How do Marxist-Leninists reconcile the existence of ...

[Tim Cornelis]

How do Marxist-Leninists reconcile the existence of generalised commodity production and money with the absence of capital? How is that possible? Surely, money and commodity production implies C-M-C (or M-C-M)?

[ind_com]

We define socialism not as a single and static mode of production but a dynamic transitional stage characterized by the DotP. We do not think that commodity production can be eliminated without socialist revolutions consolidating themselves worldwide.

[Tim Cornelis]

We define socialism not as a single and static mode of production but a dynamic transitional stage characterized by the DotP. We do not think that commodity production can be eliminated without socialist revolutions consolidating themselves worldwide.

If socialism is based on generalised commodity production and money and such involves their circulation through C-M-C, i.e. capital, then what you just said means socialism is a form of capitalism. So then would you object to the use of state-capitalism to characterise the Soviet Union or China under Mao? Surely, Leninist terminology refers to lower-phase communism as socialism, i.e. as in the mode of production?

[ind_com]

If socialism is based on generalised commodity production and money and such involves their circulation through C-M-C, i.e. capital, then what you just said means socialism is a form of capitalism. Surely, Leninist terminology refers to lower-phase communism as socialism, i.e. as in the mode of production?

Socialism is not fully based on commodity production, but commodity production prevails in the first stages of socialism. When socialism is consolidated worldwide, then commodity production is gradually ended. Indeed, socialism contains many remnants of capitalism which are fully eliminated only when communism starts.

Lenin vacillated on his definition of socialism. But at some point of time Lenin did believe socialism to be the lower phase of communism and a classless society.

[Tim Cornelis]

Socialism is not fully based on commodity production, but commodity production prevails in the first stages of socialism. When socialism is consolidated worldwide, then commodity production is gradually ended. Indeed, socialism contains many remnants of capitalism which are fully eliminated only when communism starts.

Lenin vacillated on his definition of socialism. But at some point of time Lenin did believe socialism to be the lower phase of communism and a classless society.

This merely clears up your position towards socialism, one I do not agree with but that's not the topic of discussion. Do you agree that capital exists under socialism then? And if so, that socialism is a variety of capitalism? If not, I assume this is because commodity production doesn't "fully" prevail under socialism. In which case what do you mean by that socialism is not "fully" based on commodity production?

[ind_com]

This merely clears up your position towards socialism, one I do not agree with but that's not the topic of discussion. Do you agree that capital exists under socialism then? And if so, that socialism is a variety of capitalism? If not, I assume this is because commodity production doesn't "fully" prevail under socialism. In which case what do you mean by that socialism is not "fully" based on commodity production?

Capital does exist under the early stages of socialism, but the existence of capital is not enough to identify a society as capitalist. Capital existed in feudal societies too, but feudalism is not a variety of capitalism. The feature of socialism that distinguishes it from capitalism is that socialist is DotP, while capitalism is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

[kasama-rl]

Socialism is (as ind-com says) a transition between class society and communism...

And while commodity production continues (of necessity) for a long time under socialism, the break point is that the law of value does not govern the society... i.e. that labor power is not a commodity.

Commodity production has existed in all previous societies (and there is even evidence of commodity production for trade back in the earliest days of modern Homo Sapiens). It is not the existence of commodities that marks capitalism as a society, but that (under capitalism) human labor power itself becomes a commodity (in fact a special commodity) in the capitalist markets. That is what is overthrown with the socialist revolution (though we have learned that its juridical abolition is not the same as its actual abolition).

[Conscript]

This may be helpful.


It is sometimes asked whether the law of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system.

Yes, it does exist and does operate. Wherever commodities and commodity production exist, there the law of value must also exist.

In our country, the sphere of operation of the law of value extends, first of all, to commodity circulation, to the ex-change of commodities through purchase and sale, the ex-change, chiefly, of articles of personal consumption. Here, in this sphere, the law of value preserves, within certain limits, of course, the function of a regulator.

But the operation of the law of value is not confined to the sphere of commodity circulation. It also extends to production. True, the law of value has no regulating function in our socialist production, but it nevertheless influences production, and this fact cannot be ignored when directing production. As a matter of fact, consumer goods, which arc needed to compensate the labour power expended in the process of production, are produced and realized in our country as commodities coming under the operation of the law of value. It is precisely here that the law of value exercises its influence on production. In this connection, such things as cost accounting and profitableness, production costs, prices, etc., are of actual importance in our enterprises. Consequently, our enterprises cannot, and must not, function without taking the law of value into account.

