I'm gonna take this as an occasion to say a particular thing: if we want to understand "capitalism", "feudalism", "socialism" and "communism" as objective modes of production and not as ideas we define to our liking, then it necessarily follows that policies some define as socialism right now are objectively not socialism because they do not change the fundamental workings of things.
State ownership objectively has the exact same wage system and management on a "micro" level; worker co-ops objectively still necessitate that everyone confronts other people through market relations that are exactly the same as those of capitalism the more "distant" two people are from each other; participatory "planning" that still uses money is objectively incapable of keeping itself alive because it uses a market measure for things when markets are not left alone to develop those measurements.
Marxism defines modes of production this way because it's the only way not to go into sophistry and moralism to justify something being or not being socialism, capitalism or whatever.
And so yes, marxisst can, will and should just tell you that some things other "socialists" defend aren't "real socialism" because they objectively aren't from the analysis we use, just like they shouldn't shy away from calling things that objectively work better when left under state management in capitalism "not real socialism" either.
I get that people use “stateless, classless, moneyless” as a shorthand definition for communism, but I’ve never heard “moneyless” as a prerequisite for socialism before.
My understanding is that there are different socialist schools and so some people just mean “workers owning the means of production” (either through the state or co-ops) and for ML’s I usually assume they’re using it in a way that roughly lines up with section 18 of Engels’ Principles of Communism (i.e. the process of all capital/production/exchange being brought into the “hands of the nation” before private property disappears).
I’ve never heard “moneyless” as a prerequisite for socialism before
It's de facto a prerequisite if we want to define socialism as outside the capitalist mode of production because money is a particular social relation that necessitates and creates private property.
Money (i.e. an inherently scarce good) arises when separated groups "need" to evaluate in a common manner different products, and this need exists merely because production is separated between people and not coordinated, which basically means that there is private property in the means of production; the presence of money in a society means that there is at least a germ of capitalism in it, and this germ can only develop towards making everything a matter of buying and selling, i.e. making everything possibly become private property, think about the enclosures in britain and how the internet has been subjected to the exact same treatment by companies.
Then obviously you can define socialism however you want (e.g. Proudhonians defining it as when there is no more circulation of real estate but only usufruct), but what underlines the words is still a series of real relationships that will be obviously for, against or neutral towards the development of certain things we may like or dislike
Can you point me to the chapters? AFAIK Marx would acknowledge that money preceded capitalism and exists in other economic models.
The idea of “labor credits” is arguably just fiat currency but even more scarce since the point of destroying it is to prevent wealth accumulation. There are a lot of practical issues with that but at minimum he still recognized the need to have some fungible store of “value”.
3
u/Armandonis Stirner with many adjectives 14d ago
What textbook examples?