Is it wrong for a democratically-owned workplace to make a profit on their production? Why or why not?

They accomplished a lot but the USSR was pretty shitty. People had very little personal choice in their own lives and were alienated from the state they were so dependent on.

full automation has not been implemented today because people need to work in order to obtain a wage in order to consume the products they create, if people have property over the means of production in a socialist manner, they can fully automate all of the production line, and basically let that sector of the industry work by itself

that means there would be extra workforce to engage in more labour consuming activities, decreasing the amount of socially neccesary labour time, eventually ending with automation in that sector with new technologies being developed

its all a repeating cycle, the only people stopping this are the capitalists trying to balance automation and the amount of workers in order to keep their façade afloat

remember workiers co-ops don't have to compete againts eachother for profit, but to decrease the amount of SNLT

Either, why would one be fundamentally different than the other?

It would be immediately preferable to capitalism, and I'm for it, but ultimately producing things exclusively for use rather than to sell is the end goal.

Market socialism has some issues in that it maintains a profit oriented economy and the logic of capital, as well as market forces that I would argue limit people's agency.

It's certainly not ideal, but it is definitely superior to capitalism and would work well as a transitional period between capitalism and socialism. Why leftcoms can't admit that it has any use at all is beyond me.

People are alienated from the State by definition. That's hardly a criticism of one State against another.

let's start talking in the present time, it has been proven co-ops are better in the current capitalist system than centralized industry, a co-op would have to exploit itself to compete against the capitalists, we agree with this right?

however at what point are you self-exploting yourself? how is starting a revolution and still having to work under a planned economy, communal ownership, marxist-leninist dictatorship, whatever not exploiting yourself? if you are labeling working as self-exploitation then you are still exploiting yourself under whatever regime you stablish after the revolution

it doesn't make any sense to call exploitation to the ability to construct more efficient machines to lower the amount of labour needed to create a product as some nerds on this board claim, its completly the opposite

under the current economic system, a workers co-op could fully automate their production line and still obtain a "profit" in the form of curreny by exchanging their products in the market, even if they have to compete againts centralized bourgy production

which means they can use those "profits" to further incrrease their control over the market, outcompeting bourgies

now of course the workers that refused to join the co-op wouldn't enjoy the muh privileges the full automation production line entails, but thats because they decided not to join the movement, just like you could decide not to join an armed revolution

Now if we are talking about an ideal society, in which the bourgy production has already been taken over by co-ops, it doesn't make any sense but to continue the trend of automating all production, even reseach and development, as you would not need to compete againts the capitalists, it would be far easier to achieve post-scarcity now

so yes it is a fundamental difference, one being before, when co-ops would have to compete againts capitalists, engage in market exchange and so on and another one, after the bourgy production cycle, where the only goal would be to automate all forms of work

Co-ops don't solve the fundamental problems of commodity production, currency, and the free market. Sure, you eliminate the capitalist parasitism on the workforce (which also is the largest consumer force), but the relation between company and consumer is also at odds, capitalist or not.

For example, you still are going to have the problem of the commodification of life. It will ALWAYS be monetarily profitable to sell greater amounts of expanding product when under a system that uses currency. This means forced overconsumption, planned obsolesence, waste of resources, environmental corner-cutting, and pushing pollution off onto the rest of the populace. It's not something you can avoid by saying that the workers just won't do it, because they have to because the market effectively forces them to. They have to keep outcompeting one another in atomized, conflicting groups. The bourgeoisie do not do these things that rip into society because they are willfully malicious (usually), but because these things are profitable to do so. Removing the bourgeois does not eliminate this fact, that these actions are profitable for a profit-gaining company to do so. And so the workers are now faced with the decision to either profit and stay market competitive or have a home that isn't polluted.

The only way to truly end this problem is to fully integrate work into society by means of re-evaluating the entirety of labor on the form of how society as a whole functions rather than each individual person. It must be re-analyzed as to how goods are produced on a societal level rather than how each atomized chunk is produced and paid for. Any concept of "profit," of getting out more than what you put in, is fundamentally flawed. It is impossible on a societal level for each person to get out more than what they put in. All profits come out of someone else's pocket. IN the case of market co-ops, this must come out of the cost of the entire rest of society because they have no proletariat underneath them to exploit.

As interesting as market "socialism" is, and though it is different from western liberal capitalism, it is still fundamentally a form of capitalism.

honestly the only one of those that is eliminated by """central""" """planning""" production and its the """free"""market

because at the end, there will be an exchange of commodities between people in the form of banter after they exchange their labour vouchers in the supplyhouse

Labor vouchers done properly eliminate the concept of the commodity by socializing the labor before it even begins.