[Tim Cornelis]

Capital does exist under the early stages of socialism, but the existence of capital is not enough to identify a society as capitalist. Capital existed in feudal societies too, but feudalism is not a variety of capitalism. The feature of socialism that distinguishes it from capitalism is that socialist is DotP, while capitalism is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

So socialism is a political means of governance as opposed to a mode of production? If DOTP already adequately describes this transitional phase, why call it "socialism" as well. This even diverges from Leninist terminology that believed, while some state may continue to exist under lower-phase communism/socialism, it would not be a DOTP as classes have disappeared. It would exist to regulate "bourgeois" law of distribution according to contribution.

Capital didn't exist under feudalism though.*


Socialism is (as ind-com says) a transition between class society and communism...

And while commodity production continues (of necessity) for a long time under socialism, the break point is that the law of value does not govern the society... i.e. that labor power is not a commodity.

Commodity production has existed in all previous societies (and there is even evidence of commodity production for trade back in the earliest days of modern Homo Sapiens). It is not the existence of commodities that marks capitalism as a society, but that (under capitalism) human labor power itself becomes a commodity (in fact a special commodity) in the capitalist markets. That is what is overthrown with the socialist revolution (though we have learned that its juridical abolition is not the same as its actual abolition).

Wage-labour likewise predates capitalism. The difference is generalised commodity production which is capitalist production. This wouldn't exist? Could you elaborate.

In Marxism-Leninism there tends to be a discrepancy in theory and practice, which I see stemming from wishful thinking and thus swallowing propaganda predicating the absence of wage-labour under their "socialist" system. Do you believe that wage-labour did not exist in Maoist China or Stalinist Russia?

Do you believe generalised commodity production didn't exist in Maoist China or Stalinist Russia.

*Capital didn't exist under feudalism.


But though every capital is a sum of commodities – i.e., of exchange values – it does not follow that every sum of commodities, of exchange values, is capital.

Every sum of exchange values is an exchange value. Each particular exchange value is a sum of exchange values. For example: a house worth 1,000 pounds is an exchange value of 1,000 pounds: a piece of paper worth one penny is a sum of exchange values of 100 1/100ths of a penny. Products which are exchangeable for others are commodities. The definite proportion in which they are exchangeable forms their exchange value, or, expressed in money, their price. The quantity of these products can have no effect on their character as commodities, as representing an exchange value , as having a certain price. Whether a tree be large or small, it remains a tree. Whether we exchange iron in pennyweights or in hundredweights, for other products, does this alter its character: its being a commodity, or exchange value? According to the quantity, it is a commodity of greater or of lesser value, of higher or of lower price.

How then does a sum of commodities, of exchange values, become capital?

Thereby, that as an independent social power – i.e., as the power of a part of society – it preserves itself and multiplies by exchange with direct, living labour-power.

The existence of a class which possesses nothing but the ability to work is a necessary presupposition of capital.

It is only the dominion of past, accumulated, materialized labour over immediate living labour that stamps the accumulated labour with the character of capital.

Capital does not consist in the fact that accumulated labour serves living labour as a means for new production. It consists in the fact that living labour serves accumulated labour as the means of preserving and multiplying its exchange value.

From, Wage-labour and Capital


It is sometimes asked whether the law of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system.

Yes, it does exist and does operate. Wherever commodities and commodity production exist, there the law of value must also exist.

In our country, the sphere of operation of the law of value extends, first of all, to commodity circulation, to the ex-change of commodities through purchase and sale, the ex-change, chiefly, of articles of personal consumption. Here, in this sphere, the law of value preserves, within certain limits, of course, the function of a regulator.

But the operation of the law of value is not confined to the sphere of commodity circulation. It also extends to production. True, the law of value has no regulating function in our socialist production, but it nevertheless influences production, and this fact cannot be ignored when directing production. As a matter of fact, consumer goods, which arc needed to compensate the labour power expended in the process of production, are produced and realized in our country as commodities coming under the operation of the law of value. It is precisely here that the law of value exercises its influence on production. In this connection, such things as cost accounting and profitableness, production costs, prices, etc., are of actual importance in our enterprises. Consequently, our enterprises cannot, and must not, function without taking the law of value into account.

Commodity production, exchange, profits, law of value, enterprises, no, nothing capitalistic about that. Ironically, I remember reading Economic Problems when I still described the USSR as "state-socialist" and made me look into state-capitalist theories.

[Conscript]

Revisionism a tad too bitter, Tim?

