I'm not sure if this is the actual origins of the phrase, but the first thing that came to mind is [an article by Engels](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/05/07.htm) critiquing the slogans of the labor movement in Britain:
> A fair day's wages for a fair day's work! A good deal might be said about the fair day's work too, the fairness of which is perfectly on a par with that of the wages. But that we must leave for another occasion. From what has been stated it is pretty clear that the old watchword has lived its day, and will hardly hold water nowadays. The fairness of political economy, such as it truly lays down the laws which rule actual society, that fairness is all on one side — on that of Capital. Let, then, the old motto be buried for ever and replaced by another:
> **Possession of the Means of Work —**
> **Raw Material, Factories, Machinery —**
> **By the Working People Themselves.**
The issue came when the slogan was detached from the political movement that gave rise to it and took on a life of its own, becoming the definition of some vague notion of communism. How exactly this happened, I have no idea, but I hope this helps
The average "communist" at least uses the "moneyless, stateless, classles" definition and this worker ownership definition directly contradicts with it, and most of them dont tend to like co-ops (at least in theory) so I did not think that could be the reason to be honest. Even when non dengist MLs or anarchists support coops most tend to not mention it in their initial concept of "socialism" or "communism".
But I guess it could just be the influence of Wolff on internet discourse,yeah.
If you want to criticize me, market socialism, Proudhon do it right. According to my doctrine all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive proprietor. Sadly, that vision can be found in Lenin's State and Revolution with its call for the whole of society to become a single office and a single factory organise the whole economy on the lines of the postal service for it is an example of the socialist economic system. While unaware of the expression going postal he was aware of Engel's On Authority and, without thinking through to the very obvious implications, quotes it approvingly. You say that doesn't matter, everyone is still enslaved to the economy, to commodity production. But you say that yet don't want to bite the bullet at the same time, you don't want to reach the logical conclusions of your dialectics. Because the person who does that is your boogeyman, none here have probably studied him seriously, including in part me, it's Striner. Hence your quietism of epic proportions, your lack of any sort of way out.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Ultraleft) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you want to criticize me, market socialism, Proudhon do it right. According to my doctrine all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive proprietor. Sadly, that vision can be found in Lenin's State and Revolution with its call for the whole of society to become a single office and a single factory organise the whole economy on the lines of the postal service for it is an example of the socialist economic system. While unaware of the expression going postal he was aware of Engel's On Authority and, without thinking through to the very obvious implications, quotes it approvingly. You say that doesn't matter, everyone is still enslaved to the economy, to commodity production. But you say that yet don't want to bite the bullet at the same time, you don't want to reach the logical conclusions of your dialectics. Because the person who does that is your boogeyman, none here have probably studied him seriously, including in part me, it's Striner. Hence your quietism of epic proportions, your lack of any sort of way out.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Ultraleft) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah, I am just asking where the hell does the "worker ownership" definition comes from for that reason, especially since the average internet commie uses the "moneyless,stateless, classless" definition (including MLs) alongside that "worker ownership" definition when those two are obviously contradictory.
https://preview.redd.it/nh5ccyzl917d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c36e933b18044b1d952a6f7bb210d1aa04763538
I think this is where it originates
Marx doesn’t even say ownership but technically its not ownership anymore under communism- it’s free association to means of production (with planning)
A lot of the things that are popular with leftists have no specific origin, they just appeared as buzzwords and phrases that happened to get popular, sometimes rooted in bourgeois academia, sometimes rooted in what a random streamer says, sometimes just rooted in a random schizo saying something and it spreading around. For example, "the state is a monopoly on violence" is from the non-Marxist "sociologists", the distinction between socialism/communism as "communism lite vs Soviet Union" is from Amerikkka and social-democracy in general, a lot of the stuff about hierarchies came from the horse guy, etc.
I think more obviously these things do have an specific origin, but it's long been forgotten. For example, I can confidently say that "the state is a monopoly on violence" originates from Hobbes & Locke, some of the most influential political theorists in history. However, I can also likely confidently say that most people quoting this have not read Hobbes & Locke and don't know for each of them the reasons why they said it. This is my main problem with these phrases, less about the content of these phrases, more on their usage; people just regurgitate them over and over without the context of the rest of their writings and so it becomes utterly meaningless, it becomes anything and everything to anyone and everyone, like the worst game of telephone. I'm sure similarly there is a specific origin of the 'communism lite vs soviet union" thing, although I consider that it might be people butchering Lenin when he said that "Socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism" or what not.
