Why was USSR state-capitalism?

[Sotionov]

For those that accept that systems like the USSR were state-capitalists, I have a question that will clear some details about this opinion of ours.

So, why do you consider the USSR to have been state-capitalist? Is it because there existed the party/state hierarchy/bureaucracy, which was the new capitalist class; is it because money wasn't abolished; or is it because the USSR existed in a capitalist worlds and therefore had to participate in the international capitalist market?

Of course, one can hold more then one of these positions, but I found it interesting that there exist people who hold the two latter positions exclusively, as in- everything was cool with the USSR, except that they used money, if they did't do that but used calculation in natura, they'd be proper socialism; or- everything was cool with the USSR, except they were one country in a capitalist world, if the entire world had established the USSR system, that'd be proper socialism.

[Tim Cornelis]

Of course, one can hold more then one of these positions, but I found it interesting that there exist people who hold the two latter positions exclusively, as in- everything was cool with the USSR, except that they used money, if they did't do that but used calculation in natura, they'd be proper socialism; or- everything was cool with the USSR, except they were one country in a capitalist world, if the entire world had established the USSR system, that'd be proper socialism.

I'm not sure if those people exist though. You can't even have the exact same structure of the USSR without money as you can't have a centrally planned economy based on wage-labour and commodity production without it. And I've never heard of the latter category of people either.

The Soviet Union was state-capitalist because it had monopolised ownership of the means of production, a dispossessed working class as a consequence (class society), them having to sell their labour-power (and thus the existence of wage-labour), and the production for exchange (commodity production).

[Old Bolshie]

For those that accept that systems like the USSR were state-capitalists, I have a question that will clear some details about this opinion of ours.

So, why do you consider the USSR to have been state-capitalist? Is it because there existed the party/state hierarchy/bureaucracy, which was the new capitalist class; is it because money wasn't abolished; or is it because the USSR existed in a capitalist worlds and therefore had to participate in the international capitalist market?


Of course, one can hold more then one of these positions,

You can hold all those positions because none of them are mutually exclusive and all of them can be applied to the USSR's case since they complement each other. You should have listed the option "all of above".


but I found it interesting that there exist people who hold the two latter positions exclusively, as in- everything was cool with the USSR, except that they used money, if they did't do that but used calculation in natura, they'd be proper socialism;

Money was just one of the capitalist elements which integrated the soviet economy. It would have been impossible to abolish it within a context of global capitalist relations like the one USSR was in.


or- everything was cool with the USSR, except they were one country in a capitalist world, if the entire world had established the USSR system, that'd be proper socialism.

If the entire world had passed through a proletarian revolution then it would have been possible to do away with the capitalist mode of production and capitalist relations since you only can do it globally and never regionally. That is why all the historical attempts to do it isolated ended up in failure.

[Sotionov]

I'm not sure if those people exist though. You can't even have the exact same structure of the USSR without money as you can't have a centrally planned economy based on wage-labour and commodity production without it.
Yes, you can't have commodity production without money, but you can have wage-labor, with wages being in scrips, or in natura rations.


The Soviet Union was state-capitalist because it had monopolised ownership of the means of production, a dispossessed working class as a consequence (class society), them having to sell their labour-power (and thus the existence of wage-labour), and the production for exchange (commodity production).
If they didn't have a class division, but did have commodity production (coupled with the planning they had) they'd still be capitalist in your view?


You can hold all those positions because none of them are mutually exclusive and all of them can be applied to the USSR's case since they complement each other. You should have listed the option "all of above".
Sure you can, but does that mean that you think all three are defining traits of capitalism? If there is no wage-labor (nor rent), but there is money and commodity production, that isn't capitalism neither accoding to anarchism nor according to marxism.


If the entire world had passed through a proletarian revolution then it would have been possible to do away with the capitalist mode of production and capitalist relations since you only can do it globally and never regionally. That is why all the historical attempts to do it isolated ended up in failure.That means two things, that you're basing your claim of the imposibility of regional socialism on induction, and that you support the bolshevik hypocritical and vile self-fulfilling prophecy "it's impossible to have socialism then and there- we'll destroy you and that will prove it".

[G4b3n]

All 3 are applicable, though I wouldn't argue that using money automatically makes a given society "state capitalist". I believe labor vouchers ought to be used for a transitional period, as did Karl Marx when he expounded on his LBTOV.

The main problem is that the working class didn't posses any real power, they were virtual slaves of the regime, arguably worse than bourgeois wage slavery. The only medium through which working people can express political power is democracy, real democracy, it is that simple. The legitimacy of worker's institutions (such as the soviets) must be protected before, during, and after the revolution at all costs.

[Old Bolshie]

Sure you can, but does that mean that you think all three are defining traits of capitalism? If there is no wage-labor (nor rent), but there is money and commodity production, that isn't capitalism neither accoding to anarchism nor according to marxism.

Did you have wage-labor in USSR? Yes. So you had all those elements in the Soviet economy which was a form of state capitalist.


That means two things, that you're basing your claim of the imposibility of regional socialism on induction, and that you support the bolshevik hypocritical and vile self-fulfilling prophecy "it's impossible to have socialism then and there- we'll destroy you and that will prove it".

I am not basing my claim on induction but rather on historical experience.

As far as the Bolsheviks is concerned I am not sure what kind of Bolsheviks you are referring to: if the Bolsheviks who believed that you can build socialism within one isolated territory like Stalin, or the Bolsheviks who believed that the revolution should spread globally in order to succeed.

[Tim Cornelis]

Yes, you can't have commodity production without money, but you can have wage-labor, with wages being in scrips, or in natura rations.

Physically possible, but I cannot imagine the social dynamics in which these would arise as general relations of production in this day and age.


If they didn't have a class division, but did have commodity production (coupled with the planning they had) they'd still be capitalist in your view?

Yes, capital has not been surpassed, it is self-managed. The socialist mode of production has production for use, common ownership, and freely associated labour. Previous modes of production and intermediates have all had varying degrees of wage-labour, other relations of production, and types of commodity production, but the socialist mode of production will be the first of its kinds that abandons all these notions at once.


Sure you can, but does that mean that you think all three are defining traits of capitalism? If there is no wage-labor (nor rent), but there is money and commodity production, that isn't capitalism neither accoding to anarchism nor according to marxism.

That means two things, that you're basing your claim of the imposibility of regional socialism on induction, and that you support the bolshevik hypocritical and vile self-fulfilling prophecy "it's impossible to have socialism then and there- we'll destroy you and that will prove it".

The Bolsheviks didn't say that though.


All 3 are applicable, though I wouldn't argue that using money automatically makes a given society "state capitalist". I believe labor vouchers ought to be used for a transitional period, as did Karl Marx when he expounded on his LBTOV.

Labour vouchers have nothing to do with the LTV though. The LTV wasn't normative, it was descriptive.


The main problem is that the working class didn't posses any real power,

Working class can't have power otherwise it wouldn't be a working class.

[JPSartre12]

I chose "they used money", but all of them are fairly applicable. It's much more complicated than a simple cut-and-dry answer like that, though.


The Soviet Union was state-capitalist because it had monopolised ownership of the means of production, a dispossessed working class as a consequence (class society), them having to sell their labour-power (and thus the existence of wage-labour), and the production for exchange (commodity production).

I agree with Tim Cornelis. By monopolizing ownership of the means of production, the State was able to effectively substitute itself as the "national" and "collective" capitalist, and thus replace the "private" and "individual" capitalist. The centralization / monopolization of economic authority by the Soviet government was a substitutionist tactic that simply replaced the individual owner with the national owner.

[CarolinianFire]

You can't just pick one of these reasons because they all contributed to it.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I was a Russian-language major in college. Our teachers were the descendants of once-bourgeois families, and those families, along with the rest of the bourgeoisie, were displaced, owing to the October Revolution. That is how non-capitalist the old USSR, even with all its warts and difficulties, was. In a similar way, I think, the Cuban emigre presence in Florida is a testimony to the fact that bourgeois rule was overthrown by that revolution. These gigantic displacements testify to the depth of those revolutions.

[Sotionov]

Physically possible, but I cannot imagine the social dynamics in which these would arise as general relations of production in this day and age.
Many states have applied rations on a wide scale, there is nothing impossible in establishing such a system generalized.


Yes, capital has not been surpassed, it is self-managed. You don't seem to know what "capital" is. Even Marx and Engels knew that a means of production isn't capital unless it is used for wage-labor, and that if a worker owns his means of production (and self-manages it) and produces commodities (products for sale [on the market]) such commodities are not the product of capital. These are basics, it's explained in the ABC of communism: "That is to say, machinery, for example, only becomes capital when it is the private property of the capitalist class, when it serves the purpose of exploiting wage labour". Also Engels: "as long as the producer sells only what he himself produces, he is not a capitalist; he becomes so only from the moment he makes use of his instrument to exploit the wage labour of others."

Marx says exactly this in Capital: "We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and subjection of the labourer." On the begining of that chapter he says: "Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only." And a few sentances after that: "There the capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems, manifest itself here practically in a struggle between them."

So, when the laborer owns his means of production, even though he engages in commodity production, that mode of production is not only non-capitalist, but "diametrically opposed" to it, being that there is no exploitation and subjugation of the laborer.

[Comrade Jacob]

Any no trot options? From which date would the options be from?

[Sotionov]

The second and third are trot options, the first one is the libertarian socialist option. Take your pick, and explain in the reply what to what period your opinion refers to.

[Tim Cornelis]

Many states have applied rations on a wide scale, there is nothing impossible in establishing such a system generalized.

I'm not saying it's physically impossible, I'm saying I think it lacks the social dynamics to be established in a generalised form. In the same way that liberal democracy in the 8th century was not physically impossible, but the social dynamics were not so that it could be established. Only with the emergence of commercial production became liberal democracy viable. I can't think of a precondition that would make pure rationing the default method of distribution.


You don't seem to know what "capital" is. Even Marx and Engels knew that a means of production isn't capital unless it is used for wage-labor, and that if a worker owns his means of production (and self-manages it) and produces commodities (products for sale [on the market]) such commodities are not the product of capital.

I'm not talking about means of production per se. Capital is reflected in the formula M-C-M', this applies to market socialism, the same as it does to the Soviet Union. The realisation of a profit from the circulation of commodities. In market socialism, the workers employed in a workers' cooperative earns a fixed salary, e.g. 10€ per hour. The intention of production is the creation of exchange value as embodied in the commodities and the exchange of it in order to realise revenue in excess of the labour costs of 10€ per hour per worker. The Soviet Union likewise operated on the basis of profit-calculations, but it was controlled from above by the state, not through market forces. In any case, to both economic models M-C-M' applies/d. When there is no wage-labour, but commodity exchange is perpetuated (under contemporary conditions) the process or metamorphosis of capital is controlled by the workers, i.e. self-managed. The self-management of capital, is self-managed capitalism.


These are basics, it's explained in the ABC of communism: "That is to say, machinery, for example, only becomes capital when it is the private property of the capitalist class, when it serves the purpose of exploiting wage labour". Also Engels: "as long as the producer sells only what he himself produces, he is not a capitalist; he becomes so only from the moment he makes use of his instrument to exploit the wage labour of others."

Or by controlling the process of capital. Surely that would be a proper definition of capitalist.


Marx says exactly this in Capital: "We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and subjection of the labourer." On the begining of that chapter he says: "Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only." And a few sentances after that: "There the capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems, manifest itself here practically in a struggle between them."

So, when the laborer owns his means of production, even though he engages in commodity production, that mode of production is not only non-capitalist, but "diametrically opposed" to it, being that there is no exploitation and subjugation of the laborer.

I don't know the exact context but my guess is that he is referring to the situation in which producers in the era of proto-industrialisation (16th-17th century) began being replaced by the bourgeoisie. In this era, producers owned the conditions of his labour, controlled his own labour, and produced on the basis of C-M-C, not M-C-M. I very much doubt Marx referred to your notion of workers' cooperatives given that the latter does not apply in historical developments as Marx was in the business of describing.

[Sasha]

I was a Russian-language major in college. Our teachers were the descendants of once-bourgeois families, and those families, along with the rest of the bourgeoisie, were displaced, owing to the October Revolution. That is how non-capitalist the old USSR, even with all its warts and difficulties, was. In a similar way, I think, the Cuban emigre presence in Florida is a testimony to the fact that bourgeois rule was overthrown by that revolution. These gigantic displacements testify to the depth of those revolutions.


if a new king usurps the old king, takes him to the block and chops of his head, is this proof of a radical republican revolution?

or maybe put it likes this, even if the french revolution was a radical republican movement (which it was), was it still so when napoleon crowned himself emperor? was the monarchy really only restored when a king was back in versaille or started it long before that?

[Sotionov]

I'm not saying it's physically impossible, I'm saying I think it lacks the social dynamics to be established in a generalised form. In the same way that liberal democracy in the 8th century was not physically impossible, but the social dynamics were not so that it could be established.
Then be preicese and don't call it impossible.


Capital is reflected in the formula M-C-M'No, actually, it is not, this is in contradiction with the notion of what capital is, and the notion of exploitation is, and Marx even admited this, by calling the idea you just expressed contradictory in the name of the chapter where he expressed it.


Or by controlling the process of capital. Surely that would be a proper definition of capitalist.But there is no capital where there is no exploitation.


I very much doubt Marx referred to your notion of workers' cooperativesWorkers' cooperatives and mutualism is what marxism calls "simple commodity production", which is "simple" because it is not capitapist, it doesn't have any exploitation in it, even though it is, as it's name says- commodity production. Marx accepts this in addenda to Part 3 of Theories of Surplus-Value, where he admits that the workers in a Proudhonian system are not capitalists, but journeymen. He rejected his system as one where would be no advance from small production to large-scale industry, but not as a capitalist one.

[Tim Cornelis]

Then be preicese and don't call it impossible.

I didn't, I called it possible. "Physically possible, but I cannot imagine the social dynamics in which these would arise as general relations of production in this day and age."


No, actually, it is not, this is in contradiction with the notion of what capital is, and the notion of exploitation is,

Circular reasoning. M-C-M' is not capital because it contradicts with the notion of what capital is. But then what is the notion of capital?


and Marx even admited this, by calling the idea you just expressed contradictory in the name of the chapter where he expressed it.

I don't care about Marx an sich. It's the Marxist method that's relevant.


But there is no capital where there is no exploitation.

I can't give a definite answer as of yet, but here are three remarks (I'm asking you and myself):
1) Is it possible that for-profit production can be seen as exploitative without wage-labour?
2) Is it possible for capital to exist without exploitation?
3) Is the M-C-M' sustainable without wage-labour?


Workers' cooperatives and mutualism is what marxism calls "simple commodity production",

No it's not, stop saying this. You are the only person that believes this. It is exclusively your interpretation. No Marxist believes this.

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

Simple commodity production is the simple exchange of commodities. It existed because the productive forces had not advanced to such an extent that mass production of commodities was possible, and thus exchange of commodities amounted to mere trade of modest surpluses and quantities.


which is "simple" because it is not capitapist,

Which makes no sense, you're just making this up.


it doesn't have any exploitation in it, even though it is, as it's name says- commodity production. Marx accepts this in addenda to Part 3 of Theories of Surplus-Value, where he admits that the workers in a Proudhonian system are not capitalists, but journeymen. He rejected his system as one where would be no advance from small production to large-scale industry, but not as a capitalist one.

Well Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto says, regarding Proudhon and similar socialisms, that "they want a bourgeoisie without the proletariat", meaning that everyone in their economic model would become a capitalist.

EDIT:

The source you listed is where Marx calls the example of hatters, not workers, journeymen.

From Theories of Surplus Value:


And it is in this abstract form, which, indeed, exists as an independent movement alongside the real movement of capital, opens it and closes it, that Mr. Proudhon considers the matter in hand, so that everything inevitably remains incomprehensible to him. If instead of buying and selling, lending in this form were to be abolished, then, according to Proudhon, the surplus would disappear. In fact only the division of the surplus between two sets of capitalists would disappear. But this division can and must be constantly generated anew whenever it is possible to convert commodities or money into capital, and, on the basis of wage-labour, this is always possible. In order that it should be impossible for commodities and money to become capital and therefore be lent as capital in posse, they must not confront wage-labour. If they are thus not to confront it as commodities and money and consequently labour itself is not to become a commodity, then that amounts to a return to pre-capitalist modes of production ||936| in which it [labour] does not become a commodity, and for the greater part still exists in the form of serf or slave labour. On the basis of free labour, this is only possible where the workers are the owners of their means of production. Free labour develops within the framework of capitalist production as social labour. To say that they are the owners of the means of production amounts to saying that these belong to the united workers and that they produce as such, and that their own output is controlled jointly by them. But wanting to preserve wage-labour and thus the basis of capital, as Proudhon does, and at the same time to eliminate the “drawbacks” by abolishing a secondary form of capital, reveals the novice.

So according to your own source Proudhon does advocacy capitalism. Not entirely sure what Marx means with wage-labour in this context though.

[Sotionov]

I don't care about Marx an sich. It's the Marxist method that's relevant.
Why?


1) Is it possible that for-profit production can be seen as exploitative without wage-labour?
2) Is it possible for capital to exist without exploitation?
3) Is the M-C-M' sustainable without wage-labour?Yes (Marx mentiones rent ). No. Yes (at least it's suppossed so in market socialist thought).


No it's not, stop saying this. You are the only person that believes this.Are you saying that marxists believe that "simple commodity production" is capitalistic?


Which makes no sense, you're just making this up.Marx used the term "merchant's capital" in 1867, though he right then admitted himself that it's a contradiction to call M-C-M' capitalistic because [as he himself said] suplus-value cannot be created in circulation, and that "It is therefore impossible for capital to be produced by circulation" (except in the usurious M-M' formula). To use "simple commodity production" instead was accepted by himself in 1894 when he talkes about producers that "regulate their production according to a preconceived plan, or even under simple commodity-production" and is a correction that all marxists thinkers accepted.

Bukharin, ABC of Communism: "The mere existence of a commodity economy does not alone suffice to constitute capitalism. A commodity economy can exist although there are no capitalists; for instance, the economy in which the only producers are independent artisans. They produce for the market, they sell their products; thus these products are undoubtedly commodities, and the whole production is commodity production. Nevertheless, this is not capitalist production; it is nothing more than simple commodity production."

Lenin, Development of capitalism in Russia: "The separation of the direct producer from the means of production, i.e., his expropriation, signifying the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production (and constituting the necessary condition for this transition), creates the home market."

Kautsky, The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx: "Under simple commodity production private property was the result and fruit of labour. The worker was the owner of his means of production and of his products. Capitalist production broke down the connection between labour and property. The worker had no longer any property in his product. On the contrary, both the means of production and the products belonged to the non-worker."

As I already quoted, Marx himself says that a system where the laborer owns his means of production and the products of his labor is "diametrically opposed" to capitalism, therefore to consider such a society capitalistic is obviously a non-marxist position (and even more obviously a non-anarchist one). On what does one would base such is beyond me (unsless it's not an opinion, but an unargument view based on bias).


Well Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto saysThey also say:
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, [I]i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation.


So according to your own source Proudhon does advocacy capitalism.Based on an utter misunerstanding that Proudhon advocated toleration of wage-labor. Or maybe not a misunderstanding but a contemptous lie, which would not be a suprise, knowing of the Marx's feelings which he expressed by cheering for Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war, saying "The French need a thrashing" and how If Prussia would win the mean that would "mean the predominance of our theory over Proudhon's".

[stefanbl]

Because they extracted surplus value from wage labourers they employed, and then used this to preserve a separate class with greater living standards and privilege than the Proletariat, who position said Proletariat had no choice in.

It is said that the USSR is State Capitalist system because its structed in the same manner as a Capitalist Business.

[Fred]

The second and third are trot options, the first one is the libertarian socialist option. Take your pick, and explain in the reply what to what period your opinion refers to.

No. There are not "Trot" options. Trotsky held that the USSR was the dictatorship of the proletariat. The splits from the Trotskyist movement over the years that took up the "State Cap" view all did so under pressure from the bourgeois/liberal milieu to drop defense of the USSR. Cliff did so in response to the Korean War. Burnham in the American SWP did so under pressure after the Stalin/Molotov pact was signed and the USSR invaded "poor little" Finland. Shachtman took a middle ground with his more plausible "bureacratic collectivist" line -- although it too was incorrect and led him ultimately down the road to being a "state department socialist."

[G4b3n]

Physically possible, but I cannot imagine the social dynamics in which these would arise as general relations of production in this day and age.



Yes, capital has not been surpassed, it is self-managed. The socialist mode of production has production for use, common ownership, and freely associated labour. Previous modes of production and intermediates have all had varying degrees of wage-labour, other relations of production, and types of commodity production, but the socialist mode of production will be the first of its kinds that abandons all these notions at once.



The Bolsheviks didn't say that though.



Labour vouchers have nothing to do with the LTV though. The LTV wasn't normative, it was descriptive.



Working class can't have power otherwise it wouldn't be a working class.

I never said that it did however he was advocating for them at one point.

[sixdollarchampagne]

if a new king usurps the old king, takes him to the block and chops of his head, is this proof of a radical republican revolution?

or maybe put it likes this, even if the french revolution was a radical republican movement (which it was), was it still so when napoleon crowned himself emperor? was the monarchy really only restored when a king was back in versaille or started it long before that?

I don't see what this kindergarten exercise about monarchy has to do with the USSR and the October Revolution. As far as I can tell, the conquests of that revolution were not overthrown until the dissolution of the USSR.

Revolution and counter-revolution are not things done in a corner. I don't think there can be any such thing as a silent capitalist restoration or one by stealth. On the contrary, the fate of any society will be decided by the very obvious, notable, clash between contradictory class interests, which is inevitable in both revolution and counter-revolution. That the state caps for decades have proposed very different, conflicting dates for their alleged, imaginary counter-revolution, even before the Yeltsin-Gorbachev restoration, suggests that the state-cap notion of revolution and counter-revolution is simply magical thinking, as something that could happen without our even knowing about it, which is nonsensical, because it parts company with materialism.

[Brotto Rühle]

Wage labour
Commodity production
Alienation of the worker from his/her product
Monopoly ownership of the means of production by the state/not the working class
Etc.

You know, the state being both bourgeois in form, and not being in the hands of the working class...you know about the state...that organ of class rule...not caste rule.

[Fred]

Wage labor exists in non-capitalist economies, a moot point. Commodity production exists in non-capitalist economies, another moot point. The USSR existed in a capitalist world -- they had little choice at times but to trade with capitalist countries. They maintained a state monopoly on foreign trade, hardly the stuff of capitalism.

The Stalinist bureaucracies never constituted a class. For one thing, they play no indispensible and have no characteristic relationship to the means of production (except perhaps to manage it). And they disappear at the point of counterrevolution. They would be something quite different from all other classes in their pure historical uselessness, I believe.

[Sasha]

I don't see what this kindergarten exercise about monarchy has to do with the USSR and the October Revolution. As far as I can tell, the conquests of that revolution were not overthrown until the dissolution of the USSR.

Revolution and counter-revolution are not things done in a corner. I don't think there can be any such thing as a silent capitalist restoration or one by stealth. On the contrary, the fate of any society will be decided by the very obvious, notable, clash between contradictory class interests, which is inevitable in both revolution and counter-revolution. That the state caps for decades have proposed very different, conflicting dates for their alleged, imaginary counter-revolution, even before the Yeltsin-Gorbachev restoration, suggests that the state-cap notion of revolution and counter-revolution is simply magical thinking, as something that could happen without our even knowing about it, which is nonsensical, because it parts company with materialism.

You think dispossesing some bourgeois and putting their assets (including their wage-labor forces) into state hands is a successful revolution, I don't. It's an change of management, in a hostile takeover in this case admittedly though.
The October revolution was a ungoing revolution far, very far from completion killed with the dissualution of the soviets by a counter revolution, maybe a better counter revolution than the white counter revolution would have been but still a counter revolution. The dissolution of the USSR was just the final nail in the coffin that was already underway for more than half a century.
Capital never got abolished, the proletariat never became master of their own life, nor freedom nor labor.

[Brotto Rühle]

Wage labor exists in non-capitalist economies, a moot point. Commodity production exists in non-capitalist economies, another moot point. The USSR existed in a capitalist world -- they had little choice at times but to trade with capitalist countries. They maintained a state monopoly on foreign trade, hardly the stuff of capitalism.

The Stalinist bureaucracies never constituted a class. For one thing, they play no indispensible and have no characteristic relationship to the means of production (except perhaps to manage it). And they disappear at the point of counterrevolution. They would be something quite different from all other classes in their pure historical uselessness, I believe.The key point is that the means of production were monopolized and alienated from the direct producers, I.e. capital.

Though, which non capitalist societies did these combined things I mentioned exist?

[Tim Cornelis]

Why?

Because Marxism is a method of analysis of material conditions. It's like saying that if you believe in evolution you must cling unto every word of Darwin. No, Darwin could be wrong in his theory of evolution describing evolution (and he was in some ways), the same Marx could be wrong in describing materialism.


Yes (Marx mentiones rent ). No. Yes (at least it's suppossed so in market socialist thought).


Are you saying that marxists believe that "simple commodity production" is capitalistic?

No, it's pre-capitalistic.


Marx used the term "merchant's capital" in 1867, though he right then admitted himself that it's a contradiction to call M-C-M' capitalistic because [as he himself said] suplus-value cannot be created in circulation, and that "It is therefore impossible for capital to be produced by circulation" (except in the usurious M-M' formula). To use "simple commodity production" instead was accepted by himself in 1894 when he talkes about producers that "regulate their production according to a preconceived plan, or even under simple commodity-production" and is a correction that all marxists thinkers accepted.

Bukharin, ABC of Communism: "The mere existence of a commodity economy does not alone suffice to constitute capitalism. A commodity economy can exist although there are no capitalists; for instance, the economy in which the only producers are independent artisans. They produce for the market, they sell their products; thus these products are undoubtedly commodities, and the whole production is commodity production. Nevertheless, this is not capitalist production; it is nothing more than simple commodity production."

You know, you keeping quoting things and they don't seem to mean what you think they mean. You've quoted this part (if I remember correctly, after I quoted it) several times and it does not correspond to what you're saying. Referencing independent artisans is anachronistic, they're gone in the most advanced areas on the world. They have been proletarianised. Artisans and merchants have been transplanted by the bourgeoisie and proletariat, due to Industrialisation. Artisans controlling their own labour and producing commodities is not capitalism, it does not follow that therefore workers controlling their own labour and producing commodities is compatible with socialism.


Lenin, Development of capitalism in Russia: "The separation of the direct producer from the means of production, i.e., his expropriation, signifying the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production (and constituting the necessary condition for this transition), creates the home market."

Again, this does not correspond to the point you're making. Every Marxist accepts the historical fact that independent artisans produced commodities and that they have, due to industrialisation, been replaced by wage-workers and the bourgeoisie. You don't seem to grasp the context of historical materialism. That independent production of commodities did not constitute capitalism in 1146 is because of the prevailing material conditions, it does not follow that therefore it will always be non-capitalistic.


Kautsky, The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx: "Under simple commodity production private property was the result and fruit of labour. The worker was the owner of his means of production and of his products. Capitalist production broke down the connection between labour and property. The worker had no longer any property in his product. On the contrary, both the means of production and the products belonged to the non-worker."

Idem ditto.


As I already quoted, Marx himself says that a system where the laborer owns his means of production and the products of his labor is "diametrically opposed" to capitalism, therefore to consider such a society capitalistic is obviously a non-marxist position (and even more obviously a non-anarchist one). On what does one would base such is beyond me (unsless it's not an opinion, but an unargument view based on bias).

No, what you quoted was Marx describing the process of primitive accumulation whereby the relations of production of independent artisans came into contradiction with the productive forces. Basic historical materialism.


They also say:
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, [I]i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation.

Doesn't back up your argument.


Based on an utter misunerstanding that Proudhon advocated toleration of wage-labor. Or maybe not a misunderstanding but a contemptous lie,

I'm not sure about that. Marx, after all, initially acclaimed 'What is Property?'. I trust he did not just forget about it.


which would not be a suprise, knowing of the Marx's feelings which he expressed by cheering for Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war, saying "The French need a thrashing" and how If Prussia would win the mean that would "mean the predominance of our theory over Proudhon's".

Not relevant.


I don't see what this kindergarten exercise about monarchy has to do with the USSR and the October Revolution.

It's an analogy. Overthrowing a king does not mean a monarchy has disappeared, the same overthrowing the bourgeoisie does not mean no bourgeoisie exists, or that capitalism has been overthrown.


As far as I can tell, the conquests of that revolution were not overthrown until the dissolution of the USSR.

Try 1918. What is a workers' state? A semi-state controlled by organs of workers' power. These were disbanded beginning 1918, factory committees abolished, the soviets' sovereignty was abolished in favour of Bolshevik control, and ultimately factionalism within the Bolshevik party was abolished. This was the counter-revolution that replaced organs of workers' power with a conventional bourgeois state structure (ministers, heads of state, top-down).


Revolution and counter-revolution are not things done in a corner. I don't think there can be any such thing as a silent capitalist restoration or one by stealth. On the contrary, the fate of any society will be decided by the very obvious, notable, clash between contradictory class interests, which is inevitable in both revolution and counter-revolution. That the state caps for decades have proposed very different, conflicting dates for their alleged, imaginary counter-revolution, even before the Yeltsin-Gorbachev restoration, suggests that the state-cap notion of revolution and counter-revolution is simply magical thinking, as something that could happen without our even knowing about it, which is nonsensical, because it parts company with materialism.

Hardly. War Communism was met with resistance, strikes, sabotage, and armed insurrection. This argument would apply to capitalist restoration in 1953, but not 1918-1922.


Wage labor exists in non-capitalist economies, a moot point. Commodity production exists in non-capitalist economies, another moot point.

They existed in pre-capitalist society, but can't exist in post-capitalist society.


The USSR existed in a capitalist world -- they had little choice at times but to trade with capitalist countries. They maintained a state monopoly on foreign trade, hardly the stuff of capitalism.

No one is arguing they had a choice.


The Stalinist bureaucracies never constituted a class. For one thing, they play no indispensible

What do you mean?


and have no characteristic relationship to the means of production (except perhaps to manage it).

Owning and controlling (possessed) means of production at the expense of a dispossessed class seems pretty characteristic of a ruling class.


And they disappear at the point of counterrevolution.

Exact;y, with the introduction of War Communism.

[Fred]

The key point is that the means of production were monopolized and alienated from the direct producers, I.e. capital.

Though, which non capitalist societies did these combined things I mentioned exist?

The key point is that capitalism exists only as separate and competing capital -- at least according to Marx. And it would be expected that there would be wage labor and that laborers would not directly bear all the fruits of their production immediately after the revolution in a backward country surrounded by hostile, capitalist powers.

Try Europe in the high middle ages. Wages existed, and commodities were produced, albeit in small quantity. Certainly wasn't capitalism yet.

All you comrades that rail about the lack of soviet democracy meant counterrevolution really don't get the historical situation at the time and the goals of the Bolsheviks. They were mainly trying to gain time to foster the world revolution And I don't see why people can't wrap their brains around the formulation that the USSR represented the form of the d of the p. Even if the workers did not directly rule. There have been instances in history where the bourgeoisie did not have direct political rule in capitalist countries (e.g., Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, any number of third world bonapartist regimes, not to mention the Bonapartes in France). So it was with the USSR.

[Fred]

Because Marxism is a method of analysis of material conditions. It's like saying that if you believe in evolution you must cling unto every word of Darwin. No, Darwin could be wrong in his theory of evolution describing evolution (and he was in some ways), the same Marx could be wrong in describing materialism.





No, it's pre-capitalistic.



You know, you keeping quoting things and they don't seem to mean what you think they mean. You've quoted this part (if I remember correctly, after I quoted it) several times and it does not correspond to what you're saying. Referencing independent artisans is anachronistic, they're gone in the most advanced areas on the world. They have been proletarianised. Artisans and merchants have been transplanted by the bourgeoisie and proletariat, due to Industrialisation. Artisans controlling their own labour and producing commodities is not capitalism, it does not follow that therefore workers controlling their own labour and producing commodities is compatible with socialism.



Again, this does not correspond to the point you're making. Every Marxist accepts the historical fact that independent artisans produced commodities and that they have, due to industrialisation, been replaced by wage-workers and the bourgeoisie. You don't seem to grasp the context of historical materialism. That independent production of commodities did not constitute capitalism in 1146 is because of the prevailing material conditions, it does not follow that therefore it will always be non-capitalistic.



Idem ditto.



No, what you quoted was Marx describing the process of primitive accumulation whereby the relations of production of independent artisans came into contradiction with the productive forces. Basic historical materialism.



Doesn't back up your argument.



I'm not sure about that. Marx, after all, initially acclaimed 'What is Property?'. I trust he did not just forget about it.



Not relevant.



It's an analogy. Overthrowing a king does not mean a monarchy has disappeared, the same overthrowing the bourgeoisie does not mean no bourgeoisie exists, or that capitalism has been overthrown.



Try 1918. What is a workers' state? A semi-state controlled by organs of workers' power. These were disbanded beginning 1918, factory committees abolished, the soviets' sovereignty was abolished in favour of Bolshevik control, and ultimately factionalism within the Bolshevik party was abolished. This was the counter-revolution that replaced organs of workers' power with a conventional bourgeois state structure (ministers, heads of state, top-down).



Hardly. War Communism was met with resistance, strikes, sabotage, and armed insurrection. This argument would apply to capitalist restoration in 1953, but not 1918-1922.



They existed in pre-capitalist society, but can't exist in post-capitalist society.



No one is arguing they had a choice.



What do you mean?



Owning and controlling (possessed) means of production at the expense of a dispossessed class seems pretty characteristic of a ruling class.



Exact;y, with the introduction of War Communism.
Let's see -- I meant that the so-called class of "state capitalists" would be unique as an historical class. They were thoroughly unnecessary parasites -- they played no creative role. And as a ruling class they were/are unique in not actually owning the means of production. Control and ownership are not the same thing.

Overthrowing the king, liquidating the aristocracy, taking all of their holdings, expropriating the capitalists and forming a planned collectivized economy sure as fuck sounds like you've overthrown both the monarchy and the bourgeosie. Capitalism without competing capital? Without the bourgeoisie? Doesn't work or make any sense.

[Art Vandelay]

I don't see what this kindergarten exercise about monarchy has to do with the USSR and the October Revolution. As far as I can tell, the conquests of that revolution were not overthrown until the dissolution of the USSR.

Revolution and counter-revolution are not things done in a corner. I don't think there can be any such thing as a silent capitalist restoration or one by stealth. On the contrary, the fate of any society will be decided by the very obvious, notable, clash between contradictory class interests, which is inevitable in both revolution and counter-revolution. That the state caps for decades have proposed very different, conflicting dates for their alleged, imaginary counter-revolution, even before the Yeltsin-Gorbachev restoration, suggests that the state-cap notion of revolution and counter-revolution is simply magical thinking, as something that could happen without our even knowing about it, which is nonsensical, because it parts company with materialism.

I think this is a really important point and one that I first picked up on while reading Isaac Deutscher's (who is generally considered somewhat of a backdoor stalinist by most trots) 2nd book in his 3 volume bio of Trotsky. For anyone who thinks that a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR, do they really think that a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR happened over night? If not then I don't see how they oppose the theory of the USSR being a degenerated worker's state. Its quite obvious that quantitative changes eventually lead to a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR. When this happened is definitely up for debate, however the fact that the USSR was a worker's state, slowly decaying and degenerating, largely due to its isolation and the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the civil war, is not. On top of all this, the idea that a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR could have happened imperceptibly, without any open and violent expressions of class antagonisms, is nothing other then adopting a conviction of reformism in reverse. Needless to say the state-capitalist theory, although I have to do more reading about it, strikes me as completely incoherent.

[Le Socialiste]

So, why do you consider the USSR to have been state-capitalist? Is it because there existed the party/state hierarchy/bureaucracy, which was the new capitalist class; is it because money wasn't abolished; or is it because the USSR existed in a capitalist worlds and therefore had to participate in the international capitalist market?

First off, that poll is terribly inadequate. Secondly, as I wrote a couple of months ago about the nature of the Soviet economy:


[T]he economic means of production were concentrated in the hands of a small minority of owners for the direct motive of producing surplus-value. While private property was less evident, the basic essence and function of capitalism remained the same, wherein the role of the Stalinist bureaucracy was akin to that of the bourgeoisie - with the social aim of accumulating capital and the production of commodities. The state essentially assumed the entrepreneurial function of the bourgeoisie. The realization of profit(s) were converted by the state into further means of production (i.e. factories, machinery, etc.). The bureaucracy would resemble a workers' state if it were subordinate to the working-class, but it wasn't. This economic productive mode in Russia was the culmination of a variety of objective factors, including economic and political isolation on the world stage that all but forced the revolution's degeneration.

Granted, this is a rather rough assessment. The generalities outlined above still hold, I believe.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

First of all, I don't think that we can really judge the class character of the Soviet system by looking at its economic machinery. That's not to say that this isn't an important component of understanding the class nature of the Soviet regime, but what is more important is its historical projectory rather than the nitty gritty of its mechanics. Or to be more precise, it is not a matter of exactly how the Soviet economy works but rather it is a matter of whether the economic mode adopted could have possibly been a platform off of which it could have advanced further towards a stateless, classless society. But even more importantly is the question of class rule, after all we can't simply snap our fingers and make Communism appear so naturally any revolutionary society will begin as state capitalism, so it is unreasonable to deny such a society support on that basis. So I think this attempt to discredit the Soviet Union based on whether market mechanisms existed is simple vulgar empiricism.

It's important to note that if we are going to have a coherent understanding of what socialism is as a transitionary stage, then we need to note that socialism is not a separate mode of production but rather indicates a period in which the working class rule has been developed to the point in which the working class has social ownership over production and is able to plan economic matters socially. However returning to the point that it does not represent a distinguished mode of production, socialism is only developed class rule and within this period the capitalist mode of production has not yet been superceded. To quote Lenin:

Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism -- or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble. (Lenin, Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat)


So naturally, within this period the material basis for the restoration of capitalism still exists, and by the restoration of capitalism I am referring to the restoration of capitalist rule, not the technical relations of production which define capitalism as an economic system.

Then the question of whether the Soviet Union is socialist or capitalism is a question of whether the working class exersized class rule over production and over society in general. Of course this class rule will take different shapes in different countries, and in many places it will need to be developed from a weaker point before it can take up the obvious proportions of the Paris Commune, and that this transition can only be successful through a period of prolonged class struggle. To quote Engels on the revolution and the possibly different forms of proletarian government:


Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat. Perhaps this will cost a second struggle, but the outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.(Fredrick Engels, The Principles of Communism)

So I think that from what I have said so far it is important to establish a few components of what class rule would actually look like. Obviously it is more complicated than I am presenting here, but I think that I can offer some basic factors to what constitutes proletarian rule. Proletarian rule would logically be consisted of three major components

1. Political rule of the proletariat: Are there institutions of class rule in Soviet Society? How do they operate? If they operate then are they indirect or direct, and are they complemented by class rule in economic and ideological affairs?

2. Economic rule: This is a multi-faceted phenomena which includes relations in the work place and to the broader economic structure. But in short, the question is what are the relations of production in Soviet Society? Has the economic base been developed sufficiently to the point in which social planning could take place, and if so, then does such planning take place? IF social planning does not take place, then what other ways does the working class express its rule in this area.

3. Ideology: This in my opinion comprises of the most important point because while the other two are more technical questions, the question of ideology is so paramount simply because it represents the best way of understanding the historical projectory of a revolutionary society. By Ideology, I am not referring to tendency within the Marxist movement, the question of the Parliament is not a question of class rule once the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established. I am referring to the Marxist notion of ideology where ideology is a set of views which are the reflection of class society. So in this case ideology represents all spheres of culture and thought. So even if a society has rid itself of money, even if formal class rule has been established throughout the world, if bourgeois culture and ideology is not struggled against then that society is on the road to capitalism regardless of its current form.

This is, I believe, the best way in which to evaluate the Soviet Union, and I hope it helps you come to your conclusions on it better.

