Labour vouchers (also known as labour cheques, labour notes, labour certificates and personal credit) are a device proposed to govern

demand In economics, demand is the quantity of a goods, good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. In economics "demand" for a commodity is not the same thing as "desire" for it. It refers to both the desi ...

for

goods In economics, goods are anything that is good, usually in the sense that it provides welfare or utility to someone. Alan V. Deardorff, 2006. ''Terms Of Trade: Glossary of International Economics'', World Scientific. Online version: Deardorffs ...

in some models of

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and to replace some of the tasks performed by

currency A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific envi ...

under

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

Outline

Unlike money, vouchers cannot circulate and are not transferable between people. They are also not exchangeable for any

means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...

, hence they are not transmutable into capital. Once a purchase is made, the labour vouchers are either destroyed or must be re-earned through labour. With such a system in place, monetary

theft Theft (, cognate to ) is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shor ...

would become impossible. Such a system is proposed by many as a replacement for traditional money while retaining a system of remuneration for work done. It is also a way of ensuring that there is no way to make money out of money as in a capitalist

market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production, and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a mark ...

. Additionally, the only kind of market that could exist in an economy operating through the use of labour vouchers would be an artificial market (arket) for mostly non-productive goods and services. As with the dissolution of

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: m ...

capital market A capital market is a financial market in which long-term debt (over a year) or equity-backed securities are bought and sold, in contrast to a money market where short-term debt is bought and sold. Capital markets channel the wealth of savers ...

s could no longer exist and

labour market Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labou ...

s would also likely cease to exist with the abolition of

wage labor Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under ...

which would by necessity occur with the adoption of vouchers. Author and activist

Michael Albert Michael Albert (born April 8, 1947) is an American economist, speaker, writer, and political critic. Since the late 1970s, he has published on a variety of subjects. He has set up his own media outfits, magazines, and podcasts. He is known for ...

and economist Robin Hahnel have proposed a similar system of remuneration in their economic system of

participatory economics Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impa ...

(parecon). A difference is that in parecon credits are generally awarded based on both the time spent working and the amount of effort and sacrifice spent during labour, rather than simple contribution. Some later advocates of participism and parecon have also proposed awarding more based on job difficulty or danger. In contrast to the physical note or cheque format used for labour vouchers in the past, parecon credits are proposed as being entirely digital in keeping with advances in technology and are stored in electronic accounts and usable through cards similar to current day debit cards.

History

Labour vouchers were first proposed in the 1820s by

Josiah Warren Josiah Warren (; June 26, 1798 – April 14, 1874) was an American Reformism (historical), social reformer, inventor, musician, businessman, and philosopher. He is regarded as the first American Philosophical anarchism, philosophical anarchist ...

and

Robert Owen Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist, political philosopher and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement, co-operative movement. He strove to ...

. Two early attempts at implementing labour vouchers (called labour notes at the time by their proponents) were made by both following their experiences attempting to establish a utopian community in New Harmony, Indiana in which currency was prohibited. In 1827, Warren established the

Cincinnati Time Store The Cincinnati Time Store (1827–1830) was the first in a series of retail stores created by American individualist anarchist Josiah Warren to test his economic labor theory of value. The experimental store operated from May 18, 1827, until Ma ...

where goods could be purchased with labor vouchers representing an agreement to perform labor. However, he folded the store in 1830 in order to devote his effort to establishing communities that implemented his principles of labour-based prices. Beginning in 1832, Owen and his followers attempted to implement labour notes in London and Glasgow by establishing marketplaces and banks that accepted them. The followers of Owen stood for a society of co-operative communities. Each community would own its own means of production and each member of a community would work to produce what had been agreed was needed and in return would be issued with a labour voucher certifying for how many hours he or she had worked. A person could then use this labour voucher to obtain from the community's stock of consumer goods any product or products which had taken the same number of hours to produce. Owen believed that this co-operative commonwealth could begin to be introduced under capitalism and in the first half of the 1830s some of his followers established labour bazaars on a similar principle in which workers brought the products of their labour to the bazaar and received in exchange a labour voucher that entitled them to take from the bazaar any item or items which had taken the same time to produce after taking into account the costs of the raw materials. These bazaars were ultimately failures, but the idea of labour vouchers appeared in substantially similar forms in France in the writings of

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, ; ; 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to ca ...

. Marx initially refused the idea in the ''

Poverty of Philosophy ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (French: ''Misère de la philosophie'') is a book by Karl Marx published in Paris and Brussels in 1847, where he lived in exile from 1843 until 1849. It was originally written in French as a critique of the economic ...

