Nationalization

[Comrade1]

I hear it many times that Karl Marx advocated nationalization but I cant find it in any of his writting.

[Aurora]

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible."

Marx argues for nationalisation of the means of production in the hands of the workers' state, this should be distinguished from bourgeois nationalisation which Engels remarks:
"Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism."

[Comrade1]

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible."

Marx argues for nationalisation of the means of production in the hands of the workers' state, this should be distinguished from bourgeois nationalisation which Engels remarks:
"Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism."
I thought Marx wanted the control of the Means of production by the workers' themselfs

[Ceaserian Øgly]

By production being national, it is thereby owned by the collective worker's state, put very simply.

Put a bit less simply, we can look at the three major forms of ownership which exist today:



Private ownership: A unit owned by one or more capitalists owning a stock share. The owners have all power when it comes to deciding how it's run, and how the profit is spent.
Public/State ownership: This unit is formally owned by the state, and is controlled by politicians, or people appointed by politicians (or people appointed by appointees, and so on).
Employee ownership: The employees of the production unit have equal* control of how the unit is run, and get a say in how the profit is used through democratic processes.

* The definition of equal may be subject to local variation. It is possible that a person working 20% may have 20% of the voting weight of a person working 100%.

Private ownership is a bunch of manure, so I don't think I have to say much about that. Both public ownership and employee ownership have some inherit or potential flaws. While public ownership is in a degree harder for common people to have direct control over, employee ownership is not always free from the profit motive, as they sometimes have to compete with other employee owned units (as we could see in Yugoslavia).

Therefore, most communists today, advocate a synthesis of public and employee ownership, where some degree of power is left to elected politicians, either central or local, while some power is left to the employees. It will vary to which degrees we will see the balance of power. A national bank will mostly be controlled by national politicians, while a small smelting can be controlled mostly by the workers, with some representatives appointed by the municipality.

Did that clear things up a bit?

[Rafiq]

Well, if the state is directly controlled by the workers, directly, then it is possible.

[PilesOfDeadNazis]

I thought Marx wanted the control of the Means of production by the workers' themselfs
If there is a worker's state then nationalization is the way to do that. If things were nationalized today(put into the hands of the capitalist states) it would not be the same thing at all.

If the worker's run the state and nationalize everything, that is putting the means of production into the hands of the workers.

I'm sure there are plenty of people on here that can go way more in depth with it, however.

[Comrade1]

By production being national, it is thereby owned by the collective worker's state, put very simply.

Put a bit less simply, we can look at the three major forms of ownership which exist today:



Private ownership: A unit owned by one or more capitalists owning a stock share. The owners have all power when it comes to deciding how it's run, and how the profit is spent.
Public/State ownership: This unit is formally owned by the state, and is controlled by politicians, or people appointed by politicians (or people appointed by appointees, and so on).
Employee ownership: The employees of the production unit have equal* control of how the unit is run, and get a say in how the profit is used through democratic processes.
* The definition of equal may be subject to local variation. It is possible that a person working 20% may have 20% of the voting weight of a person working 100%.

Private ownership is a bunch of manure, so I don't think I have to say much about that. Both public ownership and employee ownership have some inherit or potential flaws. While public ownership is in a degree harder for common people to have direct control over, employee ownership is not always free from the profit motive, as they sometimes have to compete with other employee owned units (as we could see in Yugoslavia).

Therefore, most communists today, advocate a synthesis of public and employee ownership, where some degree of power is left to elected politicians, either central or local, while some power is left to the employees. It will vary to which degrees we will see the balance of power. A national bank will mostly be controlled by national politicians, while a small smelting can be controlled mostly by the workers, with some representatives appointed by the municipality.

Did that clear things up a bit?
Yes, thankyou, so it wouldent be anti-marxist to be against nationalization of the means of production because I am in favor of workers' control of it through self managment.

[cb9's_unity]

Yes, thankyou, so it wouldent be anti-marxist to be against nationalization of the means of production because I am in favor of workers' control of it through self managment.

It depends on the situation. Because the current governments are mainly tools for capitalist class oppression, nationalization of a corporation or an industry by no means automatically socialist. You are simply replacing capitalist managers with pro-capitalist bureaucrats. However that doesn't mean nationalization within capitalism is a bad thing either. For example, when a capitalist nation nationalizes its oil industry, it often prevents foreign oil company's from taking wealth out of the country. Thus one benefit of nationalization is that it can be a tool against imperialism.

It is important to understand that the socialization of capital is a natural occurrence within capitalism. There is no meaningful difference between capital socializing in the private sector and capital socializing under the bourgeois state. Socialization is only socialism when it occurs under the direction, and for the benefit, of the working class.

[Paulappaul]

By production being national, it is thereby owned by the collective worker's state, put very simply.

The classical notion of State ownership as Socialism in disguise. The problem being, alienation, why should a worker representative of another factory be telling me how to run production? This position was held and defended by the "right" wing of the Bolshevik Party, the logic being that Worker Self Management was Anarchistic, Individualistic and Arrogant and instead Nationalization directed production for the great mass of the proletarians. Basically that workers alone can't be communistic, but need a Workers' State to direct them.

Seems rather un-marxian and doesn't have bases in reality or through necessity.

[Aurora]

I thought Marx wanted the control of the Means of production by the workers' themselfs
Absolutely, maybe an easy way to think of it would be that in Russia the factory committee's were workers taking control over their own workplace, when these factory committee's linked together they became soviet's and the soviets became the new workers' state.