
.

Yes. He is suggesting Paris Commune. First Anarchist (AnCap) attempt at Revolution. Only less violence, because non-violent revolution is such a novel idea that was never tried and is bound to work.

I must say the lack of non-verbal cues is exacerbated by the excess of autism non-orthodox thought on the Internet. Sometimes it's really hard to tell if it's sarcasm or not.

I'm assuming it is.

He also extensively shits on USSR in general (going as far as openly lying about Planned Economy being anti-Bolshevik and anti-Leninist, State Capitalism being defined by Lenin as Planned Economy - not NEP, and so on) and had wrote a book about how it was not real Communism, creating his own definition of Capitalism and Socialism/Communism in progress.

Yes, this specific phrase might be interpreted as "anti-liberal propaganda", but not in the context of his works and lectures in general.

He is explicitly Anarchist about revolution and is against labour division (hence Anarcho-Wolffism) - i.e. any realistic Central Planning, since managing things on a national level is a full-time job for many thousands of specialists (if not tens of thousands).

His demands are so unrealistic, it is worse than actual liberal propaganda. Moreover, his co-ops ideas ignore the backbone of Capitalism - ownership of the MoP.

But electing slave drivers does not abolish slavery, it's a transition from Slavery to Feudalism. Or, in his case, to the rule of Financial Capital.

Wolff advocates general planning in a way to not scare anyone.

youtu.be/BJa8y7MX9i4?t=1678

Wolff went through a time when the left was purged, crushed, and became a slur in the US. He goes on in the video at the end on why he goes on about co-ops, it gets people excited. It captures the imagination of people.

Are you retarded?

He wrote his bullshit book in 2002. Way after the McCarthy.

How else are you going to determine value of things?

Via Free Market?

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Everyone but tankies do, the only people who believes the USSR was communist are tankies.
Why in the living fuck are you trying to talk about something you clearly have no idea about? He said coops are just a step, not a end all, you're taking his entry level talks to AMERICAN normies way too seriously. Is it so unimaginable that a Marxian economist that takes influence from other socialist economics exist? You do know that their is other socialist economic theory out there right?

WHAT?
Jesus Christ.

Use value is determined by USE! Relative utility is found by aggregating people's rankings of goods. But you also can't make it too democratic, because everyone probably has one thing that is very important to them that isn't popular.

Seriously, the only socialist who don't hold that view of the USSR are tankies.

Most of Planning is not that hard (accomplishable via direct democracy) - you are assuming it requires detailed plans on everything, rather than distribution of budget (as was the case in 20s) on global level, or negotiations on enterprise level.

It's stuff in the middle - balancing demands from the top and suggestions from below - that would be nigh impossible for most people.

USSR was Socialist, you illiterate moron.

Because I read his books. Did you?

I read his "serious" books. You can't weasel out of it.

What Socialist Economics? AnCap Paris Commune? Because Catalonia was using Soviet model for economy.

Sure. But it's not "other Marxist" theory. There is only one Marxist theory.

Unless you are SocDem (Centrist), you have to use either Marxist (tankie) or Anarchist approach. There simply are no other major ideologies (minor include Amish).

It's simple as that.

>Use value is determined by USE! Relative utility is found by aggregating people's rankings of goods.
Which is not public opinion?

You aren't making much sense.

Despite the criticism of it, are you even aware of the praise he gave the USSR economy?

He also praised kolkhozs for being Communist - not Socialist, Communist.

With Marxists "Marxians" like these, who needs Capitalists?

And success of Soviet economy (especially 30s-50s) is a fact. Admitting it is not a praise. The question is how you interpret it.

marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

R E L E V A N T

"By adopting NEP we made a concession to the peasant as a trader, to the principal of private trade; it is precisely for this reason (contrary to what some people think) that the cooperative movement is of such immense importance. All we actually need under NEP is to organize the population of Russia in cooperative societies on a sufficiently large-scale, for we have now found the degree of combination of private interest, of private commercial interest, with state supervision and control of this interest, that degree of its subordination to the common interests which was formerly the stumbling block for very many socialists. Indeed, the power of the state over all large-scale means of production, political power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured proletarian leadership of the peasantry, etc. — is this not all that is necessary to build a complete socialist society out of cooperatives, out of cooperatives alone, which we formerly ridiculed as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to treat as such now, under NEP? Is this not all that is necessary to build a complete socialist society? It is still not the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for it.

