Booth, William James. "Gone Fishing: Making Sense of Marx's Concept of Communism". Political Theory, Vol.17, No.2 (1989): 205-222.

Booth, William James. "Gone Fishing: Making Sense of Marx's Concept of Communism". Political Theory, Vol.17, No.2 (1989): 205-222.

• Dr. Booth provides a brilliant example of the difference between activities as a free individual, say in a communist society, and a capitalist society. The author describes a man fishing and contrasts him with a fisherman. The man who fishes represents the individual under communism, passing time on an activity for its own sake, whereas a fisherman is driven either by natural necessity -- as under feudalism -- or economic pressure -- as under capitalism (205-207).
• For a man fishing, time is something to be passed and is subject to neither necessity of survival nor market forces. For the fisherman, the constrains of necessity and the market on time warp it into disciplined labour with other factors dependent on it (206).
• For the man who fishes, skill is its own reward, it does not depend on any external factors. For the fisherman, skill is only valuable in what it can produce through the activity. Furthermore, whereas the man who fishes may be an amateur, the external pressures on the fisherman necessitate that he must become an expert at fishing (206).
• A group which one goes fishing with would be an association of people chosen on personal reasons for their companionability and friendship, whereas a fisherman must select his group on the basis of skill. The former is voluntary, the later is professional and contractual (206).
• To be fisherman is fundamentally different from going fishing. Whereas in the former there is an element of voluntary association and being able to walk away at the end, becoming a fisherman means that fishing becomes one's function in society. In pre-capitalist society this could be determined by needs and available resources, but in capitalism it is selected based on allocation of labour (208). 
• Capitalism absorbs humanity within its end goal of 'valorization', or the increase of surplus value. Through this process the end goal of all functions in the production of surplus capital, under a system where workers become functional only as 'labour' and capitalists become functional only as a personification of the drive to increase surplus value (209).
• Just as the structure of the factory determines the position, location, and activities of a worker, so the structure of capitalism determines the function of every individual within society. Choice of the individual is removed through this process, as 'individuals' are transformed into 'functionaries' (209).
• Classes are created through this mechanism, as people are no longer defined by free association or interests, the structure of capitalism has divided groups based only on predetermined function. This functional groups are constrained in activities and interests, thus being transformed into a class (210).
• Thus the classless nature of a Marxist society can be understood as the return of individual choice in the economic world. The person who "fishes in the morning and herds in the evening", does so based on person choice rather than necessity or economic assignation (210).
• Marx believes that wealth should not be measured in money -- or 'dead labour' as he refers to it -- but by the amount of free time in one's future. Time is bound when its use is determined by forces external of the individual, whether these be the capitalist system or the forces of nature. Time is free if its use is determined by only the individual, the activity it is used for does not make it less free or bound (210).
• Whereas in previous historical epochs leisure was viewed as an end unto itself, a goal for the aristocracy at the cost of other's labour, in the capitalist system production is not intended to provide leisure; its sole goal is the provision of surplus value (211).
• For Marx, the relationship between capitalism and time is both positive and negative. On the positive side, it allows for the invention of processes which decrease the amount of time needed for production, however, the negative side is that rather than use this to increase leisure, it combines increased efficiency with the extension and intensification of the work day so that surplus value can be increased by the greatest possible amount (211).
• In some ways the spoiling of the wonderful opportunities provided by increased efficiency of production is the greatest evil of capitalism, as when given the chance to provide additional free time it only further increased the amount of bound time and subordinated more human effort to the production of surplus value (212).
• The formation of labour markets marks a break in previous communities are relations between people. Whereas in pre-capitalist systems, people were defined in terms of status and personal attributes by others within a 'natural' community, under capitalism everyone is made a slave of the systems of production. This causes its own sort of damage, but it is also a great equalizer. Under capitalism, everyone is made an equal and erases previous non-class divisions (213).
• Once the market becomes predominant in a capitalist system, humans are no longer defined by personal traits, only as representations of commodities they hold: either the potential of labour hours or the potential of capital investment (214).
• Marx argues that the market system is not actually as liberating as liberals claim, as it still functions by principles which constrain human endeavor. This is because buyers and sellers on the free market are compelled in their actions by the capitalist system, they cannot choose to leave and must perform in a certain way to survive. Additionally, although individual relationships are voluntary, the nature of market relations as a whole is compulsory and necessitates certain functions be performed outside of individual control (215).
• Market relations as a whole are determined by the valorization process and therefore the range of potential action is severely constrained by the nature of the capitalist system. This is the primary mechanism by which the free market does not liberate the individual (215).
• The factory and the actualization of capitalist relations demonstrates the true constraints of freedom within the free market, as all decisions about where to work and prices for labour result in the coercive placement into certain patterns of work and association with fellow labourers. In the stage of production, all of the individual choice of the market vanishes as the individual becomes subsumed into the capitalist mechanism of producing surplus value (216).
• One of the great hopes of Marx's communism is that humans will eventually be able to dominate nature in a way that human activity will not be unduly constrained by natural events or cycles. He does not say that necessity for survival can ever be completely overcome, but that the technologies of capitalism will enable man to dominate the natural world in a beneficial way allowing for a society of free association (219).
• The essential concept that must be grasped in Marx's view of the issues behind capitalism is the lack of individualism and the dehumanization of social control under a capitalist system. Rather than a domination of just the proletariat, Marx decries the subordination of society in general to the inhuman demands of the economy, which dominates all people (219).
• In some ways, Marx's critique of capitalism extends off of earlier liberal arguments. Whereas liberal arguments demand an end to the coercive and unfair domination of individuals by other individuals under earlier feudal systems, Marx identifies another unaccountable and unfair form of coercion: the capitalist system. His goal is thus to liberate humanity from their new non-consensual domination (220).