TURKEY

ON COMMODITY PRODUCTION, THE LAW OF VALUE, MARKET AND PLANNING

Unless the higher phase of communism, the society of plenty, is reached, the first phase of communism, "the communist society as it comes out of capitalism", will inevitably have some defects inherited from capitalism, and will be in a position to use some of the capitalist relations and categories, on condition that these are restricted and gradually overcome in the service of communism.

In the first phase of communism, one of the most important fields where the defects inherited from capitalism are seen is the field where distribution and personal consumption is realised.

In the higher phase of communism which is the society of plenty everybody will work according to their talent and will consume according to their needs. Social benefit or the production of use values will be the only element of consumption and subsequently of the production of goods to be presented for consumption. Also, without any outside effects, individuals will be completely free to consume goods that are useful to them. This will be possible if there is superabundance.

However, if there is not sufficient to realise "to each according to his needs", in other words, in the first phase of communism, under the conditions where use values are not sufficient to meet the needs of all, a criterion of meeting the needs of individuals will be necessary. When an individual contributing his labour to society cannot receive according to his needs from it, there can be only one criterion to determine the quantity of the goods for consumption he will receive, as society has not yet "discovered" another criterion: "According to his labour". An individual will receive from society the production of labour which is equivalent to the quantity of labour he contributes (undoubtedly, after the necessary reduction for social funds is made, in other words, less than he contributes).

However, this means that there still exists a relation of exchange. A certain amount of labour in one form is exchanged for labour in another form, equivalent to the former. This means that the goods that are subject to distribution, the products consumed by individuals, goods for consumption have an exchange value as well as a use value. This means that commodity production and the law of value is operational. So it is.

In the first phase of communism, goods for consumption are produced as commodities and are subject to commodity circulation. Their values are determined by the amount of social labour performed in their production.

Marx has pointed to this subject in the famous passage in his Critique of the Gotha Programme:

"... Accordingly, the individual 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 labour. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labour 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 labour (after deducting his labour 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 labour costs. The same amount of labour 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 excahnge of commodities, as far as this is excahnge of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labour, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass into 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 labour in one form is excahnged for an equal amount of labour in another form.

"Hence, equal right here is still, in principle, bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the excahnge of equivalents in commodity excahnge exists only on the average and not in the individual case.

"In spite of this advance, this equal right is still perpetually burdened with a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labour they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labour..."

The principle of exchange of equivalents is a principle of bourgeois law, but it is valid in the first phase of communism, "the communist society as coming out of capitalist society". This is the same principle as the one related to the production and exchange of commodities.

In the first phase, there is a kind of commodity exchange (and undoubtedly commodity production). However, the nature and form of this commodity production and exchange is different; because the conditions are different. The means of production are owned by society, and labour is performed for society. As an individual nobody can contribute anything (for example, capital) apart from labour, and one can get ownership only of goods for consumption (not of the means of production, for example, that will function as capital). There is no possibility of using others' labour and of extracting surplus value; labour force is not a commodity and it is used only for the benefit of society. In these conditions it is very natural that the nature and form of commodity production changes and makes it impossible to pave the way to capitalism.

Distribution "according to labour" as an inevitable result of the relative shortage of labour (resources) and the relatively low level of development of productive forces and labour productivity, and the fact that as commodities, even though in a different form, goods for individual consumption are in the sphere of the influence of the law of value, coincide with the relative underdevelopment in the organisation of social labour. In terms of Russia, with the data of 1938, private property in industry and agriculture was negligible. Even though individual secondary business of the co-operative peasant (small private production in their garden, some livestock, etc.) is not of great importance, and even though only social enterprises are taken into consideration, there are differences resulting from relative underdevelopment. Social labour was organised in state and co-operative enterprises. State enterprises were completely in social ownership because of the material and technical basis of production and because of the workers being distant from the feeling, prejudice and habit of ownership. Co-operatives, on the other hand, use the main state-owned means of production on state-owned lands, but they still own certain means of production (some draft animals, tools, transport instruments, buildings, etc.), and what is produced belongs to them. This is because there is a relative underdevelopment in the complete mechanisation of agriculture and the peasants are not yet uninterested in private property although they enter the path of collectivism. Although cooperative ownership is a social ownership, the level of socialisation there is relatively backward; cooperatives as a whole are not under social ownership but the member of cooperative is under collective ownership, there is group ownership.

