Left Communism Discussion

Basically social democracy in a new jacket.

Eh, I'd say it's bit more complicated than that. Leftcoms have generally accepted each others canon, but at the end of the day they seem to fall into one camp or the other because of the large differences in actual practice, either you're very pro-party or against it.

Modern theorists of the council communist tradition (TC, Dauvé) are however very close and co-operate with anarchists, one should mention.

"New" would imply it's actually new in any manner. It's both old and irrelevant, thank god.

If the hell of capitalism is that the firm exist then what is the point of giving control of the firm to the workers/counil, soviets, central authorities or whatever?

checkm8, m8s

If the structure is horizontal then worker input would be direct.

a market socialist economy is far more horizontal that any workers council, central planning, whatever one fam

There will be no firms in communism.

How do you figure?

there certainly will be, after all the central planning authorities would take the role of the managers, CEOs and so on

equal responsability within a company from every worker, changing roles would be key

In what way is that exclusive to market socialism?

No there won't.

planning authorities are not held responsable for the firms, just for its administrations

they will keep their position of power while workers have to do the labour all by themselves

yup
a firm doesn't equal a brand or anything

Austrian-tier arguments against an Austrian-tier understanding of communism.

If it walks like a duck…

lol I have literally never even bothered reading those fags aside from a couple of pages

strawmaning isn't an argument

What is decentralized planning? You could easily just have councils communicate with each other on what resources they need, which is much preferable to just letting atomized firms of workers compete against each other and continue to produce for profit instead of use.

You have no understanding of communism. You talk about the existence of firms and exchange-value form under communism. This is equal to Austrian understanding of what communism is. It is in fact you who is strawmanning, but at least Austrians know better. Apparently, you don't even know the first thing about it.

Easy recommended reading: marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1934/10/communism.htm

you're implying that there are firms (ie separate individual capitals) and exchange value in communism, while communism is the negation of both.

Communism is the negation of property and class. Certainly that would include exchange value at some point, but a unit of account that would serve as a medium of exchange within society was something that Marx supported in a transitory phase. And regardless, firms are only units of organization, if they loose their class character what is the issue?

so basically market socialism?

you dont have to produce for "profit"

where does the "profit" comes from, if capitalists do not keep part of the value produced by the workers? an exhcange in the market? no different from hoarding labour vouchers and commodities those labour vouchers were exchanged for

market socialism implies different worker's councils/co-ops whatever you want to call it compete for a share in the market, those who can do it more effectively will be the ones with the biggest market share, other workers' co-ops/whatever you want to call it can join its modus operandi until that sector of the economy is finally fully automated

I already explained in another thread how "planning" either centralized or decentralized still responds to supply and demand forces, it works just like a market

under central planning there will be the existance of firms and exchange value form unless you can achieve a system of self-sustaining individuals

you will produce a surplus to what is actually needed based on the demand of the workers

workers cannot produce each and one of the commodities they consume, there will be the need of an exchange of some sorts

firms do not requeire separate individal capitalists, otherwise a marksoc economy wouldn't have firms according to some of you

how?

property implies exchange. Without property there is no exchange. And he proposed labor vouchers, which aren't a medium of exchange but merely a confirmation of how much you worked.
no, they are a direct product of private property and the embodiment of the division of labour and as such a category which is specific to capitalism and ONLY to capitalism. Firms aren't merely organizational units. This is like saying commodities are "just" goods.

but you can exchange whatever commodity you obtained with labour vouchers

you literally can

I didn't say that.
Because abolishing private property would get rid of all the other capitalist categories as well.

private property can express itself in many ways

not being able to make use of certain resource because central/decentrlized authorities don't want me to produce X commodity because it goes againts the planning is literally private property

Well as it was said a thousand times before:

which means that the law of value won't be fully abolished by the time the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat has been installed. As such, the labour vouchers are a form of exchange medium but its content is different because:

but due to its temporary nature as a tool for the transition it follows that:

but this isn't another sockdem vs leftcom thread, so please make another thread about this if you want to.

I have a headache. Can I exchange it? If I pass a law that says you can take your neighbor's axe when he's not using it but have to give it back when asked, is that exchange?

And in communism, at least its lower stages, is not all of society my property? Is not the universification of property a necessary step to negation?

I was referring to these statements which I quoted in a couple other threads.

…because firms totally didn't exist in feudalism or hell, even a slave based mode of production.

But commodities are just goods. It's not my fault society treats them like they're not.

WEW

You socialise production in order to abolish the firm, in other words you extend cooperative relations between productive units to encompass all of society rather than just limiting it to competing cooperative firms.

A firm equals private property.

…and that is how you end up with a hijacked thread.

What is left communism? Isn't communism inherently leftist?

It's meant to imply that they are the farthest left wing amongst communists. Usually very theory heavy and are often accused of contrarianism. Pretty based dudes IMO.

bump

Why do left communists hate activism? I know Bordiga didn't like it but I'm not sure why.

How is "to each according to his needs" applicable without post scarcity?

If by activism you mean doing something for the sake of doing something, then indeed. Isn't the reason why obvious?

No, it's not obvious. Did bordiga think activism is actually bad or just ineffective?