Has anybody actually read this book? Does it go in the "bullshit" pile or "genuine theory" pile?

...

I'll do it: The book basically analyzes the USSR as well as sources of inequality in society. Then it proposes to implement the labor voucher system Marx proposed in critique of the Gotha program, except he goes into maths details about how to actually do it using computers. He covers basic concepts of planning, both on a large scale and micro scale, information, trade, e-democracy, etc. Whats important about it is that he BTFOs the austrian ECP, his critique is basically the only one ive seen that takes it head on.
Heres a short (12 min) video explaining the history of economic planning, etc.:
youtube.com/watch?v=y_iiacXiJYE

Thank you, probably the first time I've ever seen his ideas explained. I'll watch the video when I get back home

Ok first of all I should say that reading Cockshott is different to reading Marx or Bakunin, it is indeed not a praxis book neither a philosphical one , he does not explain how to do the revolution, or how the individual man changes under socialism (at least this is not the main focus of the book).
Cockshott working over other leftist ideas supposes you have had a succesfull revolution and explains from an economic and administartive point, how to organize a succesful socialist planned economy. Looking on how socialist countries could have done better ,what should be changed and what maintained, and how they should have introduced a democratic control over the economy.
So if you like economics or want to now how a socialist nation could be succesfully organized, Cockshott is probably one of the best works out there.
He also adresses in the book, some critiques/misconceptions of a socialist economy (such as the austrian school ones) and basically BTFOs them.

"Scientific socialism" is probably one of the most abused terms in history, right up there with fake Marxists (you know who I'm talking about) using "dialectics" to cover up their massive flaws and appear more "intellectual" and "thoughtful" than they really are without understanding the first thing about Hegel or Marx's development of him.
Did you know that the idea of history as a materialist process where the actions of people are determined by their material circumstances has its origins with Robert Owen? Though he was not a "scientific socialist" and did not describe himself as such, he saw himself as being scientific in his analyses of human behavior and what changes in material circumstances could improve them. What was interesting about scientific socialism as a distinct category of the broader term "socialism" was that it brought together this with an analysis of affairs-as-they-exist based in economics and philosophy (and eventually in a critique of them as well) and how tendencies within these affairs could be used to actively grow a new society out of them. It's not even necessary that a socialism be revolutionary to be scientific, speaking in the most abstract terms. This notion of praxis and its accompanying theory is absent in Cockshott - there is a vast divide between his works on a historical materialism and his proposals for what socialism should look like, and this undermines the high quality of both. It is in investigating and critiquing both while devising a method which connects their basic premises that we must develop past Cockshott's body of work as a whole while using it if we want to build a modern scientific socialism.

Good summary.

he has a shit-eating grin of a first world problems professor. looks like he needs to die.

Well into the trash it goes!

Chaya Bat-Tzvi please stop being edgy.

that book is basically "USSR was dank but not replacing bureaucrats with computers was mistake"

Yea except youre fucking wrong

No. His definition of "socialism" doesn't just follow the counter-revolutionary Stalinist redefinition of socialism as more than a synonym for communism ("communism" being used polemically against bourgeois hijacking of the term "socialism"), but he considers many "actually existing socialism"s of the 20th century, notably post-NEP Russia as socialism. Then comes the best part: his problem with them is little more than the fact that these red bureaucracies failed to be properly efficient red bureaucracies. What he wants, and this is mirrored in his political past (BICO and other ML groups), is "socialism" to be exactly as such: a bureaucracy centrally allocating labour and capital under a nominally communist party, but that it's so efficient at being centralized capital that it won't need to decentralize itself as it did in the USSR. This is "new socialism" for Cockshott, and it's no wonder that the STEMlords here and their genuinely impressive mathematical and computational skills have no understanding of Marx and Marxism with the genesis of the value form, the (Marxist) notion of private property (and how far it extends) and wage-labour (that goes beyond just being vulgarly imagined as demanded by a personalized individual/minority of capitalists). They believe in the existence of "Marxist/Marxian economics" and that you can conceptually make use of Marx individually, rather than viewing what Marx gives us as a necessarily all-encompassing understanding of capital that must then also in every way be negated to see actual socialism exist. The fact that Cockshott is a blueprinter is the least of our concerns: it's that the blueprint itself is based on an utterly counter-revolutionary stagism (hard to call it as such, as in TANS and in the BICO he frequently expressed that he thought "higher stage" communism to be impossible), but also just a desire to trap society as perpetually as possible into centralized capital .

I've got muke-tier reading comprehension, this is best I can summarize book into one sentence after reading it once. Can you do better?

That's unironically the best TL;DR. Cockshott does not concern himself with the workers' movement (real movement) at all, nor the negation of capital and the form a workers' movement would take (party, union, council, etc.). What he wants is capitalism under the red operating system and at the barrel of the latest Kalashikov model.