[sixdollarchampagne]

... Overthrowing a king does not mean a monarchy has disappeared, the same overthrowing the bourgeoisie does not mean no bourgeoisie exists, or that capitalism has been overthrown....
Try 1918. What is a workers' state? A semi-state controlled by organs of workers' power. These were disbanded beginning 1918, factory committees abolished, the soviets' sovereignty was abolished in favour of Bolshevik control, and ultimately factionalism within the Bolshevik party was abolished. This was the counter-revolution that replaced organs of workers' power with a conventional bourgeois state structure (ministers, heads of state, top-down)....
War Communism was met with resistance, strikes, sabotage, and armed insurrection. This argument would apply to capitalist restoration in 1953, but not 1918-1922.

(By way of explanation, I wrote the following before I read 9mm's valuable contribution above, for which I thank the comrade.)

In other words, having led a successful revolution against a bourgeois government (the one headed by Kerensky), Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks then, just after the bourgeois state had been smashed, re-established bourgeois rule, beginning in 1918, months after the October Revolution, but, literally no one on earth noticed this, until, apparently, the Shachtmanites, decades later. Those have got to be two gigantic, Hoover Dam-sized, improbabilities. I have a bridge to sell to anyone who believes that.

Again, revolution and counter-revolution do not take place in a corner. Under soviet power in Russia, the capitalist class and landowners became dispossessed, their property was nationalized, a planned economy was created, and the soviets continued to exist, as did many other conquests of the October Revolution, for decades afterwards.

[juliusaugustus]

The reason that the Soviet Union was capitalist was because of the state. Rather than capitalists owning capital goods it was people in government. Governments are for the most part corporations run for profit the Soviet Union was no different in this regard. In the Soviet Union you had few rich people and many poor people just like a capitalist economy. Think of the Soviet Union as one very large centralized corporation.

[Sotionov]

Because Marxism is a method of analysis of material conditions.
Which matters why?


No, it's pre-capitalistic.
Capitalism is a form of economic organisation, not a point in time, a portion of time, and isn't it's definition of economic systel pinned to a certain time. Therefore, saying "pre-capitalists" just means non-capitalist.


You know, you keeping quoting things and they don't seem to mean what you think they mean. You've quoted this part (if I remember correctly, after I quoted it) several times and it does not correspond to what you're saying.
It corresponds perfectly, being that I am saying that "simple commodity production" means commodity production that is not capitalist, and that doesn't have exploitation in it.


Again, this does not correspond to the point you're making.
It perfectly does. I am saying that "simple" in simpe commodity production means that the workers are not exploited, but are themselves the owners of their means of prodcution and the products of their labor, and this quote says exactly the same.


No, what you quoted was Marx describing the process of primitive accumulation whereby the relations of production of independent artisans came into contradiction with the productive forces. Basic historical materialism.
"We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and subjection of the labourer." On the begining of that chapter he says: "Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only." And a few sentances after that: "There the capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems, manifest itself here practically in a struggle between them."

[Salabra]

No. There are not "Trot" options. Trotsky held that the USSR was the dictatorship of the proletariat. The splits from the Trotskyist movement over the years that took up the "State Cap" view all did so under pressure from the bourgeois/liberal milieu to drop defense of the USSR. Cliff did so in response to the Korean War. Burnham in the American SWP did so under pressure after the Stalin/Molotov pact was signed and the USSR invaded "poor little" Finland. Shachtman took a middle ground with his more plausible "bureacratic collectivist" line -- although it too was incorrect and led him ultimately down the road to being a "state department socialist."

Well put, Fred!

And wasn't the poll just a wonderful example of question-begging?

[Tim Cornelis]

Let's see -- I meant that the so-called class of "state capitalists" would be unique as an historical class. They were thoroughly unnecessary parasites -- they played no creative role. And as a ruling class they were/are unique in not actually owning the means of production. Control and ownership are not the same thing.

Just because something is unique doesn't mean it can't exist. But there is nothing unique about it. CEOs don't necessarily own the means of production either, many don't in fat. They are throughly unnecessary as well. They control the means of production, but don't own it, yet are capitalists precisely because they control capital.

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:


If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.

But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. 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.

D. Partial recognition of the social character of the productive forces forced upon the capitalists themselves. Taking over of the great institutions for production and communication, first by joint-stock companies, later in by trusts, then by the State. The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees.

Engels overstated the degree to which the capitalist class became obsolete, but he was right in saying that salaried employees, managers, CEOs, have now usurped the role formerly reserved to the legalistic owners of capital. The fact that capital is controlled by a group of people at the expense of the dispossessed strata of society, the working class, is sufficient for it to be considered a capitalist society.


Overthrowing the king, liquidating the aristocracy, taking all of their holdings, expropriating the capitalists and forming a planned collectivized economy sure as fuck sounds like you've overthrown both the monarchy and the bourgeosie. Capitalism without competing capital? Without the bourgeoisie? Doesn't work or make any sense.

This is a petitio principii, it assumes the initial point, namely that there was no bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie was overthrown and then replaced by another bourgeoisie.

How was the economy "collectivised" though?

If the USSR was socialist, then is, let's say, Mondragon Cooperative Corporation socialistic? Or even McDonald's?*

If I come to a business kill the owner, expropriate it, and then have the wage-workers continue to work as wage-workers, then by your logic is it now socialist?

*=
Because surely McDonald's structure looks suspiciously like that of the USSR: centrally planned from above by an undemocratic caste, plant managers controlling but not owning the means of production, branch managers supplying information for planning to the regional managers, and so forth. At the bottom there's the wage workers. Plants don't compete, so internally there is no competing capital. They don't attempt to undercut each other.


Which matters why?

Because you imply as if disagreeing with Marx is a sin to Marxists.


Capitalism is a form of economic organisation, not a point in time, a portion of time, and isn't it's definition of economic systel pinned to a certain time. Therefore, saying "pre-capitalists" just means non-capitalist.

its* (sorry I've seen the wrong use of it's on this forum surge lately).

Indeed, pre-capitalist is non-capitalist. But I don't see your point.



It corresponds perfectly, being that I am saying that "simple commodity production" means commodity production that is not capitalist, and that doesn't have exploitation in it.

But it's anachronistic. It can't exist today.


It perfectly does. I am saying that "simple" in simpe commodity production means that the workers are not exploited, but are themselves the owners of their means of prodcution and the products of their labor, and this quote says exactly the same.

But you're making that up. Simple refers to the simple exchange of commodities. That quote does not back it up.


"We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and subjection of the labourer." On the begining of that chapter he says: "Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers’ own labour, the other on the employment of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only." And a few sentances after that: "There the capitalist regime everywhere comes into collision with the resistance of the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself, instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems, manifest itself here practically in a struggle between them."

Again, this is anachronistic. It refers that independent artisans, owning the conditions of their labour, could not survive in the face of industrialisation. That commercial competition causes proletarianisation, which enables wage-labour.


(By way of explanation, I wrote the following before I read 9mm's valuable contribution above, for which I thank the comrade.)

In other words, having led a successful revolution against a bourgeois government (the one headed by Kerensky), Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks then, just after the bourgeois state had been smashed, re-established bourgeois rule, beginning in 1918, months after the October Revolution, but, literally no one on earth noticed this, until, apparently, the Shachtmanites, decades later. Those have got to be two gigantic, Hoover Dam-sized, improbabilities. I have a bridge to sell to anyone who believes that.

How do you mean "nobody noticed"? You think War Communism went unnoticed?


Again, revolution and counter-revolution do not take place in a corner. Under soviet power in Russia, the capitalist class and landowners became dispossessed, their property was nationalized, a planned economy was created, and the soviets continued to exist, as did many other conquests of the October Revolution, for decades afterwards.

Then soviet power was disbanded. This defeats your argument. Nationalisation is not socialism. Planning is not socialism. The soviets were no longer organs of workers' power.

So you consider the post office a deformed workers' enterprise? It's the same logic.


For anyone who thinks that a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR, do they really think that a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR happened over night? If not then I don't see how they oppose the theory of the USSR being a degenerated worker's state. Its quite obvious that quantitative changes eventually lead to a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR. When this happened is definitely up for debate, however the fact that the USSR was a worker's state, slowly decaying and degenerating, largely due to its isolation and the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the civil war, is not. On top of all this, the idea that a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR could have happened imperceptibly, without any open and violent expressions of class antagonisms, is nothing other then adopting a conviction of reformism in reverse. Needless to say the state-capitalist theory, although I have to do more reading about it, strikes me as completely incoherent.

This argument is valid only against those that believe capitalist restoration happened post-1953. The opposition to War Communism was sabotage, strikes, and armed insurrection. These are clearly violent expressions of class antagonisms. A workers' state not controlled by workers is not a workers' state. It's as simple as that. You can't have a deformed workers' state, you can't have a degenerated workers' state. It's a workers' state or it isn't. This is what's incoherent, a workers' state that is magically not a workers' state but still a workers' state.

[Sotionov]

Because you imply as if disagreeing with Marx is a sin to Marxist.
If he doesn't want to be a revisionist.


But it's anachronistic. It can't exist today.Workers owning their means production and producing commodities cannot exist today? You've never heard of workers' cooperatives?


Simple refers to the simple exchange of commodities.No it doesn't. SMP is the name of commodity production without exploitation, as explained in the quotes I provided.

[Brotto Rühle]

The key point is that capitalism exists only as separate and competing capital -- at least according to Marx. And it would be expected that there would be wage labor and that laborers wouldanyway irectly bear all the fruits of their production immediately after the revolution in a backward country surrounded by hostile, capitalist powers. Immediately after the revolution, is still capitalism. The difference is the monopoly of the means of production falls under the working class, eventually... And the political power lays in their hands as well. Wage labour, as well, exists only in that which the worker does not control the total value of his labour, as we can see was the case in the USSR. No workers political power, no workers economic power.

The mode of production doesn't take away from the revolution, only if that revolution loses the political power aspect. It's with political power the workers maintain their monopoly on the means of production.

The question always lays in: was there a dictatorship of the proletariat, I.e did ithe working class hold political power/state power.


Try Europe in the high middle ages. Wages existed, and commodities were produced, albeit in small quantity. Certainly wasn't capitalism yet.The proletarian existed in feudalism? Marx missed something. The existence of forms of capitalism within feudalism, didn't change the fact that the system remained...feudalism


All you comrades that rail about the lack of soviet democracy meant counterrevolution really don't get the historical situation at the time and the goals of the Bolsheviks. They were mainly trying to gain time to foster the world revolution And I don't see why people can't wrap their brains around the formulation that the USSR represented the form of the d of the p. Even if the workers did not directly rule. There have been instances in history where the bourgeoisie did not have direct political rule in capitalist countries (e.g., Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, any number of third world bonapartist regimes, not to mention the Bonapartes in France). So it was with the USSR.The mode of production remained capitalist, the state was still the tool of bourgeois class oppression of the proletariat.

The historical situation is easily understandable, we do get it. We get that it resulted in the elimination of the not fully established DOTP, that it capital was not abolished, that the state was not proletarian in form, character, etc.

[Tim Cornelis]

If he doesn't want to be a revisionist.

Revising theories is an integral part of science, as long as it is on the basis of fact and factual analysis. If Marxists claim to be scientific socialism, "revisionism" is only natural. Accepting evolution as true does not mean agreeing 100% of the time with Darwin, and advancing evolution theory involves scrutinising the works of Darwin to correct and revises flaws, mistakes, and falsehoods. The same goes for Marxism.


Workers owning their means production and producing commodities cannot exist today? You've never heard of workers' cooperatives?

Simple commodity production can't exist.


No it doesn't. SMP is the name of commodity production without exploitation, as explained in the quotes I provided.

No, it simply isn't. You read what you want to read, not what's written. Simple commodity production is the simple exchange of commodities. It can't exist in today's society due to the development of the productive forces of society.

[Fred]

So much logic chopping, comrade Tim. CEOs are not a class. Many are parasitic, no doubt, but the class to which they belong, the bourgeoisie, played an important and progressive role in history way back when. BTW, most CEOs hold a large amount of stock in the companies they run.

McDonald's is a company, not a state -- come on, you know the difference -- it has nothing to do with this discussion.

If the Bolsheviks were the "new bourgeoisie" they had a very different relationship to the means of production than the "old bourgeoisie." Mainly, they did not OWN it. Sure, as time went on, esp. after 1924, they gained privileges for being part of the club. But they owned nothing. If they lost their jobs, they lost their privileges. Also, production in the USSR was not based on profit. So was this capitalism sui generis?

[Sotionov]

Revising theories is an integral part of science
Marxism is not science, it almost entierly irrational, the only things that make sense are the ones that were ripped off from Proudhon.


Simple commodity production can't exist.
Simple commodity production is commodity production where workers own their means of production, as said in the quotes that I provided.

[Brotto Rühle]

If the Bolsheviks were the "new bourgeoisie" they had a very different relationship to the means of production than the "old bourgeoisie." Mainly, they did not OWN it. Sure, as time went on, esp. after 1924, they gained privileges for being part of the club. But they owned nothing. If they lost their jobs, they lost their privileges. Also, production in the USSR was not based on profit. So was this capitalism sui generis?

The state can own the means of production, and form the bourgeois class. Marx talked about state capitalism in this way. You mention "own" as if the bourgeois conept of legality didn't apply...the state did "own" these means of production, just because they were taken from the former bourgeoisie, dkesnt change the capitalistic property relation of the state to the means of production in the USSR.

Class is determined by relations to the means of production, not by whether they had job security or owned a yacht.

We call it state capitalism, to differentiate it from liberal capitalism.

[Tim Cornelis]

So much logic chopping, comrade Tim. CEOs are not a class.

They aren't a class, they are part of the capitalist class.


Many are parasitic, no doubt, but the class to which they belong, the bourgeoisie, played an important and progressive role in history way back when. BTW, most CEOs hold a large amount of stock in the companies they run.

Those that don't, don't own means of production, yet are capitalists.


McDonald's is a company, not a state -- come on, you know the difference -- it has nothing to do with this discussion.

It's an analogy. You claim that such and such is not capitalistic for such and such reason, yet these reasons can be applied to corporations and post offices.

McDonald's:
-No competing capital internally
-Wage-labour
-Monopolised ownership
-Commodity production

This all applies to USSR. If you don't like this example, use an expropriated workers' cooperative. Let's say a business is expropriated by the workers. They elect management and then management introduces, against the will of the workers, Taylorism and disbands workers' control. Logically, it's 100% a capitalist firm. Yet you would call it a degenerated workers' enterprise.

Incidentally, a workers' state is not a mode of production.


If the Bolsheviks were the "new bourgeoisie" they had a very different relationship to the means of production than the "old bourgeoisie." Mainly, they did not OWN it.

The state did. And again, you don't need to own the means of production to be a capitalist.


Sure, as time went on, esp. after 1924, they gained privileges for being part of the club. But they owned nothing.

Neither do high ranked salaried corporate managers.


If they lost their jobs, they lost their privileges.

Which proves nothing in regards to the class nature of the USSR.


Also, production in the USSR was not based on profit. So was this capitalism sui generis?

The USSR was based on profits, enterprises were expected to earn in excess of the costs of production. This is only logical, if you allow enterprises to run unprofitable it will run your economy down toward bankruptcy, socialist pretenses or not.


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.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch04.htm


Marxism is not science, it almost entierly irrational, the only things that make sense are the ones that were ripped off from Proudhon.

It seems you have no clue whatsoever what Marxism is because you keep interpreting, even the basics, completely wrong so I understand why you would say it makes no sense.


Simple commodity production is commodity production where workers own their means of production, as said in the quotes that I provided.

You're embarrassing yourself.

[Art Vandelay]

Re: Tim. I'm going to feild these couple points, even though they weren't all directed at me.


How do you mean "nobody noticed"? You think War Communism went unnoticed?

I'm guessing that the comrade was referencing the fact that the furthest left wing elements within the party (WO) didn't call for abandonment of the party (due to their claim the dotp was dead) until the early twenties.


Then soviet power was disbanded. This defeats your argument. Nationalisation is not socialism. Planning is not socialism. The soviets were no longer organs of workers' power.

No one is claiming that socialism existed in the USSR, but rather a nationalized planned economy is a pre-reqresuite to the development of socialism and that the true potential of the NPE in the USSR was unfortunately unharnessed due to various reasons, including beaurecratic incompetency.


This argument is valid only against those that believe capitalist restoration happened post-1953. The opposition to War Communism was sabotage, strikes, and armed insurrection. These are clearly violent expressions of class antagonisms. A workers' state not controlled by workers is not a workers' state. It's as simple as that. You can't have a deformed workers' state, you can't have a degenerated workers' state. It's a workers' state or it isn't. This is what's incoherent, a workers' state that is magically not a workers' state but still a workers' state.

I'm sorry to say, but the idea that a workers state is either a workers state or it isn't is false. That's an opinion that falls within the framework of formal logic, not Marxian dialectics. I'd honestly suggest reading George Novacks work on dialectics or Trotskys In Defence of Marxism, where they kind of deal with exactly this point.

Also my argument doesn't only apply to those who view the USSR as socialist till '53. It goes for all who consider a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in '17. These open expressions of class antagonisms you mention existed, but they were between the proletarian Bolsheviks (carrying a majority in the soviets when the proletariat was at its strongest and most class consciouss) and class alien elements.

I mean how does one conclude that capitalism merely continues to function relatively normally, while the bourgeoisie have lost their control of the state apparatus, as if this wouldn't create consequences which would reverberate through the entire superstructure of the USSR. The RR was the most radical break with traditional property relations in history, it's no wonder it took a new term and new theory to begin to understand the events which transpired post '17.

[Tim Cornelis]

No one is claiming that socialism existed in the USSR, but rather a nationalized planned economy is a pre-reqresuite to the development of socialism and that the true potential of the NPE in the USSR was unfortunately unharnessed due to various reasons, including beaurecratic incompetency.

But it isn't. Nationalisation in itself is meaningless. It's a matter of the class nature of "nationalisation", done under the control of a workers' state, meaning through organs of workers' power, or from above and maintaining capitalist relations of production, as was the case in Russia and the USSR.


I'm sorry to say, but the idea that a workers state is either a workers state or it isn't is false. That's an opinion that falls within the framework of formal logic, not Marxian dialectics. I'd honestly suggest reading George Novacks work on dialectics or Trotskys In Defence of Marxism, where they kind of deal with exactly this point.

I don't have the time now. Could you explain it to me. It seems unreasonable and illogical that a workers' state can be a workers' state predicated fully on capitalist relations of production, a bourgeois state structure (top-down, ministers, head of state, etc.), and commodity production.


Also my argument doesn't only apply to those who view the USSR as socialist till '53. It goes for all who consider a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in '17. These open expressions of class antagonisms you mention existed, but they were between the proletarian Bolsheviks (carrying a majority in the soviets when the proletariat was at its strongest and most class consciouss) and class alien elements.

No, they were between workers and peasants demanding soviets, and the Bolsheviks instituting bourgeois class rule. From 1918 onward the Bolsheviks initiated the counter-revolution by disbanding organs of workers' power, and workers resisting to this through sabotage, strike action, and armed insurrection. You can't have proletarian class rule without corresponding organs of workers' power. The Bolsheviks actively sought to disintegrate the latter, and thus proletarian class rule. By doing so they solidified capitalist production, capitalism, and the bourgeois state structure.

[Art Vandelay]

But it isn't. Nationalisation in itself is meaningless. It's a matter of the class nature of "nationalisation", done under the control of a workers' state, meaning through organs of workers' power, or from above and maintaining capitalist relations of production, as was the case in Russia and the USSR.

First off the idea that the Bolsheviks usurped power anywhere before 23' is really something I believe I've only ever heard DNZ say. Although perhaps I just haven't chatted with left-coms in a while. They were a majority in the soviets and represented proletarian class interests. The earliest genuine soviet control could have been reimplemented, would of been following the end of the civil war, although given the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the civil war, this would of been tantamount to treason to the proletarian cause, and also would of had to been predicated on the assumption tht the proletariat of '24 was more class consciouss (after the destruction of its ranks) then the proletariat of '17 which voted the Bolsheviks a majority in the soviets.


I don't have the time now. Could you explain it to me. It seems unreasonable and illogical that a workers' state can be a workers' state predicated fully on capitalist relations of production, a bourgeois state structure (top-down, ministers, head of state, etc.), and commodity production.

I'm at work now, so I'm typing on my iPod, so it's kind of a pain in the ass to type. I can come back an explain better later when I have acess to a computer, but basically the premise of formal logic that A = A, and never non-A, is incompatible with the premise of Marxian dialectics that nothing is static, everything is fluid and that A can equal both A and non-A. The statement that a workers state is either a workers state or it's not, is steeped in the assumptions of formal logic, which exists as a part of bourgeois ideology and has been surpassed by Marxian dialectics in the realm of logic.


No, they were between workers and peasants demanding soviets, and the Bolsheviks instituting bourgeois class rule. From 1918 onward the Bolsheviks initiated the counter-revolution by disbanding organs of workers' power, and workers resisting to this through sabotage, strike action, and armed insurrection. You can't have proletarian class rule without corresponding organs of workers' power. The Bolsheviks actively sought to disintegrate the latter, and thus proletarian class rule. By doing so they solidified capitalist production, capitalism, and the bourgeois state structure.


Have you ever read ComradeOM's thread on the history of the RR? He's really the go to authority on the subject around here.

[Fred]

Immediately after the revolution, is still capitalism. The difference is the monopoly of the means of production falls under the working class, eventually... And the political power lays in their hands as well. Wage labour, as well, exists only in that which the worker does not control the total value of his labour, as we can see was the case in the USSR. No workers political power, no workers economic power.

The mode of production doesn't take away from the revolution, only if that revolution loses the political power aspect. It's with political power the workers maintain their monopoly on the means of production.

The question always lays in: was there a dictatorship of the proletariat, I.e did ithe working class hold political power/state power.

The proletarian existed in feudalism? Marx missed something. The existence of forms of capitalism within feudalism, didn't change the fact that the system remained...feudalism

The mode of production remained capitalist, the state was still the tool of bourgeois class oppression of the proletariat.

The historical situation is easily understandable, we do get it. We get that it resulted in the elimination of the not fully established DOTP, that it capital was not abolished, that the state was not proletarian in form, character, etc.
You are confusing political power with a mode of production. In your formulation, the workers were oppressed, therefore it was capitalism. The state was an instrument for defending the emerging property forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There was no bourgeoisie. "Bourgeois" is not an epithet. It denotes a set of specific relationship to the means of production -- above all else this means ownership. It also, according to Marx, meant separate and competing capitalists. So you have system that develops with no competing capital, production not geared to profit, a state monopoly of banking and trade, no way to inherit wealth, or even hold onto wealth if you are tossed from the bureaucracy. Because workers are exploited it is capitalism? No argument from me that it was never socialism -- obviously it was not.

[Art Vandelay]

You are confusing political power with a mode of production. In your formulation, the workers were oppressed, therefore it was capitalism. The state was an instrument for defending the emerging property forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There was no bourgeoisie. "Bourgeois" is not an epithet. It denotes a set of specific relationship to the means of production -- above all else this means ownership. It also, according to Marx, meant separate and competing capitalists. So you have system that develops with no competing capital, production not geared to profit, a state monopoly of banking and trade, no way to inherit wealth, or even hold onto wealth if you are tossed from the bureaucracy. Because workers are exploited it is capitalism? No argument from me that it was never socialism -- obviously it was not.

I'm surprised at how many people think the bourgeoisie can lose control of the state apparatus and capitalism continues to function. It's as if the capital Marx describes in 'Capital' wasn't something specific.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I think this is a really important point and one that I first picked up on while reading Isaac Deutscher's (who is generally considered somewhat of a backdoor stalinist by most trots) 2nd book in his 3 volume bio of Trotsky. For anyone who thinks that a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR, do they really think that a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR happened over night? If not then I don't see how they oppose the theory of the USSR being a degenerated worker's state. Its quite obvious that quantitative changes eventually lead to a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR. When this happened is definitely up for debate, however the fact that the USSR was a worker's state, slowly decaying and degenerating, largely due to its isolation and the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the civil war, is not. On top of all this, the idea that a qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR could have happened imperceptibly, without any open and violent expressions of class antagonisms, is nothing other then adopting a conviction of reformism in reverse. Needless to say the state-capitalist theory, although I have to do more reading about it, strikes me as completely incoherent.

I think the difficulty in Trotskyism's inability to understand the complete historic nature of the class structure of the Soviet Union is due to the Mechanical Marxism of Trotsky's own thought, since Trotsky could not imagine a way for the bourgeois to rule through other than through private property as conceived in most capitalist states, hence why Trotsky could not conceive of the Soviet Union as anything but a deformed workers state and why he had to invent an entirely new class system to explain the Soviet Union. Trotskyism then seems to represent a phenomena of being "creatively dogmatic" in that since it can not evolve the present framework for new historical tasks it must invent a completely new framework for this purpose, and considering the controversy over Degenerated Worker's State theory, Bureaucratic Collectivist Theory, and plenty of others, I think that the tendency for Trotskyists to split over disagreements of how to use their new framework to analysis new events proves that their theoretical framework is ultimately too ridged to be of use.

But in regards to your argument, which is not spesfically a Trotskyist arguement to my knowledge of Trotskyism, and which invokes Marxist dialetics, I would say that it is true that the restoration of capitalism had both a qualitative and quantitative aspect and that there was indeed a period of quantitative degeneration. This is quite obvious when for example, in the writing of the Soviet constitution, the proposal for competitive elections and independent candidates was rejected by the majority of the bureaucracy in favor of single candidate elections, and that the debates over how to phase out commodity production eventually ceased in favor of universalizing commodity production in all aspects of the soviet economy. So I would say that there was definitely a period of indirect proletarian rule during which there was a struggle against degeneration that was ultimately a failing battle, and the point at which the quantitative changes led to a qualitative change in the class nature of the Soviet Union. However my problem with the Trotskyist narrative is that it assumes the quantitative aspect is the sole aspect, that there is no point where the Soviet Union transforms qualitatively, and that the days of Brezhnev can be referred to as a degenerated working state even when the ruling clique has nothing to do with proletarian class rule

[Art Vandelay]

I think the difficulty in Trotskyism's inability to understand the complete historic nature of the class structure of the Soviet Union is due to the Mechanical Marxism of Trotsky's own thought, since Trotsky could not imagine a way for the bourgeois to rule through other than through private property as conceived in most capitalist states, hence why Trotsky could not conceive of the Soviet Union as anything but a deformed workers state and why he had to invent an entirely new class system to explain the Soviet Union. Trotskyism then seems to represent a phenomena of being "creatively dogmatic" in that since it can not evolve the present framework for new historical tasks it must invent a completely new framework for this purpose, and considering the controversy over Degenerated Worker's State theory, Bureaucratic Collectivist Theory, and plenty of others, I think that the tendency for Trotskyists to split over disagreements of how to use their new framework to analysis new events proves that their theoretical framework is ultimately too ridged to be of use.

But in regards to your argument, which is not spesfically a Trotskyist arguement to my knowledge of Trotskyism, and which invokes Marxist dialetics, I would say that it is true that the restoration of capitalism had both a qualitative and quantitative aspect and that there was indeed a period of quantitative degeneration. This is quite obvious when for example, in the writing of the Soviet constitution, the proposal for competitive elections and independent candidates was rejected by the majority of the bureaucracy in favor of single candidate elections, and that the debates over how to phase out commodity production eventually ceased in favor of universalizing commodity production in all aspects of the soviet economy. So I would say that there was definitely a period of indirect proletarian rule during which there was a struggle against degeneration that was ultimately a failing battle, and the point at which the quantitative changes led to a qualitative change in the class nature of the Soviet Union. However my problem with the Trotskyist narrative is that it assumes the quantitative aspect is the sole aspect, that there is no point where the Soviet Union transforms qualitatively, and that the days of Brezhnev can be referred to as a degenerated working state even when the ruling clique has nothing to do with proletarian class rule

Truth be told I could care less what the traditional Trotskyist narrative is, even in my own party I'm never shy about deviating from party line in internal debate. The part in bold is actually spot on and something which characterizes my disagreements with post Trotsky trots. I think had Trotsky lived to see the end of WWII he wouldn't of continued to uphold the theory of DWS (you can even pick up on signs of this in his 'the USSR in war'). It's quite sad the theory he was close to abandoning before his assassination, became the official dogma of post-Trotsky Trotskyists. Don't even get me started on the 'deformed workers state' garbage, it has nothing to do with Trotsky. As I've stated earlier the degeneration of the revolution couldn't have been complete without the open expression of violen class antagonisms; while this isn't my own original theory, I think the best candidate to represent the final degenerative nail in the workers states' coffin is the purge in the 30's.

[Old Bolshie]

In other words, having led a successful revolution against a bourgeois government (the one headed by Kerensky), Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks then, just after the bourgeois state had been smashed, re-established bourgeois rule, beginning in 1918, months after the October Revolution, but, literally no one on earth noticed this, until, apparently, the Shachtmanites, decades later. Those have got to be two gigantic, Hoover Dam-sized, improbabilities. I have a bridge to sell to anyone who believes that.

Except that the bourgeois state was never really smashed and Lenin himself later recognized it during his struggle against bureaucracy.

"There is no doubt that that measure should have been delayed until we could say, that we vouched for our apparatus as our own. But now, we must, in all conscience, admit the contrary; the state apparatus we call ours is, in fact, still quite alien to us; it is a bourgeois and Tsarist hotchpotch and there has been no possibility of getting rid of it in the past five years without the help of other countries and because we have been "busy" most of the time with military engagements and the fight against famine."

V.I Lenin, Works, vol. 36, page 605.


I was a Russian-language major in college. Our teachers were the descendants of once-bourgeois families, and those families, along with the rest of the bourgeoisie, were displaced, owing to the October Revolution. That is how non-capitalist the old USSR, even with all its warts and difficulties, was.

The capitalist nature of the soviet economy was also recognized by Lenin himself who rightly interpreted state capitalism as one step forward towards socialism:

"State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country."

V.I. Lenin, The Tax in Kind

[Brotto Rühle]

You are confusing political power with a mode of production. In your formulation, the workers were oppressed, therefore it was capitalism. The state was an instrument for defending the emerging property forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There was no bourgeoisie. "Bourgeois" is not an epithet. It denotes a set of specific relationship to the means of production -- above all else this means ownership. It also, according to Marx, meant separate and competing capitalists. So you have system that develops with no competing capital, production not geared to profit, a state monopoly of banking and trade, no way to inherit wealth, or even hold onto wealth if you are tossed from the bureaucracy. Because workers are exploited it is capitalism? No argument from me that it was never socialism -- obviously it was not.I hate to repeat myself, but what made it capitalism wasn't the oppression, but th fact of the capitalist mode of production still existing.

No way to inhereit wealth doeant mean anything in regards to the means of production, because the state inherits the wealth. The state is the capitalist, the exploiter.

You're argument comes down to either a new mode of production existed, some capitalism some socialism existed, or socialism existed. What was it, and why.

[Bea Arthur]

The USSR was state capitalist because it ran things for profit and not for producers. It had money, payment for work, and all the other things that define capitalism not to mention the continued sexism, racism, homophobia and imperialism.

[red flag over teeside]

Seems to me that while the urban workers with the support of the rural workers overthrew the Czarist state they were unable to avoid their own defeat through the combination of Imperialist intervention, civil war and complete exhaustion. The reason why Stalin and Stalinism was able to develop was through this defeat. The workers were politically disenfranchised while they ended up working as they did under primitive capitalist accumalation this time the newly emerging state became the collective capitalist.

[Fred]

The USSR was state capitalist because it ran things for profit and not for producers. It had money, payment for work, and all the other things that define capitalism not to mention the continued sexism, racism, homophobia and imperialism.

No, that is flat out wrong. Production, unlike in capitalist countries was not for profit. That is not the way the Soviet economy ever worked, except to the extent this was true for a time under NEP, and even then it was quite limited. BTW, the USSR was the first country in the world to make homosexuality legal. Of course, Stalin and his cronies backslid from that, making the nuclear family a pillar of "socialism." I repeat that money and payment for work do not define capitalism.

That aside, I love your name and avatar -- very funny.

[Bea Arthur]

No, that is flat out wrong. Production, unlike in capitalist countries was not for profit. That is not the way the Soviet economy ever worked, except to the extent this was true for a time under NEP, and even then it was quite limited. BTW, the USSR was the first country in the world to make homosexuality legal. Of course, Stalin and his cronies backslid from that, making the nuclear family a pillar of "socialism." I repeat that money and payment for work do not define capitalism.

That aside, I love your name and avatar -- very funny.

Then how do you explain the existence of money? The continuation of racism, sexism, homophobia and imperialism? The Soviet Union was not socialist. The only other option is capitalist.

[Fred]

I hate to repeat myself, but what made it capitalism wasn't the oppression, but th fact of the capitalist mode of production still existing.

No way to inhereit wealth doeant mean anything in regards to the means of production, because the state inherits the wealth. The state is the capitalist, the exploiter.

You're argument comes down to either a new mode of production existed, some capitalism some socialism existed, or socialism existed. What was it, and why.

Well, socialism is not a piecemeal kind of thing, so no socialism did not exist. Do you realize that the having a single "exploiter" is a qualitative transformation from capitalism. It was the dictatorship of the proletariat because of the transformed property forms that existed -- from the time of October. If what existed was the "capitalist mode of production" it was qualitatively different from any other capitalism that has ever existed.

[Fourth Internationalist]

It was the dictatorship of the proletariat because of the transformed property forms that existed -- from the time of October. If what existed was the "capitalist mode of production" it was qualitatively different from any other capitalism that has ever existed.

The dotp is a form of capitalism, the final form, called state capitalism (different from the Stalinist system). So it is still a capitalist mode of production until communism. However, it is moving towards communism the entire time.

[Art Vandelay]

The dotp is a form of capitalism, the final form, called state capitalism (different from the Stalinist system). So it is still a capitalist mode of production until communism. However, it is moving towards communism the entire time.

I think its important to point out that what you state here, is completely at odds with the theory of state-capitalism as generally put forward by the communist left; for example its incompatible with the opinion of 'Subvert and Destroy' some of whose posts you've liked in this thread.

[Brotto Rühle]

Well, socialism is not a piecemeal kind of thing, so no socialism did not exist. Do you realize that the having a single "exploiter" is a qualitative transformation from capitalism. It was the dictatorship of the proletariat because of the transformed property forms that existed -- from the time of October. If what existed was the "capitalist mode of production" it was qualitatively different from any other capitalism that has ever existed.The issue with your position is that it incorrectly views the dictatorship of the proletariat as a change in property relations when, in fact, it is merely the proletariat having state/political power, i.e. the proletariat organized as the ruling class. While, yes, the dotp oversees the changes in property relations, the dotp is NOT the changes in property relations.

State capitalism =/= liberal capitalism. But it is capitalism nonetheless.


I think its important to point out that what you state here, is completely at odds with the theory of state-capitalism as generally put forward by the communist left; for example its incompatible with the opinion of 'Subvert and Destroy' some of whose posts you've liked in this thread. I view the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat to be capitalist, but of course it is decaying (proletarian monopoly of the means of production, the proletarian controlling/managing their profits, etc.) -- noting that the absence of these things does not mean that the dotp doesn't exist.

[Klaatu]

The OP mentioned "International market" but bear in mind that in the early days of the USSR (1920s-30s) it did not do much trade with the West, and that is why The Great Depression did not affect USSR all that much.

[Fred]

Then how do you explain the existence of money? The continuation of racism, sexism, homophobia and imperialism? The Soviet Union was not socialist. The only other option is capitalist.

Says who? How about a society in transition? Initially, the Bolsheviks did rather well regarding racism, sexism and homophobia. And I'm not sure what your definition of imperialism is, but the USSR was not that either. Sure, under Stalin things regressed and the last remnants of the revolution were crushed in the early 90s. And, again, no the USSR was not socialist. You are taking some of the common horrible vices of capitalism and making them defining features. They are not (except imperialism). Racism, sexism, homophobia have all existed in pre-capitalist societies. Money has existed in a wide variety of non-capitalist societies.

[Homo Songun]

The issue with your position is that it incorrectly views the dictatorship of the proletariat as a change in property relations when, in fact, it is merely the proletariat having state/political power, i.e. the proletariat organized as the ruling class. While, yes, the dotp oversees the changes in property relations, the dotp is NOT the changes in property relations.

Strictly speaking, you are right, the DOTP is "not the changes in property relations" itself, it is the vehicle by which it happens. However, there's a logical implausibility in your argument here, if we explicitly state your implied conclusion, "Therefore the Soviet Union was capitalist in its mode of production throughout its lifetime". Keeping in mind that Marx summed up his own contribution this way:


My own contribution was (1) to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; [and] (3) that this dictatorship, itself, constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

Thus, if we take you at your word, the "transition to the abolition of all classes" is supposed to magically happen instantaneously, in historical terms. The capitalist ruling class is implausibly suicidal compared to any other ruling class in history. To the contrary its the most durable and creative that humanity has seen (endured) thus far. However, the apparent contradiction is dissolved the moment we realize that the DOTP and the lower stage of communism ("Socialism") are not discontinuous epochs but rather they happen at the same time. Which is what Marx is saying in Critique of the Gotha Programme and elsewhere. Or at least, that is the least-tortured interpretation thereof.


I view the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat to be capitalist, but of course it is decaying (proletarian monopoly of the means of production, the proletarian controlling/managing their profits, etc.) -- noting that the absence of these things does not mean that the dotp doesn't exist.

This is just fancy footwork to avoid the word "socialism"...;)1

[Brotto Rühle]

Strictly speaking, you are right, the DOTP is "not the changes in property relations" itself, it is the vehicle by which it happens. However, there's a logical implausibility in your argument here, if we explicitly state your implied conclusion, "Therefore the Soviet Union was capitalist in its mode of production throughout its lifetime". Keeping in mind that Marx summed up his own contribution this way:Yes, the dotp represents the political transition into socialism; stateless, classless, moneyless society.


Thus, if we take you at your word, the "transition to the abolition of all classes" is supposed to magically happen instantaneously, in historical terms. The capitalist ruling class is implausibly suicidal compared to any other ruling class in history. To the contrary its the most durable and creative that humanity has seen (endured) thus far. However, the apparent contradiction is dissolved the moment we realize that the DOTP and the lower stage of communism ("Socialism") are not discontinuous epochs but rather they happen at the same time. Which is what Marx is saying in Critique of the Gotha Programme and elsewhere. Or at least, that is the least-tortured interpretation thereof.it doesn't magically happen. I never said that anywhere. The DOTP does not exist within socialism/the first stage of communist society... Because there are no classes, no proletariat, and therefore no state...




This is just fancy footwork to avoid the word "socialism"...;)1see above.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I think its important to point out that what you state here, is completely at odds with the theory of state-capitalism as generally put forward by the communist left; for example its incompatible with the opinion of 'Subvert and Destroy' some of whose posts you've liked in this thread.

How is it at odds with the theory of state capitalism? All I think I did was describe the dotp, so I don't really see the connection... :/

[G4b3n]

How is it at odds with the theory of state capitalism? All I think I did was describe the dotp, so I don't really see the connection... :/

I see you have chosen to join the anarchist side of the Marxist spectrum.
Welcome, we have the best doughnuts :cool: :redstar2000:

More OT:

Do you now reject the DOTP? Or support it in a different form?

[Fourth Internationalist]

I see you have chosen to join the anarchist side of the Marxist spectrum.
Welcome, we have the best doughnuts :cool: :redstar2000:

More OT:

Do you now reject the DOTP? Or support it in a different form?

Umm what? I'm a Leninist and think the DOTP is state capitalist. That's like the exact opposite of anarchism.

Edit: I'm using the term state capitalism in a positive manner. In the case of a dotp, it's a good thing to have.

[G4b3n]

Umm what? I'm a Leninist and think the DOTP is state capitalist. That's like the exact opposite of anarchism.

Edit: I'm using the term state capitalism in a positive manner. In the case of a dotp, it's a good thing to have.

I realize this, the "anarcho-Marxism" you have selected under "tendency" threw me off.
Misunderstanding I suppose.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

DOTP must communist measures or GTFO.
Reasons Leninism is a dead end.

