3.1.2.2 Good Socialism
A Developed Market of Work will Create Socialism
Most of the problems of today’s market economy are primarily based on the underdevelopment of the market economy. This study will try to present that the main problem of the capitalist economy is not too much but instead not enough market.
The goods are always on the market even if they formally are not, since any products will be sold if there is a good enough offer. On the other hand, jobs are rarely on the market, which is probably a significant problem in today’s economy. A developed labour market should produce competition among workers to achieve greater productivity for every public workplace at any time. Such an economy will significantly improve society.
Workers in capitalism have jobs protected by laws and unions; jobs in capitalism are privileged, though to a lesser extent than in socialism. A more productive worker cannot apply for a work position already occupied by another worker. That is why capitalism’s division of work cannot efficiently allocate labour and achieve maximum possible productivity. One should protect the existence of workers, not jobs. A better future for humankind necessarily requires that workers become subjects with equal rights in production. This will be achieved when all the workers have equal opportunities to choose any job they want in public companies. Society needs to establish a standard for selecting workers. History has presented no more socially justified employment principle than hiring the best available worker at each work post.
Capitalism taught people to love competition and that being the winner brings enormous satisfaction. As a result, people do not hesitate to exert any effort to express themselves. So why would society not open competitions for every public workplace at any time? It sounds impossible because such a division of labour never existed. However, its realization is just a technical problem, and it will bring enormous benefits to society.
Work competition as a form of employment in the labour market represents an ongoing open competition for all work posts. This means that any worker may take the work post of another worker at any point in time if they perform a particular job more productively.
To achieve such an economic system, people need to find an efficient way to evaluate work productivity, define job responsibilities, and harmonize rewards for work at any time. In short, the workers who offer the highest productivity and accountability and demand the lowest salary in a company owned by society will get the job at any time. It would be nothing else but a developed market of work. However, the work market will require time to develop enough and be accepted by people.
The work competition in the market will incentivize workers much more than capitalism can through wages. The existence of workers would never be endangered because every worker will be able to find a job in a fully employed environment. The work competition will establish such a strong responsibility that no one would dare to offer work productivity they would not be able to meet. The market will also regulate workers’ salaries most objectively. As a result, the living standards for all people may increase in an unprecedented way. People may be very pleased with living in such a system. Only this shall be called socialism. The following text defines the labour division of socialism.
There is no fairer or better division of labour than a competition of workers through their labour productivity for any workplace at any time. Productivity will be measured by earned money, quantity and quality of produced goods or rating workers’ productivity by consumers. A worker who offers higher profits, more manufactured goods, a better, cleaner, and cheaper production will get the desired job. Comparing the productivity of workers may be complex but also very simple. Democratic anarchy will make it straightforward.
Permanently open work competition among workers has never existed because nobody believed it was possible and did not invest any effort into developing such an idea. However, this book analyzes the potential problems that an open work competition might bring to society and provides answers to solve such problems. Of course, the work competition will be highly regulated to avoid possible instability in such work distribution. Nevertheless, once people consider such a division of labour, it will open the possibility for significant economic and social improvement.
Of course, the work competition will relate only to public companies because if it applies to private enterprises, that will practically mean a seizure of private property. Private companies will continue their businesses as they do today. It will be necessary to regulate and democratically accept a new division of labour in public companies by the law. One day, the proposed division of work will be accepted because the principles of such a division of labour are natural, just, and the most productive.
A worker who offers the highest productivity for any workplace at any time immediately becomes a prime candidate for that position, regardless of whether the workplace is occupied or not. If there are already employed workers at such workplaces who do not want to leave their jobs, they will have to accept the competitors’ productivity, and in that case, they will continue to hold their work positions. However, if they cannot take the new responsibilities or would not want it, they will immediately vacate the workplace and leave it to the competitor.
The existential security of workers is necessary as a condition of stability for society, and therefore, society will guarantee it. In the proposed system, all workers will be economically secure after leaving any job. Losing a job will not create income stress, and workers will have the ability to find new work in a full-employment environment quickly. Such security will remove the great fear of unemployment that is prevalent worldwide. Capitalism finds the primary motivation for work from the fear of the workers’ economic survival, so it does not provide enough financial security to the people. The new system will build motivation for work from the free choice of choosing a career and its satisfaction.
