I've been reading about labour vouchers and SNLT, but there's one problem that doesn't seem to be solved

So why shouldn't our factory collective get more labour vouchers if we figure out how to build widgets faster?

Bump. This is an actual flaw that ought to be addressed.

No, you are forgetting the most important part. The point is to reach post-scarcity (for daily necessities). Improving the production process can help us reach that point. Even if labour vouchers are necessary for lower stages of communism, it is not the goal for workers to maximize the number of vouchers they possess relative to others. If the workers still think in these lines, then I doubt that they ever reached the lower stages of communism at all.

The socially necessary labour time to make the widget drops. The workers in the efficient factory make double the widgets as everyone else, and get full labour vouchers. The other factories however don't produce as much in the eight hours. Their labour was not a socially valuable, so they receive less vouchers. Also, if demand does not go up, all factories have to produce less, the 7,6h you pointed to. In reality, it means some people are freed from widget production and, rather than that they all work less.
The relative position of the innovator improves.
The totally socially necessary time to produce widgets is reduced.
You have to keep in mind that it is a dynamic system.

Is there really a distinction between "necessity" and "luxury" in Marxism?
">A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production."

If a factory can make it in 4 hours the socially necessary labour time is 4 hours, and all the workers of any of the plants get paid 4 hours.

This is basic fucking LTV.

But that means I am getting punished for being more efficient, because now I'm getting less labour vouchers.

OK, so the efficient factory remains the same and the other ones get their labour vouchers halved.
Instead of elevating the efficient ones, you lower the inefficient ones.

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Yes, if I make a widget in 4 hours and someone else makes it in 8, then I should either be given double the labour vouchers for my 8 hours of daily work or the other guy a.k.a doofus should have his labour vouchers halved for not being as competent.

That sounds more complicated to implement rather than just give the efficient team more labour vouchers instead.

Why the fuck would each factory collective have their own R&D department? That's fucking stupid.

so brainwash the workers into accepting positive communist thought?

If you work on something, you gain direct knowledge of the process, which means you have much more insight of how things actually work. Kai-zen, my friend.

If you increase production a single labour voucher can also buy you more products.

No, it won't. Not when it's only one product that you might not need directly.

Yes, but also free people from working on widgets. Those can go on to do other socially necessary labour. If we go by the classical assumption that an increase in supply will lower price, the labour of the freed people will lower the cost of the cost of other commodities. So even for the less efficient workers, cost of living goes down.
But yeah, they get less. What do you want, to reward inefficiency?

He means that the RD department could be common for all factories working with the same tech and work cycle. This way you can use the collective data and work experience to help the RD department.

But you aren't. You just produce twice as many products.
And of course the innovation will be shared with all other factories. There might be a transitional period where the factories using the old technology still get paid in full, but once the new invention is implemented everywhere there is no difference but an increase in the amount of widgets produced.

Nope. If you invented something you can get a medal and a job in the design bureau but you shouldn't get paid more. The objective is to improve the conditions of all workers not just the most competent ones.

I just wanted to make sure I got it right. The outcome is still the same, whether you elevate the efficient or lower the inefficient.

Does not sound like much of an incentive.

You have no idea what motivates people when it comes to intellectual pursuits like research

Must be nice to be a mindreader like yourself, professor X.

No, he's saying that if one factory finds a way to produce more efficiently then they can all implement that method, since there would be no point in keeping it to themselves.

wouldn't it be easier to give the good workers more vouchers instead of lowering everyone but the good workers? it would make the good workers social outcasts for making everyone else being paid less.

in an age of automation, will there even be any socially necessary labour to distribute?

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Blah blah Maslow's hierarchy of needs blah blah

So you didn't even watch it then did you?

Can't play webms on my phone.

That's kind of a complicated question.
On the one hand, we'll have less and less people working the machines, and those that do will be specialists, so their labour can't be distributed. You'll have a class of specialists working the machines, and others who simply couldn't work them even if they wanted to. We are in part there now qua stemlords.
What of the other people, former workers now "obsolete"? If we take the maxim "if you don't work you don't eat" to the logical limit, they will not receive any labour vouchers from their indolence. Of course, they won't want to starve, so they will need to acquire labour vouchers some way. Lacking labour, only service is left open to them - to quite literally serve the few remaining machinists of capital, in exchange for a part of their labour vouchers. This is where a pure theory of labour vouchers as emancipatory entirely breaks down, it becomes the dictatorship of the stemlords and super stars (who produce spectacle commodities), and of course the bureaucrats implementing the vision of the Party.
Or we could choose not be fools about this and realize that automation brings the possibility of communism. We start to communize an ever expanding sphere of commodities, things people will have access to as they need them without having to do necessary labour on the commodities, meaning that even those who won't work will have the benefit of the commons and not be condemned to starve or serve. The idea of "from each according to his ability" here becomes a bit one sided for what commodities are concerned, the machinists giving labour while other's don't, but I don't see another way out that doesn't end in a re-establishing of class society.

