The basic difference between Socialism and any class based social system

[pranabjyoti]

In my opinion, the basic difference between socialism and any kind of class based society, that the human race experience so far in history is that. See for example, the world today is a world under capitalism, but what % of world population is living in a true capitalist society, I can say very few. But still we call the present age as the part of history, in which capitalism reigns. That's true for other kind of class based societies like the era of slavery and feudalism. All kind of class based societies need a huge backup of less developed clans, countries around it. As for example, for a long time, the German tribes of Europe acted as the backup of the Great Roman Empire. Same is true for Egypt too. In present world order, the capitalist imperialism needs a huge backup of backward countries and peoples, which are still living in feudal or other kind of less developed social system. At least imperialism don't want these countries to be developed into a full fledged capitalist society. I guess that the imperialists can understand and understand very well, perhaps more than us that our world can not bear the burden of more capitalism.

[Saorsa]

There's some very valid points here. The majority of people in the world do not live in a mostly capitalist condition, and as you pointed out live in semi-feudal countries practicing a semi-feudal life. And your right that all through history and right up to the present day (espescially so today) the dominant bloc of countries work to hold back the rest of the world. Even when they do sponsor development, it tends to be in order to turn the backward country in question into a client state to cheaply fulfil some need of the imperialist nation. For example, funding roads and infrastructure to help some poor african country produce coffee or chocolate - it's technically development, it's technically spreading modern capitalism to a region that probably has very little of it, but it doesn't actually develop the country in any meaningful sense and the inhabitants of that country are still excluded from holding any power over the capitalist economies being developed.

That said, not even the most powerful imperialist bloc can hold back the march of history. The world is changing, and capitalism is spreading. It won't be long before the majority of the world's population live in urban areas for the first time ever, and technology and modern production techniques are gradually being utilised across the world. The imperialist system retards this process, slowing down development far below what it could be in a socialist world, but it's still happening.

So I think it's a bit inaccurate to say that the 'world can not bear the burden of more capitalism.' That may be true in an environmental sense, as a small minority of people in countries like China and India are enriched and become able to drive cars, and as polluting heavy industry is developed more and more in those countries without the (limited) environmental regulations we have in the West. But while the imperialists would probably prefer capitalism not to spread as much as possible, and while their system paradoxically slows down this process, the world whether we like it or not is going to see more capitalism before it sees socialism. And neither us nor the imperialists can stop that.

There's my two cents anyway. :)

[Pogue]

Yeh the point would be how the process of imperialism has as one if its main aims stopping the developement of society. I.e. it will stunt the developement of capitalism in countries where it doesn't exist, or as Comrade Alistair said support it only in so far as that country can be used to provide resources neccesarily for the more advanced economies. Just look at the 'aid' provided by the IMF, structural adjustment policies and what not that ensure any wealth generated by industrial developement goes overseas to the multinationals and first world economies.

The main fear is that if there is developement in countries such as parts of Africa that are basically still feudal, there will be an increase in their living standards and subsequently their mega exploitation will no longer be possible: hence a decline in the wealth and power relationships currently experienced between 'the west' and everywhere else.

This is a complicated process and this is quite a good thread for this topic to be discussed in. Interesting too because I'm about to start reading Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. We should discuss mroe socialist perspectives on this developement, i.e. how we can react to societies that are currently at a stage of their progression which is prior to or just entering industrial capitalism and we respond to these situations as socialists.

[Saorsa]

Speaking from a loosely Maoist perspective, one of the things I've found most interesting is the development of massive slums in countries like India, full of peasants (or the children of peasants) who've moved to the cities and exist in a sort of gray zone between the urban proletariat and the countryside. Usually struggling to find work, usually just getting enough to live, these slums are going to be the base for massive unrest in years to come. I mean this isn't a totally new development, slums have always existed and have always been potent bases for revolutionary movements. Raucana shanty town outside Lima became a stronghold of the PCP during the People's War, for example. You can also look at the movements in the shantytowns of South Africa, and countless other places. But the sheer size of these slums as a proportion of the population and the significance they're going to hold as a sea of poverty existing within view of the rich people's skyscrapers, a sea of alienated, hungry and increasingly angry humans, means that they should be taken note of.