Yea sure he wants capitalism by abolishing production for exchange, wage labour, classes and the value form, and giving all of society democratic choice in planning the economy.

Does he? "Abolished production for exchange" here is defined exactly the same as it was under the USSR: the allocation of commodities (as the deposit of wage-labour, measured in roubles!) directly by central planning authorities doesn't qualify as exchange, the very "socialism" as such he saw it, but not computerized and efficient enough.

(See above.)

"Socialism" in one cooperative constitutional republic, nice.

>But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians.
(marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm)

A state is not "anything that is orginisation" you retard. From your own quote
A "state" without classes, without a capitalist form of production, is not a fucking state. A state is an instrument of class rule, not "any form of organisation".

Also you refute yourself.
>the allocation of commodities (as the deposit of wage-labour, measured in roubles!)

(this means that the ussr didnt abolish wage labour, which mean you cant say he does the same as the ussr, cause he didnt).

Hyped for the new arrested development season?

Where did I suggest as such? Where did I oppose organization? Seriously, if your next post doesn't answer this I won't bother replying to someone not just ignorant in basic Marx, but someone that replies to things that aren't there.

>A state is an instrument of class rule, not "any form of organisation".
It's almost as if the apparition of the State determines and reaffirms the existence of classes. Let's skim over the same passage again:
>The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital.
It's almost as if a society with just one nominal proletarian (wage-labouring) class is already a State, but that it can then also not be a proletarian State because it would make this one class an abstract capitalist one in charge of managing capital. It's almost as if the significance of classless implies no classes, not one or one in the abstract, and that all classes reflect a form of management in the mode of production (generalized commodity production).

No you fucking retard. Just because a form of orginisation exists and you call it a state, doesnt mean there are classes.
Marx was talking about modern states, in his time. About a state, an instrument of class rule. If you cannot grasp the difference between marx talking about "states as they exist while im writing this" and "any possible form of organisation for the coordination of society" then I dont know how im ever going to convince you that youre being a stupid contrarian tard.

Holy fuck you are retarded. If there is only one class, then everyone belongs to that class. If there is only one class, there is no class, because class is by its definition a fundamental difference in relationship to the means of production between groups of people. If there are no fundamental differences, there are no seperate groups of people, there is no class. IT IS CLASSLESS.

What cockshott proposes isnt "commodity production". Commodities are things that are produced by human labour and sold on a market. If there is no production for exchange, then there is no commodity production, nothing gets commodified. Instead, things are made for their use value, production for use is a fundamental part of a communist society.

I dont have to give a purposefully contrarian retard "all ive got". Using an ancom flag doesnt make you smarter, it just signals that you will dismiss any and all things because you will twist words and definitions, just to be contrarian.
Go fuck yourself.

leftcom, sorry

So let's call a not-a-state not a state and assumes Lenin and Stalin lived like the poor peasants.

Lets stop being a fucking retarded strawmanning LARPer and stop pretending that TANS proposes stalinistic economic policies or power structures, because it doesnt.
Lets also stop pretending that a stata continues to be a state when the capitalist form of production and classes have been abolished, because it won't be. That is what "the withering away of the state" means, the turning of the state from a capitalist instrument of class rule into an administrative, democratic entity.
To quote the meme man himself, pic related.

Oh no, you're still retarded. I'll go halfway just to entertain you one last time; give you one more chance to offer me something of substance or stop bothering.

Where did I give the definition for and prerequisites for State that is "because I call it as such"? I invoked class (extended form of labour's division) as its necessary expression, generalized commodity prouction (capitalism) as its modern and final expression and wage-labour (that which produces value) as the condition it ensures and preserves. You managed to strawman phantoms in my arguments (Marxist ones!) at the very first reply.

It's already a problem that you aren't familiar with that citation and reasoning, don't know that the passage is from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific which is Engels', but that you also don't directly see Engels here speaks of the only type of form the state can undertake is the representation of one mode of management or the other (and capitalism is a mode of production, not of management!).

Since you're already invoking Marx, find me a place where he (it's Engels here, so scour in his works, too if you wish) speaks of the possibility of a "state socialism". I'll go ahead and refer you to Marx's first economic manuscripts' Wages and Labour chapter, Engels' Anti-Dühring chapter 26, with a bonus of this new gem I found: marxists.org/archive/miliband/1965/xx/state.htm.

See, this is funny, because Marx directly confronted this notion. It was the subject of his entire debate with Proudhon during the IWA period: that you cannot have a "one-class" society that isn't just a society where the capitalist exists in a societal abstract:
[…]
(From the same manuscripts you're going to read on the subject of the State's very nature.)

