Orthodox Marxism.

[eric922]

I'm just curious, what exactly is Orthodox Marxism? I've read it was the prevailing view of the 2nd International, but how is it separate form say Leninism or Trotskyism? Is it still around today, or has it died off?

[Die Neue Zeit]

There has been a slight revival of Orthodox Marxist thinking since the publishing of Lars Lih's Lenin Rediscovered: WITBD in Context, the dissemination of Lih's papers on the Lenin-Kautsky relationship, and the completion of Mike Macnair's Revolutionary Strategy: Marxism and the Challenge of Left Unity (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=205).

Most of Leninism proper (as opposed to "Marxism-Leninism") isn't different from Orthodox Marxism, but Trotskyism is definitely not Orthodox Marxism.

The key points to take from the wiki on this subject are the last three ones:

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

[Paulappaul]

As DNZ said, those last three are really it in a nutshell as practiced by the SPD and 2nd International. Worth looking up is actually Humanist - Marxism for insight on Orthodox Marxism and the problems it faced with a limited knowledge of Marxism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It would be prudent to read any sort of "Modern Orthodox" Marxist critique of Marxist-Humanist stances. The economic analysis is superb, but I would not rush to the "state capitalism" label and those deriding "social imperialists." Generalized commodity production is a better term, and then one can distinguished between bourgeois-fied commodity production and other forms of generalized commodity production. The economic prescription is good too (non-circulable labour credits replacing money).

It is the sphere of politics where the Marxist-Humanists fall to the ground, from organization to programmatic approaches.

[Zanthorus]

DNZ, you and I have already had this conversation, but to reiterate for everyone else, generalised commodity production in Marx's theory is only possible on the basis of the circulation of money as capital (M - C - M'), since simple commodity circulation (C - M - C) has as it's aim the satisfaction of the needs of the individual producers, and as such is limited by these needs, whereas the aim of the circulation of money as capital is the continuous self-expansion of value, and as such this form of circulation has no limits. Generalised commodity production is therefore only possible on the basis that production is the production of surplus-value, and hence capital, the producers own alienated productive forces which come to dominate them. 'Generalised commodity production' is thus capitalism, and DNZ's distinction between 'bourgeois-ified commodity production' and some magical non-capitalist forms of generalised commodity production is rubbish.

And to the OP, yes 'Orthodox Marxism' is currently about as dead as the dodo, despite the the attempts of a couple of intellectuals to revive it's mummified corpse.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The problem with that line of thinking is that one can then emphasize some weird notion of going beyond generalized commodity production without scrapping private property relations, such as private property in land perhaps with regular distributism, or self-employed service providers operating within the post-monetary system but retaining things like private intellectual property. Even cooperative production under a common plan retains relatively private cooperative property.

Assets are more important than revenue and cost flows.

BTW, I see less likely an independent Bordigist upsurge, in response to your contentious remarks about efforts at revival. ;)

[Zanthorus]

The problem with that line of thinking is that one can then emphasize some weird notion of going beyond generalized commodity production without scrapping private property relations,

I have no idea what you are babbling about here. How one can have gone beyond generalised commodity production whilst retaining private property is beyond me.


BTW, I see less likely an independent Bordigist upsurge, in response to your contentious remarks about efforts at revival. ;)

I'm not looking for an 'independent Bordigist upsurge', so this comment is irrelevant.

[Jose Gracchus]

Some shit Kautsky and his statist scabs made up.

[Jose Gracchus]

DNZ, you and I have already had this conversation, but to reiterate for everyone else, generalised commodity production in Marx's theory is only possible on the basis of the circulation of money as capital (M - C - M'), since simple commodity circulation (C - M - C) has as it's aim the satisfaction of the needs of the individual producers, and as such is limited by these needs, whereas the aim of the circulation of money as capital is the continuous self-expansion of value, and as such this form of circulation has no limits. Generalised commodity production is therefore only possible on the basis that production is the production of surplus-value, and hence capital, the producers own alienated productive forces which come to dominate them. 'Generalised commodity production' is thus capitalism, and DNZ's distinction between 'bourgeois-ified commodity production' and some magical non-capitalist forms of generalised commodity production is rubbish.

