Doctrine of the Body Possessed by the Devil

[BeingAndGrime]

So here Bordiga makes the argument that in the USSR capitalist social relations remained. He points out that in modern capitalism the capitalist doesn't have to either own his own capital, or manage labor directly. These investment fund types facilitate the transfer of capital to create profit. The parallel then is that capitalists don't have to necessarily have to invest their own capital, own factories and hire labor. Just because in the USSR there isn't a class that actually owns capital (it's the state that does) doesn't mean that there isn't capitalism

All well and good. But how did capital, obeying the laws that Marx describe, reproduce itself, create value and so on in the Soviet Union, without competition between capitalists? Does Bordiga explain this?

[BeingAndGrime]

this might be better for the learning forum?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think the issue is that, though the Soviet Union (or whatever other state-capitalist formations - consider state monopolies, or even non-profit organizations in liberal capitalist countries) may not appear to have competition in itself, it has to be understood in the context of a global capitalist totality. So, if wage labour and commodity production continued ostensibly without competition within the SU, it still has to be understood with in the whole constellation of relations within which it was competing. I think the SU's economic-political crisis/crises and collapse at the end of the 80s speak to the validity of this analysis . . .

Though, to be fair, I haven't read the Bordiga piece in question, and may be missing the point entirely.

[Remus Bleys]

Theres more than just the Doctrine of the Body Possessed by the Devil to this analysis, but yes on the whole TGDU is right insofar as the USSR competed with other nations in the global capitalist world it should be enough to prove that it was capitalist.
This article was more against other left communists who said things such as "state capitalism"