In 1930 the Group of International Communists laid out their vision for a self-directed society of free and equal producers, elaborating upon the scattered writings of Marx and Engels on the topic.

Building on the GIC’s outstanding and long overlooked contribution – ‘The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ – we further develop their core ideas, introducing a number of new and related principles. We will show how a socialist society of free and equal producers is a concrete possibility. What has long been dismissed as an impossible dream, we reveal to be both simple and elegant.

The material basis of this society emerges organically from and in opposition to the existing capitalist relations of production, abolishing wage-labour, exploitation, commodity production, private property, money, and markets in its wake. In such a self-governing society, producers manage and administer the economy for themselves.

Using the dual lens of Marx’s value theory and management cybernetics, we analyse and critique both historical attempts and modern proposals for an egalitarian post-capitalist economy. We will demonstrate how these projects were undermined by a lack of understanding of basic cybernetic principles and a flawed conception of socialism.

Recent advances in capitalist industrial organisation demonstrate how a viable system of socialist planning is necessarily a living, organic, and continuous process, answering only to its own internal rhythms and the rational control of its participants.

This is a socialism we can build today.

This is a socialism for a political project that does not yet exist.

Hear us discuss the project:

If you’d like to hear us talk in depth about the project, check out this episode of the ‘From Alpha To Omega’ podcast:

If you’d like to learn more about the ‘Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ you can check out first episode of our reading series here:

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/fromalpha2omega/episodes/2021-05-16T05_52_11-07_00

Support The Book!

You can make monthly and once-off payments with PayPal to the following address:

tomobrien2004@gmail.com

You can also donate via Stripe via the buttons below. However, the charges are pretty steep for Stripe, so PayPal is preferable!