State Capitalism

[Pretty Flaco]

I don't understand the assertion that a state controlled capitalist economy must be first formed before a country can progress to socialism. To me, it just sounds like an excuse to form a bureaucracy.

Can someone tell me why they think it's necessary? I won't buy into it, but I'd least like to be able to understand the reasoning behind it.

[Shinigami]

I'm not a Leninist but the general idea is so that it can organize the revolution, wipe out counterrevolutionary threats, get everything ready for a transition to complete communism. You'll find a -lot- of threads like this gone over in the Learning and Theory forums.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I don't even think most Leninists support this. I could be wrong.

When the revolution is successful, all factories, tools and machines become controlled by the working class (or are supposed to) -- i.e. socialism. A common misunderstanding is that socialism is when the state controls all industry, or when the state (separate from the working class) owns the means of production.

The point of economic planning is to plot use-value and to coordinate production. The problem is when the state organizes the economy in a mixed economic way such as Lenin did with his NEP, or without democratic input from the working class, as the Bolsheviks tended to do, -- workers being represented by unions and or elected officials. This way planning is achieved from the bottom-up, from the workers, to union representatives, to the elected government official, instead of being decided and passed down from an "authority".

Nobody, apart from Stalinists -- although they wouldn't call it state capitalism --, promotes state capitalism as equivalent to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Apoi_Viitor]

State Capitalism as a theory is kind of hard to strictly define. I would argue that State Capitalism is a centrally planned economy, which is in the hands of a class outside the proletariat. I like this definition, because I very much prefer to describe 'existing socialist regimes' as state-capitalist and not 'deformed workers states'...for my rationale, look at China... I believe the Maoist argument, is that Mao's China was a genuine 'socialist state', while during the period of Deng Xiaoping's reforms it was a 'deformed workers state', and that current China is essentially 'state-capitalist'. I reject that argument, because how could capitalist reformation happen in a State by reform alone, and not by the emergence of a bourgeios revolution? If socialism requires a 'proletariat revolution', why shouldn't capitalism require a 'bourgeios revolution'. Along the same lines, if capitalist reformation was so easily implemented from the top-down, then that seems to prove there was never any genuine 'worker's power'. The seemingly swift and easy transformation the Eastern Bloc and other pre-existing socialist states have adopted and changed towards socialism, seems (at least to my eyes) put tremendous doubt on the notion that existing models of 'socialism' can be regarded as "anykindof-workers state". Because (similar to capitalist states) in existing models of socialism, the economic and political sphere seems to be in the hands of a small, but highly concentrated elite class, who uses violence and whatever means available to continue to exert their political rule.

I'm done with my rant now....but, of course, that's not the definition of State-Capitalism Lenin gives. Lenin's theory of state-capitalism seems more or less like a synonym to Marx's 'transitory phase' (aka socialism) and his definition of socialism seems synonymous with Marx's definition of communism.

Here's a quote by Lenin to enunciate my point - 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.

[fa2991]

That sort of idea is only applicable under the material conditions of feudal states like Russia that didn't really go through capitalism pre-revolution. Thus the state tries to rapidly introduce, while constricting, forces of capitalist development so there will be enough productive tools, etc. to institute socialism.

What, you want to go straight from feudalism to socialism? Bah, humbug.

[Sixiang]

That sort of idea is only applicable under the material conditions of feudal states like Russia that didn't really go through capitalism pre-revolution. Thus the state tries to rapidly introduce, while constricting, forces of capitalist development so there will be enough productive tools, etc. to institute socialism.

What, you want to go straight from feudalism to socialism? Bah, humbug.
So does that mean that it is possible to go from feudalism to socialism? Or do feudal states need state capitalism first?

I am also learning and curious about this.

[Revolution starts with U]

It's easier for a capitalist society to become socialist, but nothing requires it.

[Fulanito de Tal]

This is how I understand part of state-capitalism.

Context
-The world is almost completely globalized and it functions under the U$ dollar.

Country Economy
-Countries need resources and commodities to survive.
-A country that doesn't have needed materials or factories needs to import from another countries.

Problem
-Socialist countries need to acquire products and materials in convertible-capitalist currency.

Solution
-To gain the capitalist currency, the country works as a company (state-capitalism). Countries cannot be truly socialist until the materials and factories needed worldwide become part of a socialist revolution.

Any thoughts?

[fa2991]

So does that mean that it is possible to go from feudalism to socialism? Or do feudal states need state capitalism first?

Nope, you can't go from feudalism to functioning socialism, which is why state capitalism is on the table.

[Zanthorus]

Nope, you can't go from feudalism to functioning socialism, which is why state capitalism is on the table.

Actually, as was pointed out to me by the user Alf on here originally, there is a stage between feudalism and capitalism - absolutist monarchy. I think the joke is that the Soviet communism was the largest road from capitalism to capitalism. In actual fact we could say, following Bordiga, that it played the role of absolutist monarchy, providing a transition between the petty-family production which dominated Russia at the time of the revolution and the current neo-liberal wasteland.

