Chapter 2: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- PRODUCTION
4. New types of production organizations emerge.
4.4. PBOs for the primary sector of the economy
Communism will correct the capitalist production system, which has overemphasized the secondary and the tertiary sector of the economy, and restore the weight of the primary sector of the ecomony, especially agriculture.
In the field of agriculture today, apart from countries where poor farmers are still exploited under large land tenure systems, even in countries where large land tenure systems have been dismantled and land distribution has progressed, the practice of cultivating farmland that has been handed down from generation to generation by self-employed farmers remains deeply rooted. So it cannot be said that capitalist agricultural management based on leased land, as theoretically assumed by Marx in Volume 3 of Capital, has spread yet.
However, self-employed farming is facing a life-or-death crisis due to the inherently weak management foundation, lack of successors, and pressure to "open the market" amid globalization. If this trend continues, the world's agriculture will eventually be left to commercial large-scale management, either directly by genetically engineered agro-food capital or indirect forms such as leased farm capital.
In contrast, communist agriculture is under the unitary and integrated management of the Agricultural Production Organization, which is a special case of the production business organization, on the premise that all land, including agricultural land, will be intensively managed by the Land Management Agency as described later.
In many industrialized countries, where farmland itself is declining, the Agricultural Production Organization will reclaim commercial land that has been thrown out by the abolition of commerce as new farmland, using advanced factory cultivation technology. Ultimately, it will establish a sustainable agricultural production system that follows farming methods that consider the environment and health.
Regarding the internal structure of the Agricultural Production Organization, the aforesaid principles regarding the production business organization are mostly applicable, but the employees of the Agricultural Production Organization are the agricultural workers who are engaged in farm work on each farm, apart from general clerical workers. Those who have traditionally run farms are hired by the Agricultural Production Organization as farm managers (a type of local manager responsible for the guidance and supervision of agricultural workers) upon request.
It should be noted that forestry and fisheries can also be considered for integration through production business organizations such as the Forestry Production Organization and the Fishery Production Organization in the same way as agriculture.
Regarding fisheries in particular, it is necessary to promote planned fisheries that consider biodiversity while considering the finiteness of marine resources. Similarly, in the forestry industry, planned tree planting and felling with consideration given to the protection of forest resources is required.
In that respect, it can be said that production activities in the forestry and fisheries fields are more suitable than agriculture for communalization through environmentally sustainable methods.
Additionally remarking, since forestry and livestock farming are adjacent to agriculture, and it is possible to run side businesses, it is also worth considering the establishment of the Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock Farming Organization that encompasses the three fields.
4.5. Consumer business cooperative
The various production organizations that we have seen so far are all business entities involved in the production of goods and services themselves. But concerning consumption, too, we can conceive a kind of production organisation. That is the consumer business cooperative.
Today, consumption under modern capitalism is increasingly dominated by giant retail capital bearing the excellent capitalist name of the supermarket (=giant market), and it has become customary to procure almost all daily consumer goods related to food and clothing at supermarkets. It makes us a passive "consumer machine" of uniform consumer goods in exchange for the killer phrase "convenience."
On the other hand, the communist consumer business cooperative adopts the basic economic principle of "local production for local consumption," which is currently only a cover for political localism, and works on a broad local basis. It is a special distribution organization (service production organization) established in a unit of the local area such as the provincial area or the quasi-zone described later in Chapter 4.
Each consumer business cooperative forms a network with other consumer goods production organizations that have been confirmed to be safe and reliable, including the aforementioned the Agricultural Production Organization, and supply various consumer goods free of charge through supply points directly managed by the those cooperatives. In addition to establishing new supply stations directly managed by the cooperatives, it would be good to take over and convert existing supermarkets and convenience stores.
A consumer business cooperative is a special business entity in which residents of each local area are automatically members, and the general meeting of members (composed of representatives chosen by lottery from among the members) is the supreme decision-making body.
Unlike the aforementioned production cooperative, in the case of a consumer business cooperative in which consumers are members, it is necessary to establish a permanent workers' representative board separate from the general meeting of members, because the scheme in which workers are immediately cooperative members does not hold.
Although a consumer business cooperative is a "cooperative", it is different from self-managed enterprise, so their internal structure is similar to that of a larger production business corporation, not a production cooperative.