This difference of socialisation necessitates exchange between the state and cooperatives, between the cooperatives, and between cooperatives and individuals. This exchange as the exchange of equivalents is done in line with the principle that dominates commodity exchange. This is the only way that it can be done. This is a natural result of the fact that cooperative production is commodity production. It is only in the form of commodity exchange that the link between the town and the country can be realised: the town contributes industrial products to the cooperatives and gets raw materials and agricultural products in return. Going beyond this and getting rid of commodity requires the eradication of differences between the forms of ownership and the creation of a single advanced form of social ownership. Otherwise labour productivity will not rise rapidly on a relatively narrow and underdeveloped ownership and technical base. Stalin points to this fact as a condition for preparing for the transition to the higher phase of communism:

"... It is necessary to ascend the collective farm property gradually onto the level of general property of the people for the benefit of collective farms and consequently of the society as a whole, and to replace commodity circulation through a slow transition with a system of exchange of products, so that the central power or another social-economic centre can incorporate total product of social production for the interests of society." (Stalin, Collected Works, Volume 16, p.339 - Turkish edition)

However, under the conditions where productive forces are relatively underdeveloped and where different forms of social ownership are inevitable as a result of this underdevelopment, this means expansion of the field of commodity production and exchange. In the first phase, alongside goods for individual consumption, production based on group ownership is also commodity production. This is not all: Industrial products produced with the aim of exchange with the enterprises based on group ownership are also commodities.

However, under the conditions when the appropriators are appropriated, when socialist ownership of the means of production is realised and when the proletariat is in power, commodity production, as has been stated, has a different and special character in terms of essence and form. Labour power is no more a commodity and is broken away from private property and capital. This kind of commodity production and exchange can exist under the conditions where there is no space for exploitation. It is drawn into a certain limit and is restricted. It is neither limitless nor does it cover the economy as a whole or stamp it. On the contrary it is tied to socialist production:

"Commodity production should not be considered as something self-sufficient which is independent from the economic conditions surrounding it. Commodity production is older than the capitalist production. It existed in the slavery system and served that system; but it did not lead to capitalism. It existed in the feudal system and served that system; but it did not lead to capitalism even though it created certain pre-conditions for the capitalist production. The question "why cannot commodity production serve our socialist society for a certain period without paving the way to capitalism?" poses itself, taking into consideration the fact that it operates under a definite restriction owing to some determining economic conditions such as the fact that our commodity production is not unlimited and widespread as it is under capitalist conditions, social ownership of the means of production, the abolition of the system of waged-work and of exploitation system." (ibid., p. 292-293)

If a series of tools and equipment that socialist industry sells to cooperatives are left to one side, after private property is abolished almost completely, in the first phase, the sphere of commodity production and exchange is restricted to the main goods of individual consumption and to cooperative products. The means of production are not commodities. Distribution of the means of production among various state enterprises is not in the sphere of commodity exchange, nor does it mean that the means of production are commodities. The operating of the agrarian machines gathered in Machine and Tractor Stations for the cooperatives does not mean that they are in the sphere of commodity exchange or that they are commodities. State enterprises do not constitute a different property unit or "autonomous decision units" like "autonomous institutions"; there is no exchange between them; only the state distributes the means of production to its organs which need them. The ownership of the means of production does not change hands. As we are going to see, the means of production, which are not commodities in essence, keep the form of commodity only for balance sheet and calculation purposes; they only have values which are expressed through their prices for calculation purposes.