[RED DAVE]

There is an obvious fact that gives the lie to state capitalism, in the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, etc., being somehow deformed, degenerated or some kind of workers state.

State capitalism, with state owned enterprises running the economy, central planning and a monopoly on foreign trade are used, openly, joyfully, with no guilt, by capitalists to build capitalism.

Here is an example: unless you think Singapore is somehow a workers state.


The economy of Singapore is a developed country and highly developed state capitalist market economy. The state controls and owns firms that comprise at least 60% of the GDP through government entities such as the sovereign wealth fund Temask. It has an open business environment, relatively corruption-free and transparent, stable prices, and one of the highest per capita gross domestic products (GDP) in the world. Its innovative yet steadfast form of economics that combines economic planning with free market has given it the nickname the Singapore Model.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore

RED DAVE

[Sixiang]

This is how I understand part of state-capitalism.

Context
-The world is almost completely globalized and it functions under the U$ dollar.

Country Economy
-Countries need resources and commodities to survive.
-A country that doesn't have needed materials or factories needs to import from another countries.

Problem
-Socialist countries need to acquire products and materials in convertible-capitalist currency.

Solution
-To gain the capitalist currency, the country works as a company (state-capitalism). Countries cannot be truly socialist until the materials and factories needed worldwide become part of a socialist revolution.

Any thoughts?
That seems understandable. Was the USSR involved with helping out communist parties in other nations? It seems like it would be advantageous to them to have other nations be state capitalist as well so that they could have some sort of agreement with each other to trade and what not for the goal of bringing about socialism. At least, I would rather trade with someone who has like minded ideas with me as opposed to being forced to trade with capitalist nations that want to destroy me. I'm not too well versed on the history of relations between USSR, China, Cuba, etc.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Was the USSR involved with helping out communist parties in other nations? I'm not too well versed on the history of relations between USSR, China, Cuba, etc.

I know Cuba would send sugar to the USSR and the USSR would provide Cuba with resources and education. One major factor the caused the Special Period in Cuba was the loss of Soviet petroleum.

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

The collapse of the Soviet Union hit the Cuban economy severely. The country lost approximately 80% of its imports, 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped by 34 percent. Food and medicine imports stopped or severely slowed. The largest immediate impact was the loss of nearly all of the petroleum imports by the USSR;[1] Cuba's oil imports dropped to 10% of pre-1990 amounts.[2] Before this, Cuba had been re-exporting any Soviet petroleum it did not consume to other nations for profit, meaning that petroleum had been Cuba's second largest export product before 1990. Once the restored Russian Federation emerged from the former Soviet Union, its administration immediately made clear that it had no intention of delivering petroleum that had been guaranteed the island by the USSR; this resulted in a decrease in Cuban consumption to 20% of its previous level within two years.[1][3] The effect was felt immediately. Entirely dependent on fossil fuels to operate, the major underpinnings of Cuban society—its transportation, industrial and agricultural systems—were paralyzed. There were extensive losses of productivity in both Cuban agriculture — which was dominated by modern industrial tractors, combines, and harvesters, all of which required petroleum to run — and in Cuban industrial capacity.

[Crux]

There is an obvious fact that gives the lie to state capitalism, in the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, etc., being somehow deformed, degenerated or some kind of workers state.

State capitalism, with state owned enterprises running the economy, central planning and a monopoly on foreign trade are used, openly, joyfully, with no guilt, by capitalists to build capitalism.

Here is an example: unless you think Singapore is somehow a workers state.

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

RED DAVE
That's a pretty backwards logic you are using there though. Just because you think deformed worker's states are state capitalist doesn't mean I have to think state capitalist states are deformed worker's states. That's some pretty fuzzy logic right there, just saying.

[Jimmie Higgins]

That's a pretty backwards logic you are using there though. Just because you think deformed worker's states are state capitalist doesn't mean I have to think state capitalist states are deformed worker's states. That's some pretty fuzzy logic right there, just saying.What would be the difference as you see it?

[graymouser]

What would be the difference as you see it?
Not to speak for Majakovskij, but the market continues to operate in Singapore in a way that was not true of any of the degenerated workers' states; that is, capitalists continue to extract profits based on a free labor market, and the (still-existing) bourgeoisie is free to employ capital as such. More than that, the government intervention in the economy of Singapore is predicated on maintaining its stability as a part of the global financial system - the degenerate workers' states were apart from this system.

I think if you wanted an example of state capitalism, it would be China today - but the theory that says that all degenerate workers' states were state capitalist can't explain why China today is so tremendously different from China 40 years ago. The difference is that markets exist and capital is accumulated as such, and it must be said, that's a tremendous difference.

[Ovi]

Nope, you can't go from feudalism to functioning socialism, which is why state capitalism is on the table.
So Marxism-Leninism was the (state) capitalist stage in Russia that was needed before achieving socialism? It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why would Marxism-Leninism still be relevant today if the world is already capitalist.

