Tokens make the world go round
- The paper argues that non-circulating tokens should be used as an alternative to money in a socialist economy. These tokens would be used to distribute consumer products out of socialised production to individual consumers. Like modern fiat money, these tokens are a kind of IOU. But unlike money, these tokens are not intended to facilitate the private exchange of commodities. Marx’s proposal to eventually abolish a token-based lower phase of communism in favour of a distinct higher phase is rejected because the ‘needs principle’ of the higher phase can be sufficiently realised within the token system. It is further shown that the prices of items should not be tied to the socially necessary labour time needed to produce them. Instead, prices should be regulated towards market clearing rates.
| Author details: | Jan Philipp DapprichORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s43253-022-00091-6 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Review of Evolutionary Political Economy |
| Subtitle (English): | socialist tokens as an alternative to money |
| Publisher: | Springer |
| Place of publishing: | Cham |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2022/10/17 |
| Publication year: | 2022 |
| Release date: | 2022/11/16 |
| Tag: | Communism; Labour tokens; Marx; Money; Socialism |
| Funding institution: | Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung |
| Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Fachgruppe Betriebswirtschaftslehre |
| JEL classification: | B History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches (Updated!) |
| D Microeconomics | |
| F International Economics | |
| License (German): |  CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |
