State Socialism is Bureaucratic Collectivism

[YugoslavSocialist]

Why State Socialism is Bureaucratic Collectivism. remember both support central planning.

State Socialism: A political and economic system in which the state has control over all industries and services and not the capitalists or the workers.

Bureaucratic Collectivism: A political and economic system in which a bureaucratic collectivist state owns the means of production, while the surplus ("profit") is distributed among an elite party bureaucracy ("nomenklatura"), rather than among the working class. Also, most importantly, it is the bureaucracy—not the workers or the people in general—who controls the economy and the state. Thus, the system is not truly capitalist, but it is not socialist either.

See the similarities.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

That's because this so called "bureaucratic collectivist state" is a synonymous term for the same thing. (If you mean state capitalism.)

[Let's Get Free]

"State socialism" is a contradiction in terms

[Conscript]

Bureaucratic collectivism is not a mode of production.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I study psychology at a college level, in psychology, we call this form of reasoning deductive reasoning. It's quite faulty, I'll show you why with a demonstration.

Democrats like free speech

Dictators aren't democrats

Dictators don't like free speech

What's wrong with that you say? Let me apply the same reasoning in another area.

All birds can fly

Penguins can't fly

Therefore, Penguins aren't birds.


See what you did wrong now? Try again next time

[Blake's Baby]

The person in my avatar, Wilhelm Leibknecht, said in 1895 'no-one has done more than I to demonstrate that "state socialism" is nothing but state capitalism'.

So - there is no 'state socialism'. Even Coup d'Etat (who's an Anarchist, and might be expected to rely somewhat on Bakunin at this point) doesn't believe in it. Why anyone who might consider themselves a Marxist should do so is beyond me. Have you ever read the Critique of the Gotha Programme, YugoslavSocialist? It pretty convincingly demolishes Lassalle's 'state socialist' programme.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/

[Zulu]

All birds can fly

Penguins can't fly

Therefore, Penguins aren't birds.


Eeeh... Pshychologist!

The conclusion is logically correct, it's the first premise that is false.

See what you did wrong?
:tt2:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Bureaucratic collectivism doesn't make sense as a Marxist theory. If there's only a working class and a ruling elite, then the ruling elite can't in practice siphon off profits/control the economy; to do so they need to be a class, in which case it's not bureaucratic collectivism, state socialism or other, it's capitalism, which is what the OP is describing.

[YugoslavSocialist]

Bureaucratic collectivism doesn't make sense as a Marxist theory. If there's only a working class and a ruling elite, then the ruling elite can't in practice siphon off profits/control the economy; to do so they need to be a class, in which case it's not bureaucratic collectivism, state socialism or other, it's capitalism, which is what the OP is describing.

Have you ever read the book 1984 or Animal Farm by George Orwell? read that and you will understand what Bureaucratic collectivism is.

[goalkeeper]

Have you ever read the book 1984 or Animal Farm by George Orwell? read that and you will understand what Bureaucratic collectivism is.

No, I think The Boss' objection to the term Bureaucratic Collectivism is that it doesn't clearly define who the ruling class that society is. If you can make a convincing case that the Bureaucracy became itself a class, I'm willing to listen. But in general Bureaucrats have always just been administrative functionaries of the state, facilitating the class rule of an economic class e.g. slave holders, landlords, or capitalists, not a class in themselves.

[YugoslavSocialist]

No, I think The Boss' objection to the term Bureaucratic Collectivism is that it doesn't clearly define who the ruling class that society is.

In Bureaucratic Collectivism the ruling class are the inner bureaucratic members of the ruling party. And they are the ones who control the country and the economy.

The Party bureaucracy makes policy, owns the means of production, plans the economy, affect decisions, and govern; they are The Ruling Party, and constitute the ruling class of a Bureaucratic Collectivist state. They live in comfortable homes, have good food and drink. Party bureaucrats members make up less than 1% of the population and they live off the labor of the Proletariat.
Does that ring a bell?

[Ostrinski]

I don't think the surpluses are distributed among the party elite, that neglects an understanding of how the Soviet economy works. The centrally planned economic system requires that most of the surpluses be reinvested into the maintenance of the economy and the state.

I am more willing to accept state-capitalism because what the bureaucratic collectivist theory doesn't address is what exactly the ruling class is. What the basis for it's reproduction and the maintenance of its hegemony are. And in my opinion, most importantly, how exactly the relationship between the worker and this "bureaucratic elite" is fundamentally different from the relationship between worker and capitalist.

I think the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) and working class (the proletariat) exist in relation to each other and only in relation to each other. They are defined in relation to each other. A capitalist class, a class that extracts the value of surplus labor in the form of profit can only exist in relation to a class that in turn sells this labor power for a monetary representation of a fraction of its output, or what we would conventionally and more simply call a working class.

But how does a working class, a class that sells labor power for wages to subsist, relate to a class that does not relate back to it in kind? How does the categorization of the working class remain the same, but the new ruling class become completely different? It's nonsensical and it doesn't follow through. If this mysterious "bureaucratic elite (a term I had figured we'd leave for the conservatively inclined folk)" is a new class, then it so has to follow that the laboring class also had to be a new class.

[YugoslavSocialist]

I don't think the surpluses are distributed among the party elite, that neglects an understanding of how the Soviet economy works. The centrally planned economic system requires that most of the surpluses be reinvested into the maintenance of the economy and the state.

