In classical Marxism, communism is defined as a society of material abundance. It is a society where goods flow in abundance (“after the productive forces have…increased…all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly”, Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program
I think economists in general do not pay sufficient attention to the forces that control our "needs," and that (invisible hand-waving*) has a profound impact on the possibilities afforded to an economic theorist.
For example, almost nobody who already has a car needs a limited edition Lamborghini for its use value, but almost everybody needs it for its signaling value. Economists since at least Smith have known this, but as far as I know, nobody took this dual nature of products seriously enough to provide an alternative model of economic reality.
Imagine, for example, an economy where all workers are paid the same hourly rate for any verifiably performed activity they enjoy doing. Somebody likes to write poetry, others like bird watching, yet another study the genetic code of nematodes. Imagine also that in such an economy "workers" are free to sell their product to the highest bidder, but instead of money, the seller gets a non-transferable, non-material, purely signaling, and publicly visible reward, equivalent to the price of the product they sold. Let's call such a reward the Merit reward.
Over time, people accumulate Merit scores, and lists appear not unlike the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. It is not out of the realm of possibility that such a score would be as powerful as wealth today in motivating people to supply labor.
At the same time, everybody earns the same, and consequently, the possibility of signaling one's wealth through positional goods is virtually nonexistent.
Admittedly, such a scenario would likely not lead to a less entropic world, but might elegantly solve economic inequality.
Allow me to offer a modest reality check to the proponents of degrowth. Italy’s economy has barely registered real GDP growth over the last quarter of a century. It is not a model in the fight against climate change: in fact the transition away from fossils fuel is slowed down by economic stagnation hampering the adoption of technological progress incorporated in new investment. Nor does its population appear satiated: in fact the most dynamic elements tend to emigrate to countries with higher levels and growth of GDP. Note that simple differences in levels of income and wealth would be enough to feed unsatisfied needs in a hypothetical stationary global economy,
Does healthcare, and healthcare needs, can fully considered in this model of full abundance. Or is acceptance of an early death an existential implication
"Abundance defined as full satisfaction of all material needs cannot be achieved in technologically advancing societies."
But this assumes that the new needs/desires that arise w/ tech advancements and new/different goods/services are just as strong as the previous needs/desires (eg food clothing shelter). Which they're of course not, at least generally. (Cue: declining marginal utility.)
So sure: a system can never achieve 100% post-scarcity. But it can get asymptotically close to that, no? Think Iain Banks' "Culture." FWIW.
>>> Only in a society which does not experience technological progress and where no new needs can arise. In such a society it is possible to imagine an almost unlimited production of things which already exist <<<
Although it is correct that production capacity has a quantitative upper limit, there is also a planning function, which is either fulfilled by ‘Wall Street’ banking under capitalism or ‘Central Planning’ in a socialist society. It thus is always some sort of a directed economy, controlled by demand and distribution. Thus technological innovation is not an unsurmountable obstacle requiring a stationary society but a matter of the weight society attaches to it
>>> Stationary society, end of capitalism, and abundance are logically consistent <<<
Logic has no bearing in development of societies - it is about dialectics i.e. the dynamics of change. Innovation is an inherit part of that, regardless if a society is capitalist or communist. Societies thus never could be ‘stationary’, because change always requires adaptation. That also goes for economics - the perrmanently changing relation to nature is just one example.
A communist society does not need to be a ‘stationary’ society, quite the opposite.
Firstly not all goods are a need for everyone. A communist society would be following the principle of ‘everyone according to his needs’. That means that you do not need more than one car, because you can only consume so much of any good there is since consumption has a natural limit. Furthermore society would be specifying rules of production and distribution of goods following the above principle.
There is no longer a need to produce 500 different types of cars, but that does not mean that there would be no innovation.
Secondly, when it comes to ‘essential goods’ that everyone wants - particularly if those are technological novelties like a smart phone - there would be a shift of resources towards those goods to produce them in sufficient quantities to create the supply for the growing demand. This would happen more or less instantly, since society as a whole is planning what to produce based on a gigantic pool of resources, which can be formed from all available sources. This is enabled for tha fact that a communist society can bundle the necessary knowledge and resources for a designated purpose due to the absence of competition. Communist society could develop exactly those technologies and the resulting products which are considered sustainable and useful. Quite contrary to being stationary it would result in an abundance of technological progress. The key and the real limit is the availability of resources. i.e. labor as the hungarian economist Kornai recognized - Capitalism is demand constrained while socialism is resource constrained.
