State capitalism

[gorillafuck]

I've been mostly following the "state capitalist" line of thought mostly, but I've been thinking lately, does this fully make sense? The relationship of a bureaucrat to the means of production isn't democratic, but how can it be described as capitalist if the bureaucrat manager doesn't profit off the workers outside of certain privileges that are not actually profiteering in the form of surplus value being appropriated? I think that this needs to be explained to me a bit better, because lately the analysis's that are more along the lines of "degenerate/deformed workers state" have been making more sense to me.

Anyone that can explain it better than I understand it?

[Apoi_Viitor]

I more or less take this approach: Tony Cliff, " When I came to the theory of state capitalism I did not come to it by a long analysis of the law of value in Russia… Nothing of the sort. I came to it by the simple statement that… you cannot have a workers’ state without the workers having power to dictate what happens in society."

"certain privileges that are not actually profiteering in the form of surplus value being appropriated?" In Russia, bureaucrats, managers, and communist party officials were the ones who controlled all modes of production, and they certainly extracted surplus value from the working class. State Capitalists in Russia were allowed to dine and shop at places where the working class couldn't. http://wspus.org/in-depth/russia-lenin-and-state-capitalism/



Personally, I find North Korea the best example. I don't know whether or not to laugh or cry when I hear someone argue that North Korea isn't a state capitalist society. All modes of production are controlled by the Korean Government - and well, when Kim Jung Il visited Russia, he got fresh lobsters flown in every day to his train. If that's not exploitation, I don't know what is.

[AK]

The bureaucrats direct capital and manage labour and the means of production? State capitalism still maintains capitalist social inequalities and the control of the means of production being concentrated into the hands of a comparatively small ruling class.

[Dave B]

The issue about whether or not Bolshevik Russia was state capitalism was not in fact particularly controversial until around 1925 with Stalin.



So for example from Trotsky himself;

Leon Trotsky The Position of the Republic

and the Tasks of Young Workers

(Report to the 5th All-Russian Congress of the Russian Communist League of Youth 1922)






this is explicable in part by an incomprehension of an expression frequently used by us, that we now have state capitalism. I shall not enter into an evaluation of this term; for in any case we need only to qualify what we understand by it. By state capitalism we all understood property belonging to the state which itself was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, which exploited the working class. Our state undertakings operate along commercial lines based on the market. But who stands in power here? The working class. Herein lies the principled distinction of our state ‘capitalism’ in inverted commas from state capitalism without inverted commas.

What does this mean in perspective? Just this. The more state capitalism say, in Hohenzollern Germany, as it was, developed, the more powerfully the class of junkers and capitalists of Germany could hold down the working class. The more our ‘state capitalism’ develops the richer the work ing class will become, that is the firmer will become the foundation of socialism.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/youth/youth.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/youth/youth.htm)

If young Cliff had stuck to his task of reading his Trotsky then he may have spared himself the bother of working it out for himself.

If you can believe he didn’t.

The real reason for the evolution of the degenerate workers state argument and the need to deny state capitalism was laid out by Grant in his refutation of Cliff’s argument;

Ted Grant; Against the Theory of State Capitalism

Reply to Comrade Cliff



Cliff himself points to the fact that in the bourgeois revolution the masses did the fighting and the bourgeois got the fruits. The masses did not know what they were fighting for, but they fought in reality for the rule of the bourgeoisie. Take the French Revolution. It was prepared and had its ideology in the works of the philosophers of the enlightenment, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. However, they really did believe in the idealisation of bourgeois society.

They believed the codicils of liberty, equality and fraternity which they preached. As is well known, and as Cliff himself quotes Marx to prove, the French Revolution went beyond its social base. It resulted in the revolutionary dictatorship of the sans culottes which went beyond the bounds of bourgeois society.

As Marx explained, this had the salutory effect of completing in a few months what would otherwise have taken the bourgeois decades to do. The leaders of the revolutionary wing of the petty bourgeoisie which wielded this dictatorship – Robespierre, Danton, etc, sincerely believed in the doctrines of the philosophers and attempted to put them into practice.


They could not do so because it was impossible to go beyond the economic base of the given society. They inevitably had to lose power and merely paved the way for bourgeois society. If Cliff's argument is correct, one could only conclude that the same thing happened with the Russian as with the French Revolution. Marx was the prophet of the new state capitalism. Lenin and Trotsky were the Robespierres and Carnots of the Russian Revolution. The fact that Lenin and Trotsky had good intentions is beside the point, as were the good intentions of the leaders of the bourgeois revolution. They merely paved the way for the rule of the new state capitalist class.



http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/grant/works/4/9/reply_to_tony_cliff.html (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/grant/works/4/9/reply_to_tony_cliff.html)


As under Stalin the reality of the thesis started by Otto Rühle in "From the Bourgeois to the Proletarian Revolution 2. THE RUSSIAN PROBLEM" 1924

became more stark.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/ruhle/1924/revolution.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/ruhle/1924/revolution.htm)

and from Bukharin;



State capitalism uniting and organizing the bourgeoisie, increasing the power of capitalism, has, of course, greatly weakened the working class. Under State capitalism the workers became the white slaves of the capitalist State.

They were deprived of the right to strike; they were mobilized and militarized; everyone who raised his voice against the war was hauled before the courts and sentenced as a traitor. In many countries the workers were deprived of all freedom of movement, being forbidden to transfer from one enterprise to another.

' Free' wage workers were reduced to serfdom; they were doomed to perish on the battlefields, not on behalf of their own cause but on behalf of that of their enemies. They were doomed to work themselves to death, not for their own sake or for that of their comrades or their children, but for the sake of their oppressors.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/04.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/04.htm)




Here I must raise another question. If the working class does not regard industry as its own, but as State capitalism, if it regards the factory management as a hostile force, and the building up of industry as a matter outside its concerns, and feels itself to be exploited, what is to happen? Shall we then be in a position, let us say, to carry on a campaign for higher production? "What the devil!" the workers would say, "are we to drudge for the capitalists?

Only fools would do that." How could we draw workers into the process of building up industry "What!" they would say, "shall we help the capitalist and build up the system? Only opportunists would do that." If we say our industry is State capitalism, we shall completely disarm the working class.

We dare not then speak of raising productive capacity, because that is the affair of the exploiters and not of the workers. To what end then shall we get larger and larger numbers to take part in our production conferences, if the workers are exploited, and when all that has nothing to do with them? Let the exploiter look after that! If we put the matter in this light, not only shall we be threatened with the danger of estrangement from the masses, but we shall not be in a position to build up our industries. That is as clear as daylight.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1926/01/x01.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1926/01/x01.htm)


.

[Apoi_Viitor]

The issue about whether or not Bolshevik Russia was state capitalism was not in fact particularly controversial until around 1925 with Stalin.
.