[Bea Arthur]

Says who? How about a society in transition? Initially, the Bolsheviks did rather well regarding racism, sexism and homophobia. And I'm not sure what your definition of imperialism is, but the USSR was not that either. Sure, under Stalin things regressed and the last remnants of the revolution were crushed in the early 90s. And, again, no the USSR was not socialist. You are taking some of the common horrible vices of capitalism and making them defining features. They are not (except imperialism). Racism, sexism, homophobia have all existed in pre-capitalist societies. Money has existed in a wide variety of non-capitalist societies.

How is a society transitioning to socialism if as you admit things regressed terribly under Stalin? You make no sense, comrade. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and money have all existed under precapitalist class societies but socialism isnt a precapitalist class society. All these things would cease to exist under socialism. They existed and were growing in the USSR. How can anyone say that this is a sign of transitioning to socialism?

[Art Vandelay]

I view the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat to be capitalist, but of course it is decaying (proletarian monopoly of the means of production, the proletarian controlling/managing their profits, etc.) -- noting that the absence of these things does not mean that the dotp doesn't exist.

The problem with claiming that the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is capitalist, is it makes note of the fact that the state represents proletarian class interests, however still remains capitalist in nature. The problem is twofold, (1) capitalism cannot be wielded in the interests of the proletariat and here lies a contradiction in your narrative and (2) it fails to take into account that the state itself is an economic mechanism. The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. The USSR was in no proper sense of the term capitalist, if we are to take the capital Marx describes seriously, but rather had both elements of the beginning stages of the establishment of a socialist economy (NPE), as well as aspects of capitalism (commodity production, etc.). If the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is capitalist, then it isn't a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Furthermore, there are more issues with this narrative that you put forth. If a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR, at what point in time did it qualitatively change into something else entirely, into something which represented class alien interests? Surely this qualitative change couldn't of happened overnight (it would of needed to of been comprised of many quantitative changes, until a change in quality of the class nature of the USSR, took place). So unless one thinks that the class nature of the USSR changed instantaneously, they are already supporting a form of the theory of the degenerated workers state, whether or not they wish to admit it. The genuine dictatorship of the proletariat which was established in the USSR was, for a number of reasons, slowly decaying and degenerating. Whether or not the workers state degenerated, is really not even up for discussion. On top of all this if one thinks that over the course of the 20's the workers state imperceptibly changed hands from the proletariat, to those of an alien class, then they adopt nothing other then a position of reformism in reverse. Counter-revolution is not something which can happen in the shadows, due to bureaucratic maneuverings, or without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms.

Until I see the communist left really grapple with these questions, as opposed to ignore or dismiss them, I don't see how their state-capitalist theory is anything other then terribly incoherent.


How is it at odds with the theory of state capitalism? All I think I did was describe the dotp, so I don't really see the connection... :/

I was just trying to make sure you were aware, that there is a difference (indeed a irreconcilability) between the communist-left's narrative and the Trotskyist narrative of the USSR (which should hopefully be outlined in my response to S&D), because you seem to be agreeing with both in this thread.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think part of the problem with yr analysis, 9mm, is that it is too "monolithic" - workers' power wasn't expressed solely through or in relationship to the Soviet state. Trying to understand proletarian dictatorship as expressed in terms of the state falls short by not grappling with workers' power "on the ground".

That said, when you say "Counter-revolution is not something which can happen in the shadows, due to bureaucratic maneuverings, or without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms," you seem to be missing a certain irony - there were open and violent expressions of class antagonism! There was a multifaceted civil war, followed by ubiquitous repression. I won't argue the intent of the Bolsheviks (Trotsky's eternal soul is irrelevant to me ;)1), but the real consequence was the extermination of the leading sections of the Russian working class and peasantry, the smashing of communist measures wherever they reared their ugly head, and the consolidation of capital by the state monopoly (Mondragon with an army). The "alien class" was consequently produced by capitalist production first as de facto owners of the means of production by virtue of practical (if not legal) ownership of the state, and ultimately expressing themselves fully with the inevitable collapse of the Eastern bloc.

[Binh]

I was of this persuasion until I read more economic theory and was forced to discard the notion that the USSR was a form of capitalism. (Former Cliffite here.)

[Art Vandelay]

I think part of the problem with yr analysis, 9mm, is that it is too "monolithic" - workers' power wasn't expressed solely through or in relationship to the Soviet state. Trying to understand proletarian dictatorship as expressed in terms of the state falls short by not grappling with workers' power "on the ground".

I think this is just an example of where your anti-statist tendencies (or perhaps the remnants of them) get the better of you. The struggle for socialism will consist of a prolonged period of workers states active and coordinated struggle against class alien forces. During a period of civil war, as the Bolsheviks faced following October, the reliance on soviets as the primary vehicle for military and tactical decision making, becomes an impediment, it robs the revolution of its strength due to the fetishization of the tactic of decentralization. What exactly should a workers state, besieged by half the globe, look like to you, if it doesn't resemble in some way what the USSR resembled, post October?


That said, when you say "Counter-revolution is not something which can happen in the shadows, due to bureaucratic maneuverings, or without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms," you seem to be missing a certain irony - there were open and violent expressions of class antagonism! There was a multifaceted civil war, followed by ubiquitous repression.

There is no irony in what I've said, this is even something I've clarified earlier in this thread. There were indeed these very real expressions of class antagonisms, however the Bolsheviks were able to successfully fight back the counter-revolution in the civil war and continued to uphold proletarian class interests. The counter-revolution which brought the demise of the workers state, came later and from within.


I won't argue the intent of the Bolsheviks (Trotsky's eternal soul is irrelevant to me ;)1), but the real consequence was the extermination of the leading sections of the Russian working class and peasantry,

This is just false. Who are you even talking about? The supporters of the peasants based Makhnovshchina? The Workers Opposition, who after the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the Civil War called for open elections in the soviets? The Kronstadt soldiers? One look at their demands is enough to unveil the fact that they were not representative of proletarian class interests.

Do you even consider the USSR to have been at any point in its existence, a workers state?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think this is just an example of where your anti-statist tendencies (or perhaps the remnants of them) get the better of you. The struggle for socialism will consist of a prolonged period of workers states active and coordinated struggle against class alien forces.

So, I'm not disputing that right now (though certainly I would) - rather, I'm saying it's impossible to look at the Soviet state as though it actually had supreme sovereignty, or as though the character of "the state" per se could really tell us anything about whether or not an authentic proletarian dictatorship existed (since the state is not the class; whether or not it could represent or lead the class is another matter).


During a period of civil war, as the Bolsheviks faced following October, the reliance on soviets as the primary vehicle for military and tactical decision making, becomes an impediment, it robs the revolution of its strength due to the fetishization of the tactic of decentralization. What exactly should a workers state, besieged by half the globe, look like to you, if it doesn't resemble in some way what the USSR resembled, post October?

Mhm. But what is the "strength" of the revolution? Is it territorial sovereignty? Is it military? Is the strength of a revolution something that can be understood in terms of the state? Again - I'm actively avoiding saying that the state is either legitimate or not (because obviously everyone's tired of that argument) - I'm just trying to posit that whether or not the state is desirable, it is a mistake to conflate it with the class.


There is no irony in what I've said, this is even something I've clarified earlier in this thread. There were indeed these very real expressions of class antagonisms, however the Bolsheviks were able to successfully fight back the counter-revolution in the civil war and continued to uphold proletarian class interests. The counter-revolution which brought the demise of the workers state, came later and from within.

Ah, here's the big point of disagreement.
I will simply leave it at that, since it's unlikely we'll resolve it.


[When saying the extermination of the leading sections of the Russian working class and peasantry], [w]ho are you even talking about? The supporters of the peasants based Makhnovshchina? The Workers Opposition, who after the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the Civil War called for open elections in the soviets? The Kronstadt soldiers?

By no means exclusively - I mean, also the people you describe as having been "decimated". I don't mean to frame this as simply "The Bolsheviks vs." but rather to emphasize the fratricidal nature of the civil war. Of course, the Bolsheviks probably would have been better off killing the old White officers they were reinstalling, the technical specialists they were appointing, etc. than Ukrainian anarchists and Left-SRs, but I suppose hindsight is 20/20.


Do you even consider the USSR to have been at any point in its existence, a workers state?

Depends what you mean: I'm not looking at "the state" when I try to assess proletarian dictatorship. Certainly, between the February revolution and 1922 workers power existed to varying degrees in various places with wildly heterogeneous consequences. Plausibly longer, though, I'm sure you'll agree, increasingly less so.

[Homo Songun]

it doesn't magically happen. I never said that anywhere. The DOTP does not exist within socialism/the first stage of communist society... Because there are no classes, no proletariat, and therefore no state...

Fine, but you should know that you are using typically Marxist terminology in an idiosyncratic, non-Marxist way. Marx was quite clear that socialism/lower-stage-of-communism had various characteristics of class society. The literature is rife with examples, so I'll instead just ask you to clarify what framework is the basis of your claims above?

[Brotto Rühle]

The problem with claiming that the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is capitalist, is it makes note of the fact that the state represents proletarian class interests, however still remains capitalist in nature.It makes note of the fact that the state is something which exists within capitalism... it makes note of the fact that the capitalist mode of production is not abolished when the proletariat seize POLITICAL power, unless you believe they abolish it and THEN seize political power..


The problem is twofold, (1) capitalism cannot be wielded in the interests of the proletariat and here lies a contradiction in your narrativeWell no, because my narrative isn't that capitalism is "wielded in the interests of the proletarian", but that it is an inescapable fact that the capitalist mode of production exists until the moment socialism comes about. Yes, workers self management in all of industry represents a shift, but it doesn't escape the fact of capitalism... that "working class self management" is, in itself, only able to exist within capitalism as a "transitional MEASURE" that leads toward socialism -- not that it makes the mode of production change.


(2) it fails to take into account that the state itself is an economic mechanism. The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. The state is an economic force, but it doesn't make a difference when the DOTP is a political state of things, in which the proletariat is the ruling class. You need to differentiate between the state as a tool, and the political power which has the reigns on the state. The society may have been transitioning, but it was toward state capitalism, not socialism. Transitioning does not mean a new mode of production comes about either, that's hogwash.


The USSR was in no proper sense of the term capitalist, if we are to take the capital Marx describes seriously, What, then, is the "proper sense of the term capitalist"?


but rather had both elements of the beginning stages of the establishment of a socialist economy (NPE), NPE? I hope to god you don't mean to say the NEP was a form of "socialist economy"...


as well as aspects of capitalism (commodity production, etc.). If the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is capitalist, then it isn't a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is hogwash again, pure rubbish and completely ignorant to the fact that the DOTP is the seizure of political power... and it's existence in no way negates the capitalist MODE OF PRODUCTION.

Question:

If a DOTP can only exist when the mode of production is no longer capitalist, then do you believe that the abolition of the capitalist mode of production occurs before the seizure of political power, or the exact moment of?


Furthermore, there are more issues with this narrative that you put forth. If a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR, at what point in time did it qualitatively change into something else entirely, into something which represented class alien interests?I believe that the DOTP wasn't fully consolidated. Though, if I were to take into account the position that a DOTP was fully established I would argue that the decreasing proletarian population from the war (which was a vast decrease), the measures enacted by the central committee such as the ban of factions and the coup of non-bolshevik soviets, the increasing power of the peasants within society and the Bolsheviks, isolation, etc. all resulted in this change. How do we mark an exact date, well, I'm unsure since I'm not in the position that it was consolidated... though, many point to 1921 when the soviets essentially became second to the party apparatus in terms of political power -- a counter-revolution by the party which led the revolution... reminiscent of the German SPD's role as the vanguard, and then as betrayer of international socialism.


Surely this qualitative change couldn't of happened overnight (it would of needed to of been comprised of many quantitative changes, until a change in quality of the class nature of the USSR, took place). So unless one thinks that the class nature of the USSR changed instantaneously, they are already supporting a form of the theory of the degenerated workers state, whether or not they wish to admit it.I'm not opposed to admitting that the (or a revamped) DWS theory may apply to a very short period between 1918 and 1921. Though, if one reads Trotsky, he doesn't make an analysis of the mode of production.


The genuine dictatorship of the proletariat which was established in the USSR was, for a number of reasons, slowly decaying and degenerating. Whether or not the workers state degenerated, is really not even up for discussion. On top of all this if one thinks that over the course of the 20's the workers state imperceptibly changed hands from the proletariat, to those of an alien class, then they adopt nothing other then a position of reformism in reverse. Counter-revolution is not something which can happen in the shadows, due to bureaucratic maneuverings, or without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms.How was it genuine? If the party controlled the soviets, and the workers did not control the party (unless you seriously think it was the working class itself who imposed faction bans, couped soviets, etc.), at what point is that "political power in the hands of the proletariat".

Again, you need to explain how the working class had political power (which is how Marx describes the DOTP).

Counter-revolution didn't happen in the shadows... that's the point. "War Communism", however "necessary" you may want to say it is, was inherently counter-revolutionary. Your characturization of my position seems to exclude every other material condition of the time, and seems to say that everything was a peaceful, perfect DOTP in which a group of secret capitalists within the party "reformed" away workers political power. No, we understand what happened to the soviets, we understand what happened to the party, and we understand why.


Until I see the communist left really grapple with these questions, as opposed to ignore or dismiss them, I don't see how their state-capitalist theory is anything other then terribly incoherent. These questions have been grappled, and you just ignore the analysis because of your incorrect view of what constitutes a DOTP.

[danyboy27]

I think its beccause they used money has a mean of commodification of goods and work, that is after all the backbone of the capitalist structure.

Workers didnt get much independence from wage earning jobs, on the contrary they got tied to it even more now that the sole employer and buisnessowner was the state.

[Homo Songun]

I think its beccause they used money has a mean of commodification of goods and work, that is after all the backbone of the capitalist structure.

I don't understand this obsession with money as such. Money is just a social institution. Now that fiat money rules everywhere, more so. The real question is, whose institution? Like Marx said, if the real relation has been made clear, why retrogress? (i.e., back to Utopianism)

As to commodities, they existed under various kinds of societies. commodification in virtue of itself is not the hallmark of capitalism. Marx in Chapter 4 of Capital IIRC goes on for some length about how the thing about capitalism is not the commodities themselves, but the the unique social relations that they are subjected to therein. He expected commodities to persist for some time under socialism.


Workers didnt get much independence from wage earning jobs, on the contrary they got tied to it even more now that the sole employer and buisnessowner was the state.

This sounds a lot like classic petit bourgeois paranoia, which sees the state as the source of monopolistic unfairness. It's not 'the competition' as far as workers are concerned. It is either an oppressor (this system) or a bulwark (workers' rule).

[Tim Cornelis]

Let's see -- I meant that the so-called class of "state capitalists" would be unique as an historical class. They were thoroughly unnecessary parasites -- they played no creative role. And as a ruling class they were/are unique in not actually owning the means of production. Control and ownership are not the same thing.

Overthrowing the king, liquidating the aristocracy, taking all of their holdings, expropriating the capitalists and forming a planned collectivized economy sure as fuck sounds like you've overthrown both the monarchy and the bourgeosie. Capitalism without competing capital? Without the bourgeoisie? Doesn't work or make any sense.





First off the idea that the Bolsheviks usurped power anywhere before 23' is really something I believe I've only ever heard DNZ say.

Then you are terribly misinformed.


Although perhaps I just haven't chatted with left-coms in a while. They were a majority in the soviets and represented proletarian class interests. The earliest genuine soviet control could have been reimplemented, would of been following the end of the civil war, although given the decimation of the ranks of the proletariat during the civil war, this would of been tantamount to treason to the proletarian cause, and also would of had to been predicated on the assumption tht the proletariat of '24 was more class consciouss (after the destruction of its ranks) then the proletariat of '17 which voted the Bolsheviks a majority in the soviets.

All workers' power was destroyed. The conquest of political power by the proletariat ceased to be the moment the Bolsheviks substutied themselves for the proletariat, assumed power in their name, dismantled factory committees, made soviets Bolshevik tools in place of proletarian tools, and ultimately even repressed internal party democracy.



I'm at work now, so I'm typing on my iPod, so it's kind of a pain in the ass to type. I can come back an explain better later when I have acess to a computer, but basically the premise of formal logic that A = A, and never non-A, is incompatible with the premise of Marxian dialectics that nothing is static, everything is fluid and that A can equal both A and non-A. The statement that a workers state is either a workers state or it's not, is steeped in the assumptions of formal logic, which exists as a part of bourgeois ideology and has been surpassed by Marxian dialectics in the realm of logic.

Okay, I'm not immediately dismissive but a DOTP is the seizing of political power by the proletariat, when a force acts contrary to this and represses workers' power, it cannot be said to be a DOTP.


Have you ever read ComradeOM's thread on the history of the RR? He's really the go to authority on the subject around here.
No.


I'm surprised at how many people think the bourgeoisie can lose control of the state apparatus and capitalism continues to function. It's as if the capital Marx describes in 'Capital' wasn't something specific.

Because capitalist relations of production were not abolished, and hence the bourgeoisie was merely replaced. Marx' Capital would reveal the capitalist nature of the USSR.


You are confusing political power with a mode of production. In your formulation, the workers were oppressed, therefore it was capitalism. The state was an instrument for defending the emerging property forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There was no bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie is the class that owns economic property at the expense of the working class. There was a bourgeoisie, the party-state of the Bolsheviks and Communist Party.


"Bourgeois" is not an epithet. It denotes a set of specific relationship to the means of production -- above all else this means ownership. It also, according to Marx, meant separate and competing capitalists. So you have system that develops with no competing capital, production not geared to profit, a state monopoly of banking and trade, no way to inherit wealth, or even hold onto wealth if you are tossed from the bureaucracy. Because workers are exploited it is capitalism? No argument from me that it was never socialism -- obviously it was not.

1. Competing capitals existed in the USSR
2. Production was subordinate to generating profits and accumulating capital
3. State monopoly on banking and trade is compatible with capitalism


I don't understand this obsession with money as such. Money is just a social institution. Now that fiat money rules everywhere, more so. The real question is, whose institution? Like Marx said, if the real relation has been made clear, why retrogress? (i.e., back to Utopianism)

As to commodities, they existed under various kinds of societies. commodification in virtue of itself is not the hallmark of capitalism. Marx in Chapter 4 of Capital IIRC goes on for some length about how the thing about capitalism is not the commodities themselves, but the the unique social relations that they are subjected to therein. He expected commodities to persist for some time under socialism.

Did he? I've read quite the contrary. Capital is a social relationship, thus "whose institution" is not relevant, it's always that of the capitalist. I think if we are going to rely on Marx, it must be pointed out that he rightly described the socialist mode of production as one based on free association of equal producers. The USSR was based on wage-labour, generalised commodity production, accumulation of capital, and its property relations were that of class property of a minority over the majority of dispossessed workers -- that is, a capitalist class and a working class.


I was of this persuasion until I read more economic theory and was forced to discard the notion that the USSR was a form of capitalism. (Former Cliffite here.)

Could you elaborate? The more I read about economic theory the more convinced I become of the capitalist nature and character of the Soviet Union.


The key point is that capitalism exists only as separate and competing capital -- at least according to Marx. And it would be expected that there would be wage labor and that laborers would not directly bear all the fruits of their production immediately after the revolution in a backward country surrounded by hostile, capitalist powers.

Try Europe in the high middle ages. Wages existed, and commodities were produced, albeit in small quantity. Certainly wasn't capitalism yet.

The production of commodities had not attained its generalised character that it had in the 19th century, or in the Soviet Union. And it does not follow that therefore non-capitalism is compatible with commodity production and wage-labour.


All you comrades that rail about the lack of soviet democracy meant counterrevolution really don't get the historical situation at the time and the goals of the Bolsheviks.

It's irrelevant. What's relevant is that the proletariat holds political power.


They were mainly trying to gain time to foster the world revolution And I don't see why people can't wrap their brains around the formulation that the USSR represented the form of the d of the p. Even if the workers did not directly rule. There have been instances in history where the bourgeoisie did not have direct political rule in capitalist countries (e.g., Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, any number of third world bonapartist regimes, not to mention the Bonapartes in France). So it was with the USSR.

All those examples, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, including the USSR, was established as the economic property of the capitalist class over the working class was safeguarded by the state.


Let's see -- I meant that the so-called class of "state capitalists" would be unique as an historical class. They were thoroughly unnecessary parasites -- they played no creative role. And as a ruling class they were/are unique in not actually owning the means of production. Control and ownership are not the same thing.

The unique historical class character is irrelevant as it does not address the underlying social relationship of capital that was perpetuated, even consolidated (as evidenced by the expansion in scope, increase in volume, of commodity production). Fascism and bonapartism had a unique historical class, as you yourself say, but the underlying social relationship of capital meant that capitalism still existed.
“[T]here is no reason to think … that Western capitalism, as it appears on the surface at a particular epoch, is the unique form of the capitalist mode of production, and that any economy (or society) that does not manifest similar phenomenal characteristics cannot be considered capitalist.” (p. 6 The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience) In fact, those that do, reveal their thinking and method of analysis to be contrary to Marxism. It had precisely been the phenomenal expressions that had prior to Marx been the sole scope of analysis in the fields of social science, deducing there from the idealist paradigm. For the Marxist or materialist method to apply “one has to go behind the phenomenal forms which, though necessarily manifesting the essence, do as well as conceal the latter.” (p. 6) But it is here that the non-capitalist theories of self-proclaimed Marxists regarding the Soviet Union fail, focussing entirely on the phenomenal expressions to infer from this the unique character of the Soviet Union, and wrongly conclude that therefore the USSR could not have been capitalist. That the bourgeois academics agree with the Leninist theories of non-capitalism is not accidental, nor does it reveal that indeed the Soviet Union was socialist as some self-proclaimed Marxists have insisted (e.g. Paul Cockshott). It, in fact, reveals the reverse as the capitalist apologists lack the proper tools of analysing the real nature and character of social structures. Inferring different economic systems on the basis of ascribed phenomenal uniqueness is the same basis whereupon bourgeois academics, intellectuals, and ideologues argue that the Soviet Union was socialist: their bourgeois-idealist paradigm is restricted solely to the analysis of the phenomenal characteristics, or outward appearance, of socio-economic and political systems and thereupon argue that fascism is a different economic system than liberal capitalism and the Swedish-model different again from the Venezuelan one, and different again from the Saudi Arabian economic system, and so forth. But a Marxist analysis does not limit itself to these phenomenal characteristics and uncovers the real social dynamics, the underlying basis, resulting from the material conditions, and determines, ultimately, the nature and character of any given economic and political system. Such had, prior to Marx, as Engels pointed out, been “concealed by an overgrowth of ideology.” Thus, those self-proclaimed Marxists deducing from the phenomenal uniqueness of the Soviet system that it was non-capitalist, align themselves with, in fact adopt, the bourgeois-idealist paradigm of analysing not the definite relations of production wherein the producers engage in the social production of wealth, but the mere outward expression thereof which “through innumerable different circumstances can phenomenally show unending variations and gradations.” (p. 6 The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience)


Overthrowing the king, liquidating the aristocracy, taking all of their holdings, expropriating the capitalists and forming a planned collectivized economy sure as fuck sounds like you've overthrown both the monarchy and the bourgeosie. Capitalism without competing capital? Without the bourgeoisie? Doesn't work or make any sense.

If McDonald's bought all economic property in Ireland, it would still be capitalism despite the appearance of the non-existence of competing capitals. And it's a petitio principii to assume there was no bourgeoisie. Again, there was: the owners and controllers of economic property, of the social relationship of capital. The state ownership was a mere judicial expression thereof, it does not reveal the underlying relations of production and the class character thereof.

The Soviet Union had all the defining characteristics of capitalism. Wage-labour, generalised commodity production, capital, competing capitals, a bourgeois state structure, surplus value, capital accumulation, class property in the hands of the owners/controllers of capital (that is, capitalist property relations).

[Fred]

If McDonald's bought all economic property in Ireland, it would still be capitalism despite the appearance of the non-existence of competing capitals. And it's a petitio principii to assume there was no bourgeoisie. Again, there was: the owners and controllers of economic property, of the social relationship of capital. The state ownership was a mere judicial expression thereof, it does not reveal the underlying relations of production and the class character thereof.

The Soviet Union had all the defining characteristics of capitalism. Wage-labour, generalised commodity production, capital, competing capitals, a bourgeois state structure, surplus value, capital accumulation, class property in the hands of the owners/controllers of capital (that is, capitalist property relations).

But that's part of the problem, comrade. McDonalds would not be allowed to purchase all the capital in Ireland -- I'm sure they would have no desire to do that, either. Besides, if you want to use this model, perhaps you should use Guinness as your hypothetical :).

And you are skirting the issue here. The bureaucrats did not own the means of production in the USSR. That single fact does extreme violence to the State Cap argument. The bureaucrats relationship to the means of production was absolutely not that of the bourgeoisie's to capital. You can argue that it is similar, although I think that is wrong. And the USSR did not have competing capital. Surplus value is universal in societies that do better than subsistence as is capital accumulation. Just saying that it was capitalist property relations doesn't make it so. There was plenty that was fucked up about the social and economic system in the USSR -- but there are enough quantitative differences to make it a different beast than capitalism. Did I mention that production was not geared to profit?

[Art Vandelay]

All workers' power was destroyed. The conquest of political power by the proletariat ceased to be the moment the Bolsheviks substutied themselves for the proletariat, assumed power in their name, dismantled factory committees, made soviets Bolshevik tools in place of proletarian tools, and ultimately even repressed internal party democracy.

Okay, I'm not immediately dismissive but a DOTP is the seizing of political power by the proletariat, when a force acts contrary to this and represses workers' power, it cannot be said to be a DOTP.

The Bolsheviks held a majority in the soviets, they were undoubtedly the proletarian’s leadership. I’m interested in hearing whether or not you support the seizure of state power by the Bolsheviks, because not only did the Bolsheviks represent proletarian class interests, but they were a mass party, supported hundreds of thousands of militant communist workers. The idea that the Bolsheviks seizure of state power, was some sort of a coup (not saying that is your position) is absurd. A dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR. The early signs of degeneration can be seen from early on. You have war communism (necessary given the civil war) and the militarization of labor in 1919. Its interesting to note though, that Trotsky was in favor of ending War Communism a year earlier, and advocated that a tax on the peasantry could have been more effective in transitioning to the NEP. In 1920 there is an instance of revolution by conquest (which was done under the direction of Stalin) in Georgia. There was Trotsky’s failure on both the question of Brest-Litovisk, as well as the Trade Union question, in which both cases Lenin proved to be advocating the correct line. On top of this there was indeed substitutionism, but at that point in time there was no other course of action to take. Whether or not the USSR was a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, is not a moral question, or of whether or not the actions of the Bolsheviks are palatable. It is a question of whether or not they continued to have a proletarian class character. After the decimation of the ranks of the Proletariat during the civil war, the Worker’s Opposition's call for new elections in the soviets, was insanity. The Russian proletariat, relatively small, had only been able to seize state power with the temporary ally of the peasantry, to have fresh elections following the civil war, would of merely watered down the influence of the already small industrial proletariat. It would have been treason. The revolutions only hope, was a revolution in Germany, Lenin stated as much. They had to merely consolidate the gains of the revolution, and give whatever material and moral support to the German proletariat that they could.


Because capitalist relations of production were not abolished, and hence the bourgeoisie was merely replaced. Marx' Capital would reveal the capitalist nature of the USSR.

The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. It had characteristics of the beginning steps in the road to socialism, as well as remaining elements of a capitalist economy. It can’t be looked at as a static society. Capitalism cannot be used in the interests of the proletariat, stating that the USSR was both capitalist and a dictatorship of the proletariat is contradictory.




So, I'm not disputing that right now (though certainly I would) - rather, I'm saying it's impossible to look at the Soviet state as though it actually had supreme sovereignty, or as though the character of "the state" per se could really tell us anything about whether or not an authentic proletarian dictatorship existed (since the state is not the class; whether or not it could represent or lead the class is another matter).

But the state is an instrument of class oppression. I know we’ve talked about what constitutes a state in the past and indeed I’ve had a narrow view at times, but the fact that the totality of the state is not merely a class monopoly on force, doesn’t change the fact that it is indeed one of its primary functions. The class basis of the state, certainly has alot to tell us about the existence of a proletarian dictatorship.


Mhm. But what is the "strength" of the revolution? Is it territorial sovereignty? Is it military? Is the strength of a revolution something that can be understood in terms of the state? Again - I'm actively avoiding saying that the state is either legitimate or not (because obviously everyone's tired of that argument) - I'm just trying to posit that whether or not the state is desirable, it is a mistake to conflate it with the class.

The state is a by product of class society, whether or not the state is desirable or not, is irrelevant. As long as the proletariat has yet to finish its historic task of abolishing itself (and along with it all other classes) then the state can be considered a necessary evil. As far as the strength of the revolution, it constitute both military strength and territorial sovereignty, as well as many other factors. Ultimately the strength of the revolution lies in its ability to act in harmony with proletarian class interests.


Depends what you mean: I'm not looking at "the state" when I try to assess proletarian dictatorship. Certainly, between the February revolution and 1922 workers power existed to varying degrees in various places with wildly heterogeneous consequences. Plausibly longer, though, I'm sure you'll agree, increasingly less so.

And this is unfortunately a big problem, in your attempts to be nuanced, you fall victim to not having set definitions and a consistent methodology. It reminds me of an Bertell Ollman quote:


But how does one inquire into a world that has been abstracted into mutually dependent processes? Where does one start and what does one look for? Unlike non-dialectical research, where one starts with some small part and through establishing its connections to other such parts tries to reconstruct the larger whole, dialectical research begins with the whole, the system, or as much of it as one understands, and then proceeds to an examination of the part to see where it fits and how it functions, leading eventually to a fuller understanding of the whole from which one has begun. Capitalism serves Marx as his jumping-off point for an examination of anything that takes place within it. As a beginning, capitalism is already contained, in principle, within the interacting processes he sets out to investigate as the sum total of their necessary conditions and results. Conversely, to begin with a supposedly independent part or parts is to assume a separation with its corresponding distortion of meaning that no amount of later relating can overcome. Something will be missing, something will be out of place and, without any standard by which to judge, neither will be recognized. What are called "interdisciplinary studies" simply treat the sum of such defects coming from different fields. As with Humpty Dumpty, who after the fall could never be put together again, a system whose functioning parts have been treated as independent of one another at the start can never be reestablished in its integrity.

[emilianozapata]

It was definitely state capitalist when Lenin initiated the NEP due to the dire economic situation post-civil war but afterwards it stuck by most of the marxist principles outlined in the communist manifesto so i would say it wasn't state capitalist overall.

[Bea Arthur]

The Bolsheviks held a majority in the soviets, they were undoubtedly the proletarian’s leadership. I’m interested in hearing whether or not you support the seizure of state power by the Bolsheviks, because not only did the Bolsheviks represent proletarian class interests, but they were a mass party, supported hundreds of thousands of militant communist workers. The idea that the Bolsheviks seizure of state power, was some sort of a coup (not saying that is your position) is absurd. A dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR. The early signs of degeneration can be seen from early on. You have war communism (necessary given the civil war) and the militarization of labor in 1919. Its interesting to note though, that Trotsky was in favor of ending War Communism a year earlier, and advocated that a tax on the peasantry could have been more effective in transitioning to the NEP. In 1920 there is an instance of revolution by conquest (which was done under the direction of Stalin) in Georgia. There was Trotsky’s failure on both the question of Brest-Litovisk, as well as the Trade Union question, in which both cases Lenin proved to be advocating the correct line. On top of this there was indeed substitutionism, but at that point in time there was no other course of action to take. Whether or not the USSR was a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, is not a moral question, or of whether or not the actions of the Bolsheviks are palatable. It is a question of whether or not they continued to have a proletarian class character. After the decimation of the ranks of the Proletariat during the civil war, the Worker’s Opposition's call for new elections in the soviets, was insanity. The Russian proletariat, relatively small, had only been able to seize state power with the temporary ally of the peasantry, to have fresh elections following the civil war, would of merely watered down the influence of the already small industrial proletariat. It would have been treason. The revolutions only hope, was a revolution in Germany, Lenin stated as much. They had to merely consolidate the gains of the revolution, and give whatever material and moral support to the German proletariat that they could.



The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. It had characteristics of the beginning steps in the road to socialism, as well as remaining elements of a capitalist economy. It can’t be looked at as a static society. Capitalism cannot be used in the interests of the proletariat, stating that the USSR was both capitalist and a dictatorship of the proletariat is contradictory.




But the state is an instrument of class oppression. I know we’ve talked about what constitutes a state in the past and indeed I’ve had a narrow view at times, but the fact that the totality of the state is not merely a class monopoly on force, doesn’t change the fact that it is indeed one of its primary functions. The class basis of the state, certainly has alot to tell us about the existence of a proletarian dictatorship.



The state is a by product of class society, whether or not the state is desirable or not, is irrelevant. As long as the proletariat has yet to finish its historic task of abolishing itself (and along with it all other classes) then the state can be considered a necessary evil. As far as the strength of the revolution, it constitute both military strength and territorial sovereignty, as well as many other factors. Ultimately the strength of the revolution lies in its ability to act in harmony with proletarian class interests.



And this is unfortunately a big problem, in your attempts to be nuanced, you fall victim to not having set definitions and a consistent methodology. It reminds me of an Bertell Ollman quote:

If you consider a state that suppresses workers strikes and removes their right to vote to be a state leading a transition to socialism or a dictatorship of the proletariat, then I shudder to think what your idea of socialism must be like!

[Fred]

If you consider a state that suppresses workers strikes and removes their right to vote to be a state leading a transition to socialism or a dictatorship of the proletariat, then I shudder to think what your idea of socialism must be like!

If the USSR was not a dictatorship of the proletariat, then what was it? A dictatorship of the state (which was capitalist)? A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (almost all of whom were in other countries by the early 20s)? The state cap arguments which seem to amount to that the USSR had elements in common with capitalism, are very weak.

But to move this discussion along, let's have some specifics, comrade. Which strikes are you talking about? Also, I don't think the proletariat's right to vote was ever taken away in the USSR. Worker's have a right to vote in the US, so are you saying the US was superior to the USSR? It's a slippery slope to becoming a cold warrior (albeit long after the fact). Check out the political trajectory of Max Shachtman.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. It had characteristics of the beginning steps in the road to socialism, as well as remaining elements of a capitalist economy. It can’t be looked at as a static society. Capitalism cannot be used in the interests of the proletariat, stating that the USSR was both capitalist and a dictatorship of the proletariat is contradictory.

Aha, but that's exactly it - the situation was anything but static! At one moment authentic expressions of workers' power, and at the next capitalist "restoration" (admittedly, somewhat inaccurate if we accept that capitalism-proper hadn't developed in Russia). It was certainly a society in transition - Russian feudalism was distinctly in its death throes - but transition to what? In this contradictory process positing definitely either socialist or capitalist development as a whole is impossible. Similarly, positing that power was in the hands of the working class or not is impossible: in moments and places it was, and in others it wasn't. This is true in terms of the various fronts of the civil wars, and also, crucially, in terms of the forms of organization of workers and peasants: here communist and autonomous, there subject to the laws of capitalism (more or less).


But the state is an instrument of class oppression. I know we’ve talked about what constitutes a state in the past and indeed I’ve had a narrow view at times, but the fact that the totality of the state is not merely a class monopoly on force, doesn’t change the fact that it is indeed one of its primary functions. The class basis of the state, certainly has alot to tell us about the existence of a proletarian dictatorship.

Certainly! However, in a situation where the state hasn't actually consolidated power, established a real (relative) monopoly on violence, that is, where its sovereignty is "weak" (ie its ability to enforce its laws is limited, its ideological hold is limited, etc.), the class character of the state doesn't actually tell us much about the class dynamics generally. It's only after the end of the civil war that we can really draw any real conclusions on the basis of the character of the state: and by that point, the working class had been, in your own words, decimated.


The state is a by product of class society, whether or not the state is desirable or not, is irrelevant. As long as the proletariat has yet to finish its historic task of abolishing itself (and along with it all other classes) then the state can be considered a necessary evil. As far as the strength of the revolution, it constitute both military strength and territorial sovereignty, as well as many other factors. Ultimately the strength of the revolution lies in its ability to act in harmony with proletarian class interests.

I certainly agree with the last sentence. In any case, assuming that proletarian interests (whether or not they coincide with the state) are broader than the state, esp. when the state's sovereignty is weak, we have to ask also about the class outside of the state. That is, what do other expressions of class power look like? What communist practice is happening outside of the formal practice of the state? Further, what capitalist or reactionary practice is happening within the state formally, but really outside of its effective control?


And this is unfortunately a big problem, in your attempts to be nuanced, you fall victim to not having set definitions and a consistent methodology. It reminds me of an Bertell Ollman quote: [see above]Buddy did produce a decent board game. ;)1
I think Bertell makes a salient point. What I would say is that starting from "the state", especially in a situation where the sovereignty of the state was weak is a mistake of taking the part for the whole. Rather, starting from the totality of the class situation in Russia, what ultimately happens (not necessarily, or certainly not entirely, by the Soviet state) is the defeat of the workers sometime between the civil war and Stalinism. Trying to pinpoint a specific date or event seems pretty hopeless.

[Brotto Rühle]

Fine, but you should know that you are using typically Marxist terminology in an idiosyncratic, non-Marxist way. Marx was quite clear that socialism/lower-stage-of-communism had various characteristics of class society. The literature is rife with examples, so I'll instead just ask you to clarify what framework is the basis of your claims above?

Uh, no, are you daft? Marx was VERY clear that communism was a classless society...nevr, anywhere, did he say classes existed in communism. Not even Lenin said that...fuck, Lenin explicitly states about socialism that "the state withers away insofar as there are no classes.."The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed" I dare you to find a Marx quote that even hints that he saw communism, be it the first stage or not, as a class society...I'll wait here forever, because it's impossible.

[Homo Songun]

For one, Marx talked of labor remaining a commodity under socialism, which clearly implies wages, and therefore a working class. And in fact, that is what happened - classes persisted after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in the Russian empire.

But as I said earlier, I don't know what framework you are using. I suspect your meanings for the words "socialism" and "dictatorship" are simply different from what regular, mainstream Marxists have.

Whatever Marx said about communism is irrelevant - we are discussing the Soviet Union.

[danyboy27]

I don't understand this obsession with money as such. Money is just a social institution. Now that fiat money rules everywhere, more so. The real question is, whose institution? Like Marx said, if the real relation has been made clear, why retrogress? (i.e., back to Utopianism)

As to commodities, they existed under various kinds of societies. commodification in virtue of itself is not the hallmark of capitalism. Marx in Chapter 4 of Capital IIRC goes on for some length about how the thing about capitalism is not the commodities themselves, but the the unique social relations that they are subjected to therein. He expected commodities to persist for some time under socialism.

Beccause the exchange of money give the illusion that work is a commodity, and that what capitalism is based on, the commodification of work and everything around it. Sure commodities existed in previous civilizations, but nowhere near at the extent that we have right now.



This sounds a lot like classic petit bourgeois paranoia, which sees the state as the source of monopolistic unfairness. It's not 'the competition' as far as workers are concerned. It is either an oppressor (this system) or a bulwark (workers' rule).
Workers in both countries had to sell their labor for money and lacked choices outside that process of capitalization of labor. It dosnt matter if your boss is the state or General motor, beccause at the end of the day you need that money to get by and all you have to sell is your labor.

[Brotto Rühle]

For one, Marx talked of labor remaining a commodity under socialism, which clearly implies wages, and therefore a working class. And in fact, that is what happened - classes persisted after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in the Russian empire.

But as I said earlier, I don't know what framework you are using. I suspect your meanings for the words "socialism" and "dictatorship" are simply different from what regular, mainstream Marxists have.

Whatever Marx said about communism is irrelevant - we are discussing the Soviet Union.

Marx was clear, communism... Both the lower and higher, are classless. Bring some quotes and sources kid.

[Tim Cornelis]

But that's part of the problem, comrade. McDonalds would not be allowed to purchase all the capital in Ireland -- I'm sure they would have no desire to do that, either. Besides, if you want to use this model, perhaps you should use Guinness as your hypothetical :).
It's irrelevant if they are allowed to. If they must, they'll start a revolution, the point being it would still be capitalist if McDonald's took over despite its phenomenal appearance being virtually identical to that of the USSR.
My question is, if McDonald's bought or seized all economic property, would it still be capitalist or non-capitalist?

