State Capitalism and Socialism

[Winter]

I've noticed what one person may see a country as operating under socialism another will come along and say, "no, it's state capitalism."

In what way can we see the difference?

It seems to me so long as the proletarian state controls industries and uses the funds for the neccessities and improvement of the working class and poor, then it is a socialist state. But, if the funds only benefit high ranking politicians and a massive bueracracy, then it is state capitalism.

Opinions?

[BobKKKindle$]

It is largely to do with how we go about defining capitalism as a mode of production. The development of the productive forces generates changes in the relations of production because there reaches a point where further development is not possible as long as the existing relations of production remain in place - that much we should be able to agree on as basic principles of the materialist conception of history - and viewed from a broad perspective, changes in the relations of production have involved the immediate producers being increasingly separated from the means of production whilst also being given greater levels of control over their labour power. From this point of view capitalism is defined by the producers being free in a double sense - they are free to use their labour power as they wish because unlike feudalism they are not tied to a single employer and unlike slave-based societies their bodies are not owned as property by a member of the ruling class, rather, they sell their labour power as a commodity, and at the beginning of each working day they find themselves having to sell their labour power anew. The other sense in which the producers are free under capitalism is that they are totally free from the means of production, having nothing to sell but their labour power. It is the existence of these two forms of freedom, insofar as they can be viewed as freedoms, that defines capitalism, and not the judicial recognition of private property, or the existence of markets, and on that basis you are right in saying that the difference between socialism and capitalism is whether producers have democratic control over the means of production, because it is only through this democratic control that the separation of producers and the means of production can be brought to an end.

[Tablo]

I have always seen the differentiation to be based more so on the degree to which the workers control the means of production and the economy. If the workers democratically run the workplace and the economy then it is Socialism. I the workers must answer to some elitist vanguard party, then it is state capitalist.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Indeed, what one must to do distinguish between a Socialist/Socialistic (i.e. transitory) system and a rigid State Capitalist system (a la the USSR) is to ignore the rhetoric of the ruling party/clique and establish who owns the means of production first and foremost. If it is a small group acting 'in the interest of' the working class, then suspicion must immediately be raised. If, however, the leadership is held by democratic constraints - i.e. can be overruled, removed and replaced at the whim of the working class, then this is indicative of real participatory democracy and Socialism. In addition, one must also of course look at who exactly is running the factories, outlets and bigger production centres. If it is a top-down, bureaucratic style, then even if centrally commanded, one can term such a situation as State Capitalist.

It is all too easy for a revolution to degenerate into State Capitalism. IMO the antidote is not an economic one, but a political one. There must never be a situation as occurred under successive USSR leaders, under Mao and indeed, regrettably, now under the Castro clique, whereby one group is in power for an inordinately long period, acting 'in the interest of' the working class. Cuba is highly lucky in that, although it is difficult to find a base for this in fact, it seems to have some sort of grassroots democracy, and the leadership does seem to indeed be a particularly good one that has benefited the working class as a whole. However, it was farcical the situation that developed in the USSR. Even if one ignores the legacy of Stalin, which inevitably will cause disagreement, it is clear that the leadership under Kruschev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev were politically and economically estranged from the working class, and that this was the peak of State Capitalism, and indeed the precise state of events that Socialists must avoid in future.

[Yehuda Stern]

El_Granma:
At first you seem opposed to the idea of "a small group acting 'in the interest of' the working class" being equated to socialism, but then you say that in Cuba, this small group jsut happens to be a good leadership. So what's that? Is it "good" state capitalism as opposed to the "bad" state capitalism of the USSR? Would it be fair to say that according to your outlook, one can change from "capitalist" state capitalism to "socialist" state capitalism without a revolution, just by changing the particular party bureaucrats who rule the state at the given moment?

[robbo203]

To define "state capitalism" you have to start from a definition of capitalism. This is a mode of production that involves generalised wage labour, commodity production, capital accumulation and so on. State capitalism is simply a variant of this system whereby the state administers and operates capitalism rather than, say, private corporations. The capitalist class in state capitalism is that class which effectively controls the means of production and makes all the major decisions concerning the allocation of resources and wealth distribution. Since de facto control is inseparable from de facto ownership, we can say this capitalist class effectively owns the means of production via its absolute control of the state.

Socialism involves, of course, the complete absence of all those primary characteristics of capitalism that I ve just listed. It is, in other words, a stateless wageless class and moneyless mode of production in which the productive resources are owned and democratically controlled by the entire population. Socialism in this sense was once widely understood to mean the same thing as communism

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

El_Granma:
At first you seem opposed to the idea of "a small group acting 'in the interest of' the working class" being equated to socialism, but then you say that in Cuba, this small group jsut happens to be a good leadership. So what's that? Is it "good" state capitalism as opposed to the "bad" state capitalism of the USSR? Would it be fair to say that according to your outlook, one can change from "capitalist" state capitalism to "socialist" state capitalism without a revolution, just by changing the particular party bureaucrats who rule the state at the given moment?

I take your point. Indeed, it seems pretty clear that there was no real workers' democracy, at a national level, in either Cuba or in the USSR, GDR, etc. However, I generally go by the assumption that there is a modicum of grassroots democracy in Cuba, and that the CDRs aren't in fact quasi-Stasi organisations, because it seems obvious that Cuba is a succeeding state by most peoples' definitions, and clearly that isn't just because of 'good bureaucracy' vs 'bad bureaucracy', since the Bolsheviks who were at the heart of the USSRs bureaucracy were steeped in Marxist-Leninist education, whereas at the time of revolution, the majority of Castro's movement were not.

I imagine that somebody will now come and denounce Cuba, and they have every right to, as it is indeed ruled, at a national level, by a clique of bureaucrats. However, it just seems to me that there is a level of democracy in Cuba below that, which the Capitalists will simply not accept.

[JimN]

To define "state capitalism" you have to start from a definition of capitalism. This is a mode of production that involves generalised wage labour, commodity production, capital accumulation and so on. State capitalism is simply a variant of this system whereby the state administers and operates capitalism rather than, say, private corporations. The capitalist class in state capitalism is that class which effectively controls the means of production and makes all the major decisions concerning the allocation of resources and wealth distribution. Since de facto control is inseparable from de facto ownership, we can say this capitalist class effectively owns the means of production via its absolute control of the state.

Socialism involves, of course, the complete absence of all those primary characteristics of capitalism that I ve just listed. It is, in other words, a stateless wageless class and moneyless mode of production in which the productive resources are owned and democratically controlled by the entire population. Socialism in this sense was once widely understood to mean the same thing as communism

That just about sums it up.