I sure did love that work when I was an ML. Then I realized how 'holy shit' revisionist it was, and written by an 'anti-revisionist' no less.

That entire excerpt is basically Stalin justifying how socialist it is to use the world market and commodity production. He bankrupts SIOC right there.

[Blake's Baby]

...

Capital didn't exist under feudalism though.*

...

*Capital didn't exist under feudalism.

...

Yeah it did. 'Capital' predates both 'capitalism (1)' and 'capitalists'. And long pre-dates 'capital as a system' - what we call 'capitalism (2)'.

The term 'capitalism' can either relate to capitalism as behaviour, capitalism (1) - or the 'capitalist relation', where commodities are produced by wage labour, which dates back to 500BC at the latest - or capitalism as a generalised system, capitalism (2), where it can be said to date back to c. AD1400 at the earliest, around the developing mercantile relationship between England and Flanders, and develop over the next 600 years into the globalised system that we see now.

But, that doesn't change the fundamental point, that wage labour and commodity production are what define capitalism, and therefore what our learned Maoists describe as 'socialism' is in fact capitalism.

[Luís Henrique]

How do Marxist-Leninists reconcile the existence of generalised commodity production and money with the absence of capital? How is that possible? Surely, money and commodity production implies C-M-C (or M-C-M)?

C-M-C cannot be generalised; it implies a largely subsistence economy, where only occasional excedents are exchanged. M-C-M' implies capitalism, and tends to get generalised.

Money does not imply M-C-M', only C-M-C. Money is not (necessarily) capital; capital does not (necessarily) imply capitalism.

Evidently, the unchallenged existence of money and wages for several decades means that a transition is not happening at all, but the idea that we can transform a capitalist economy into communism instantly - and, what is worse, by merely changing the modes of distribution - is absurd.

We will inherit a productive apparatus designed to accumulate capital, not to fulfill the needs of workers. We will need to transform it into a productive apparatus designed to fulfill the needs of workers, not to accumulate capital. This cannot be done overnight. You can't have a productive apparatus designed to fulfill the needs of workers where a huge part of the production is the production of weapons, social-status-markers, or means of production intended to maximise the exploitation of workers at the work places.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Capital didn't exist under feudalism though.*

Of course it did; how not?

Capital is at least 2,500 years old; it has existed under feudal, slaveholder, and "asiatic" societies. What it did not was to take control of production. This, it was only able to do some 350-250 years ago (there is a transition here, too, which is characterised by formal subordination of labour, which comes before real subordination of labour).

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Yeah it did. 'Capital' predates both 'capitalism (1)' and 'capitalists'. And long pre-dates 'capital as a system' - what we call 'capitalism (2)'.

The term 'capitalism' can either relate to capitalism as behaviour, capitalism (1) - where commodities are produced by wage labour, which dates back to 500BC at the latest - or capitalism as a generalised system, capitalism (2), where it can be said to date back to c. AD1400 around the developing mercantile relationship between England and Flanders, and develop over the next 600 years into the globalised system that we see now.

No, it cannot. Capitalism is a mode of production, characterised by the exploitation of workers through wages and surplus value. This only starts circa 1650-1750, by absolutely no means in 1400, much less in 500 BC!


But, that doesn't change the fundamental point, that wage labour and commodity production are what define capitalism, and therefore what our learned Maoists describe as 'socialism' is in fact capitalism.

Obviously what defines capitalism is the accumulation of capital through production of commodities, not wage labour or commodity production per se.

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

No, it cannot. Capitalism is a mode of production, characterised by the exploitation of workers through wages and surplus value. This only starts circa 1650-1750, by absolutely no means in 1400, much less in 500 BC! ...

Capitalism as a mode of production begins around AD1400 at the earliest I said. If you want to claim that the bourgeois revolution happened in England before capitalism (how? Where does the leverage for the bourgeoisie to exapand its economic power in order to provide a basis for its political domination come from?), good luck to you, but in essence I agree with your contention, even though you're dating it too late.

'capitalist behaviour' - 'the capitalist relation' - ie commodity production through wage labour - as you so succinctly put it "the exploitation of workers through wages and surplus value" (with the implication I think that we're talking about commodity production), goes back to 500BC or before. It just wasn't generalised throughout the economy.



...
Obviously what defines capitalism is the accumulation of capital through production of commodities, not wage labour or commodity production per se.