And you are skirting the issue here. The bureaucrats did not own the means of production in the USSR.
Neither do the bureaucrats own the means of production in Belarus (50% state property), neither do bureaucrats own the means of production of oil corporations in Saudi Arabia (state property), neither do bureaucrats own the post office, or the military. In fact, neither do corporate managers (corporate bureaucrats if you will) own the corporation they manage. Yet, uncontroversially, these all constitute capitalist relations of production.
Corporate branches act as centre of capital within the same corporation, the same way that Soviet enterprises constituted their own centre of capital body, exchanging commodities, buying means of production, buying labour-power, i.e. GENERALISED COMMODITY PRODUCTION, i.e. capitalism.

That single fact does extreme violence to the State Cap argument.
It doesn't. The economic existence of capital precedes the judicial expression thereof. It is irrelevant what the de jure property relations are, it matters what the de facto social relations are, and those were that of capital.

The bureaucrats relationship to the means of production was absolutely not that of the bourgeoisie's to capital.
Again and again: this is a petitio principii. You presuppose that they are not bourgeois, but to me they are bourgeois therefore they absolutely do represent the relationship of the bourgeoisie to capital, so you cannot omit this fundamental question. We can find out if the party-state constituted a bourgeois class by observing the actually existing social relationships. If the social relationship of capital existed , then those in control of it constitute a capitalist class. Another fundamental question is: why is it that you presuppose that they are not bourgeois? It is so because you compare the phenomenal characteristics of the liberal capitalist system, compare it to the Soviet Union and conclude that therefore the Soviet Union was non-capitalist. You are preoccupied with the phenomenal expression, the outward appearance, but ignore the capitalist relationships that objectively exist, that is to say, you abandon Marxist analysis in favour of bourgeois-idealism: the phenomenal characteristics taken as the determining and defining factors, rather than the base as defining the character of society. But it's a mistake to assume that liberal capitalism as it manifested itself in the West is necessarily the default and only form capitalism can take.
In reality, the bureaucrat's position toward capital is identical. Capital is a social relationship characterised by the wage-labour, the producers producing surplus value.

You can argue that it is similar, although I think that is wrong. And the USSR did not have competing capital.
First of all, capital is one, the phenomenal manifestation of many capitals is that, phenomenal. It manifests itself as such due to the necessity of capital to reproduce and the exchange of values, which presupposes interaction through exchange (Grundrisse: “Conceptually, competition is nothing other than the inner nature of capital, its essential character, appearing in and realized as the reciprocal interaction of many capitals with one another, the inner tendency as external necessity.”). Thus, whatever form capital manifests itself, whether in laissez-faire capitalism or state monopoly capitalism, it is not different from the other. As Marx himself describes the social total capital pertaining to fragmented capital (of the individual capital, as autonomous entity) is independent only insofar they relate to other capitals. In this regard, Marx compared this to society's individual capitalists belong to the same joint-stock company (Marx conceives of independent, singular capitals judicially belonging to the same owner, yet acting as competing capitals in Capital, volume III, chapter 9). Thus, the formal, de jure, existence of encompassing ownership (corporate or state) does not negate the de facto existence of competing capitals within.
Secondly, competing capitals in the Soviet Union manifested itself through the exchange and purchase of commodities (labour-power, means of production, and consumer goods) between state enterprises, (again, generalised commodity production). Free market capitalism is the free movement of capitals, but that does not mean that the movement of capitals not regulated through free market mechanisms does not constitute capital. At the surface it appears as if competing capitals do not exist (the same as a corporation exchanges commodities internally between branches), in reality:
“For competition of capitals to exist it is sufficient that there exist different, reciprocally independent units of (commodity) production, based on wage-labour exchanging their products, independently of legal title to ownership over the particular unit.” (p. 46, The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience).
Ernest Mandel, in a different context, describes how transnational corporations exchange internally:


When General Motors has the spare parts of its trucks manufactured in factory X, the vehicle bodies in factory Y, and the assembly performed in factory Z, the fact that computer print-outs containing monetary cost calculations of the most minute type accompany the transport of the spare parts does not mean in any way that plant X ‘sells’ spare parts to plant Z. Sales imply changes in ownership, and with it an effective fragmentation of decision-making reflecting a real autonomy of property and financial interests.
Judicially, there's no change of ownership (de jure), as economic property, however, it does involve exchange and sales (de facto). In the same way that internal exchange constitutes exchange and competing capitals, so did enterprises in the Soviet Union, being reciprocally autonomous entities and capitals, exchange between them commodities.
Thus exchange, in fact, constituted a market (with market forces restrained by central planning). From Planning for Economic Growth in the Soviet Union, 1918-1932 by Eugene Zaleski: “Soviet planning did not do away with the market … it has introduced new rules to the game.”
In fact, Marxist-Leninists admit as much when they allege the capitalist restoration post-1953, especially the Liberman reform, but fail to realise that the economic property relations preceded their formal judicial expression from 1965 onward (although in a more consistent form).

Surplus value is universal in societies that do better than subsistence as is capital accumulation. Just saying that it was capitalist property relations doesn't make it so. There was plenty that was fucked up about the social and economic system in the USSR --
In the same way we could deny the existence of capitalism on arbitrary grounds (McDonald's may be a corporation, based on wage-labour, commodity production, capital accumulation, but so were many pre-capitalist societies, therefore it doesn't mean McDonald's is capitalistic).

but there are enough quantitative differences to make it a different beast than capitalism. Did I mention that production was not geared to profit?
No, you observe the discrepancy between the phenomenal characteristics of liberal capitalism and contrast it with the phenomenal characteristics of the Soviet Union, and wrongly infer from there that the USSR was not capitalist. But an objective materialist analysis will reveal that the underlying social dynamics (I've listed them already) are that of capitalist society.
I've already explained that taking the Western liberal capitalist model as representative, exclusively, and universally as the only capitalist system is based on erroneous analysis indebted to idealism.

The Bolsheviks held a majority in the soviets, they were undoubtedly the proletarians leadership.
Unquestionably, but leadership of the proletariat must necessarily be bilateral. The Bolsheviks, in late 1917 beginning of 1918, cut the bilateral ties and thereby substituted themselves for the proletariat. They deconstructed organs of workers' power, thereby enacting the counter-revolution.

I’m interested in hearing whether or not you support the seizure of state power by the Bolsheviks, because not only did the Bolsheviks represent proletarian class interests, but they were a mass party, supported hundreds of thousands of militant communist workers.
Personally, me, individually, if I was given absolute dictatorial powers, would enact policies I deem in the class interests of proletariat (and I think you would agree, me being a communist). But it would still not be a workers' state for me to substitute myself for the proletariat as a whole. Secondly, it's highly questionable that the Bolsheviks represented the class interests of the proletariat given the immense workers' resistance they sowed, given the strikes, the sabotage, the discontent, the revolts, the protests, given the capitalist relations of production they instituted.
And the “mass movement” of the Bolsheviks is highly disputable:

Our Central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members of the right to vote at the Congress of the party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to assure the homogeneous unity of the Communists So that in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire State machine from top to bottom.
1. By what standard can we see if someone or some entity represents the class interests of the proletariat?
2. When did the Bolshevik Party/Communist Party stop representing proletarian class interests?

The idea that the Bolsheviks seizure of state power, was some sort of a coup (not saying that is your position) is absurd. A dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR.
I disagree. A dictatorship of proletariat was established in 1917, but it was dismantled, forcefully (by means of decrees, enforced through law – i.e. violence), and the USSR was founded without the basis of workers' power necessary for it to constitute a workers' state.

The early signs of degeneration can be seen from early on. You have war communism (necessary given the civil war) and the militarization of labor in 1919.
The Zapatistas' degeneration does not resemble that of the Bolsheviks despite facing similar circumstances (isolation, repression).

Its interesting to note though, that Trotsky was in favor of ending War Communism a year earlier, and advocated that a tax on the peasantry could have been more effective in transitioning to the NEP. In 1920 there is an instance of revolution by conquest (which was done under the direction of Stalin) in Georgia. There was Trotsky’s failure on both the question of Brest-Litovisk, as well as the Trade Union question, in which both cases Lenin proved to be advocating the correct line. On top of this there was indeed substitutionism, but at that point in time there was no other course of action to take.
It does not follow that because there was no other course of action that the only course of action must have corresponded to what would constitute a DOTP surely.

Whether or not the USSR was a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, is not a moral question, or of whether or not the actions of the Bolsheviks are palatable. It is a question of whether or not they continued to have a proletarian class character.
Perhaps, I don't have a definite answer. If Blanquism has a proletarian class character, would it be a DOTP? And is a proletarian class character compatible with maintaining a system based on (all of the above, e.g. wage-labour, etc.).
[
]After the decimation of the ranks of the Proletariat during the civil war, the Worker’s Opposition's call for new elections in the soviets, was insanity. The Russian proletariat, relatively small, had only been able to seize state power with the temporary ally of the peasantry, to have fresh elections following the civil war, would of merely watered down the influence of the already small industrial proletariat. It would have been treason. The revolutions only hope, was a revolution in Germany, Lenin stated as much. They had to merely consolidate the gains of the revolution, and give whatever material and moral support to the German proletariat that they could.
I'm not familiar with the exact details, but elections within the framework of electoral parliamentarianism would be out of the question regardless of context. If it meant sovereign soviets, they were right. If the Bolsheviks opposed both they established a bourgeois party-dictatorship.

The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. It had characteristics of the beginning steps in the road to socialism, as well as remaining elements of a capitalist economy. It can’t be looked at as a static society. Capitalism cannot be used in the interests of the proletariat, stating that the USSR was both capitalist and a dictatorship of the proletariat is contradictory.
It had characteristics of capitalism exclusively. A society in transition consists of workers' associations and workers' councils bring property under control of the workers' state, socialising production on the basis of ex-ante planning, facing out commodity production, markets, money, and so forth gradually. The USSR was not a society in transition to socialism. The transition is, as Engels summarises, as follows:

The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over Nature, his own master — free.


If the USSR was not a dictatorship of the proletariat, then what was it? A dictatorship of the state (which was capitalist)? A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (almost all of whom were in other countries by the early 20s)? The state cap arguments which seem to amount to that the USSR had elements in common with capitalism, are very weak.

Petitio principii. You presuppose that there was no bourgeoisie. You seem to view the bourgeoisie as something personified rather than the individuals representing the capital as social relationship. Given that capital, the social relationship, existed, there was a bourgeoisie!
Killing or displacing the bourgeoisie does not in itself destroy capital as a social relationship, and this has not occurred in the Soviet Union, in fact the commodification based upon wage-labour relations to produce surplus value expanded substantially in volume and scope in the Soviet Union.
It didn't have [some] elements in common with capitalism, it was capitalism!

[Fred]

Comrade Tim, I think we have gone as far as we can go with this. I still think your argument boils down to: The workers were oppressed and the bureaucrats were privileged, therefore it was capitalism. The difference between the USSR and Saudi Arabia is huge, and I think you know that. De facto, production was absolutely not for profit and therefore the way it was organized would be completely unrecognizable in capitalist context. De facto, the relationship of the different plants was nothing like GM's relationship to its various suppliers. Because GMs overarching aim at all times is to make a profit. This was simply not true for the Soviet system. De facto, virtually all production was state owned and there was a monopoly on foreign trade. And comrade there will be "capital" as such after the revolution for quite a while. The social relationship? For the bourgeosie it is OWNERSHIP of the means of production, by definition. Marx was a dialectician, but did not hesitate to define things. Shachtman, at least, knew enough to try to come up with something more creative, though not more correct, than "state capitalism."

[Tim Cornelis]

Comrade Tim, I think we have gone as far as we can go with this. I still think your argument boils down to: The workers were oppressed and the bureaucrats were privileged, therefore it was capitalism.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the Soviet Union had all the defining characteristics of the capitalist mode of production. The simplistic "privileged bureaucrats vs. oppressed working class" is more akin to the Cliffite theory of state-capitalism.


The difference between the USSR and Saudi Arabia is huge, and I think you know that.

I never said it wasn't. The phenomenal characteristics of both are huge, but the defining characteristics, the economic and social dynamics, are identical (namely, capitalistic).


De facto, production was absolutely not for profit and therefore the way it was organized would be completely unrecognizable in capitalist context.

This is not substantiated by the facts. Enterprises were expected to earn in excess of the costs of production, i.e. accrue profits.


De facto, the relationship of the different plants was nothing like GM's relationship to its various suppliers.

The de facto relationship of soviet enterprises was that of reciprocally autonomous units producing commodities and exchanging these between them. The de facto relationship of Dutch enterprises is that of reciprocally autonomous units producing commodities and exchanging these between them.


Because GMs overarching aim at all times is to make a profit. This was simply not true for the Soviet system.

It was. Let's assume it wasn't, and that enterprises starting to earn less than the cost of production, then the country would immediately go bankrupt. The very rationale of money-commodity relationships in capital is that it is driven by surplus value (M-C-M'), if not: bankruptcy. Even Stalin himself wrote how profitability was necessary in the Soviet Union: "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." (ch. 4, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR).

The Soviet Encyclopedia explains:
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Profit-and-Loss+Accounting

"In practice, profit-and-loss accounting is an administrative and management method under which the economic performance of each enterprise is commensurate in monetary terms with its production expenditures; each enterprise, by covering its outlays with the monetary income obtained from the sale of its products, ensures the profitability of production ... Profit-and-loss accounting, which is based on the public ownership of the means of production, differs in principle from commercial accounting, which serves private interests"

In other words, it's not the existence of profits in which the USSR differs, but the alleged purpose (private versus social interests). But this is irrelevant as to the existence of capitalist relations (socially responsible enterprises in, say, the UK may also serve "social interests" but nevertheless are capitalistic in nature). Moreover, the profits served the accumulation of capital, and only after this was realised was the remainder of the surplus value redirected toward social goals (free education, etc.). Thus, the USSR was capitalistic in essence.


De facto, virtually all production was state owned and there was a monopoly on foreign trade.

Wrong, de jure all production was state owned and there was a state monopoly on foreign trade, but state ownership does not change the relations of production. De facto there was class property (as economic property) and a dispossessed proletariat.


And comrade there will be "capital" as such after the revolution for quite a while.

No there wont, the essence of the revolution is the abolition of capital. The social revolution is not over until associated labour has replaced wage-labour, until monopolised ownership has given way for common or social ownership, and markets replaced by planning, and money replaced by rationing and free-access. There wont be capital.


The social relationship? For the bourgeosie it is OWNERSHIP of the means of production, by definition.

What is this in reference to? Surely, class property existed as the means of production were the non-property of the workers, and the property of the state, which bought labour-power, usurped surplus value, etc., etc.


Marx was a dialectician, but did not hesitate to define things. Shachtman, at least, knew enough to try to come up with something more creative, though not more correct, than "state capitalism."

And Marx explained that the economic property (the means of production being the class property by virtue, negatively defined, of it being the non-property of the workers) is relevant, not the judicial property forms in itself.

You don't need to be creative, you simply need to apply Marxism to the USSR to conclude its capitalist character and nature.

[Paul Cockshott]

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the Soviet Union had all the defining characteristics of the capitalist mode of production.
What are these defining characteristics.

[Paul Cockshott]

Surely, class property existed as the means of production were the non-property of the workers, and the property of the state, which bought labour-power, usurped surplus value, etc., etc.
These are surely a necessary consequence of socialism. The means of production can only be the property of workers if you have petty commodity production. In any higher form of production this is impossible. In socialism the means of production have to be socially owned, and the surplus product has to be socially owned too.


Marx explained that the economic property (the means of production being the class property by virtue, negatively defined, of it being the non-property of the workers) is relevant, not the judicial property forms in itself.
I am pretty familiar with Capital, but I can not recall seeing any passage in it that says what you say above.

[Tim Cornelis]

These are surely a necessary consequence of socialism. The means of production can only be the property of workers if you have petty commodity production. In any higher form of production this is impossible. In socialism the means of production have to be socially owned, and the surplus product has to be socially owned too.

Workers can own means of production as in workers' cooperatives, but this constitutes a sort of petite-bourgeois type of ownership. Regardless, state ownership is not synonymous with social ownership. In the Soviet Union the state property of the means of production was alienated from the working class, hence not socially owned -- the party-state owned the means of production at the exclusion of society, that is, the working class. Rather, it constituted private class property in the economic sense, and only state property in the judicial sense. Neither under the DOTP nor under socialism will the owners of productive property buy the labour-power of those who don't own productive property. The very existence of wage-labour presupposes the existence of a ruling exploiting class and the exploited working class, and conversely it negates the existence of socialism.


I am pretty familiar with Capital, but I can not recall seeing any passage in it that says what you say above.

We can infer this from various writings, including Capital vol. III, Grundrisse, The Civil War in France, and other writings. In fact, if state property is tantamount to or the basis of socialism, the nationalisation of, say, ABN Ambro would be socialistic in nature. Now, if we were to look at Marx' writings we would find that the ABN Ambro is not a socialist society within a society, given the perpetuation of capital as a social relationship (based on wage-labour and the production of commodities for profits). In Theories of Surplus Value Marx writes that the means of production being owned at the isolation or expense of wage-workers, which makes the ownership means of production their alien property, or non-property.


The conditions of labour are of course capital, only insofar as they confront the labourer as his non-property and consequently function as someone else’s property. But they can function in this way only in contradiction to labour. The antagonistic existence of these conditions in relation to labour makes their owners capitalists, and turns these conditions owned by them into capital.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add3.htm

Thus, irrespective of the specific judicial basis for ownership, as long as the property is monopolised by a subsection of the population whom buy labour-power to have the workers produce commodities, which makes it the non-property of the working class, the owners are capitalist.

Thus we find Engels arguing:


the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.

But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. 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.


What are these defining characteristics.

The existence of capital, which presupposes the existence of a proletariat, hired wage-labourers, producing commodities to produce a surplus value. The existence of wage-labour, monopolised ownership, commodity production.

[Fred]

You miss the entire point about production for profit. In the USSR enterprises, in fact, entire industries would not make profits for years at a time. Yes, obviously some of the enterprises, many even, created surplus. But if that is your definition of production for profit, it encompasses almost all production in the history of mankind and it will certainly be needed after the revolution. And de facto the USSR was qualitatively different from Saudi Arabia. Your putting them in the same category underscores your fundamental errors.

And I'm pretty sure Engels was talking about nationalizations by a bourgeois state. I suspect that he would have taken a different view of the USSR.

[Homo Songun]

Marx was clear, communism... Both the lower and higher, are classless. Bring some quotes and sources kid.

You keep talking about communism but we both know that this is really about the "state cappers" eccentric line on the dictatorship of the proletariat. Can we agree to drop pretenses then? The "state capper" line on the Soviet Union hinges on absolute necessity for a strict boundary between the DOTP and socialism. On the other hand, Marx says stuff like this:



This Socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.


Socialism is clearly contiguous with class dictatorship. There is no wall between them.

[Luís Henrique]

First, I don't think the Soviet Union was "State capitalist" - indeed, I think that the phrase, used like that, is an oxymoron.

If we try to rephrase that in a more generic way, such as "why do you think the Soviet Union went wrong?", then I would say that your options mix different things. I think that being just one country is a cause for the problems (whatever they are) of the Soviet Union; I don't think it is one of such problems. I look at the Soviet Union, I see it was only one country, then I think, "this is not going to end well, it is impossible to have socialism in one country". Having a currency, and money circulation, on the other hand, is a consequence of the problems of the Soviet Union; a symptom if you want. I look at it and see it had a monetary system, then I think, "well, this cannot have been actually socialist; if it was, there would be no monetary system". The same is true for what you call a "class division between workers and bureaucracy".

Being one country doesn't mean being "State capitalist" - other obvious options would be "capitalist" or "feudal" or "absolutist", and I am sure there may be other less obvious options, though I wouldn't recommend any of them.

Having a monetary system doesn't equate into "State capitalism" either. Money circulates, and has circulated, in societies that are not "State capitalist" at all, from ancient Rome to modern United States.

Having a class structure such as Bureaucracy/Workers doesn't make a society "State capitalist" or indeed capitalist at all. A capitalist society is based in a class structure such as Bourgeoisie/Workers. If indeed the Soviet Union had two essential classes, those being the bureaucracy and the working class, then it was some other kind of society, not a capitalist one at all, whether with "State-" as a prefix or not.

That said, the questions I would like to ask to those who talk about "State capitalism" are, "do you believe capital can exist without being divided among competing capitals", "if so, how does it reproduce without competition", and "if not, in what sense is it meaningful to call the Soviet Union, or any other society, 'State capitalism'"?

Luís Henrique

[Paul Cockshott]

You originally said
Marx explained that the economic property (the means of production being the class property by virtue, negatively defined, of it being the non-property of the workers) is relevant, not the judicial property forms in itself. when challengd to justify this you say


We can infer this from various writings, including Capital vol. III, Grundrisse, The Civil War in France, and other writings.

Well in that case you can presumably quote them?
You use this citation which says nothing of the sort
The conditions of labour are of course capital, only insofar as they confront the labourer as his non-property and consequently function as someone else’s property. But they can function in this way only in contradiction to labour. The antagonistic existence of these conditions in relation to labour makes their owners capitalists, and turns these conditions owned by them into capital.

He is talking there about 'someone elses property', it is this ownership by some other person that makes the means of production capital. That is you need a class of capitalist owners which did not exist in Soviet Russia.

You say


irrespective of the specific judicial basis for ownership, as long as the property is monopolised by a subsection of the population whom buy labour-power to have the workers produce commodities, which makes it the non-property of the working class, the owners are capitalist.

This is not what Marx says in the passage you quoted. He definitely does not say 'irrespective of judicial ownership', he says that the means of production are capital if they are owned by someone else. Ownership is a juridical property relation. You can not have ownership without a system of law to enforce that ownership. But in the USSR none of what you say above held there was no subsection of the population who bought labour power to produce commodities except during the NEP and in the last stage of the period of Peristoika when what were nominally cooperatives were sometimes in effect capitalist enterprises with one person de facto employing others. This de-facto relation was intolerable to the nascent bourgeoisie in the late 80s and they demanded a rapid move to de-jure capitalist property relations. But capitalist relations of production did not come into effect on a large scale until the USSR was disolved and Yeltsin took power.






You say that the essential features of capitalism are

The existence of capital, which presupposes the existence of a proletariat, hired wage-labourers, producing commodities to produce a surplus value. The existence of wage-labour, monopolised ownership, commodity production.
There is a lot of repetition here which I will ignore. so your list is

capital must exist
wage labour must exist
commodity production must exist
production must be for surplus value
there must be monopolised ownership


1.Well we have established that without ownership by a class of private property owners distinct from the workers the means of production are not capital so there was no capital in the USSR, one of your key conditions. This also rules out your point 5.

2. Well wage labour did exist, but wages only represented part of the necessary labour time since a substantial part of real income came in the form of free or subsidised goods and services, so the wage form was in the process of disolution.

3. Commodity production did exist, but it was subordinated to the plan, production goals were expressed in use value terms not exchange value terms.

4. Production of surplus value was not the goal of production, though post Liberman there were attempts by bourgeois influenced economists to make this a goal. The goal of production was set in use value terms by the plan and monetary incentives were used to try and motivate people to attain these targets expressed in use value terms. The state did levy a turover tax, but this was only surplus value in the sense that Mehrwertsteuer is Mehrwert. Value added tax is a monetary quantity, and corresponds symbolically to real social labour appropriated by the state, but taxation in monetary terms is not a specifically captialist relation. Monetary taxes pre-exist capitalist economy.

It is also worth considering that although your list of conditions did not apply to the USSR they did apply to the Roman empire, so you would have to say that basis that the Roman empire was capitalist. This suggests that you are missing out some key features of capitalism in your list.

[Brotto Rühle]

What was the mode of production in the USSR is what the question boils down to.

[Paul Cockshott]

The mode of production was socialist.

[Fred]

First, I don't think the Soviet Union was "State capitalist" - indeed, I think that the phrase, used like that, is an oxymoron.

If we try to rephrase that in a more generic way, such as "why do you think the Soviet Union went wrong?", then I would say that your options mix different things. I think that being just one country is a cause for the problems (whatever they are) of the Soviet Union; I don't think it is one of such problems. I look at the Soviet Union, I see it was only one country, then I think, "this is not going to end well, it is impossible to have socialism in one country". Having a currency, and money circulation, on the other hand, is a consequence of the problems of the Soviet Union; a symptom if you want. I look at it and see it had a monetary system, then I think, "well, this cannot have been actually socialist; if it was, there would be no monetary system". The same is true for what you call a "class division between workers and bureaucracy".

Being one country doesn't mean being "State capitalist" - other obvious options would be "capitalist" or "feudal" or "absolutist", and I am sure there may be other less obvious options, though I wouldn't recommend any of them.

Having a monetary system doesn't equate into "State capitalism" either. Money circulates, and has circulated, in societies that are not "State capitalist" at all, from ancient Rome to modern United States.

Having a class structure such as Bureaucracy/Workers doesn't make a society "State capitalist" or indeed capitalist at all. A capitalist society is based in a class structure such as Bourgeoisie/Workers. If indeed the Soviet Union had two essential classes, those being the bureaucracy and the working class, then it was some other kind of society, not a capitalist one at all, whether with "State-" as a prefix or not.

That said, the questions I would like to ask to those who talk about "State capitalism" are, "do you believe capital can exist without being divided among competing capitals", "if so, how does it reproduce without competition", and "if not, in what sense is it meaningful to call the Soviet Union, or any other society, 'State capitalism'"?

Luís Henrique

Well said. I would add that Max Shachtman and others have put forward theories where the bureaucracy represented a new class -- his is referred to as Bureaucratic Collectivism. The banana peel upon which this theory slips is the fact that the bureaucrats lack a number of key elements that classes have. They played no creative role and were merely parasitic. They managed but did not own the means of production. And boy do they disappear when their regimes fall. While Yeltsin was a bureaucrat for a long time, his goal was to be a capitalist or a capitalist leader. He could only achieve that after 1991.

[Bea Arthur]

Well said. I would add that Max Shachtman and others have put forward theories where the bureaucracy represented a new class -- his is referred to as Bureaucratic Collectivism. The banana peel upon which this theory slips is the fact that the bureaucrats lack a number of key elements that classes have. They played no creative role and were merely parasitic. They managed but did not own the means of production. And boy do they disappear when their regimes fall. While Yeltsin was a bureaucrat for a long time, his goal was to be a capitalist or a capitalist leader. He could only achieve that after 1991.

I've read your posts in this thread very carefully. They are circular. Bureaucrats in the soviet economy could not be a class. Why? Because they were parasitic. Why were they parasitic? Because they weren't a class. Yes the class of state capitalists disappears when state capitalism does. Feudal lords disappear when feudalism does. You do not have an analysis of capitalism. What you have are a series of isolated criteria that you apply independent of how they relate to social processes. The continued existence of money, racism, and sexism should be a clue.

[Fred]

I've read your posts in this thread very carefully. They are circular. Bureaucrats in the soviet economy could not be a class. Why? Because they were parasitic. Why were they parasitic? Because they weren't a class. Yes the class of state capitalists disappears when state capitalism does. Feudal lords disappear when feudalism does. You do not have an analysis of capitalism. What you have are a series of isolated criteria that you apply independent of how they relate to social processes. The continued existence of money, racism, and sexism should be a clue.

Maybe you should confer with Walter about this? He was always so clear headed. :D

Classes play creative, generative roles at some point in their history -- at the risk of being a bit teleological, they are necessary. Not so with the bureaucracy. You might disagree, but it is not circular.

Look, historically, state capitalism got its dubious start as a way of avoiding Soviet defensism where it was unpopular in rad/lib milieus. That's probably why the USA and Britain are the places it took hold of first. In the US, the minority in the SWP, led by Shachtman, Burnham and Abern felt the intense pressure of both the ruling class and the rad/lib intellectual milieu outraged at the Hitler/Stalin Pact and the invasion of Finland. In Britain, Tony Cliff couldn't handle abandoned defense of North Korea during the Korean War. It is a slippery slope that slides toward reformism.

[Bea Arthur]

Maybe you should confer with Walter about this? He was always so clear headed. :D

Classes play creative, generative roles at some point in their history -- at the risk of being a bit teleological, they are necessary. Not so with the bureaucracy. You might disagree, but it is not circular.

Look, historically, state capitalism got its dubious start as a way of avoiding Soviet defensism where it was unpopular in rad/lib milieus. That's probably why the USA and Britain are the places it took hold of first. In the US, the minority in the SWP, led by Shachtman, Burnham and Abern felt the intense pressure of both the ruling class and the rad/lib intellectual milieu outraged at the Hitler/Stalin Pact and the invasion of Finland. In Britain, Tony Cliff couldn't handle abandoned defense of North Korea during the Korean War. It is a slippery slope that slides toward reformism.

Your argument might make some kind of sense if the question people here were answering is whether the USSR was a non-capitalist and non-socialist mode of production. The people youre disagreeing with here are saying that the USSR was capitalist and that the leaders were capitalists even though they didnt own the means of production. They belong to the same class that played the same generative role as any other capitalist. The rest of your post is just obscure historical nonsense that might be of interest to five of the other members in your equally obscure Trot sect.

[Paul Cockshott]

I've read your posts in this thread very carefully. They are circular. Bureaucrats in the soviet economy could not be a class. Why? Because they were parasitic. Why were they parasitic? Because they weren't a class. Yes the class of state capitalists disappears when state capitalism does. Feudal lords disappear when feudalism does.
This is just empirically wrong. I suggest you come and visit Scotland and you will find the descendents of the feudal lords still living in castles and still owning the greater part of the land.
Property ownership is the key to the existence of a capitalist or landlord class, if they do not own it, they can not pass their social position down through the generations.

[Tim Cornelis]

Reply capital.

You originally said when challengd to justify this you say
Well in that case you can presumably quote them?
Yes. For instance:
The Civil War in France: “The Commune, they exclaim, intends to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intends to abolish that class property, which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few”.
Communist Manifesto:
“When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.”
“the juridical forms as simple forms cannot determine the content itself, they can only express it [drücken ihn nur aus]”
Grundrisse:
“All moments which confronted living labour capacity, and employed it as alien, external powers, and which consumed it under certain conditions independent of itself, are now posited as its own product and result.”
“The independent, for-itself existence [Fürsichsein] of value vis-à-vis living labour capacity -- hence its existence as capital -- the objective, self-sufficient indifference, the alien quality [Fremdheit] of the objective conditions of labour vis-a-vis living labour capacity, which goes so far that these conditions confront the person of the worker in the person of the capitalist -- as personification [53] with its own will and interest -- this absolute divorce, separation of property, i.e. of the objective conditions of labour from living labour capacity -- that they confront him as alien property, as the reality of other juridical persons, as the absolute realm of their will -- and that labour therefore, on the other side, appears as alien labour opposed to the value personified in the capitalist, or the conditions of labour -- this absolute separation between property and labour, between living labour capacity and the conditions of its realization, between objectified and living labour, between value and value-creating activity -- hence also the alien quality of the content of labour for the worker himself -- this divorce now likewise appears as a product of labour itself, as objectification of its own moments.”
Economic and philosophic manuscripts:
“[Capitalist] private property is the product, the result, the necessary consequence of alienated labor . . . . Private property is derived from an analysis of the concept of alienated labor”. Thus, as long as alienated labour exists, there is private class property. Meaning the immediate producer confronts the objective conditions of labour – as mediated through the ownership of productive property – as his non-property then it can considered “private property”, as used at the exclusion of society at large, as is indeed the case with state ownership, which is anything but public in the actual sense.
From this we can infer that the judicial expression of class property is irrelevant as long as its economic character is that of class property (as exemplified by the alien labour of those employed). The objective conditions of labour confront labour as alien property, this is the basis of capital, and exists irrespective of the specific judicial expression of the divorce of the objective conditions of labour and the proletariat to whom it is alien property. State ownership is alien property to the workers if the workers exercise no absolute control over it. The economic existence, that is, how it functions in actual reality overrides how it appears on paper.

You use this citation which says nothing of the sort. He is talking there about 'someone elses property', it is this ownership by some other person that makes the means of production capital. That is you need a class of capitalist owners which did not exist in Soviet Russia.
Again, this amounts to circular reasoning: there was no capital because there was no capitalist class and there was no capitalist class because there was no capital. The means of production were owned and controlled by a minority belonging the the party-state, they employed wage-labour for the production of surplus-value (the social relationship of capital). Thus the party-state constituted a capitalist class as they exploited labour, extracted surplus value, engages in trade of commodities (means of production, consumer goods, labour-power), accumulated capital, in other words: every characteristic of the capitalist mode of production.


This is not what Marx says in the passage you quoted. He definitely does not say 'irrespective of judicial ownership',
But we can infer that the objective conditions of the wage-workers is that they relate to the means of production as, what Marx calls non-property or alien property. This non-property is owned by a class external to the workers, irrespective of the judicial form it takes, as long as the working class remains a working class employed on the basis of selling their labour-power to the owners of means of production, it is a proletariat on the one hand (employees) and bourgeoisie on the other (employers). This corresponds completely to the experience of the Soviet Union.

he says that the means of production are capital if they are owned by someone else.
Someone else other than the immediate producers, which, in the case of the USSR, was the state.

Ownership is a juridical property relation. You can not have ownership without a system of law to enforce that ownership.
State ownership was protected by law, and it was the non-property of those employed for it, the wage-workers.

But in the USSR none of what you say above held there was no subsection of the population who bought labour power to produce commodities except during the NEP and in the last stage of the period of Peristoika when what were nominally cooperatives were sometimes in effect capitalist enterprises with one person de facto employing others.
Soviet enterprises were administered by its managers and employed wage-workers on behalf of the state, thus a subsection of the population, those owning and controlling the means of production, bought labour-power – the state.

This de-facto relation was intolerable to the nascent bourgeoisie in the late 80s and they demanded a rapid move to de-jure capitalist property relations. But capitalist relations of production did not come into effect on a large scale until the USSR was disolved and Yeltsin took power.
The economic existence overrides it judicial expression. Enterprises already exchanged commodities, only formally did these remain in the hands of the same owner (the state) but the very fact that monetary-commodity exchange occurred between various enterprises proves that they represented reciprocally autonomous units, centres of capital, producing commodities, and with them extracting surplus value and accumulating capital, the Soviet society represented a capitalist mode of production.


You say that the essential features of capitalism are
There is a lot of repetition here which I will ignore. so your list is

capital must exist
wage labour must exist
commodity production must exist
production must be for surplus value
there must be monopolised ownership


1.Well we have established that without ownership by a class of private property owners distinct from the workers the means of production are not capital so there was no capital in the USSR, one of your key conditions. This also rules out your point 5.
Which most definitely existed in the Soviet Union. There is mutual implication. The working class related to the means of production as alien property, that is to say, they neither owned nor controlled the means of production and were employed by those that did. So private class property existed in the Soviet Union in the judicial form of state ownership.

2. Well wage labour did exist, but wages only represented part of the necessary labour time since a substantial part of real income came in the form of free or subsidised goods and services, so the wage form was in the process of disolution.
The point of wage-labour is not labour, but that they, the workers, sell their labour-power to an employer, in this case the state.

3. Commodity production did exist, but it was subordinated to the plan, production goals were expressed in use value terms not exchange value terms.
What do you mean by “expressed in use value”? Does this mean in natura quantities, in which case the very existence of the exchange of commodities through exchange-values negates the notion that production was for use. If the plan of production was the immediate satisfaction of substance through use-values exchange could not have occurred, because then production is carried out for exchange. Only through rationing and free-access is production for use-value materialised.

4. Production of surplus value was not the goal of production, though post Liberman there were attempts by bourgeois influenced economists to make this a goal. The goal of production was set in use value terms by the plan and monetary incentives were used to try and motivate people to attain these targets expressed in use value terms. The state did levy a turover tax, but this was only surplus value in the sense that Mehrwertsteuer is Mehrwert. Value added tax is a monetary quantity, and corresponds symbolically to real social labour appropriated by the state, but taxation in monetary terms is not a specifically captialist relation. Monetary taxes pre-exist capitalist economy.
Production was for surplus value, as evidenced by the desire to keep industries profitable. Now, I'm not exactly familiar with the details surrounding surplus value as extracted from the exploited workers in the USSR, but it seems it was used to accumulate capital.

It is also worth considering that although your list of conditions did not apply to the USSR they did apply to the Roman empire, so you would have to say that basis that the Roman empire was capitalist.
First of all there was no wage-labour as there was no “double freedom” for the workers. The unique character of the proletarian is that he is free from the conditions of his labour (he does not own means of production as an artisan would, nor does he self-administer his labour) and he is not bound to an individual exploiter or land. The plebeian were plebeian by birth, the serf bound by land, and thus not free. A wage-worker is 'free' in that regard (though of course dependent on the capitalist class, but not by an individual capitalist per se).
There was simple commodity production, not generalised commodity production. And under the Roman Empire the circulation of commodities was C-M-C, not M-C-M'.
Monopolisation exists in any class society, so evidently that existed.
Thus the Roman Empire was not capitalist, the UK is, the Soviet Union was.

This suggests that you are missing out some key features of capitalism in your list.
Such as?


First, I don't think the Soviet Union was "State capitalist" - indeed, I think that the phrase, used like that, is an oxymoron.
Is state ownership of a bank or any other enterprise non-capitalistic?

Having a class structure such as Bureaucracy/Workers doesn't make a society "State capitalist" or indeed capitalist at all. A capitalist society is based in a class structure such as Bourgeoisie/Workers. If indeed the Soviet Union had two essential classes, those being the bureaucracy and the working class, then it was some other kind of society, not a capitalist one at all, whether with "State-" as a prefix or not.
So it wasn't capitalist because there was a bureaucracy instead of a capitalist class because there was a bureaucracy and thus it was not capitalist. Circular reasoning. There was a bourgeois-worker class relationship, and the bourgeoisie was the national capitalist embodied in the state.


That said, the questions I would like to ask to those who talk about "State capitalism" are, "do you believe capital can exist without being divided among competing capitals", "if so, how does it reproduce without competition", and "if not, in what sense is it meaningful to call the Soviet Union, or any other society, 'State capitalism'"?
It reproduces through the internal exchange.


Well said. I would add that Max Shachtman and others have put forward theories where the bureaucracy represented a new class -- his is referred to as Bureaucratic Collectivism. The banana peel upon which this theory slips is the fact that the bureaucrats lack a number of key elements that classes have. They played no creative role and were merely parasitic. They managed but did not own the means of production. And boy do they disappear when their regimes fall. While Yeltsin was a bureaucrat for a long time, his goal was to be a capitalist or a capitalist leader. He could only achieve that after 1991.
Circular reasoning. I've already addressed this, but you fail to retort. Corporate managers are part of the capitalist class as they control capital, employ wage-labour, extort surplus value, yet they do not necessarily own the means of production. Ownership per se does not change the objective conditions of labour wherein the immediate producer finds himself, and enters into.


You miss the entire point about production for profit. In the USSR enterprises, in fact, entire industries would not make profits for years at a time.
I'm not sure if that's true, I've seen Stalin talk of keeping less profitable small industry alive alongside the more profitable big industry, which seems logical. Secondly the non-profit making of an enterprise does not make it non-capitalist. If so, any enterprise in the process of going bankrupt would cease to be capitalist, but this ignores that you cannot observe capitalism through its fragments (see the quote 9mm posted regarding this, which I find strangely supportive of my, rather than it opposing what I say as was implied). For instance, in my city there is a Saturn in an isolated location (a failed business boulevard), and it's almost deserted. If it had been an independent petty bourgeois shop it would been bankrupt, but Saturn (being a major corporation and legally part of the even larger Media Markt) can survive for years on its financial reserves. The same as unprofitable Soviet enterprise could survive on the financial reserves of other enterprises legally part of the same entity.

Yes, obviously some of the enterprises, many even, created surplus. But if that is your definition of production for profit, it encompasses almost all production in the history of mankind and it will certainly be needed after the revolution. And de facto the USSR was qualitatively different from Saudi Arabia. Your putting them in the same category underscores your fundamental errors.
We're going in circles. I explain that the USSR had every characteristic of capitalism, then you cherry pick one and say “but surplus value also existed in pre-capitalist societies, this in itself doesn't make it capitalist.” It doesn't, but in relation to the other characteristics, which you then ignore, and pick one characteristic to say it also existed in pre-capitalist societies. But then, as I've already explained, the Netherlansd wouldn't be capitalistic because: private property existed in pre-capitalist times, wage-labour existed in pre-capitalist times, the law of value existed in pre-capitalist times, etc., etc. Thus all those characteristics are not inherently capitalist therefore the Netherlands is non-capitalist.