Lastly, degrowth models under capitalism are an anomaly and would certainly lead to higher inequalities since the lower income strata would have to bear the brunt of cutbacks. Communism would allow some sort of degrowth, but, on the other hand, degrowth and technological progress are not mutually exclusive. The ‘degrowth’ argument certainly is valid when it comes to curbing the capitalist variety and overproduction of products, yet this will not necessarily require a stationary society. It requires socialist central planning, which is the only way of preventing an environmental collapse. Free markets and capitalism are not able to successfully deal with both distribution issues and the environment problems the world is facing - for the simple reason of the profit motive driving competition, which is the mechanism Marx recognized as the single biggest factor of capitalism’s destructive power. Hunger is a result of capitalist production - there is enough food in this world but there are too many people who can not pay for it.
Whenever I think of abundance, I think of Bataille. Degrowth implies less for now, but with time would it be still perceived as less if it’s the social status-quo? Frankly I think we have quite an abundance, more than we need but I still think technology (as a science) should not stop. Medical science for one seems obvious.
Arguably, indigenous tribes in the amazon jungle are stationary societies. Consuming exactly the same for last centuries (millennia?); perfectly satisfied with what they have. So a stationary economic arrangement is possible. But it seems improbable that capitalist societies will voluntarily transition to a stationary life. I am not arguing a transition to primitive life, but rather to accept that a stationary society means that I will live a life exactly like my parents, and my offspring will also live a life exactly like mine.
Degrowth is essentially an anti-capitalist solution to the sustainability problem. However, what if we define the problem as how to achieve sustainable growth? The speed at which the demography is transitioning from growth to degrowth (see China) is amazing. So, evidently we can transition to a stationary, or even decreasing population. Society can also transition to consume less physical goods, and more services (non physical goods). So the combination of stable/less people, and less physical goods, and more recycling should allow us to converge towards sustainable growth.
Maintaining abundance requires growth. No growth reduces abundance to non abundance. If one want to preach the virtues of needing and desiring less then perhaps minimal growth or sustenance level growth is okay.
How can a capitalist and worker are equivalent in this statement? No capitalist or entrepreneur would invest if they cannot expect a net return, no more than a worker would work for a zero wage.
I agree that the profit motive promotes innovation, but it is not the only thing that does so. The only way you'll get a static technological society is through aggressive suppression of change. Simply providing non-invidious abundance at the current level of technology (which, as the post indicates, can only be done for a limited number of goods) won't do it.
Abundant and static are completely incompatible both conceptualy and empirically. Abundant for whom and under what future conditions? Abundant here can only mean everyone gets a equal amount of the goods that a market economy has already Abundantly produced (Yes Marx was smart enough to realize that only Capitalism can actually produce abundance). But what if I or you want a bigger, faster more prestigious car or house or buy top qualtiy steaks, etc? Only by continually suppressing individual differences and desires can this work--at a terrible price. Eben if the lowest common denominator is set reasonably high many will not be satisfied let along accept this static condition. Rousseau understood this much better than Marx. IF we want justice as equality we must lobe not the abundant life but the modest life of an agricultural tribe like the Amish. Give everyone a nice house, car and a million dollars. What will happen over 5 years> Not hard to guess unless the resulting inequality is forceably reduced so that the extra gains of a few are yes redistributed. Just and fair? Suppose we outsource much of our work to technology as seems the implicit goal of AI and robotics, what will we do with our free time? Hunt in the morning, write poetry or novels in the afternoon and gods know what in the evening? Everyone more or less equally? Will honor and social praise replace inequality in wealth? The reality behind this utopia would turn out to be a misery for many. Growth, change, innovation etc are essential both to human nature and to the possibility of abundance. But strict equality of sharing?
The amount of time we have will always be limited. The implication of abundance is that we spend much less of our time and energy on acquiring goods and services from the market and more on such things as friendship, family relationships, pursuing interests and a healthy lifestyle.
We can imagine that the process of innovation to create and meet new market needs would be highly automated. A capitalist would continue to do this because it was almost effortless. Under communism, society as a whole would play that role. Hence, either way, technical progress would not have to slow down.
I commend you on transcending ideological frameworks to understand the underlying framework - how else can we progress in our world-view if we stick to dated definitions of capitalism and Marxism, or more generally, a restricted of sanctified ideologies? Also, we cannot know how Marx might think today, after indeed having emphasized personal development as well as uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources even in his time. Personally, as I grew up with IT (or IT with me) I question the assumption "new needs arise with technological progress", specifically in IT - many of those needs being driven by the aggressive marketing of those getting rich by them - and by harmful social development justifying them, e.g. you need mobile communication because you are forced to be mobile and you need social-networks because you lost the traditional form (extended families, the city-marketplace).
Brilliant logic! In reality though the only way to control climate is via having MORE energy, not per capita, but in absolute terms, ie technological progress
Dr Kaczynski claims that any industrial society must inherently suppress human freedom and self-esteem, cannot be corrected by any means, and will continually worsen.
I think economists in general do not pay sufficient attention to the forces that control our "needs," and that (invisible hand-waving*) has a profound impact on the possibilities afforded to an economic theorist.