So in your formulation, the Soviet system and its kin were capitalist, just in a state-bureaucratic form, in distinction from traditional orthodox capitalism of the 19th Century and modern corporate capitalism?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ That's the debate chat I had with him yesterday. Both bourgeois and Soviet models were/are generalized commodity production, but we disagree on the usefulness of the "capitalism" label (or, rather, I used to subscribe to the "state-capitalist" label).


I have no idea what you are babbling about here. How one can have gone beyond generalised commodity production whilst retaining private property is beyond me.

I just mentioned two examples: land and intellectual property rights. Most houses aren't built on arable land or other non-commercial land with precious resources underneath, and supposedly according to land value taxation should have no tax value. I'm sure cooperatives will rely especially on the trademark (inter-cooperative brand differentiation and the like), something purposefully not mentioned in my commentary on intellectual property rights.

[Savage]

^^^ That's the debate chat I had with him yesterday. Both bourgeois and Soviet models were/are generalized commodity production, but we disagree on the usefulness of the "capitalism" label (or, rather, I used to subscribe to the "state-capitalist" label).
So yours is a 'NSNC' type argument?

[Die Neue Zeit]

If "socialism" still entails generalized commodity production, then to a certain extent (and only to a certain extent) did Lenin have a Second International point about "state-capitalist monopoly for the benefit of the whole people."

In no way, shape, or form does the *lower* phase of the communist mode of production entail *any* form of commodity production, in large part because of its *post-monetary* nature (as opposed to "the day after the social revolution" by Kautsky).

[Savage]

I don't think Lenin's contribution to 'state capitalist' theory (if it can even be considered a contribution) is generally considered to be particularly profound or even coherent, It's just used as a secret weapon against trots :D.
But anyway, If commodity production can in fact exist outside of capitalism, what is your evidence for the soviet economy being one such case?

[Zanthorus]

So in your formulation, the Soviet system and its kin were capitalist, just in a state-bureaucratic form, in distinction from traditional orthodox capitalism of the 19th Century and modern corporate capitalism?

For the purposes of this debate, my opinion of what the Soviet Union and it's sattellites were is irrelevant. My actual opinion is that I haven't got the slightest clue, so that debate wouldn't get too far anyway. What I do know is this - commodity production can only be generalised on the basis of that form of circulation which is not limited by individual needs but has as it's aim the continual appropriation of surplus-value. Where the commodity is the general social form of wealth, production must be capitalist in nature. This leaves us with two options:

(1) Either we agree that weath in the fSU took the form of the commodity, in which case it was a capitalist society or...

(2) The fSU and it's sattellites were not commodity producing societies, hence not capitalist.

DNZ's third option reduces itself to Proudhonism. Supposedly the fSU was a commodity producing society, yet not capitalist. But without capitalist production, how did the majority of goods take the form of the commodity? That's what DNZ has yet to answer.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Although I have stated my harsh critique of Stalin's half-way, almost-self-critical work (re. the kolkhozy), I think it's still worth a look:

Commodity Production Under Socialism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch03.htm)


Certain comrades affirm that the Party acted wrongly in preserving commodity production after it had assumed power and nationalized the means of production in our country. They consider that the Party should have banished commodity production there and then. In this connection they cite Engels, who says:

"With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer".

These comrades are profoundly mistaken.

Let us examine Engels' formula. Engels' formula cannot be considered fully clear and precise, because it does not indicate whether it is referring to the seizure by society of all or only part of the means of production, that is, whether all or only part of the means of production are converted into public property. Hence, this formula of Engels' may be understood either way.

Notice that the emphasis is, according to traditional Orthodox Marxism, on the MOP and not M-C-M'. Mandel wrote something similar. Both cited Engels.


