Marx: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

by Peter Singer

Production will be cooperatively planned for the benefit of all, not wasted in socially fruitless competition between individual capitalists for their own private ends. There will be no crises of overproduction, as there are in unplanned economies. The reserve army of unemployed workers required by capitalism to keep labour cheap and available will be employed and become productive. Mechanization and automation will continue to develop as they had developed under capitalism, though without their degrading effect on the workers, and presumably with a drastic reduction in the hours of necessary labour. No longer will surplus value be extracted from the workers to line the pockets of the capitalists. The working class will receive the full use-value of its labour, subject only to a deduction for future social investment. We will control our economy, instead of being controlled by it.