Lenin, "What is state capitalism under Soviet power? To achieve state capitalism at the present time means putting into effect the accounting and control the capitalist’ classes carried out. We see a sample of state capitalism in Germany. We know that Germany has proved superior to us :.. state capitalism would-be our salvation; if we had it in Russia, the transition to full socialism would be easy, would be within our grasp, because state capitalism is something centralized, calculated, controlled and socialized, and that is exactly what we lack… Only the development of state capitalism, only the painstaking establishment of accounting and control, only the strictest organization and labour discipline, will lead us to socialism. Without this there is no socialism."

It's quite clear that even from the beginnings of the Bolshevik Revolution, that it was a bourgeois revolution, not a proletarian revolution. Nationalization of industries is state capitalism - using terms like "degenerated" working state, etc. are just absurd claims to cover it up. In North Korea, State Bureaucrats control modes of production, not the working class. It is the Bureaucrats profit off the surplus value of workers - and they suppress worker revolts and any changes to the status quo that would put power in the working class' hands. Just because the capitalists in North Korea refer to themselves as a "Workers State", doesn't mean they aren't capitalists.

[gorillafuck]

It is the Bureaucrats profit off the surplus value of workers - and they suppress worker revolts and any changes to the status quo that would put power in the working class' hands. Just because the capitalists in North Korea refer to themselves as a "Workers State", doesn't mean they aren't capitalists.
How do the bureaucrats directly profit by appropriating surplus value?

This thread stemmed in my head from a discussion on Cuba, btw.

[Apoi_Viitor]

How do the bureaucrats directly profit by appropriating surplus value?

This thread stemmed in my head from a discussion on Cuba, btw.

n the case of Russia all property/means of production belongs to the Russian State so all surplus value accrues to it. Absence of internal markets in the USSR and other Stalinist countries does not mean that the Capitalist mode of production is not in force. Surplus value is incorporated into goods at the point of production under Capitalism. In the West this surplus value is realised as money profits by selling them. But the surplus labour is incorporated into goods whether or not they are sold. This can be used directly providing use values for the Capitalist such as weapons or extra plant and machinery. This is the way state Capitalism works. Goods are also sold on the international market and the money is shared out among the bureaucracy as bribes, wages and awards. But internally surplus value is realised directly as use values such as plant and weapons which
i) keeps the system ticking over and
ii) maintains the bureaucracy in its privileged class position.

In any Capitalist system profit is extracted at the point of production by undervaluing labour power. Whether or not this profit is realised as cash money at the market is not of primary importance. A system which feeds most of its surplus value back into itself as means of production is possible in theory. Indeed all Capitalist systems tend towards this with more and more profit going into plant and machinery and less and less labour from which to extract a profit. Western style Capitalism is now in this very degenerate phase with larger and larger corporations and more and more investment in plant, machinery and technology.

The Soviet Union is a nightmare form of Capitalism where weapons systems and heavy machinery proliferate but basic consumer needs cannot be met.

Absence of private property in the Soviet Union is often put forward as evidence that Stalinist countries are not Capitalist but some new "Post-Capitalist " property form. However property forms (who owns what in law) can be a convenient legal fiction concealing the essential relations of production. The so called Asiatic Mode of Production. This was a description of the system pertaining in China and many parts of the Far East up to late feudal times. In theory property was collective but in practice it was held "for the people" by a small Oligarchy and passed from father to son. So all rents and profits (beyond what was needed to keep body and soul together) passed to them. State Capitalism employs a similar rouse to conceal its exploitative nature.

(From Wapedia)

[Adil3tr]

I've been mostly following the "state capitalist" line of thought mostly, but I've been thinking lately, does this fully make sense? The relationship of a bureaucrat to the means of production isn't democratic, but how can it be described as capitalist if the bureaucrat manager doesn't profit off the workers outside of certain privileges that are not actually profiteering in the form of surplus value being appropriated? I think that this needs to be explained to me a bit better, because lately the analysis's that are more along the lines of "degenerate/deformed workers state" have been making more sense to me.

Anyone that can explain it better than I understand it?

I always thought of it as the whole nation as one large corporation. I doesn't follow the standard rules of capitalism. In the stalin days, though, I think the extraction of suplus value in a primitive manner is quite apparent. Also, you need to see the stalinist state as competing on the world stage, constantly reinvesting heavy industries, extracting value from the buffer states, and being highly militarized.

[Turinbaar]

By embracing this relation as a whole, communism is:

(1) In its first form only a generalisation and consummation of it [of this relation]. As such it appears in a two-fold form: on the one hand, the dominion of material property bulks so large that it wants to destroy everything which is not capable of being possessed by all as private property. It wants to disregard talent, etc., in an arbitrary manner. For it the sole purpose of life and existence is direct, physical possession. The category of the worker is not done away with, but extended to all men. The relationship of private property persists as the relationship of the community to the world of things.....

....The community is only a community of labour, and equality of wages paid out by communal capital – by the community as the universal capitalist. Both sides of the relationship are raised to an imagined universality – labour as the category in which every person is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community.

Marx referred to this stage of the "universal capitalist" as "crude communism." This I believe is an accurate description of all so-called communist states that have come about. Each became a massive capital organ that treated the entire people as a capitalist treats the laborer, i.e. as an expendable possession and object. Marx goes on to describe the second form of communism as the full realization of humanism and naturalism by the whole of mankind, which would come with the doing away with the ownership and objectification of the human.

[Chimurenga.]

not a proletarian revolution.

Besides the fact that the Russian Revolution was led by the working class for the interests of said working class.



Nationalization of industries is state capitalism -



"5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. "

So I guess Marx and Engels were regular state capitalists, hahah.



In North Korea, State Bureaucrats control modes of production, not the working class.

Prove it.


they suppress worker revolts

When?


Just because the capitalists in North Korea refer to themselves as a "Workers State", doesn't mean they aren't capitalists.

Except that the DPRK is run by a socialist planned economy, operate by means of democratic centralism, secure the entire working masses with the basic necessities of life (food, work, housing, education, transportation, etc) by law, and the union's have representation within the highest organ of State power. Uhh... doesn't sound very Capitalist to me.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Prove it.

Prove what? That the working class doesn't control the means of production in North Korea?

Seeing as the working class not controlling the means of production is the global norm (and historical norm), the onus of proof should be on those who claim that they do control the means of production in that nation. And thus far I have seen zero proof of that (although this discussion sometimes leads to interesting exchanges, like when Illegitamatte claimed that "socialism does not mean worker's control of the means of production." Some people will go to absolutely any lengths to defend regimes they consider to be on their side, it would seem.)

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Marx referred to this stage of the "universal capitalist" as "crude communism." This I believe is an accurate description of all so-called communist states that have come about. Each became a massive capital organ that treated the entire people as a capitalist treats the laborer, i.e. as an expendable possession and object. Marx goes on to describe the second form of communism as the full realization of humanism and naturalism by the whole of mankind, which would come with the doing away with the ownership and objectification of the human.

