IDA: With the concept of labor time accounting, work can be divided fairly in society

In its series of contributions to discussion, the German weekly Jungle World published The labor time accounting makes it possible to overcome capitalist relations of production. Here is the next article, written by IDA.

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How long does a seamstress in Bangladesh work per week – perhaps 80 hours? An industrial worker in Germany, maybe 35? Nevertheless, he gets about 40 times the monthly salary. On the other hand, a CEO at Mercedes gets about 10,000 times the salary of the seamstress. The reason for this is in the relations of production, more precisely in the separation of the producers from the means of production, whereby those who have to work to live are exploited by capital.

The Group of International Communists (GIC) criticizes precisely this separation of workers from the product of their labor. In the book “Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution” they developed the model of the labor time accounting (LTA) to prevent the “relapse into social-democratic reformism and Bolshevik terrorism,” as Felix Klopotek rightly points out. They write, “We now demand guarantees that we retain the right to decide on the means of production. That is why we now demand rules of general application.” Because “as ordinary proletarians who normally do the dirty work, we have asked ourselves how our class interests are safeguarded.”

The GIC was thus concerned with “retaining” access to the means of production; its theory, as Philip Broistedt and Christian Hofmann write in their article, “presupposes common ownership of the means of production.”

In doing so, the GIC relied on a labor-time account of the kind already considered in the 19th century, especially by Robert Owen, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. The GIC systematically developed the theory further, incorporating modern accounting techniques. The result was a straightforward and transparent system, a decentralized planned economy based on working time. “An hour is an hour” applies to everyone, seamstresses and industrial workers alike.

The critics of LTA that have appeared in this series so far focus on the role of labor in this concept – especially on labor certificates, which serve as proof of hours worked and can be used for individual consumption. Julian Bierwirth and Simon Sutterlütti, coming from the school of value critique and communization, accuse LTA of using labor certificates to preserve wage labor and, thus, capitalism.

This accusation is probably related to the fact that they understand capitalism primarily as a labor regime and are thereby not willing to distinguish between wage labor and labor as an anthropological constant, as a “metabolism with nature,” if not as the “first necessity of life” (Marx). Hermann Lueer rightly writes: “For them, the social mediating principle in capitalism is not the value associated with the property relation, but labor.”

Accordingly, Sutterlütti and Bierwirth are not interested in reorganizing labor. Sutterlütti demands that one should “think materialistically” but proposes nothing other than free taking at will. Where the products are supposed to come from, he is silent, apart from phrases like “world relationship,” “solidarity,” “care,” “travail attractif” (which, by the way, is also travail, i.e., work).

Jonna Klick can imagine working time accounting in production but also rejects labor certificates as a “compulsion to work.” The first thing to say here is that even in “communization” consumption is linked to performance, at least in macroeconomic terms. What is consumed must also have been produced beforehand, i.e., “performed.” The certificates do not invent this linkage but make it transparent and ensure fairness. They are virtually a protection of the quieter, slower, weaker ones. The one-armed man gets the same for an hour as the two-armed man.

This “hour equals hour” principle would lead to a fair distribution of necessary work. Who would still do permanently unpleasant work if the pleasant ones were remunerated equally? Company organizations [translation of the KAPD-term revolutionary “Betriebsorganisationen,” translator], industry associations, and society as a whole will have to create equally good working conditions, whether through organizational (rotation principle) or technical solutions (automation).

Working time accounting could be how educators are finally put on an equal footing with engineers.

It would be easy to point out to the critics of the LTA the “public enterprises” of the GIC, which deliver their products “free,” i.e., not against certificates. In the GIC concept, they constitute the public sector, which grows with communism and thus displaces certificates. But it is important to emphasize that certificates will probably remain necessary in the long run. They allow decentralized consumption: If they do not exist, needs must be ascertained centrally, and planning must also be done centrally. However, suppose people’s respective needs are determined centrally. In that case, it becomes difficult to consider niche needs and, as GIC puts it, “to get beyond the one-size-fits-all bread, the one-size-fits-all confectionery, and the one and only sausage.”

The objections raised against applying LTAs in reproductive or care work are wrong. Precisely because these jobs are characterized “by the direct relationship with people” and are not objectified (Bierwirth), i.e., they are essentially service, the LTA can be applied particularly easily. Production plans for education and care can be created without similar large material prerequisites as would be the case in the industry. Today’s time banks[1] already show how easily pure services can be integrated into a time economy. The LTA could be the method by which educators are finally put on an equal footing with engineers.