It is said that commodity production must lead, is bound to lead, to capitalism all the same, under all conditions. That is not true. Not always and not under all conditions! Commodity production must not be identified with capitalist production. They are two different things. Capitalist production is the highest form of commodity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private owner-ship of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists exists in the country. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands, and when the workers are bereft of means of production and are compelled to sell their labour power as a commodity. Without this there is no such thing as capitalist production.

Here I think it's worth correcting Stalin and the Marxist-Humanists at the same time:

Generalized commodity production leads to "capitalism" [or is bourgeois-fied] only if there is private ownership of the means of production, only if labour power appears in the market as a commodity... and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wage workers...

What I mentioned re. land and intellectual property rights fits with the first criterion only, and even then only partially.


Consequently, our commodity production is not of the ordinary type, but is a special kind of commodity production, commodity production without capitalists, which is concerned mainly with the goods of associated socialist producers (the state, the collective farms, the cooperatives), the sphere of action of which is confined to items of personal consumption, which obviously cannot possibly develop into capitalist production, and which, together with its "money economy," is designed to serve the development and consolidation of socialist production.

Absolutely mistaken, therefore, are those comrades who allege that, since socialist society has not abolished commodity forms of production, we are bound to have the reappear-ance of all the economic categories characteristic of capital-ism: labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit, etc. These comrades confuse commodity production with capitalist production, and believe that once there is commodity production there must also be capitalist production. They do not realize that our commodity production radically differs from commodity production under capitalism.

Further, I think that we must also discard certain other concepts taken from Marx's Capital - where Marx was concerned with an analysis of capitalism - and artificially applied to our socialist relations.

He was gravely mistaken in the invincibility of non-bourgeois-fied generalized commodity production, of course.

[Zanthorus]

So to sum up the discussion so far, DNZ has come out openly in defence of 'resurrected and tenacious Proudhonism'. On what basis? That commodity production only equals capitalism if we have 'private ownership' of the means of production and only if labour-power is a commodity which is exploited. But wait, wasn't it Marx who discussed 'directly social capital', who analysed joint-stock companies and state-owned monopolies as another form of capitalist enterprise? Who even remarked of co-operative/profit sharing enterprises that there the antagonism between capital and labour is overcome only by way of making the associated labourers into their own collective capitalist? That capitalism requires 'private ownership' to function is utter bullshit. What it does require is the commodification of labour-power, with the buyer of labour-power, the conscious representative of the movement of capital, being all that is required for the existence of capitalists. This commodification of labour-power is necessary for the circulation of capital as money, M - C - M'. For DNZ to say that capitalism is not 'just' defined by M - C - M' but also the exploitation of labour-power is to say essentially that value can be accumulated with the aprropriation of surplus labour, that value is not a social but a natural property inherent in things. Either that or that capitalism is not 'just' defined by M - C - M' but also by... the very thing necessary for M - C - M' to continue. An argument worthy of Proudhon certainly.

[Jose Gracchus]

So yours is a 'NSNC' type argument?

It would help if people didn't use inscrutable acronyms.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So to sum up the discussion so far, DNZ has come out openly in defence of 'resurrected and tenacious Proudhonism'.

I have not stated any defense of Proudhonism at all. Stalin was no Proudhonist either. I merely stated possibilities between commodity production and property relations.


That capitalism requires 'private ownership' to function is utter bullshit.

Again, my point is that, without the emphasis on private property relations, you will get advocates of Proudhonism charging at your argument.

Think of it in terms of the layers of the earth and not the simplistic base-superstructure building model: If the M-C-M' functions and all the other forms of commodity relations form the inner core, then private property relations form the outer core. Legal protection of private property is somewhere in the mantle, along with other factors.

Pay closer attention to words: there's also a difference between capital and capitalism.


What it does require is the commodification of labour-power, with the buyer of labour-power, the conscious representative of the movement of capital, being all that is required for the existence of capitalists.

Your discussion doesn't distinguish between M-C-M' and M-C...P...-C-M.' That's why I consider private property relations as well.

I appreciate your point about labour-power, though. If we examine the Soviet economy more closely, M-C-M' occurred but without the existence of a proper labour market monopsony (word of the day ;) ) at all.