The advantages of such a division of work will be enormous. The best worker in every workplace ensures maximum productivity for companies, satisfying consumers’ needs most efficiently. Thus, such a division of labour will find its most significant justification. Furthermore, the labour market will give people the freedom to choose jobs they love more. They will enjoy work far more than they do today. Work will become a value in and of itself.
Furthermore, the open labour market will eliminate privileges. Today, people might experience a loss of privileges as a significant disadvantage. However, as mentioned previously, privileges are one of the leading causes of problems in society. Eliminating working privileges means increasing productivity and reducing, if not removing, corruption and immorality in the community. With time, people will realize that the loss of privileges would considerably increase the possibility of finding work that enhances workers’ productive power, the power of being. The power of being develops creativity and brings great and stable satisfaction that privileges could not achieve. The proposed socialist labour market will allow a permanent development of the productive being powers in society, which will bring significant benefits to the community.
Such a system of production is becoming possible for the first time in the history of humankind because the development of computer technology has allowed people to plan production, monitor process the productivity of workers, the values of their work and the responsibility they bear for their work, in the system of fast changes in the work obligations. Capable Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems exist today, but they must adapt to the socialist business operating system.
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This book develops Marx’s simplified labour theory of value by extending workers’ compensation with functions that can increase productivity and justice in the economy. Every produced commodity contains the values of past and present work. Therefore, workers’ wages should be based on their past and present contributions to production processes.
The current work value should show how much work brings advantages and disadvantages to workers compared to other jobs. Let’s say the average value and price of current labour are 1. Then a worker who is 10% more interested in a particular position is likely to ask for the cost of that labour at a value of 0.9 to make his offer more competitive for the job. It will make him earn 10% less than in an average job. However, the worker who demands the lowest price for the current work will receive a better chance of getting the job. The justification for accepting the lowest labour cost offer lies in that such work is the most convenient for the worker and cheapest for society. The cost of ongoing work will be one factor that determines workers’ salaries. The work market will make suitable jobs achieve lower wages, and inconvenient positions will be compensated with higher payments. A developed work market will form an objective price of current work the same way the goods market does, and workers will be satisfied with the earnings. Unions as mediators in determining incomes will no longer be required.
The past work value of workers presents how much workers have contributed to creating the values society possesses. In capitalism, the more valuable the past work is, the more wealth is produced, so wealth shows the value of past work. But capitalism does not recognize other values that exist in society. For example, giving birth, being born, and the productive growth of people is the highest scope of value people may produce, and people must recognize it as a value of past work. Such values are priceless, so they cannot be objectively determined, but they may be formed by arbitration in the best interest of all people. Similarly, society has established punishment for a murder that has nothing to do with objectivity, but it is beneficial because it prevents killing.
Recognition of the value of people’s past work will enable all to receive a basic income from birth. All people’s valuable accomplishments from birth should be valued and accepted as past work. The value of the current work of unemployed people should be adjusted to society’s capability. Past and present work will be regulated in such a manner so that all people receive at least a minimum income as a guarantee of a secure existence. The payment of the unemployed population will be automatically generated from the taxes of employed people. Such an idea is propagated today under the name Universal Basic Income.
The value of past work will include all the improvements people can make in society. This will motivate people to advance all values, thus bringing more benefits to the community. On the other hand, people will use the value of past work to take responsibility for any damage they do to society. For example, any crime can be assessed by people’s past work value. The criminal system will transform to recalculate the prison sentences of criminals by deducting the value of the past work of criminals in proportion to the crimes committed. Losing some of the value of past work will be a more effective and humane punishment for criminals than imprisonment.
The value of past work will be a very efficient tool for being held responsible in society. It will be highly beneficial and necessary for establishing the progress of humanity. The arbitration for the values of past work should be regulated by the law and democratically accepted by the people. This is a challenging task and most likely the main reason the socialist division of labour cannot be implemented soon.
Let’s assume that the average value of past labour is 100,000 points, while the average value of current work is 1. The multiplication of these values will determine the worker’s labour value or cost value. This means that the average salary will have 100,000 monetary units. The average value of past labour can be adjusted to gross national income per capita, while the average value of current work can be adjusted to 1, which will adapt incomes with the values of goods and services produced.
