1

Gilles Dauv


p. 1 : VALUE, TIME & COMMUNISM: RE-READING MAR

p. 11 : T!E "ITTER VICTOR# O$ COUNCIL COMMUNISM


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VALUE, TIME & COMMUNISM: RE-READING MAR

Going back to Marx has nothing to do with digging into layers of thought and balancing
merit: a few essential abstract notions value, work, time, labour time and productivity
indicate what we wish to change in this world, and how.

1& T'e O(i)i* +, Value

Capital Volume does not begin with a definition of what capitalism is, but how it
!presents itself": !an immense accumulation of commodities". #his approach points to a
particular choice of perspective. Marx broaches the issue with the encounter of independent
producers who meet on the market to exchange their wares. $ince capital%labour is the heart
of the matter, as Marx himself points out, and since he is not writing a history book, why not
start with the encounter of the wage&earner and the capitalist ' (is en)uiry into wage&labour
is initiated from the point of view of a division of labour between self&employed producers
*farmer meets cloth&maker+, and proceeds to analy,e the dual nature of labour: concrete
*labour has use value+ and abstract *it produces exchange value+.
-ccording to Marx, use value takes up the character of exchange value once it enters the
market. (e describes the process as if value, instead of being born out of a very specific type
of production, came after the productive moment and imposed itself upon work as an
exterior constraint. t follows that the task of revolution would be to free the producers from
this constraint.
#hough Marx constantly relates value to labour, he does not insist upon its origin in
production. .et value results from a certain type of production, in which each item is made
for and according to the labour time necessary to make it. #herefore communism as Marx
sees it is a moneyless world based on communal work: the trouble is, work is a lot more than
people getting together in a workshop to manufacture ob/ects. 0ork includes time&counting
and time&saving, which in turn implies )uantifying average labour time necessary to produce
this or that item : in other words, what Marx rightly calls value. Marx treats use value like a
natural result of human activity, and would like to have use values without exchange value.
1ut use value is an analytic category both opposed to and encompassed by exchange value: it
is impossible to do away with one without doing away with the other.
!Marx has offered much more than was directly essential for the practical conduct of the
class war. 2..3 t is not true that Marx no longer suffices for our needs. 4n the contrary, our
needs are not yet ade)uate for the utili,ation of Marx5s ideas." *6osa 7uxemburg, Stagnation
and Progress of Marxism, 89:;+
#hat not&so&obvious idea suggested by 6. 7uxemburg over a century ago is even more
relevant than she thought. 1ecause of the historical limits of the proletarian movement in his
time, because !mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve", Marx could not take
his own intuitions to their ultimate conclusions. (e gave all the elements to understand that
value originates in production and manifests itself in exchange, but he still presented
exchange the market as if it determined the whole process: therefore a market&less
production, namely associated work, would be the key to emancipation. (ence the variations
in Marx5s criti)ue of work:
2


-& .+(/ A0+lis'e1, +( .+(/ as Ou( 2(i3e .a*4 5

n 8<=>, Marx argued that !the communist revolution is directed against the preceding
mode of activity" and !does away with labour" *German Ideology, ?art , @+.
#his was a long way from identifying man as homo faber, or a !toolmaker" *1. Aranklin+.
#wenty years later, there is a shift in emphasis : !$o far therefore as labour is a creator of
use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for
the existence of the human raceB it is an eternal nature&imposed necessity, without which
there can be no material exchanges between man and Cature, and therefore no life." *Capital,
8<>D, Ehap. 8, F+.
Capital5s first chapter regards labour *not wage&labour, labour in general+ as something
that has existed since the dawn of mankind and in nearly every society. -s the !man and
nature" metabolism becomes an ob/ect of en)uiry under the category of !labour", labour
turns work into an eternal natural fact. 0e are left with the idea that work, not work as we
know it now, but what it may have been in very old times, before private property, before
money, classes, etc., and what it could become in communism, i.e. work without a labour
market, is positive and necessary.
#he Critique of the Gotha Programme *8<DG+ described !2..3 a higher phase of communist
society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and
therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanishedB after labour
has become not only a means of life but lifeHs prime wantB after the productive forces have
also increased with the all&around development of the individual, and all the springs of co&
operative wealth flow more abundantly 2..3"
(ere Marx launched what was to be the -1E of Marxism: the proletarian ceases to be a
proletarian *i.e. a wage&earner exploited by a boss+ when everyone works. Cow, which work '
wage&labour ' Marx proceeds as if the )uestion was irrelevant: as soon as we all belong to the
work community and there are no bourgeois, extending work to everyone solves the social
)uestion. Getting rid of capitalism is not perceived of as abolishing the capital%labour
reunion, but as liberating work from capital, from its alienated prison.
n the 8<=:s, Marx started from a radical standpoint that was utterly unacceptable in his
time *and has remained so up to now+. #hirty years and a few proletarian defeats later, by
labour becoming !life5s prime want", he certainly meant a complete reconfiguration of
creative activity. 1ut for him, achieving this goal re)uired more development of !the
productive forces". #he historical thread Marx was weaving in the 8<=:s proved in
contradiction to the working class movement as it was really developing *unions, parties,
parliamentary action, etc.+. $adly but logically, Marx5s late vision remained hampered by
capitalist pictures of the future: only a worker&led economic growth would ultimately free
mankind.

