Date: June 14, 2018Author: Paul Cockshott Allin and I have at times been criticised for proposing the use of labour time accounting in Towards a New Socialism . Surely, people have said, you can not use abstract labour in a socialist economy since abstract labour is a specific historical phenomenon of capitalism? The idea that under […]
Abstract labour and socialism Read More »
Date: March 5, 2017Author: Paul Cockshott The term law of value has exoteric and esoteric meanings. The exoteric or superficial meaning is that in capitalist type economy, relative labour values will act as an attractor for relative prices. The more esoteric meaning is that the distribution relations in all societies are constrained by the distribution
Why law of value really applies in socialist economies Read More »
Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski Mega-companies like Amazon and Walmart are already using large-scale central planning. We can wield that tool for good. Socialists need to renew our embrace of democratic planning and fight for a real alternative to capitalism. The latest book in our Jacobin Books series with Verso, The People’s Republic of Walmart:
Yes, A Planned Economy Can Actually Work Read More »
Paul Cockshott 28 Nov 19 In early November I was presenting a talk on planning algorithms to the Historical materialism conference in London. A major theme of the conference was historical materialism in the context of the climate crisis. One thing that struck me at the meeting was that people seem to be underestimating the
Proposal for collaborative project to work on green 5 year plan Read More »
[I]t is the ultimate aim of this work, to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society – K. Marx, 1867 Preface to Capital, vol. 1 Concepts from classical physics in political economy
Laws of Motion in Capitalism Read More »
I shall be elaborating on the following theses: The inability of 20th century socialism to progress to communism led to the crisis of theUSSR. Communism requires a definite stage of development of technology. This stage was only reached at the very end of the 20th century. But this problem of technical adequacy can not be
Big Data and Super-Computers: foundations of Cyber Communism Read More »
Date: May 4, 2020Author: Paul Cockshott This is not a new post but a corrected transcript of a talk given by me, as one of the Worker’s Party of Scotland representatives to the Open Polemic Conference about 25 years ago. Open Polemic was a journal that was formed in the wake of the Soviet collapse
Historical materialism and the repudiation of subjectivism Read More »
Date: May 7, 2020Author: Paul Cockshott There is a recent currently fashionable idea that Marx did not put forward a labour theory of value. I am surprised at how often I have come across this view over the last 20 years or so. Up until late 20th century, say until the fall of the USSR,
Defending the labour theory of value again Read More »