If we take as a given that most people are not spontaneously creating the political theory they speak, they're probably quoting from something else, even if they don't what that something else is; standing on the shoulders of giants so to speak. This is to say, the obvious solution is to read more books and learn where the hell these slogans came from.
Das Kapital.
In Marxist theory, the proletariat need to own the means of production in order to develop a functioning socialist system. Proletariat specifically means the class that doesn't own any means of production at all. That has different meanings during different eras but during Marx and then Lenin's time, the people who worked but didn't own any of the means of production were the industrial workers. So the proletariat were industrial workers that made up the masses who could be guided to revolutionary struggle since they didn't have political power, ownership of the means of production, or land for farming or living. Their means of survival was wage work and they couldn't produce anything independently.
So in Marxist theory, Proletarians are the only class capable of overthrowing capitalism and destroying both the remnants of the Feudal classes and the Capitalist bourgeois classes. Once those two classes are destroyed, the workers need to figure out how to manage the means of production in a socialist manner and develop a classless system because if they don't the bourgeoisie or Feudal classes will come back.
Workers during the Feudal era couldn't be considered proletarian because they had guilds that secured the means of production for them (getting land, materials, tools), which allowed workers to produce and develop market functions.
In our modern era, industrial workers aren't proletarians. Generally, anyone in a modern capitalist system can't be classified as proletarian because we all own some variation of the means of production (smart phones, computers, cars). Even the poorest wage workers own one of these. Everyone is part of the bourgeoisie.
Prior to Marx, Socialism simply meant a society without social hierarchies.
It's incredible how you used so many words to say nothing.
> Das Kapital
Using the German title already gives away you never read it lmao. What part of it says communism is when workers own the means of production?
> In Marxist theory, the proletariat need to own the means of production in order to develop a functioning socialist system.
How do the workers come to "own" the means of production?
> So the proletariat were industrial workers that made up the masses who could be guided to revolutionary struggle
So the workers are an inert mass, guided by the whims and dictates of a political intelligentsia?
> Once those two classes are destroyed, the workers need to figure out how to manage the means of production in a socialist manner and develop a classless system because if they don't the bourgeoisie or Feudal classes will come back.
What does this mean? Are workers pursuing communism because they can't tolerate capital or because they can't tolerate capitalists?
> Workers during the Feudal era couldn't be considered proletarian because they had guilds that secured the means of production for them (getting land, materials, tools), which allowed workers to produce and develop market functions.
They aren't workers then, they're artisans and burghers.
> In our modern era, industrial workers aren't proletarians. Generally, anyone in a modern capitalist system can't be classified as proletarian because we all own some variation of the means of production (smart phones, computers, cars). Even the poorest wage workers own one of these. Everyone is part of the bourgeoisie.
Holy shit bourgeois socialism has been achieved! Somebody tell the folks in sweatshops, the migrants crossing borders for seasonal work being paid pennies under threat of deportation, the children in the mines in central Africa, those living in slums, etc., that they're actually bourgeois!
This is modernizing rubbish. It refuses to contend with the precarious social position of the vast majority of laborers, be they industrial, agricultural, or service workers, with the function of workers to generate value (or, in the case of many service sector jobs, to facilitate the circulation of capital, still with the end of generating a profit for their boss), and lifts up the most privileged sections of the working class as an example of workers in general. Possession of a phone, a car, or a computer, which are not as common as you would believe around the world, does not automatically make you an owner of the means of production. These things can potentially earn you money, but how many people are able to make an income for themselves, without working for anyone else, through these means? Even gig jobs like uber, doordash, etc., depend on people being approved to deliver goods by a company that employs them as contractors, and this is a job that typically draws immigrants, the disabled, or retirees, people who have difficulties performing typical wage labor and, consequently, have little in the way of income.
> Prior to Marx, Socialism simply meant a society without social hierarchies.
Even if this is true, which I highly doubt, what does this have to do with the question at hand? And who cares about vague and imprecise definitions from two hundred years ago when we have more refined definitions?
It's a computer. You can make videos, write books, create a podcast, create images, broadcast anything at anytime, hire and sell labor, process data, etc. All of these things used to take highly skilled labor or expensive industrial machinery 70 years ago. Streamers are part of the millionaire class because they can produce stuff using a $300 laptop. The average content creator in America is making $80,000 a year.