Luís Henrique

I disagree, what characterises capitalism as a hegemonic mode of production is indeed the generalisation of commodity production through wage labour - as you might say, "wage labour AND commodity production per se". It is possible to imagine any number of modes of production that have as their aim the accumulation of capital, doesn't make them all capitalist. Expanded reproduction under a slave economy is possible, without it being capitalist, for example; expanded reproduction is not therefore a characteristic of capitalism not shared by other systems. Wage labour and commodity production are what diferentiates capitalism from other systems.

[Luís Henrique]

Capitalism as a mode of production begins around AD1400 at the earliest I said. If you want to claim that the bourgeois revolution happened in England before capitalism (how? Where does the leverage for the bourgeoisie to exapand its economic power in order to provide a basis for its political domination come from?), good luck to you, but in essence I agree with your contention, even though you're dating it too late.

Of course the English revolution predates the inception of capitalism; the removal of the feudal State was necessary for the development of capitalist relations of production (how not? how would it be possible to put the necessary legislation without removing the feudal State?)


'capitalist behaviour' - 'the capitalist relation' - ie commodity production through wage labour - as you so succinctly put it "the exploitation of workers through wages and surplus value" (with the implication I think that we're talking about commodity production), goes back to 500BC or before. It just wasn't generalised throughout the economy.

The exploitation of workers through wages and surplus value cannot be confused with the relations between journeymen and craft masters, much less with the most typical kind of wage "labour" before the middle ages - the hiring of foremen.

What constitutes capitalism is exactly the generalisation of wage exploitation throughout the economy - particularly the subjection of productive workers to wage exploitation.


I disagree, what characterises capitalism as a hegemonic mode of production is indeed the generalisation of commodity production through wage labour - as you might say, "wage labour AND commodity production per se". It is possible to imagine any number of modes of production that have as their aim the accumulation of capital, doesn't make them all capitalist. Expanded reproduction under a slave economy is possible, without it being capitalist, for example; expanded reproduction is not therefore a characteristic of capitalism not shared by other systems. Wage labour and commodity production are what diferentiates capitalism from other systems.

Of course expanded reproduction is possible under a "slave economy"; it is possible for all modes of production, "primitive communism" included. But the funds of a slave owner do not constitute capital by no means. Means of production, in and of themselves, are not "capital", expanded reproduction, in and of itself, is not "accumulation of capital". Consequently, the only mode of production that has accumulation of capital as the end of production is capitalism.

Generalised wage labour and commodity production are what differentiate capitalism from other systems - because they are a symptom of the real difference, namely, the subjection of production to capital. Other systems may have had capital, but then it didn't possess the productive process; they may have had wage labour, but then it wasn't used to the reproduction of capital; and they may have had commodity production, but then those commodities weren't the "commodity form" within the cycle of capital reproduction.

***************

This discussion, I think, is intimately linked with the recent discussion on the petty bourgeoisie; if the existence of "simple commodity production" is denied, then it obviously follows that the petty bourgeoisie is merely an appendix of the bourgeoisie, its lower layer; and that all commodity production is of necessity capitalist. This simply abolishes history, or rather reduces it to the history of capital; consequently, it transforms capital into a trans-historical category, which cannot be abolished.

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

Of course the English revolution predates the inception of capitalism; the removal of the feudal State was necessary for the development of capitalist relations of production (how not? how would it be possible to put the necessary legislation without removing the feudal State?)...

Wow. I'm a Marxist. I think political changes reflect economic changes. The bourgeoisie developed its economic power for a good couple of centuries before it attempted to acheive political power - only when feudalism became a fetter to further development was it overthrown.



...
The exploitation of workers through wages and surplus value cannot be confused with the relations between journeymen and craft masters, much less with the most typical kind of wage "labour" before the middle ages - the hiring of foremen...

And in England, the 'Middle Ages' are generally considered to have ended in the 1400, comrade. Not the 1600s. There's a good argument that the Poll Tax Rebellion of 1381 is the first 'bourgeois' rebellion against feudalism.


...What constitutes capitalism is exactly the generalisation of wage exploitation throughout the economy - particularly the subjection of productive workers to wage exploitation...

Absolutely. I have no problem with this at all.



...
Of course expanded reproduction is possible under a "slave economy"; it is possible for all modes of production, "primitive communism" included. But the funds of a slave owner do not constitute capital by no means. Means of production, in and of themselves, are not "capital", expanded reproduction, in and of itself, is not "accumulation of capital". Consequently, the only mode of production that has accumulation of capital as the end of production is capitalism...

No, sorry, you need to explain this better. If your argument is that capitalism is capitalism because the point of capitalism is the accumulation of capital, but other systems can also be characterised by the accumulation of capital (after we agreed that capital long predates capitalism) then I fail to see what makes capitalism capitalism in your view.