Only the market can establish objective prices of goods. If a company achieves a higher price of goods, making a higher profit on the market than workers’ incomes demand, they will make more money than they demanded. The difference between required and received incomes would represent a surplus value. In firms that achieve a lower price of goods making a lower profit on the market than workers’ incomes demand, workers would receive lower wages than they needed even though they reached the productivity they offered. To avoid competition for work in more profitable public companies, more profitable public companies will surrender surplus earnings to public companies that achieve a shortage of revenues in the market.
The overflow of surplus values of public enterprises into those with a lack of earnings in the market will prevent the imbalance in the division of labour. As a result, everyone will earn as much money as they asked for their productivity. Thus, the labour market will balance employment in all public enterprises, regardless of the revenues of enterprises arising from market inconsistencies. It should be emphasized that the market is the best gift that Mother Nature has given to the economy, capable of bringing justice and stability to production processes. Economic development will no longer be based on market benefits but will result from people’s conscious decisions. People will base the development policy of the economy on the amount of money they will set aside from the tax for the development of the economy.
The new economic system would have no meaning without efficient regulation of workers’ responsibilities in production processes. In the developed work market, workers may offer an increase in their productivity by unrealistic offers to get the jobs they want. Such irresponsibility may result in the collapse of the economic system. Today, for example, politicians do precisely that, which is one of the leading causes of people’s disappointment and immorality in society.
The proposed socialist economy will use the workers’ past work values to establish workers’ responsibility in the production processes. This is what socialism has not had, resulting in inefficient production. Workers would guarantee the productivity they propose by the value of their past work. If workers do not meet the proposed productivities, they will bear responsibility by losing the value of their past work.
The workers will numerically determine the scope of their responsibilities in the production processes of public companies. Let’s say the average responsibility has a value of 1. The higher the accountabilities the workers offer for the desired workplaces, the greater a right they will have to work in the desired workplaces. If the revenues of public enterprises increase, the workers will share the profits in proportion to the responsibility they have proposed for their work. Such gain will be expressed in the value of the past work. Conversely, if a company loses money, workers who offer greater responsibility for their work will make significant losses in the value of past work.
Once the company’s performance is identified and the responsibility of workers is determined, the rewarding and punishing of the workers by the value of past work takes place automatically. In addition, workers will also be held accountable for their work through democratic anarchy. One can imagine how powerful democratic anarchy will be when people are given equal rights to reward and punish others with only a little value representing their past work.
The following fictitious examples present how the work division in socialism would work: Let a baker produces 1000 loaves of bread daily, making it the standard baking productivity with a coefficient value of 1. Then, let him value his work at a value of 1 (assuming this is an average work price). Finally, let him take responsibility for his productivity at a value of 1 (assuming this is an average responsibility for all jobs). Then a new baker who wants to take the position of the existing baker needs to offer the productivity of a value greater than 1 or needs to request a lower price of the current work, which would be a value lesser than 1, or needs to offer higher responsibility which will be in a value greater than 1. If a new baker proposes a better work offer than the existing one, who cannot or does not want to meet it, the new baker gets the job.
Establishing labour competition among workers can be challenging because comparing different productivity can make choosing the best job offer demanding. Then the work productivity of a new baker should be evaluated, which would require the assessment of the quantity and quality of the produced bread. If the offered productivity is not realized, disputes are possible and finding solutions may be problematic. For example, if the supplied ingredients of bread were not satisfactory, it may affect the realized productivity of the baker, for which he might not be responsible. Finally, considering that the job description is usually more complex than presented in this example, the workers might spend a lot of time resolving such issues, reducing the time to work. Nobel laureate Ronald Coase stated that resolving such an issue would require a higher cost than economically justified. He may be correct, but the open competition among workers might still bring superior economic productivity to capitalism.
However, democratic anarchy may completely resolve such a problem. By accepting democratic anarchy, workers will not even need to offer their productivities anymore; it will be assumed their productivity must be equal to or better than the productivity of the replaced worker. The work price will be standardized the same way the prices of goods are standardized today on the market. Practically, the highest responsibility offered by any worker for any job will be the main if not the only requirement for getting the job. The fine-tuning of workers’ responsibility will be determined through democratic anarchy by the evaluations made by their coworkers or customers. The following paragraphs will present what this means.