Yes, but insofar as Marx was dealing with utopian conceptions he was arguing on the level of abstract utopian theory, not analyzing an actually existing society. How and by what class forces would such a society actually come into existence? How would it maintain itself? What would be its internal dynamics? I hardly think that's capable of substituting itself for a detailed analysis of the situation the USSR was in...

[RadioRaheem84]

Hey guys, sorry to interrupt but anyone recommend any links explaining why the ML nations were state capitalist or why they were 'deformed' workers states?

[ZeroNowhere]

Hey guys, sorry to interrupt but anyone recommend any links explaining why the ML nations were state capitalist or why they were 'deformed' workers states?
Probably one of the best treatments of the subjects was Paresh Chattopadhyay's 'The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience'. Paresh had a few papers online on the subject, but I'll have to read through them to see how good they are before recommending them (they're from the Economic and Political Weekly).


So I guess Marx and Engels were regular state capitalists, hahah.Those were, technically, supposed to be implemented under capitalism. That was the point. Indeed, Engels attacked Heinzen for treating them as ends, essentially because that meant preserving capitalism, which meant that they would eventually be overridden. Of course, him and Marx eventually dismissed them as antiquated, anyhow.

[Dave B]

It is true I think, as Karl said, that exploitation or the extraction of surplus labour from the ‘labourers’ was or is not unique to capitalism.

The surplus labour, in non capitalist exploitative systems, is embodied or materialises itself in the use values consumed by ruling classes. Eg;



SECTION 2

THE GREED FOR SURPLUS-LABOUR. MANUFACTURER AND BOYARD





Capital has not invented surplus-labour. Wherever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the labourer, free or not free, must add to the working-time necessary for his own maintenance an extra working-time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of production, [7] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1847798#7) whether this proprietor be the Athenian caloς cagaqoς [well-to-do man], Etruscan theocrat, civis Romanus [Roman citizen], Norman baron, American slave-owner, Wallachian Boyard, modern landlord or capitalist. [8] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1847798#8)


It is, however, clear that in any given economic formation of society, where not the exchange-value but the use-value of the product predominates, surplus-labour will be limited by a given set of wants which may be greater or less, and that here no boundless thirst for surplus-labour arises from the nature of the production itself. Hence in antiquity over-work becomes horrible only when the object is to obtain exchange-value in its specific independent money-form; in the production of gold and silver. Compulsory working to death is here the recognised form of over-work. Only read Diodorus Siculus. [9] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1847798#9)
Still these are exceptions in antiquity.

But as soon as people, whose production still moves within the lower forms of slave-labour, corvée-labour, &c., are drawn into the whirlpool of an international market dominated by the capitalistic mode of production, the sale of their products for export becoming their principal interest, the civilised horrors of over-work are grafted on the barbaric horrors of slavery, serfdom, &c. Hence the negro labour in the Southern States of the American Union preserved something of a patriarchal character, so long as production was chiefly directed to immediate local consumption.

But in proportion, as the export of cotton became of vital interest to these states, the over-working of the negro and sometimes the using up of his life in 7 years of labour became a factor in a calculated and calculating system. It was no longer a question of obtaining from him a certain quantity of useful products. It was now a question of production of surplus-labour itself: So was it also with the corvée, e.g., in the Danubian Principalities (now Roumania).


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm#S2 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm)


What makes capitalism different is the opportunity or economic imperative to extract ‘extra’ surplus value or surplus labour from the working class to accumulate more means of production or to expand the amount of capital at their command.

Capital, machines, factories, roads and railways etc are surplus labour; different from the surplus labour directly consumed for their ‘subsistance’ by the ruling class.

Thus it becomes capitalism because the modus operandi is to expand capital.


This occurs because increased means of production ie better and more efficient machines etc increases the productivity of the workers and thus gives the owners of that capital a competitive economic advantage of its rivals.


That imperative is clearly has a potential to be greater in an environment of individual competing capitalists or capitals.

On a macro economic level or holistically it also increases the actual amount of or quality of use values represented by the surplus labour of the workers.


Thus the Russian ruling class in 1970 were obviously that much better of than their counterparts in 1930 due to the increased productivity of their working class wage slaves. In keeping with the general global increase in the productivity of the working class due to material and technological advances in production obtained from surplus labour in general.


As well as the soviet ruling class being motivated to accumulate capital to improve the quality of their own lives by extracting more and better ‘surplus use values’ from their workers they were undoubtedly also motivated to consolidate and secure their strategic position in the international arena.


The general advancement and accumulation of manufacturing capital and the associated technology also has military implications to safeguard their position as the ruling class over a piece of real estate, their nation state.


And thus the collective capitalism of the soviet system was driven to compete with the collective capitalism of other private capitalists organised into their states.


(In fact Tsarist Russia was prepared to accommodate capitalism due to the militaristic spin off effects eg the introduction of the railway system for moving troops around, the ability to produce modern weaponry; as well as the potential for extorting some of the capitalist surplus value.)

It is probably true that state capitalist Russia was not pure capitalism in as much as the workers were not free to sell their labour power as a commodity. They were more like industrial serfs, as Bukharin hinted at, or even like slaves on ‘southern plantations’ with a life span of 7 years an analogy that comes close to the gulag work camps.


And as much as the workers were not free to purchase commodities on an open market with the ‘price’ of their labour power any more than slaves proper are.

I think Hillel Ticktin had a point when he said it wasn’t state capitalism it was worse than that.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Besides the fact that the Russian Revolution was led by the working class for the interests of said working class.

I might be mistaken, but last time I checked, it was lead by state-capitalists like Lenin for the interests of state-capitalists such as Lenin....I don't think forcefully suppressing workers councils and communes are in the interests of the working class.




So I guess Marx and Engels were regular state capitalists, hahah.

In Marxist thought, the state is defined as an instrument of political power, which one class uses over another.
In Anarchist though, the state is defined as political power in the hands of the few.
When Marx and Engels mentioned "State" control, I'd like to think they meant an organization of the proletarian, not an organization which supposedly represents the proletarian. By this decree, you can have a "marxist state", while abolishing what anarchist view as the "state".



Except that the DPRK is run by a socialist planned economy, operate by means of democratic centralism, secure the entire working masses with the basic necessities of life (food, work, housing, education, transportation, etc) by law, and the union's have representation within the highest organ of State power. Uhh... doesn't sound very Capitalist to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTsXHXMkJA

"democratic centralism"? That's a good one. Maybe I should point out that workers who mention the fact that the rest of the world isn't as poor as Kim wants them to believe, are sent to prison camps. Or that food is rationed in a capitalist-like hierarchical format, and a million or so citizens starved in the 1990's while North Korea maintained its absurdly large military budget.

