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From: Miguel <detonaccio...@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern
Subject: Principles of Trans-Capitalist, Social[ist] Equity:  Citizen
 Stewardship Equity
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 11:09:17 -0800 (PST)
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Principles of Trans-Capitalist, Social[ist] Equity, III.: Citizen
Stewardship Equity [as propounded by the E.A.G., the Equitist Advocacy
Group]

CITIZEN STEWARDSHIP EQUITY: A KEY FEATURE OF THE POLITICAL-ECONOMIC
DEMOCRACY SOLUTION TO THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF HUMANITY, NOW UNDERWAY



alt.postmodern Group Participants,

Below is my edited excerpt =E2=80=93 edited for greater clarity =E2=80=93 f=
rom a text
by the Equitist Advocacy Group [E.A.G.] on their proposed new
constitutional principle of Citizen Stewardship Equity.


CITIZEN STEWARDSHIP EQUITY

"Citizen Stewardship Equity, supersedes the "wage-labor", '''sold
labor-power''', or '''alienated labor[-power]''' relation of/that is
the core of, [industrial, or real-dominant] capital.

It encompasses the constitutional rights of each working adult, to
membership in, and 1-person/1-vote 'economic suffrage' within, the
'producers' councils', or 'stewards' councils', democratically
managing the socially-/legally-/constitutionally-favored producer's
cooperative enterprises, and including the right to share in the
profits-of-enterprise of any producers' cooperative in which that
citizen works, with partial rights of use / disposition over the
socially-owned means of social reproduction ceded, in stewardship, but
not in local ownership, to these producers' cooperatives / local
producers' associations, under the collective/democratic control of
their base-elected 'stewards' councils', in continuous negotiation
with these enterprises' own 'externality-equities' property-holding
'publics' boards', as part of Equitarian Society's =C2=ABaufheben=C2=BB-
negation / conservation / elevation of market-based checks-and-
balances regarding the pricing and quality of the goods/services
supplied to the citizen-consumers by these enterprises, using
equitably-allocated, socially-owned means of social reproduction.

This newly-emergent 'Stewardship-Equity-relation' is expected and
intended to increasingly supplant the likewise =C2=ABaufheben=C2=BB-conserv=
ed/
constrained '''wage-labor''' / private-capital social-relationship-of-
production [cf. the model of "Economic Democracy" comprehensively
constructed and defended by David Schweickart in his book Against
Capitalism [Cambridge University Press, NY: 1993], as well as in his
book After Capitalism [Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., NY:
2002], to which we are indebted, in part, for key aspects of the
conceptual derivation of this crucial sub-principle, and 'socio-
ontological =C2=ABspecies=C2=BB', or 'social relations of production =C2=AB=
species=C2=BB',
of 'generalized equity'].
. . .



Marx : Joint-Stock Capital-Equity as the Perfected Form of Capital,
Transitional to 'Democratic Communism'

In the context of this subject-matter, it is profoundly informative to
see what Marx actually had to say, in the very core of his written
works, about the immanent emergence =E2=80=94 from out of the heart of the
capital-relation itself =E2=80=94 of the core social relation of production=
 of
'democratic communist' society, in the transition from capital-
relation-based society to 'democratic communist' society, in Capital,
volume III. --

"The general remarks, which the credit system so far elicited from us,
were the following: ...

III. Formation of stock companies. Thereby: ...

3) Transformation of the actually functioning capitalist into a mere
manager, administrator of other people's capital, and of the owner of
capital into a mere owner, a mere money-capitalist.

Even if the dividends which they receive include the interest and the
profit of enterprise, i.e., the total profit (for the salary of
managers is, or should be, simply the wage of a specific type of
skilled labour, whose price is regulated in the labour-market like
that of any other labour), this total profit is henceforth received
only in the form of interest, i.e., as mere compensation for owning
capital that is now entirely divorced from the function in the actual
process of reproduction, just as this function in the person of the
manager is divorced from ownership of capital. ...

In stock companies the function is divorced from capital ownership,
hence also labour is entirely divorced from ownership of means of
production and surplus-labour.