For example, almost nobody who already has a car needs a limited edition Lamborghini for its use value, but almost everybody needs it for its signaling value. Economists since at least Smith have known this, but as far as I know, nobody took this dual nature of products seriously enough to provide an alternative model of economic reality.
Imagine, for example, an economy where all workers are paid the same hourly rate for any verifiably performed activity they enjoy doing. Somebody likes to write poetry, others like bird watching, yet another study the genetic code of nematodes. Imagine also that in such an economy "workers" are free to sell their product to the highest bidder, but instead of money, the seller gets a non-transferable, non-material, purely signaling, and publicly visible reward, equivalent to the price of the product they sold. Let's call such a reward the Merit reward.
Over time, people accumulate Merit scores, and lists appear not unlike the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. It is not out of the realm of possibility that such a score would be as powerful as wealth today in motivating people to supply labor.
At the same time, everybody earns the same, and consequently, the possibility of signaling one's wealth through positional goods is virtually nonexistent.
Admittedly, such a scenario would likely not lead to a less entropic world, but might elegantly solve economic inequality.
*...to channel R. Thaler here :-)
Allow me to offer a modest reality check to the proponents of degrowth. Italy’s economy has barely registered real GDP growth over the last quarter of a century. It is not a model in the fight against climate change: in fact the transition away from fossils fuel is slowed down by economic stagnation hampering the adoption of technological progress incorporated in new investment. Nor does its population appear satiated: in fact the most dynamic elements tend to emigrate to countries with higher levels and growth of GDP. Note that simple differences in levels of income and wealth would be enough to feed unsatisfied needs in a hypothetical stationary global economy,
Does healthcare, and healthcare needs, can fully considered in this model of full abundance. Or is acceptance of an early death an existential implication
"Abundance defined as full satisfaction of all material needs cannot be achieved in technologically advancing societies."
But this assumes that the new needs/desires that arise w/ tech advancements and new/different goods/services are just as strong as the previous needs/desires (eg food clothing shelter). Which they're of course not, at least generally. (Cue: declining marginal utility.)
So sure: a system can never achieve 100% post-scarcity. But it can get asymptotically close to that, no? Think Iain Banks' "Culture." FWIW.
>>> Only in a society which does not experience technological progress and where no new needs can arise. In such a society it is possible to imagine an almost unlimited production of things which already exist <<<
Although it is correct that production capacity has a quantitative upper limit, there is also a planning function, which is either fulfilled by ‘Wall Street’ banking under capitalism or ‘Central Planning’ in a socialist society. It thus is always some sort of a directed economy, controlled by demand and distribution. Thus technological innovation is not an unsurmountable obstacle requiring a stationary society but a matter of the weight society attaches to it
>>> Stationary society, end of capitalism, and abundance are logically consistent <<<
Logic has no bearing in development of societies - it is about dialectics i.e. the dynamics of change. Innovation is an inherit part of that, regardless if a society is capitalist or communist. Societies thus never could be ‘stationary’, because change always requires adaptation. That also goes for economics - the perrmanently changing relation to nature is just one example.
A communist society does not need to be a ‘stationary’ society, quite the opposite.
Firstly not all goods are a need for everyone. A communist society would be following the principle of ‘everyone according to his needs’. That means that you do not need more than one car, because you can only consume so much of any good there is since consumption has a natural limit. Furthermore society would be specifying rules of production and distribution of goods following the above principle.
There is no longer a need to produce 500 different types of cars, but that does not mean that there would be no innovation.
Secondly, when it comes to ‘essential goods’ that everyone wants - particularly if those are technological novelties like a smart phone - there would be a shift of resources towards those goods to produce them in sufficient quantities to create the supply for the growing demand. This would happen more or less instantly, since society as a whole is planning what to produce based on a gigantic pool of resources, which can be formed from all available sources. This is enabled for tha fact that a communist society can bundle the necessary knowledge and resources for a designated purpose due to the absence of competition. Communist society could develop exactly those technologies and the resulting products which are considered sustainable and useful. Quite contrary to being stationary it would result in an abundance of technological progress. The key and the real limit is the availability of resources. i.e. labor as the hungarian economist Kornai recognized - Capitalism is demand constrained while socialism is resource constrained.
Lastly, degrowth models under capitalism are an anomaly and would certainly lead to higher inequalities since the lower income strata would have to bear the brunt of cutbacks. Communism would allow some sort of degrowth, but, on the other hand, degrowth and technological progress are not mutually exclusive. The ‘degrowth’ argument certainly is valid when it comes to curbing the capitalist variety and overproduction of products, yet this will not necessarily require a stationary society. It requires socialist central planning, which is the only way of preventing an environmental collapse. Free markets and capitalism are not able to successfully deal with both distribution issues and the environment problems the world is facing - for the simple reason of the profit motive driving competition, which is the mechanism Marx recognized as the single biggest factor of capitalism’s destructive power. Hunger is a result of capitalist production - there is enough food in this world but there are too many people who can not pay for it.