I don't want to derail this thread into one of my usual rants about Nepal, but I think Nepal and the tactics of the Maoists there is a great example of how the world has changed. The whole basis of Prachanda Path was the merger of people's war from the countryside with urban insurrection. The Maoists actually ended the PW and totally changed their strategy after 2006 in order to prepare for an uprising in the cities. Nepal is a guerilla paradise - mountains, jungle, shitloads of poor and angry peasants, but the Maoists didn't think this was enough.

I think the age of peasant guerilla armies is ending. It may last another century or more, but we're in it's final stage. And the age where it's possible for revolutionaries to seize power through a rural guerilla army alone has conclusively ended, and probably did some time ago.

I've found the discussion about this within international Maoism to be pretty fascinating, if anyone's interested I'd recommend reading the Urban Perspectives document of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Even if you don't agree with their politics or their strategy, it's still interesting to see how they recognise the changing nature of Indian society and how their tactics have to change to reflect this. There's also some very interesting and useful statistics and economic analysis, it's a bloody good document in it's own right.

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/documents/papers/Urbanperspective.htm

[pranabjyoti]

Comrades,
But, at present, what I fear is that; more and more capitalist development in the least developed part of the world means more and more destruction of its environment and certainly huge number of people would rise against this kind of development for environmental reason, because their livelihood is pretty much well tied with environmental factors. What I fear is that this kind of justified movements can be used by imperialists for their own vested interest.
To prevent that, in my opinion, we, the revolutionaries have to take the matter in our hand before the imperialist backed NGOs take it up. At present, in my opinion, the revolutionary organizations should prepare themselves not only for making revolution, but also about progress after the revolution. I myself like it in that way, we should make an international forum or organization, where not only the socio-political and economic issues will be discussed, but also scientific and technological issues too. We will gather suggestions and ideas, specially technological ideas, as much as they can be elaborated on paper at least and later submit to the people of the country, where workers and peasants have taken power.
As for example, we will gather some good ideas and technologies regarding the development of Nepal and India, as much as they can be elaborated on paper, and will, in future hand over those papers to the parties.
I want your comments and suggestions about this proposal.

[BobKKKindle$]

The majority of people in the world do not live in a mostly capitalist condition, and as you pointed out live in semi-feudal countries practicing a semi-feudal life.
See for example, the world today is a world under capitalism, but what % of world population is living in a true capitalist society, I can say very few
in countries such as parts of Africa that are basically still feudalYou're all completely wrong, there are no feudal or semi-feudal societies in the world today, each and every society in the world is a capitalist society, and the world is an integrated economic unit based on the capitalist mode of production. To understand why this is the case and dispense with any silly notions about some countries being semi-feudal you need to begin with an understanding of what allows us to differentiate between different modes of production and what makes capitalism different from feudalism - in other words you need to have an understanding of Marx's theory of history. A set of relations of production can be understood primarily in terms of the extent to which producers exercise control over their labour power and how the means of production are owned and controlled, and relations of production change depending on whether they allow for the development of the productive forces or not at a given level of development, that is at a given stage in the progress of human history - so that the reason we have capitalist relations of production in an economy with advanced technique and infrastructure is that no other relations of production would allow for the growth of the productive forces in a society which has reached that stage of development. It logically follows from this that relations of production change when they can no longer allow for the development of the productive forces, with these changes also marking changes in which class is the ruling class. What is distinctive about capitalism in this process of changing relations of production is that under capitalism the producers are not subject to the control or ownership of any particular member of the ruling class so that they are free to work for whomever they choose (in the technical sense) whilst at the same time having no control whatsoever over the means of production, such that they have nothing to sell but their labour power - and it is this that makes the producers under capitalism proletarians. By contrast, under feudalism the vast majority of the producers retain partial control over the means of production but are also bound to the local representative of the ruling class, not being free to move elsewhere or change their occupation, and subject to exploitation in ways that are different from the mechanisms that operate under capitalism - the experience of exploitation under capitalism is hidden beneath the veil of wage labour in the sense that the worker does not know how big the difference is between her wage and the value of what they produce, but under feudalism exploitation takes place in the form of producers being made to hand over a definite proportion of their output, this mechanism giving producers a clear idea of how big the surplus is in comparison to what they are left with for their own consumption. You will notice from the above that feudalism is not defined by lots of people living in the countryside but by the presence of specific relations of production that differ from capitalism, and I think that people assuming that a large rural population is the same as feudalism is where a lot of the confusion about whether feudalism exists today comes from.