Let's face it, just because Kim Jung Il is exploiting his citizens under the name of "democratic centralism", doesn't make it any less exploitive.

oh, and here's my facts: http://nbrforums.nbr.org/publications/asia_policy/pdf/ap1-lankov.pdf

[Brother No. 1]

might be mistaken, but last time I checked, it was lead by state-capitalists like Lenin

Care to Explain how Lenin was exactly a state-capitalist? For it'd be, you know, necessary to know how this revolutionary was state-capitalist in any way.



don't think forcefully suppressing workers councils and communes are in the interests of the working class.

Evidence? For the only 'supressing' I'd hear was the Sailors who rebelled but please go and tell us of how workers were supressed.



In Marxist thought, the state is defined as an instrument of political power, which one class uses over another.
In Anarchist though, the state is defined as political power in the hands of the few.

This is one reason why Anarchism fails for you seem to state that the state is, exactly, political power which can not be used to achive Socialism, and then finally communism.



"democratic centralism"? That's a good one.

Care to disprove it or was the collectivization just another 'capitalist method' and the Kolkhozy and the Sovkhosy just tools for this 'capitalism' which apperently allowed the farmers to collectively work together for their own interests.




and a million or so citizens starved in the 1990's while North Korea maintained its absurdly large military budget.

Er...at the time of the 1990s it'd be 2 billion dollars in which the DPRK would spend on defense expeidentures in which its military acts as a construction force, working on construction, harvesting,etc.



Let's face it, just because Kim Jung Il is exploiting his citizens under the name of "democratic centralism", doesn't make it any less exploitive.

Yay bullshit statement which has no evidence or base whatsoever?


And your source is shit, after reading it. It is just an Aussie telling us how bad the DPRK is with over-espending the DPRK famine in the 90s. What I recommend for one such as you which would benifit you would be "North Korea Another Country" by Bruce Cuming.

[AK]

Care to Explain how Lenin was exactly a state-capitalist? For it'd be, you know, necessary to know how this revolutionary was state-capitalist in any way.
The means of production being in hands of the state (and managed by bureaucrats) and the institutions of workers' control of the economy (the soviets) being subjugated to the new Bolshevik government in a hierarchical manner which effectively robbed them of most of their authority.

[Brother No. 1]

The means of production being in hands of the state (and managed by bureaucrats) and the institutions of workers' control of the economy (the soviets) being subjugated to the new Bolshevik government in a hierarchical manner which effectively robbed them of most of their authority.

Ah So the means of the production in the hands of the state and all with the 'evil subjugation' of the soviets to the bolshevik goverment is the bad thing you have or is there anything else you would want to say? For I'd think that their would be more.

[Apoi_Viitor]

Care to Explain how Lenin was exactly a state-capitalist? For it'd be, you know, necessary to know how this revolutionary was state-capitalist in any way.

I posted previously with a quote from him, in which he called himself a "state capitalist".



Evidence? For the only 'supressing' I'd hear was the Sailors who rebelled but please go and tell us of how workers were supressed.

"The trouble is that, while you raise your hand against the capitalist, you deal a blow to the worker. You know very well that for such words as I am now uttering hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers are languishing in prison. That I myself remain at liberty is only because I am a veteran Communist, have suffered for my beliefs, and am known among the mass of workers. Were it not for this, were I just an ordinary mechanic from the same factory, where would I be now? In a Cheka prison or, more likely, made to 'escape,' just as I made Mikhail Romanov 'escape.' Once more I say: You raise your hand against the bourgeoisie, but it is I who am spitting blood, and it is we, the workers, whose jaws are being cracked." - Miasnikov



This is one reason why Anarchism fails for you seem to state that the state is, exactly, political power which can not be used to achive Socialism, and then finally communism.

say what?



Care to disprove it or was the collectivization just another 'capitalist method' and the Kolkhozy and the Sovkhosy just tools for this 'capitalism' which apperently allowed the farmers to collectively work together for their own interests.

Care to prove why Canadians have national health-care? Does the existence of a few beneficial (I'm not even sure if state-farms were beneficial, I don't know the research...) programs mean that the proletariat has power?


Er...at the time of the 1990s it'd be 2 billion dollars in which the DPRK would spend on defense expeidentures in which its military acts as a construction force, working on construction, harvesting,etc.

Maybe I should post the Holiday in Cambodia video again...



Yay bullshit statement which has no evidence or base whatsoever?

No, the burden of proof is on you. No where in history has there been a system where the proletariat has power. Regarding North Korea, every single fact I have seen about the regime simply reiterates it. North Korea is a hierarchical society where rations are based on occupation, residence, heritage, etc. That is a fact.


And your source is shit, after reading it. It is just an Aussie telling us how bad the DPRK is with over-espending the DPRK famine in the 90s. What I recommend for one such as you which would benifit you would be "North Korea Another Country" by Bruce Cuming.

*facepalm*

[AK]

Ah So the means of the production in the hands of the state and all with the 'evil subjugation' of the soviets to the bolshevik goverment is the bad thing you have or is there anything else you would want to say? For I'd think that their would be more.
Nowhere did I mention "evil" subjugation. I base my analysis on facts, not emotive horse shit. Lenin most likely thought that what he was doing was necessary for the emancipation of the working class, but he just succeeded in maintaining class barriers through the lack of equality in terms of social power (which is determined by material factors).

[Zanthorus]

"socialism does not mean worker's control of the means of production."

Well despite what Carson, Long, Chartier as well as the rest of the "market socialist" crowd and a good deal of highly confused anarchists may have you believe, "self-managed" capitalism is still a form of capitalism. Capital is not a form of management, but a process whereby money is exchanged for commodities which are then sold on for more money. The difference between the money advanced at the beggining and that accrued at the end is surplus-value. On this latter basis, I can agree that management of capital by the state is still capitalism, and that state-capital is an entirely possible phenomenon. I can also agree that when Lenin was talking about state-capitalism, it was a very real phenomenon in the RSFSR. The state owned the means of production in the context of an internal market where the means of production where still in the hands of various petty proprietors and such in the countryside. Post-1921 the Russian economy was also subject to the fluctuations of the world-market. However this does not mean much. As proletarianrevolution pointed out, Marx and Engels in 1848 made demands which could be considered as establishing a form of state-capitalism (ZeroNowhere is correct to note that these demands were supposed to be implemented under capitalism as stepping stones on the road to socialism, and not as ends in themselves).