It is this very circumstance that is underestimated by many of our practical workers. They look down upon cooperative societies, failing to appreciate their exceptional importance, first, from the standpoint of principal (the means of production are owned by the state), and, second, from the standpoint of transition to the new system by means that are the simplest, easiest and most acceptable to the peasant."

I just think his error is overestimating the helpfulness of the state in creating or legitimizing cooperatives. The goal of organized cooperative society is wonderful, but these days I don't even have faith in seizing state power, or really much believe in a state power as the legitimizer of cooperative networks. Maybe some comrades can set me straight here.

Please note this is very late Lenin, 1923, and I think very important to understand his thoughts. He even reneges on NEP! Can any tankies or ML's tell us more about cooperatives in Stalin's Russia and beyond?

Communist=/=Socialist, again no one but tankies believe that the USSR was socialist, if that is what socialism is to you guys then fine.
You would know his stance on coops actually not being a end all and the other socialist economics he took influence from if you did, but clearly you don't.

He defended the USSR economy from critics that said it was a complete FAILURE.

Were supported by state (reduced bureaucracy, lower taxation, etc.).

By 50s co-ops (i.e. non-agrarian co-ops) constituted ~6% of Soviet economy (IIRC ~15% if we are talking industry), but in 1956-1961 were forcibly nationalized during de-stalinization campaign.

At the same time ('56-'61) agrarian co-ops (kolkhozs) got hit by forcible privatization of agrarian machinery, which crippled them financially, but kolkhozs remained backbone of Soviet farming (~95%) until the end. Very few survived the 90s, but some are still rich and functioning.

Tankies are truly the most greatest minds on this board.

The USSR was a capitalist society. Everything that is criticized as capitalist by Marx existed in the form of a Soviet state. The entirety of the country acted as a single capitalist as all of the functions remained present.

Alienation and exploitation were both present. Workers did not control the means of production. Even if they did, MCM' production still existed as well as wage labor.

Especially planned production. Marx's critique was vicious in that section of Capital.

DO NOT EXPECT MY REPLIES HERE

If anyone wants to continue discussion on RDWolff, State Capitalism or whatever, proceed here >>>/marx/4423

If someone actually wants to argue that that Proudhonists of Paris Commune weren't Anarchist, and the result of their policies should not be described as AnCap, feel free to post your opinion there too: I'll make Paris Commune thread and we'll have a discussion.

That said, I don't believe anyone cares about this (yes, that includes mod).

Good riddance, I hope for the good of Holla Forums you never come back.

I'm pretty sure you are exploiting the surplus learning of your students

I agree with
You are wasting your time here.

Literally any other board but Holla Forums and Holla Forums is more effective to agitate and discuss on than Holla Forums. This here is an anarkiddy echochamber with an equal if not worse amount of meme spouting idiotic shitposting.
Any attempt of discussions is drowned under this. Stick to /marx/ if you want real effort quality postings and let this place here shit itself to death, as anarkiddies always end up doing.

If you want to do something productive, help shitting up this place by baiting and false flagging as an anarkiddy and look at them eating it up and discrediting themself in the long term.

Why did the mod get so triggered? What the fuck is wrong with this place.

This sounds awfully similar to the retarded arguments of Mises and co of how free markets magically increase competition, productivity and make everything better because of muh invisible hand or whatever.

Markets are random and uncontrollable by design, they add a completely unnecessary step in the production of commodities.

And why is that? I mean we can argue about the definition of state and whatnot but why can't planning be done by, say, a union dedicated precisely for this job, whose members are chosen democratically from branches of industry?

I have no clue what that argument was, but it doesn't look ban-worthy. I've removed the ban.

coops are what we should be pushing for in Reformist social dem politics.

They at least give people a "taste" of what Socialism could be like on a micro level at least.

They are not a path to a Socialist society though. They do help Class Consciousness, but by changing to Coop based market capitialism, that doesn't mean Socialism will come.

Co-ops can be used to organize and pool resources for revolution.

Also call the vol a giant faggot.

Most anarchism is ridiculed and rejected here, thre are far more socialist state supporters even if only for a "transition government.

This.
Coops and communes within capitalist countries are stepping stones. They are not a solution but they sure as hell should not be discouraged.

Oh fuck me I missed the most important part. Co-ops are supposed to coordinate with unions so that they can use their resources to help support strikes or even bring on workers fed up with wage slavery. This is the process by which class consciousness is raised and by which the power of capitalism is disrupted. Co-ops leech workers from capitalists until the revolution comes, ideally weakening the hegemony of capital as much as possible so that the revolution is as decisive as possible.

this
welcome to the amazing world of deleonism.