And I'm pretty sure Engels was talking about nationalizations by a bourgeois state. I suspect that he would have taken a different view of the USSR.
Yes, he was talking about nationalisation by a bourgeois state, evidently (see also below an explanation on the differences in nationalisation). A workers' state is one based on workers' power, and thus nationalisation by a workers' state would result in productive units or enterprises being taken over by the immediate producers themselves and directly. In the USSR we find, in contrast, that workers did not control production but sold their labour-power to the employer, the state – that is, wage-labour existed. The USSR was a bourgeois state, and state ownership did not do away with the social relationship of capital.
I suspect Marx and Engels would have ruthlessly destroyed the notion of the USSR being socialist in any way, shape or form.


Classes play creative, generative roles at some point in their history -- at the risk of being a bit teleological, they are necessary. Not so with the bureaucracy. You might disagree, but it is not circular.

It is circular, because there is no bureaucracy because there is no capitalist class because there is no bureaucracy. To say that the bureaucracy plays no generative and creative role I find quite arbitrary, why do they need to do this and why don't they play this role? And if state ownership is not capitalistic, is the Dutch ABN Ambro bank non-capitalist?
What is interesting is that we find that Marx and Engels wrote about the disappearance of private property under capitalism, not its perpetuation. Independent artisans controlled the conditions of their labour, but proportionate to the development of the productive forces through industrialisation they became proletarianised. Private property of independent labour and landed peasants disappeared in favour of private property of merchants and petty bourgeoisie. Communist Manifesto:
“But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.”
Then the petty bourgeoisie would disappear, so it was predicted. The multinational corporations would take over replacing the petite-bourgeoisie. And finally, the corporations would, in the process of the centralisation of capital, would be replaced completely by joint-stock corporations and state ownership. As Engels wrote:

In any case, with trusts or without, the official representative of capitalist society — the state — will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production. [4] This necessity for conversion into State property is felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and communication — the post office, the telegraphs, the railways.
If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.
Thus, it was said in classical Marxism that the historical objective was the socialisation of labour corresponding to the concentration of capital which would result in the state usurping the functions ascribed to the bourgeoisie, but this did not negate the existence of capital and thus class society and the bourgeoisie. Rather the state becomes the 'national capitalist' as Engels called it, or state capitalist as modern theoreticians call it. It's the relationships of production that determines by and large (because of the reciprocal implication it has to the social dynamics) the class character of the owners of production, not the subjective “creative” role.
State ownership is only revolutionary when it is controlled by the proletariat.

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.
But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State. Society, thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the State.
But we can clearly see that this did not occur in the Soviet Union, the proletariat did not abolish itself but continued to exist given that a mass of dispossessed wage-workers related to the means of production as alien property, and surplus value was extracted from them by a class above them, the ruling and exploiting class. There was class antagonisms as evidenced by the innumerable strike actions in the Soviet Union, and state structure of the USSR resembled that of a conventional state, it was not abolished “as state”.
State ownership in itself is not socialism:
EngelsFor only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the State has become economically inevitable, only then — even if it is the State of today that effects this — is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself. But of late, since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism.

If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.


Look, historically, state capitalism got its dubious start as a way of avoiding Soviet defensism where it was unpopular in rad/lib milieus. That's probably why the USA and Britain are the places it took hold of first. In the US, the minority in the SWP, led by Shachtman, Burnham and Abern felt the intense pressure of both the ruling class and the rad/lib intellectual milieu outraged at the Hitler/Stalin Pact and the invasion of Finland. In Britain, Tony Cliff couldn't handle abandoned defense of North Korea during the Korean War. It is a slippery slope that slides toward reformism.
The description of the USSR as socialistic got its dubious start with the rationalising away of the discrepancy between what has always been understood to mean socialism, the association of free and equal producers, to make it compatible with the Soviet's experience of wage-labour, forced labour, existence of the state, a proletariat, a class above the proletariat, and top-down state structure, because otherwise we may need to face the uncomfortable conclusion that the Russian revolution failed.
^Such arguments are not relevant to the discussion. You do not attack the arguments itself.


This is just empirically wrong. I suggest you come and visit Scotland and you will find the descendents of the feudal lords still living in castles and still owning the greater part of the land.
Property ownership is the key to the existence of a capitalist or landlord class, if they do not own it, they can not pass their social position down through the generations.
The aristocracy exist around the world, in the sense that they have continued to inherit the property of their aristocratic predecessors. But if we look at the relations of production we can clearly see they are not feudal, but capitalists and have transformed themselves as such. They do not preside over feudal peasants, no serfs bound to land without owning it, no bondage, they do not swear loyalty to the king in return that he can request their military support. To say that the aristocracy is aristocratic because they live in castles does not conform to an analysis you claim to uphold as Marxist. They hire wage-labourers to trim their bushes and vegetation, wage-workers as servants, and usually work as corporate manager of some kind, they are a part of the capitalist class (and if they live exclusively of inheritance not by hiring wage-workers, it doesn't make them aristocratic for feudal relations are absent still)

They may legally be entitled to calling themselves Duke or hold other aristocratic titles, but this does not make them aristocrats. In fact, I find it highly representative that you would call this feudal despite the absence of feudal social relations in the same way that you call the Soviet Union socialism despite the existence of capitalist social relationships, because nominally (de jure) they are aristocrats one the one hand and publicly owned means of production on the other. The unjustified preoccupation with the phenomenal characteristics in other words.

[Luís Henrique]

Is state ownership of a bank or any other enterprise non-capitalistic?

It is capitalistic when it is capitalistic, it is non-capitalistic when it is non-capitalistic. If a feudal State owns means of production, that is feudal property, which engages in feudal production if it is the case, not in capitalist production.

Of course if a capitalist State owns a bank, such bank is capitalist. But this takes place among the normal competition between different capitals. The State-owned bank competes in the market against private banks (or even, as is the case in Brazil, against other State banks). Or, if the whole sector is nationalised, it still competes, though in different ways, against capitals in different sectors.

In the case of the Soviet Union, we are not discussing a State that owns a bank among several competing banks, not even a State that has established its monopoly in the banking sector (probably as a means of assuring better competition conditions in all other sectors). We are discussing a State that "owned all means of production except labour power", and, so, unless you can explain it otherwise, a "capitalist society" without competition between capitals.


So it wasn't capitalist because there was a bureaucracy instead of a capitalist class because there was a bureaucracy and thus it was not capitalist. Circular reasoning. There was a bourgeois-worker class relationship, and the bourgeoisie was the national capitalist embodied in the state.

Which means you actually believe in "capitalism" without competition. But this is clearly impossible, for no competition means no actual way to establish value, and consequently no possible accumulation of capital.

The reasoning isn't circular. A bourgeoisie is a class composed of several independent competing capitalists; a bureaucracy is a class, or more likely other kind of social layer, that is composed by non-independent, non-competing individuals. If, in your phrasing, the bourgeoisie was the "national capitalist" embodied in the State, then it was necessarily not a bourgeoisie, because the bourgeoisie cannot be one single "national capitalist"; it only exists in competition.


It reproduces through the internal exchange.

What internal exchange? How was there exchange (other than between the State and the proletariat), if there was a single national capital? How did such capital determine relative prices, if it didn't have to buy and sell means of production in the market? How are companies supposed to rate their profitability without competition? Or does State capitalism entail a single national company, ALL Inc.? If so, how does it accumulate capital, and what for?

See, this object you are presenting to me and calling a clock may have the display of a clock, the pointers of a clock, etc., but it doesn't show the time, because it doesn't have a spring. So in what sense is it a clock?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The people youre disagreeing with here are saying that the USSR was capitalist and that the leaders were capitalists even though they didnt own the means of production. They belong to the same class that played the same generative role as any other capitalist.

The people who he is disagreeing with are not saying that the USSR was "capitalist". They are saying that it was "State capitalist". If this is the same as "capitalist", then why call it "State capitalist" instead of simply capitalist? If it is not the same, what is the difference?

Luís Henrique

[Fred]

Hey, I never describe the USSR as "socialistic," whatever that is. It was a society in transition (for a rather surprisingly long time). It did not make it toward socialism. And of course, isolated it was not going to. The political counterrevolution made by the Stalinists was analogous to Bonaparte's in France. The Aristocracy had been smashed, and the social and economic forms were those of a bourgeois republic -- but with political power in the hands of Bonaparte and his government. In Russia, the Aristocracy and the Bourgeoisie had been smashed. And the forms that emerged were those of a Workers' state. But the bureaucrats usurped power and abandoned proletarian internationalism -- thus, ultimately paving the way for counterrevolution. Trotskyists called for a political revolution, because no social overturn would have been required. Indeed with the Stalinists out of power, there would have been infinitely less to do than after a social revolution. Production was already organized in a planned and collectivized fashion. The need would have been to do it far better, and of course to have the proletariat completely involved politically. And, most importantly, to focus on spreading the revolution. And Comrade Paul is not saying that feudal social relations still exist in Scotland -- he is saying that the "defining characteristic" of a ruling class is the ownership of the means of production. You conflate ownership with control and thereby miss the boat.

If what happened in 1991-2 was not a social overturn, how do you explain the absolute collapse of Soviet Society? And the catastrophe that befell the Russian/Soviet proletariat after that.

[Tim Cornelis]

It is capitalistic when it is capitalistic, it is non-capitalistic when it is non-capitalistic. If a feudal State owns means of production, that is feudal property, which engages in feudal production if it is the case, not in capitalist production.

Of course if a capitalist State owns a bank, such bank is capitalist. But this takes place among the normal competition between different capitals. The State-owned bank competes in the market against private banks (or even, as is the case in Brazil, against other State banks). Or, if the whole sector is nationalised, it still competes, though in different ways, against capitals in different sectors.


In the case of the Soviet Union, we are not discussing a State that owns a bank among several competing banks, not even a State that has established its monopoly in the banking sector (probably as a means of assuring better competition conditions in all other sectors). We are discussing a State that "owned all means of production except labour power", and, so, unless you can explain it otherwise, a "capitalist society" without competition between capitals.

But there was. The enterprises in the Soviet Union constituted reciprocally autonomous production units that employed wage-labour and produced commodities, this is evidenced by the fact that commodity-money exchange existed between enterprises and thus that enterprises constituted separate 'centres of capital'. The actually existing conditions of exchange establish the nature of the social and economic dynamics prevailing in society, not how they appear on paper (legally). Thus, enterprises constituted the fragmented phenomenal expression of the social total capital. This was the basis for reproduction and accumulation of capital established through commodity-money exchange. The competition between enterprises was, of course, not called "competition" but more frequently emulation:

"Within the framework of public, state ownership (of the means of production), which prevails in the national economy, there arises relative isolation of separate enterprises." The confrontation of singular capitals, in other words, the basis for the composition of capitals.Which Aganbegyan called "economic emulation." (source: Generalnyi kurs ekonomicheskoi (1985), Moscow Ekonomika, 1988, p.184 and p. 191). Of course, he did not invent the word, and of course the socialist competition was disguised as a supposed mass movement of workers striving to work harder, but in fact this "overgrowth of ideology" concealed the facilitated competition of capital necessitated by the social dynamics springing from the existing premises thereof: wage-labour and monopolised ownership (class property).

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Socialist+emulation

(quote)"In the USSR, where a developed socialist society exists, socialist competition has penetrated every sphere of labor and practical social activity and has become an intrinsic feature of the Soviet way of life. Socialist competition is a powerful instrument for developing the productive forces"(/quote)

Developing the productive forces through socialist competition sounds like a solid basis for capital accumulation.

As Paresh Chattopadhyay rightly points out, we can again see the unwarranted preoccupation with the phenomenal characteristics: "Those who deny the existence of competition of capitals in the Soviet economy seem to be considering certain historically determined forms of competition, as they appear in the so-called classical capitalist society [i.e. liberal capitalism], as identical with competition (of capitals) as such." (p. 130 The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience).


Which means you actually believe in "capitalism" without competition. But this is clearly impossible, for no competition means no actual way to establish value, and consequently no possible accumulation of capital.


The reasoning isn't circular. A bourgeoisie is a class composed of several independent competing capitalists; a bureaucracy is a class, or more likely other kind of social layer, that is composed by non-independent, non-competing individuals. If, in your phrasing, the bourgeoisie was the "national capitalist" embodied in the State, then it was necessarily not a bourgeoisie, because the bourgeoisie cannot be one single "national capitalist"; it only exists in competition.

The social capital was embodied in the state, singular capitals were embodied in the enterprises. These enterprises related to one another through commodity-exchange. Thus they constituted independent competing individual enterprises. That this competition took shape contrary to the shape of liberal capitalism does not make it non-capitalist.


What internal exchange? How was there exchange (other than between the State and the proletariat), if there was a single national capital? How did such capital determine relative prices, if it didn't have to buy and sell means of production in the market? How are companies supposed to rate their profitability without competition? Or does State capitalism entail a single national company, ALL Inc.? If so, how does it accumulate capital, and what for?

Again, the total social capital appears through its fragments, the singular capitals, otherwise said, the reciprocally autonomous production units producing commodities (centres of capital, singular capitals). They exchanged commodities between themselves and while the commodity remains the formal property of the state, the fact that exchange was conducted on the basis of commodity-money shows that the really existing economic relations were indeed that of singular capitals relating to each other through competition.

The accumulation of capital was signified by the extensive proletarianisation, which had also signified the accumulation of capital in Western Europe.


The people who he is disagreeing with are not saying that the USSR was "capitalist". They are saying that it was "State capitalist". If this is the same as "capitalist", then why call it "State capitalist" instead of simply capitalist? If it is not the same, what is the difference?

Luís Henrique

I have not seriously considered the most appropriate description. The Soviet Union was capitalist, and denominating it as 'state-capitalist' differentiates its phenomenal characteristics of free market capitalism, state monopoly capitalism, liberal capitalism, and dirigist capitalism, etc. Calling it state-capitalism is perhaps a bit redundant in the same way that we do not refer to France as 'dirigist capitalism'. But at the same time we often do specify the differences between propertarian free market capitalism and actually existing capitalism. Regardless, it's semantics.


Hey, I never describe the USSR as "socialistic," whatever that is. It was a society in transition (for a rather surprisingly long time). It did not make it toward socialism. And of course, isolated it was not going to. The political counterrevolution made by the Stalinists was analogous to Bonaparte's in France. The Aristocracy had been smashed, and the social and economic forms were those of a bourgeois republic -- but with political power in the hands of Bonaparte and his government. In Russia, the Aristocracy and the Bourgeoisie had been smashed. And the forms that emerged were those of a Workers' state. But the bureaucrats usurped power and abandoned proletarian internationalism -- thus, ultimately paving the way for counterrevolution. Trotskyists called for a political revolution, because no social overturn would have been required. Indeed with the Stalinists out of power, there would have been infinitely less to do than after a social revolution. Production was already organized in a planned and collectivized fashion. The need would have been to do it far better, and of course to have the proletariat completely involved politically. And, most importantly, to focus on spreading the revolution. And Comrade Paul is not saying that feudal social relations still exist in Scotland -- he is saying that the "defining characteristic" of a ruling class is the ownership of the means of production. You conflate ownership with control and thereby miss the boat.

If what happened in 1991-2 was not a social overturn, how do you explain the absolute collapse of Soviet Society? And the catastrophe that befell the Russian/Soviet proletariat after that.

You're right about you not calling it socialism (socialistic is of course the state of being socialist), but you're again cherry picking. The Soviet Union was not in transition to socialism as evidenced by: the increase of commodity production, the increase of the proletariat, where a society in transition would move in opposite directions: facing out the existence of commodity production and wage-labour. Once bureaucrats usurped power, you can no longer speak of a workers' state as the conquest of political power by the proletariat has seized to be. Incidentally, the destruction of the nuclei of the workers' state occurred under War Communism.
Production was not collectivised as the conditions of labour were subject to the control of minority class. Planning did not negate the existence of markets and competing capitals, so that's irrelevant.

In fact, I've already addressed all these issues, but you keep repeating yourself without first addressing my objections. I've already explained that state ownership is tantamount to private ownership given the conditions of labour being confronted by the proletarian as alien property. It doesn't need to find the specific judicial expression as legally private for it to constitute, in practice, private property. The actual social relationships matter, and, repeating myself again and again, were that of capital, of wage-labour, of exploitation.

[Fred]

Right, Tim, we don't agree on definitions - so we keep explaining how we define things to each other. Probably time to let it go for now.

[Paul Cockshott]

The Civil War in France: “The Commune, they exclaim, intends to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intends to abolish that class property, which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few”.

This is what the USSR did by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production the labour of the many could no longer be the wealth of the few there.

Communist Manifesto:
“When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.”
Again this is what happened in Russia


“the juridical forms as simple forms cannot determine the content itself, they can only express it [drücken ihn nur aus]”
please give the page number and chapter number so I can look this up in context. I dont seem to be able to find the passage online with google.


Grundrisse:
“All moments which confronted living labour capacity, and employed it as alien, external powers, and which consumed it under certain conditions independent of itself, are now posited as its own product and result.”
“The independent, for-itself existence [Fürsichsein] of value vis-à-vis living labour capacity -- hence its existence as capital -- the objective, self-sufficient indifference, the alien quality [Fremdheit] of the objective conditions of labour vis-a-vis living labour capacity, which goes so far that these conditions confront the person of the worker in the person of the capitalist -- as personification [53] with its own will and interest -- this absolute divorce, separation of property, i.e. of the objective conditions of labour from living labour capacity -- that they confront him as alien property, as the reality of other juridical persons, as the absolute realm of their will -- and that labour therefore, on the other side, appears as alien labour opposed to the value personified in the capitalist, or the conditions of labour -- this absolute separation between property and labour, between living labour capacity and the conditions of its realization, between objectified and living labour, between value and value-creating activity -- hence also the alien quality of the content of labour for the worker himself -- this divorce now likewise appears as a product of labour itself, as objectification of its own moments.”
this passage is very philosophical but it clearly refers to value 'personified in the capitalist' which did not exist in Soviet Russia post 1929.


Economic and philosophic manuscripts:
“[Capitalist] private property is the product, the result, the necessary consequence of alienated labor . . . . Private property is derived from an analysis of the concept of alienated labor”. Thus, as long as alienated labour exists, there is private class property. Meaning the immediate producer confronts the objective conditions of labour – as mediated through the ownership of productive property – as his non-property then it can considered “private property”, as used at the exclusion of society at large, as is indeed the case with state ownership, which is anything but public in the actual sense.
This is the closest you have come to finding anything that backs you up, but you have to understand what states he was talking about in 1844 - primarily the Prussian and other German monarchies. The property of the king was not public in an actual sense, any more than the ownership of oilfields by the King of Arabia is public. But the USSR was not a monarchy and the property there was not the property of the king but of the whole people. The monarchy and the old propertied classes had been abolished. The USSR did what the COmmunist Manfesto said :

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.
You would have it that implementing the Communist Programme amounts to capitalism. You are arguing that black is white - or red is white.

[Luís Henrique]

But there was. The enterprises in the Soviet Union constituted reciprocally autonomous production units that employed wage-labour and produced commodities, this is evidenced by the fact that commodity-money exchange existed between enterprises and thus that enterprises constituted separate 'centres of capital'.

Ah, then we agree. But then, what is the purpose of the label "State-capitalism"?


The actually existing conditions of exchange establish the nature of the social and economic dynamics prevailing in society, not how they appear on paper (legally). Thus, enterprises constituted the fragmented phenomenal expression of the social total capital.

But then I must not only ask, what is the purpose of the label "State-capitalism", I must also remark that its use tends to exactly confuse the issue by making it look that what matters is how things appear in law/paper: it concedes to the myth that the State was actually the owner of all means of production, and consequently, as I have read before, "the national capitalist" embodied...


of course the socialist competition was disguised as a supposed mass movement of workers striving to work harder, but in fact this "overgrowth of ideology" concealed the facilitated competition of capital necessitated by the social dynamics springing from the existing premises thereof: wage-labour and monopolised ownership (class property).

In what sense do you use the word "monopolised" here? We may say that in any capitalist society, the bourgeoisie holds the "monopoly" of the means of production - but in practice, this "class monopoly" necessitates, and can only exist, if there is no individual monopoly; those are different usages of the word monopoly, and if we aren't able to see the distinction, then we are probably misconstruing one thing for the other.


Developing the productive forces through socialist competition sounds like a solid basis for capital accumulation.

Well, if "socialist competition" is merely a disguise for "competition between capitals" then yes; but "competition" is by no means synonym with "competition between capitals" (two football teams compete against each other in a soccer match, but this not "competition between capitals", for instance). The point has to be made that "socialist competition" was in fact a misnomer for "competition between capitals".


As Paresh Chattopadhyay rightly points out, we can again see the unwarranted preoccupation with the phenomenal characteristics: "Those who deny the existence of competition of capitals in the Soviet economy seem to be considering certain historically determined forms of competition, as they appear in the so-called classical capitalist society [i.e. liberal capitalism], as identical with competition (of capitals) as such." (p. 130 The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience).

So be it, but my contention is exactly that the phrase "State capitalism" does exactly that, taking absence of competition as a given, and as a direct consequence of the merely juridical State property of all means of production.


The social capital was embodied in the state, singular capitals were embodied in the enterprises. These enterprises related to one another through commodity-exchange. Thus they constituted independent competing individual enterprises. That this competition took shape contrary to the shape of liberal capitalism does not make it non-capitalist.

I find this confusing. In a "normal" capitalist society, social capital is embodied in the multiplicity of individual capitals, and in their competitive movement. If there was competition between singular capitals in the Soviet Union, as you now say, then why would social capital be embodied by the State, instead of by the competitive movement among individual capitals? If such difference really exists, what does it mean, in terms of differences between "normal" capitalist societies (such as, for instance, the United States or Bangladesh) and "State capitalist" societies such as the Soviet Union or North Korea?


Again, the total social capital appears through its fragments, the singular capitals, otherwise said, the reciprocally autonomous production units producing commodities (centres of capital, singular capitals). They exchanged commodities between themselves and while the commodity remains the formal property of the state, the fact that exchange was conducted on the basis of commodity-money shows that the really existing economic relations were indeed that of singular capitals relating to each other through competition.

I would agree with that, and it seems to me that you are here just abandoning the idea that in societies like the Soviet Union, the social capital was somehow embodied in the State. But this would place a difference issue. Was the Soviet Union just a "normal" capitalist society, a mere variant of capitalism such as those we can see in, say, 1980 Finland, 1999 United States, 1880 France, 1820 Britain? Or, as it at least phenomenologically seems, was the Soviet Union the ideal type of a whole different subspecies, integrated by all those vulgarly so-called "Communist" societies, from Cuba to North Korea, and from Yugoslavia to Romania?


The accumulation of capital was signified by the extensive proletarianisation, which had also signified the accumulation of capital in Western Europe.

And yet it was a very different kind of proletarianisation, lacking (at least at the empirical level) the factor of structural unemployment, which constitutive of the proletarian experience in any "normal" capitalist society.


I have not seriously considered the most appropriate description. The Soviet Union was capitalist, and denominating it as 'state-capitalist' differentiates its phenomenal characteristics of free market capitalism, state monopoly capitalism, liberal capitalism, and dirigist capitalism, etc. Calling it state-capitalism is perhaps a bit redundant in the same way that we do not refer to France as 'dirigist capitalism'. But at the same time we often do specify the differences between propertarian free market capitalism and actually existing capitalism. Regardless, it's semantics.

Semantics is probably one of the most important things we can consider. And I very much dislike seeing it to be confused with terminology. Yes, this is probably mostly a terminological problem. There are two things that should be considered, however: first, the Soviet Union and similar regimes were/are not defined by the replacement of capitalist competition by State coordination (though this was an important, even structural, delusion in these societies), or, in other words, by the State monopoly of means of productions, or by the existence of a single individual capital that would somehow exist in the absence of competition; second, however, the Soviet Union was (and so where and are its political/economical siblings) radically different from "normal" capitalist societies, in a higher degree than those differ from each others. In my opinion, the phrase "State capitalism" either dismisses such difference, or gives it a mistaken explanation, that can be only based in a total miscomprehension of the whole phenomenon of capitalism.

The second of these issues - the specific difference between "normal" capitalist societies (including things so varied as the Northern United States in 1860, Sweden in 1970, and Germany in 1938), on one hand, and the Soviet Union, etc., on the other, remains unexplained - I don't pretend that I have an explanation, either. But that is my point: all explanatory attempts that I have seen fail at some point. Pretending that the issue is solved by calling these societies 'State capitalist' doesn't help - especially when such label is also used by political positions that do indeed posit an impossible thing, a kind of capitalism without singular competing capitals, where there is one only capitalist - the State - the nature of which is defined by the superficial juridical relation it bears to the means of production.

Luís Henrique

[Bea Arthur]

This is just empirically wrong. I suggest you come and visit Scotland and you will find the descendents of the feudal lords still living in castles and still owning the greater part of the land.
Property ownership is the key to the existence of a capitalist or landlord class, if they do not own it, they can not pass their social position down through the generations.

How many peasants do they have working their land? Because unless they are still exploiting through a feudal mode of production, they aren't a feudal class in any sense of the word and you are just playing idiotic word games.

[Paul Cockshott]

How many peasants do they have working their land? Because unless they are still exploiting through a feudal mode of production, they aren't a feudal class in any sense of the word and you are just playing idiotic word games

The land question here is not a matter of idiotic word games. As it happens feudal tenure was not abolished in Scotland until 2004, I have had to pay fue duties to fuedal 'superior' within my own life. see
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/law/17975/Abolition
But feudalism as a dominant economic system obviously ended some time before that, but the same class has survived. They still own the land and pass it down to their sons. They still own their castles ( see attached images for a few of the castles owned by current dukes). They now collect monetary ground rent not labour dues, but the ownership of one of the key means of production has not changed since the economy was feudal.

[Paul Cockshott]

In what sense do you use the word "monopolised" here? We may say that in any capitalist society, the bourgeoisie holds the "monopoly" of the means of production - but in practice, this "class monopoly" necessitates, and can only exist, if there is no individual monopoly; those are different usages of the word monopoly, and if we aren't able to see the distinction, then we are probably misconstruing one thing for the other.
This is a good point

[Bea Arthur]

The land question here is not a matter of idiotic word games. As it happens feudal tenure was not abolished in Scotland until 2004, I have had to pay fue duties to fuedal 'superior' within my own life. see
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/law/17975/Abolition
But feudalism as a dominant economic system obviously ended some time before that, but the same class has survived. They still own the land and pass it down to their sons. They still own their castles ( see attached images for a few of the castles owned by current dukes). They now collect monetary ground rent not labour dues, but the ownership of one of the key means of production has not changed since the economy was feudal.

Paul Cockshott, the exploited peasant! Who would have thought?! Now may be the appropriate time to refer you to the facepalm picture in my profile.

Like Fred you are taking highly abstract economic criteria and applying them inappropriately in completely different contexts. There is a difference between a feudal lord, who owns means of production directly used in the production process so that he can extract a surplus from the producers, and a fiftieth generation descendant of a medieval lord of the manor, who in a symbolic gesture of the state receives some money redistributed from society as a whole without having his property used in productive processes.

There are no more feudal relations of production in Scotland. There weren't even in the twentieth century. Without these relations of production, you do not have an economic class of feudal lords. You can have a political or cultural class that receives favors from a bourgeois state but that is a different matter.

[Homo Songun]

Beccause the exchange of money give the illusion that work is a commodity, and that what capitalism is based on, the commodification of work and everything around it. Sure commodities existed in previous civilizations, but nowhere near at the extent that we have right now.

Money is neither an illusion nor is it the linchpin of capitalist rule. Money is just, to use Searle's term, an "institutional fact". When I give you a dollar, you give me a pound of flour in exchange only because this piece of paper counts as money under such and such conditions. For example, it came from the Bank of Canada, which has declared that "this note is legal tender" by virtue of it's monopoly over declarations of that type, and so on and so forth. But the institutional facts vary depending on circumstances. In 17th century Holland maybe I'd give you a certain amount of round discs made of certain materials, because in that case, that is what counts as money in that particular situation. In yet another situation there might not have been a medium of exchange at all, but only bartering.

This is of course because institutional facts are a part of the superstructure of society. It is a reflection of the material conditions in a society, even though they can obviously in turn develop a material force of their own. So I don't think banning money would have the effect you think it would. For example, unlike lolbertarians, we don't think that fiat currency is responsible for the economic situation, but vice versa. So why would it be any different under Socialism?



Having a currency, and money circulation, on the other hand, is a consequence of the problems of the Soviet Union; a symptom if you want. I look at it and see it had a monetary system, then I think, "well, this cannot have been actually socialist; if it was, there would be no monetary system"

Marx was very clear this on this point. Socialism does not hinge on what he calls questions of "distribution", independently considered, but on workers wielding power through exercising all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie.



Quite apart from the analysis so far, it was in general a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principal stress on it.

The prevailing distribution of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves; the latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself. The capitalist mode of production, for example, rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of non-workers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labour power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption results automatically. If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one. Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democracy) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution. After the real relation has long been made clear, why retrogress again?

Obviously, Marx is expecting that the withering of the monetary system is contingent on advances in the mode of production, not vice versa.

[danyboy27]

Money is neither an illusion nor is it the linchpin of capitalist rule. Money is just, to use Searle's term, an "institutional fact". When I give you a dollar, you give me a pound of flour in exchange only because this piece of paper counts as money under such and such conditions. For example, it came from the Bank of Canada, which has declared that "this note is legal tender" by virtue of it's monopoly over declarations of that type, and so on and so forth. But the institutional facts vary depending on circumstances. In 17th century Holland maybe I'd give you a certain amount of round discs made of certain materials, because in that case, that is what counts as money in that particular situation. In yet another situation there might not have been a medium of exchange at all, but only bartering.
This is of course because institutional facts are a part of the superstructure of society. It is a reflection of the material conditions in a society, even though they can obviously in turn develop a material force of their own. So I don't think banning money would have the effect you think it would. For example, unlike lolbertarians, we don't think that fiat currency is responsible for the economic situation, but vice versa. So why would it be any different under Socialism?

I voted that money was the problem beccause i think the issue was the way money was used.

having a mean of exchange representative of the work that went to an object is one thing, instauring a mendatory system of wage and work based on this mean of exchange is totally different.

In the case of the soviet union money was used has a mandatory mean of exchange of labor against that commodity, and they used that commodity to buy products.

there was an underground barter economy, and the reason why it was underground was beccause people where not allowed to go by outside of the state capitalist system to organize work and production. Has a result it became cover and shady individuals took it over .

An alternative way of doing it would have been to allow people to engage into non-wage activities while having a marginal parallel system using credit or labor voucher in order to substain a minimum of the industrial production.

creating non-market incentives by reducing factory working hours to stimulate industrial productions and creating non-wage incentives to stimulate agricultural output.

[Paul Cockshott]

This is so full of misconceptions that one hardly knows where to start, but I will work through them.



Reply capital.


Again, this amounts to circular reasoning: there was no capital because there was no capitalist class and there was no capitalist class because there was no capital. The means of production were owned and controlled by a minority belonging the the party-state, they employed wage-labour for the production of surplus-value (the social relationship of capital). Thus the party-state constituted a capitalist class as they exploited labour, extracted surplus value, engages in trade of commodities (means of production, consumer goods, labour-power), accumulated capital, in other words: every characteristic of the capitalist mode of production.

This is just not true. The means of production were certainly owned by the state ie the proletariat organised as the ruling class, just as the communist manifesto proposed. This is what communism has always proposed. You are just saying that communism is the same as capitalism.

There was no capital, there was accumulation of use values in the form of means of production but that necessarily has to happen in a socialist economy. Of course there was a surplus product - without that there could have been no economic progress. Where on earth do you get the idea that socialism and a surplus product are antithetical?

The means of production were, prior to the 60s allocated to factories as grants by the state, they were not capital as there was no interest charged on them. There were some moves towards charging interest on means of production from the 60s but the famous 'soft budget constraint', which does not exist under capitalism, meant that the payment of such interest was never seriously enforced ( ie factories never went bankrupt because they could not meet interest), so the attempt to graft this capitalist feature onto the socialist economy failed.




But we can infer that the objective conditions of the wage-workers is that they relate to the means of production as, what Marx calls non-property or alien property. This non-property is owned by a class external to the workers,


How can you establish that the means of production were owned by a class alien to the workers rather than by them collectively?

[Paul Cockshott]

Paul Cockshott, the exploited peasant! Who would have thought?! Now may be the appropriate time to refer you to the facepalm picture in my profile.
The landlord class retained feudal rights over urban property when cities were built in the 18th and 19th century and went on collecting feu duties on these through the 20th century. Because these duties were fixed in monetary terms, they had by the end of the 20th century become quite small. If I recall the bills I used to get for the cottage in Lanarkshire were of the order of £50 a year.




Like Fred you are taking highly abstract economic criteria and applying them inappropriately in completely different contexts. There is a difference between a feudal lord, who owns means of production directly used in the production process so that he can extract a surplus from the producers, and a fiftieth generation descendant of a medieval lord of the manor, who in a symbolic gesture of the state receives some money redistributed from society as a whole without having his property used in productive processes.

You are simply ignorant of the land question. The aristorcracy still own a key means of production - the land. They still levy land rents on this. The point about the feudal rights was that even if you bought a house, you still had to pay money to your superior. The landlord class have not been seriously affected by the abolition of these feudal rights since the great bulk of their land was never sold. The farmers who work these lands still have to pay rent to the landlord class.

The point I am making is that although they lost political power a long time ago, their property rights were never undermined, indeed they continued expanding their property at the expense of common property right into the 19th century - that was what the clearances were about.

[Bea Arthur]

The landlord class retained feudal rights over urban property when cities were built in the 18th and 19th century and went on collecting feu duties on these through the 20th century. Because these duties were fixed in monetary terms, they had by the end of the 20th century become quite small. If I recall the bills I used to get for the cottage in Lanarkshire were of the order of £50 a year.


You are simply ignorant of the land question. The aristorcracy still own a key means of production - the land. They still levy land rents on this. The point about the feudal rights was that even if you bought a house, you still had to pay money to your superior. The landlord class have not been seriously affected by the abolition of these feudal rights since the great bulk of their land was never sold. The farmers who work these lands still have to pay rent to the landlord class.

The point I am making is that although they lost political power a long time ago, their property rights were never undermined, indeed they continued expanding their property at the expense of common property right into the 19th century - that was what the clearances were about.

The ability to claim some share of tax revenue on the basis of land ownership is not the same as feudal relations of production. Maybe you should crack open an introductory text on Marxist economics, because the introductory book I read ten years ago went over all this. Feudal property relations consist of a landlord not just owning land, but tying peasants to the land by force. Because of the lord's control over the land the peasants are compelled to work the demesne of the lord for a set time each week or to turn over a share of their own harvest.

This is not the same as land rents paid under capitalism, where the theory of rent is derived from value theory because it presupposes exchange between parties on an equal political footing. Present day landlords own a key means of production, but they are not feudal lords. Value theory did not apply in the peasant-lord relationship of exploitation the way that it does in current real estate pricing. It was feudal, not capitalist. The feudal relation of exploitation is also not the same as a seigneurial privilege grandfathered into the tax and commerce laws of the bourgeois state.

The descendants of feudal lords have certain property rights as a legacy of their ancestors' class position. This does not mean that those property rights constitute the same property relations.

Still, I am impressed by your claim to be an exploited peasant. Maybe next week you can try to persuade us that you're a slave.

[Paul Cockshott]

But we can infer that the objective conditions of the wage-workers is that they relate to the means of production as, what Marx calls non-property or alien property. This non-property is owned by a class external to the workers, irrespective of the judicial form it takes, as long as the working class remains a working class employed on the basis of selling their labour-power to the owners of means of production, it is a proletariat on the one hand (employees) and bourgeoisie on the other (employers). This corresponds completely to the experience of the Soviet Union.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Cockshott
"he says that the means of production are capital
if they are owned by someone else".

Jim:Someone else other than the immediate producers, which,
in the case of the USSR, was the state.

Well obviously in a socialist economy the immediate producers
do not own the means of production individually. Instead the
means of production are owned collectively by the workers state.
This state is not a 'person' it is the collective power of
the working people.


Originally Posted by Paul Cockshott
"Ownership is a juridical property relation.
You can not have ownership without a system of
law to enforce that ownership."


Jim:
State ownership was protected by law, and it
was the non-property of those employed for it, the wage-workers.
Well it was illegal for those in a workplace to simply take
things from their workplace home for their own use. But that it is
obviously necessary to protect social property from private appropriation.
This is not evidence of capitalism. A socialist economy necessarily
has to operate this way.

Paul Cockshott :
"But in the USSR none of what you say above held there was no
subsection of the population who bought labour power
to produce commodities "


Soviet enterprises were administered by its
managers and employed wage-workers on behalf
of the state, thus a subsection of the population,
those owning and controlling the means of production,
bought labour-power – the state.

What subsection bought the labour power?
In a capitalist economy you can easily idenify that subsection
they either run their own businesses, or they own shares in
firms which employ people.
You alternate above between saying there was a subsection
of the population employing labour power in the USSR- then you realise
that this was not true and instead of a subset of the population
you say it was the state. But the state is not a section of
the population.

There was no such subsection of the population owning the
meanns of production. The government directed what industry
was to do but the people in the government did not own the
industries. Andropov no more owned the Soviet steel industry
than David Cameron
owns the Bank of England.

Originally Posted by Paul Cockshott
" Commodity production did exist, but it was
subordinated to the plan, production goals
were expressed in use value terms not exchange value terms."


What do you mean by “expressed in use value”?
Does this mean in natura quantities,
Yes it does. For controlled products, according to Dobb
there were around 10,000 of these in the 50s, the plan
was constructed in terms of physical units, and plan
targets were expressed in these terms.



in which case the very existence of the
exchange of commodities through exchange-values
negates the notion that production was for use.
A factory used a large number of different inputs, and had
to meet certain physical targets for outputs, but the only
way you can get an aggregate figure for efficiency of the
plant is to add up all the inputs in terms of some common unit
They could in principle have used several different
techniques for doing this : monetary units with prices
used to convert inputs of electricity, labour, leather, rubber etc
into a common denominator, or labour hours with data on
embodied socially necessary labour values used to conver the
inputs into a common denominator, or more abstractly they
could have use Kantorovich's objectively determined valuations
expressed as partial derivatives with respect to the social
plan vector.


If the plan of production was the immediate
satisfaction of substance through use-values exchange could not have occurred, because then production
is carried out for exchange. Only through rationing
and free-access is
production for use-value materialised.
What do you mean Jim : "immediate satisfaction of substance"?

Do you mean immediate satisfaction of subsistence?

You have to take into account that most products are useless for
subsistence. Most products are fed back into the production process
as raw materials, as components, as tools or as equipment. The main
task of a socialist plan is to deliberately organise this complex interdependent
network of material flows in physical terms. You can not directly
consume a jet engine, but the economy has to produce sufficient
jet engines of the right type to allow the expansion of the
aviation network. The aviation network then transports people about
and Aeroflot transported vast numbers of people.

Consider the flights that people took. A large portion of them
were not 'immediate satisfaction of subsistence' either, a lot
of them were transporting people to where they had to work - oil
and gas workers out to Siberia for example. A portion of them
were for personal pleasure - going on holidays, or going to visit
family. Within this sector a large part were allocated in a planned
way - people going to trades union, or factory holiday resorts
as payment in kind and so would fit into your rationing scheme.
In addition tickets for personal travel were available. These
obviously could not be made entirely free or you would have had
rationing by queues at the airport. But the plan did specify in
use value terms how much travel provision was to be provided.





Production was for surplus value,
as evidenced by the desire to keep
industries profitable.
Now, I'm not exactly familiar with the
details surrounding surplus value as extracted
from the exploited workers in the USSR,
but it seems it was used to accumulate capital.