The question of use value and exchange value

Alec Nove attacks socialist planning with the excuse, that he considers as a shortcoming of Marx, that "use values are not comparable" and that exchange value is not taken into account (is not based on value). Undoubtedly, without being based on the exchange value of the goods that are to be priced in the market and if exchange of equivalents is not given a regulatory role (if market conditions are not accepted) without a restriction, he believes that planning does not have the criterion for comparison of use values, therefore calculation is not possible and that the only thing possible is for the central command to make arbitrary comparisons. In this case planning becomes impossible. Nove tells a distorted story by wrongly attributing to Marx on the subject of use value and exchange value, mixing them together and often establishing impossible interrelations between use value and profit. What he demands is clear: The market should be the regulating power.

This clearly is a series of confusions mixing use value and exchange value. But again the intention is clear: We cannot do without the market!

Undoubtedly, independently of the mode of production, all production is for use. There is no production that is not designed for use or consumption. However the way this use is regulated is a fundamental question: Whether use will be realised by the valuation of the goods in the market, or, without the interference of that notorious law of value, when it is thrown into the bin of history or in that process, by restricting its role of regulating production (and consequently use)?

The suggestion that Marx did not give importance to use value is simply wrong. He argues that under capitalist conditions use values are subject to exchange and that for the buyer they undoubtedly should have usefulness (should constitute use value), they should constitute a social use value; but their values, independently of their use values -not because they are "valuable" for some-, demonstrate themselves in the amount of socially necessary labour that is performed for their production. The exchange between commodities does not take place according to their usefulness; they can be compared and exchanged in accordance with the amount of socially necessary labour they inherit. Because what is common to all the commodities is that they are all embodied human labour. For example air; can Nove deny its magnificent usefulness and its use value for humans? But it has no value as it is not a product of labour. Yet nobody would exchange air.

As to the commodities, their dual character (constituting use value and exchange value) is a result of the dual character of labour. Use value is created by concrete individual labour. Value on the other hand is linked with abstract human labour, i.e. social labour, irrespective of the source or form of labour. In capitalism (and in commodity production in capitalism) the producers (workers and small producers), provided they are organised individually or socially, perform their labour as individual labour; and they are alienated from the social consequences of their labour. The socialisation of labour under capitalism is realised through a series of capitalist categories and mechanism (private ownership of the means of production, labour power becoming a commodity, anarchic production, surplus value, prices, market, etc.) and as a process against the labourers. Value, expressed in market prices and set just as an average, is shaped in the market. In capitalism concrete individual labour is an object of exploitation, and the product it creates in the social process of production is appropriated privately. Labour is performed for others and it is dependent; its social character is realised through private property. Therefore, under capitalism, private and concrete individual labour contradicts social labour which is realised only in the process of exchange, i.e. the market, and which, therefore, is an abstract category. For this reason use value and exchange value bear this contradiction in their bosom.

This contradiction disappears when private ownership of the means of production is put an end. When the use value of individual labour is expressed in value through market (and money) relations, its transformation into social labour ceases. Labour is no more an individual, private labour; it directly gains a social character.

In terms of the superabundant society which Nove considers as a utopia, Marx -who, according to Nove, did not say anything about this- clarifies the question:
"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as an objective quality possessed by them, since now, ... individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour..."

In his Anti-Duhring, on the question of calculation in terms of planning, Engels talks about the necessity of taking into account the amount of necessary labour in producing the products just to meet the requirements of this calculation. And in a foot note on this question he says that "in a communist society, this evaluation between useful effect and performed labour will be the only thing that is left over from the political economy's concept of value". He then openly declares the end of "value" in the higher phase of communism:

"As soon as society takes possession of the means of production and employs them for production in direct association, the labour of every one, no matter how different its specifically useful character may be, becomes from the outset direct social labour. The quantity of social labour contained in a product does not then require to become ascertained in a roundabout way; daily experience indicates directly how much social labour is on the average necessary. Society can simply calculate how many hours of labour are contained in a steam engine, in one bushel of wheat of the last harvest, in a hundred square yards of cloth of a definite quality. It does not, therefore, occur to it to continue to express the quantity it then knows directly and absolutely, in the old merely relative, fluctuating, inadequate measure which had earlier been a necessary expedient, that is, in a third product, instead of in its natural, adequate and absolute measure, time... Accordingly under the foregoing assumptions, society will ascribe no value to the products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required, if you like, a thousand hours of labour. Undoubtedly society will then be obliged to know how much labour each useful article requires for its production. It will have to arrange the plan of production in accordance with the means of production, to which also in particular the labour-powers belong. The effective utilities of the different objects of use balanced among one another and in relation to the quantities of labour necessary for their production, will ultimately determine the plan. The people will arrange everything very simply without the intervention of the much-famed 'value'."

The same thing is also emphasised by Marx, who is suggested not to have said anything about this subject:
"...After the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but with social production still in vogue, the determination of value continues to prevail in such a way that the regulation of the labour time and the distribution of the social labour among the various groups of production, also the keeping of accounts in connection with this, become more essential than ever." (K. Marx, Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 49)

Obviously in the higher phase of communism value will no longer have exchange value; products will only be meaningful with their use value, in other words, with their useful effects for individuals and society. This also means the end of the law of value. What is also important is that what will be left over from value will only be the register of the necessary labour time for the production of the products determined by planning which also determines the distribution of social labour.
Is what Nove asks, "who is going to decide this?", relevant here? Undoubtedly this will be determined socially. Under such conditions where the state ceases, a social-economic organ in which everyone can participate will determine and implement all this. In other words, "bureaucracy" which is considered by Nove as inevitable in terms of "decision making" (which is criticised by Trotskysts in the name of the USSR) will have ceased without any remnants. From then on anyone will be able to determine this.

What will happen then in the conditions where productive forces are not advanced enough yet and where distribution according to labour is valid? Especially in Russia of the 1930s where productive forces had not yet completely become social property, where social property existed side by side with social group property, what is the relationship between use value and exchange value?

As the means of production is socialised, the contradiction between individual labour and social labour is overcome. Labour is not socialised indirectly through market mechanism; but directly as social labour it is distributed through the plan between various sectors of production. Labour is not from a special category and is not shaped as a commodity of labour power. Above all, commodity fetishism is overcome; relationships between humans are not "arranged" -as they are in capitalism- as commodity relations gaining value as labour products which are socialised through the market on the basis of the contradiction between individual and social labour which expresses the dual character of labour as concrete and abstract labour. Social relations between humans are no longer considered as relations between commodities.

However, so long as commodity production exists, the dual character of labour, concrete and abstract labour, will continue to have a function. This is a function which will remain so long as the principle "according to labour" is valid instead of "according to need", or until the superabundant society is reached. In these conditions, there will be a difference between the concrete labour performed socially by individual producers and the social average labour (abstract labour) which will determine the exchange value of commodities which will, inevitably, still have this exchange value. A producer could produce more than another one with the same amount of concrete labour. A producer could be more talented or work harder than another, etc. This means that the same product could be produced with different amounts of labour and what will determine the value of the product as a commodity will again not be individual concrete labour, but abstract labour as their social average. Exchange value is still determined by abstract labour which has certain differences with concrete labour which creates use value. The producer who contributes to society through his concrete labour will, as a consumer, receive from it commodities as a qualitative magnitude determined by abstract labour.
We can draw two conclusions from this: Firstly, under the conditions where commodity production is still relatively widespread, the labour performed should, to a significant extent, be measured with their prices, through money, not with the criteria of time for the producers. Secondly, commodities which are exchanged with each other (for example, the products sold by the cooperatives at the kolkhoz market) will be exchanged on the basis of their values based on abstract labour.
Differences in the level of socialisation of labour also take us to the same point.

As well as differences in individual talent and productivity, social labour also has differences resulting from the differences related to the forms of organisation and the level of advancement of the material-technical basis of these forms. There are differences between socialised labour in society as a whole and the one socialised in the kolkhozes, etc. Moreover, although on a small scale, the cooperative peasants perform individual labour as well in their personal enterprises. Furthermore, there is commodity exchange (except for the means of production) between these enterprises.