6& Ti3e as Measu(e

-ccording to Capital, !n all states of society, the labour time that it costs to produce the
means of subsistence, must necessarily be an ob/ect of interest to mankind, though not of
e)ual interest in different stages of development." *Volume , Ehap.8, =+
#he 8<GD&G< manuscripts *the Grundrisse+ are reputed to be )uite different from Capital.
n many respects they are, especially because they link exploitation to alienation. $till, one
can read in those pages the same contradictions as in Marx5s published writings, on work as
well as on time, and both concepts are indeed interlocked.
!6eal economy saving consists of the saving of labour time *minimum *and
minimi,ation+ of production costs+ 2..3 #he saving of labour time 2is3 e)ual to an increase of
free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual 2..3"
7t goes without saying 2..3 that direct labour time itself cannot remain in the abstract
antithesis to free time in which it appears from the perspective of bourgeois economy. 7abour
cannot become play, as Aourier would like, although it remains his great contribution to have
3

expressed the suspension not of distribution, but of the mode of production itself, in a higher
form, as the ultimate ob/ect."
#rue, life, and of course productive acts, re)uire !practical use of the hands and free bodily
movement", and imply effort and exertion, and we must bear this in mind, especially against
the myth of automation&induced freedom. Cevertheless, the work v. play opposition is a
dead&end: these are historical, not natural, categories.
Cot everything can be turned into fun. Iuite. 1ut the necessity of effort does not mean
that it has to take the form of work. t is not always more pleasant to eat than to cook. -nd
what about washing up ' t only becomes a chore because of the mechanical nature of
housework *<:J of which are still performed by women in 0estern Kurope and Corth
-merica+, that has to be done under double pressure from time&saving and family life as we
know it. 6e&appropriating and altering our conditions of existence involve new relationships
between man%woman, but also parent%child, adult%youth, which call for another habitat,
another education, etc.
0hat we read in the Grundrisse is as profound as ambiguous:
!Eapital itself is the moving contradiction, 2in3 that it presses to reduce labour time to a
minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of
wealth."
!#he more this contradiction develops, the more does it become evident that the growth of
the forces of production can no longer be bound up with the appropriation of alien labour,
but that the mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. 4nce
they have done so and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence
then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social
individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so
rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time
will grow for all."
Eapitalism !is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable
time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and
thus to free everyone5s time for their own development. 1ut its tendency is always, on the one
side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour."
!Aor real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. #he measure of
wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time."
1y definition, disposable time has not been employed yet, is still potential, therefore
impossible to measure. #here is a difference between saying: !5ll work in your garden
tomorrow from F to =", as a local exchange trading system partner would say *as an interest&
free credit swap, 7K#$ is based on labour&time count+, and saying: !5ll help you gardening
tomorrow afternoon", as a friend might say. $o Marx5s disposable time seems to break with
value. 1ut the )uestion remains: in a future society, will this disposable time become the
totality of time, or will it be simply added to an always present labour&time, even reduced to a
couple of hours a day '... Aurther on, Marx defines !free time" as !both idle time and time
for higher activity", so we are not any wiser.
Marx posed the !time&count" issue *which is fundamental to the )uestion of work+ but
could not solve it because he was addressing it on the basis of the notion of time itself.
#ime is indeed the dimension of human liberation, providing the measure of time does not
turn into measuring the world and us according to time.

8& C+33u*i49 2la**i*)

!7et us now picture 2..3 a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the
means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is
consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community. 2..3 #he total product of
our community is a social product. 2..3 0e will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel
with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means
of subsistence is determined by his labour time." *Capital, vol. , chap. 8, =+
f Marx assumes that labour time will regulate production, !merely for the sake of a
parallel with the production of commodities", this is because the opposite assumption would
4

be near unthinkable. #hough this is for the sake of a comparison, his perspective is indeed to
replace small private producers by social work, bourgeois rule by community rule, and
anarchy and waste by democratic planning.
#he whole plan hinges on transparency and self&understanding: in future, human beings
will be conscious of what they do. -t present, the bourgeois do not know what labour time
amounts to, and they don5t want to know, because an accurate reckoning of labour time
would reveal the extent of the exploitation of labour. Kxact opposite in communism: in
Marx5s view, associated producers will be able to compute the labour time necessary to
whatever they manufacture.
Marx repeatedly refused to draw blueprints for the future. $o it is significant that when he
did elaborate on the sub/ect in his Critique of the Gotha Programme *8<DG+, his suggestion
for the !lower phase" of communism, labour vouchers, amounted to value without money.