The issue of concern for profitability was just
a matter of trying to measure the efficiency of production.
Such monetary calculations have serious restrictions, but
you need to understand that in a socialist economy investment
is funded out of taxation. Although there was pressure by
managers to be allowed to run at a profit and for enterprises
to be allowed to keep profit as a source of investment, it
was not until Gorbachov that this happened and it soon
destabilised the economy.

Prior to that the mechanism for funding public activity was
mainly through a turnover tax, essentially similar to the
Value Added Tax ( MehrwertSteuer - literally surplus value tax)
that operates in the EU. This was simply imposed as a markup
on prices so that provided that the tax level was set appropriately
( which was not always done ) there was no problem of the
state having sufficient funds to cover investment. There
were other forms of taxation - taxes on Vodka for example.

The terminal crisis of the USSR came when Gorbachov abolished
the turnover tax and allowed managers to control the funds that
previously went in tax as profit, and at the same time prohibited
alcohol. This meant that the state no longer had a secure source
of revenue and led to serious inflation.



It is also worth considering that although your list of conditions did not apply to the USSR they did apply to the Roman empire, so you would have to say that basis that the Roman empire was capitalist.
First of all there was no wage-labour as there was no “double freedom” for the workers. The unique character of the proletarian is that he is free from the conditions of his labour (he does not own means of production as an artisan would, nor does he self-administer his labour) and he is not bound to an individual exploiter or land. The plebeian were plebeian by birth, the serf bound by land, and thus not free. A wage-worker is 'free' in that regard (though of course dependent on the capitalist class, but not by an individual capitalist per se).

There was wage labour in the Roman empire, I suggest you study the Edict of Diocletian
regulating prices and wage rates. The empire set the wage rates for
a whole range of occupations.

[Paul Cockshott]

The ability to claim some share of tax revenue on the basis of land ownership is not the same as feudal relations of production.
That is true, but this point only applies to the royal family. The rest if the aristocracy do not get tax revenues, they live off ground rent. Indeed for Prince Charles, a large part of his revenue also comes from ground rent and other feudal rights that he has in his other hereditary positions from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. Another feudal right he has as Duke of Lancaster is that if anyone in Lancashire dies without a will the property goes to the Duchy.


Feudal property relations consist of a landlord not just owning land, but tying peasants to the land by force. Because of the lord's control over the land the peasants are compelled to work the demesne of the lord for a set time each week or to turn over a share of their own harvest.

That indeed was one of the forms of exploitation that the feudal ruling class had - the right to labour rents. But it was only one in a complex of rights by which they exploited the population. They also had rights over hunting, the collection of wood (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1842/10/25.htm) the right to enforce monopolies : for example to force their inferiors to use only the windmills of the estate, rights to levy tolls, rights to restrict fishing, rights over inheritance ( still present as I say in the Duchy of Lancaster ). Jus primae noctis. The right to call their inferiors to serve as soldiers, the right to maintain private armies ( retained by the duke of Atholl, see the thumnail of his private Atholl Highlanders drilling )




This is not the same as land rents paid under capitalism, where the theory of rent is derived from value theory because it presupposes exchange between parties on an equal political footing.

There is a difference between land rent in the feudal period and in the capitalist period, but whether it was labour rent was not a central issue. Rents in kind co-existed with labour rents. Over time labour rents were commuted into money rents.

The key change between the feudal period and the capitalist period was that the peasant was replaced by the farmer who employed wage labour of his own. The landlord then appropriated ground rent representing surplus produced both by the tennant and the employees of the tennant.

But the feudal aristocracy as a class and their property remained intact throughout this except in those countries where radical bourgeois revolutions occured ( France ) or where socialist ones occured (Russia, Prussia).



Present day landlords own a key means of production, but they are not feudal lords. Value theory did not apply in the peasant-lord relationship of exploitation the way that it does in current real estate pricing. It was feudal, not capitalist.
This idea that value did not operate in feudal society is an illusion. The spread of serfdom in the East ( Poland, Ukraine) was tied in to the production of grain for the market. Look at Perry Andersons two volumes Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, and Lineages of the Absolute state.





Still, I am impressed by your claim to be an exploited peasant. Maybe next week you can try to persuade us that you're a slave.
My point is that the aristocracy exploit urban dwellers as well. The Duke of Westminster was until recently the richest man in the country on the basis of the ground rents he collected from his London tennants. Owning the land on which a capital city is built is very remunerative.

[Bea Arthur]

There is a difference between land rent in the feudal period and in the capitalist period, but whether it was labour rent was not a central issue. Rents in kind co-existed with labour rents. Over time labour rents were commuted into money rents.

It is a central issue if you want to try to point to the collection of rent as proof of the existence of feudal relations of production and the continued existence of feudal lords. Rent collected on the basis of political compulsion tying peasants to land is qualitatively different than the rent collected by land owners who are leasing their land as a commodity to a capitalist business. A failure to understand this is an additional example of taking an abstract category like rent and divorcing it from the contextual features that explain the social function it actually performs and what it actually is. A landlord who makes a living by leasing his land to business is not a feudal lord by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that this landlord might have inherited that land from somebody who really was a feudal lord doesn't make a difference in analyzing what class the landlord is in.


The key change between the feudal period and the capitalist period was that the peasant was replaced by the farmer who employed wage labour of his own. The landlord then appropriated ground rent representing surplus produced both by the tennant and the employees of the tennant.

Yes, in other words, capitalist relations of production replaced feudal relations of production. Capitalist landowners replaced feudal landowners, who disappeared as a class.


But the feudal aristocracy as a class and their property remained intact throughout this except in those countries where radical bourgeois revolutions occured ( France ) or where socialist ones occured (Russia, Prussia).

They continued living and breathing as people and possessing property, maybe even the same property. However, they used that property differently and as a result were no longer a feudal aristocracy. They were landowners who tried to harness their property holdings to benefit from capitalist production relations.


This idea that value did not operate in feudal society is an illusion. The spread of serfdom in the East ( Poland, Ukraine) was tied in to the production of grain for the market. Look at Perry Andersons two volumes Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, and Lineages of the Absolute state.

I didn't say that value didn't operate in feudal society. I said it didn't dictate the rent collected by feudal lords in the way it does landowners under capitalism.

[Paul Cockshott]

Yes, in other words, capitalist relations of production replaced feudal relations of production. Capitalist landowners replaced feudal landowners, who disappeared as a class.

There is no such thing as a capitalist landowner. Capitalists and landowners are two distinct and at times opposed classes. What happened with the ending of feudalism was not the elimination of the feudal landlord class but the rise of a new class of tenant - the capitalist farmer. The landlord class remained unchanged with the same estates and the same title deeds to their land that they had been granted by royal charter centuries earlier.
Since the 1950s the progress of mechanisation has tended to reduce the extent of capitalist farming with family farming becoming more common. The landlord class now in effect directly exploit a peasantry - though changes in the English language over the centuries mean that we now refer to them as 'farmers', even if they are no longer farmers in the original sense of employers of wage labour.

Max Weber incidentally, comming from a German tradition spoke in the early 20th century of the American Peasantry - which was sociologically accurate.

[Bea Arthur]

There is no such thing as a capitalist landowner. Capitalists and landowners are two distinct and at times opposed classes. What happened with the ending of feudalism was not the elimination of the feudal landlord class but the rise of a new class of tenant - the capitalist farmer. The landlord class remained unchanged with the same estates and the same title deeds to their land that they had been granted by royal charter centuries earlier.
Since the 1950s the progress of mechanisation has tended to reduce the extent of capitalist farming with family farming becoming more common. The landlord class now in effect directly exploit a peasantry - though changes in the English language over the centuries mean that we now refer to them as 'farmers', even if they are no longer farmers in the original sense of employers of wage labour.

Max Weber incidentally, comming from a German tradition spoke in the early 20th century of the American Peasantry - which was sociologically accurate.

When I said "capitalist landowner" I meant a rent-collecting landowner operating within a capitalist mode of production, not that the landowner was overseeing the production of surplus value. I have not argued that landowners under capitalism are capitalists. I am arguing that the landowner isn't a feudal lord just because she or he collects rent based on land ownership. The difference between the two is that landlords under feudalism are an exploiting class that uses its political control over land and peasants to extract a surplus from the peasantry. Under capitalism landlords skim a share of surplus from the exploiting capitalist class or petty-bourgeois class using the land. A big difference, a difference of relations of production, you are having difficulties fathoming. The abstraction "landlord class" is about as useful as "property-owning class." It says literally nothing about what the class actually does to exploit others or acquire its revenue.

[Paul Cockshott]

You are right that under feudalism the landlords had direct personal political power and that this is not always the case in a state with a mainly capitalist economy. But the personal political power of the landlord class was sufficient for example for them to block Irish Home rule throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. It could be passed by the elected parliament and blocked by the aristocracy in the house of lords. The aim of this opposition was to maintain the political power that secured their exploitation of their Irish tennants. This power was progressively restricted in the 20th century by the Lloyd George and Blair governments.

The abstraction landlord class is valid though, landlord classes have existed since antiquity, and their ownership of monopoly over land has been a constant of that. You can not understand the politics of the Roman republic except in terms of the conflict between the big landlords and the free peasantry.

Some landlord classes have also relied on unfree labour : servile or serf, but their ownership of the land ensured that their dominant economic position could survive the abolition of slavery or serfdom - see the planter class in the US South.

[robbo203]

If the Bolsheviks were the "new bourgeoisie" they had a very different relationship to the means of production than the "old bourgeoisie." Mainly, they did not OWN it. Sure, as time went on, esp. after 1924, they gained privileges for being part of the club. But they owned nothing. If they lost their jobs, they lost their privileges. Also, production in the USSR was not based on profit. So was this capitalism sui generis?

This is confusing. Certainly the apparatchiks as individuals did not enjoy de jure ownership of capital. But in no way does that invalidate the claim that collectively as a class they owned the means of production through their stranglehold on the state in whose names the means of production were owned. If you deny this point then you are driven to defend the frankly indefensible claim that their relationship to the means of production was exactly the same as, and no different from that of the ordinaryRussian workers. In short that there were no classes in the SU at all which is utterly absurd. That would leave you completely unable to explain, for instance, the systematic chronic and massive inequalitiies in wealth and power which clearly in the SU for which there is overwhemling empirical evidence which I will happily provide if you so wish and have done so often enough in the poast


Your mistake is two fold. Firstly you contend that ownership is something separate from control. Actually its not. If you own something in any meaningful sense of the term you have ultimate control of it. Or to put it differently, if you exert ultimate control over something you effectively own it. There is no sensible way of looking at this differently

Secondly, your base your concept of ownership on the de jure legal superstructure of society which is a distinctly unmarxist way of proceeding. What is significant for you is the private individual and his or her relationship to the means of prpduction whereas the question of class in a Marxist is a matter of sociological significance. You are failing to see the wood for thre trees

The existence of a "red bourgeoisie" - an extraordinarily wealthy and powerful elite - at the very centre of the soviet state capitalist system - can be inferred from its relationship to the state machine through which it extracted surplus value from the working class (You are wrong, incidentally about production in the USSR not being based on profit. State enterprises were legally obliged to pursue profit and however much poeople try to explain this away as a mere "bookeeping" exercise what they cannot explain away is that without the extraction of surplus value on a massive scale capital could not have been accumulated in the way that it was in the SU)

In any case the absence of de jure individual capitalist owners each owning their own private stock of capital does not in any way signify the absence of capitalism. As Engels long ago noted



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 the 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 relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific"

[Paul Cockshott]

This is confusing. Certainly the apparatchiks as individuals did not enjoy de jure ownership of capital. But in no way does that invalidate the claim that collectively as a class they owned the means of production through their stranglehold on the state in whose names the means of production were owned.
It completely invalidates it since they lacked key rights that one needs for a property right to exist:

1. They could not inherit the property.

2. They could not alienate it.

3. They could not personally use it

If you exclude these rights which are essential to a system of property rights what are you left with?

You have state officials administering public resources. Now in all countries state officials as a whole command huge economic resources, far more than any individual wealthy citizen, but that does not make the state officials a class.

Do civil servants in France collectively own the Bank of France, Electricite de France, SNCF?

No the state owns these assets. The employees of the state are just that employees. Once they retire they are pensioners. Their pensions will come in different grades, but they are in a quite different position from even a relatively minor capitalist.

It was the same in Russia, even the former head of state Khruschev was on a pension of only £400 a month. By Russian standards that was a good pension. but only of the same order as what would be earned by worker in heavy industry


If you deny this point then you are driven to defend the frankly indefensible claim that their relationship to the means of production was exactly the same as, and no different from that of the ordinaryRussian workers. In short that there were no classes in the SU at all which is utterly absurd.

In terms of relation to the means of production soviet managers were employees, comparatively well paid, but still workers. They were not paid
the sort of huge salaries that US chief executives get.

But that does not mean that there were no classes. There was class differentiation between the intelligentsia and the manual working class. Managers and senior politicians tended to be drawn from the technical intelligentsia - engineers and people with a technical education. But the differentiation in income between the intelligentsia and the manual working class was lower than is typical in fully capitalist economies.

That would leave you completely unable to explain, for instance, the systematic chronic and massive inequalitiies in wealth and power which clearly in the SU for which there is overwhemling empirical evidence which I will happily provide if you so wish and have done so often enough in the poast

There are massive inequalities of power in any country with a government. Nobody is arguing that the USSR was a direct democracy, it operated a system of representative government so obviously the senior representatives, as in all representative systems, had far more power than people who were not representatives.

[RedMaterialist]

In any case the absence of de jure individual capitalist owners each owning their own private stock of capital does not in any way signify the absence of capitalism. As Engels long ago noted



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 the 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 relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific"

You quote of Engels makes the argument that all modern states, including the Soviet Union, are capitalist because Engels said that all modern states are capitalist. But the Soviet Union was the first workers' state in history, at least according to Trotsky. It may have become a degenerated workers' state but it was still a workers' state. I think it is a mistake to assume that all modern states, as understood by Engels in the 19th century, include all modern 20th century states. Engels probably was thinking of the passage from the Manifesto that the modern state is essentially a committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie.

The Soviet Union, in my opinion, was a modern state acting as a committee for managing the affairs of the working class. It may have shared some characteristics of capitalism but this would not have surprised Marx, as shown in the Gotha Programme. It may have been extremely inefficient, but it defeated Hitler and brought Russia into the 20th century and put the first man into space.

The real issue for me is who got the surplus value created by the workers. We know that human production produces more value than the cost of the production. Who owns or appropriates that surplus value, the value-added? In capitalism, the capitalist owns it. (In slavery, the slave-owner, in feudalism, the feudal landlord.) In the Soviet Union who owned or controlled the surplus value created by the workers? It was not owned by private individuals..that would have been capitalism. It was owned or controlled by the state and administered, ideally, on behalf of the workers.

To say that the SU was a capitalist state because it, the state, exploited workers is to say that the SU was not only a capitalist state, but also a slave state or a feudal state. The exploitation, in the sense of taking the surplus value still existed, but the value was then distributed according to a social plan, definitely not a capitalist characteristic.

[RedMaterialist]

How many peasants do they have working their land? Because unless they are still exploiting through a feudal mode of production, they aren't a feudal class in any sense of the word and you are just playing idiotic word games.

I would say it is not just a case of word games. In many parts of the world, including the so-called civilized West, slavery is still practiced. A particularly brutal form of it is the sex trade. What would you call the people who own sex slaves, other than a class of slave-owners? They may not be part of a dominant economic structure anymore, but some of them appear to be making a lot of money at it.

[robbo203]

It completely invalidates it since they lacked key rights that one needs for a property right to exist:

1. They could not inherit the property.

2. They could not alienate it.

3. They could not personally use it

If you exclude these rights which are essential to a system of property rights what are you left with?


They are empahatically NOTessential to a system of property rights per se. They are contingent to such a system. The Catholic Church in Medieval Europe owned vast tracts of lands and substantial means of production. Yet these rights which you claim are essential to a system of property rights were conspicuously absent then Does that mean that according to you the Church's claim to this property was not based on any recognisable system of property rights? Poppycock! Read the Engels quote again about the modern state

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 the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit.

Taking over the means of production means bringing them under a state ownership . Yet according to you state ownership cannot be a based on a system of property rights since it too lacks these essential rights you speak of . Try stealing some state property and you will very soon discover that it very clearly is based on a system of property rights.

You could argue that these "essential rights" are essential to a system to property rights based on de jure legal ownership of capital by individuals and I wouldnt argue against that or deny that such a system did not exist in state capitalist Russia. But that is not what I was asserting. I was asserting that class ownership of the means of production in the SU took a collective form and not an individualised form. It was the collective property of the class that exerted ultimate and decisive control over it via its strangehold on the state in whose name the means of production was owned.


If you exert ultimate control over something, you own it. It cannot sensibly be anything other than that. End of story.




You have state officials administering public resources. Now in all countries state officials as a whole command huge economic resources, far more than any individual wealthy citizen, but that does not make the state officials a class.

Do civil servants in France collectively own the Bank of France, Electricite de France, SNCF?

No the state owns these assets. The employees of the state are just that employees. Once they retire they are pensioners. Their pensions will come in different grades, but they are in a quite different position from even a relatively minor capitalist.

This is utterly misleading. "Adminstering public resources" does not equate with ultimate control over those resources. Years ago I briefly worked for a bank dealing with international currency transactions. The sums of money involved were vast - in the order of literally millions of dollars or yens or pounds sterling daily. That too was "far more than any individual wealthy citizen" would normally handle. My humble task was simply to do the relevant paper work, to help administer the process of effecting these transactions. Believe me. I had no illusions that I had suddently joined the ranks of the capitalist class

The great bulk of state officials in the ex Soviet Union would indeed be in the same boat as me. They would be members of the working class. But where your analysis falls down woefully is that you fall to see that as you go up the "hierarchy of control" there was a qualitative break that separated the apparatchiks - the red bourgeoisie - from the Russian workers in Soviet capitalism. To characterise the former as merely "state officials" comparable with state officials or civil servants in the West is disingenuous and naive in the extreme. Civil servants in the West are generally answerable to the government who, in turn, act on behalf of the capitalist class as a whole. They do not exert ultimate control, therefore. Who were the apparatchiks answerable to? They were the governing or ruling class in effect. They were the class that exerted ultimate control over the means of production and thus collective owned it


The existence of forms of remuneration which seems to suggest that apparatchiks were merely glorified wage and salary earners no different from the Russian worklers should not mislead us. This was simply surface appearance - an ideological smokescreen behind which the soviet capitalist class extracted surplus value from the Russian working class first and foremost for the purposes of capital accumulation. What the Soviet capitalists appropriated for themselves and for their own consumption was secondary to that. Even if what they got was comparatively not much than what ordinary Russian workers got that would not in the least detract from their function as a de facto capitalist class.







It was the same in Russia, even the former head of state Khruschev was on a pension of only £400 a month. By Russian standards that was a good pension. but only of the same order as what would be earned by worker in heavy industry


Soviet apologsts such as your good self like to plug this particular line - that individual members of the Russian ruling class were not much better off than a well paid worker. It is a compete con of course because it ignores among other things 1) the widespread practice of multiple salaries among the Soviet elite 2) payment in kind of all sorts which were massively skewed in favour of the Soviet elite 3) corruption and backhanders from the black economy


Here are some figures and fiqures relating to economic inequality in the Soviet Union

In Russia, the ratio between the lowest and highest wages steadily increased from a nominal 1:1.8 just after the Bolshevik Revolution to 1:40 in 1950 (Ossowski S, Patterson S, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness, Free Press of Glencoe, New York 1963, 116). John Fleming and John Micklewright in their paper "Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition" cite the work of researchers like Morrison who, using data from the 1970s, found that countries like Poland and the Soviet Union had relatively high levels of income inequality, registering gini coefficients of 0.31 in both case, which put them on a par with Canada (0.30) and the USA (0.34) ( http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/eps70.pdf). According to Roy Medvedev (Khrushchev: The Years in Power ,Columbia University Press. 1976, 540), taking into account not only their inflated "salaries" but also the many privileges and perks enjoyed by the Soviet elite (who even had access to their own retail outlets stocking western goods and various other facilities from which the general public was physically excluded) the ratio between low and high earners was more like 1:100. Some amongst the Soviet elite became very wealthy in their own right and a much quoted source in this regard is a pamphlet published in 1945 by the Russia Today Society (London) called "Soviet Millionaires", written by Reg Bishop, a supporter of the Soviet regime, that proudly boasted of the existence of rouble millionaires there as an indicator of economic success.




In terms of relation to the means of production soviet managers were employees, comparatively well paid, but still workers. They were not paid
the sort of huge salaries that US chief executives get.

But that does not mean that there were no classes. There was class differentiation between the intelligentsia and the manual working class. Managers and senior politicians tended to be drawn from the technical intelligentsia - engineers and people with a technical education. But the differentiation in income between the intelligentsia and the manual working class was lower than is typical in fully capitalist economies.


This exposes your dsitnctly non-marxist interpretation of class which for you seems to be based on occupation rather than one's relation to the means of production. You say soviet managers (the upper eschelons of which were certainly part of what I would call the Soviet capitalst class) were merely "employees". Now there can be no such as employee without an employer (any more than there can be no generalised wage labour without capital and by inference a capitalist class). Who in that case employed these employees?

You might well respond that it was that state that employed them but this would circular reasoning since it is they who control this state, let us remember. In short they were in de facto terms the employing or owning class tryinmg to pass themselves off as "employees" for ideological reasons


As any Marxist would tell you there can be no such thing as a state without classes . Yet you would have us believe that in the Soviet Union everyone was an employee and therefore logically there could be no classes in the Marxian sense in such a society - even if the existence of such employees must entail the existence of employers!:rolleyes:



There are massive inequalities of power in any country with a government. Nobody is arguing that the USSR was a direct democracy, it operated a system of representative government so obviously the senior representatives, as in all representative systems, had far more power than people who were not representatives.


It was not just massive inequalities of power that existed in the Soviet Union but also massive inequalities in wealth. Where the Soviet variant of capitalsim differed somewhat from the typical western version is that it was primarily via the unequal distribuition of political power that the unequal distribution of wealth was systematically upheld and reproduced.

[Paul Cockshott]

They are empahatically NOTessential to a system of property rights per se. They are contingent to such a system. The Catholic Church in Medieval Europe owned vast tracts of lands and substantial means of production. Yet these rights which you claim are essential to a system of property rights were conspicuously absent then Does that mean that according to you the Church's claim to this property was not based on any recognisable system of property rights? Poppycock!


The issue is whether there was a class of owners. For a class of owners to exist they need the rights that I described. The Catholic church as an institution, and you could have cited a city as another institution, does not need a right of inheritance as it is an abstract legal personality and as such not not personally mortal, but its property rights exist in a situation where it has to defend its rights over land against rights held by a landowning class. Its legal position was that of one landowner among many, and it used the infrastructure of property law that existed to protect the rights of landowners in general. The Soviet state was not in this position. It was not one owner among many owners of the means of production. Once all means of production are socially owned, property rights cease to exist, as the existence of these is contingent on there being conflicting owners.


Read the Engels quote again about the modern state

As others have pointed out to you Engels was not talking about 20th century socialist states, he was addressing a German audience and the 'modern state' in the context of that debate refered to the Kaiserreich, which had a quite different class character from socialist states.

Engels was an advocate of state ownership of the means of production by workers states.
what he advocated was that
proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
You object that bringing the means of production into state ownership
is contradictory from my point of view since state ownership is not a system
of property rights. Well state ownership by the worker's state is part of
the process of dissolution of property rights, what Engels called 'despotic inroads on the rights of property and conditions of bourgeois production'.
The whole conditions of bourgeois production depend on the existence of multiple property rights which are inviolable in law. By the state seizing the means of production, these rights of property break down.

There is no right without a remedy enforcible by law, and such a system of rights can only exist if there are conflicting systems of property owners. Soviet law actually prohibited the existence of such rights. You could not set up a business, far less could you defend its rights to property. ( except in the very last stages of the states existence )

After the worker's state organises the economy and begins " to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible."
You call this process of increasing the productive forces as rapidly as possible a process of extracting surplus value and accumulating capital:

The existence of forms of remuneration which seems to suggest that apparatchiks were merely glorified wage and salary earners no different from the Russian worklers should not mislead us. This was simply surface appearance - an ideological smokescreen behind which the soviet capitalist class extracted surplus value from the Russian working class first and foremost for the purposes of capital accumulation.

But this was not capital accumulation, it was just accumulation of the productive forces. Obviously any accumulation of the means of production will depend on the existence of surplus labour, and since the substance of value is labour, you could say at an abstract level, that any society that accumulates means of production has surplus value. But in doing this you are seeking to slide over between two meanings of value - something Engels did in places but Marx was more careful about. On the one hand value means a quantity in HOURS of labour time, this is the sense that Marx uses it when analysing the production of surplus value. On the other hand it is taken to mean the exchange value or price of a vendible commodity.

In the first sense, surplus value and value obviously exist in socialist economies, as labour time and surplus labour exist. In this sense the Baikal Amur railway line had value and was the product of surplus value : it certainly requires socially necessary labour time to build it, and that labour was surplus in the sense that it was a part of society's labour not immediately required for subsistence.

But the BAM was not a vendible commodity, it did not have exchange value. Under the socialist mode of production, obtaining in the USSR, it was not and could not be sold.



You say



If you exert ultimate control over something, you own it. It cannot sensibly be anything other than that. End of story.


well no soviet minister of transport had that ultimate control over the BAM they could only administer it not sell it. No soviet oil minister had 'ultimate control' over any oil fields in Siberia again because they could not sell them. On the other hand the oligarchs who rose to power under Yeltsin did have this ultimate control.

You do not really mean ultimate control, you mean temporary command control. A General has control over the army he commands, but he does not own it. The chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland has command control over the bank but again he does not own it.

You cite figures for Gini coefficients which are quite out of line with recent research, I quote from a post I made a month ago in a different thread

The most recent analysis of comparative income inequalities globally that I can find is The Changing Shape of Global Inequality 1820-2000:
Exploring a new dataset Jan Luiten van Zanden, Utrecht University who provides a lot of very intresting information. His data series are for large areas of the world, but given the great size of Russia within Eastern Europe it is reasonable to assume that trends for income inequality in Eastern Europe were driven by Russian ones and of course from the late 40s the Soviet economic model developed in the Stalin period was widely adopted in Eastern Europe.

Gini Coefficients
Western Europe Eastern Europe
1820 53.7 53
1850 48.6 52.3
1870 51.8 48.3
1890 47.0 47.1
1910 48.5 46.8
1929 50.1 40.7
1950 46.3 35.4
1960 43.2 30.2
1970 39.2 25.7
1980 36.7 25.9
1990 38.0 28.2
2000 39.3 39.8
These figures show that the Soviet model had much lower income inequality than Western Europe, and that income inequality declined throughout the Soviet period until Perestroika.

[RedMaterialist]

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 the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit.

This quote by Engels does not mean that all future socialist states and dictatorships of the proletariat will be capitalist states. They will be states. Engels meant that the liberal, democratic state is still a capitalist machine.


Taking over the means of production means bringing them under a state ownership . Yet according to you state ownership cannot be a based on a system of property rights since it too lacks these essential rights you speak of

The point is not whether property rights exist or not. Slaves were personal property, serfs were the property of the estate;neither system was capitalist. Under capitalism dead labor, accumulated labor, belongs to the private owner of the means of production. Under the soviet state the means of production were owned collectively and managed on behalf of the workers .


You could argue that these "essential rights" are essential to a system to property rights based on de jure legal ownership of capital by individuals and I wouldnt argue against that or deny that such a system did not exist in state capitalist Russia.


Isn't that the whole point of the socialist DOP?


But that is not what I was asserting. I was asserting that class ownership of the means of production in the SU took a collective form and not an individualised form. It was the collective property of the class that exerted ultimate and decisive control over it via its strangehold on the state in whose name the means of production was owned.


And that class was the proletariat which exercised a stranglehold (also known as dictatorship) on the state. It is also true that every single worker was not polled about every single management decision.


Believe me. I had no illusions that I had suddently joined the ranks of the capitalist class




But where your analysis falls down woefully is that you fall to see that as you go up the "hierarchy of control" there was a qualitative break that separated the apparatchiks - the red bourgeoisie - from the Russian workers in Soviet capitalism.


A quantitative transformation to a new quality. That is an interesting analysis. From proletariat to petit bourgeois to bourgeois to world dominating monopoly capitalist. No need to worry about accumulation of capital, buying factories and machines, no need to hire workers who produce surplus value; no violent struggle of competition, no irrational market forces to deal with, no periodic crisis which might bankrupt you and send you into the proletariat; you only have to rise in the bureaucracy.




Here are some figures and fiqures relating to economic inequality in the Soviet Union


Marx never claimed that wages would be equal in the first stage of the transition. See the [I]Gotha Program.


As any Marxist would tell you there can be no such thing as a state without classes .

Marxist say that a state exists for the specific purpose of suppressing a specific class of people. Slaves, serfs and proletariat are each suppressed and their exploitation is enforced by the state. In the Soviet Union, as predicted by Marx, it was the capitalist class which was suppressed, and Stalin did a very effective and brutal suppression of them. He also killed a lot of socialists. During this period the proletariat existed as a class, a dominating class, whose interests were managed and administered by the Soviet state. Perfectly? Who ever claimed that?


Yet you would have us believe that in the Soviet Union everyone was an employee and therefore logically there could be no classes in the Marxian sense in such a society - even if the existence of such employees must entail the existence of employers!:rolleyes:


You are the confusing the words "employer/employee" with slave owner/slave, serf/feudal lord, capitalist/proletariat. If you mean that there was a class of private people in the Soviet Union who hired wage-labor from a vast army of the "unemployed" and then appropriated their surplus product to then expand their capital for their own benefit and continued the process until it broke down and then did it all over again, driving millions more into immiseration, that would be one thing.

That would be capitalism. No such system existed in the Soviet Union. When the SU collapsed only then did the capitalists surge back in with western supplied accumulated capital which paid Yeltsin to re-establish the suppression of the working class.

[robbo203]

The issue is whether there was a class of owners. For a class of owners to exist they need the rights that I described. The Catholic church as an institution, and you could have cited a city as another institution, does not need a right of inheritance as it is an abstract legal personality and as such not not personally mortal, but its property rights exist in a situation where it has to defend its rights over land against rights held by a landowning class. Its legal position was that of one landowner among many, and it used the infrastructure of property law that existed to protect the rights of landowners in general. The Soviet state was not in this position. It was not one owner among many owners of the means of production. Once all means of production are socially owned, property rights cease to exist, as the existence of these is contingent on there being conflicting owners.


This is a muddled, contradictory and above all evasive response to what I wrote.

You agree that the Catholic Church as an institutio had property rights over land, that it was a landowner among many and that, as an institution, it had no need of a right of inheritance since being an "abstract legal personality" it was "not personally mortal". Precisely. This flatly contradicts what you had previously contended - namely inheritance was one of several rights "essential" to the very existence of a system of property rights. To engage in a thought experiment - suppose every other landowner disappeared from the scene leaving only the Catholic Church. Would it cease to be a landowner exercising property rights over the land? Obviously not. If it swallowed up all the vacant property would it still permit someone to come along and just help themselves to a slice of this property? Again obviously not. You dont need for there to be actualy existing separate owners in order to require a system of property rights to protect your property; the mere threat someone breaking your monopoly would suffice. Property rights can be pro-active as well as re-active in that sense and exist in a monoploy situation as well as one of multiple onwers Thus, the very logic of your own argument shows that what you call "essential" to a system of property rights is far from being that.


This confusion extends to your characterisation of the situation in the SU as one in which the means of production were allegedly "socially owned". Thats nonsense, of course. They were state owned , not socially owned, and there is a big big difference between the two. In fact, your relationship both as a worker and a consumer to a nationalised corporation is fundamentally no different in substance whatsoever to your relationship to a private corporation. State property is in no meaningful sense "your" property or the property of the working class in general who comprise the great majority of society. The relationship of the state to workers employed by the state is a fundamentally and inevitably an exploitative one as the quote from Engels makes clear.

If there was genuine social ownership of the means of the production in the SU then there could not have existed classes even though, according to you, such classes existed and indeed were acknowleged in the Soviet constitution to exist. If there was social ownership there would not have existed in the SU all the primary trappings of capitalism such as generalised wage labour and capital accumulation. These things existed precisely because the SU was a capitalist society which precluded therefore the very concept of social ownership. Why should workers want to sell their labour power for a wage (and to whom?) if they owned the means of production in common (social ownership)? The "empty husk" argument of Trotskysists like Mandel - that the forms of capitalism existed but not the content is absurd and does not begin to explian why id that was the case such forms as money, profit, buying and selling etc etc existed at all

The problem in your case is that you subscribe to what I would call a frankly idealist festishised view of class relations which defines class essentially in terms of a society's legal superstructure. There was no owning capitalist class in the Soviet according to you because the there was no legal or de jure right for individuals to own capital on their own behalf. But there does not need to be such a right for there to be an owning capitalist class any more than the Catholic Church needed the right to inheritance in order to assert is own property rights vis a vis others. Indeed that was the point behind Engels comment on the modern state which you have completely missed when he said "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. It does not have to involve the extension of de jure property rights to individuals for the state to act as a capitalist machine in taking over the means of production on behalf of the capitalist as a class


I come back to what I said before - ownership is the same thing as ultimate control. Those who ultimately controlled the means of production, not as individuals but as a class, in the soviet union were its capitalist class - its red bourgeoisie





As others have pointed out to you Engels was not talking about 20th century socialist states, he was addressing a German audience and the 'modern state' in the context of that debate refered to the Kaiserreich, which had a quite different class character from socialist states.

Engels was an advocate of state ownership of the means of production by workers states.
.

As a transitional strategy to the abolition of the capitalism and the state itself , yes, Engels advocated state ownership. But unlike you, he would not have regarded state ownership under any circumstances as being an expression of socialism. The so called "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" , a concept about which I have very serious reservations, was still anchored very firmly within the confines of an essentially capitalist system. You are highly mistaken if you think it signifies the end of capitalism. The existence of a proletariat implies the existence of a capitalist class and therefore capitalism

The very existence of the state (and therefore state ownership) was completely incompatible with social ownership of the means of production as Engels makes clear:

We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong–into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm


and also this

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.
But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm



You object that bringing the means of production into state ownership
is contradictory from my point of view since state ownership is not a system
of property rights. Well state ownership by the worker's state is part of
the process of dissolution of property rights, what Engels called 'despotic inroads on the rights of property and conditions of bourgeois production'.
The whole conditions of bourgeois production depend on the existence of multiple property rights which are inviolable in law. By the state seizing the means of production, these rights of property break down.

There is no right without a remedy enforcible by law, and such a system of rights can only exist if there are conflicting systems of property owners. Soviet law actually prohibited the existence of such rights. You could not set up a business, far less could you defend its rights to property. ( except in the very last stages of the states existence ).


You cant be serious. Workers freely helping themselves to state property or the products thereof - which they would be able to do if the means of production were genuinely socially owned in the soviet union - would have been summarily despatched to the gulag or worse. I repeat - state property is not social property. It is in fact a form of private property, I would maintain, inasmuch as it is the de facto collective property of the class who exert ultimate control over it , not society as a whole




After the worker's state organises the economy and begins " to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible."
You call this process of increasing the productive forces as rapidly as possible a process of extracting surplus value and accumulating capital:


But this was not capital accumulation, it was just accumulation of the productive forces. Obviously any accumulation of the means of production will depend on the existence of surplus labour, and since the substance of value is labour, you could say at an abstract level, that any society that accumulates means of production has surplus value. But in doing this you are seeking to slide over between two meanings of value - something Engels did in places but Marx was more careful about. On the one hand value means a quantity in HOURS of labour time, this is the sense that Marx uses it when analysing the production of surplus value. On the other hand it is taken to mean the exchange value or price of a vendible commodity.

In the first sense, surplus value and value obviously exist in socialist economies, as labour time and surplus labour exist. In this sense the Baikal Amur railway line had value and was the product of surplus value : it certainly requires socially necessary labour time to build it, and that labour was surplus in the sense that it was a part of society's labour not immediately required for subsistence.

But the BAM was not a vendible commodity, it did not have exchange value. Under the socialist mode of production, obtaining in the USSR, it was not and could not be sold.

.

Surplus value very clearly existed in your second sense of the term in the Soviet Union and hence also the process of capital accumulation out of the extraction of such surplus value from an exploited working class . The financing of GOSPLAN's so called "plans" (more an elaborate and ever shifting wishlist of production targets) depended absolutely on it. The plan had to be paid for after all The legal requirement on state enterprises to make a profit was no idle book-keeping requirement but was essential to the whole process of procuring and pumping out surplus value from the Russian workforce. You might want to argue that the system was not a particularly efficient way of running capitalism and that this became more and more apparent as the economy matured and developed but it was still capitalsim and still reliant upon the process of capital accumulation

As Peter Binns has pointed out

In Russia, the subordination of consumption to the needs of accumulation took an extreme form. From the beginning of the first Five-Year Plan capital accumulation absorbed more than 20 per cent of national income, and it increased in subsequent Plans. This was higher than any of the developed capitalist countries outside Russia (but about the same as the USA and Japan in their equivalent periods of development), and shows clearly that this most characteristic symptom of capitalism – the domination of society by capital accumulation – was fully developed in Russia. ("State Capitalism" from the collection, Marxism and the Modern World, Education for Socialists No.1, March 1986)




well no soviet minister of transport had that ultimate control over the BAM they could only administer it not sell it. No soviet oil minister had 'ultimate control' over any oil fields in Siberia again because they could not sell them. On the other hand the oligarchs who rose to power under Yeltsin did have this ultimate control.

You do not really mean ultimate control, you mean temporary command control. A General has control over the army he commands, but he does not own it. The chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland has command control over the bank but again he does not own it. .

Once again you are still making the same old msitake. You are strill trying to look at the matter from the perspective of the individual rather than approach it from a sociological perspective. I repeat - it is not my view that particular individuals exert ultimate control over the means of production. That is a pretty meaningless claim to make since no individual can do or does that under any variant of capitalism. What I am saying instead is that there was a class that collectively as a class and not as individuals exerted ultimate control over, and hence ipso facto owned, the means of productrion . I dont see how any anyone can sensibly deny this very obvious fact All the major decisions affecting the allocation of resources and distribution of the social productwere concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people in the Soviet Union. That they could do that shows in no uncertain terms that the means of production in de facto terms was the collective property of this tiny class and not society as a whole.



You cite figures for Gini coefficients which are quite out of line with recent research, I quote from a post I made a month ago in a different thread

But the figures you cite here dont mean a lot unless you explain what they are based on . If you are talking here only of money income legally acquired in the eyes of the state then such figures might seem reasonable. If you include other sources of income, including illegal income from the black economy (corruption, backhanders etc) and more importantly payments-in-kind and perks of all sorts then these figures begin to look very questionable and seem to seriously understate the extent of inequality in the SU.

Contrary to what you assert, a more comprehensive notion of "income" supports the conclusion that the Soviet Union was indeed a highly unequal society - not the worst by any means - but certainly comparable (at least in the 70s and 80s) to, say, the UK or Scandinavia. So, for instance, Peter Wiles writing back in the 1970s produced evidence to show that levels of inequality in the UK and the SU were almost exactly equal ("Recent Data on Soviet Income Distribution,” Economic Aspects of Life in the USSR 1975, p. 120) Numerous other studies have come to roughly similar conclusions but exact comparisons are difficult because of the Soviet authorties' reluctance to release data that might have be considered embarrassing

[RedMaterialist]

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.
But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

On the one hand you quote Engels to prove that the Soviet state was capitalist, now you quote him to prove that the Soviet state was proletarian.

The transition from capitalism to socialism and then to communism does not happen overnight. The proletariat does not instantly abolish itself, or instantly abolish class distinction, or instantly abolish the state. First it must seize and destroy the capitalist state, or, in Russia's case, the left over feudal state. Then it must actively and directly suppress and destroy the capitalist class. None of this happens overnight. In the Russian case it took about 75 years.

[Paul Cockshott]

On the one hand you quote Engels to prove that the Soviet state was capitalist, now you quote him to prove that the Soviet state was proletarian.

