Engels on the Prospects of Commodity Production and Money under Socialism, and the Experience of Real Socialism

This article is devoted to the prediction by Engels that commodity production and
money will disappear under socialism, and to providing an explanation of how this
prediction arose and on what basis. Logically, this prediction is linked to the thesis on the
abolition of private property. An analysis of the works of the young Engels shows that this
thesis has its roots in the profound personal impact made on him by the miseries of the
workers, and in his sympathy for the exploited and oppressed. Also leading Engels to his
conclusions on the need to abolish private property were his familiarity with the works
of the French enlightenment and with philosophical literature that was advanced for the
1840s; his participation in the circle of the Young Hegelians; and later, his acquaintanceship
with activists of the incipient workers’ and communist movement.
The prediction by Engels that commodity production and money would disappear
under socialism has not been realised, although he himself grasped the important
problem for socialism of income inequality.
Nevertheless, Engels did not pose the main question, which necessarily is that of
the economic mechanism of associated production, that impels the producers to create
the most efficient means of production on their own initiative. The experience of the
USSR shows that directly setting the tasks of society on the basis of production volumes
gradually reduces the stimuli to maximise labour efficiency, and excludes the majority of
people from influencing the productive processes. The economy of socialism must have a
plan-market character, that is, it must combine elements and institutions of both the plan
and the market. The real precondition for reducing the role of commodity-production
relations, Engels proposed, was the evolutionary transformation both of production and
of people themselves. A struggle against commodity-money relations would not aid in
this.