The problem really does lie in the fact that production is separate from the rest of society.

sure, but why would you need a central authority to do so?

let say I will go to a computer or whatever and ask for the stuff I will need for the next 10 days or whatever period of time, I could do the same under market socialism, without the need of a central authority at all, I could go to a co-op and ask for something, and do the same, sure there is still currency, but labour vouchers are just another form of currency

the literal labour voucher isn't, but the commodity it was exchanged for is, creating the opportunity of a black market ot be created

the chance of a black market emerging still exist, let's say I ask for a commodity, use it but later on I want another one? how much would I have to get to be able to obtain it? do you think I would wait for it if instead I could exchanged one of my existing commodities? I know certain people wouldn't

It's not that I am worrying about having to wait one day for a donut or something, but what about emergency stuff? what about medicine, or medical supplies, or clothing or hygene commodites, car/computer parts, you know commodities which need to be readily available at the shop when I need them, and that you don't know when you are going to need them

you cannot claim the supplyhouse will have them, otherwise where is the planning? are you going to plan and say "well we better make an extra of X just in case", how is that any different from companies creating a production run of X number in order to meet that is tought to exist

Its not and of course any sensible plan would haev additional units to prepare for situations it cant foresee. Nobody stocks up for winter by preparing the exact amount of food they will need, they stock enough so that even in a bad scenario they will survive the winter.

How would a labor voucher system deal with black markets? Suppose someone saves up vouchers and buys out a good and tries to run a black market of that good. What do you do? Vacation in Siberia?

beautifully memed

I'm not sure how you got the idea that it was a central authority dictating this. Central authorities are based on setting a quota for production based on consumption rates.

Read Das Kapital. Or, hell, watch the Law of Value videos.

and we understand that teh same could be done in a market right? after all, you would not only need to prepare for winter, but for literally any other nuisance

now if we understand that both the market and the central authority can do such thing, what would be an argument to pick the central authority one?

I can tell you that without the central authority, no one would need to meet production quotas, so in case something goes bad, nobody would have to ask them for the corn that was going to be used to produce methanol to use it for food

so the would meet supply and demand? alocating labour to the goods demanded by the population and stopping production once the demand+stock are satisfied

see how central planning is literally still a fucking market

Think dialectically for a second, you can't end capitalism without systemically ending the place for capitalists in society. Market socialism is by far the easiest way to do this.

History has clearly shown that there are several situations in which markets are not an optimal way of organization. Certainly whether markets are optimal will be depend on the industry.

As I went over in the last couple of threads, in terms of developing a feasible alternative to capitalism we should only focus on critiques that are historically specific to capitalism. The law of value and market exchange are clearly warranted in any given transition.

I understand both can do it, but its not the ability to stock up for the unexpected that is the problem with either system. Nobody is arguing markets are bad on the basis of producing enough for emergencies, thats not the problem with them.

How in the world does this:
derive from that:
?

I recommend reading the second article on this page:

marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/what-must-be-changed-in-order-to-transcend-capitalism.html

“The Transformation of Capitalism into Communism in the Critique of the Gotha Program”

basically you're asking if the soviet union after the '60s was a good thing

no, it wasn't

That's decent enough, and I'm not totally opposed to it. I very well recognize that it would be far easier to make transitions like that, especially when there is no bourgeoisie that must continue anti-socialist propaganda. I'm just pointing out that, on its own it's still within the bounds of capitalist production. A lot of people miss the nuance there.

I mean if you're going to argue that then anything could be a market.

Market """""""""""""""""""""""""""socialists"""""""""""""""""""""""

If Indeed Marx believed that there would be no transitional society to communism in Critique of the Gotha Program he contradicted himself elsewhere.

Das Kapital Volume Three

Pic related is from Manuscripts of 1844

Do you have the section and chapter?

End of chapter 49

Thanks.

Crap, my edition doesn't correspond. Do you know the title of the chapter?

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-III.pdf
Just go to page 589 here. It's a slightly different translation than the one I'm citing tho.

For the time being, they probably do need to work for profit. Down the road, no. Probably not.
I think we should set up more communes instead if I'm being honest.

Actually I was looking in my printed book, in French. And I found it, thanks.

The problem is that in order to make a profit, you have to pay the workers less then they create in revenue.

Except if the enterprise is worker owned, they also own the revenue.

But they must invest it.

so have the central planning authorities

The central planning authorities risk to find themselves outcompeted and driven out of business? By whom?

So must the capitalist. Is he exploiting himself as well as the workers?And isn't investment a good thing as it increases production and brings us closer to full automation?

by the increasingly hungry, unsatisfied, unrepresented proles of course

Although his interests are opposed to those of the workers, the capitalist is a slave of capital just as well.

Wether it is a "good thing" or not isn't the question. Capital has its own logic: accumulating for the sake of accumulating. Increasing the production of useful goods and distributing them fairly is not part of this logic and will never, no matter if the capitalists are 7 thousands or 7 billions.

Also this meme needs to die.

So much nonsense in so few words…
1. The workers are the "central planning authority". It is the society as a whole that owns all of the production.
2. There are no proles anymore since there are no classes.
3. Why would they be "increasingly hungry"?
4. What does that even mean, for the workers to outcompete and drive out of business… themselves?