[28350]

Linked, for those of you who were just as confused as me.

monopsony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony)

[Jose Gracchus]

What does "NSNC" mean???? :confused:

Monopsony is the converse of monopoly. Instead of single sole seller (monopoly), it means single sole buyer. The Canadian health care system, with its public insurance provision and private providers, is a monopsony.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Neither socialist nor capitalist" - basically the "bureaucratic collectivist" theory.

Re. monopsony: In theory the Soviet state had a monopsony over the human labour-power of everyone in the Soviet Union. Maybe I should edit my recent article to insert this word in. :D

[Savage]

It would help if people didn't use inscrutable acronyms.
Sorry, but I used it because I assumed DNZ would understand, and he did.

[Jose Gracchus]

Thanks for helping. I just think clarity is a virtue in Learning, is all.

[Savage]

Thanks for helping. I just think clarity is a virtue in Learning, is all.
Yeah, I think that this thread would be better suited in 'theory' now though haha.

[Savage]

Pay closer attention to words: there's also a difference between capital and capitalism.
But on the question of private ownership, how would you differentiate between capital per se and a society that is based on the existence of capital?

[Zanthorus]

I have not stated any defense of Proudhonism at all. Stalin was no Proudhonist either.

It's a Bordiga reference, more specifically to the section of 'The Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism' entitled 'Resurrected and Tenacious Proudhonism'. Bordiga equated Stalin's fantasy of a commodity-producing 'socialism' to the schemes of the Proudhonists for an equal labour exchange. You and 'comrade' Joe have that in common with the Proudhonists that you believe that a society of generalised commodity production can be non-capitalist.


Pay closer attention to words: there's also a difference between capital and capitalism.

Irrelevant wordplay.


Your discussion doesn't distinguish between M-C-M' and M-C...P...-C-M.' That's why I consider private property relations as well.

The only case where M - C - M' (The circulation of money as capital) doesn't coincide with M - C... P ...C' - M' (The circuit of industrial capital) that I'm aware of is in the case of merchants capital prior to the rise of the world-market. Within a productive intercourse which is world-historical however, surplus-value only arises from it's extraction from the immediate producers during the production process, so the circulation of money as capital is dependent on the circuit of industrial capital (As a side note I would prefer if we used the names rather than having to tediously type out M - C - M' all the time).


If we examine the Soviet economy more closely, M-C-M' occurred but without the existence of a proper labour market monopsony (word of the day ;) ) at all.

According to Chattopadhyay's 'The Marxian Concept of Capital' the Soviet Union actually had relatively high turnover rates between it's individual enterprises.


"Neither socialist nor capitalist" - basically the "bureaucratic collectivist" theory.

As a correction, there are 'NSNC' theorists that don't hold to the 'bureaucratic collectivist' analysis - Hillel Ticktin for example.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's a Bordiga reference, more specifically to the section of 'The Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism' entitled 'Resurrected and Tenacious Proudhonism'. Bordiga equated Stalin's fantasy of a commodity-producing 'socialism' to the schemes of the Proudhonists for an equal labour exchange. You and 'comrade' Joe have that in common with the Proudhonists that you believe that a society of generalised commodity production can be non-capitalist.

The Social Revolution, however faulty on the money question, was not a fantasy. Stalin drew his conclusions, however faulty as well, from The Social Revolution. No Marxist has ever called The Social Revolution "resurrected and tenacious Proudhonism."


The only case where M - C - M' (The circulation of money as capital) doesn't coincide with M - C... P ...C' - M' (The circuit of industrial capital) that I'm aware of is in the case of merchants capital prior to the rise of the world-market. Within a productive intercourse which is world-historical however, surplus-value only arises from it's extraction from the immediate producers during the production process, so the circulation of money as capital is dependent on the circuit of industrial capital (As a side note I would prefer if we used the names rather than having to tediously type out M - C - M' all the time).

Now my head is spinning. Merchant capital, trade capital (Kagarlitsky), etc.