Ultimately, I think the funniest thing is that I'm only halfway and can still reassert two basic things about Marx anyone knows: that for Marx, "socialism and communism" are synonymous, and that the common vulgar definition at its basic of communism for Marx is not just classless, but also stateless and moneyless. The role of the State for Marx towards this exists only for as long as there is still capitalism: for as long as workers directly dictate the total abolition of all elements internal to capitalism, the State withers away after losing raison d'être and there is post-capitalism, with a communistic lower stage with the free association of individuals.

From what I read, it's the USSR with Skynet instead of Stalin.

There is no such thing as state socialism. If you have socialism, the state isnt a state anymore.
Which is not what TANC proposes. Nowhere does it have production for exchange.

Labour vouchers arent money -> there isnt production for exchange -> there isnt wage labour -> Theres no classes -> Theres no state -> its socialims/communism

Why in order:
1. Marx said so
2. Commodities arent produced for exchange value
3. Workers do not sell their labour as a commodity
4. If theres no wage labour and control over the means of production by the workers, theres no classes
5. If theres no classes, theres no state
6. Theres no money, no state and no classes. Its communism.

Nowhere did i make the distinction between socialism and communism btw, i used them interchangeably.

Anyway im not going to argue against someone so self-righteous as you.

Nigger what?

What kind of doublespeak is this?

This is why nobody takes leftists seriously.

Simple logic.

Also im not talking to you, im talking to leftcom, a group of people who are extremely orthodox and insist on not distinguishing socialism and communism like everyone does nowadays, but who insist on using communism and socialism interchangable.

Explain your simple logic.

And people said utopian socialism is dead.

Maybe i didnt explain properly, sorry about that:

A state is defined, as leftcom pointed out, as a tool for capitalistic class rule.
Socialism is the abolishment of class and capitalism.
Therefore socialism cannot have what marxists define as a "state".
Functions such as coordinating the economy and whathaveyou are not what makes a state a state, even if the state today does this to some degree. Socialism will still coordinate the economy, and have an organisation to do so, which will be what remains of the former "state" once class and capitalism are abolished.

I know, right? And in the same thread he said a single-class society consisting of proletarians (wage-labourers) is classless, but then insists that wage-labour doesn't exist but that the USSR was socialism (as per Cuckshitt) (even though it had money-capital) but that it wasn't efficient, also we need the USSR but with labour vouchers (we've gone from money-capital society with state centralization is socialism, but socialism is with labour vouchers and other hypothetical means to allocate utility), also defacto commodities (note how he reveals his terrible understanding before with "If there is no production for exchange, then there is no commodity production" showing that he doesn't even believe in the former definition he gave to commodities, which also reveals that he views a market exclusively as exchange relation between personified capital, not capital regardless of mode of management!).

You're either a right-winger or the rare ultra on the board who hates (most) leftists like most of me, and I don't know which possibility I enjoy more while agreeing with you.

I was talking to a guy who likely has a much better understanding of computer languages, mathematics and logistics, and which is very commendable, but who, like Cockshott, has obtained an understanding of Marx infected with the counter-revolutionary pseudo-understanding of the post-'24 Comintern's and the reality of Stalinist Russia as a manifestation of socialism.

Leftcoms, use the same definitions as normal people.

So…did feudalism have a state or not?

No? What the fuck are you talking about of course feudalism didnt have a fucking state. It had a feudal lords.

Oh okay.

So I guess a kingdom isn't a state.

Very good mate. Thats exactly the point.

The correct term here would be labour and means of production. And processing data centrally is necessary for a more efficient allocation. Splitting things up into many different regions administrating things internally leads to a lot of silly decisions for areas near the borders. Of course, everybody from anarchists to what-have-you immediately sees a potential new ruling class here in the group that makes decisions at the center with that data, which is why sortition is a part of the package Cockshott proposes. You can't trust parliamentarians or managers with setting their own salary, so some basic decisions like what the maximum income of a person can be should be set by referenda.

I'm not sure why that's a hip insult. I certainly have encountered dumber people than STEMlords. There are some bad stereotypes, like exaggerated belief in the pace of technical progress during the tech bubble in the late 90s and the endless hype about that in WIRED and other media, the most extreme branch believing in some AI explosion called the Singularity. But not everybody bought into that of course, most nerds didn't actually, not even during the hype (the media picture is misleading), and now it's certainly even fewer than back then. One apt comment about the Singularity was rapture for nerds. I think that's also a fitting term for how leftcoms "conceive" socialism. Cheers.

A classless and moneyless society could still have a state.

It wouldnt be a state my marxist definitions.

Damnit I gotta indulge you again before my smoke.

