What is statecapitalism exactly?

[Anarchrusty]

I've been reading this term a lot on the boards here, in relation to socialist countries like North Korea, USSR, Vietnam etc.
Could someone explain to me what the word means, and why you use it for these countries? Why are they undeserving of the name socialism? Is socialism flawed according to you there, and if so, why?

[Anarchrusty]

Anyone?

[ProletarianResurrection]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1901/evangel/stmonsoc.htm

[redtex]

From what I understand state capitalism is when the state acts as a capitalist itself. Capitalists are the enemy, thus, a state acting as a capitalist is the enemy.

[The Idler]

A society which exhibits the feature of capitalism;


surplus value is extracted from workers
banks provide credit
goods are produced for profit not need

Except instead of private individuals it is done by the state.

[Revolutionair]

I prefer to call it national capitalism.


The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

[el_chavista]

Trotskyists have two ways how referring to the former USSR:


as a "degenerated workers State"
as "State capitalism" (Taffeists, I think)

BTW, there is an author of many articles about Cuba in the leftist sites "Kaos en la Red" and "Rebelión" Roberto Cobas (in Spanish http://www.kaosenlared.net/colaboradores/robertocobasavivar and http://www.rebelion.org/mostrar.php?tipo=5&id=Roberto%20Cobas%20Avivar&inicio=0 ), and who seems to have an anarchist stand in calling the Cuban experience "State socialism" (a contradiction according to the theory but a kind of a polite way to referring to the Soviet model of the Cuban government.)

In any case these terms denote that there is no bourgeoisie: the State substituted it. The implication is that the working class is not really the ruling class (the bureaucratic officials have the effective control of the means of production).

[Rafiq]

An overly used term, that of which I'm sick of hearing.

[EvilRedGuy]

State-Capitalism is basically traitors like Kim Jong-il's, Stalin and everyone after him, Cuba, Venezuela, Maoist China, and other countries where the working class have absolute no power. Atleast.... The markets have not full power like there is in "Free-Market-Capitalism" but the state takes over as the authoritarian fuck instead of the markets. Anarchists uses "State-Capitalism" while Trotskyists have their own version called "Degenerated Workers State" not sure if its the same though.

[Dumb]

An overly used term, that of which I'm sick of hearing.

Why's that?

[Rafiq]

Why's that?

Because it is more along the lines of a Moralist criticism of the USSR rather than a Materialist one.

Supporting the USSR at that time was of little interest to the proletariat, and that is it.

We don't oppose regimes because they are capitalist. We oppose them because they are Bourgeois, and capitalism is a systematic process of keeping the Bourgeoisie in power. It wasn't the same in the Soviet Union.

[Dumb]

That's by far the best rebuttal I've seen or heard regarding "state capitalism."

[JoeySteel]

I believe Lenin categorized the Soviet Union as state capitalist during the NEP, in a positive way, saying it was a step up from straight up capitalism as it was under the heel of the DoP.

Usually when you hear it here it's a way for people to argue that the states which came into being in the 20th century out of sections of the workers' movement seizing power had nothing to do with socialism, and that rather their pet tendency or theory is real socialism, which hasn't occurred yet. The socialist trappings on these countries then are an elaborate masquerade to conceal the rule of a new bourgeoisie according to this type of thinking. Also weird to me, considering how easy it is to have a capitalist country without keeping up the facade of international communism.

(Edit: EvilRedGuy expressed this well above - many of these types of state-capitalism proponents hold that every revolution was betrayed, or that bad people who weren't "true" socialists took over, and deviously operated capitalism in secret while spending a lot of time pretending it is socialism. I think it's much more simple and accurate to say that states established by communists for the purpose of building socialism were doing just that. Rather than coming up with an after-the-fact explanation to claim that they weren't really socialist because they didn't correspond exactly to how an individual thinks they are supposed to be, it makes much more sense to say that socialist countries have not perfectly corresponded to what a person's particular pet tendency said they would look like. It's a bit like the right-wingers, libertarians, who claim that there aren't any "real" capitalist countries, or that the USA isn't "real" capitalism because it doesn't perfectly conform to the Mises version of what real capitalism is supposed to look like. It's not scientific.)

Orthodox Maoism has sometimes classified the socialist countries it didn't get along with as state capitalist, but even though I have an affinity for maoism myself I don't understand the maoist explanation of what state capitalism is and it seems to be more of an international conflict than a coherent theoretical understanding.

Hoxhaists seem to use state capitalism in the same way Lenin did, as something run by socialists that is more progressive than private capitalism and on the way to socialism. This makes more sense to me than the Mao definition but I don't really agree with it either.

If there ever actually has been something that should be classified as state capitalism, it would probably be the NEP Soviet Union , and modern China, Vietnam and Laos under the DOP, but I'm not prepared to make and argue the claim myself.

[Rooster]

(Edit: EvilRedGuy expressed this well above - many of these types of state-capitalism proponents hold that every revolution was betrayed, or that bad people who weren't "true" socialists took over, and deviously operated capitalism in secret while spending a lot of time pretending it is socialism.

What about all the people killed in the great purge and at the Moscow show trials? Where they all capitalist wreckers masquerading around as socialists? What about the restoration of capital in the USSR? Was that caused by conscious or unconscious revisionists?

[JoeySteel]

What about all the people killed in the great purge and at the Moscow show trials? Where they all capitalist wreckers masquerading around as socialists?

There's probably more evidence for the latter than evidence for the great revolutionaries of the 20th century being secret capitalists. Theoretically it would be more plausible if the state capitalist hypothesis argued that objectively communists have always built capitalism while they thought they were building socialism, and maybe some express it that way, but I don't buy that either. Socialism also isn't predicated on there not being deaths or violent struggle within leadership, so even if you think the people convicted of crimes in the 1930's were all totally innocent it doesn't tell me that the USSR was state capitalist.


What about the restoration of capital in the USSR? Was that caused by conscious or unconscious revisionists?

Good question! I cannot provide a certain answer but it's something I hope to investigate more. I don't like to make claims without being able to fully justify them so I'm not going to try and properly answer this.

[Anarchrusty]

A society which exhibits the feature of capitalism;


surplus value is extracted from workers
banks provide credit
goods are produced for profit not need
Except instead of private individuals it is done by the state.

So do you think those systems were/are in a transtional state, and if yes, what features of socialism did they have?
If not, why not? And do you think they never intended to create a true socialist state?

I've been trying to read up on the Russian Revolution and to me it seems Lenin had his heart in the right place. Too bad there were that many counter revolutionaries and they had to institute a thing like war communism.
Would the USSR eventually have had more of a chance to reach the state Marx envisioned hadn't there been so many dissidents and opposition?