In the world today the vast majority if not the whole of humanity finds itself subject to capitalist relations of production, and these relations have expanded to cover the whole of the world ever since capitalism emerged in a few isolated locations in the 17th century, although the timing of capitalism's emergence is a matter of dispute. The universality of capitalism today is true in the first place because the vast majority of humanity now lives in urban areas (source (http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2004/pop899.html)) where it is impossible almost by definition for producers to be enmeshed in feudal relations of production - the majority of these urban dwellers are either members of the proletariat or the lumpenproletariat, both of these classes being specific to the capitalist mode of production. Those producers who continue to live in rural areas are still enmeshed in capitalist relations of production in that they are no longer bound to the land in the same way as producers under feudalism, and are therefore free to migrate to the cities, and most importantly they are now involved in the production of goods for the purchase of exchange (that is, in the production of commodities, commodity production being a key feature of the capitalist mode of production) as oppossed to the production of use values as under feudalism and other pre-capitalist modes of production. The centrality of commodity production is also linked to another point which is that rural producers are now subject to the forces of the capitalist world-system insofar as the prices of what they produce as well as their input costs are now determined on an international scale by actors who are engaged in the accumulation of capital (i.e. the prospects of rural communities are being determined by the dynamics of capital accumulation) and it is partly because of this penetration of capitalism into some of the most formerly-isolated areas of the world and the effect that it has had on the distribution of land that increasing numbers of rural producers are becoming part of the proletariat mentioned above, having been deprived of their independent position in the way that Marx predicted. The notion that capitalism has spread throughout the world and that there are no feudal relations of production left should not surprise us because one of Marx's observations that has been definitely vindicated by the history of the past few centuries is that capitalism is expansionary in the way that previous modes of production were not, because competition between rival capitals drives each individual capitalists to search for additional opportunities for accumulation and consequently to introduce capitalism into areas which would otherwise remain feudal or in some other way pre-capitalist - and what is especially important here is Marx's recognition that capitalism is a force that cannot be controlled once it has been unleashed, or, as he put it, "is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells".

(For those that didn't read all of the above, my view is that the entire world is capitalist today, that there is no such thing as a feudal society left, and that the world can only be understood as an integrated capitalist unit in which no single country or producer can escape the forces of capital)

[BobKKKindle$]

The question of whether capitalism "holds back" certain countries is an important one and in my view it's too simplistic to say that these countries are simply stopped from developing their economies, rather the effect of capitalism on countries like India which have become enmeshed in capitalism as a result of penetration from countries like Britain can best be described in terms of combined and uneven development. From one perspective, these countries have been underdeveloped by the leading capitalist powers in that their domestic industries were (and are being) destroyed due to the influx of cheap commodities from abroad, and agricultural producers have found themselves restricted to the production of a narrow range of goods, once again as a result of competition from stronger capitalist powers, who can produce the same goods at a lower cost. On the other hand, however, these countries are also major destinations for the export of capital from the imperialist core due to the prospect of exploiting their cheap labour and natural resources, and because of this countries like India (and Russia, when Lenin and Trotsky were alive) are often home to some of the most advanced technology and industry in the entire world, funded by foreign investment, with thousands of workers being employed in large units of production. It is because of the presence of these vast enterprises that Trotsky spoke of combined development, referring to the combination of backwardness and advanced technology, the uneven bit referring to the simple fact that not all countries (and regions within individual countries) are at the same level of development. The co-existence of backwardness (which also manifests itself in the huge slums that you tend to find in the cities of underdeveloped countries, populated by lumpenproletarians and seasonal labourers) and advance is important because this can generate the potential for political explosions that threaten capitalism on a global scale, and it is for that reason that the Maoist strategy of looking towards the peasants and hoping for a democratic (non-socialist) revolution is flawed, and why, consistent with Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, socialists need to be looking towards the workers of cities like Mumbai, Shanghai, Bangkok, and so on, as the agents of international socialist revolution - and by that I mean socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the real deal, if you will, not handing over power to the so-called national bourgeoisie as the Maoists support.

[Saorsa]

not handing over power to the so-called national bourgeoisie as the Maoists support.

