The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

This view has a certain resemblance to the ideas of the 19 th century utopian socialists, particularly Fourier’s
Universal Harmony. 861
The final weakness of the Grundprinzipien lies in the very question of the accounting of labour time, even in an
advanced communist society which has gone beyond scarcity. Economically, this system could reintroduce the
law of value, by giving the labour time needed for production an accounted value rather than a social one. Here
the GIC goes against Marx, for whom the standard measure in communist society is no longer labour time but
free time, leisure time. 862
In the second place, the existence of a ‘neutral’, supposedly technical accounting centre does not offer a
sufficient guarantee for the construction of communism. This ‘centre’ could end up becoming an end in itself,
accumulating hours of social labour to the detriment of the consumption needs and free time of the producerconsumers,
and becoming increasingly autonomous from society. If the producers ‘at the base’ became less and
less concerned with controlling the ‘centre’ and with social organisation in general, there would inevitably be a
transfer of the functions that should be carried out by the organs of the producers to ‘technical’ bodies that more
and more take on a life of their own. The GIC’s denial of these potential dangers was not without its
consequences. The Dutch internationalists ended up rejecting any possibility that, even under communism, there
could be a struggle by the producers to improve their conditions of work and of existence: the GIC refused to
envisage the possibility of a society in which the struggle “for better living conditions never finished” and where
“the struggle for the distribution of products goes on”. 863 Does this not reintroduce the idea that the producerconsumers
cannot struggle against themselves, including their ‘accounting centre’?
For the GIC, communism appears as an absolute equality between producers, which is to be realised right at the
beginning of the transition period. 864 It is as though, under communism, there is no longer any natural (physical
or psychological) inequality in production and consumption. But in fact communism can be defined as “real
equality in a natural inequality”. 865
Pannekoek’s position on the Grundprinzipien
Pannekoek, who was asked by Canne-Meijer to write a preface to Appel’s book in 1930, was very dubious about
writing a book on the economic transformations of the transition period. Considering himself to be “none too
familiar with these questions”, it at first seemed to him somewhat “utopian” to try to set up such schemas. 866
Then, after reading the Grundprinzipien, it seemed to him that it “deserved attention”. 867
861 This return to utopia can be found in Rühle, who in 1939 made a study of utopian movements; Mut zur Utopie! It was
published in 1971: Baupläne für eine neue Gesellschaft (Hamburg: Rowohlt).
862 “Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side,
necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the
power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all,
disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of
wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value
posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour
time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker,
subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or
than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.” [Marx, Grundrisse, 1858, Chapter on Capital, Notebook VII.]
863 Grundprinzipien, p. 40.
864 Most of the communist lefts insisted, by contrast, that equality in the distribution of consumer products was impossible
right at the beginning of the period of transition. Above all in a period of civil war, where the new power of the councils
would have to rely on the existence of specialists.
865 Mitchell, ‘Problèmes de la période de transition’, in: Bilan, No. 35, Sept.-Oct. 1936.
866 Herinneringen, p. 215.
867 Ibid. In a recorded interview with Fred Ortmans and Piet Roberts on 11 th June 1978, Jan Appel mentions a discussion
with Gorter, in Spring 1927, on the Grundprinzipien, in the presence of Piet Coerman and Gerrit Jordens. Gorter disagreed
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