:& C+u*;il C+33u*is3 & La0+u( Ti3e

n 89;:, the @utch council communist group GL *Group of nternationalist Eommunists
of (olland+ published undamental Principles of Communist Production and !istribution.
-fter being active in the L-?@, German&born Man -ppel *8<9:&89<G+ had to move to
(olland where he /oined the GL. (e had done the first draft of the text, and later the scheme
was laid down in more details, by ?aul Mattick in particular.
ts main principle is the !introduction of the -verage $ocial (our of 7abour as a unit of
economic regulation and control. 2..3 all money will be declared worthless and only labour
certificates will give entitlement to social product. t will be possible to exchange this
Ncertificate moneyN only at the cooperative shops and warehouses. #he sudden abolition of
money will bring about a situation in which, e)ually suddenly, all products must have their
appropriate -$6# *-verage $ocial 6eproduction #ime+ stamped upon them." *89;: edition,
Kpilogue, O F: !Arom Money to 7abour&#ime Eomputation"+
Cow, if the GL gave a key role to labour time counting, it was not from an economist5s or
a technician5s point of view, because that method would be more efficient or better adapted to
modern industry. n a short autobiographical note *readable on libcom+ written in 89>>, Man
-ppel made it clear what the idea that underpinned the plan was :
!2..3 the most profound and intense contradiction in human society resides in the fact that
2..3 the right of decision over the conditions of production, over what and how much is
produced and in what )uantity, is taken away from the producers themselves and placed in
the hands of highly centralised organs of power. 2..3 #his basic division in human society can
only be overcome when the producers finally assume their right of control over the conditions
of their labour, over what they produce and how they produce it. 2..3 t was likewise a wholly
new conception to concentrate oneHs attention 2..3 upon the exercise of power by the factory
organisations, the 0orkersH Eouncils, in their assumption of control over the factories and
places of workB in order that flowing from this, the unit of the average social hour of labour,
as the measure of the production times of all goods and services in both production and
distribution, might be introduced."
#his highlights the prime purpose of the scheme : to make sure all producers would be
able to understand how production functions, so they can take authentic collective decisions.
Cobody else but the producers is in the best position to know what production implies in
terms of material and human resources, and the only way of synthesi,ing all productive
factors is to reduce them to their common denominator: human labour, measured in time,
-$6#, the great and fair simplifier. $o it will be necessary to !adopt as the nodal point of all
economic activity the duration of labour time expended in the production of all use values, as
the e)uivalent measure replacing money values, and around which the whole of economic life
would revolve."
-s seen above in O 8 and ;, Marx was in contradiction with himself when he presented
social labour time as something different from and opposed to value, but his notes did not
elaborate the idea into a full definitive plan. Eouncil communism5s -$6# brings this
contradiction to a stage where it is untenable :
5

#he bourgeois does not know what value is : he only bothers about profit, interest or rent,
and when economists discuss value, it is these three forms they are talking about, not
Marxian value. .et, according to council communists, the associated producers would be able
to evaluate the individual and the collective physical&mental energy necessary to produce
ob/ects, and to measure that exertion in time. #his is forgetting that labour time, because it is
a social average, is hardly computable for a specific task or ob/ect. Value does exist, but not as
a management techni)ue instrument.
#he money&less utopia goes a long way: whereas money is the natural tool of the rich, the
common people want a standard that comes from them, from those who do the real thing,
who create riches. -fter all, any effort can be reduced to a certain exertion measurable in time
*considering the intensity of the task and skill involved+. n order to expand P free Q time, the
aim is to locate !working hours" and reduce them as much as possible.
Eouncil communists proposed a proletarian variation on that theme. #o avoid utopia, the
plan starts from three postulates: production has to be done, cannot be turned into play, and
its process is so complex that it re)uires planning. #he labour time&based economy meets all
three re)uisites. t would make worker management possible and exploitation impossible:
gold, coins or notes can be accumulated to hire labour, labour&time vouchers can5t. 1esides, a
labour time&based economy would eliminate waste and reconcile fairness with efficiency.
- 899= essay describes !a society based on labour time" :
!#he only way time can become HfreeH is by making the products of that time free as well.
#he products of our work can all be compared with one another in terms of the time taken or
spent producing them. $o now we can, if we choose, suppress prices, markets and so on and
make distribution of all products HfreeH in exchange for the HtimeH of the producers. 2..3 4nly
when the producers themselves know the true costs of production can they take control of or
manage the production process." *"he content of Socialism#Communism, by @.G.: readable
on left&dis.nl+
n such plans, in spite of complete political and economic worker democracy, work is not
abolished as such, as something distinct from the rest of life.
Aor the GL, the company explicitly stood as an economic unit at the centre of the system.
4f course, council communists were aware of the inescapable fact that some companies, and
some workers within each company, would be more productive than others: they thought this
would be compensated for by a complex regulating mechanism detailed by Mattick in $hat is
Communism % *International Council Correspondence, R 8, 4ct. 89;=+.
(owever, if the regulator is labour time, this entails the imperative of being productive,
and productivity is no servant : it rules over production. #he shopfloor would soon lose
control over its elected supervisors, and democratically designated co&organi,ers would act as
bosses. #he system of councils would survive as an illusion, and workersH management result
in capitalism, or ratherS capitalism would never have disappeared. 0e can5t have it both
ways: either we keep the foundation of value, or we dispense with it. #he circle can5t be
s)uared.
$uch a scheme goes as close as one can get to keeping the essentials of capitalism yet
putting them under full worker control.