...Generalised wage labour and commodity production are what differentiate capitalism from other systems - because they are a symptom of the real difference, namely, the subjection of production to capital. Other systems may have had capital, but then it didn't possess the productive process; they may have had wage labour, but then it wasn't used to the reproduction of capital; and they may have had commodity production, but then those commodities weren't the "commodity form" within the cycle of capital reproduction.

***************

This discussion, I think, is intimately linked with the recent discussion on the petty bourgeoisie; if the existence of "simple commodity production" is denied, then it obviously follows that the petty bourgeoisie is merely an appendix of the bourgeoisie, its lower layer; and that all commodity production is of necessity capitalist. This simply abolishes history, or rather reduces it to the history of capital; consequently, it transforms capital into a trans-historical category, which cannot be abolished.

Luís Henrique

I'm a Luxemburgist, I have absolutely no problem with the notion of 'simple commodity production', that's why I was keen to stress that even though 'the capitalist relation' - commodity production through wage labour - existed from 500BC at the latest, the system wasn't capitalist because the majority of commodity production was simple commodity production, and the majority of production wasn't commodity production at all.

[Luís Henrique]

Wow. I'm a Marxist. I think political changes reflect economic changes. The bourgeoisie developed its economic power for a good couple of centuries before it attempted to acheive political power - only when feudalism became a fetter to further development was it overthrown.

So, should the proletariat develop its economic power for a good couple of centuries before it attempts to achieve political power?

If not, what "economic changes" will the proletarian revolution "reflect"?


And in England, the 'Middle Ages' are generally considered to have ended in the 1400, comrade. Not the 1600s. There's a good argument that the Poll Tax Rebellion of 1381 is the first 'bourgeois' rebellion against feudalism.The general datation is that the Middle Ages ended at some point in the 15th or 16th century. But not one of the proposed dates (1458, 1493, 1513, etc) has anything to do with the end of feudalism.

The Swiss independence was even before the 1381 rebellion - and, much contrary to it, it even succeeded. Does that mean that capitalism in Switzerland started in 1271?


No, sorry, you need to explain this better. If your argument is that capitalism is capitalism because the point of capitalism is the accumulation of capital, but other systems can also be characterised by the accumulation of capital (after we agreed that capital long predates capitalism) then I fail to see what makes capitalism capitalism in your view.
First, not all expanded reproduction is accumulation of capital. A hunter-gatherer society expands, by increasing its population and making more tools, but this is not accumulation of capital. A feudal lord has a new bridge or a new mill built, but this expanded reproduction is not accumulation of capital.

Second, not all accumulation of capital is expanded reproduction. An ancient usurer lends money to a slaveowner, and charges interests - but even if the aim of the slaveowner is to increase his production by buying new or better slaves (which it may be not - perhaps he only intends the simple reproduction of his villa), the expanded reproduction happens in one place (the slaveowner's property) and the accumulation of capital happens elsewhere (in the usurer's purse). A late medieval or early modern trader buys commodities in China and sells them in Europe, and conversely, and accumulates capital in so doing - but he doesn't produce anything, so if there is expanded reproduction, it must be elsewhere, in Chinese silk farms or in European artisan shops.

So, no, no other system is characterised by the accumulation of capital. Capital either doesn't exist (as in hunter-gatherer societies, that know nothing similar, and whose expanded reproduction has an altogether different logic) or it is marginal and exclusively restricted to circulation (as in feudal or slave-holding societies, in which capital accumulates exclusively in the hand of non-producers, and where the expanded reproduction of the productive apparatus does not take the form of accumulation of capital). Capitalism remains unique, because it is characterised by the storming of the realm of production by capital, the only mode of production in which capital directly exploits the direct producers.


I'm a Luxemburgist, I have absolutely no problem with the notion of 'simple commodity production', that's why I was keen to stress that even though 'the capitalist relation' - commodity production through wage labour - existed from 500BC at the latest, the system wasn't capitalist because the majority of commodity production was simple commodity production, and the majority of production wasn't commodity production at all.So you surely must see the difference between simple production of commodities - even if performed through wage labour - and capitalist production: the owner of an artisan shop who employed one or two apprentices or journeymen was not a capitalist, his means of production were not capital, the aim of his production was not to expand his production, but to ensure his livelyhood, his apprentices or journeymen were not proletarians, in fewer words, his productive relations were anything but capitalist.

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

So, should the proletariat develop its economic power for a good couple of centuries before it attempts to achieve political power?