Let’s say the baker gets the job by offering work responsibility in the value of 1.2. The evaluations of people will be limited, so if the baker does not receive any assessment, the value of his past work will not change. However, if the baker receives two negative evaluations from people, he will lose 2.4 points from the value of his past work. Such responsibility will permanently reduce his salary by 2.4 money units. That means the baker will take responsibility for everything connected to the bread he produces. He will bear the same responsibility of being negatively assessed for any activity outside bread production. On the other hand, suppose a baker makes customers very satisfied with the bread he produces, then he may expect positive evaluations, which will permanently increase his salary. The impact of the assessments may be reduced, for example, a hundred times, and will still encourage people to behave responsibly.
The same will go for every job. The election campaign of a country’s president will last as long as the candidates need to register the values of their responsibilities for the president’s position. This will also represent the election process because the highest bid will get the job. Then, if living in a country is ordinary, the president might not receive any evaluation. If the standard of living deteriorates, people might give their presidents negative assessments because they will be considered the most responsible for the country. Let’s assume a president offers responsibility in the value of 1.6 to get the job; if they get one million negative evaluations, the president will lose 1,600,000 points that present the value of past work. Considering that the average value of past work would be 100,000, such a president will most likely drop into a negative value—debt. In this case, the president should pay the penalty to the economy instead of earning a salary. Considering that people would not be able to pay it, the president will receive a minimum wage as long as they do not escape from the debt. This will only be possible through highly productive work and very positive behaviour. Of course, if the president improves social life significantly, they will be well awarded by positive evaluations they receive from people.
Those who could not stand the heat will stay out of the kitchen. The new system will develop such a significant responsibility of the workers so they will not dare apply for jobs for which they are not qualified enough. However, if they still choose to apply, they will suffer heavy consequences for performing poor productivity. Their responsibility may be very painful and force them to resign quickly. Or, even better, they might search for their replacements to escape from significant losses of past work value.
In practice, workplace replacements would hardly exist without agreements among workers. When workers take jobs from previous workers, the previous workers would be considered to have performed the needed productivity and would profit from it even when they are replaced and do not contribute to such productivity. The new workers who force previous ones to leave will have to maintain the productivity of their predecessors but will profit only from the increased productivity they had offered. Besides, one should expect that replacing workers without an agreement would probably make the replaced workers dissatisfied. They will be able to retaliate by negatively evaluating their replacements through democratic anarchy. Their coworkers and friends may support them. Therefore, workers who want to replace existing ones would most likely negotiate conditions to get the jobs. Thus, one may expect the replacement of workers without negotiations only if the new workers bring noticeably higher productivity.
Managers will have great operational power, but the workers may still control them even before making executive decisions. For example, suppose company managers want to increase production through substantial investments. Then, workers must support them because the rise in productivity will bring new responsibilities to workers. The workers will have the right to change the values of accepted responsibilities for their work based on new managers’ proposals. If they reduce their responsibilities, it might mean that they are not confident with the changes managers propose, which might postpone or block a new production. Managers will have to persuade workers to accept their proposals by explaining the production risks and benefits.
Substantial responsibility in the production process will teach workers to establish mutual relations more on cooperation than competition. However, every job will find the best worker on the market the same way every good finds the best purchaser today. Besides, those who know how to improve production and society will no longer be prevented from doing so. And on top of that, workers and people will be satisfied. Thus, the open market of work will bring an outstanding contribution to the development of the economy and society.
Considering that in socialism, workers will not dare apply for jobs they are not qualified for, there is no need to condition anyone’s employment depending on the possession of diplomas. Firstly, a degree does not guarantee skill or workers’ productivity. Secondly, conditioning work with certifications unnecessarily reduces the freedom of access to desired jobs. The limitation of employment possibilities with possession of degrees has evolved to the level of absurdity that bureaucratically restricts the liberty of choosing work to a vast extent. Besides, the enormous volume of knowledge that the education system imposes on students usually has no connection with people’s professions. It serves authorities to ensure the survival of an authoritarian system and presents an unnecessary burden that alienates students from objective reality. Besides, alienated people can hardly solve social problems and improve society. In this regard, it is necessary to remove education as a bureaucratic requirement for having the right to work. This still means that professional education will be unquestionably necessary and welcome but not required for employment because knowledge can be acquired independently as well as through practice.