<& "+(1i)a=s C(i4i>ue

#he GL and ?annekoek5s vision was born as a counterpoint to 7eninist and then $talinist
6ussia, and owed a lot to a prevailing mood created by the 89;:s @epression. -cross the
political spectrum, 4tto 6Thle, 1runo 6i,,i, dissident #rotskyists 1urnham and $chachtman,
non&Marxists 1erle and Means and many others thought capitalism was on its way to
planning, bureaucrati,ation and nationali,ation. @uring the war, M. $chumpeter announced
the end of the age of private entrepreneurs, and for him the )uestion was whether a new
sociali,ed economy would come under democratic or dictatorial rule. -fter 89=G, this
perception was reinforced by the growing power of the U$$6 and Mao5s victory in Ehina.
Socialisme ou &arbarie is now well&known as an eminent theorist of world bureaucrati,ation,
but similar views were common at the time. Larl Lorsch wrote in 89G: :
6

!#he control of the workers over the production of their own lives will not come from their
occupying the positions, on the international and world markets, abandoned by the self&
destroying and so&called free competition of the monopolistic owners of the means of
production. #his control can only result from a planned intervention by all the classes today
excluded from it into a production which today is already tending in every way to be
regulated in a monopolistic and planned fashion." *"en "heses on Marxism "oday+
Aor council communists, the revolutionary )uestion became how labour could take over
the management of a more and more !organi,ed" capitalism and thereby transform it in a
socialist%communist economy. 6ussia played the part of a counter&model. #o )uote one of the
editions of the GL5s text, the ob/ective was that !once the workers have won power through
their mass organisations", they !will be able to hold on to that power".
1ordiga stood apart because he refused the concept of P bureaucracy Q as a new social
agent which would play in the F:
th
century an epochal role comparable to the bourgeoisie
before.
#hough his theory of the party differed from 7enin5s, he maintained a constant pro&7enin
stand. $uch persistency paradoxically helped him grasp the nature of capitalism and of
communism. #he main reason why it took him so long to analyse 6ussia as capitalist and the
Eomintern as anti&revolutionary, is for him the bureaucracy%rank and file opposition was
never a key issue. (e re/ected the theory of !bureaucratic" capitalism : the 6ussian command
economy run by the party&$tate did not differ in nature from western bourgeois&led
capitalism. #he enigma was not the bureaucracy, but the essential economic laws which the
bureaucracy had to obey, and he saw these laws as described in Capital: value accumulation,
exchange of commodities, declining rate of profit, etc. 4nly relative backwardness prevented
6ussia from the !usual" manifestations of over&production, which asserted itself anyhow,
particularly by waste. @uring the Eold 0ar, when many a council communist depicted
bureaucratic regimes as the likely future of capitalist evolution, 1ordiga foresaw the U$ dollar
would penetrate 6ussia, and ultimately crack the Lremlin walls.
#he @utch&German 7eft was right to define the U$$6 as capitalist: the reason why it
defined it as capitalist was flawed. 1ecause there were no private bourgeois, no privately
owned business and because competition seemed inexistent, council communists believed
that $talin5s 6ussia had altered at least some of the fundamentals set down by Marx. t
insisted on the control of the economy by the bureaucracy, to which it opposed the slogan of
worker management. 1ordiga said there was no need for a new programme : worker
management is a secondary matter, and workers will only be able to manage the economy if
market and value relations are abolished.
Ceedless to say, 1ordiga5s cogent ob/ections were left unanswered, partly because they
came from a staunch defender of 7enin.
n his Marxist days, E. Eastoriadis *then writing as ?. Ehaulieu+ regarded value as a mere
instrument of measure, a useful concept, not as the reality of capital. n Marx and 'eynes
*89>9+, Mattick interpreted the analysis of value as a criti)ue of the superficial nature of
classical economics : he did not see it as a social mechanism characteristic of capitalism.
#he debate goes far beyond the analysis of bureaucratic or $tate capitalism.
1ecause wage&labour and value were essential to 1ordiga5s definition of capitalism, he
better understood what the U$$6 was. -t the same time, as he dismissed the bureaucratic or
$tate capitalist theories, he missed the bureaucratic issue, which is a real one, not in the
German&@utch sense which gives it pre&eminence, but in the sense that there will be no
revolution without proletarian self&action. !#he proletarian movement is the self(conscious,
independent movement of the immense ma)ority, in the interest of the immense ma/ority."
*Communist Manifesto, chap. 8: our emphasis+ #he @utch&German 7eft was among the few
who took these words seriously. n short, 1ordiga thought communism could be achieved top
down. Eouncilism prioriti,ed worker democracy *and some like Eastoriadis, in the end, /ust
democracy+. 1ordiga prioriti,ed dictatorship. (owever, his consistency in defining
communism neither as a matter of consciousness nor as a matter of management remains
valid and essential.