If not, what "economic changes" will the proletarian revolution "reflect"?...

The proletarian revolution reflects the inability of capitalism to provide a decent life for the world's population.

The proletariat cannot develop its 'economic power' under capitalism - the capitalists in feudalism were not an exploited class, but the proletariat is in capitalism. Unlike any previous class, the proletariat is both exploited (it is the primary producer class in capitalism) and revolutionary (in that it bears new relations of production in itself).

Aren't you a Marxist? I thought you were.


...The general datation is that the Middle Ages ended at some point in the 15th or 16th century. But not one of the proposed dates (1458, 1493, 1513, etc) has anything to do with the end of feudalism.

The Swiss independence was even before the 1381 rebellion - and, much contrary to it, it even succeeded. Does that mean that capitalism in Switzerland started in 1271?...

Capitalism as a system, or the capitalist relation?

The point is that capitalism as a hegemonic mode of production post-dates the bourgeois revolutions (where these happened at all, eg they never did in Germany) but capitalism develops in feudal society.


...First, not all expanded reproduction is accumulation of capital. A hunter-gatherer society expands, by increasing its population and making more tools, but this is not accumulation of capital. A feudal lord has a new bridge or a new mill built, but this expanded reproduction is not accumulation of capital.

Second, not all accumulation of capital is expanded reproduction. An ancient usurer lends money to a slaveowner, and charges interests - but even if the aim of the slaveowner is to increase his production by buying new or better slaves (which it may be not - perhaps he only intends the simple reproduction of his villa), the expanded reproduction happens in one place (the slaveowner's property) and the accumulation of capital happens elsewhere (in the usurer's purse). A late medieval or early modern trader buys commodities in China and sells them in Europe, and conversely, and accumulates capital in so doing - but he doesn't produce anything, so if there is expanded reproduction, it must be elsewhere, in Chinese silk farms or in European artisan shops.

So, no, no other system is characterised by the accumulation of capital. Capital either doesn't exist (as in hunter-gatherer societies, that know nothing similar, and whose expanded reproduction has an altogether different logic) or it is marginal and exclusively restricted to circulation (as in feudal or slave-holding societies, in which capital accumulates exclusively in the hand of non-producers, and where the expanded reproduction of the productive apparatus does not take the form of accumulation of capital). Capitalism remains unique, because it is characterised by the storming of the realm of production by capital, the only mode of production in which capital directly exploits the direct producers.

So you surely must see the difference between simple production of commodities - even if performed through wage labour - and capitalist production: the owner of an artisan shop who employed one or two apprentices or journeymen was not a capitalist, his means of production were not capital, the aim of his production was not to expand his production, but to ensure his livelyhood, his apprentices or journeymen were not proletarians, in fewer words, his productive relations were anything but capitalist.

Luís Henrique

That makes no sense, sorry. Expanded reproduction (ie the accumulation of capital) if carried out by the exploitation of wage labour in an economy that is not capitalist is not capitalist? Rubbish.

[Luís Henrique]

The proletarian revolution reflects the inability of capitalism to provide a decent life for the world's population.

So it will not reflect any economic change. There goes your contention that Marxists should believe that political changes reflect economic changes. And in good time, since it is both false and non-Marxist. Now why would such dogma, that we have now dispelled, be valid for the transition from feudalism to capitalism?


The proletariat cannot develop its 'economic power' under capitalism - the capitalists in feudalism were not an exploited class, but the proletariat is in capitalism. Unlike any previous class, the proletariat is both exploited (it is the primary producer class in capitalism) and revolutionary (in that it bears new relations of production in itself).

The capitalists in feudalism? Who would be those gentlemen?

Ah, they would of course be usurers or merchants - owners of usurer or commercial capital. But evidently those people were neither oppressed nor revolutionary - as all historic evidence show, they were quite tranquil under the feudal order of their times, and when bourgeois revolution erupted, their role was usually one of trying to contain it within the frame of the feudal order. Their political expression were the Girondins.

Further thinking, they were also not "capitalists" in the sence modern capitalist are. They were merely a subordinate fraction of the feudal ruling class, by no means directly implied in the process of capital taking hold of production. True, their simple existence implied the erosion of the feudal system of loyalties, and as such was somehow "subversive" of the feudal order - but that never gave them a bourgeois class consciousness of any kind, those buyers of fake or real nobility titles.

Who were the revolutionaries under the feudal order? Not those rich merchant or usurers, but the enormous mass of peasants and artisans, whose mode of production was simple commodity production, and their intellectual expression within the lower clergy, State bureaucracy, and "liberal professions", the social base of the Jacobins.