This result of the ultimate development of capitalist production is a
necessary transitional phase towards the reconversion of capital into
the property of producers, although no longer as the private property
of the individual producers, but rather as the property of associated
producers, as outright social property.

On the other hand, the stock company is a transition toward the
conversion of all functions in the reproduction process which still
remain linked with capitalist property, into mere functions of the
associated producers, into social functions.

This is the abolition [one-sided translation of the German
core-"dialectical" word =C2=ABaufheben=C2=BB -- M.D.] of the capitalist mod=
e of
production within the capitalist mode of production itself, and hence
a self-dissolving contradiction, which =C2=ABprima facie=C2=BB represents a=
 mere
phase of transition to a new form of production.

It manifests itself as such a contradiction in its effects.

It establishes a monopoly in certain spheres and thereby requires
state interference.

It reproduces a new financial aristocracy, a new variety of parasites
in the shape of promoters, speculators, and simply nominal directors;
a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation
promoting, stock issuance, and stock speculation.

It is private production without the control of private property. ...

The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent
within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they
naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual
organization all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.

But the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them,
if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their
own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production
for the employment of their own labour [the E.A.G. names this
transitional form 'workers' capital[ism]' -- M.D.].

They show how a new mode of production naturally grows out of an old
one, when the development of the material forces of production and of
the corresponding forms of social production have reached a particular
stage. Without the factory system arising out of the capitalist mode
of production there could have been no co-operative factories.

Nor could these have developed without the credit system arising out
of the same mode of production.

The credit system is not only the principal basis for the gradual
transformation of capitalist enterprises into capitalist stock
companies, but equally offers the means for the gradual extension of
co-operative enterprises on a more or less national scale. ...

The capitalist stock companies, as much as the co-operative factories,
should be considered transitional forms from the capitalist mode of
production to the associated one, with the only distinction that the
antagonism is resolved negatively in the one, and positively in the
other. ...

The credit system appears as the main lever of over-production and
over-speculation in commerce solely because the reproduction process,
which is elastic by nature, is here forced to its extreme limits, and
is so forced because a large part of the social capital is employed by
people who do not own it, and who consequently tackle things quite
differently than the owner, who anxiously weighs the limitations of
his private capital in so far as he handles it himself.

This simply demonstrates the fact that the self-expansion of capital
based on the contradictory nature of capitalist production permits an
actual free development only up to a certain point, so that in fact it
constitutes an immanent fetter and barrier to production, which is
continually broken through by the credit system.

Hence, the credit system accelerates the material development of the
productive forces and the establishment of the world-market.

It is the historical mission of the capitalist system of production to
raise the material foundations of the new mode of production to a
certain degree of perfection.

At the same time credit accelerates the violent eruption of this
contradiction =E2=80=94 crises =E2=80=94 and thereby the elements of disint=
egration of
the old mode of production.

The two characteristics immanent in the credit system are, on the one
hand, to develop the incentive of capitalist production, enrichment
through the exploitation of the labour of others, to the purest and
most colossal form of gambling and swindling, and to reduce more and
more the number of the few who exploit the social wealth; on the other
hand, to constitute the form of transition to a new mode of
production.

It is this ambiguous nature, which endows the principal spokesmen of
credit from Law to Isaac Pereire with the pleasant character mixture
of swindler and prophet."

[Karl Marx; Capital: A Critique of Political Economy [vol. III],
'''The Shapes Taken-On by the Reproductions-Process of/by Capitals
Overall''', Chapter XXVII, "The Role of Credit in Capitalist
Production", International Publishers Co., Inc. [NY: 1967], pages
435-441]


In a letter to Engels [Marx to Engels; April 2, 1858, in MEW 29, page
312, reproduced in Rubel on Marx: Five Essays, Cambridge University
Press [NY: 1981], page 216, emphasis added by M.D.], Marx writes of
the planned structure of his critique of the political economy of the
system of =C2=ABkapitals=C2=BB, with even greater explicitude regarding the
transitional character of the emergence of the "share capital"
=C2=ABspecies=C2=BB, i.e. the "capital equity stock" =C2=ABspecies=C2=BB, o=
f the social
relation of [social re-]production called "capital" --

"Capital is divided into four sections.