Suppose one imagines the LTA on a large scale. In that case, it immediately becomes clear that not all decisions can be made at the operational level: Infrastructure and directional decisions must be negotiated in industry associations or overarching bodies. Here, society can also set rules for ecologically oriented production.

An economy without competition and pressure to grow would have the potential to be more rational, more effective, and more resource efficient. Large parts of the global trade in goods would become superfluous if wage differentials were abolished along with wages. The advertising and financial industries would disappear, and without intellectual property, the same product would not have to be developed several times.

Therefore, labor time would not need to be supplemented by other accounting criteria, such as CO2 emissions, to effectively combat the climate crisis and its consequences. Labor time is not an arbitrary choice, and “other factors” cannot simply be factored in (Jonna Klick). Still, it is the only universal measure: all products cost labor time and all people give up some of their lifetime for society.

Capitalistic cost accounting is known to all business economists, which means that the accounting principles for calculating labor time are already approximately given. Guenther Sandleben described this in his book “Gesellschaft nach dem Geld” (2022) recently. There are already “time banks,” local associations of people who exchange services with each other without using money. Digitalization makes it easy for collectives to manage work-time certificates and accounts. The ecological crisis “clearly shows the need for planning” (Broistedt/Hofmann).

With the concept of LTA, one does not have to wait for the one big revolution. Already one could gain experience with the LTA. Many cooperatives and collective farms are democratically organized and interested in further networking. All that is needed for implementation is a plenum, paper, and pen. Thanks to the central accounting measure, it is a straightforward and robust system. Digital solutions lend themselves to this, so the “Initiative Demokratische Arbeitszeitrechnung” has developed a freely available “labor time app.” It can be “hosted” by collective networks, i.e., made available on a server and used by companies and workers.

“Communism has existed exclusively in the heaven of ideas for so long now,” Wolfgang Pohrt once wrote with resignation, “that one must begin to doubt whether it will ever come down to earth at all.” To stay as far away as possible from heavenly realms, one could work toward the concrete implementation of the LTA. There is much to be done. Not only are there new structures to be built but the LTA theory must be linked to actual labor struggles.

Source

Initiative Demokratische Arbeitszeitrechnung (IDA), Mit dem Konzept der Arbeitszeitrechnung kann Arbeit gesellschaftlich fair aufgeteilt werden.3-8-2023 in Jungle World.

Comments by the translator

In translation, I have replaced the (editorial?) title with one that seems to be that of IDA. I have no idea if IDA agrees with the following redactional framing of their article or not:

“Fair work

People spend labor time not only on production but also on reproduction. Therefore, it can be used as a universal measure for an egalitarian economy. Thus, there is no need for a great revolution; the work on utopia can already begin on a small scale.”

IDA is not a political organization based on specific positions. My impression is that of a platform for those interested in labor time accounting as an alternative to capitalism’s inequalities and other shortcomings. Inevitably there will be differences in understanding and disagreements between the participants. The same will be true for their practical activities. 

In following comments are meant to contribute to a clarification of some of such differences.

The GIC fiercely opposed the idea that its “Fundamental principles of communist production and distribution” were a utopia. They relied on “the real movement” (Marx) of capitalist development and the experiences of the revolutions in Russia, Hungary, and Germany. The GIC was also adamant that labor time accounting could be introduced only if the revolutionary working class held power in a large industrial area. This indeed presupposed a “great revolution.”

Nor does LTA preclude learning from small-scale experiments on partial aspects such as accounting and settlement with suppliers and buyers. It is also true that cooperatives ran by the workers themselves, among other things, can demonstrate that workers do not need corporate leadership or management above them. However, in capitalism, especially in times of crisis, it is difficult for all firms to compete. Self-managed companies may then face the same need to increase exploitation rates or even lay off workers. Simplistic propaganda of “starting small” from self-management and exchanging services via time banks will disprove the intentional message. 

The experiences of “worker self-management” of bankrupt companies in the 1960s and 1970s in France and Belgium, of companies abandoned by their owners after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, point in the same direction. At those times, there was no “dual power” between workers’ councils and bourgeois government like between February and October 1917 in Russia.