Aren't you a Marxist? I thought you were.

Be careful... the last guy who disputed my credentials was quickly demoralised by some apt "quote mining" that reduced his claims of more Marxist than thou ortodoxy to shambles...


Capitalism as a system, or the capitalist relation?

What you call "capitalist relation", of course, has nothing to do with capitalism, beyond very superficial formal similarities. There was wage labour in medieval guilds, probably it was even the rule, but there were absolutely no "capitalist relations" within them; indeed, when capitalism triumphed, among the first things it destroyed were the guilds.


The point is that capitalism as a hegemonic mode of production post-dates the bourgeois revolutions (where these happened at all, eg they never did in Germany) but capitalism develops in feudal society.

A bourgeois revolution never happened in Germany? So how do you explain, Mr. Marxist, that Germany is a capitalist State with a capitalist economy? Feudalism was "reformed" into capitalism?

Of course capitalism can only become hegemonic after bourgeois revolutions. We don't disagree on this. What we disagree is about your contention that "capitalism develops in feudal society". How does it do that, if it only took hold of production after the political destruction of the feudal State? Who are the "capitalists" you insist in seeing within the feudal order?


That makes no sense, sorry. Expanded reproduction (ie the accumulation of capital)

Expanded reproduction is not the same as accumulation of capital.


if carried out by the exploitation of wage labour in an economy that is not capitalist is not capitalist? Rubbish.

It is only capitalist if it is accumulation of capital. No, the expansion of feudal means of production - such as a new mill, for instance - is by no means capitalist, even if eventually the feudal lord pays wages to the mill builders, for the mill is not capital in the hands of the feudal lord. No, the expansion of a guilded workshop under guild-feudal relations is not capitalist, beucause the guilded workshop is not capital.

Accumulation of capital through production requires two things: that the means of production are capital, and that capital dominates the process of production. Capital accumulation in a pre-capitalist society, exclusively in the process of circulation, at the expense of the process of production, that results in merely monetary, usurer or merchant capital, that is not capitalist, for it does not rely upon the capitalist mode of production. Expansion, or expanded reproduction, of means of production that do not consist in capital, that do not take the form of self-aggrandising money, the aim of which is not the tautological process of producing new wealth for the sake of production of wealth, no, that is not accumulation of capital, that is not capitalist.

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

So it will not reflect any economic change...

Of course it will. The change from being a progressive economic system to being a decadent one.


...There goes your contention that Marxists should believe that political changes reflect economic changes...

Or, you know, not.


... And in good time, since it is both false and non-Marxist. Now why would such dogma, that we have now dispelled, be valid for the transition from feudalism to capitalism?...

Have you ever heard of 'historical materialism'? Can you explain what you think it is?

[Ismail]

Revisionism a tad too bitter, Tim?

I sure did love that work when I was an ML. Then I realized how 'holy shit' revisionist it was, and written by an 'anti-revisionist' no less.Actually Stalin wrote the work as part of his struggle against revisionists such as Voznesensky, Varga and others who were arguing for what basically became orthodoxy in Soviet economics and foreign affairs after his death.

Unsurprisingly, the Soviet revisionists attacked his work as "left-deviationist," "dogmatic," etc. even before 1956, and it was ignored thereafter.

As one Albanian professor noted:

It is a known fact that Marx and Engels did not envisage commodity production in socialism, so they did not put forward for solution the question of commodity production, or the utilization of commodity and money relations in the socialist economy. On this basis, before the triumph of the October Socialist Revolution the opinion was widespread that socialism was incompatible with commodity production, that they are mutually exclusive. At that time it was accepted as an axiom that commodity production did not exist in socialism. It is an historical fact, also, that in the period of war communism in the Soviet Union attempts were made to abolish commodity and money relations. However, the mechanism of the functioning of the Soviet economy of that time, proved convincingly that it was impossible to build socialism without using commodity production and the economic categories resulting from it. Basing himself on the experience gained during the period of war communism, Lenin unhesitatingly and definitively discarded the dogma of the incompatibility of socialism and the socialist economy with commodity production. Lenin linked the abolition of commodity production and money relations with the triumph of communism on a world scale.