The real difficulty to any theory of state-capitalism comes with the post-1928 implementation of the five year plans. Money was no longer money as such, an autonomous unit of exchange between private producers which regulates their exchanges in the form of a general measure of value, but simply a unit of accounting for the implementation of the plans. Since money as such had been abolished, capital could not really have had much of a presence within the economy of the fSU. There was of course a vast process of accumulation, which was one of the aspects which Bordiga used as an attempted proof of the existence of capitalism in the fSU, but this accumulation was the accumulation of use-values and not exchange-values. On the surface therefore, it may be possible to say that the Soviet Union during the Stalin-era was some form of socialism, although this would be confusing non-capitalist societies in general with socialism, which is based on the collective appropriation of production by the associated producers. In general where the state-capitalist analysis does succeed is in pointing out the various continuities between capitalism and the economy of the fSU - the seperation of the means of production from the producers, the extraction of surplus-labour time from the immediate producers in order to continue the upkeep of a dominating class, production of the means of production being of greater priority than production of means of consumption and so on. These aspects are ignored by the "degenerated/deformed workers state" theories which make the crucial mistake (Inherited from second international "Marxism") of conflating statised property-forms with a "workers state".

After my discussion of this subject with the user BAM on here, I can't really find any analysis of the Soviet Union or it's sattelites which is entirely satisfactory. I do think a lot of the discussion of the fSU on here is an attempt to divert from concrete political issues today. You'll note, for example, how anarchists and "council communists" use the examples of "actually-existing socialism" to dismiss "Leninism" wholesale.

[gorillafuck]

I find that what I'm having trouble with is how capitalism is being defined. Is it being defined as a system of private property and profit accumulation where the bourgeois private property owners try to maximize their profits off of their workers, or a system that is solely just a mode of production? Because the second one would then consider mutualism and "market socialism" to be socialist, which I strongly disagree with.

[Zanthorus]

"Mode of production" is a somewhat vague term which is used in several ways throughout Marx's writing. I wouldn't really consider "market socialism" or mutualism to be non-capitalist "modes of production".

[gorillafuck]

"Mode of production" is a somewhat vague term which is used in several ways throughout Marx's writing. I wouldn't really consider "market socialism" or mutualism to be non-capitalist "modes of production".
I meant that market socialism and mutualism emphasize workers control. That's a better way of putting it, sorry.


These aspects are ignored by the "degenerated/deformed workers state" theories which make the crucial mistake (Inherited from second international "Marxism") of conflating statised property-forms with a "workers state".
First off, that was an overall very good post and you're wicked well informed.:thumbup1:

But secondly, I'd think that if you could consider the Soviet Union when it started it's five year plans to be "some form of socialism", then what could it be besides a workers state that had degenerated into a bureaucratic mess? If it's some form of socialism then it isn't capitalism, and it obviously wasn't a fully healthy workers state due to lack of workers control. It was a state that had been set up by a workers revolution, and if it had abolished capitalism and systems of private property and profit (as you yourself say), and implemented an economy that was based around providing for worker needs, but it's sole issue was that it was a bureaucratic mess, that seems like a bureaucratic (problematic) socialism, the only explanation that makes sense for that would be degenerate workers state.

[Zanthorus]

I meant that market socialism and mutualism emphasize workers control. That's a better way of putting it, sorry.

Fair dues.


But secondly, I'd think that if you could consider the Soviet Union when it started it's five year plans to be "some form of socialism", then what could it be besides a workers state that had degenerated into a bureaucratic mess?

If you'll look after the point where I said that it could be considered some form of socialism, you'll note that I say that it was not in fact, as such, since socialism is the collective appropriation of the conditions of production by associated producers. The economy of the fSU had socialist aspects insofar as production was carried out according to a common plan. It also had certain capitalist aspects.

Now if you ask me, besides the question of how close the fSU was to capitalism or socialism, the crucial dispute between the proponents of state-capitalism and "degenerated/deformed workers state" is the dispute between wether the achievment of a fully socialist economy would have required a political revolution and simply stuffing the the soviet apparatus with workers, or a whole new social revolution. I don't really have the resources to answer that question (I'd need to do a lot more study into the fSU's history), although it's a question of more historical curiosity than actual practical use. The only relevance is to modern day "socialist" states like Cuba and North Korea, although it seems to me that the different historical conditions in which all these different states evolved make a "one size fits all" approach somewhat difficult.


If it's some form of socialism then it isn't capitalism, and it obviously wasn't a fully healthy workers state due to lack of workers control. It was a state that had been set up by a workers revolution, and if it had abolished capitalism and systems of private property and profit (as you yourself say), and implemented an economy that was based around providing for worker needs, but it's sole issue was that it was a bureaucratic mess, that seems like a bureaucratic (problematic) socialism, the only explanation that makes sense for that would be degenerate workers state.

The state was partly set up by a workers revolution but also had aspects inherited from the old Tsarist apparatus, as Lenin himself noted. The economy was, outside of "war communism", also plausibly describable as state-capitalism until 1928 and the regime's sharp left turn. The post-1928 implementation of the planned economy was performed by beuracrats and during the period the means of production increased in greater proportion to the means of consumption (Stats for this are found in Raya Dunayevskyaya's An Analysis of Russian Economy), so it certainly wasn't based around providing for workers needs. Based on an admittedly limited understanding of the situation I would say the turn towards a planned economy marked a revival of concern for the Russian "national interest", the privileges of the beuracracy and the need to defend against the threats which were accumulating both internally and externally. So it seems to me that it isn't all that simple.

[chegitz guevara]

The theory of state capitalism is quite simple: take everything Marx wrote about capitalism and toss it out. Then declare any oppressive system in which the workers don't have control to be capitalism.

It's a crap theory, which ignores real history. When the Bolsheviks were talking aout state capitalism, they were talking about actually existing capitalism, with private owners, with private appropriation of surplus value, directed by the state. Nazi Germany was state capitalist, as was the United States during WWII, as well as nearly every capitalist country in WWI, etc.

If there is no capitalist class, if production isn't being carried out for the purposes of extracting a surplus value from the worker class, if there isn't a market, if the law of value isn't in operation, you do not have capitalism.

The national expansion of production, as carried out in all so-called socialist states, is not an example of the worker class being expropriated on a class basis, even if it does mean individual workers are exploited. The individual workers have part of their surplus value expropriated by the class as a whole, to expand production, to provide for defense, to take care of the invalid and retired, etc. Just as Marx said they would in his Critique of the Gotha Programme.

The essence of "theory" of state capitalism is this: I don't like that post-capitalist society, which clearly isn't capitalist, so I'll call it something I don't have to defend. It's the same whether you're a Trotskist, anarchist, Maoist, Stalinist, left-communist, or social-democrat. It's intellectual and political dishonesty.

[Zanthorus]

The theory of state capitalism is quite simple: take everything Marx wrote about capitalism and toss it out. Then declare any oppressive system in which the workers don't have control to be capitalism.

This is probably true about most of the less-sophisticated theories of state-capitalism (Pointing the finger at Tony Cliff here). I don't think it can be applied to the theories of Dunayevskyaya, Chattopadhyay, Bordiga and such who actually do base themselves on what Marx wrote. In fact, if we were to go by Stalin's own work Economic Problems of the USSR, it would be very easy to conclude that the economy of the fSU was capitalist.