The transition from capitalism to socialism and then to communism does not happen overnight. The proletariat does not instantly abolish itself, or instantly abolish class distinction, or instantly abolish the state. First it must seize and destroy the capitalist state, or, in Russia's case, the left over feudal state. Then it must actively and directly suppress and destroy the capitalist class. None of this happens overnight. In the Russian case it took about 75 years.

And it must defend itself against hostile reactionary powers.

[Paul Cockshott]

Issues

Catholic Hegemony
Hypothesis that the catholic church could have eliminated
all landowners leaving the church as the sole proprietor.
The question is whether it would meaningfully have been
a proprietor.

Of course this is an improbably hypothesis since the catholic
church was an ideological institution whose function was
to preserve the social institutions of the landowning class
so it would hardly be likely to eliminate this class. But
let us suspend disbelief and see if under these circumstances
private property would still exist. The answer is clearly
no. Had the church done this, it would have inaugurated
agrarian communism. Keep in mind Kautsky's analysis of the
monastries as a form of communism, the generalisation of
church monastic agriculture would have been agrarian
communism. According to Kautsky the reason why celibacy
was insisted on, was to prevent the monks and nuns having
the incentive to divide up the collectively held lands for
the benefit of their descendents.

Clearly a society entirely made up of nuns and monks could
not survive, but we do have a historical example of something similar
to this hypothetical church hegemony :
Peruvian communism, within which property relations did not
exist and private ownership of land had no meaning.

Social as opposed to state ownership
Bear in mind first that what communism has always opposed is private
ownership.


The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

Communism has from the begining advocated state ownership of the
means of production. The idea that this is just a temporary
measure and that state ownership will be replaced by social
ownership is false.


The opposition is an entirely artificial distinction. In the absence of
a dominant class of private capitalists, state ownership is
identical to social ownership. There can be no meaningful
distinction between them. Social ownership is just another
more anodyne name for state ownership.

If you think that there is a distinction, give a positive description
of how you think social ownership would operate and how this
would differ from state ownership.

Social ownership necessarily involves a mechanism for political control
administration and direction of the economy. It thus involves a public
power and some political mechanism for enforcible public decision making.
There will also persist the need for some form of criminal law, and
police.
Such an administrative, police and decision making system is essentially
a state. It may be a highly democratic state, rotation of offices,
random selection of magistrates etc, but it will still be a poltical
superstructure.

To the extent that socialist societies are faced with hostile capitalist
powers they obviously have to maintain armies, navies and nuclear rocket
forces, cyber-defence systems etc.


The objection that if there was social ownership of the means of production
then workers would not be punished for pilfering from workplaces?

This seems to me to be contradictory objection. If somebody takes home
a computer or sewing machine from their workplace, then they are attempting
to turn social property in private property. You are saying that social
property only exists if it is converted into private property?
You cant be serious?

Income inequality. My reading of literature on social conditions in
the Comecon countries was that the income inequality was substantially
lower than the capitalist norm. The study I cited is a comprehensive
historical and global survey of income inequality trends worldwide. It
deals with economies where substantial parts of income are in kind so
it is not simply dealing with money incomes. You cite a study from the
mid 1970s saying that the GINI coefficient in the UK and the USSR were
then similar. Bear in mind that the UK in 1970 was not a representative
capitalist economy. The social power of the working class then was
immense by the normal standards of capitalist society, very large
sections of the economy were publicly owned, prices and incomes were
regulated by the goverment. Under Heath's incomes policy we were getting
flat rate - not percentage rate increases in wages. Income tax rates
on higher unearned incomes were over 90%. This was a very
leveling policy imposed as a consequence of worker's power. In the
1970s the UK came closer to the possibility of a social democratic
transition to socialism than at any time before or since, similar points could be made about Sweden.

[Fred]

If there was genuine social ownership of the means of the production in the SU then there could not have existed classes even though, according to you, such classes existed and indeed were acknowleged in the Soviet constitution to exist. If there was social ownership there would not have existed in the SU all the primary trappings of capitalism such as generalised wage labour and capital accumulation. These things existed precisely because the SU was a capitalist society which precluded therefore the very concept of social ownership. Why should workers want to sell their labour power for a wage (and to whom?) if they owned the means of production in common (social ownership)? The "empty husk" argument of Trotskysists like Mandel - that the forms of capitalism existed but not the content is absurd and does not begin to explian why id that was the case such forms as money, profit, buying and selling etc etc existed at all

Uh, classes would begin to wither only if the USSR was the only country in the world. In the USSR, Mandel was wrong, the most essential forms of capitalism did not exist: Competing, privately owned capital, producing for profit. You keep on saying that control is the same thing as ownership. Being a member of the nomenklatura in the USSR was more like being a member of a club. If you lost your membership, you lost it all. This is not true for capitalists, who, because they actually own the means of production, can do with it what they want, including hording as much cash as they want.

[RedMaterialist]

This is not true for capitalists, who, because they actually own the means of production, can do with it what they want, including hording as much cash as they want.

Actually, they can hoard it but not as long as they want. If the cash is not converted back into capital and profit producing labor, then they will cease to be capitalists and will have to live off the cash. Sooner or later they will run out. This inescapable demand of capital to be re-converted into labor is one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. It must expand only to collapse into a crisis.

Marx said (have there ever been two words more closely linked, except maybe the 'Bible says') the miser is a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.

[Fred]

Actually, they can hoard it but not as long as they want. If the cash is not converted back into capital and profit producing labor, then they will cease to be capitalists and will have to live off the cash. Sooner or later they will run out. This inescapable demand of capital to be re-converted into labor is one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. It must expand only to collapse into a crisis.

Marx said (have there ever been two words more closely linked, except maybe the 'Bible says') the miser is a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.

I assure you that some of the higher earning capitalists could never run out of money, even if the converted all of their capital into money tomorrow. That being said, your point is well taken.:)

[robbo203]

Here is a useful review of Buick and Crump's 1987 book State Capitalism: The Wages system under New Management which will hopefully throw more light on this discussion:


State Capitalism

Alfred P. Sloane, who once ran General Motors, is reported to have said: "It is the business of the automobile industry to make money not cars"—and what he was saying applies generally to production in the modern world. It takes place first and foremost with a view to making monetary profit and only incidentally with a view to producing goods or services. There's no difficulty in seeing this in what's called the "private sector". It's clear that an employer will only carry on a business as long as it is making a profit or there's a prospect of profit. If profit stops being made, the business will either try to cut costs (usually by reducing its workforce) or, if this is impossible, will close down.

We can see this process together with its human toll in insecurity and unemployment going on all the time. And we can see it not just in the private sector but in state-owned industry too, as in the closure in recent years of so many British coal mines. Yet it's still widely thought that in state owned industry profit is not paramount and that in countries such as Russia, where virtually the whole of the production process is state controlled, "planning" and not the profit motive prevails. In the West, because many of the state-owned industries have been concerned with providing essential goods and services (such as energy and transport) it's been widely believed that they somehow belong to us all, that their purpose is to serve the community and they do not have to run at a profit.

This belief was particularly widespread in Britain in the years immediately following the second world war when the Labour government introduced large-scale nationalisation measures. The old lady who went down to the pithead with her coal bucket to collect some of what she thought was her coal had just this kind of optimism. She had been told that now the mines were nationalised they belonged to the people. In fact she was greeted with delirious laughter and told to go and buy her coal from the coal merchant as before. Many other people have been similarly disillusioned when confronted with the failure of nationalisation to bring about the shared prosperity of a new social order. And so unpopular has it now become that the present-day Conservative Party is able to gain electoral advantage by bringing in sweeping privatisation measures.

It's often said that this failure of state-run industry to give people a better life shows that socialism has been tried and failed. This is true only if you regard socialism as synonymous with state ownership (and by extension capitalism with private ownership). But another way of looking at it is that state ownership is simply an alternative to private ownership of capital and of running a capitalist economy. No matter who handles capital—the state or private investors—the majority of people, all those who have to work for a living, continue to have only the limited access to the wealth of society which their wage or salary gives them.

State industries

This is an approach adopted in a new book by Adam Buick and John Crump called State Capitalism: the Wages System Under New Management (Macmillan, 1986, 157pp.). Buick and Crump argue that state-run production is just as much concerned with profit as private enterprise and present convincing evidence that, when it comes to making profit, nationalised industries in Britain and other Western countries have on the whole been extraordinarily successful. They do not deny that state-run industries such as coal and transport necessary for the overall profitability of production have sometimes been run at a loss with the aid of government subsidies. But this has been the exception rather than the rule and in general nationalised industries, which have a statutory legal obligation to try to run at a profit, have not been allowed to continue to run at a loss. The cut-backs in the coal and iron and steel industries over the last 20 years by both Labour and Tory governments are evidence of this and on the whole anyway, despite popular myth, subsidies have not been needed for nationalised industries. They have generally produced not only enough profit to accumulate new capital but also enough to provide a property income for the private individuals who originally owned the nationalised industries. For the old private owners nationalisation meant a change in the form of ownership from private shares to interest-bearing government bonds, while some chose to receive payment in cash from the state to the full value of what was being purchased from them.

What this shows is that nationalisation does not dispossess private capitalists but simply changes their property titles. And what Buick and Crump go on to illustrate with many practical examples is that historically state intervention in industry (or "state purchase" as it used to be called) has taken place not for ideological reasons but to protect the interests of the private-owning class as a whole so that individual or groups of capitalists could not, by their monopoly of an essential good or service, hold the rest of the capitalist class to ransom.

The depth and sophistication of the authors' analysis makes their conclusions irresistible—nationalisation is essentially a buying and selling transaction involving haggling over a purchase price and represents no more than an institutional arrangement, a change of formal ownership which leaves intact the basic social relation of wage labour to capital. It is of no concern therefore to the majority of us in society, who receive in return for selling our energies to a state or private employer a wage or salary of smaller value than what we have produced. And like private capitalists or the managers of a private enterprise, the professional managers appointed by the state to run the nationalised industries are, as the authors put it. "the mere agents of market forces, interpreting, more or less successfully, the dictates of the market and exploiting, more or less successfully, the labour power purchased".

But what about countries like Russia and China where there is blanket state ownership and no distinct privately-owning capitalist class? Here Buick and Crump show that the party bosses and bureaucrats who govern Russia also effectively own the wealth of that country, by virtue of their control over production and the productive machinery. The privileges they draw from ownership are expressed in the massively higher living standards they enjoy compared with the majority of Russians. Like the private capitalists in the West they derive their wealth from the surplus value produced by the wage and salary earners. But instead of, as in the West, receiving this wealth directly in the form of profit due to them legally as a return on investment, they receive it in the form of enormously bloated "salaries", bonuses and payments in kind of various types—holiday villas, travel abroad, access to special shops and so on.

Socialist analysis

Not that Buick and Crump claim to have discovered anything new in this. In the detailed and wide-ranging account they give of the idea and history of state capitalism, they point out that since the 1920s the Socialist Standard has argued that Russia has a capitalist class and that the system there is not socialism or communism but a form of capitalism—state capitalism. They point out too that in recent years other observers and political currents have been driven to a similar view, usually without even knowing about the pioneering work of the Socialist Party. Unlike the Socialist Party, however, most of them have argued that if Russia is now a class society in which the party leaders and bureaucrats have become a new ruling class on the basis of the wages system, it was not always so. The Russian revolution of 1917, the arguments run, was a socialist revolution which overthrew capitalism for a while until it was restored at a later date by Stalin, Khrushchev or whoever. But, as Buick and Crump remark,

“wherever the date of capitalism's ‘restoration’ in Russia is fixed, all the elements which are cited as evidence of capitalism's existence subsequent to that date were also in existence previously.”

The point here is that the difference between capitalism and socialism is seen as a difference between the politics of those controlling the state and not as a different form of social organisation. And what the authors show, in their chapter entitled "The Revolutionary Road to State Capitalism", is that a different form of social organisation on a socialist basis of production for use, voluntary cooperation and the abolition of the wages system never existed at any time in Russia. The Russian revolution from the very beginning was aimed not at abolishing capitalism and making the means of living into the common property of the whole community but at a takeover of the state by a minority group whose purpose was to centralise capital in the state with a view to speeding up industrial development—and all this behind a smokescreen of socialist declarations.

How has this centralisation of capital in the hands of the state worked out in practice? The answer to this question is the area in which Buick and Crump are at their most original. What they do is to analyse in detail the mechanics of production in Russia and other such countries (but in particular Russia) to show precisely how and why production, even under almost total state control, takes place—and indeed must take place—with a view to making profit and not to satisfying people's needs. Not to concentrate on profit, they point out, would be to ignore the pressure arising from the international rivalry of competing capitals, the pressure to compete both militarily and commercially, and therefore to accumulate capital. And the penalty for such ignorance would be economic and political collapse. So Russian "planning" is not aimed at satisfying the needs of consumers but at extracting surplus value from Russian workers as effectively as possible—making them produce greater value by their labour than they receive in wages or salaries, just like workers in the West. Not that, under the profit imperative, "planning" and its production targets are a particularly precise, reliable or long-term instrument for economic organisation. They must of necessity be short-term, piecemeal and subject to constant revision—as indeed they have always been in Russia—as the nature and amount of the goods that can be sold on the market at a profit constantly changes.

Russian capitalism

Shades here of Western "market forces". And indeed perhaps the most penetrating insight of this book is that an effective market and the forces of competition that go with it do exist in Russia:

“The ‘plan’ does not abolish exchange relationships between enterprises but merely attempts to quantify the exchanges in advance.”

In other words the state has to devise mechanisms of a market kind and "the pressures which act on the state and its economic planners in the state capitalist countries are identical to the pressures which act on their private capitalist counterparts via the market". And these pressures, the need to make financial calculations in order to realise profit and accumulate capital indicate, over and above any differences of detail, the essential similarity of the economic systems of East and West. Nor does "planning" remove the element of competition from Russian production. Competition remains an essential and ever-present feature. There is competition between enterprises producing different goods where financially accountable enterprise managers are anxious to achieve their targets ahead of other enterprises. There is competition between enterprises which produce the same goods, with planning specifications, which are necessarily vague and approximate to allow individual managers latitude to adapt to rises and falls in spare capacity and consumer demand, have brought about a situation where a number of different enterprises may be producing, say, refrigerators at the same time in competition with one another. There is, above all, because of the pressure on managers to reach production targets, competition among enterprises for the skilled labour power available:

“Such is the intensity of competition for scarce grades of labour power that even the Russian authorities admit that almost one-third of labour recruitment by-passes official channels, while many Western scholars believe that, with certain exceptions, ‘the immense majority of workers and employees is recruited at the factory or office gates’".

All this knocks sideways the arguments of those who say that what exists in Russia is not state capitalism but some form of socialism, or at least a fundamentally different economic system than in the West. The view of Trotsky, Trotskyist theoreticians like Ernest Mandel and Trotsky's followers in many of today's left-wing organisations, that Russia does not operate on capitalist principles but is a "deformed" or "degenerate" workers' state where production takes place at least partly for the benefit of workers is shown to be based on excessive attention to legal forms and official ideological pronouncements rather than on how the economy functions in practice. Likewise, those who, identifying socialism with full-scale nationalisation, refuse to see Russia as capitalist because it has no privately-owning class are shown wrong through overestimating the importance and effectiveness of "planning" and seriously underestimating the role of prices, profit and money. Often of course such Western observers have an ideological point to prove but in this they are no different from the official ideologists of the Russian state who must also insist on qualitative differences of organisation and lifestyle between "socialist" Russia and the "capitalist" West.

But if Russia's state propaganda calls the society there socialist, what it claims to be moving towards as the ultimate realisation is "communism ". And what it is widely thought to mean by this is a classless, stateless society based on the principle "from each according to ability, to each according to need". But in their final chapter, "The Alternative to Capitalism", Buick and Crump examine closely the wording of official Russian pronouncements on future society and find that what is actually being advocated is not a classless society of free access at all but a society of "free distribution", one in which a minority will still rule and a majority will still work for the rulers receiving in return for their work payment in kind of the things the rulers consider they need. Such a society would still be a form of wages system and in any case not a society based on the self-determined satisfaction of needs.

Alternative society

The alternative the authors offer to replace all the different forms of wages system examined in the book is just that society of free access which Russian state ideology denies. It is a society without money and wages and without buying and selling. It cannot, they insist, be brought in gradually by some kind of transition process but only as a rupture, a clean break with the present system—if for no other reason than the total difference in the form that wealth takes in the two societies. In the one (socialism or production for use) it appears in its natural form for the purpose of satisfying human needs; in the other (capitalism or production for profit) it appears in the form of exchange value for the purpose of being sold on the market at a profit. And the two are mutually exclusive. In socialism, as the writers put it:

“Goods would simply become useful things produced for human beings to take and use . . . people would obtain the food, clothes and other articles they needed for their personal consumption by going into a distribution centre and taking what they needed without having to hand over either money or consumption vouchers.”

And they go on to suggest how it could be organised in practical terms. Such arrangements are possible today, they conclude, because our resources, technology, skills and knowledge are sufficient to allow us to produce a massive abundance of all the goods and services we need in order to live comfortably on a worldwide scale. But if this is to be achieved then we must organise ourselves democratically on the basis of voluntary cooperative work instead of forced wage labour and through production for use instead of profit—and all this in a society without states and frontiers, without rulers and ruled, without leaders and led.

Some might find these recommendations require too great a leap of the imagination, but they should not be deterred from reading this excellent book. It is a landmark in the study of modern society to which no short account can do justice—and it is thoroughly readable. It will find its way on to the bookshelf of socialists but it will also be read by, and change the thinking of, many non-socialists.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1987/no-992-april-1987/state-capitalism

[robbo203]

Here is a useful review of Buick and Crump's 1987 book State Capitalism: The Wages system under New Management which will hopefully throw more light on this discussion:


State Capitalism

Alfred P. Sloane, who once ran General Motors, is reported to have said: "It is the business of the automobile industry to make money not cars"—and what he was saying applies generally to production in the modern world. It takes place first and foremost with a view to making monetary profit and only incidentally with a view to producing goods or services. There's no difficulty in seeing this in what's called the "private sector". It's clear that an employer will only carry on a business as long as it is making a profit or there's a prospect of profit. If profit stops being made, the business will either try to cut costs (usually by reducing its workforce) or, if this is impossible, will close down.

We can see this process together with its human toll in insecurity and unemployment going on all the time. And we can see it not just in the private sector but in state-owned industry too, as in the closure in recent years of so many British coal mines. Yet it's still widely thought that in state owned industry profit is not paramount and that in countries such as Russia, where virtually the whole of the production process is state controlled, "planning" and not the profit motive prevails. In the West, because many of the state-owned industries have been concerned with providing essential goods and services (such as energy and transport) it's been widely believed that they somehow belong to us all, that their purpose is to serve the community and they do not have to run at a profit.

This belief was particularly widespread in Britain in the years immediately following the second world war when the Labour government introduced large-scale nationalisation measures. The old lady who went down to the pithead with her coal bucket to collect some of what she thought was her coal had just this kind of optimism. She had been told that now the mines were nationalised they belonged to the people. In fact she was greeted with delirious laughter and told to go and buy her coal from the coal merchant as before. Many other people have been similarly disillusioned when confronted with the failure of nationalisation to bring about the shared prosperity of a new social order. And so unpopular has it now become that the present-day Conservative Party is able to gain electoral advantage by bringing in sweeping privatisation measures.

It's often said that this failure of state-run industry to give people a better life shows that socialism has been tried and failed. This is true only if you regard socialism as synonymous with state ownership (and by extension capitalism with private ownership). But another way of looking at it is that state ownership is simply an alternative to private ownership of capital and of running a capitalist economy. No matter who handles capital—the state or private investors—the majority of people, all those who have to work for a living, continue to have only the limited access to the wealth of society which their wage or salary gives them.

State industries

This is an approach adopted in a new book by Adam Buick and John Crump called State Capitalism: the Wages System Under New Management (Macmillan, 1986, 157pp.). Buick and Crump argue that state-run production is just as much concerned with profit as private enterprise and present convincing evidence that, when it comes to making profit, nationalised industries in Britain and other Western countries have on the whole been extraordinarily successful. They do not deny that state-run industries such as coal and transport necessary for the overall profitability of production have sometimes been run at a loss with the aid of government subsidies. But this has been the exception rather than the rule and in general nationalised industries, which have a statutory legal obligation to try to run at a profit, have not been allowed to continue to run at a loss. The cut-backs in the coal and iron and steel industries over the last 20 years by both Labour and Tory governments are evidence of this and on the whole anyway, despite popular myth, subsidies have not been needed for nationalised industries. They have generally produced not only enough profit to accumulate new capital but also enough to provide a property income for the private individuals who originally owned the nationalised industries. For the old private owners nationalisation meant a change in the form of ownership from private shares to interest-bearing government bonds, while some chose to receive payment in cash from the state to the full value of what was being purchased from them.

What this shows is that nationalisation does not dispossess private capitalists but simply changes their property titles. And what Buick and Crump go on to illustrate with many practical examples is that historically state intervention in industry (or "state purchase" as it used to be called) has taken place not for ideological reasons but to protect the interests of the private-owning class as a whole so that individual or groups of capitalists could not, by their monopoly of an essential good or service, hold the rest of the capitalist class to ransom.

The depth and sophistication of the authors' analysis makes their conclusions irresistible—nationalisation is essentially a buying and selling transaction involving haggling over a purchase price and represents no more than an institutional arrangement, a change of formal ownership which leaves intact the basic social relation of wage labour to capital. It is of no concern therefore to the majority of us in society, who receive in return for selling our energies to a state or private employer a wage or salary of smaller value than what we have produced. And like private capitalists or the managers of a private enterprise, the professional managers appointed by the state to run the nationalised industries are, as the authors put it. "the mere agents of market forces, interpreting, more or less successfully, the dictates of the market and exploiting, more or less successfully, the labour power purchased".

But what about countries like Russia and China where there is blanket state ownership and no distinct privately-owning capitalist class? Here Buick and Crump show that the party bosses and bureaucrats who govern Russia also effectively own the wealth of that country, by virtue of their control over production and the productive machinery. The privileges they draw from ownership are expressed in the massively higher living standards they enjoy compared with the majority of Russians. Like the private capitalists in the West they derive their wealth from the surplus value produced by the wage and salary earners. But instead of, as in the West, receiving this wealth directly in the form of profit due to them legally as a return on investment, they receive it in the form of enormously bloated "salaries", bonuses and payments in kind of various types—holiday villas, travel abroad, access to special shops and so on.

Socialist analysis

Not that Buick and Crump claim to have discovered anything new in this. In the detailed and wide-ranging account they give of the idea and history of state capitalism, they point out that since the 1920s the Socialist Standard has argued that Russia has a capitalist class and that the system there is not socialism or communism but a form of capitalism—state capitalism. They point out too that in recent years other observers and political currents have been driven to a similar view, usually without even knowing about the pioneering work of the Socialist Party. Unlike the Socialist Party, however, most of them have argued that if Russia is now a class society in which the party leaders and bureaucrats have become a new ruling class on the basis of the wages system, it was not always so. The Russian revolution of 1917, the arguments run, was a socialist revolution which overthrew capitalism for a while until it was restored at a later date by Stalin, Khrushchev or whoever. But, as Buick and Crump remark,

“wherever the date of capitalism's ‘restoration’ in Russia is fixed, all the elements which are cited as evidence of capitalism's existence subsequent to that date were also in existence previously.”

The point here is that the difference between capitalism and socialism is seen as a difference between the politics of those controlling the state and not as a different form of social organisation. And what the authors show, in their chapter entitled "The Revolutionary Road to State Capitalism", is that a different form of social organisation on a socialist basis of production for use, voluntary cooperation and the abolition of the wages system never existed at any time in Russia. The Russian revolution from the very beginning was aimed not at abolishing capitalism and making the means of living into the common property of the whole community but at a takeover of the state by a minority group whose purpose was to centralise capital in the state with a view to speeding up industrial development—and all this behind a smokescreen of socialist declarations.

How has this centralisation of capital in the hands of the state worked out in practice? The answer to this question is the area in which Buick and Crump are at their most original. What they do is to analyse in detail the mechanics of production in Russia and other such countries (but in particular Russia) to show precisely how and why production, even under almost total state control, takes place—and indeed must take place—with a view to making profit and not to satisfying people's needs. Not to concentrate on profit, they point out, would be to ignore the pressure arising from the international rivalry of competing capitals, the pressure to compete both militarily and commercially, and therefore to accumulate capital. And the penalty for such ignorance would be economic and political collapse. So Russian "planning" is not aimed at satisfying the needs of consumers but at extracting surplus value from Russian workers as effectively as possible—making them produce greater value by their labour than they receive in wages or salaries, just like workers in the West. Not that, under the profit imperative, "planning" and its production targets are a particularly precise, reliable or long-term instrument for economic organisation. They must of necessity be short-term, piecemeal and subject to constant revision—as indeed they have always been in Russia—as the nature and amount of the goods that can be sold on the market at a profit constantly changes.

Russian capitalism

Shades here of Western "market forces". And indeed perhaps the most penetrating insight of this book is that an effective market and the forces of competition that go with it do exist in Russia:

“The ‘plan’ does not abolish exchange relationships between enterprises but merely attempts to quantify the exchanges in advance.”

In other words the state has to devise mechanisms of a market kind and "the pressures which act on the state and its economic planners in the state capitalist countries are identical to the pressures which act on their private capitalist counterparts via the market". And these pressures, the need to make financial calculations in order to realise profit and accumulate capital indicate, over and above any differences of detail, the essential similarity of the economic systems of East and West. Nor does "planning" remove the element of competition from Russian production. Competition remains an essential and ever-present feature. There is competition between enterprises producing different goods where financially accountable enterprise managers are anxious to achieve their targets ahead of other enterprises. There is competition between enterprises which produce the same goods, with planning specifications, which are necessarily vague and approximate to allow individual managers latitude to adapt to rises and falls in spare capacity and consumer demand, have brought about a situation where a number of different enterprises may be producing, say, refrigerators at the same time in competition with one another. There is, above all, because of the pressure on managers to reach production targets, competition among enterprises for the skilled labour power available:

“Such is the intensity of competition for scarce grades of labour power that even the Russian authorities admit that almost one-third of labour recruitment by-passes official channels, while many Western scholars believe that, with certain exceptions, ‘the immense majority of workers and employees is recruited at the factory or office gates’".

All this knocks sideways the arguments of those who say that what exists in Russia is not state capitalism but some form of socialism, or at least a fundamentally different economic system than in the West. The view of Trotsky, Trotskyist theoreticians like Ernest Mandel and Trotsky's followers in many of today's left-wing organisations, that Russia does not operate on capitalist principles but is a "deformed" or "degenerate" workers' state where production takes place at least partly for the benefit of workers is shown to be based on excessive attention to legal forms and official ideological pronouncements rather than on how the economy functions in practice. Likewise, those who, identifying socialism with full-scale nationalisation, refuse to see Russia as capitalist because it has no privately-owning class are shown wrong through overestimating the importance and effectiveness of "planning" and seriously underestimating the role of prices, profit and money. Often of course such Western observers have an ideological point to prove but in this they are no different from the official ideologists of the Russian state who must also insist on qualitative differences of organisation and lifestyle between "socialist" Russia and the "capitalist" West.

But if Russia's state propaganda calls the society there socialist, what it claims to be moving towards as the ultimate realisation is "communism ". And what it is widely thought to mean by this is a classless, stateless society based on the principle "from each according to ability, to each according to need". But in their final chapter, "The Alternative to Capitalism", Buick and Crump examine closely the wording of official Russian pronouncements on future society and find that what is actually being advocated is not a classless society of free access at all but a society of "free distribution", one in which a minority will still rule and a majority will still work for the rulers receiving in return for their work payment in kind of the things the rulers consider they need. Such a society would still be a form of wages system and in any case not a society based on the self-determined satisfaction of needs.

Alternative society

The alternative the authors offer to replace all the different forms of wages system examined in the book is just that society of free access which Russian state ideology denies. It is a society without money and wages and without buying and selling. It cannot, they insist, be brought in gradually by some kind of transition process but only as a rupture, a clean break with the present system—if for no other reason than the total difference in the form that wealth takes in the two societies. In the one (socialism or production for use) it appears in its natural form for the purpose of satisfying human needs; in the other (capitalism or production for profit) it appears in the form of exchange value for the purpose of being sold on the market at a profit. And the two are mutually exclusive. In socialism, as the writers put it:

“Goods would simply become useful things produced for human beings to take and use . . . people would obtain the food, clothes and other articles they needed for their personal consumption by going into a distribution centre and taking what they needed without having to hand over either money or consumption vouchers.”

And they go on to suggest how it could be organised in practical terms. Such arrangements are possible today, they conclude, because our resources, technology, skills and knowledge are sufficient to allow us to produce a massive abundance of all the goods and services we need in order to live comfortably on a worldwide scale. But if this is to be achieved then we must organise ourselves democratically on the basis of voluntary cooperative work instead of forced wage labour and through production for use instead of profit—and all this in a society without states and frontiers, without rulers and ruled, without leaders and led.

Some might find these recommendations require too great a leap of the imagination, but they should not be deterred from reading this excellent book. It is a landmark in the study of modern society to which no short account can do justice—and it is thoroughly readable. It will find its way on to the bookshelf of socialists but it will also be read by, and change the thinking of, many non-socialists.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1987/no-992-april-1987/state-capitalism

[robbo203]

Uh, classes would begin to wither only if the USSR was the only country in the world. In the USSR, Mandel was wrong, the most essential forms of capitalism did not exist: Competing, privately owned capital, producing for profit. You keep on saying that control is the same thing as ownership. Being a member of the nomenklatura in the USSR was more like being a member of a club. If you lost your membership, you lost it all. This is not true for capitalists, who, because they actually own the means of production, can do with it what they want, including hording as much cash as they want.


I did not say control and ownership is the same thing. I said quite explictly that ultimate control is the same same as ownership, not simply control per se since there are gradations of control. The qualifier is vital to the argument. Someone who exercises ultimate control over something in effect owns it - and vice versa. How could this not be the case?

Private ownership of capital by individuals on a de jure basis is emphatically NOT essential to capitalism. The quote from Engels makes that abundantly clear. As he pointed out the more the state takes over the productive forces the more does it becomes the national capitalist. Capitalism is not done away with but, rather, brought to a head.

It really does not matter that much how a ruling class is recruited. What matters much is that there is a ruling class at all. In Soviet capitalism the ruling class was the nomenklatura. They were, as you say, like a "club". Granted you could lose your membership of the club is you displeased the members but the important thing to note is that this club should have existed in the first place - and the function and purpose of this club. All the important decisions affecting the economic life of soviet state capitalist society and the distribution of the social product where made this tiny all powerful elite. Collectively - NOT as individuals , I stress again - this elite exerted ultimate control over the means of production. In de facto terms that means they owned it. There is no getting around this.

Inescapably, then, we are driven to conclude that the nomenklatura where a distinct owning classs whose interests where diametrically opposed to the great majority of non owners who being alienated from the means of production were compelled to sell their labour power to this owning class. The obfuscation of this relation by characterising members of the owning class as being merely "state employees" in receipt of salaries should not fool us for one momement. The bloated and mutiple salaries of the Soviet capitalist class, not to mention the enormous range of perks and payments in kind they bestowed upon themselves, was merely the ideological guize by which they sought to conceal from view their appropiation of surplus value for their own consumption. Such subterfuge is not unknown in the West. The "compensation" packages of some CEOS of large western based corporations runs into many millions of dollars annually which would clearly place them in the lower ranks of the capitalist class.

But even if Soviet capitalism was not the highly unequal society it clearly was, even if the Soviet capitalist class eshewed the good things in life (which were barred to the Russian workers) and opted for a spartan existence in a selfless act of national solidarity, this would not make the Soviet Union any the less capitalist or this class any the less, a capitalist class. A capitalist class is defined primarily by its relation to the means of production and not its lifestyle. The driving motor of capitalism is the accumulation of capital out of surplus value which, in the case of the Soviet Union, was a process overseen and managed by the state - meaning the class that had absoluite control of the state

You persist in this ridiculous claim of yours that there was no production for profit in the Soviet Union. Actually it was legally enshrined back in the 1930s under Stalin that state enterprises must make a profit and must keep profit and loss accounts. Despite the legal fiction that all means of production belonged to the state, state enterprises where compelled to act as legal entities responsible for their own affairs indirectly competing with other enterprises over the central allocation of resources and in complete conformity with Marx's observation in Grundrisse that "capital exists and can only exist as many capitals". For that, state enterprises did not need to have de jure ownership of their own businesses. All they required was to act as separate legal entities governed by the pursuit of profit. As L Leontiev put it "profit serves as the most generalising criterion of the enterprise's entire activity". ( 'The Plan and Methods of Economic Management', Pravda, 7 September 1954).

The argument is sometimes put that "socialist" profit is different from capitalist profit becuase it is geared towards socially useful objectives but that is just flannel and ideological candyfloss. Apologists for western style capitalism say exactly the same thing about the profit motive in the context of western capitalism - that it benefits everyone ultimately by encouraging entrepeneurship etc


The Soviet Union has been characterised as a system of economic planning rather than production for the market with a view to profit. This is fundamentally misleading. In the first instance, the plans amounted to little more than a wishlist of production targets. No GOSPLAN plan was ever strictly fulfiulled; what tended to happen is that the so called "plan" was constantly revised to fit in with the ever-changing economic realities. The so called "command economy" was an elaborate case of smoke and mirrors.

More importantly , what is often overlooked is the simple fact that for all the complexity of the bureaucratic planning apparatus. the plans had to be financed somehow and physical planning of imputs and outputs had also to be couched in monetary terms. This is where the extraction of surplus value to enable the accumulation of capital became all important. This also explain why state enterprises were required to make a profit. True, all profit and losses ultimately reverted to the central state and enterprises were not simply closed down as happened in the West becuase they did not make a profit (although they could be, and were, severely punished via loss of bonuses, demotion and so on). But even so, loss-making enterprises ultimately had to be subsidised by profitable enterprises. Excessive losses would jeopardise the inward flow of surplus value into the states coffers and hence its ability to finance capital accumulation




As to your claim that "the most essential forms of capitalism did not exist" well this is frankly not the case. As Wayne Price has noted

The competitive aspects of the economy were officially built in. Firms made legally binding contracts with each other for raw materials and productive machines, which were paid for by credits (money) in the central banks. Therefore, not only were consumer goods and labor power commodities, but means of production were also commodities, bought and sold among firms. Also, collective farms were not state farms but were legally cooperatives. They produced food for the market (this is aside from the permitted private plots which produced a disproportionate share of food). That was the legal market. Additionally the whole system was tied together by a vast system of black and gray markets, of illegal and semi-legal trading. Individuals did extra work, factories made deals with each other through special expediters, there was organized crime, and the wheels were greased throughout the society by off-the-books trading. The bureaucratic management would have collapsed without this very real wheeling and dealing, that is, market (capitalist) relations.
("State Capitalism vs Libertarian Socialism")

Finally you say

Uh classes would begin to wither only if the USSR was the only country in the world

Really? The first thing to note is that you concede that the Soviet Union was a class based society and therefore a society in which one class owning and controlling the means of production confronted another - in this case one alienated from the means of prpduction and therefore reliant upon the sale of its labour power in exchange fopr wages.

Would any ruling class voluntarily and willingly sign up for its own extinction which the term "wither" seems to imply? I doubt it. The dictorship over the proletariat established by the pseudo communist party of the SU which crushed emasculated and coopted the independent organs of working class resistance such as the factory committeess and trade unions makes a complete mockery of the claim that the Soviet Union was some kind of "workers state", whatever that might mean ( to me the very concept is an oxymoron since when workers obtain power they must ipso facto abolish their own status as an exploited class and hence the exploiting class and the very class institution of the state itself)

If the Soviet Union was hypothetically the only country left in the world then it would take a process of vigorous working class struggle to overthorw this last bastion of capitalism and class privilege. To believe that class relations would just wither of their own accord is idle and complacent nonsense

[Paul Cockshott]

Robo is being reduced to ridulous expedients in jutifying his claims about the USSR. He gives as evidence that in the UK:
They have generally produced not only enough profit to accumulate new capital but also enough to provide a property income for the private individuals who originally owned the nationalised industries. For the old private owners nationalisation meant a change in the form of ownership from private shares to interest-bearing government bonds, while some chose to receive payment in cash from the state to the full value of what was being purchased from them.

What this shows is that nationalisation does not dispossess private capitalists but simply changes their property titles. And what Buick and Crump go on to illustrate with many practical examples is that historically state intervention in industry (or "state purchase" as it used to be called) has taken place not for ideological reasons but to protect the interests of the private-owning class as a whole so that individual or groups of capitalists could not, by their monopoly of an essential good or service, hold the rest of the capitalist class to ransom

Yes this was true in the UK, bonds were issued to previous owners who thus continued to derive an income from the National Coal Board etc. But this was not the case in the USSR.


Actually it was legally enshrined back in the 1930s under Stalin that state enterprises must make a profit and must keep profit and loss accounts.
Yes but if you read Kornai you will know that this was not a real obligation. State factories whose accounts showed a loss did not go bankrupt and shut down as would happen in the case of capitalism. It was an accountancy rule analogous to those that are imposed on government ministries in all countries. The factories were no more threatened with liquidation than a government department that overspends is.

[robbo203]

Yes but if you read Kornai you will know that this was not a real obligation. State factories whose accounts showed a loss did not go bankrupt and shut down as would happen in the case of capitalism. It was an accountancy rule analogous to those that are imposed on government ministries in all countries. The factories were no more threatened with liquidation than a government department that overspends is.

That is not the point and as usual you are not seeing the wood for the trees.

Yes, certainly, individual state enterprises under Soviet state capitalism that showed a loss did not bankrupt. No one is disputing that and what you are invoking is simply a straw argument. The point is that overall profits from all state enterprises had to exceed losses in order to ensure an adequate inflow of state revenue to fund capital accumulation - cum- planning. In effect, loss-making enterprises were subsidised by the more profiitable sectors of the Soviet capitalist economy. This is not that far removed from what happens in the West. Think of bank bailouts as a recent example which some wit (or perhaps half wit) dubbed "socialism for the rich"

I have never held there are no differences at all between soviet state capitalism and western style capitalism, only that these differences are superficial and historically contingent rather than fundamental to the workings of a capitalist economy

[robbo203]

I


Communism has from the begining advocated state ownership of the
means of production. The idea that this is just a temporary
measure and that state ownership will be replaced by social
ownership is false.


The opposition is an entirely artificial distinction. In the absence of
a dominant class of private capitalists, state ownership is
identical to social ownership. There can be no meaningful
distinction between them. Social ownership is just another
more anodyne name for state ownership..


This shows up your completely anti-marxist bias and indeed your woeful ignorance of Marxist theory in general. To posit the idea of a state and hence state ownership as somehow being compatible with communism flatly contradicts the very core of the Marxist theory of the state - that it is above all a class institution. that can only exist in a class-based society. Communism is a classless society in which therefore there can be no state of any kind. I refer you again to Engels remark

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...-utop/ch03.htm

Social, or common, ownership has absolutely no connection with state ownership whatsoever. The logic of common ownership, for instance precludes completely economic exchange or any manifestation of such exchange such as wages, commodities, money etc - economic phenomena that all clearly existed in the Soviet Union. It is pretty evident that economic exchanges are in effect an exchange of property title. If I exchange my orange for your apple what is happening is that I am assuming ownership of the apple and relinquishing ownership of the orange - and vice versa

The fact that in the Soviet Union individuals had to purchase commodities in shops using money tokens, for instance is proof positive their of alienation from the means of production (which in turn obliged them to sell their labour power for a wage) and therefore the absence of social ownership. Indeed the means of production were themselves subject to economic exchange and legally binding exchange contracts between state enterprises


Whatever else you want to call it this is most definitely NOTsocial ownership

[Paul Cockshott]

This shows up your completely anti-marxist bias and indeed your woeful ignorance of Marxist theory in general.
I just take the Communist Manifesto and Critique of the Gotha Programme seriously and you do not.



Social, or common, ownership has absolutely no connection with state ownership whatsoever. The logic of common ownership, for instance precludes completely economic exchange or any manifestation of such exchange such as wages, commodities, money etc - economic phenomena that all clearly existed in the Soviet Union. It is pretty evident that economic exchanges are in effect an exchange of property title. If I exchange my orange for your apple what is happening is that I am assuming ownership of the apple and relinquishing ownership of the orange - and vice versa
Communist society still needs to allocate products to people. In a communist country this is done according to the principle of distribution according to labour performed. The idea of general free distribution is an impractical anarchist fantasy with no foundation whatsoever in Marx's writings.



