So I'm reading Capital at the moment, and I noticed an inconsistency

>If the value of labor is no longer tied to productivity
What do you mean?

>>9667126
Well to ensure the communal ownership of property, and the eradication of the class system, wages would necessarily be fixed to the extent that productivity does not determine how much or how little one receives, or else Marx risks the construction of social classes based on merit.

>>9667118
Because otherwise they get fired. And being without a job and without means of production leaves you without food, which leaves you dead.

>>9667142
Well, no wonder he doesn't address it, the book is about capitalism not about communism.

>>9667167
That only explains why a worker wouldn't produce less than the LCD

>>9667142
Marx recommended a non-transferrable labour voucher system in a transitional society, so I don't see how it's not tied to productivity - it's precisely more about the worth of labour than a wage represents.

If we imagine labour in a socialist economy, it would probably be something like working in an association managed and controlled by the workers, with a reduced working day, where labour time is used to distribute goods which don't fall under necessities.

>>9667202
>Marx recommended a non-transferrable labour voucher system in a transitional society
Source?

>>9667202
Wouldn't such a system inevitably result in the construction of social classes, antithetical to the entirety of Marxist historicism and the basic tenets of dialectical materialism?

>>9667207
Critique of the Gotha Programme

> What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

>Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.

>>9667214
It wouldn't, according to him anyway, since it's not a system based on private ownership. If you work more, then you have more value of your labour to be used in exchange. You're not gonna be buying stocks or investing in business and get your money as a dividend. The point isn't that everyone has the same amount of stuff, it never was, it's about reorganizing the distribution of power that allows capital to exploit labour, and having control over your work.

>>9667118
>If the value of labor is no longer tied to productivity, what incentive is there for the laborer to produce more than the lowest common denominator? The laborer would be so far removed from the fruits of their labor that it would be almost silly to expect them to adhere to the "the more I produce, the more everyone has" logic, compounded by the size of the workforce.
There isn't any in a sense. People for hundreds of thousands of years produced just enough to cover the needs they felt and when you desire little you can easily feel satisfied, nobody worked harder than they felt like because why would you?
When agricultural societies came around they institutionalized forced labour. People had to work on the fields and produce more than they needed to because you might have crop failures so you needed a surplus which had to be managed and they had to pay taxes to support a bureaucracy legitimized through religions and the huckster functionary priest class who didn't have to work.
The development of the division between intellectual and manual labour is what allowed civilization to develop and all its malcontents.

A more interest question is: is the value of labour today tied to productivity? How do you quantify productivity as an abstract quantity that applies across all industry? Any link between consumption and productivity broke down long ago if it ever existed and so wht? Capitalism already has driven marginal costs of (re)production towards zero. I can produce music/videos/etc but it costs next to notting to infinitely duplicate them. There's production costs but no reproduction costs, this is extremely problematic for obvious reasons. People can consume all this but it would destroy the profit motive and all that would entail.

>>9667214
Would classes exist under socialism? Probably. The premise for communism is that almost all labour being preformed today is superfluous to the production of real desirable material wealth and I think that's already the case. There's no need for socialism since we can destroy most all jobs without any negative consequences.
The issue is people are so ideologically shaped by capitalism that people couldn't manage themselves without being told what to do.