7

?& D+es Value A0+lis' I4sel, 5

4ne more episode in the value saga...
f revolution is a complete break with capitalism, this begs the )uestion of what causes it.
#he proletariat makes the revolution, no doubt, but Marx often presents proletarian action as
a side&effect of industriali,ation, as if the development of productive forces not only
contributed to revolution, but was its ma/or cause. #his is what Marx suggests in relation to
the first automated machines, with special reference to computing pioneer Eh. 1abbage :
!-s the basis on which large industry rests, the appropriation of alien labour time, ceases,
with its development, to make up or to create wealth, so does direct labour as such cease to be
the basis of production, since, in one respect, it is transformed more into a supervisory and
regulatory activityB but then also because the product ceases to be the product of isolated
direct labour, and the combination of social activity appears, rather, as the producer."
*Grundrisse+
!-s soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well&spring of wealth,
labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value 2must cease
to be the measure3 of use value. 2..3 0ith that, production based on exchange value breaks
down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and
antithesis."
n other words, when it becomes impossible to trace the personal contribution of an
individual worker to wealth creation, the law of value *the regulation of production and
circulation of goods by the amount of average labour time necessary to produce them+
hinders economic progress and mutates into an absurdity which triggers historical change.
n the past, the growing merchant power had exploded feudal shackles and replaced
aristocratic by bourgeois rule. $oon the industrial thrust, the economic sociali,ation and the
concentrated masses of workers would prove incompatible with private property and
bourgeois domination. ?roletarian revolution was thought of on the model of democratic
bourgeois revolution. #he author of Capital partook of his time5s belief in historical progress,
and added a revolutionary twist: capitalist development led to communism.
Marx cannot be simplified into this position, but there is enough in his work to warrant it.
?resent in his analysis is the tension of the time of bourgeois triumph. !$ocial labour" implies
the possibility of re/ecting all forms of alienated practice, but the concept oscillated between
utopia in the 8<=:s and practical politics in later years. -t about the same time as the
Grundrisse, he was writing that
-t a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into
conflict with the existing relations of production 2..3 Arom forms of development of the
productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. #hen begins an era of social
revolution. #he changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the
transformation of the whole immense superstructure." *preface to his Contribution to a
Critique of Political *conomy, published in 8<G9+
-s explained in the conclusion of Capital volume , ! 2..3 capitalist production begets, with
the inexorability of a law of Cature, its own negation. t is the negation of negation."
#his !expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people" will be possible when
capitalist development * V the development of productive forces+ renders useless and absurd
the coexistence of exploiting and exploited classes. #he Grundrisse expounds the same
dialectic:
!-s the system of bourgeois economy has developed for us only by degrees, so too its
negation, which is its ultimate result."
Many a thinker *their name is legion+ has taken pains to demonstrate how the !law of
value" was tending to abolish itself *the word law is typical of the decline of criti)ue into
science+. #hese theorists herald the advent of a time when the average social labour time
would mutate into an inade)uate measuring rod and ineffective regulator. $ooner or later,
wage&labour5s own sociali,ation would tear the system apart as an outmoded frame.
#his amounts to revolutionary change without revolution.
8

Co. #here is no tipping point when the wage&labour system would render itself null and
void. 7et us not expect capitalist contradictions to solve those of the proletariat, because the
proletariat also is a contradiction: it is situated both at the inner heart and outside of
capitalism. #heories of *violent or gradual+ capital self&destruction dodge this contradiction,
which has to do with class struggle. n particular, as no expenditure of physical or mental
effort can be accurately broken down to seconds and minutes, complete submission of labour
by capital is impossible. #he proletarians5 fight against capital is based on their resistance to
what the bourgeois turns them into: an activity bound in and forced into productive time.

@& Ma(A as a Ma(Ais4

n order to distinguish between Marx and his many non&revolutionary successors, radicals
have often contended that Marx himself was the first and probably best criti)ue of Marxism.
* did it too.+
$ometimes the road to a mistake is paved with good intentions.
-s soon as !Marxism" emerged, Marxists started looking over Marx5s writings to find the
demonstration that one day capitalist sociali,ation would prevent capitalism from
perpetuating itself. #his might be a good definition of Marxism, actually: replacing
proletarian action by fairly peaceful evolution or by a beneficial catastrophe, but in any case a
)uasi&natural process. -t the end of the 89
th
century, this structural limit was perceived in the
contradiction between bourgeois property and such a huge productive blossoming that even
cartels and trusts would be incapable of mastering it. -s volumes and of !as 'apital
came out, they were read as proof that enlarged reproduction of capital would inevitably
reach breaking point.
Cowadays, the analysis shifts from the economic to the social crisis, and from the worker
to the people as an agent of change. #hanks to the 8<GD&G< manuscripts being available, the
limitation is now said to be in the contemporary sources of wealth, which supposedly exceed
so much capitalist structure that they call for its suppression, like a fabric bursting at the
seams. #oni Cegri will not be the last one to read in the Grundrisse that value *the regulation
of production by labour time, by the hunt for minimal production cost+ is already ceasing to
rule modern society : according to #. Cegri, the world now depends on the general or social
intellect *Marx beyond Marx+ ,essons on the Grundrisse, -utonomedia, 8998+. -ll we *a we
likely to include about 99J of the population+ would have to do is grow aware of this
historical discrepancy, turn potential evolution into effective change, and society would be
transformed.
n plain Knglish, in the F8
st
century as in 89::, productive forces are portrayed as if they
were antagonistic to value and wage&labour, and on the verge of spiralling out of bourgeois
control.
#his interpretation is biased but, as explained before, not unfaithful to Marx5s letter and
spirit.
#here is more to it than simply contrasting young Marx to the old. Eontradictions
abounded in *and drove forward+ his writings from beginning to end. (e followed a
consistent and discontinued path from the 8<=:s unpublished manuscripts to the *often
e)ually unpublished+ manuscripts of later years. n the 8<>:s, at the same time as he was
having far&reaching insights in what is known as the Grundrisse, he was never&finishing his
masterwork, Capital. #he title is significant of Marx5s priority : a F: or ;:&year effort to
immerse himself in the ins and outs of capitalism in order to understand its possible
overthrow. #he means turned into an end: the more he wanted to get to the essentials of the
proletariat, the deeper he went into studying capitalism. ?rocrastination is often a sign that
problem and solution are indissolubly mixed.
Undoubtedly, we critici,e Marx with the help of Marx, and the most enlightening comment
remains the one 1ordiga made more than G: years ago: Marxian texts have to be read as a
!description of the features of communist society". #hat being said, what dominated Marx5s
life and work ' Cot only did he leave his literally blinding intuitions aside, but even those
insights mixed the supersession of the economy with the pro/ect of a community economy
*see above O =+. Marx is more a critic of money and commodity than of work and
9