These two reasons, different levels of socialisation and the existence of commodity exchange, make it impossible for social labour to be expressed directly in labour-time (the "measurement" which is necessary for calculation in the second phase), and for different concrete labours to be compared according to this measurement. This also means that it is not possible to measure the labour itself by time. This therefore makes it obligatory for social labour to be measured with value and its forms like money. The concrete labour of producers is measured on the basis of commodity exchange, according to abstract labour that creates the value of the commodity. It is not different for the labour itself either. The producer, as Marx states, receives a certain wage measured by abstract labour expressing the value of the products he produces, instead of a bond showing the labour-time he performs (after social funds are deducted).

But here the contradiction between private labour and social labour does not play any role, nor is labour power a commodity, nor are there conditions of private ownership of the means of production which would make them possible. On the contrary, labour has become socialised, it is for itself, and the producers work for themselves. And the State of the proletariat straightens out any imbalances between concrete labour and abstract labour that can appear against the workers and peasants -because its main aim is to raise people's standard of living and it follows a policy which enables a constant rise of wages and decrease of the prices of goods for consumption.

Not only for calculating purposes alone as is the case in the second phase, but also for its real effect too, planning takes into account value as well as use value. It takes into account the use value, because as opposed to the capitalists who are interested in the use value only to the extent that it is the carrier of value and especially of surplus value, socialism's main concern is the well being of the people. The production of use values and the improvement of their qualities are of great significance because this will meet to a greater extent the increasing needs of society. Not giving any importance to the production of use values would be the denial of socialism whose primary economic law is "a constant growth and perfectionising of production on an advanced technical base in order to guarantee the maximum response to society's constantly increasing material and cultural needs".

However, as long as value is not buried, and in order to serve this burial, planning has to take value into account and give importance to it. As planning cannot yet be based only on the records of labour time, and as labour cannot be distributed on this basis between various sections of production, in relation to the production of use values, production planning can be based on planning in value as well as planning in amount. There is no other way of including commodity production in the plan. Without pre-fixed plan prices, the prices that will appear as an inevitable result of commodity production and exchange cannot be kept under control. On the other hand, without taking into consideration the value of commodities and the demand for them, neither plan prices nor the amount of goods for consumption to be produced (supply) can be determined.

In fact, with the role exchange value plays, we see that in the first phase of communism the law of value has "not come to an end" and still has an effect.
The law of value has an effect on distribution; it plays a regulating role. What people receive in return for their labour is not all the use values they need but the equivalent of their labour. As the goods for consumption they receive in return are produced in the form of commodities and have value, they can get these still under the regulation of the law of value. In other words, so long as commodity production and exchange exist, the law of value will continue to show its effect. The law of value is a regulator in this sphere.

However, the regulating effect of the law of value in these areas can function in a certain framework; it becomes restricted. It is not a regulator to form a market.
On what basis does it become restricted?

Firstly, in the urban and rural areas the means of production are socialised. The law of value can no longer function as a regulator, through the prices that occur in the market, of the anarchic production that is realised as if the means of production are in private hands. The means of production are not subject to private property; and labour is for itself, it is socialised.

For this reason, commodity production and circulation certainly becomes restricted. The main means of production (and also health, education, etc.) are no longer commodities; they are not produced and circulated as commodities. As well as being outside the regulating effect of the law of value this area also restricts its regulating effect. As actual regulators and "commanding centres" of the economy, heavy industry, banks, etc., restrict the role of the law of value; the regulating role of the law of value cannot affect these "commanding centres".

The effect of the law of value is restricted due to the fundamental economic law of socialism and the functioning of the objective law of development of socialist economy based on planning. Planning, yearly and five-year plans restrict the role of the law of value.

This role is also restricted by the whole economic functioning of the socialist state in a monopolist character.