Meanwhile, it has been proved, both in theory and in the practice of the construction of socialism in our country, that commodity production and commodity and money relations in the socialist economy do not present themselves with the same features and nature as in the conditions where capitalist ownership over the means of production prevails, but undergo modification. To bring out this difference Stalin proved that in socialism there is a commodity production of a special kind. It is precisely this thesis of Stalin’s that the Soviet revisionists furiously attack and reject, with the aim of gaining acceptance for their bourgeois thesis that the socialist economy, too, is allegedly an economy of commodity production, a market economy.

Hiding behind the “argument” that the socialist economy, too, is allegedly a commodity production economy, a market economy, the Soviet revisionists extend commodity and money relations to the whole social product, including the means of production and labour power. Therefore, the combination of the means of production with labour power, as the fundamental economic relationship on which the objective of production depends, is not carried out directly, through the mechanism of the centralized planning of the economy, but through the act of sale and purchase, in the interest of the revisionist bourgeoisie which, as the owner of the means of production, appropriates the surplus value created by the Soviet workers and peasants. It is on this basis that the mechanism of the functioning of the Soviet economy operates in the spheres of production, distribution and exchange.

Since the direct aim on which social production is based is the securing of profit and not the fulfilment of the needs of the working masses, since it is based on commodity production and not on the direct social product, the mechanism of the functioning of this production can be no other than that of the market with its inherent laws. No economic system, including the economic system which operates in the Soviet economy today, can escape this combination, this objective conditioning.Albania was the only country in the world which actually used Stalin's work Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/EPS52.html) as the basis for its economic planning.

Stalin posited the transition from commodity production to products-exchange. The Soviet revisionists opposed this. On this subject see: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv13n1/smolin.htm

[Luís Henrique]

Of course it will. The change from being a progressive economic system to being a decadent one.

So the proletarian revolution is nothing but the manifestation of a transhistoric logos that requires the permanent and blind "development of the productive forces"? The reason why we are revolutionaries is that we are servants of "History"?

I don't think so; if there is some "Hegelian bagagge" that we need to get rid of, that would be it.

The proletarian revolution "reflects" the growing impossibility of production of value, the tendency to the fall of the profit rate, the growing composition of capital - in other words, it reflects the internal contradictions of capitalism.

So do bourgeois revolutions; they aren't the reflection of the emergence of a new system within feudalism, or of some transhistoric force that got angered by feudal stupidity and stillwater backwardness, but the reflection of the internal contradictions of feudalism.


Have you ever heard of 'historical materialism'? Can you explain what you think it is?

Well, of course. It is certainly not the idea that "political change reflects economic change". If so, it would have to consider the category of "economy" as transhistoric, at which point it would cease to be historic materialism.

Historical materialism is materialism that considers human activity a material force, as opposed to both idealism, that considers human activity a mystical, immaterial principle, and vulgar materialism, that dismisses human activity as the moving principle of history.

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

...
Historical materialism is materialism that considers human activity a material force, as opposed to... vulgar materialism, that dismisses human activity as the moving principle of history...

Delve into the distinction between 'material force' and 'moving principle', if you don't mind.

[Luís Henrique]

Delve into the distinction between 'material force' and 'moving principle', if you don't mind.

Idealists (or some of them) may believe that human activity makes history - and so, that human activity is the moving principle of history. But they think it is a non-material force. That's the difference between them and historical materialists; we don't think that human activity is non-material.

Vulgar materialists on the other hand think that human activity is merely a reflex of some other principle (Shakespeare didn't write Romeo and Juliet, the biochemical reactions within his brain did it).

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

I'm sorry, I don't think you've explained what you think the difference is here between 'material force' and 'moving principle'. If you think you have, I have to say that as your intended audience (maybe I'm not, maybe you're writing for anyone else reading this thread) then I have failed to grasp the distinction you're making.

Feel free to try to explain it again.

[Art Vandelay]

Idealists (or some of them) may believe that human activity makes history - and so, that human activity is the moving principle of history. But they think it is a non-material force. That's the difference between them and historical materialists; we don't think that human activity is non-material.

Vulgar materialists on the other hand think that human activity is merely a reflex of some other principle (Shakespeare didn't write Romeo and Juliet, the biochemical reactions within his brain did it).

Luís Henrique

Does anyone on this site really put forth such a premise? I've been accused of being a 'vulgar materialist' or perhaps an overtly mechanical one before, but even I posit that there is a place for human agency (I didn't realize that some people didn't).

[Luís Henrique]

I'm sorry, I don't think you've explained what you think the difference is here between 'material force' and 'moving principle'.

A moving principle doesn't need to be material.

But I don't think this tangent is really important in this context.

Historical materialism is not, and includes not, the belief that "political changes reflect economic changes".

Luís Henrique