'', especially within the capitalism (I. chapter, 2. §). Marx stated that the time in itself separated from other people's time is not suitable to measure the value of work. The value "is constituted, not by the time needed to produce it by itself, but in relation to the quota of each and every other product which can be created at the same time" (3.§. A.). According to Marx, the introduction of labour vouchers would create a lazy society and economy as there would not be concurrency between employers and employees, so nobody would be able to tell what the optimal (minimal) time which was needed to produce something would be. For example, what if "Peter" works 12 hours per day, meanwhile "Paul" works only 6 hours. This means that "Peter" worked 6 unnecessary hours and his labour vouchers are not worth anything as this is regarded +6 hours, not to mention other factors of the work. To summarize Marx's opinion in the ''Poverty of Philosophy'', the labour voucher is not suitable to create a new socialist society, and the theory of Proudhon and others is nothing more than a

utopian A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', which describes a fictional island soci ...

apology of the existing capitalist system. By

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

, despite disagreeing with the manner in which they were implemented by Owen, as a way of dealing with immediate and temporary shortages upon the establishment of socialism. Marx explained that this would be necessary since socialism emerges from capitalism and would be "stamped with its birthmarks". In Marx's proposal, an early socialist society would reward its citizens according to the amount of labour they contribute to society. In the ''

Critique of the Gotha Programme The ''Critique of the Gotha Programme'' () is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP), with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association. Offerin ...

'', Marx said:

e individual producer receives back from society—after the deductions have been made—exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labour. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labour time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labour cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.Karl Marx (1875). ''
Critique of the Gotha Programme The ''Critique of the Gotha Programme'' () is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP), with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association. Offerin ...
''. Part I.

During the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, European communities implemented local currencies with varying success. The aptly-named economist Sir Leo Chiozza Money advocated for a similar monetary scheme in his 1934 book ''Product Money'' (Methuen) with notes or certificates being issued for productive work and destroyed once exchanged for consumption goods. In

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

Hjalmar Schacht Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht (); 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970) was a German economist, banker, politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank during the ...

(

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

s finance-minister and banker) applied a kind of labour-voucher named MEFO-bond, whose aim was to hide the rearmament program's expenditures before the Western world as the big trusts did not pay by money-transfer to each other, but bought MEFO bonds from the state and changed these bonds in closed circuit. More modern implementations as time-based currencies were implemented in the United States starting in the 1970s.

Systems that advocate labour vouchers

The following political and economic systems propose the adoption of labour vouchers (in some form or another) either permanently or as a temporary means of remuneration during a transitional stage between a monetary economy and a completely moneyless economy based on free association. *

Owenism Owenism is the utopian socialist philosophy of 19th-century social reformer Robert Owen and his followers and successors, who are known as Owenites. Owenism aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the cooperative ...

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

* Mutualism *

Individualist anarchism Individualist anarchism or anarcho-individualism is a collection of anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hi ...

* Collectivist anarchism * DeLeonism * Participism *

Inclusive Democracy Takis Fotopoulos (; born 14 October 1940) is a Greek political philosopher, economist and writer who founded the Inclusive Democracy movement, aiming at a synthesis of classical democracy with libertarian socialism and the radical currents ...

* Neomarxism * Technocracy Inc Inclusive Democracy is unique in proposing two kinds of vouchers. Basic vouchers issued to each citizen according to need are used for essential goods and services such as health care while non-basic vouchers awarded to each worker for labor contributed are used to pay for non-essential commercial goods and services.

Criticisms

The system has also been criticized by many libertarian socialists, particularly

anarcho-communists Anarchist communism is a Far-left politics, far-left political ideology and Anarchist schools of thought, anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property, private real property but retention ...

, who propose abolishing all remuneration and prices and advocate instead a

gift economy A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there ...

with the value determined by

calculation in kind Calculation in kind or calculation in-natura is a way of valuating resources and a system of accounting that uses disaggregated physical magnitudes as opposed to a common unit of calculation. As the basis for a socialist economy, it was proposed ...

. In criticizing collectivist anarchism's retaining of labour vouchers and cheques,

Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later s ...

said:

r after having proclaimed the abolition of private property, and the possession in common of all means of production, how can they uphold the wages system in any form? It is, nevertheless, what collectivists are doing when they recommend labour-cheques.Peter Kropotkin (1906). ''The Conquest of Bread''. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons). Chapter XIII - The Collectivist Wages System.

The

World Socialist Movement The World Socialist Movement (WSM) is an international organisation of socialist parties created in 1904 with the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). The member parties share a common classical Marxist worldview and an adh ...

has argued against using labour vouchers as either a permanent or a temporary system while transitioning to their desired anarcho-communist economy based on free access. They claim that seeing as most of the occupations that currently exist under capitalism will no longer exist,

scarcity In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good. ...

would no longer be an issue. They also state:

Labour vouchers would tend to maintain the idea that our human worth is determined by how much or how many goods we can own (or produce). Labour vouchers imply that a very huge administrative organisation must police who takes the goods produced by society. In other words, there must be people who spend their time ensuring that other people do not take things without paying for them. That is normal in a profit-oriented society, but a waste of human labour in socialism."Labour Vouchers"
World Socialist Movement. Last updated: 2006-08-13.

References

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External links