I suppose that works too.

If history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, then a new STEM-lord ruling class being created would be the logical outcome, based on previous history. There's nothing preventing a communist society to revert back to a class society.

Well I'll give you the synopsis on the part that matters for your argument.
A study funded by the Federal Reserve and conducted by Economist from MIT, University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon showed that monetary or fiscal incentives only produced the commonly head belief of pay more get better outcome ONLY when it is basic cognitive skills/physical ability and anything above rudimentary cognitive skills not only does that not work but it is the opposite. Those who were given the highest monetary incentive for some cognitive objective did the absolute worst.

So your assertion that no one would be incentivized to find or create new ways to increase efficiency or output because they would not get payed more sounds at least on the surface to be right but when studied the opposite is true.

People don't innovate because they want more stuff or money. People innovate because there is some inherent quirk or aspect to us that wants to improve our and those around us's lot in life. We are an inherently cooperative species stemming all the way back to our ancestors swinging from trees.

So to simplify it, the worker won't create a better widget making machine because it gets him more of a different widget the will do it simply because they want to.

This is retarded. The Atlassian example has no quantifiable meaning and is therefore invalid. And Linux is developed by volunteers. No its fucking not you imbecile.

A handful of wonky studies in wonky test groups with wonky science don’t give you an argument for the burning container of bullshit you dropped here.

Everybody wants their meal, and guess what, in software that means flexing in OSS, and subsequently getting paid to do OSS.

That’s just the digital dream. You’re your own shop. Sure feels good to know your stuff, but you wouldn’t need to know it if it weren’t for your family, and the roof, and the stew.

hell yeah, if there was no monetary incentive to do anything everyone would just sit around looking at the fucking wall all day

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Scientists used to be aristocrats and nobles if we go further back. I am pretty sure these people had enough money. Innovation within agriculture wasn't because some dude thought: "Let's make some money today!" and he finished his innovation by the next day.

I didn’t mention cash, I mentioned stew, you cunt.

Even vegans kill for stew.

How about the opportunity to have kids with your love and a good life in a country of your choosing? That oughta’ motivate people.

Don’t mistake the nerds for autistic artsy dweebs. We’re in it for the meat.

If we're looking at the emerging power relations of commodity production, this seems to be the case. Then again, life is about more than commodity production. Organizing your society and the relations within it purely along the lines of commodity production, has to go eventually.

The individuals who created the new, more efficient method should be rewarded, while the other workers should receive the same amount of vouchers despite working less, since it was outside of their control that the means of production were changed because of some guys' idea.

Efficiency is an objective function and anyone who increases it, be it a smart worker, an engineer or a scientist should be encouraged to pursue it, all while not causing harm to all the rest of the people who had nothing to do with the improvement (the displaced workers, in our case).

Terrible idea. If there are two industries, both starting out with workers working equal hours for equal vouchers, and one of the industries is by coincidence more prone to innovation, the workers in that one will have to work less and less to make the same amount of vouchers as workers in the other sector, who keep the old work hours because their industry is not becoming more effective. You are dividing labour time purely based on accident of technology.

So what you want is communism.

I'm an engineer and software developer who does a lot of not-for-profit stuff.

The increase/decrease of labour vouchers would cause inflation/deflation, which is against Marxism as far as I can tell.

Why not use energy over time instead of labour over time? I don't see why this would be an issue, since labour is energy used over a period of time.

Use markets instead. There, problem solved.

didnt proudhon basically invent the concept of labour vouchers?

Science was invented by bored rich dudes who had nothing better to do. But sure, you need """incentive"""

My nigga.

Nah. He's the father anarchy. Mutualism does like labor vouchers but that happened after Warren and Owens created the idea.

The new, efficient method is adopted and the factory simply has fewer work hours.

I should be noted that as things become more efficient, goods become cheaper until they're basically free.

So, all workers at all factories only work 4 hours now, but 4 hours labor time can gives them the same amount of goods 8 hours labor time used to.

If the problem here is that they get more efficient while the rest of society doesn't and they need more hours, they can simply be trained in other lines of work.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services

This thread is nothing but concern trolling.
Fuck off and read TANS.

The widgets aren't necessarily something individuals consume. They can be train parts or something else.

I've read towards a new socialism and there's nothing mentioning this scenario.