productivity. f he gave a minor place to a communist revitali,ation of the 6ussian peasant
commune compared to worldwide industriali,ation, it was because capitalist headway went
along with an ascending worker movement which was essential to him.
!2..3 the free trade system is destructive. t breaks up old nationalities and pushes the
antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. n a word, the free
trade system hastens the social revolution. t is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen,
that vote in favour of free trade." *Speech on the -uestion of ree "rade, Manuary 8<=<+
Co&one sets himself free from the limits of the period he happens to live in, and we are as
time&bound as Marx and Kngels were.
Understanding communism implies distinguishing Marx from Marxism without denying
the link between the two. 4therwise, we would risk making up Marx in accordance to our
wishes, or *worse+ with the winds of time. 0e can already read about a Marx who was an
ecologist before ecology. Maybe soon we will be told about an esoteric Marx who theori,ed
gender.

G.@.


$+( ,u(4'e( (ea1i*) :

$everal essential points made in this text derive from 1runo -starian5s stimulating
Feuilleton *serial+ on value, chapters 8 and F *on the (ic $alta site, so far only in Arench+.

4ddly enough first published in Moscow in the maelstrom of the second world war, the
Grundrisse remained virtually unknown until the second German edition *89G;+, were
made available in Arench only in 89>D, and Knglish readers had to wait until 89D; for a full
translation.

-ll Grundrisse )uotes are taken from Cotebook V, O !Eontradiction between the foundation
of bourgeois production *value as measure+ and its development. Machines, etc.".

f the GL and Mattick could have read the then&unpublished Grundrisse in the ;:s, it is
likely that Marx5s pages would have fuelled their thesis rather than thrown cold water on it.
0hen they consider the Grundrisse, contemporary councilists like @.G. find confirmation in
Marx5s passages on time.
Aor example, in Marx.s Critique of Socialist ,abor(Money Schemes / the Myth of Council
Communism.s Proudhonism, libcom, F:8;, @avid -dam rebuts my former criti)ue of the
councilist vision of communism on the ground that the GL5s notion of value is the same as
Marx5s. #he discussion is becoming rather tricky, no fault of @. -dam or mine, it is /ust that
the )uestion is complicated. n the past, wished to refute the GL in the name of Marx5s
analysis of value, with special reference to the Grundrisse. now make the point that there is
something highly debatable in Marx5s vision itself, both in Capital and the Grundrisse, and
that the GL did follow Marx5s footsteps and was wrong to do so: far from being a useful and
fair instrument of measure, labour time is capitalist blood. #his is more than a causative link:
labour time is the substance of value. Marx was indeed a forerunner of the councilist pro/ect.
7et it be clear, however, that our present criti)ue of Marx is also possible because of what we
read in his writings.

4n the popularity of the 7pla**i*)B a*1 7+()a*iCe1 ;api4alis3B themes in the 89;:s:
n 89;F, under the name of Earl $teuermann, 4. 6Thle published a book *available in Arench,
not in Knglish+ the title of which translates as: !0orld Erisis or: #owards $tate Eapitalism".
-lthough his 89;9 book *first published in Arench+ remained in obscurity for thirty years,
1runo 6i,,i *89:8&DD+ was one of the first to theori,e the &ureaucrati0ation of the world.
n 89;9&=:, in the -merican #rotskyist $0?, M. 1urnham and M. $chachtman re/ected
#rotsky5s thesis of the U$$6 as a !degenerated workers5 $tate", and demonstrated that the
bureaucracy was an exploiting class and the 6ussian $tate imperialist. 1urnham soon turned
10

arch&conservative and became a dedicated Eold 0arrior. $chachtman evolved towards a
more and more moderate social democracy.
-. 1erle and G. Means were among those who promoted the theory of corporate governance
*"he Modern Corporation / Private Property, 89;F+. -. 1erle was involved in the Cew @eal.
M. $chumpeter5s influential book was Capitalism1 Socialism / !emocracy *89=F+.