Whenever I think of abundance, I think of Bataille. Degrowth implies less for now, but with time would it be still perceived as less if it’s the social status-quo? Frankly I think we have quite an abundance, more than we need but I still think technology (as a science) should not stop. Medical science for one seems obvious.
Arguably, indigenous tribes in the amazon jungle are stationary societies. Consuming exactly the same for last centuries (millennia?); perfectly satisfied with what they have. So a stationary economic arrangement is possible. But it seems improbable that capitalist societies will voluntarily transition to a stationary life. I am not arguing a transition to primitive life, but rather to accept that a stationary society means that I will live a life exactly like my parents, and my offspring will also live a life exactly like mine.
Degrowth is essentially an anti-capitalist solution to the sustainability problem. However, what if we define the problem as how to achieve sustainable growth? The speed at which the demography is transitioning from growth to degrowth (see China) is amazing. So, evidently we can transition to a stationary, or even decreasing population. Society can also transition to consume less physical goods, and more services (non physical goods). So the combination of stable/less people, and less physical goods, and more recycling should allow us to converge towards sustainable growth.
Maintaining abundance requires growth. No growth reduces abundance to non abundance. If one want to preach the virtues of needing and desiring less then perhaps minimal growth or sustenance level growth is okay.
How can a capitalist and worker are equivalent in this statement? No capitalist or entrepreneur would invest if they cannot expect a net return, no more than a worker would work for a zero wage.
Communism as a society of material abundance is an impossibility (Contradiction in terms).
It reminds me of an old joke from former Yugoslavia (adapted for this time and place):
"How about a nice steak and a bottle of wine for five bucks?
"Please tell me where!"
"Nowhere, but, admit, it's a good deal!"
I agree that the profit motive promotes innovation, but it is not the only thing that does so. The only way you'll get a static technological society is through aggressive suppression of change. Simply providing non-invidious abundance at the current level of technology (which, as the post indicates, can only be done for a limited number of goods) won't do it.
Abundant and static are completely incompatible both conceptualy and empirically. Abundant for whom and under what future conditions? Abundant here can only mean everyone gets a equal amount of the goods that a market economy has already Abundantly produced (Yes Marx was smart enough to realize that only Capitalism can actually produce abundance). But what if I or you want a bigger, faster more prestigious car or house or buy top qualtiy steaks, etc? Only by continually suppressing individual differences and desires can this work--at a terrible price. Eben if the lowest common denominator is set reasonably high many will not be satisfied let along accept this static condition. Rousseau understood this much better than Marx. IF we want justice as equality we must lobe not the abundant life but the modest life of an agricultural tribe like the Amish. Give everyone a nice house, car and a million dollars. What will happen over 5 years> Not hard to guess unless the resulting inequality is forceably reduced so that the extra gains of a few are yes redistributed. Just and fair? Suppose we outsource much of our work to technology as seems the implicit goal of AI and robotics, what will we do with our free time? Hunt in the morning, write poetry or novels in the afternoon and gods know what in the evening? Everyone more or less equally? Will honor and social praise replace inequality in wealth? The reality behind this utopia would turn out to be a misery for many. Growth, change, innovation etc are essential both to human nature and to the possibility of abundance. But strict equality of sharing?
The amount of time we have will always be limited. The implication of abundance is that we spend much less of our time and energy on acquiring goods and services from the market and more on such things as friendship, family relationships, pursuing interests and a healthy lifestyle.
We can imagine that the process of innovation to create and meet new market needs would be highly automated. A capitalist would continue to do this because it was almost effortless. Under communism, society as a whole would play that role. Hence, either way, technical progress would not have to slow down.
I commend you on transcending ideological frameworks to understand the underlying framework - how else can we progress in our world-view if we stick to dated definitions of capitalism and Marxism, or more generally, a restricted of sanctified ideologies? Also, we cannot know how Marx might think today, after indeed having emphasized personal development as well as uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources even in his time. Personally, as I grew up with IT (or IT with me) I question the assumption "new needs arise with technological progress", specifically in IT - many of those needs being driven by the aggressive marketing of those getting rich by them - and by harmful social development justifying them, e.g. you need mobile communication because you are forced to be mobile and you need social-networks because you lost the traditional form (extended families, the city-marketplace).
Brilliant logic! In reality though the only way to control climate is via having MORE energy, not per capita, but in absolute terms, ie technological progress
Unabomber manifesto makes much more sense than this.
A decent summary: https://rbutterworth.nfshost.com/Conspiracy/ISAIF_Summary/
In one sentence:
Dr Kaczynski claims that any industrial society must inherently suppress human freedom and self-esteem, cannot be corrected by any means, and will continually worsen.