INDEP online Talk with the Boston College Labor-Time Economy Working Group – Simulating a Labor-time Socialist Economy

This online event will take place in English. It will be held in cooperation with the Initiative demokratische Arbeitszeitrechnung (Initiative democratic labor-time accounting).

To participate, please register here.

The Boston College Labor-Time Economy Working Group (BC-LTEWG) will present an agent-based computer simulation model of a labor-time socialist economy. Their project brings together ideas drawn from the Group of International Communists’ 1930 Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution, classical linear production theory, and modern cybernetics to implement a pragmatic model of an economic system characterized by local decision-making, in which stability arises as an emergent property. This economic model presupposes socialized means of production and local, democratic, worker control of enterprises, uses labor-time credits instead of money to measure exchange values, and does not support private profits or rents. Autonomous firms, planning democratically, form nodes in a parallel distributed system, in which global prices are regularly readjusted to reflect average production requirements, and in which cybernetic signal-and-control mechanisms enable the nodes to coordinate with each other and the system to remain stable through changing conditions without needing global information (except current prices) or a central planning hierarchy, thus freeing up global political processes for high-level policy decisions. Starting from random initial conditions of production (e.g., inputs and costs), they simulate individuals buying what they need from distributors in exchange for labor-time credits; distributors order goods from producers to stock their shelves; and producers order inputs needed for production from upstream producers, including both goods (fluid capital) and machinery (fixed capital). All firms organize their work according to plans that pair work targets with labor-time budgets, and all firms pay their workers in labor-time credits. Prices are based on current average socially necessary direct and indirect labor, and are updated whenever a plan is completed, based on actual direct and indirect labor expenditures, as measured, in part, by in-kind accounting. Workers may be asked to move voluntarily from one firm to another in response to changes in demand. Firms take workers’ skills into account in placing them. Earnings are taxed through the factor of individual consumption (FIC) to support a public fund, which makes certain goods available to all, free of charge. With rich graphic visualizations of the system’s behavior, they show that supply consistently meets demand without central coordination. Their findings suggest that a labor-time socialist economy based on decentralized planning is a viable way to coordinate production in the modern world.

Presenters:

Amittai Aviram – aviram@bc.edu
Amittai Aviram is Associate Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Boston College (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), where he teaches computer systems, compilers, and databases, as well as a member of Initiative Demokratische Arbeitszeitrechnung (IDA) and INDEP. In a previous life, he had been a professor of English and comparative literature, before re-schooling and re-tooling. He and Alex Creiner launched the BC-LTEWG project in spring 2025.

Alexander Creiner – creiner@bc.edu
Alex Creiner is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Boston College, where he primarily teaches courses on mathematical logic, algorithms, and complexity theory, as well as a member of INDEP. Though he studied theoretical computer science during his mathematics doctoral program, his research interests took a dramatic shift in 2020. His main areas of research currently are applied computer modeling, political economy, value theory, and cybernetics. He and Alex Creiner launched the BC-LTEWG project in spring 2025.

Devin Lim
Devin Lim is a second-year undergraduate Computer Science major at Boston College, where he also pursues interests in mathematics and physics. He has been working with BC-LTEWG for about a year.

Nathan Lim
Nathan Lim is a third-year undergraduate Computer Science major at Boston College, where he also studies finance. He has been working with BC-LTEWG this summer.