This restricted regulating effect of the law of value is best seen in the area of commodity circulation: A certain price relation between goods for individual consumption is set by the plan by taking into account the values of the commodities and the supply and demand for them. The plan does not fix the prices of these goods "arbitrarily"; a system of prices is set, taking into account the compared values of all the goods, and the demand and supply for them. In doing this the law of value functions as a real assistant and as a real regulator. However, if noticed, it is still not a complete regulator. There is no market and prices are dictated; but this dictation is done in accordance with the law of value, by taking it into account.

In the cooperative market, on the other hand, the law of value is almost a complete regulator. There the prices are determined by the supply-demand relation; and price fluctuations affect the amount and variety of the commodities presented to the market. One can even call this a "small market" which does not embrace the economy as a whole. But this "market" is tied to the main economy. The main bulk of commodities are exchanged in fixed plan prices for the state and cooperative trade. These dictated prices play a restricting role on the cooperative market and prices.

However, it would be misleading to think that the effect of the law of value is limited only to distribution and to the sphere of commodity circulation of the main goods for individual consumption. It has also an effect on socialist production. But this is not a regulating effect. On this subject Stalin says:

"However, the effect of the law of value is not limited to the sphere of commodity circulation. It also includes production. Nevertheless, the law of value has no regulating role in our socialist production; but it still affects production, and this should not be ignored in the administration of production. The goods for consumption which are necessary for meeting the consumption of labour power in the process of production are produced and sold in our country as commodities which are subject to the effect of the law of value. It is at this very point that the effect of the law of value on production manifests itself. In this context, in our enterprises, economic accounting and productivity, cost, prices, etc. have an actual importance. For this reason, our enterprises cannot and should not ignore the law of value." (Stalin, Collected Works, Volume 16, p. 296 (Tur))

The consumer goods produced by industry as commodities are subject to the effect of the law of value. This is because they are produced for selling, for exchange and for the following two reasons: Firstly, the replacement of the labour power performed during the production process is possible through the consumption of the consumer goods produced. The workers' wages are related to the sphere of commodity circulation. The goods for consumption that are in commodity circulation have value and a part of the value that will be reproduced will meet the wages. Secondly, what is in the value of the goods for consumption produced is not only the values of these goods that will meet the wages but also the raw materials that are produced by the cooperatives as commodities. (One should also include the wearing-out of the means of production -which are not commodities- which are used for production and which transfer some of their value to the product produced. Just for calculating purposes it is necessary to use the prices of the means of production, which are expressed in money, although they do not have a value. This is because the process of production of goods for consumption is under the influence of the law of value. Also, all the elements -except one that comprises the value of the commodities- produced in this sector have value and this value is expressed with money in the form of wages or prices.

This also appears as a necessity in the production process of the means of production. The effect of the law of value on the production of the means of production realises itself through its regulating role on the value of the goods for consumption which are necessary to meet the cost of the labour power in this sector. The consumption goods that are commodities can only be bought by the money that is paid as wages, and through the goods for consumption and the wages the law of value affects the production of the means of production. From here stems, in terms of the means of production which do not have value in essence, the obligation of keeping the monetary account in price form -not in labour-time, as if they formally have value-, of what is left over from labour-time account, -this account will be kept in the second phase of communism as well- under the conditions where value has not ceased yet. The means of production, which are not commodities and which do not have value, use the form of value only for calculating purposes. Otherwise, in the production process, while one part of the calculating can be done, the main part cannot be done, and the production as a whole cannot be calculated, thus planning cannot be done.

When the plan sets the target for production in terms of amount and value, it will undoubtedly plan the prices as well. In the socialist economy price is no more than the expression of the value of the product in money terms which is determined by the plan. Planning can manage production as a whole, including the means of production, by setting and planning the prices individually and with their interrelation. On the condition that the prices of the means of production are to be used only for calculation purposes, prices can be determined only through the values of commodities and on the basis of social production cost which creates this value.
However, while the effect of the law of value we are talking about is not the regulator of socialist production, it should not be supposed that it is the regulator of the setting up of the plan prices which is a fundamental element of the planning of socialist production. The law of value is just one of the factors which have an effect on prices. As has been mentioned before, the prices which are dictated by taking the law of value and supply and demand into account, are determined with a certain deviation from value. The price mechanism is not used for the distribution of labour through the regulating function of the law of value as if under market conditions, but with the aim of promoting certain sectors and enterprises. It is particularly used as a mechanism for regulating distribution according to the main economic law of constant development of production based on advanced technology and for meeting the material and cultural needs of the people. With this function it is one of the main mechanisms of planning.