According to Chattopadhyay's 'The Marxian Concept of Capital' the Soviet Union actually had relatively high turnover rates between it's individual enterprises.

What were the turnovers the result of? Books that I've read stated that the managers couldn't fire the average Joe.

[ar734]

why introduce more incomprehensible jargon?

[chegitz guevara]

Commodity production assumes capitalism, because a commodity is a good or service produced for the purpose of exchange, not for use. The purpose of exchange is to realize the suplus value.

In a society where all production is owned by the worker class, while there is surplus production, surplus value cannot be realized through the medium of exchange, since the producers, owners, and consumers are the same people. You cannot exploit yourself if you make and use everything you need.

Now, in a world where socialist societies exist along side capitalist ones, some commodity production will still exist, because of the need to engage in trade, at least until the exploiters are overthrown globally. But the majority of production in society will be for the immediate use of the workers.

[Jose Gracchus]

What would you call the Soviet Union?

[Die Neue Zeit]

In a society where all production is owned by the worker class, while there is surplus production, surplus value cannot be realized through the medium of exchange, since the producers, owners, and consumers are the same people. You cannot exploit yourself if you make and use everything you need.

Wasn't that Mandel's justification for the degenerated workers state thesis?

[Jose Gracchus]

If the USSR was not, in fact, a particularly bureaucratic and statified form of capitalism, than I think one must admit that Marx was not comprehensive in surmising all possible permutations of class society and social production possible before the supercession of capitalism with the communist mode of production. I do not think calling it any form of "workers' state" in retrospect, is tenable.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If the USSR was not, in fact, a particularly bureaucratic and statified form of capitalism, than I think one must admit that Marx was not comprehensive in surmising all possible permutations of class society and social production possible before the supercession of capitalism with the communist mode of production. I do not think calling it any form of "workers' state" in retrospect, is tenable.

That's what I'm arguing with comrade Zanthorus over re. the various forms of generalized commodity production vs. bourgeois-fied commodity production. Marx wasn't even comprehensive enough for past modes of production (that CPGB Communist University discussion on the "Asiatic mode" of production was a good slight criticism). It was bureaucratic and statified, but "capitalist" (which I used to subscribe to for historical discussion) is really, really stretching things at best.

[Jose Gracchus]

[shrug] It is a question of semantics. As always in these discussions, or others more precisely aligned around "state capitalism", is comes down to whether one accepts the general Marxian definition of capitalism, or a more superficial, 'archetypical' one. One school moves from Marx's understanding of capital forward, and seeing that obviously we didn't not supercede capitalist class society, that the USSR must be some permutation of the capitalist mode of production. Others, start from their beastiary of the "real" capitalism, with its competing firms and direct, individual, personal motives to personal profit, and then go compare their existing capitalist creatures to the Soviet creature, find it wanting, and therefore throw their hands up and declare "socialism!" or "workers' state!". As Zanthorus has pointed out before, Marx himself reviewed instances where a state monopoly or other instances where the individual firms may not be extant, are still instances, for Marx, of the capitalist mode of production. From this point of view, redefining capitalism does suggest something of a "tenacious" resurgent Proudhonism. I am not a Marxist proper, so this is something of a value judgment and preference in my mind. I lean toward the Marxian view, since I find the critique of political economy to be pretty definitive, if incomplete in the modern era.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I said this only a few months ago:


I think the term "state capitalism" is abused here. There's a spectrum that covers a few terms.

1) For example, some right-wing economists scream at government spending as a percentage of GDP. If it's high enough, they'll scream "SOCIALIST!" If it isn't, they'll be more dismissive, like a Reuters article on the Venezuelan economy ("Despite Chavez, Venezuela economy not socialist"). The user Comrade Stalin above referred to the state as the biggest consumer, for example. That left-coms call this "state capitalism" is just plain abuse, though there should be a proper term bandied out there to describe the high spending phenomenon.