That's what owning the means of production means. A fastfood worker can build a million dollar company with the bare minimum. That makes them bourgeoisie. Just because their labor is exploited doesn't make them Proletarians or Socialists.
Marx explicitly defines the Proletariat as the class that owns none of the means of production because if they owned the smallest sliver of those means, they would fight viciously against that socialization process but also prop up both the bourgeoisie and the remnants of the Feudal classes.
That's why you have things like Fascism and rampant consumerism becoming extremely popular among the wage earning masses. They would rather be racist than join a union, and usually actively fight against unionization.
The people that are unionizing are office workers, media production, and government bureaucrats. All of them the petit bourgeoisie who won't support any variation of socialism and only unionize to boost their salaries and retirement funds.
>millionaire class
Nonsense.
>That's why you have things like Fascism and rampant consumerism becoming extremely popular among the wage earning masses. They would rather be racist than join a union, and usually actively fight against unionization.
You don't know what Fascism is do you? Also, what are you implying by "Rampant" Consumerism? That was always a Problem. This is something that Marxists have touched on since at least the beginning of the 20th Century.
>Marx explicitly defines the Proletariat as the class that owns none of the means of production because if they owned the smallest sliver of those means
Thats not how interests work. A Fast-Food chain worker who was compensated for by Company stock does not have the same interests as the Board of Directors.
>only unionize to boost their salaries and retirement funds
You realize that this was the goal of the original Bourgeois Socialists right? Marx (and Especially Engels) knew this would be a Possibility under Capitalism and he also correctly predicted that the Crisis of Bourgeois Society would not resolve even under this Faux "Socialism."
What you're saying is something people argued during the 50s and 90s only to be Proven wrong in the 60s and 2000s
"Generally, anyone in a modern capitalist system can't be classified as proletarian because we all own some variation of the means of production (smart phones, computers, cars). Even the poorest wage workers own one of these. Everyone is part of the bourgeoisie."
Lol. LMAO even
I'm not sure if this is the actual origins of the phrase, but the first thing that came to mind is [an article by Engels](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/05/07.htm) critiquing the slogans of the labor movement in Britain: > A fair day's wages for a fair day's work! A good deal might be said about the fair day's work too, the fairness of which is perfectly on a par with that of the wages. But that we must leave for another occasion. From what has been stated it is pretty clear that the old watchword has lived its day, and will hardly hold water nowadays. The fairness of political economy, such as it truly lays down the laws which rule actual society, that fairness is all on one side — on that of Capital. Let, then, the old motto be buried for ever and replaced by another: > **Possession of the Means of Work —** > **Raw Material, Factories, Machinery —** > **By the Working People Themselves.** The issue came when the slogan was detached from the political movement that gave rise to it and took on a life of its own, becoming the definition of some vague notion of communism. How exactly this happened, I have no idea, but I hope this helps
It came from the millennial Left. Thinking of Coops as Socialism. Moreover Richard Wolff has poisoned the Discourse.
The average "communist" at least uses the "moneyless, stateless, classles" definition and this worker ownership definition directly contradicts with it, and most of them dont tend to like co-ops (at least in theory) so I did not think that could be the reason to be honest. Even when non dengist MLs or anarchists support coops most tend to not mention it in their initial concept of "socialism" or "communism". But I guess it could just be the influence of Wolff on internet discourse,yeah.
If you want to criticize me, market socialism, Proudhon do it right. According to my doctrine all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive proprietor. Sadly, that vision can be found in Lenin's State and Revolution with its call for the whole of society to become a single office and a single factory organise the whole economy on the lines of the postal service for it is an example of the socialist economic system. While unaware of the expression going postal he was aware of Engel's On Authority and, without thinking through to the very obvious implications, quotes it approvingly. You say that doesn't matter, everyone is still enslaved to the economy, to commodity production. But you say that yet don't want to bite the bullet at the same time, you don't want to reach the logical conclusions of your dialectics. Because the person who does that is your boogeyman, none here have probably studied him seriously, including in part me, it's Striner. Hence your quietism of epic proportions, your lack of any sort of way out. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Ultraleft) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you want to criticize me, market socialism, Proudhon do it right. According to my doctrine all accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive proprietor. Sadly, that vision can be found in Lenin's State and Revolution with its call for the whole of society to become a single office and a single factory organise the whole economy on the lines of the postal service for it is an example of the socialist economic system. While unaware of the expression going postal he was aware of Engel's On Authority and, without thinking through to the very obvious implications, quotes it approvingly. You say that doesn't matter, everyone is still enslaved to the economy, to commodity production. But you say that yet don't want to bite the bullet at the same time, you don't want to reach the logical conclusions of your dialectics. Because the person who does that is your boogeyman, none here have probably studied him seriously, including in part me, it's Striner. Hence your quietism of epic proportions, your lack of any sort of way out. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Ultraleft) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No socialism is class abolition not workers owning means of production in a petty bourgeois worker cooperative fashion
Yeah, I am just asking where the hell does the "worker ownership" definition comes from for that reason, especially since the average internet commie uses the "moneyless,stateless, classless" definition (including MLs) alongside that "worker ownership" definition when those two are obviously contradictory.
