Yeah getting rid of money is tricky if we’re talking doing away with commodity production entirely, but as a point of transition to a purely production for use society with no exchange there are ideas of using labor vouchers instead.
It makes sense considering (in a Marxist economic sense) that value is socially necessary labor hours so you’re eliminating some of the general glamour that money form provides, avoids concentration given how they’re consumed on use, etc, and might be a good in-between step while things are still scarce (though it doesn’t abolish value).
Suppose I’ve used some of my labor to produce widgets. You want a widget without having to make one yourself, so you give me some of your labor vouchers in exchange for it. And then the labor vouchers you gave me just … go away? Seems like from my perspective, accepting labor vouchers as payment is worthless and I don’t get anything out of it.
You contribute labor to produce widgets that belong to social stock from the outset (the widget does not belong to you as private property)
You receive labor voucher for your work which is a claim to a specific portion of consumer goods to satisfy your own needs
Me, who has a labor voucher from different work walks into a distribution center and takes the widget, and the labor time worth of the widget gets subtracted from my voucher. That portion gets consumed permanently and doesn’t go to anyone.
What you described was essentially a scenario where goods were still produced as commodities for exchange (generalized form being capitalism) or where private property still existed. In that case yeah, money remains necessary.
Yeah getting rid of money is tricky if we’re talking doing away with commodity production entirely, but as a point of transition to a purely production for use society with no exchange there are ideas of using labor vouchers instead.
It makes sense considering (in a Marxist economic sense) that value is socially necessary labor hours so you’re eliminating some of the general glamour that money form provides, avoids concentration given how they’re consumed on use, etc, and might be a good in-between step while things are still scarce (though it doesn’t abolish value).
How’s that supposed to work, really?
Suppose I’ve used some of my labor to produce widgets. You want a widget without having to make one yourself, so you give me some of your labor vouchers in exchange for it. And then the labor vouchers you gave me just … go away? Seems like from my perspective, accepting labor vouchers as payment is worthless and I don’t get anything out of it.
Nah, it’d be more akin to:
You contribute labor to produce widgets that belong to social stock from the outset (the widget does not belong to you as private property)
You receive labor voucher for your work which is a claim to a specific portion of consumer goods to satisfy your own needs
Me, who has a labor voucher from different work walks into a distribution center and takes the widget, and the labor time worth of the widget gets subtracted from my voucher. That portion gets consumed permanently and doesn’t go to anyone.
What you described was essentially a scenario where goods were still produced as commodities for exchange (generalized form being capitalism) or where private property still existed. In that case yeah, money remains necessary.
The labor vouchers are printed on delicious and expiring cheese.