I am more willing to accept state-capitalism because what the bureaucratic collectivist theory doesn't address is what exactly the ruling class is.

In Bureaucratic Collectivism the ruling class are the inner bureaucratic members of the ruling party. The ruling party is the ruling class.
Just read 1984 to understand more.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Have you ever read the book 1984 or Animal Farm by George Orwell? read that and you will understand what Bureaucratic collectivism is.

But they're fiction books and not particularly accurate portrayals of what goes on in the real world, sooo??

[Blake's Baby]

In Bureaucratic Collectivism the ruling class are the inner bureaucratic members of the ruling party. The ruling party is the ruling class.
Just read 1984 to understand more.

You just keep saying the same things over and over again.

We get the situation you're failing to describe. We understand the critique of the Soviet Union that you think you're elaborating. We know what Orwell was saying.

But you going 'this equals itself by my definition of these things!' and us saying 'so what?' and you saying 'but Orwell said that this equals itself by my definition of things!' really has all the explanatory power of an advertisment for carpet freshner. Sorry.

[Red Banana]

@YugoslavSocialist How does 'Bureaucratic Collectivism' differ from State Capitalism? The way you explain it just sounds like State Capitalism.

[YugoslavSocialist]

@YugoslavSocialist How does 'Bureaucratic Collectivism' differ from State Capitalism? The way you explain it just sounds like State Capitalism.

State Capitalism applies to the current economic system of modern day China and Singapore.
Let me quote Ian Bremmer on State Capitalism
"In this system, governments use various kinds of state-owned companies to manage the exploitation of resources that they consider the state's crown jewels and to create and maintain large numbers of jobs. They use select privately owned companies to dominate certain economic sectors. They use so-called sovereign wealth funds to invest their extra cash in ways that maximize the state's profits. In all three cases, the state is using markets to create wealth that can be directed as political officials see fit. And in all three cases, the ultimate motive is not economic (maximizing growth) but political (maximizing the state's power and the leadership's chances of survival). This is a form of capitalism but one in which the state acts as the dominant economic player and uses markets primarily for political gain."

Bureaucratic Collectivism applies to the economic system of the Stalinist states such as DPRK and Albania under Hoxha.

[Ostrinski]

In Bureaucratic Collectivism the ruling class are the inner bureaucratic members of the ruling party. The ruling party is the ruling class.
Just read 1984 to understand more.Yeah, I understand how the Communist Party of the Soviet Union operated politically. You're preaching to the choir here. Agree that the ruling class were the bureaucracy that in turn had control over the ruling party in the Soviet Union. Where you are wrong lies in your assertion that the ruling class and by extension the entire mode of productive relations were a historically unique and historically unprecedented manifestation of economic condition.

You still have refused to address the question of how the concrete relationship between the working class and the Stalinist bureaucracy was fundamentally distinguishable from the relationship between the working class and capitalist class in market-commercial economies. You also have not answered my question of how the working class as a specific historical, economic, and sociological category can exist in relation to anything other than a capitalist class.

Oh, and please stop insisting that we uphold a work of fiction as something that is supposed to stand as an argument against what are actual theoretical and practical issues. It's kind of bizarre. A piece of fiction is a work of art and nothing more and shouldn't be treated as anything more or less than that. 1984 was one of Orwell's less than amazing works, in any event.

I mean it would be like if I told you that we should forego any in depth class analysis of the phenomenon of fascism in Europe in the early-mid twentieth century and instead insisted that you look at a picture of Picasso's Guernica as the reason for why fascism sucks.

[Ostrinski]

State Capitalism applies to the current economic system of modern day China and Singapore.
Let me quote Ian Bremmer on State Capitalism
"In this system, governments use various kinds of state-owned companies to manage the exploitation of resources that they consider the state's crown jewels and to create and maintain large numbers of jobs. They use select privately owned companies to dominate certain economic sectors. They use so-called sovereign wealth funds to invest their extra cash in ways that maximize the state's profits. In all three cases, the state is using markets to create wealth that can be directed as political officials see fit. And in all three cases, the ultimate motive is not economic (maximizing growth) but political (maximizing the state's power and the leadership's chances of survival). This is a form of capitalism but one in which the state acts as the dominant economic player and uses markets primarily for political gain."

Bureaucratic Collectivism applies to the economic system of the Stalinist states such as DPRK and Albania under Hoxha.Modern day China and Singapore are not state-capitalist, they are plain ol' market economies with all your standard capitalist characteristics and traditions. I am a bit puzzled as to why you seem to think Singapore is state-capitalist, though. China is understandable because there is still a hefty amount of state control over industry in some areas of the economy but Singapore is often heralded by folks on the right as one of the greatest laissez-faire business friendly economies on this earth at the moment.

But by Dr. Bremmer's standards here, we would have to be inclined to designate every or at least most economies in the world as state-capitalist, and furthermore, the only manifestation of capitalist relations of production possible to boot!

[Blake's Baby]

Well, that's certainly the view that I uphold. 'State capitalist' effectively stands in distinction to 'laissez faire'. In most economies in the world, the state is the biggest actor in the economy, typically being responsible for about 40% of the economy, as opposed to typically less than 5% in the 19th century.

'State capitalism' thus means 'the (increasing) interpenetration of capitalism and the state' - something Engels began to analyse in the 1880s.



EDIT: when trying to type "19th" I accidently typed "10th". Which would be a whole different argument.