[chegitz guevara]

Well, I'm not sure I'd trust Stalin's work. I haven't read the other comrades you've mentioned.

[Zanthorus]

Well, I'm not sure I'd trust Stalin's work.

Neither would I. Amusingly, that piece is not only one of the worst interpretations of Marx and Engels I've ever read, but also completely wrong about the nature of the phenomena he was describing.


I haven't read the other comrades you've mentioned.

In Bordiga's case this isn't entirely your fault, as his work is copyrighted by the "International" "Communist" Party and most of it hasn't been translated into English. I'm struggling through with Google translate :D

Of course none of them really overcome the difficulties (At least not from what I've read so far), but they're worth a read at any rate. Dunayevsyaya's Analysis is brilliant simply for it's comparison of the five year plans with the similar achievments of "Feudal" Japan at around the same time.

[Apoi_Viitor]

If there is no capitalist class, if production isn't being carried out for the purposes of extracting a surplus value from the worker class, if there isn't a market, if the law of value isn't in operation, you do not have capitalism.

I admit that you and Zanthorus have brought up valid points, (I do admit, despite my unequivocal advocation for applying the term state-capitalism to all existing modes of "socialism"), that a lot of my reasoning for this, is simply intellectually dishonest.

However I'd like to point out that you are forgetting the International Market. In one of my earlier posts, I posted this:

"In the case of Russia all property/means of production belongs to the Russian State so all surplus value accrues to it. Absence of internal markets in the USSR and other Stalinist countries does not mean that the Capitalist mode of production is not in force. Surplus value is incorporated into goods at the point of production under Capitalism. In the West this surplus value is realised as money profits by selling them. But the surplus labour is incorporated into goods whether or not they are sold. This can be used directly providing use values for the Capitalist such as weapons or extra plant and machinery. This is the way state Capitalism works. Goods are also sold on the international market and the money is shared out among the bureaucracy as bribes, wages and awards. But internally surplus value is realised directly as use values such as plant and weapons which
i) keeps the system ticking over and
ii) maintains the bureaucracy in its privileged class position.

In any Capitalist system profit is extracted at the point of production by undervaluing labour power. Whether or not this profit is realised as cash money at the market is not of primary importance. A system which feeds most of its surplus value back into itself as means of production is possible in theory. Indeed all Capitalist systems tend towards this with more and more profit going into plant and machinery and less and less labour from which to extract a profit. Western style Capitalism is now in this very degenerate phase with larger and larger corporations and more and more investment in plant, machinery and technology.

The Soviet Union is a nightmare form of Capitalism where weapons systems and heavy machinery proliferate but basic consumer needs cannot be met.

Absence of private property in the Soviet Union is often put forward as evidence that Stalinist countries are not Capitalist but some new "Post-Capitalist " property form. However property forms (who owns what in law) can be a convenient legal fiction concealing the essential relations of production. The so called Asiatic Mode of Production. This was a description of the system pertaining in China and many parts of the Far East up to late feudal times. In theory property was collective but in practice it was held "for the people" by a small Oligarchy and passed from father to son. So all rents and profits (beyond what was needed to keep body and soul together) passed to them. State Capitalism employs a similar rouse to conceal its exploitative nature."

(From Wapedia)

I'd like to see someone post a critique or a response to it.
But like I said now, I realize that my original claim that all currently existing models of "socialism" are clearly/explicitly capitalist, was just dishonest. But I also feel that taking the position that they're clearly not-capitalist would be dishonest too. :confused:

[Dave B]

The essence of the "theory" of state capitalism came from the Lenin and the pre Stalinist Bolsheviks themselves.


There is a Compilation of Lenin’s state capitalism quotes on this site; at post 18


http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-and-state-t118579/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-and-state-t118579/index.html)

Even the Peoples Commissar of Finance, educated at the Sorbonne in economics thought Bolshevik Russia was state capitalism

From Stalin;

The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.)

December 18-31, 1925





Would you care to hear Sokolnikov? In his speech he said:

"Our foreign trade is being conducted as a state-capitalist enterprise. . . . Our internal trading companies are also state-capitalist enterprises. And I must say, comrades, that the State Bank is just as much a state-capitalist enterprise. What about our monetary system? Our monetary system is based on the fact that in Soviet economy, under the conditions in which socialism is being built, there has been adopted a monetary system which is permeated with the principles of capitalist economy."

That is what Sokolnikov says.


http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1925/12/18.htm#7._Concerning_State_Capitalism_ (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1925/12/18.htm#7._Concerning_State_Capitalism_)


And rolling Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin re "The question of the construction of a socialist economy in one country", Trotsky quotes Lenin on state capitalism without batting an eyelid;

Leon Trotsky The Third International After Lenin

I. The Program of the International Revolution or a Program of Socialism in One Country?

(Part 2)

5. The Theoretical Tradition of The Party





Lenin spoke of the "necessity of a certain period of time, at least several months, for the victory of socialism in Russia ..."

At the beginning of the same year, i.e., 1918, Lenin, in his article entitled "On Left Wing Childishness and Petty Bourgeois Tendencies," directed against Bukharin, wrote the following:

" If, let us say, state capitalism could be established in our country within six months, that would be a tremendous achievement and the surest guarantee that within a year socialism will be definitely established and will have become invincible."



http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti02.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti02.htm)


That is subtly different to the official version, expanded below for context;




It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months' time state capitalism became established in our

page 335
Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in our country.

I can imagine with what noble indignation a "Left Communist" will recoil from these words, and what "devastating criticism" he will make to the workers against the "Bolshevik deviation to the right". What! Transition to state capitalism in the Soviet Socialist Republic would be a step forward?. . . Isn't this the betrayal of socialism?


http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/LWC18.html (http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/LWC18.html)


Of course the debate about the possibility "of the construction of a state capitalist economy in one country" is not likely to baffle anyone and is strictly for the pseudo intellectuals.


And whatever Bolshevik Russia became it certainly wasn’t the ‘future socialist society’ Uncle Joe envisaged before he became a revisionist.

J. V. Stalin ANARCHISM or SOCIALISM? 1906





Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers.

Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists -- there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc.

As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc.
It is also clear that future production will be socialistically organised, highly developed production, which will take into account the needs of society and will produce as much as society needs. Here there will be no room whether for scattered production, competition, crises, or unemployment.
Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no

page 337

need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.

That is why Karl Marx said as far back as 1846:

"The working class in the course of its development Will substitute for the old bourgeois society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called . . . " (see The Poverty of Philosophy).[89 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1848594#en89)]
That is why Engels said in 1884:
"The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no conception of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity. . . . We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. The society that will organise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe"
(see The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State).[

At the same time, it is self-evident that for the purpose of administering public affairs there will have to be in socialist society, in addition to local offices which
page 338
will collect all sorts of information, a central statistical bureau, which will collect information about the needs of the whole of society, and then distribute the various kinds of work among the working people accordingly. It will also be necessary to hold conferences, and particularly congresses, the decisions of which will certainly be binding upon the comrades in the minority until the next congress is held.