Not true

[BobKKKindle$]

Not true

I'm disappointed CA, I was looking forward to you backing up your assertion that the majority of societies in the world today are feudal and responding to my arguments about what makes the entire world capitalist. Nonetheless, let's talk about the Nepalese Maoists, beginning with some Maoist theory. In 'On New Democracy', Mao argues that in countries at a low level of development it is not possible to carry out a socialist revolution and that in order to get to the point where socialism is possible it is necessary for these countries to undergo a long period of capitalist development, during which private property and commodity production are retained, both of these features being central to the capitalist mode of production. However, in the same document Mao also recognizes that in the imperialist epoch the so-called compardor bourgeoisie is not capable of playing any progressive role due to basically being an instrument of the imperialist powers, and that the transition period between capitalism and socialism therefore consists of the class rule of a bloc of four classes, representing historically progressive forces. This bloc of four classes contains the proletariat, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie, with the proletariat supposedly having the leading role, and in his discussion of what New Democracy would mean in China in terms of policies Mao recognizes that the rich and middle peasants would be allowed to retain their property and that whilst capital would not be permitted to "dominate the livelihood of the people" (referring to the third of Sun Yat-sen's Three People's Principles) the state would not immediately proceed with the expropriation of the national bourgeoisie, such that private property would remain in place, and a large segment of the economy would remain privately owned. What is not discussed in 'On New Democracy' is whether the existence of a large private sector is compatible with the class rule of the proletariat, which is connected with the much more fundamental issue of what makes the state in capitalist societies a state under the control of the bourgeoisie or a state that otherwise serves the class interests of the bourgeoisie. I contend that as long as the bourgeoisie is allowed to retain its property (which basically means as long as the bourgeoisie is allowed to exist as a class given that it is defined by its ownership and control of the means of production) it is impossible to speak of the proletariat exercising political power, because whether the state is able to implement its policies will depend on whether the bourgeoisie is willing to tolerate those policies. If the policies of the state threaten the interests of the bourgeoisie, it will be able to use its economic position to put pressure on the state in such a way that the state is forced to reverse its policies and acknowledge the class interests of the bourgeoisie or risk being overthrown. It is this dynamic (the bourgeoisie's power in the economic sphere being used as a way of exerting political pressure) that accounts for the bourgeois character of state apparatuses in countries around the world and not individual members of the bourgeoisie necessarily being in charge of the state in a formal sense.

This raises the question of whether the Nepalese Maoists do plan to accept the existence of the national bourgeoisie in accordance with the requirements of New Democracy. The first indication of them intending to do this is their acceptance of the continued existence of bourgeois democracy and their willingness to assume the posts of the bourgeois executive after their impressive victory in the parliamentary elections, even if they were the government for only a limited period of time - this stands in conflict with the Marxist position that the dictatorship of the proletariat can only be established through the smashing of the bourgeois state and all the armed bodies of men that support it and the capitalist order, alongside the building of a proletarian state based on the elimination of the distinction between economic and political power as well as all elected officials being subject to immediate recall by the working class. There is more evidence in the economic sphere where we find that on several occasions the Maoists have promised to create an environment that is friendly to foreign and domestic investment in order to reassure elites that their interests will not come under attack once the Maoists have established themselves. In their statements immediately prior to the parliamentary elections (in the form of the transitional economic policy published as part of their election manifesto as well as the various verbal statements made by high-ranking party officials in media interviews during the same time period) the Maoists promised that they would bring proletarians and owners together in bargaining structures in order to prevent disputes from leading to strikes and other forms of workplace resistance that can disrupt production, whilst also stating that the basic character of the economy would be "national industrial capitalism". It is pretty clear from these statements that the Maoists have no intention of carrying out the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and as a result they are not committed to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and as far as I can tell there is no evidence to show that the Maoists have changed their aims since being pushed out of government.

In China, the imperatives of the New Democracy led the CPC to directly obstruct working-class action by preventing workers from taking over their factories and punishing cadres who supported factory occupations. In Nepal these kind of constraints are not necessary for the unfortunate reason that the working class is not in a position to take power. There have not been Soviets in Nepal. I have found no evidence of factory occupations. What we do have is a petty-bourgeois political movement in the form of the Maoists who derive support from the peasantry and are committed only to carrying out the historic tasks that the bourgeoisie (which by the way I consider a cohesive class, the division between comprador and national capitalists being illusory) has proven itself unable to fulfill due to its weakness in the imperialist epoch, especially modernization. In this respect the Maoists in Nepal are no different from their predecessors in China as the CPC also had as its main objective the development of China's productive forces and repeatedly proved itself capable of repressing the working class when struggles from below threatened accumulation.