1. Capital en g=C3=A9n=C3=A9ral [in Fr.] (This is the material of the first
brochure).

2. Competition or the reciprocal action of the many capitals.

3. Credit, where capital appears as the general element in opposition
to the many capitals.

4. Share capital as the most perfect form (assuming the character of
communism), together with all its contradictions."


What are we to make of these positings, by Marx, of capital equity
stock, and of its '''shareholder democracy''', or '''stockholder
democracy''', as a close kin to '''the associated mode of
production''', and to "communism"?



An Historical Helix of Human-Social Democratization, Spanning the
Epoch of Capital as Dominant Human-Social Relation of Production

The incipient political democracy and civil liberty that early,
competitive, ascendant-phase capitalism asserted, initially against
its feudal and Absolute-Monarchical rivals, can only be restored in a
higher form, and preserved from otherwise total destruction by the
late, decadent-phase form of that same capitalism, by means of
advancing that initially merely political democracy to a politically-
and-economically democratized, actualized democratic political-
economy.

We hold that the way to achieve this begins with an extension and
generalization of "stockholder democracy" into '''stakeholder
democracy''', in a "publics" sense; that is, by way of a
constitutional institutionalization of Equitarian, externality-
equities-based economic democracy; a public and popular economic
democracy that was absent as such throughout the capital epoch, seeded
only in that democracy among capitalists =E2=80=94 among the holders/owners=
 of
'internality-equity' =E2=80=94 immanent in the principles and practices
[however often honored in the breach] of joint-stock company
"stockholder democracy"."



SUMMARY OF 'STEWARDSHIP EQUITY', ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY RIGHTS OF
CITIZENS.

'Citizen Stewardship Equity' is designed to gradually supplant and
supersede the capital-relation, by superseding the wag=C3=A9d-labor and
salaried-labor relationships, the latter, forming the core of the
capital-relation.

This new =C2=ABspecies=C2=BB of social equity rights entails the constituti=
onal
empowerment of each citizen to participate in the co-formation of, and
the democratic, 'one steward, one vote' co-conduct of the production
and of the democratic self-management of, localized, enterprise-level,
associations of producers [i.e., socialized producers' cooperatives]
on a 'one citizen, one vote' basis.

This means that each such citizen-producer would be empowered to act
as a co-steward of that part of the total social property =E2=80=94 in the
form of, e.g., production plant and equipment =E2=80=94 granted, and
'''rented''', to that citizen's=E2=80=A8 qualified producer-association, as
collective self-employer, by a local, public, social bank, itself also
a 'Citizen Stewardship Equity' co-stewardship association/cooperative,
democratically self-managed by its own citizen-producers, as
collective self-employees.

This 'Citizen Stewardship Equity' right would include the right of
each such citizen co-steward of such social property in-use to an
equal share in the net profits of enterprise generated by that
cooperative association of producers, as well as to a =E2=80=94 perhaps
unequal =E2=80=94 base-salary in return for the collectively required
productive participation in, and contribution to, that association for
production, as democratically decided by the assembly of the co-
stewards of that cooperative enterprise.

Payment of those profit-shares and base-salaries to themselves by
those co-stewards, would depend upon their productive contribution,
and also upon their collective success in finding fellow-citizen
customers for their product/service output, fellow-citizens/customers
willing to pay a price sufficient to fund that salary and that profit-
sharing, and for whose patronage they would face competition from
other socialized stewardship cooperatives, as well as from remnant
capitalist enterprises."




For full article, see =E2=80=93

http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/Theory/PoliticalEconomicDemocracy/Politica=
lEconomicDemocracy.htm


For more about the detailed workings of 'Citizen Stewardship Equity'
Rights, see Section 5 in =E2=80=93

http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/AmendmentXXVIII/AmendmentXXVIII.pdf




Regards,

Miguel