4n Ma(A a*1 4'e Russia* mir, see his letter to Vera Wasulich, March <, 8<<8B and : !f the
6ussian 6evolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the 0est, so that both
complement each other, the present 6ussian common ownership of land may serve as the
starting point for a communist development." *preface to the 8<<F edition of the Communist
Manifesto+B also Kngels5 prescient remarks in his letter to V. Wasulich, -pril F;, 89<G.



%%%%%









































11



T!E "ITTER VICTOR# O$ COUNCIL COMMUNISM


#here are D+(/e( ;+u*;ils :

P Eouncils were easy to form and had enormous potential. #hey were flexible and
democratic. #hey presupposed cooperation and coordination, and they extended notions of
popular governance and grassroots participation. Aor council members, neither pre&existing
organi,ations nor a background in socialist theory were prere)uisites. Eouncils made the
unions and political parties redundant. #hey could embrace as much of the population as
prevailing political understandings and cultural pre/udices made possible. 1ecause of the
councils, society was both thrown into chaos and was susceptible to a thorough and radical
reorgani,ation. f councils are still relevant today, it5s not because they imply a particular
solution to humanity5s problems, but because the need for something new in both form and
content grows ever more pressing. Q E1&

-nd there is ;+u*;ilis3, the ideology of self&management, in the past usually e)uated
with the running of factories by the workers themselves, now extended to self&managing our
whole life.

Ceedless to say, the !victory" we speak of here is not the sort of achievement that past and
present councilists were and are aiming at: only a sad unavoidable ideological victory,
deology is not necessarily made of false data, nor does it put forward only wrong ideas. t
is a deformed consciousness of reality *and therefore usually incorporates hard facts+, which
provides people with a way of *mis+understanding history and themselves in it.
Eouncilism is a mental mapping born as much out of proletarian endeavours as out of
their limits. 0hile worker self&organi,ation was *and remains+ necessary, it was *and is+ not
enough to overthrow capitalism. nstead of perceiving this limit for what it is a limit
ideology sets it as the ob/ective of the movement. deologi,ation is the process by which the
whole of proletarian history is re&interpreted as if this limitation was its essence. Eouncilism
is worker councils turned into the be&all&and&end&all of revolution.
7ike any other partial truth, it has fallen prey to !recuperation". #he ability of modern
society to integrate and digest radical criti)ue is nothing new, or to be afraid of. Cowadays,
because capitalism carries the day, as long as the essentials *private property, wage&labour,
the authority of the $tate+ are respected, the allowed margin of freedom is larger than before,
and we are granted lots of !discursive space". once saw a graffiti on a white wall in Vienna :

,(ee1+3 ,(+3 'e(e 4+ 'e(e

Cot only is !law and order" compatible with innocuous criti)ue and inoffensive social
experiment, it also needs our active involvement in the day&to&day running of society. n
democratic countries, providing you pay the rent and obey the cop, you5re free to extol
1uddha or 1akunin. !Ehanging things so everything stays the same", as novelist 7ampedusa
wrote in "he ,eopard. #raditional !bourgeois" culture has gone multicultural and
nonconformity is marketed. More harmless personal freedom, more leeway, more
community watch, more peer&control too. #he most modern aspects of contemporary
discourse have renounced a strict hierarchy, and see no contradiction in promoting at the
same time individualism *self&empowerment+ and collective values *the team spirit+.
!$elf&empowerment in its simplest form means taking charge of your own life, in your
work place, with your colleagues, with your subordinates, with your superiors, with your
body, with your illness and for you caring for yourself." *$elf&Kmpowerment X @evelopment
Eentre, F:8;+
12