Lastly, it is obvious that free and comradely labour should result in an equally comradely, and complete, satisfaction of all needs in the future socialist society This means that if future society demands from each of its members as much labour as he can perform, it, in its turn, must provide each member with all the products he needs. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! -- such is the basis upon which the future collectivist system must be created.
It goes without saying that in the first stage of socialism, when elements who have not yet grown accustomed to work are being drawn into the new way of life, when the productive forces also will not yet have been sufficiently developed and there will still be "dirty" and "clean" work to do, the application of the principle: "to each according to his needs," will undoubtelly be greatly hindered and, as a consequence, society will be obliged temporarily to take some other path, a middle path. But it is also clear that when future society runs into its groove, when the survivals of capitalism will have been eradicated, the only principle that will conform to socialist society will be the one pointed out above.

That is why Marx said in 1875:

page 339
"In a higher phase of communist (i.e., socialist) society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of livelihood but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual . . . only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be crossed in iis entirety and society inscribe on its banners: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'" (see Critique of the Gotha Programme (http://www.revleft.com/M&E/CGP75.html)).[91 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1848594#en91)].

Such, in general, is the picture of future socialist society according to the theory of Marx.
This is all very well. But is the achievement of socialism conceivable? Can we assume that man will rid himself of his "savage habits"?
Or again: if everybody receives according to his needs, can we assume that the level of the productive forces of socialist society will be adequate for this?

Socialist society presupposes an adequate development of productive forces and socialist consciousness among men, their socialist enlightenment. At the present time the development of productive forces is hindered by the existence of capitalist property, but if we bear in mind that this capitalist property will not exist in future society, it is self-evident that the productive forces will increase tenfold. Nor must it be forgotten that in future society the hundreds of thousands of present-day parasites, and also the unemployed, will set to work and augment the ranks of the working people; and this will greatly stimulate the development of the
page 340
productive forces. As regards men's "savage" sentiments and opinions, these are not as eternal as some people imagine; there was a time, under primitive communism, when man did not recognise private property; there came a time, the time of individualistic production, when private property dominated the hearts and minds of men; a new time is coming, the time of socialist production -- will it be surprising if the hearts and minds of men become imbued with socialist strivings? Does not being determine the "sentiments" and opinions of men?

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html)

[Die Neue Zeit]

As proletarianrevolution pointed out, Marx and Engels in 1848 made demands which could be considered as establishing a form of state-capitalism (ZeroNowhere is correct to note that these demands were supposed to be implemented under capitalism as stepping stones on the road to socialism, and not as ends in themselves).

Under capitalism, or under bourgeois rule? For example, the obligation to work re. productive and other socially necessary labour doesn't jive much with the bourgeoisie.


There was of course a vast process of accumulation, which was one of the aspects which Bordiga used as an attempted proof of the existence of capitalism in the fSU, but this accumulation was the accumulation of use-values and not exchange-values.

Was it really? There were exchange values, which changed over time whenever the value of the ruble was changed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_ruble

Recall that Kautsky himself wrote:

Money is the simplest means known up to the present time which makes it possible in as complicated a mechanism as that of the modern productive process, with its tremendous far-reaching division of labor, to secure the circulation of products and their distribution to the individual members of society. It is the means which makes it possible for each one to satisfy his necessities according to his individual inclination (to be sure within the bounds of his economic power). As a means to such circulation money will be found indispensable until something better is discovered. To be sure many of its functions, especially that of the measure of value, will disappear, at least in internal commerce.


After my discussion of this subject with the user BAM on here, I can't really find any analysis of the Soviet Union or it's sattelites which is entirely satisfactory. I do think a lot of the discussion of the fSU on here is an attempt to divert from concrete political issues today. You'll note, for example, how anarchists and "council communists" use the examples of "actually-existing socialism" to dismiss "Leninism" wholesale.

True, but perhaps the Official Communists were inadvertently correct in saying that "socialism" was indeed a mode of production separate from "capitalism" and any form of the communist mode of production. That's why I prefer bureaucratic-state commodity production over the overly elastic term "state capitalism."

Now perhaps you can explain the Duhring references by Paul and sanpal here better. ;)

[The Vegan Marxist]

I don't have time to write up on the reasons behind why the theory of "State-Capitalism" is misleading right now, but here's a quote by Trotsky that I feel is necessary when he's talking about the Soviet Union, even while under Stalin's ruling, that Trotsky greatly opposed:

"The dictatorship of a class does not mean by a long shot that its entire mass always participates in the management of the state... The anatomy of society is determined by its economic relations. So long as the forms of property that have been created by the October revolution are not overthrown, the proletariat remains the ruling class." ("The class nature of the Soviet State," Writings, 1933-34, p. 104).

[Die Neue Zeit]

I find that what I'm having trouble with is how capitalism is being defined. Is it being defined as a system of private property and profit accumulation where the bourgeois private property owners try to maximize their profits off of their workers, or a system that is solely just a mode of production? Because the second one would then consider mutualism and "market socialism" to be socialist, which I strongly disagree with.

Indeed:

Giving up on some terms: Debating capitalism again, etc. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/giving-up-some-t129907/index.html)

[Zanthorus]

Was it really? There were exchange values, which changed over time whenever the value of the ruble was changed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_ruble

But production wasn't for the sake of exchange-value, the production quota's didn't specify that the factories had to produce X rubles worth of goods but simply that they had to produce X quantity of goods.

[Die Neue Zeit]

<ISMAIL>

Here I think it's best to quote from the "Anti-Revisionists" themselves (for some reason their "state capitalism" stuff is deeper than Cliff's):

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html

"We must elevate the importance of profit and profitability." (Khrushchev (http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrchap2.html))

"The essence of cost accounting is that any enterprise should cover its expenditures with its own income and should have a profit over and above this. The system of cost accounting makes every enterprise interested in obtaining a bigger profit." (Gatovsky (http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrchap2.html))

"It is proposed to abolish the practice of providing free supplements to the circulating assets of enterprises from the state budget and, instead, where necessary, to grant them credits for this purpose. Such a system will encourage enterprises to use the assets allocated to them more thriftily". (Kosygin (http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrchap5.html))

"The enterprise is headed by a director...The director of the enterprise may, without power of attorney, act in its name...dispose of the property and funds of the enterprise". (Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in M.E. Sharpe (Ed.): op. cit., Volume 2; p. 310-1 (http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrchap6.html)).

There are lots more chapters in there. I couldn't find "exchange value," but basically profit implies exchange value, and property rights given to directors rather than the central economic planning bureaucracy also implies "exchange" and exchange value.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well despite what Carson, Long, Chartier as well as the rest of the "market socialist" crowd and a good deal of highly confused anarchists may have you believe, "self-managed" capitalism is still a form of capitalism.