Under the conditions of "valuation" of the goods for consumption and commodity circulation in general, and where it is inevitable to express these values in prices, the "prices" of the means of production are just necessary for calculation purposes and the prices are determined with a price mechanism which takes into account the effect of the law of value, but which replaces the extraction of surplus value with the aim of increasing the production of use value both in quantity and quality (the aim of meeting the increasing needs of the people). Obviously this price mechanism differs in essence and in form from the capitalist price mechanism where the prices are determined spontaneously and in fluctuations in the market as an average.

It is obvious that this price mechanism has nothing to do with, for example, O. Lange's price mechanism which is determined according to supply and demand (in the market). Nor does it have anything to do with the market and price mechanism suggested by Alec Nove. He accepts the monopolist price dictates, which are widely seen in capitalism as well (monopoly prices, the minimum price set by the state for agricultural products, fixed prices for bread, etc.), because of the impossibility of its denial in socialism. Nor can he refuse the necessity of "price control" in terms of the main "centralised state enterprises". Nove argues that " ... the prices of the great majority of goods and services can be set only during negotiation (which involve the details, the date of handover, quality, etc.) between the supplier and the customer." By saying this he considers free market relations: Despite his arguments about use value, when considering profitability as a suitable measure of determining prices, what he has in mind is capitalism, the market and a corresponding market price mechanism. This has no connection with the price mechanism we are talking about.

However, despite their transformation in terms of essence and form, the prices and price mechanism which are among the bases and instruments of planning, yet again are the remnants of capitalism. Just like commodities and commodity circulation which are transformed in essence and form; just like the law of value which still plays a certain role despite being restricted.

Communism conflicts with capitalism and develops using a series of instruments, categories and laws of capitalism which it cannot abolish immediately but which it puts in its service by restricting and transforming their essence and forms. It uses the elements of capitalism in its fight against capitalism. This is an obligatory necessity for socialist construction and for the realisation of communism which cannot come to being with its own particular social and economic bases as if grown up in a green house.

This is necessary and inevitable. What is important is to gradually narrow the area for commodities and commodity circulation; to gradually put an end to value as an obligatory reference point; to limit the effect of the law of value and to rescue certain spheres from the influence of value and the law of value; to get rid of the use of prices and the price mechanism; and to create, when the conditions are ripe, unpriced products and unpriced sectors. Commodity, commodity circulation, value and the influence of the law of value are the categories which are used and obligatorily endured with the aim of the abolition of them and by limiting prices.

They are not used willingly and with eagerness. What is necessary is to be aware that the elements, categories and remnants of capitalism are being used with the aim of completely abolishing it, and that at the first opportunity, when the conditions are ripe, each one of these remnants must be got rid of. The question "who-whom" will be solved shortly in the context of property relations; the 1936 Constitution in Russia is a sign that it had been resolved. However, one cannot assume this question resolved for good, without putting the final nail in the coffin of all the elements of capitalism like commodity, value, price, etc. (in terms of the eradication of the contradiction between mental and physical labour or between the rulers and the ruled, etc.), and without burying them in the ground. When these elements are used wrongly it is possible, up until the final nail is put in, that they can pave the way to capitalism, even though in a different form, and that they can create structures in line with them (new modes of property, new classes and exploitation relations, etc.). In order to go along the path of the higher phase of communism what is necessary is to continue the class struggle with great vigilance, to use these elements as appropriate, to limit them and not to delay even for an hour their abolition.

Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey (TDKP)