Books

The Absence of Mediation as Mediation?

Stefan Meretz recently published an essay in which he responds to a critique by Hermann Lueer1 of the book he co-authored with Simon Sutterlütti, Make Capitalism History, and in doing so once again formulates a fundamental critique of the necessity of a general economic unit of measurement („unit of account“).2 Since in the last instance […]

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Several books in a shelf

New Titles in the Bibliography

We have found several new texts dealing with one form or another of labour-time accounting and have added them to our online bibliography. Wherever possible, we have also included download links. One notable new addition is the state socialist Karl Rodbertus and his work Zur Erkenntniss unsrer staatswirthschaftlichen Zustände (1842). In it, he assigns a

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Critique of Commonism

Simon Sutterlütti and Stefan Meretz outline in “Kapitalismus aufheben” (2018) commonism as a post-capitalist society in which commons sustain production and distribution, work is organized voluntarily, and the means of production are socialized. In his German-language review, Hermann Lueer highlights the strengths of the book while also exposing the theoretical limits of the commonist project.

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Comeback of the Planned Economy

The debate about a socialist planned economy seems to have definitively returned. Here, we present a small, selective excerpt from the German debate in order to perhaps provide some readers with an easy introduction to the discussions. A few weeks ago, Die «Zeit» picked up on the planned economy debate and addressed it in its

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The Forgotten Logic of Communism

Untergrundblättle pays tribute with the article “Die vergessene Logik des Kommunismus” to the “Fundamental Principles” formulated by Jan Appel in prison in 1925 — the central theoretical text on labour-time accounting. The article by Herman Lueer is available in German and English and is highly recommended reading! We will bring the year to a dignified

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Thoughts on the ‘Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’

The Angry Workers have published an article critically engaging with the “Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution” — the key work on labour-time accounting. They emphasize that this text “remains, for good reason, the main reference point for our debates,” while also questioning several aspects of the theory developed within it. The article is

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Chinese translation of our critique of Cockshott

Our Critique of Cockshott and Cottrell: “Labour Time Accounting from Above? A Critique of Cockshott and Cottrell’s Cybersocialism” is now also available in Chinese translation! The text was originally published in German in 2023 and was later translated into English. Since we do not speak Chinese ourselves, we are providing the Chinese translation here alongside

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