[Dave B]

People did think that it was possible to go from feudalism to socialism and in particular in Russia, and they were in fact Bakuninists.

Marx ridiculed the idea;

Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy, 1874




Schoolboy stupidity! A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition. It is also only possible where with capitalist production the industrial proletariat occupies at least an important position among the mass of the people.

And if it is to have any chance of victory, it must be able to do immediately as much for the peasants as the French bourgeoisie, mutatis mutandis, did in its revolution for the French peasants of that time. A fine idea, that the rule of labour involves the subjugation of land labour! But here Mr Bakunin's innermost thoughts emerge.

He understands absolutely nothing about the social revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist for him. As all hitherto existing economic forms, developed or undeveloped, involve the enslavement of the worker (whether in the form of wage-labourer, peasant etc.), he believes that a radical revolution is possible in all such forms alike.

Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level [...] The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm)

As it often brought up; around 1880 after a dialogue with Russians M&E conceded that as there were still basically primitive communists or collectivist production in agriculture in Russia re the Mir system, it might be possible to absorb them into a European or world Socialist revolution.


As the basic idea or consciousness would be familiar to them.

Just as perhaps the Kalahari Bushmen might be able to understand communism. eg



Traditionally, the San were an egalitarian society.[18] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1899020#cite_note-shostak-17) Although they did have hereditary chiefs, the chiefs' authority was limited. The bushmen instead made decisions among themselves by consensus (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Consensus),[19] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1899020#cite_note-18) with women treated as relatively equal.[20] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1899020#cite_note-19) In addition, the San economy was a gift economy (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Gift_economy), based on giving each other gifts on a regular basis rather than on trading or purchasing goods and services.[21] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1899020#cite_note-20)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmen)

a decade later Engels later pulled back from the idea in;


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/01/russia.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/01/russia.htm)


As kautsky explained in 1905;




Twenty-four years ago no one could assert with certainty that the Russian village communities might not become the starting point of a modern form of communism. Society as a whole can not leap over any stage of evolution, but single backward portions thereof can easily do this. They can make a leap in order to correspond with other and more advanced portions.

So it was possible that Russian society might leap over the capitalist stage in order to immediately develop the new communism out of the old. But a condition of this was that socialism in the rest of Europe should become victorious during the time that the village communities still had a vital strength in Russia. This at the begin- fling of the eighties appeared still possible. But in a decade the impossibility of this transition was perfectly clear.

The revolution in Western Europe moved slower and the village communities in Russia fell faster than appeared probable at the beginning of the eighties, and therewith it was decided that the special peculiarity of Russia upon which the terrorism and the socialism of the Narodnaya Volya was founded should disappear, and that Russia must pass through capitalism in order to attain socialism and that also Russia must in this respect pass along the same road as had Western Europe.

Here as there socialism must grow out of the great industry and the industrial proletariat is the only revolutionary class which is capable of leading a continuous and independent revolutionary battle against absolutism.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1905/xx/rsdlp.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1905/xx/rsdlp.htm)

That became the standard position accepted by all Russian Marxists ie both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks right up to at least the end of 1916.


In my opinion Lenin in advocating state capitalism in that respect never broke in theory or practice with that part of orthodox Marxist fatalistic theory.

Although he did fall into the Faustian trap of attempting to run capitalism; and in his case state capitalism.


Self described socialists had before fallen into the trap of being responsible for the administration of capitalism with all the ignominy and disgrace which that brought.

With the introduction of state capitalism the Bolsheviks didn’t do things by halves and share the responsibility with the bourgeois capitalists, as with those other self described socialists, they took the whole thing onto themselves.

The basic unsaid idea, because it couldn’t be said in those terms, was to have ‘evolutionary socialism’ within the economic framework of state capitalism.

As opposed to the bête noire, Bernstienist, ‘evolutionary socialism’ within (bourgeois) capitalism.

In fact the Mensheviki Trotsky said in his ‘Our Political Tasks’ that both the Bernstienists and the Bolsheviks were opportunists. And that an opportunist in feudalism was a Bolshevik Jacobin and a opportunist in capitalism was a Bernstienist.

But as an opportunist at heart the one would transform themselves into the other.

Cliff, who was not a complete muppet, and could get close to the truth of the matter sometimes wrote and interesting article below.

But of course as according to him Russia never started out as a state capitalist enterprise the analysis would not for him apply.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1963/xx/permrev.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1963/xx/permrev.htm)

[PoliticalNightmare]

I don't understand the assertion that a state controlled capitalist economy must be first formed before a country can progress to socialism. To me, it just sounds like an excuse to form a bureaucracy.

Can someone tell me why they think it's necessary? I won't buy into it, but I'd least like to be able to understand the reasoning behind it.

I personally think that a country needs to have high industrial activity before a revolution should start. This way the workers have a means of supporting themselves during and pro revolution.