-s a result, a consensus has emerged on the virtues of au4+*+39 : peer assessment in the
classroom, power&sharing and self&governance for local associations and public bodies,
management by agreed&upon ob/ectives in the office, hori,ontalism in the 4ccupy and the
$)uares movements, autonomous space for alternativists in many cities, etc.
?arliamentarianism is aging, let5s revive it with strong doses of participatory or monitory
democracy. Eommunal goal&setting, self&development and networking make the news.
7eninist party builders are a /oke. ?artyism is down, grassroots&ism prevails.
$econdly, !i*,+(3a4i+* first" has become part of dominant ideology: maximum and
fastest information Y #he assumption is, the more we know, the more we understand, but
above all we need facts, and correct understanding will comes from lots of data : !Lnowing is
@oing". Mainstream society is obsessed with education and empowerment: community civic
classes *learning to be a community&minded citi,en+ now extends to global civics *learning to
be ecologically&concerned+.
#his universal trend is unfortunately reflected in the radical milieu. nformations X
Eorrespondance 4uvriZres *89>8&D;+, and now Kchanges X Mouvement claimed to have no
theory except the theory that only the proletarians could determine their own methods and
aims. 7ikewise, thousands of infokiosks and indymedia collectives profess to have no specific
doctrine *Marxist, anarchist, ecologist, feminist, whatever+, and say their sole purpose is to
serve as a meeting place and communication centre meant to promote social struggles, with
the difference that the !historical sub/ect" is no longer the working class, but the people *the
famous 99J+. #hey act as if E45s !choice of non&existence" *IS, R 88+ had been inverted into
the choice of F=%D on&line presence, yet information first remains the priority, too often with
similar features as !bourgeois" media : constant data flow, information overload and
obsolescence, sensationalismS 6adicalism is reduced to a description and exaltation of
manifold struggles.
#he autonomy principle and the information fascination can best be seen at work in the
world wide web: the nternet is the universal dispenser, accelerator and multiplier of data
and ideas. #he !chattering classes" have expanded far beyond the readership of the Guardian
or the 2ew 3ork "imes: everyone is an opinion giver and receiver now. Aor those who believe
that social change will come out of ever more global knowledge and discussion, cyber&
activism is ideal. - planetary critical sub&society is waging a permanent war of the words.
#his is all happening in the realm of ideology. n reality, we do not live in a bottom&up
society. Aar from it. 89
th
century factory despotism has not gone. #oday5s boss tells you what
to do and punishes you if you misbehave, and not /ust in dictatorial Ehina. n -ma,on5s
Kuropean warehouses, the company lords over the life of its labour force to the point of
telling employees how to park their cars: trespassing over the white line separating the
parking spaces gets you a !warning". -nd democratic -merica offers a wide range of societal
and cultural arch&conservatives who manage to put back the cultural societal clock.
$o, as far as ideas matter, a mere ideological victory, miles away from -nton ?annekoek5s
writings or ultra&leftist summer camps. -t the end of the 89
th
century, Marxism watered&
down Marx to an apologist of worker productivism. 7ater, hundreds of millions were
oppressed in his name, and Corth Loreans still are. More recently, @ebord has been
transmogrified into an anti&art artist: he no longer has a !bad reputation". -madeo 1ordiga
would prove too much to chew for acamedia pundits, but who knows ' #he old Ceapolitan5s
insights on ecology, his cutting sharp&worded style and scathing wit could add a much&
wanted provocative flavour to current discourse. #here is no doctrine that infotainment is
unable to feed on. Co&one is innocent. Kverybody is liable to prosecution or recuperation.
#he German&@utch 7eft indeed had a strong point in 89F: and later, when it re/ected the
mass parties of the F
nd
and ;
rd
nternationals in the name of radical worker self&activity. #he
conundrum was that the call for worker power conflicted with the communist perspective of
the abolition of work, when only the abolition of work could get rid of capitalism. n 89F:,
the proletarians stood at the crossroads, stayed there, did not meet the challenge that their
own uprising had created, and were defeated. -s the perspective of going beyond work and
the commodity had hardly emerged in the 89F:s or ;:s, and only began to assert itself in the
>:s, the contradiction was inevitable at the time and lingered on in the way the radical
13

minority could understand itself. 6ecuperation always feeds on such inner contradictions, by
prioriti,ing some aspects of theory and deflecting others. E-&
$elf&organi,ing is indispensable. $elf&managing factories, neighbourhoods or schools is
another thing. #hough self&organi,ation and self&management are not necessarily synonyms,
ideology blurs the difference. t is an inevitable illusion for workers at one time or other to
believe that they would be free if they took work into their own hands, that is, without doing
away with work as such. -nd for people in general to believe that we could change society
merely by running society ourselves. 6evolution will not clear up these illusions in a day.
!6ecuperation" is the normal process by which society recovers parts of what tried to
negate it, so there is nothing here to reproach councilists with. 0hat is ob/ectionable, though,
is a persistent failure to realise how and why such a specific ideologi,ing diversion could take
place. $ome basic councilist tenets have been incorporated within dominant ideas, because
they were based on historical limits, and it is these limits that we must comprehend. deology
only triviali,es and sterili,es theoretical aspects by separating theory from the practice where
it originated.
!#he emancipation of the working classes must be con)uered by the working classes
themselves." #hese were the 6ules of the nternational 0orkingmen -ssociation, approved
by its Geneva congress in 8<>>. -utonomy is indispensable, not /ust to initiate revolution,
also to accomplish it: who else but the self&organi,ing proletarians could do away with the
proletariat ' 1ut it5s not enough. t is not the principle on which everything can or must be
based. -utonomy means giving oneself one5s own law *nomos+. t5s based on the sel, *auto+.
-s far as the proletarians are concerned, what self are we talking about ' ?raising worker
autonomy is mistaking the part for the whole, fragment of a fro,en totality. E6&

G.@.


E1& Insurgent 2otes F:8; review of two recent history books & by M. Eomack and G. Luhn &
on worker councils : see insurgentnotes.com

E-&#he same obviously applies to the most recuperated of all, Larl Marx : we cannot be
content with repeating that the dictatorship of the proletariat he wrote about had absolutely
nothing in common with #rotsky5s militari,ation of labour or $talin5s Aive .ear ?lan. -s we
hope 4alue1 "ime / Communism5 6e(6eading Marx shows, there is no point for us reading
Marx unless we care to see how much he owed to his time.

E6& Aor more on autonomy and democracy, see our C+*4(i0u4i+* 4+ 4'e C(i4i>ue +,
2+li4i;al Au4+*+39 *on the troploin site+.



[[[[[


#hese are two chapters from a new edition of *clipse / 6e(*mergence of the Communist
Movement, *to be published by ?M ?ress, -utumn F:8=+.