2) Four more terms come in handy: protectionism, mercantilism, neo-mercantilism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-mercantilism) (more reliance on market pricing and less emphasis on military development), and dirigisme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigisme). The links are handy when considering Singapore and China, respectively. Mainstream economists apply "state capitalism" to both neo-mercantilism and dirigisme.

3) If we go by official "Marxism-Leninism," the economies of Eastern Europe when under Soviet influence were heterogenous. Only two of them "achieved socialism" while the others remained "people's democracies":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Constitution_of_Czechoslovakia#Overview

Therefore, the term state monopoly capitalism or state-capitalist monopoly apply to the remaining "people's democracies."

Then throw genuine market socialism (Lange, not Deng) into the mix and you get a more complicated picture:


One must distinguish different possible schemes of socialism

1. The Kautsky, Lenin, Webb, Trotsky model of nationalised industries producing commodities without planning with the market guiding production.
1a) The Deng model which has the above with the addition of a private sector of industry and some foreign concessions.

2. The Stalin, Khrushchev system of planned production with a much more limited role for markets but with the retention of money for wages, peasant markets and internal accounting.

3. The Tito, Mondragon, Schweikart model of workers control where independent worker owned cooperatives coordinated by the market.

4. Marx's first stage with common ownership, some sort of plan presumably and labour tokens. This is also what the Dutch left communist proposed in the 30s.

5. Marx's second stage where this is modified by some distribution according to need.

6. The Neurath, Remak, Glushkov proposal for the abolition of money and detailed cybernetic planning in kind.

I favour some combination of the Glushkov and the first-stage Marx proposals as initial goals.


I put Kautsky in that group because of his arguments in Social Revolution
I put Lenin there because when he talks of accounting and control it is all in monetary terms. There is no talk of planning in kind.
As to why Trotsky is there in group 1:

In other words, Lenin's infamous dictum on state-capitalist monopoly applies perfectly to market socialism.

[Zanthorus]

As a note, I have decided to give up debating DNZ on this issue. I will return when he has some worthwhile comments to make with regards Marx's critique of political economy, rather than just apologia which tries to paper over the cracks in Second International Orthodoxy. Other than that, I think pouring through this nice new copy of Negri's Books for Burning would be a better use of my time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I did respond:

No Marxist has ever called The Social Revolution "resurrected and tenacious Proudhonism."


As Zanthorus has pointed out before, Marx himself reviewed instances where a state monopoly or other instances where the individual firms may not be extant, are still instances, for Marx, of the capitalist mode of production.

In those instances, the state still co-existed with the domestic bourgeoisie.

[chegitz guevara]

What would you call the Soviet Union?

I consider the USSR to have been a degenerated workers state, as defined by Trotsky. I think the theory has some shortcomings, if it wasn't capitalism, and it wasn't socialism, what was it? But it's pretty clear it wasn't capitalism.

[chegitz guevara]

That capitalism requires 'private ownership' to function is utter bullshit.

As far as individual capitals are concerned, yes. While I haven't read enough Marx to be sure, I'd be surprised if he postulated that an entire society of publicly owned capitalism was possible.

[Tim Finnegan]

Commodity production assumes capitalism, because a commodity is a good or service produced for the purpose of exchange, not for use.
I was of the understanding that "simple commodity production" existed before capitalism. Have I misunderstood? :confused:

[Savage]

As far as individual capitals are concerned, yes. While I haven't read enough Marx to be sure, I'd be surprised if he postulated that an entire society of publicly owned capitalism was possible.
You might be interested in this book, http://libcom.org/library/paresh-chattopadhyay-marxian-concept-capital-soviet-experience

[Jose Gracchus]

I was of the understanding that "simple commodity production" existed before capitalism. Have I misunderstood? :confused:

I think here the good fellow means "generalized commodity production".

[Die Neue Zeit]

It goes:

Primitive communism

Simple commodity production (various "modes" or "sub-modes" such as slave, Asiatic, feudal, etc.)

Generalized commodity production (the subject of debate in this thread)

Communist production

This framework is also a criticism of the ortho-Marxist schema of primitive-slave-feudal-capitalist-socialist/communist.