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Some regions in the world will accept the open work competition one day because no economy can be more productive than the one where the best available worker gets each job. Under the competitive pressures of public companies, the owners of private companies will try to increase their productivity as public companies do. However, they would not have the operational capabilities to oppose public companies. Given that workers in private companies will not have the freedom as workers in public companies and will not share the profits, they will be less interested in working for private companies. Considering that public companies will be more productive than private companies, the owners of private companies will be encouraged to join public companies.
Given that the saturated market does not provide substantial profits, which is the final result of every production, the owners of private companies will likely join public companies. In exchange for their firms, companies’ owners will get the equivalent value of past work. It will proportionately increase their incomes in public companies.
Over time, it can be expected that all companies in the region will merge into one public company, which will operate similarly to large corporations. The company will have a management that will remain the best option for organizing production. The new system will make them highly responsible for decision-making, guaranteeing efficient production. Managers will create jobs where they are most needed and remove those not needed enough. High production efficiency will be ensured by lowering competition from the enterprise to the job level.
The high responsibility that the proposed work division requires from workers will force manufacturers to avoid economic losses in an unpredictable market by organizing production on consumers’ demands. People will democratically determine the tax rate and directly allocate the tax fund for various consumer groups of collective spending. Furthermore, individual consumers will be increasingly required to order their expensive needs in advance. Production based on the orders of consumers presents a democratically planned economy. Such an economy should be considered the most stable production possible. Information technology can assist such a complex production to operate efficiently, which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin did not have.
Democratic anarchy is all the social power that may remain in socialism. Once equal rights are fully established in society, people will have no reason to commit crimes. Crime will be eliminated. Minor offences may remain and be resolved through democratic anarchy. Once equal human rights are established, police, courts, and prisons as symbols of authoritarian government will become obsolete and go down in history. This will make states go down in history as well.
The complete implementation of equal human rights in the economy should be called socialism. Nothing else deserves this name. Socialism will come spontaneously as the final result of equal human rights. It will not replace capitalism as Karl Marx believed; it will transform it.
Building socialism is a much more complicated task than reforming capitalism. The socialist solution presented in this book is not definite because this book opens up a spectrum of possibilities. It is challenging to choose the best solutions without practice. Social scientists will further develop the best solutions for socialism through experience based on the theory of equal human rights. The development of socialism will eliminate social evil and create a bright future beyond the wildest dreams of today.
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What is the underlying concept of the new system? The system will put society on sound footing. It will give every person the right to participate in decisions affecting their interests in the community. It will allow every individual to judge those who make decisions on their behalf. It enables the free activity of any individual and, accordingly, finding a way that is more suitable to the nature of the individual and society as a whole. Freedom allows the suspicion, formation of critical views, and the possibility of acting according to them that, together with practice, creates objective knowledge. Practice demystifies the categories of values and, therefore, allows for the breakdown of the dogmatic, non-critically accepted and alienated knowledge that is the cause of inconveniences in society today. Practice is the only possible route to understanding the individual’s power, the only way to discover society’s correct standing and orientation. This will form the process of disalienation of the community.
In such a system, the individual is forced to rely on their power to realize their needs. Constant reliance on their ability and the defined responsibility would teach the individual to accept the objective perception of their potency. This also means the acceptance of their impotence in cases where they cannot surmount it. By getting to know their powers objectively, the individual will live following their nature. Such an individual would form the needs only where they can realize them, which constitutes the essence of the individual’s balance and the formation of a constructive orientation in the relationship with nature and society. Such a system can satisfy the natural needs of individuals and the community, which brings harmony, peace, love, and joy to living.
The new form of socio-economic relations requires the formation of new elements needed to establish: the price of work, work division, the responsibility of workers, the cost of commodities, money accumulation, credit-monetary policy, working assets, development and amortization of the production, distribution of personal and collective spending, as well as of the use of real estates. The new socio-economic policy will be presented in greater detail within the limits of possibilities in the following chapters.
