To begin, there is an old humorous joke in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries. Variations of this joke exist on the World Wide Web. Even so, the general logic remains constant in any version that one may encounter online. The joke reads:

The government pretends to pay the workers, so the workers pretend to work.

This example of Cold War-era dark humor contains an important lesson that is best understood in a Socialistic context under the Work-Standard. The Work-Standard stresses the need for “Geld,” the Money of the Socialist nation, to be pegged to “Arbeit,” the Work of the Socialist nation. The Totality expects to be paid Geld from the State for any contributions of Arbeit. The State itself expects to be given Arbeit from the Totality for any payments of Geld. When the State fails to pay the Totality, the Totality stops contributing Arbeit. When the Totality fails to contribute Arbeit, the State can no longer pay Geld. The Socialist nation suffers, the Liberal Capitalist propagandists exploiting that breakdown in social trust between the Totality and their State.  

Unlike the Liberal Capitalist Incentives of Supply and Demand, the Socialist Intents of Command and Obedience do not rely on an “Equilibrium” between the Command side and the Obedience side. Rather, Command and Obedience must achieve a “Synchronicity” in what is being said (the Command side) and what is being done (the Obedience side). Carl Gustav Jung has given the Socialist nations of the world their metaphysical basis behind how Synchronicity functions through Command and Obedience. The hammer and sickle symbolize the Anima of the workers and the Animus of the peasants, their union upheld by the sword of the Socialist State. Where Jung did not provide was the economic and financial basis that only the Work-Standard could reveal.

The same is true for the reverse cases. Whenever somebody contributes any Arbeit to the State, the State is expected to pay them Geld. Whenever somebody receives Geld from their State, they are expected to spend that Geld to create more Arbeit for everyone. It is a cyclical process vehemently opposed to the zero-sum, linear one definitive of Liberal Capitalist Kapital and Schuld (Debt/Guilt), where anyone can get away with saying one thing and doing its complete opposite. Whether the transactions are happening offline or online, everyone who commits themselves to a Vocation will contribute Arbeit to the State and will receive Geld from the State. As everyone remains faithful in doing what they love with the hope of looking forward to everything that Life itself has to offer, there will be true prosperity in the Socialist nation under the Work-Standard.

Exactly how the Socialist nation decides to contribute Arbeit and generate Geld is irrelevant here. Such decisions rest on the Totality with the full backing of their State. Everyone will be striving to live within their own means of production. A similar argument can also be made for the type of economic planning employed under the Work-Standard, where economic planners are embedded throughout the Planned/Command Economy and working with everyone involved in the production process.  To ensure Synchronicity between Command and Obedience, between what is being said and what is being done, is to participate directly in the affairs of the national economy through constant investments of Arbeit and Geld.

Synchronicity arises from Command and Obedience upholding Sustainability within the production process and the Frequency of transactions consistent with the Quality of goods and services manufactured. The Prices of goods and services, upon achieving Synchronicity, are consistent with the Values decided by the Totality at the State Commissariats of Wages and Prices. The result is the eventual realization of the Intents that define the motivations of those involved in any part of the production process. And when that happens, the Socialist nation prospers.  

We can cite an historical example of where Synchronicity can be gained or lost. An important one pertains to agriculture and food production. Whenever one thinks of Socialism in the context of agriculture, their first thought is to assume that there will be collective farming by the State. They may be even more puzzled to find out that the Work-Standard has no need for collective farming. Most people do not realize is that those collective farms in the former Soviet Union came from the pervading Russian Culture as opposed to something inherent within Socialism itself. An historical event like the “Great Grain Heist of 1972-1973” can only be understood within a Russian context.

When the Soviet economic planners insisted upon the need to boost agricultural production, the Intent was not to ensure that everyday people could meet their nutritional needs. Rather, the Intent was to boost the returns of economic growth from the sales in food production, the surpluses of which were exported to neighboring countries like Germany and China. A different conception of Currency, unlike the ones from Liberal Capitalism and Socialism, existed in congruence with Russian agriculture. After the Western world decided to establish their presences in Russia under Peter the Great during the Enlightenment, everyday Russians began gradually thinking in terms of either Kapital and Schuld or Arbeit and Geld vis-à-vis their own Currency, the Ruble. The industrialization of the Russia that everyone knows in the 21^st century began during the Soviet era.

These historical facts are omitted in Liberal Capitalist propaganda, in addition to their contextual relationship with the more well-known fact that the cities throughout Europe and North America had become centers of finance for domestic and international economic activities. Everybody in Western cities thinks of their Currency in terms of either Arbeit and Geld or else Kapital and Schuld. This sort of thinking is a strictly Western phenomenon expressed in Western languages, cultures, traditions, social customs and norms that began with the printing press during the Renaissance, where two rivaling conceptions of Currency assumed their proper forms by the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Neither Arbeit and Geld nor Kapital and Schuld can exist on their own in any conception of Russia (be it Czarist, Soviet or post-Soviet) without everyday Russians being introduced to them by people living in the West.

Granted, this is not to suggest that the contemporary Russian Ruble is incapable of being pegged to the Work-Standard or that the contemporary Russian Mixed Economy is incapable of becoming a Command Economy again, this time without the flaws of the Soviet Command Economy. Like the Japanese Yen and the Japanese Market Economy that grew up together after 1945, the Russian Ruble and the Russian Mixed Economy that grew up after 1991 is more than capable of adopting the Work-Standard, abandoning Liberal Capitalism, and returning to Socialism. “Russian Socialism” still retains the best aspects of the Soviet experience, and there is potential for the worst aspects of that legacy to be replaced by the best aspects of the pre-Soviet and post-Soviet experiences. The great question confronting Russian Socialism in the 21^st century is whether efforts are made to learn from the mistakes of previous centuries and not just the 20^th century.

The lesson is to be learned here is that words and actions do matter insofar as there must be some form of Synchronicity that gives everything their contextual meanings. This same lesson is applicable to the interactions between Arbeit and Geld in the context of the Work-Standard as well as for the economic and financial powers wielded by the political power of any nation-state.       

Categories: Compendium

Tags: Compendium, Economics, Finance, Socialist Finance, Work-Standard