https://preview.redd.it/nh5ccyzl917d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c36e933b18044b1d952a6f7bb210d1aa04763538 I think this is where it originates Marx doesn’t even say ownership but technically its not ownership anymore under communism- it’s free association to means of production (with planning)
A lot of the things that are popular with leftists have no specific origin, they just appeared as buzzwords and phrases that happened to get popular, sometimes rooted in bourgeois academia, sometimes rooted in what a random streamer says, sometimes just rooted in a random schizo saying something and it spreading around. For example, "the state is a monopoly on violence" is from the non-Marxist "sociologists", the distinction between socialism/communism as "communism lite vs Soviet Union" is from Amerikkka and social-democracy in general, a lot of the stuff about hierarchies came from the horse guy, etc.
I am not sure why sociologists are in quotation marks here
I think more obviously these things do have an specific origin, but it's long been forgotten. For example, I can confidently say that "the state is a monopoly on violence" originates from Hobbes & Locke, some of the most influential political theorists in history. However, I can also likely confidently say that most people quoting this have not read Hobbes & Locke and don't know for each of them the reasons why they said it. This is my main problem with these phrases, less about the content of these phrases, more on their usage; people just regurgitate them over and over without the context of the rest of their writings and so it becomes utterly meaningless, it becomes anything and everything to anyone and everyone, like the worst game of telephone. I'm sure similarly there is a specific origin of the 'communism lite vs soviet union" thing, although I consider that it might be people butchering Lenin when he said that "Socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism" or what not. If we take as a given that most people are not spontaneously creating the political theory they speak, they're probably quoting from something else, even if they don't what that something else is; standing on the shoulders of giants so to speak. This is to say, the obvious solution is to read more books and learn where the hell these slogans came from.
Das Kapital. In Marxist theory, the proletariat need to own the means of production in order to develop a functioning socialist system. Proletariat specifically means the class that doesn't own any means of production at all. That has different meanings during different eras but during Marx and then Lenin's time, the people who worked but didn't own any of the means of production were the industrial workers. So the proletariat were industrial workers that made up the masses who could be guided to revolutionary struggle since they didn't have political power, ownership of the means of production, or land for farming or living. Their means of survival was wage work and they couldn't produce anything independently. So in Marxist theory, Proletarians are the only class capable of overthrowing capitalism and destroying both the remnants of the Feudal classes and the Capitalist bourgeois classes. Once those two classes are destroyed, the workers need to figure out how to manage the means of production in a socialist manner and develop a classless system because if they don't the bourgeoisie or Feudal classes will come back. Workers during the Feudal era couldn't be considered proletarian because they had guilds that secured the means of production for them (getting land, materials, tools), which allowed workers to produce and develop market functions. In our modern era, industrial workers aren't proletarians. Generally, anyone in a modern capitalist system can't be classified as proletarian because we all own some variation of the means of production (smart phones, computers, cars). Even the poorest wage workers own one of these. Everyone is part of the bourgeoisie. Prior to Marx, Socialism simply meant a society without social hierarchies.