Therefore, it is worthwhile to consider what the International Working Men’s Association previously stated about workers’ cooperatives in the 19th century. Some quotes only from its rich considerations:

“… the experience of the period from 1848 to 1864 has proved beyond doubt that, however, excellent in principle and however useful in practice, cooperative labor, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries. It is perhaps for this very reason that plausible noblemen, philanthropic middle-class spouters, and even keep political economists have all at once turned nauseously complimentary to the very cooperative labor system they had vainly tried to nip in the bud by deriding it as the utopia of the dreamer, or stigmatizing it as the sacrilege of the socialist. To save the industrious masses, cooperative labor ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national means. …” [2]

“It is the business of the International Working Men’s Association to combine and generalise the spontaneous movements of the working classes, but not to dictate or impose any doctrinary system whatever. The Congress should, therefore, proclaim no special system of co-operation, but limit itself to the enunciation of a few general principles.

 (a) We acknowledge the cooperative movement as one of the transforming forces of the present society based upon class antagonism. Its great merit is to practically show, that the present pauperising, and despotic system of the subordination of labour to capital can be superseded by the republican and beneficent system of the association of free and equal producers.

 (b) Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wages slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the cooperative system will never transform capitalist society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and cooperative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves  ….” [3]

The article by IDA is right to underline that labor certificates will probably remain necessary in the long run. However, some specification is required. 

According to Marx and the GIC, labor certificates are only used for the consumption of products. In no way may they be used in transactions between production units, as sometimes suggested in IDA-publications. These certificates are not money, they do not circulate.

On the supposed free products in more developed communism, and therefore the disappearance of labor certificates, Marx was very clear:

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and thereby also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime desire and necessity [erste Lebensbedürfnisse]; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly, only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be completely transcended [überschritten] and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!” [4]

What we see here, is the condition of dissolution of the contradiction in the existence of working people between working time and leisure, and the parallel development of unique individual personalities. There is no question with Marx of “taking for free.” That all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly cannot mean that too much ‘milk and honey’ will be produced … and wasted.

Indeed, if there will be no difference between labor and leisure time, in theory a weighing of the two, will no longer be necessary and even possible. These conditions can only be fulfilled after several generations of transforming of humanity, society and economic life. We cannot foresee its concrete details. Still, communization has speculated in a utopian way on this far future and turned these fantasies against the use of labor time certificates in the first phase of communist society “as emerging from capitalist society”.

Therefore, it is correct that “in the long run”, certificates will be used as a right for consumption, and the article mentions several reasons. The most essential reason is that of the self-education of the working masses, both at a collective and at an individual level. At a collective level, labor time accounting clarifies how many hours of work are needed for what product and services. But only labor time certificates will allow individual workers to weigh their choice between working time and leisure time, to enjoy consuming products and other pleasures of life.

The GIC was wrong to propose services to be produced by ‘public’ or ‘social’ units of production, and to be given away for free, because … services cannot be stored in a warehouse (1935 Edition, Ch. 10g and h). However, the intangible character of services, in no way contradicts them being produced by labor, and therefor the need to individual and collective decision making on the balance between labor and satisfaction of needs.

There are indeed good reasons for the free distribution of several care services and other products. However, the present world (CO2)  shows obvious arguments against free distribution of services like natural gas and transport for productive units or consumers alike. Another argument is not accepting the present bourgeois ‘consumerism’, the greed for ever more consumption, as inherently ‘human’. Nor should we accept the ‘equal’ distribution of poverty as in food banks or soup kitchens. The elevation of livings standards of the proletariat indeed is an indication of progress towards a higher phase of communism. However, the quantitative growth of free products and services in itself is not.[5]

Fredo Corvo, 6-8-2023

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[1] For today’s time banks in Germany see Wikipedia Zeitbank, unfortunately no translation into English. Wikipedia Time-based currency gives a historical-theoretical overview. (Translator’s note)

[2] Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association.

[3] Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council. The Different Questions.

[4] Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program. Translated and annotated by Kevin B. Anderson and Karel Ludenhoff. With a new introduction by Peter Hudis. PM Press, 2023. This translation replaces wrong translations of essential fragments produced under the influence of Leninism, also in languages other than English

[5] For a more detailed argument, see: F.C., Communism, too early? Or from delay to abandonment?