If you're gonna misrepresent me, don't be this obvious. The State, for me and Marx, is defined as instrument of class rule, not capitalistic class rule. The State's existence is years old and precedes not just the capitalist (generalized commodity producing) mode of production, but also that of feudalism (landed and limited commodity production) and ancient modes of production (limited, slave-labour commodity production). The State as defined by Marx, and many others before him, as the reflection of the existence of classes: its vehicle, that which constitutionalizes the mode of production.

Here you show how hard you personalize modes of production. Feudal empires, more and more mercantile, on top of being defined by Marx as states, nominally called themselves states ("State of ___").

You are beyond hope.

No, because the state exists to accomodate the first first and second second (they demand the State and constitute one). Engels said "the state is not abolished, it withers away" precisely for this reason: all those who oppose the State must oppose its conditions or they will just defacto replace it with a State.

And what if the state doesn’t wither away?

Halfway through it right now and it's legit as fuck. Cybernetic Socialism is the only way. (After Market Socialism)

...

give it a break, I doubt you even actually read the book
also Karl Marx supported Labor Vouchers (which I'm guessing you are opposed to), read Critique of the Gotha Programme.

Remember there leftcoms. They don’t speak english, only baby language.

Reminder.

Then H2 and O never evaporated at all and we clearly need to turn up the heat.

Marxism is a social critique, it can't be made a synonym or ideal to be established for "socialism" or "communism". What's important about Marxism is that it reveals what capitalism and socialism/communism are and are not, what they are made of, etc. We could call communism "fuckingfaggot" and it would be fine as long as "fuckingfaggot" is used to describe something distinct to and post-capitalism.

I read it in the very first "Soviet Cybernetics" thread ever posted on Holla Forums and let my problems with it be heard there before.

Why are you telling me this? The thread is filled with me mentioning them and how they are distinct from what we call money-capital, in particular.

Damn I'm wrong now.

happens

Which posts?

You get re-educated too!

but Marx also defended feminism

if you oppose Cockshott, then you oppose any meaningful system of labor vouchers.

Then prepare to throw out basically all socialist literature.

wtf i love computerized commodity production now?

The first thread featuring the text, or at least the first time I saw it mentioned on Holla Forums, was already quite a while ago. Before the period where the Soviet cybernetics thread was cyclical for a short while and before the current one (another few preceded that one I think). I let know pretty much all the same problems I had with it here.

wtf i hate CotGP now
wtf i hate the entire first section of capital vol. 1 now
wtf i hate the entire 28th chapter of capital vol. 2 now
wtf i hate the entire debate between marx, bernstein and proudhon on labour money versus labour time certificates now
wtf i hate jan appel and the dutch wing of the KAPD's work on organization of the communist mode of production now (for the curious this is really good: marxists.org/subject/left-wing/gik/1930/)
wtf i hate the real movement now

Cockshott openly rejects commodity production, in the second chapter of TANS and dismises Stalins justification for mantaining it.
Read before you say

I also heard to Proudhon opposed it but on closer inspection it turns out Proudhon's understanding of commodity production was a joke and so is Cockshott's.

Based on a memetic understanding of what the commodity form is and how far it goes. Remember that this is revealed by his general characterization of Stalinism as socialism in spite of all other factors that do not make it as such.

One of the reasons why I first even bothered with him despite realizing he was a Stalinist who actively organized with Stalinists and considered the USSR socialist I most importantly went into it because it was kind of a fuss on the board and he mentions Bordiga and Bordiga's views on the USSR. It became apparent that he was full of shit when he said that Bordiga's only concern with Stalin-era Russia was the existence of value as such. Bordiga's biggest issue wasn't merely these established observations: that there was wage-labour, classes (both abstract capitalists because of self-managed capital units in the kolkhozes, but even separate private proprietors and a defacto managerial class in the bureaucracy), private property, money-capital, and so on, but that the Russian proletariat had been stripped entirely of its autonomy and ability to be revolutionary, and that this was a consequence of the Comintern's shift to the right and the counter-revolution turn the losses of the communist movement had taken in Europe. There was not even a proletarian dictatorship in Russia since like the early '20s as Soviets were stripped of power, the party ceased to be a vehicle for class interest, and so forth. The fact that in the entire text Cockshott writes like an economist and not a Marxist bleeds through everything, and it's only logical that the logical end result is an attempt at blueprinting post-capital, while not just failing to qualify as post-capital, but failing to describe the entire context of revolution, whether to yield power through a party (then whether that party should be impossibilist, abstentionist or fully participatory), council, union organizing, etc. or really anything more than the promised mathematized utopia on the other side of things.

Enough of that nonsense. Go read TANS, then we can talk.

Not an argument.

THATS THE FUCKING POINT OF THE BOOK YOU ABSOLUTE TARD

Ok man I'm sure you will contribute much more to the left than him

help

There are no arguments

Tankies like to throw around that word to mean "anyone who isn't a tankie".