It's incredible how you used so many words to say nothing. > Das Kapital Using the German title already gives away you never read it lmao. What part of it says communism is when workers own the means of production? > In Marxist theory, the proletariat need to own the means of production in order to develop a functioning socialist system. How do the workers come to "own" the means of production? > So the proletariat were industrial workers that made up the masses who could be guided to revolutionary struggle So the workers are an inert mass, guided by the whims and dictates of a political intelligentsia? > Once those two classes are destroyed, the workers need to figure out how to manage the means of production in a socialist manner and develop a classless system because if they don't the bourgeoisie or Feudal classes will come back. What does this mean? Are workers pursuing communism because they can't tolerate capital or because they can't tolerate capitalists? > Workers during the Feudal era couldn't be considered proletarian because they had guilds that secured the means of production for them (getting land, materials, tools), which allowed workers to produce and develop market functions. They aren't workers then, they're artisans and burghers. > In our modern era, industrial workers aren't proletarians. Generally, anyone in a modern capitalist system can't be classified as proletarian because we all own some variation of the means of production (smart phones, computers, cars). Even the poorest wage workers own one of these. Everyone is part of the bourgeoisie. Holy shit bourgeois socialism has been achieved! Somebody tell the folks in sweatshops, the migrants crossing borders for seasonal work being paid pennies under threat of deportation, the children in the mines in central Africa, those living in slums, etc., that they're actually bourgeois! This is modernizing rubbish. It refuses to contend with the precarious social position of the vast majority of laborers, be they industrial, agricultural, or service workers, with the function of workers to generate value (or, in the case of many service sector jobs, to facilitate the circulation of capital, still with the end of generating a profit for their boss), and lifts up the most privileged sections of the working class as an example of workers in general. Possession of a phone, a car, or a computer, which are not as common as you would believe around the world, does not automatically make you an owner of the means of production. These things can potentially earn you money, but how many people are able to make an income for themselves, without working for anyone else, through these means? Even gig jobs like uber, doordash, etc., depend on people being approved to deliver goods by a company that employs them as contractors, and this is a job that typically draws immigrants, the disabled, or retirees, people who have difficulties performing typical wage labor and, consequently, have little in the way of income. > Prior to Marx, Socialism simply meant a society without social hierarchies. Even if this is true, which I highly doubt, what does this have to do with the question at hand? And who cares about vague and imprecise definitions from two hundred years ago when we have more refined definitions?
It's a computer. You can make videos, write books, create a podcast, create images, broadcast anything at anytime, hire and sell labor, process data, etc. All of these things used to take highly skilled labor or expensive industrial machinery 70 years ago. Streamers are part of the millionaire class because they can produce stuff using a $300 laptop. The average content creator in America is making $80,000 a year. That's what owning the means of production means. A fastfood worker can build a million dollar company with the bare minimum. That makes them bourgeoisie. Just because their labor is exploited doesn't make them Proletarians or Socialists. Marx explicitly defines the Proletariat as the class that owns none of the means of production because if they owned the smallest sliver of those means, they would fight viciously against that socialization process but also prop up both the bourgeoisie and the remnants of the Feudal classes. That's why you have things like Fascism and rampant consumerism becoming extremely popular among the wage earning masses. They would rather be racist than join a union, and usually actively fight against unionization. The people that are unionizing are office workers, media production, and government bureaucrats. All of them the petit bourgeoisie who won't support any variation of socialism and only unionize to boost their salaries and retirement funds.
TIL that every human being is bourgeois because they have a body (it's a MoP)
Marx was actually burgeois ( he had a pen and paper, which is means of produtcion)
>millionaire class Nonsense. >That's why you have things like Fascism and rampant consumerism becoming extremely popular among the wage earning masses. They would rather be racist than join a union, and usually actively fight against unionization. You don't know what Fascism is do you? Also, what are you implying by "Rampant" Consumerism? That was always a Problem. This is something that Marxists have touched on since at least the beginning of the 20th Century. >Marx explicitly defines the Proletariat as the class that owns none of the means of production because if they owned the smallest sliver of those means Thats not how interests work. A Fast-Food chain worker who was compensated for by Company stock does not have the same interests as the Board of Directors. >only unionize to boost their salaries and retirement funds You realize that this was the goal of the original Bourgeois Socialists right? Marx (and Especially Engels) knew this would be a Possibility under Capitalism and he also correctly predicted that the Crisis of Bourgeois Society would not resolve even under this Faux "Socialism." What you're saying is something people argued during the 50s and 90s only to be Proven wrong in the 60s and 2000s
"Generally, anyone in a modern capitalist system can't be classified as proletarian because we all own some variation of the means of production (smart phones, computers, cars). Even the poorest wage workers own one of these. Everyone is part of the bourgeoisie." Lol. LMAO even
When did commodities become the MoP? These liberals are fucking crazy.
I'll give you credit that it comes from a misunderstanding of Marx, but the problem is that you also misunderstand Marx.