I didn't say anything about self-managed capitalism...?

[The Vegan Marxist]

I find that what I'm having trouble with is how capitalism is being defined. Is it being defined as a system of private property and profit accumulation where the bourgeois private property owners try to maximize their profits off of their workers, or a system that is solely just a mode of production? Because the second one would then consider mutualism and "market socialism" to be socialist, which I strongly disagree with.

What differs me from other Maoists on this forum is that I don't see Deng's coming to power as the restoration of capitalism. We can definitely consider it as the starting road to capitalism, sure. But China, despite its revolutionary work in bringing people together, was still vastly underdeveloped & was in a need of modernization. This was the reason why Market Socialism was implemented. To this day, the majority of the means of production in China is not privately owned - meaning capitalism has yet to have been restored in China.

When we see workers today fighting on the streets about capitalist policies, you're witnessing workers within the "Special Economic Zones". The Workers World even pointed out how the CPC are still fighting for the worker against the SEZ's: http://www.workers.org/2010/world/china_0805/

Remember, even if one considers Deng as a revisionist & a capitalist roader, revisionism does not imply that capitalism has been restored. In fact, if we look at it through the Soviet Union, although revisionism was embraced when Khrushchev came to power, Capitalism was not yet restored until after Gorbachev's leadership ended.

Stalin had this to say about the possibility of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union:

“A victory of the Right deviation in our Party would mean an enormous strengthening of the capitalist elements in our country. And what does the strengthening of the capitalist elements in our country mean? It means weakening the proletarian dictatorship and increasing the chances of the restoration of capitalism.” (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1928/10/19.htm)

So as you can see, he clearly points out that revisionism could lead to the restoration of capitalism, not inevitably would.

[Zanthorus]

I didn't say anything about self-managed capitalism...?

Well that's what "workers control of the means of production" could plausibly imply, and has implied to many.

[revolution inaction]

I think this serious of articles about the nature of the ussr are good http://libcom.org/library/what-was-ussr-aufheben

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well that's what "workers control of the means of production" could plausibly imply, and has implied to many.

Don't try to imply that I'm saying that "oh self-run coffee shops that's socialism hurf durf". That's not what I'm saying at all.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I think this serious of articles about the nature of the ussr are good http://libcom.org/library/what-was-ussr-aufheben

I must say, reading an anarchist paper denouncing the claim of the Soviet Union as being capitalist, even while under Stalin, is quite surprising to me. I think I may remain reading.

[AK]

I don't have time to write up on the reasons behind why the theory of "State-Capitalism" is misleading right now, but here's a quote by Trotsky that I feel is necessary when he's talking about the Soviet Union, even while under Stalin's ruling, that Trotsky greatly opposed:

"The dictatorship of a class does not mean by a long shot that its entire mass always participates in the management of the state... The anatomy of society is determined by its economic relations. So long as the forms of property that have been created by the October revolution are not overthrown, the proletariat remains the ruling class." ("The class nature of the Soviet State," Writings, 1933-34, p. 104).
The dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean that the whole proletariat should participate in government? That's one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard. Besides, at the end of the day, every political decision is also an economic decision - so you can't have a crude amalgamation of workers' control of the economy as well as representative democracy in the field of government.

And what's this I hear about economic relations? Did Trotsky honestly think that it didn't matter whether or not the workers had direct and full control over the economy or not, only if private property rights did or didn't exist? Is being separate from the management of production and distribution not an economic relation? To insist that private property rights are the only factors affecting economic relations is stupid and can only lead to disaster.

[The Vegan Marxist]

The dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean that the whole proletariat should participate in government? That's one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard. Besides, at the end of the day, every political decision is also an economic decision - so you can't have a crude amalgamation of workers' control of the economy as well as representative democracy in the field of government.

And what's this I hear about economic relations? Did Trotsky honestly think that it didn't matter whether or not the workers had direct and full control over the economy or not, only if private property rights did or didn't exist? Is being separate from the management of production and distribution not an economic relation? To insist that private property rights are the only factors affecting economic relations is stupid and can only lead to disaster.

We do have to stick to reality here & realize that not every proletariat will be able to participate in the State. If you're going to take your line of thought as truth, & sideline others because it's not how you envisioned it is going against dialectical reflection. As long as the means of production is being collectively owned between the workers & the State, then you have Socialism. And also, we must realize the difference between Socialism & the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. To do this, please read:

http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/socialism-and-the-dictatorship-of-the-proletariat/

[Thirsty Crow]

We do have to stick to reality here & realize that not every proletariat will be able to participate in the State.
And what are the conditions under which:

1) a national proletariat will not be able to "participate in the State"

2) a national proletariat will be able to "participate in the State"

And one more question:
What does exactly "participate in the State" entail? Explain the possible forms of participation (be it councils, committees etc.).

[The Vegan Marxist]

And what are the conditions under which:

1) a national proletariat will not be able to "participate in the State"

2) a national proletariat will be able to "participate in the State"

And one more question:
What does exactly "participate in the State" entail? Explain the possible forms of participation (be it councils, committees etc.).

It's just entailing that the entire working class don't have to participate for there to be a workers state, nor for it to work. And yes, it can be participated through councils, committees, etc. As long as the workers are part of the decision making when it comes to the means of production, then there is no exploitation from man on man. The State is run by workers, the means of production is not privatized, & is collectivized between the workers & the State. This is socialism. It may not be exactly what we envisioned, but that's the point of dialectical reflection.

[Dave B]

I like the easy ones. I think Lenin made that clear in ;

V. I. Lenin The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky’s Mistakes




But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.
It can be exercised only by a vanguard



http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm (http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm)


So if you are designated as "corrupted and degraded" by the uncorrupted and un-degraded vanguard class you can’t take part.

Which was somewhat different to Engels understanding;

1891 Introduction by Frederick Engels On the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune [PostScript]





Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.



In this first place, it filled all posts – administrative, judicial, and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm)


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[Zanthorus]

I must say, reading an anarchist paper denouncing the claim of the Soviet Union as being capitalist, even while under Stalin, is quite surprising to me. I think I may remain reading.

Just a note: Aufheben isn't an anarchist organisation, they think that anarchists have had better praxis than Marxists over the past century, but that Marxists have been much stronger in terms of theory.

Also their articles bring up the point about money only being a unit of account in the plans... and then completely evade it.

[Thirsty Crow]

So if you are designated as "corrupted and degraded" by the uncorrupted and un-degraded vanguard class you can’t take part.

That makes perfect sense and does not pose serious theoretical and practical problems, nono, not at all. :rolleyes:
"Corrupted" and "degraded" are mere slurs. Until one deicdes to put some mental effort into a possible operationalization of these, they mean absolutely nothing.

[Dave B]

I was being sarcastic!