The fact that in the Soviet Union individuals had to purchase commodities in shops using money tokens, for instance is proof positive their of alienation from the means of production (which in turn obliged them to sell their labour power for a wage) and therefore the absence of social ownership. Indeed the means of production were themselves subject to economic exchange and legally binding exchange contracts between state enterprises


It is because the ownership is social, that people have to produce evidence of having contributed to society before they can make private use of the products of labour. The principle of payment according to labour was absolutely right. I have published criticisms of the fact that this was done with paper tokens denominated in an abstract unit of account rather than explicitly in terms of labour accounts, but this criticism base on Marx's economics has nothing to do with the anarchistic / Khruschevite fantasies you put forward.

[Paul Cockshott]

.

Yes, certainly, individual state enterprises under Soviet state capitalism that showed a loss did not bankrupt. No one is disputing that and what you are invoking is simply a straw argument. The point is that overall profits from all state enterprises had to exceed losses in order to ensure an adequate inflow of state revenue to fund capital accumulation - cum- planning. In effect, loss-making enterprises were subsidised by the more profiitable sectors of the Soviet capitalist economy.

This is just the constraint that taxes must equal expenditure if you are not to lead to inflation. What you call profit was actually the turnover tax. The USSR could have had a different revenue mix, and I think it would have been better to rely on income tax instead of turnover tax. But for reasons of political opportunism, the rate of income tax was kept very low - typically under 10%, which was not enough to cover public expenditure.

[RedMaterialist]

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...-utop/ch03.htm

Social, or common, ownership has absolutely no connection with state ownership whatsoever....


Whatever else you want to call it this is most definitely NOTsocial ownership

How can you quote Engels saying that the proletariat will turn capitalist property into State property, as happened in the Soviet Union, and then argue that this State property is evidence of Soviet capitalism? Do you really think that Engels or Marx had in mind the re-establishment of capitalism under the rule of the proletariat? It simply makes no sense.

It is certainly true that social or common ownership does not exist under a dictatorship. That type of ownership, if you could even call it "ownership" will come after the proletariat abolishes all classes worldwide. The process will be long and difficult:

"In order to supersede the idea of private property, the idea of communism is enough. In order to supersede private property as it actually exists, real communist activity is necessary. History will give rise to such activity, and the movement which we already know in thought to be a self-superseding movement will in reality undergo a very difficult and protracted process." Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts.

The initial stages of the supersecession of private property, turning it into state property, have occurred in the the 20th century, primarily in the Soviet Union and China (the very large enterprises are state owned.) Even in countries like France the central bank and nuclear power stations are state owned. In the U.S. the interstate highway system is state owned. We don't even notice the gigantic leap from private toll roads to a continental modern, public highway system. The lunatics on the right, however, would dearly love to "privatize" the interstate system. That is a very good description of the return to capitalist ownership: Privatizing. They want to convert state property to private property.

Speaking of "common ownership." Does anyone know right offhand how the peasants viewed their use of the commons (before, of course, they were evicted?) Was it juridically a form of legal "ownership?"

[Fred]

Here's the thing. If it was not social ownership in the USSR, what would social ownership actually look like under the d of the p? The fact is, that if you simply removed the bureaucracy from power and had a democratically selected leadership things would be hunky dory. What that means is that you did not have to make huge structural changes nor smash the state -- a change of regime would do. This is not a social, but a political revolution. The comrades that think the USSR should have done away with wages, or stopped extracting surplus from workers are not thinking clearly. You can't do that in one isolated country. That's where having a leadership committed to the spread of the revolution is key.

And that is where the anti-Leninists, state cappers lose there moorings.

[robbo203]

I just take the Communist Manifesto and Critique of the Gotha Programme seriously and you do not.


All you are suceeding in doing here is to dig yourself deeper into the hole of your own making in a desparate bid to distract attention from that egregious blunder of yours equating state ownership with social ownership

I have read the Communist Manifesto and Critique of the Gotha Programme often enough and nothing in what is said in the works contradicts my criticism of your flagrantly anti-marxist perspective on both the state and class

I refer to your comments here


Communism has from the begining advocated state ownership of the
means of production. The idea that this is just a temporary
measure and that state ownership will be replaced by social
ownership is false.

The opposition is an entirely artificial distinction. In the absence of
a dominant class of private capitalists, state ownership is
identical to social ownership. There can be no meaningful
distinction between them. Social ownership is just another
more anodyne name for state ownership.


It is unbelievable that someone claiming familiarity with Marxist theory could come out with such utter tosh. There is absolutely no question that by communism, Marx and Marxists envisage a stateless and classless society and that, for them, the state can only exist in a society where classes exist. For Marx, state ownership was indeed just a temporary transitional measure en route to communism/socialism and. though I dont agree with Marx on this, it is absolutely clear that he saw no role for the state once communism/socialism had been achieved.

If you accept that, for Marx and Marxists, communism would entail getting rid of the state - and you can hardly dispute that since I have already produced ample evidence to show this is the case and will happily produce more if required - then how on earth can you possibly have state ownership in a communist society???

This is what is so ridiculous about your argument. How can you possibly have state ownership without a state? State ownership requires a state which by then, as Engels colourfully put it, will have been consigned to the "museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax"
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...amily/ch09.htm)

Try for a changing not wriggling out of a direct question levelled at you - how can you have state ownership in a society in which the state no longer exists? And while you're at it, how about trying answering this question too:

If state ownership is the same thing is as social ownership, what kind of ownership prevails a stateless communist society? According to your reasoning it cannot be social ownership since that is what state ownership is, according to you, and you cannot have a state in a communist society which is stateless

I stated in my previous post that social ownership, amongst other things, logically entails the elimination of economic exchange. This is born out by both the Communist Manifesto and the Critique, publications which you claim to have read.

From the Manifesto:

But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.

From the Critique

Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.
(my emphasis)

Both of those quotes make it abundantly clearly that social ownership entails the abolition or elimination of economic exchange and all those associated manifestations of exchange such as wage labour, money, commodity production etc

State ownership as exemplifed by the Sovet state capitalism clearly did not get rid of economic exchange or these exhange-based features and therefore cannot claim to be based on social ownership. In any case, classes existed in such a society by your own admission and according to the Soviet constitution . How can you have classes alongside social owenrship when the latter implies all have common ownership oif the means of production and that there cannot, therefore, possibly exist classes




Communist society still needs to allocate products to people. In a communist country this is done according to the principle of distribution according to labour performed. The idea of general free distribution is an impractical anarchist fantasy with no foundation whatsoever in Marx's writings.

It is because the ownership is social, that people have to produce evidence of having contributed to society before they can make private use of the products of labour. The principle of payment according to labour was absolutely right. I have published criticisms of the fact that this was done with paper tokens denominated in an abstract unit of account rather than explicitly in terms of labour accounts, but this criticism base on Marx's economics has nothing to do with the anarchistic / Khruschevite fantasies you put forward.


This has got to be the crowning stupidity of your whole tendentious line of argument. You claim to have read the Critique but dont seem to have much of a clue of what it was on about....

The "allocation of products to people" was a reference to labour voucher scheme which Marx put forward, albeit with little enthusiasm, as a kind of temporary stop gap arrangement pending the arrival of the higher phase of communism. Rationing by labour vouchers was not to be equated with commodity production and Marx went out of his way to explain why this was so (he conpared labour vouchers to ticket to a concert rather than money) Again, Im not a fan of the labour voucher scheme and if rationing is required in the early stages of a communist society when there might still be scarcities of one sort or another, there are other, better and far less cumbersome ways of doing that


Nevertheless, what you glibly dismiss as an "anarchistic / Khruschevite fantasy" without the slightest attempt to substantiate your claim is precisely the system of free distribution that Marx looked forward to in the higher phase of communism:


But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! (Critique of the Gotha Programme)


Engels in 1872 spoke glowingly of the advances of modern industry that had brought the possibility of full communism closer:
:
“…it is precisely this industrial revolution which has raised the productive power of human labour to such a high level that – for the first time in the history of mankind – the possibility exists, given a rational division of labour among all, of producing not only enough for the plentiful consumption of all members of society and for an abundant reserve fund, but also of leaving each individual sufficient leisure so that what is really worth preserving in historically inherited culture – science, art, forms of intercourse – may not .only be preserved but converted from a monopoly of the ruling class into the common property of the whole of society, and may be further developed.”(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/index.htm)

Still later - in 1878 - he again returned to this subject :

“The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties – this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

And yet again in 1890 in a letter to Conrad Schmidt:

There has also been a discussion in the Volks-Tribune about the distribution of products in future society, whether this will take place according to the amount of work done or otherwise. The question has been approached very "materialistically" in opposition to certain idealistic phraseology about justice. But strangely enough it has not struck anyone that, after all, the method of distribution essentially depends on how much there is to distribute, and that this must surely change with the progress of production and social organization, so that the method of distribution may also change. But everyone who took part in the discussion, "socialist society" appeared not as something undergoing continuous change and progress but as a stable affair fixed once for all, which must, therefore, have a method of distribution fixed once for all. All one can reasonably do, however, is 1) to try and discover the method of distribution to be used at the beginning, and 2) to try and find the general tendency of the further development. But about this I do not find a single word in the whole debate. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm)


Lenin too was quite clear that full comunism would be a society in which individuals would freely take according to their own self defined needs and give acording to their abilities though he thought such a society was a long way away. Trotsky too had the same view of communism. Though I dont care much for the political perspective of either Lenin or Trotsky its worth quoting something from Trotsky that puts forward the idea rather well:

The material premise of communism should be so high a development of the economic powers of man that productive labor, having ceased to be a burden, will not require any goad, and the distribution of life’s goods, existing in continual abundance, will not demand – as it does not now in any well-off family or "decent" boarding-house – any control except that of education, habit and social opinion. Speaking frankly, I think it would be pretty dull-witted to consider such a really modest perspective "utopian."
(Trotsky . L, The Revolution Betrayed, Chapter 3, Socialism and the State)

You may draw your own conclusions about the kind of dullard that, in predictable knee jerk fashion, dismisses free distributiuon as an "impractical anarchist fantasy" and who likes to imagine that his own assessment of the matter is a solid and sound one when it is demonstrably nothing but a reflex of his own ingrained bourgeois prejudices.

[robbo203]

How can you quote Engels saying that the proletariat will turn capitalist property into State property, as happened in the Soviet Union, and then argue that this State property is evidence of Soviet capitalism? Do you really think that Engels or Marx had in mind the re-establishment of capitalism under the rule of the proletariat? It simply makes no sense.

It is certainly true that social or common ownership does not exist under a dictatorship. That type of ownership, if you could even call it "ownership" will come after the proletariat abolishes all classes worldwide.

I think you have misread the Engels' quote or drawn a false inference from it

Engels was not saying that capitalist prioperty should be turned into state property with the implication that it was somehow no longer capitalist property once it had been nationalised. His exact words were

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...-utop/ch03.htm

State property precedes the abolition of classes and the state (obviously! since you cannot have state property without a state). State property is still therefore very much capitalist property (as the other quote from Engels makes clear). The DOTP is a "political transition period" but the underlying economic relations are still capitalist and could not be otherwise since the proletrariat itself is by definition a class category of capitalism and not of some vague post-capitalist society.

I agree there are problems with this construction but the problems are not mine since I totally reject the whole concept of the so called dictorship of the proletariat as theoretically muddled in the extreme. In that respect, at least, I make no bones about the fact that I openly part company with Marx.

I think the whole idea of the DOTP was a massive theoretical blunder on his part and there can be no "state capitalist road" to socialism/comunism - only a disastrously debilitating cul-de-sac.

That should be obvious from the ignominious fate of soviet state capitalism
itself.

[Tim Cornelis]

I find myself time constrained to answer to every objection in detail.
@Cockshott
The problem is the mischaracterisation of the class character of the Soviet regime. It was not proletarian as the workers excercised no power over the conditions of their labour, hence they contronted it as alien property, hence the basis for capitalism.
@Luis Henrique
Socialism emulation constituted competition between capitals as workers, enterprises, and sectors of the economy were stimulated to economise on resources, exceed their targets, and were rewarded for it.

[RedMaterialist]

Engels was not saying that capitalist prioperty should be turned into state property with the implication that it was somehow no longer capitalist property once it had been nationalised. His exact words were

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...-utop/ch03.htm


That should be obvious from the ignominious fate of soviet state capitalism
itself.

The proletariat turns capitalist property into state property. In other words, the proletariat takes property from the private ownership of the capitalist and claims ownership of the property for itself. A machine sitting in a factory is neither capitalist, proletariat or socialist. It is a machine. It can be the property of a capitalist or of the proletariat or owned in common by society.

Lenin and Stalin took property from the capitalists. They turned it into property of the proletarian state, the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state bureaucracy then managed it to bring Russia into the 20th century, defeat the western alliance attack in the civil war, defeat Hitler, put the first man into space, etc. Lenin and Stalin were not, in my opinion, capitalists. They were not the socialist version of J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford or Rockefeller. They did, however, do business with the original Charles Koch who helped modernize the oil production industry.

The capitalist class was driven underground but reappeared, with western capital, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reason for the collapse is still not clear, 25 years later. Maybe the Chinese learned how to keep the socialist state alive from the Soviet experience, by, probably, allowing part of the economy to revert to capitalism. The owners of the FoxConn company would have made JP Morgan proud, exploiting workers with slave wages, forcing workers from farm families to live in company barracks for which they are charged rent (which practice, by the way, was used in the textile mills in Massachusetts in the early 19th century.)

As to exactly what kind of social relations will result from common ownership of the means of production, who can possibly know? Marx said that there will only an administration of things. What form will this administration take? A "state" of some kind, an administrative bureaucracy? The first thing is to take over capitalism from the capitalists and turn their property into state property. We are only 150 yrs from the publication of the Manifesto.

[robbo203]

The proletariat turns capitalist property into state property. In other words, the proletariat takes property from the private ownership of the capitalist and claims ownership of the property for itself. A machine sitting in a factory is neither capitalist, proletariat or socialist. It is a machine. It can be the property of a capitalist or of the proletariat or owned in common by society.

If the proletariat takes property from the capitalists and claims it for itself it is no longer the proletariat. The proletariat is defined by the very fact that it is propertyless, that it is alienated from the means of production. This is the ABC of Marxism.

In abolishing its own status as a proletaria,t it abolishes class society and therefore the state. No state means no state ownership. The retention of state ownership means the retention of class relations of production and therefore the retention of the proletariat as the exploited class in capitalism. Nothing fundamental would have changed in that case. Capitalism would continue under the supervision of the state.



Lenin and Stalin took property from the capitalists. They turned it into property of the proletarian state, the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state bureaucracy then managed it to bring Russia into the 20th century, defeat the western alliance attack in the civil war, defeat Hitler, put the first man into space, etc. Lenin and Stalin were not, in my opinion, capitalists. They were not the socialist version of J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford or Rockefeller. They did, however, do business with the original Charles Koch who helped modernize the oil production industry.

Taking property from the capitalists is not the same thing as abolishing capitalist property relations. Capitalists take property from other capitalists all the time in the guise of takeovers and acquisitions. Its no big deal. What happened in the case of the soviet union was that the state, and in particular the all-powerful nomenklatura who had absolute control of the state, slipped into the shoes vacated by the private capitalists whose property they confiscated. Out of this emerged a new state capitalist class based not on de jure individual entitlement to capital but rather on its absolute control of the levers of political power. The decisive and ultimate control this tiny elite wielded over economy and the distribution of the social product - not as isolated individuals but, collectively, as a class - amounted to de facto ownership of the means of production. Ultimate control is what is meant by "ownership". It is the same thing. If you have ultimate control over something you own it andf vice versa Those who wielded ultimate control over the means of production in the Soviet Union effectively owned it - the state capitalist class





The capitalist class was driven underground but reappeared, with western capital, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reason for the collapse is still not clear, 25 years later. Maybe the Chinese learned how to keep the socialist state alive from the Soviet experience, by, probably, allowing part of the economy to revert to capitalism. The owners of the FoxConn company would have made JP Morgan proud, exploiting workers with slave wages, forcing workers from farm families to live in company barracks for which they are charged rent (which practice, by the way, was used in the textile mills in Massachusetts in the early 19th century.)

The Russian capitalist was not so much driven underground as replaced by a rival set of capitalists - the Soviet state capitalists - who muscled in on their territory and assumed the same functional relationship to the means of production except via a quite different mechanism - state power.

I'm not aware that the old Russian capitalists or rather their descendants (given the lapse of time) reappeared with western capital after the collapse of Soviet capitalism, to any great extent. Where's you evidence? In fact a significant proportion of Russia's modern super-rich oligarchs - 43% - were previously high ranking members of the communist party nomenklatura - what was laughably call Lenin's so called vanguard party ("Postcommunist Oligarchs in Russia: Quantitative Analysis Export", Serguey Braguinsky, The Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 52, No. 2., 1 May 2009, pp. 307-349.). These red fat cats used their enormous wealth, power and connections to seize control of much of the state assets of Russia that were being sold off in the shock therapy of privatisation in the early 90s. In other parts of what was once the soviet sphere of influence the percentage of oligarchs previously linked to the nomenklatura was much higher - most notably in Romania.




As to exactly what kind of social relations will result from common ownership of the means of production, who can possibly know? Marx said that there will only an administration of things. What form will this administration take? A "state" of some kind, an administrative bureaucracy? The first thing is to take over capitalism from the capitalists and turn their property into state property. We are only 150 yrs from the publication of the Manifesto.

When you have common ownership of the means you ipso facto no longer have classes. When you no longer have classes you no longer have a state becuase a state can only exist according to Marxist theory in a class based society. Since a state cannot exist in a communist society, state property cannot exist either. It will be jettisoned along with all the other trappings of class based capitalist society.

Again, this too is the ABC of Marxism and Im shocked to discover just how many on this site professing to have some familiarity with Marxist theory dont seem to grasp these very elementary ideas...

[Paul Cockshott]

Since this is now discussing the question of the withering away of the state rather than the economy of the USSR, I have branched off a new thread called How should we think of the withering away of the state and put my reply there.

[Tim Cornelis]

Well obviously in a socialist economy the immediate producers
do not own the means of production individually. Instead the
means of production are owned collectively by the workers state.
This state is not a 'person' it is the collective power of
the working people.

No, under socialism there are no classes, there's no state ownership, there's common ownership. Under the DOTP the workers' state owns the means of production, but the workers' state is a workers' state by virtue of the workers excercising and wielding power. This was not the case in the USSR. In fact, workers had far less power in comparison to many other countries.




Well it was illegal for those in a workplace to simply take
things from their workplace home for their own use. But that it is
obviously necessary to protect social property from private appropriation.
This is not evidence of capitalism. A socialist economy necessarily
has to operate this way.

If the workers were to form a soviet to manage the factory, they'd meet the full force of the law. The law was there to protect the party-state's ownership against the proletariat, that is, class rule over the workers.



What subsection bought the labour power?

The party-state.


In a capitalist economy you can easily idenify that subsection
they either run their own businesses, or they own shares in
firms which employ people.
You alternate above between saying there was a subsection
of the population employing labour power in the USSR- then you realise
that this was not true and instead of a subset of the population
you say it was the state. But the state is not a section of
the population.

This presupposes that liberal capitalism as it was manifested in Western Europe is the default and only capitalism, and thus a discrepancy of phenomenal characteristics suggests it was not capitalistic.
The state is certainly made up of people. It was the employer of labour-power, it controlled the conditions of labour, and commanded the workers, extracted their surplus value, squashed their strikes, etc.


There was no such subsection of the population owning the
meanns of production. The government directed what industry
was to do but the people in the government did not own the
industries. Andropov no more owned the Soviet steel industry
than David Cameron
owns the Bank of England.

Irrelevant as to the social relations of the USSR.



Yes it does. For controlled products, according to Dobb
there were around 10,000 of these in the 50s, the plan
was constructed in terms of physical units, and plan
targets were expressed in these terms.


A factory used a large number of different inputs, and had
to meet certain physical targets for outputs, but the only
way you can get an aggregate figure for efficiency of the
plant is to add up all the inputs in terms of some common unit
They could in principle have used several different
techniques for doing this : monetary units with prices
used to convert inputs of electricity, labour, leather, rubber etc
into a common denominator, or labour hours with data on
embodied socially necessary labour values used to conver the
inputs into a common denominator, or more abstractly they
could have use Kantorovich's objectively determined valuations
expressed as partial derivatives with respect to the social
plan vector.

What do you mean Jim : "immediate satisfaction of substance"?

Do you mean immediate satisfaction of subsistence?

You have to take into account that most products are useless for
subsistence. Most products are fed back into the production process
as raw materials, as components, as tools or as equipment. The main
task of a socialist plan is to deliberately organise this complex interdependent
network of material flows in physical terms. You can not directly
consume a jet engine, but the economy has to produce sufficient
jet engines of the right type to allow the expansion of the
aviation network. The aviation network then transports people about
and Aeroflot transported vast numbers of people.

Consider the flights that people took. A large portion of them
were not 'immediate satisfaction of subsistence' either, a lot
of them were transporting people to where they had to work - oil
and gas workers out to Siberia for example. A portion of them
were for personal pleasure - going on holidays, or going to visit
family. Within this sector a large part were allocated in a planned
way - people going to trades union, or factory holiday resorts
as payment in kind and so would fit into your rationing scheme.
In addition tickets for personal travel were available. These
obviously could not be made entirely free or you would have had
rationing by queues at the airport. But the plan did specify in
use value terms how much travel provision was to be provided.






The issue of concern for profitability was just
a matter of trying to measure the efficiency of production.
Such monetary calculations have serious restrictions, but
you need to understand that in a socialist economy investment
is funded out of taxation. Although there was pressure by
managers to be allowed to run at a profit and for enterprises
to be allowed to keep profit as a source of investment, it
was not until Gorbachov that this happened and it soon
destabilised the economy.

Prior to that the mechanism for funding public activity was
mainly through a turnover tax, essentially similar to the
Value Added Tax ( MehrwertSteuer - literally surplus value tax)
that operates in the EU. This was simply imposed as a markup
on prices so that provided that the tax level was set appropriately
( which was not always done ) there was no problem of the
state having sufficient funds to cover investment. There
were other forms of taxation - taxes on Vodka for example.

The terminal crisis of the USSR came when Gorbachov abolished
the turnover tax and allowed managers to control the funds that
previously went in tax as profit, and at the same time prohibited
alcohol. This meant that the state no longer had a secure source
of revenue and led to serious inflation.


There was wage labour in the Roman empire, I suggest you study the Edict of Diocletian
regulating prices and wage rates. The empire set the wage rates for
a whole range of occupations.

Will answer the rest the coming days.

I wish I had more time to respond to all of this.


This is so full of misconceptions that one hardly knows where to start, but I will work through them.

It's not so much a misconception as a mischaracterisation of the class character of



This is just not true. The means of production were certainly owned by the state ie the proletariat organised as the ruling class, just as the communist manifesto proposed. This is what communism has always proposed. You are just saying that communism is the same as capitalism.

The working class was by no means the ruling class! In fact, it's quite contradictory of what's been said in this thread by others. They suggest that the bourgeoisie has been displaced, and therefore there is no bourgeoisie. But if there is no bourgeoisie then the working class can't be a ruling class as there are no classes. For the proletariat to be the ruling class it needs to hold power, but all decision-making power was held by the top of the Bolshevik party. The workers had no power in any meaningful sense of the word. Their workplaces were managed by managers, not themselves, the state was governed from above as the party leadership dictated, not the workers.


There was no capital, there was accumulation of use values in the form of means of production but that necessarily has to happen in a socialist economy. Of course there was a surplus product - without that there could have been no economic progress. Where on earth do you get the idea that socialism and a surplus product are antithetical?

The means of production were, prior to the 60s allocated to factories as grants by the state, they were not capital as there was no interest charged on them. There were some moves towards charging interest on means of production from the 60s but the famous 'soft budget constraint', which does not exist under capitalism, meant that the payment of such interest was never seriously enforced ( ie factories never went bankrupt because they could not meet interest), so the attempt to graft this capitalist feature onto the socialist economy failed.

As far as I know, means of production were exchanged insofar the financial balances of Soviet enterprises showed (how do I articulate this?) a loss and gain in means of production. But I will need to look into this.


How can you establish that the means of production were owned by a class alien to the workers rather than by them collectively?

Power was wielded by the party-state, not the workers. It's as simple as that.

[Brotto Rühle]

The problem is that those arguing against the state capitalist thesis, are arguing against it on the shoddiest of grounds. Either there was workers' political power, or there was not. Either workers managed industry, or they did not. The answers are clearly in the negative, they held neither political nor economic power. We then have to determine the relations to the means of production in said society... the workers were alienated from the means of production, the state owned them. The state was not proletarian, it was bourgeois in form, and due to its relation to the means of production, it represented the exploiting class, or the national/state bourgeoisie.

[robbo203]

Paul Cockshott:

In a capitalist economy you can easily idenify that subsection
they either run their own businesses, or they own shares in
firms which employ people.
You alternate above between saying there was a subsection
of the population employing labour power in the USSR- then you realise
that this was not true and instead of a subset of the population
you say it was the state. But the state is not a section of
the population.

This presupposes that liberal capitalism as it was manifested in Western Europe is the default and only capitalism, and thus a discrepancy of phenomenal characteristics suggests it was not capitalistic.
The state is certainly made up of people. It was the employer of labour-power, it controlled the conditions of labour, and commanded the workers, extracted their surplus value, squashed their strikes, etc.


I think it is important to make the point that the state is not society. It is an institituion. It is staffed and operated by individuals but it does not constitute the totality of individuals in a given society. One more reason why state ownership has nothing to do with social owenrship


Cockshott contends above that you can easily identify a subsection of the population in western style capitalism that "either run their own businesses, or they own shares in firms which employ people". This is quite true but, like most social phenomena, we are talking about a spectrum, a gradation from one class to the other. Many workers, for example, own shares or have savings or operate their own businesses on a self employed basis, Even so, they are not capitalist because they don't possess sufficient capital to live upon without having to work which is the defining characteristic of what constitutes a "capitalist".

In Soviet capitalism, legal ownership of capital by individuals was generally not permitted. With few exceptions capital was owned and managed by the state. This is the primary difference between western capitalism and soviet state capitalism.


However, to go back to the point made earlier the state is not the same thing as "society". It is a body, an organisation, an institution. Just as you can identify a subsection of the population in western countries who are clearly capitalists so you can identify a subsection of the population in the soviet union who clearly had complete control of the state which was precisely that institution in Soviet society that owned and controlled the means of production


What this means in effect is that this tiny subsection of the population effectively owned the means of production through their control of the state. They did not own it in a legal sense and it is significant that people like Cockshott should give primacy to the legal superstructure over the material relations of production in his analysis of the Soviet Union - it highlights his fundamentally idealist and non-marxist approach to the subject.

That small subsection of the population - the nomenklatura, the party state or whatever you want to call it - owned the means of production in de facto terms by virtue of its complete grip on state power. All the important decisions in the economy, and the distribution of the social product, were concentrated in their hands. This is absolutely undeniable and not even Cockshott has denied it

Ultimate control, as Ive said often enough, is tantamount to ownership. If you have ultimate control over something you own it and vice versa. Because the ulitmate control exercised by the soviet capitalist class - as a class and not as private individuals - was expressed via the state, their de facto ownership of the means of production could not take the form of de jure ownership. In other words, you could not have a situation in which the law sanctioned the effective ownership and control of the means of production by a small subsection of the population since this would run counter to the function and purpose of the state and state ideology under capitalism.


The ideological function of the state in capitalism is precisely to foster the illusion that it is representative of the whole people. It has to universalise its appeal and it could not do that while legally upholding or acknowleding the right of soviet capitalist class to effectively own the means of prduction. So it had to promote the legal fiction that the means of prpduction belonged to everyone as a way of obfuscating, and hence shoring up, what was actually happening on the ground i.e, a small minority owning and controlling the means of production collectively via their collective strangehold on the state machine.


Incidentally, in the West too, despite the fact that individuals have the de jure right to own capital, nowhere is there any official legal acknowlegement of the existence of a capitalist class qua class. In no constitutuion anywhere is there a statute which says in effect that a small minority of the population - the capitalist class - have the right to own the means of production. That right is conferred on individuals not classes whose existence remains officially unacknowleged for the very reason that to acknowlege it would be to run counter to the universalistic thrust of capitalist ideology which is fundamentally different to, say, a feudalistic, aristocratic or caste society. In the latter social differentiation is made explicit since that is the logic of their holistic worldview; In the mechanistic individualistic wordview of capitalism, social differentiation has to be subordinated and hidden under a blanket two dimensional view of society as consisting solely of autonomous atomised abstract individuals ineracting with each other

This is a vital point to grasp. Capitalism needs to universalise its appeal and the slogan of the French bourgois revolution capture this very well - liberty, fraternity and equality. Capitalist ideology takes as its starting point the abstract individual. Society is said to arise out of the interactions of individuals and so you get the idea of a social contract propounded by early bourgeois social philosophers like John Locke. In theoretical terms the individual predates society, society is the product of individuals , whereas from a sociological perspective individuals are also the product of society


The bourgeois Bolshevik revolution of 1917 which ushered in state capitalism and swept away vestigial feudalism was subject to the same ideological imperative to universalise its appeal. to seek social inclusivity as a way of ensuring social control. Hence it had to foster the illusion that state ownership of means of production equated with ownership by the whole population. The whole thrust of this logic was anti-sociological , to mystify and divert attention away from the de facto structural characteristics of soviet capitalism in order precisely to preserve and consolidate those strcutural or class characteristics that defined soviet state capitalism, and to replace sociological analysis with ideological abstraction. Little wonder the soviet authorities have been so reluctant to release data concerning income inequalities in the Soviet Union. Even the special stores stocking western goods to which only the privileged elite had access had to blacked out and hidden from view. This in all in keeping with the broad argument Im presenting here.

In that respect there are differences with what is the case in the West but at a more findamental level there are striking parrellels. In western ideology the social nature of production and the centrality of class exploitation is systematically denied. Individuals are said to become rich throught their own efforts - the "myth of the self made man". Such explanations are fundamentallly non-social in orientation, they appeal to factors that are individual or contingent. Hence "if you work hard enough, you get rich and if you are not rich that is due to flaws in your own personality" etc etc Poverty is blamed on the very victims of poverty rather than the nature of capitalist society.

Contingent factors too are invoked to account for vast discrepancies in wealth. Have you ever wondered why gambling plays such an important role in capitalist society? Millions of people participate in lotteries every week in the very slim hope that luck will raise them out of their lifelong poverty. The fact that a tiny handful of people have become lottery millionaires helps to reinforce the illusion that poverty is not something that can put down to the way society is organised . Gambling is an important ideological prop for capitalism precisely it presents an asocial explanation as to why people become rich


It is this official denial of class exploitation, class ownership and class conflict that is apparent in both Soviet ideology and western "liberal" ideology that bears wtiness to their common capitalist origins. They are in short, simply variants of the same thing

[Fred]

Cockshott contends above that you can easily identify a subsection of the population in western style capitalism that "either run their own businesses, or they own shares in firms which employ people". This is quite true but, like most social phenomena, we are talking about a spectrum, a gradation from one class to the other. Many workers, for example, own shares or have savings or operate their own businesses on a self employed basis, Even so, they are not capitalist because they don't possess sufficient capital to live upon without having to work which is the defining characteristic of what constitutes a "capitalist".

Nonsense. There are people who struggle to get by on disability payments -- they don't work for their "living" -- are they capitalists? Is my cousin, a retired school teacher that lives on his pension a capitalist?

The patent silliness of calling October a bourgeois revolution because you can somehow shoe horn it into that category by twisting definitions proves only your inability to understand the complexity of historical circumstances. Social ownership, during the d of the p would mean state ownership. It would not mean that every individual worker would be able to control x percent of a given factory. Even in the best case scenario, in an advanced industrial nation where the workers were capable of "ruling by committee" as it were, how would the overall flow of industry be handled? There would be managers -- or managerial committees that would decide how resources would be located and which plants would produce what.

In the end you present a one-to-one relationship -- if the workers do not have direct political power, it is capitalism. This is simply false

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]If the proletariat takes property from the capitalists and claims it for itself it is no longer the proletariat. The proletariat is defined by the very fact that it is propertyless, that it is alienated from the means of production. This is the ABC of Marxism.

On November 8th, 1917, Russian workers took, seized factories from the capitalist class. Does this mean that on November 9th, that the working class, the proletariat, ceased to exist?

As far as the ABCs of Marxism. The proletariat is not propertyless. It possesses, and its sole posession is its labor (or labor power), which it is "free" to sell on the open market.

If the proletariat ceases to exist at the exact moment it seizes capitalist property then there, by definition, can be no Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This theory might be described as the A to Z of Marxism, with nothing in between.


Taking property from the capitalists is not the same thing as abolishing capitalist property relations.

It is if the working class takes the property.



The Russian capitalist was not so much driven underground as replaced by a rival set of capitalists - the Soviet state capitalists -

You are assuming what you are trying to prove. The question is whether the Soviet Union was capitalist.


I'm not aware that the old Russian capitalists or rather their descendants (given the lapse of time) reappeared with western capital after the collapse of Soviet capitalism, to any great extent.

You are right about this. There were probably not many families of old capitalists who returned to power. The real issue is that capitalism was driven out of the Soviet Union, and when the state collapsed (due to the disappearance of classes), it came back in with the help of western capital and in the person of former bureaucrats. I think this can be seen as proof that capital is not only a personal power but also a social power. It also proves that capital must be actively suppressed and destroyed on a world wide scale otherwise it simply comes back into the isolated former state which has collapsed. A good analogy would be cancer. The cancer may be cut out in one part of the body only to reappear somewhere else or even in the same place. It must be radically removed. (As in a radical mastectomy)




When you have common ownership of the means you ipso facto no longer have classes. When you no longer have classes you no longer have a state becuase a state can only exist according to Marxist theory in a class based society.


And what happens to this state when it is surrounded by capitalist states?


Again, this too is the ABC of Marxism and Im shocked to discover just how many on this site professing to have some familiarity with Marxist theory dont seem to grasp these very elementary ideas...

This is the usual dodge of the supposed experts on Marxism. They know best.

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]The bourgeois Bolshevik revolution of 1917

And you are the master of the ABCs of Marxism? On the other hand, since you argue that the Soviet Union was capitalist from 1917, it would be necessary for you to originate the Soviet capitalist state in a capitalist revolution.

Lenin has transformed from communist revolutionary to capitalist magnate in a few seconds in October of 1917. Truly a dialectic Hegelian moment of history.

[robbo203]

Nonsense. There are people who struggle to get by on disability payments -- they don't work for their "living" -- are they capitalists? Is my cousin, a retired school teacher that lives on his pension a capitalist?


Read what I said and not what you imagine I said. A capitalist is someone who possesses sufficient capital to live on the proceeds of his/her investments without the need to sell his/her labour power. Is someone struggling to get by on disability payment a capitalist? Of course not. If you think such a person is a capitalist then please enlighten us and let us know why. Neither are the great majority of pensioners capitalists either. Pensions at the end of the day are deferred wages and if you think the existence of pension funds makes makes reitirees capitalists then i suggest you need to start doing some reseach on the subject. A good place to start might be Ellen Schultz book, Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers, (Portfolio/Penquin New York, 2011),





The patent silliness of calling October a bourgeois revolution because you can somehow shoe horn it into that category by twisting definitions proves only your inability to understand the complexity of historical circumstances.

Au contraire I think it is you who is twisting definitions to suit your tendentious claims if you deny the outcome of October was to entrench capitalist relations of production and remove vestigial feudalistic impediments to the further development of capitalism. Even Lenin candidly admitted in 1918

State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country.
(Left-Wing” Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality)


Of course , talking of twisting definitions, what Lenin meant by "socialism" no longer meant what it had meant in traditonal marxian usage - as a synonym for communism, meaning a classless stateless wageless society. For Lenin - and this comes as no surpise for an ardent advocate of state capitalism and a professed admirer of German state capitalism - "socialism" meant state monopoly capitalism run in the interests of the whole people:


Here's the relevant quote

"For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."

Now tell me who is twisting definitions!

As I see it, the character of revolution is determined by its actual outcome and not by the subjective sentiments of its participants or the particular class to which they belong. The Bolshevik revolution was carried out overwhelmingly by Russian workers but that does not automatically mean it produced a society run in the interests of the workers. Anyone who believes that is a fool with a totally blinkered view of history.


Marx knocked this particular argument on the head thus


If the proletariat destroys the political rule of the bourgeosie, that will only be a temporary victory, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in 1794, so long as in the course of history, in its movement, the material conditions are not yet created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and thus the definitive overthrow of bourgeois political rule ("Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality", 1847 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/10/31.htm).

This could very well be a description of the Bolshevik bourgeois revolution...







Social ownership, during the d of the p would mean state ownership. It would not mean that every individual worker would be able to control x percent of a given factory. Even in the best case scenario, in an advanced industrial nation where the workers were capable of "ruling by committee" as it were, how would the overall flow of industry be handled? There would be managers -- or managerial committees that would decide how resources would be located and which plants would produce what.

In the end you present a one-to-one relationship -- if the workers do not have direct political power, it is capitalism. This is simply false


No , even in the unlikely event that workers did have direct political power it would still be capitalism is there is still

generalised wage labour,
Production for market exchnage
Capital accumulation


Social ownership precludes state ownership by definition. Where you have state ownership you cannot have social ownership and vice versa. Why? Because state ownership presupposes the existence of a state and a state presupposes the existence of classes. As any Masrxist will tell you , you cannot have classes existing alongside social ownership since classes signifiy differences in the way people relate to the means of prpduction . Some owning these means ( the capitalist class) and some being alienated from these means (the proletariat)

The existence of a proletariat presupposes the existence of a capitalist class and so the dictatorship of the proletariat must necessarily entail that the great majority who supposedly do the "dictating" continue to remain aleinated from the means of prpduction. If they are not alienated, if they have actually taken possession of the means of prpduction, then they cannot any longer be considered a proletariat since this conflicts with the very defintion of a proletariat


In other words a dictatorship of the proletariat that strips the capitalist of the monopoly ownership cannot logically be called a dictatorship of the proletariat at all.

On the other hand, a DOTP that continues to allow the capitalists to own the means of production can hardly be called a DOTP either. Why would the slaves allows the slave master to continue enslaving if they had the power to end their slavery?


You tell me...

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]


generalised wage labour,
Production for market exchnage
Capital accumulation


The argument of the "state as capitalist" is essentially that because the Soviet Union looked like capitalism, therefore it must have been capitalism.

This argument has already been addressed by Marx in The Critique of the Gotha Program:

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges....

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby..."

The Soviets had to deal with socialism not as it suddenly appeared in October, 1917, but as it was emerging from the previously existing Russian economic society. Just because Soviet socialism had in every respect the birthmarks and defects of the old society does not mean that it was a repetition of the old society.

Wage-labor, production for market exchange, capital accumulation, all existed in September, 1917, and continued to exist in October, 1917. Under Soviet Socialism these characteristics of capitalism were administered not on behalf of private capitalists but on behalf of the Soviet state and, indirectly it is true, on behalf of the Soviet comrades.

Why did the "slaves" not rebel? They did rebel and killed the slave-owners. But the freed slaves did not suddenly find themselves transported into post-slavery paradise. They still had to farm the same land on which they had been slaves before, use the same farming techniques, they still used the same tools, lived in the same slave quarters they had before, and sold their goods in the same market as their owners had done before with the crucial difference: they were no longer slaves. Did that make any difference to them? We'll let you ask them.

[robbo203]

The argument of the "state as capitalist" is essentially that because the Soviet Union looked like capitalism, therefore it must have been capitalism.

This argument has already been addressed by Marx in The Critique of the Gotha Program:

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges....

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby..."

The Soviets had to deal with socialism not as it suddenly appeared in October, 1917, but as it was emerging from the previously existing Russian economic society. Just because Soviet socialism had in every respect the birthmarks and defects of the old society does not mean that it was a repetition of the old society.

Wage-labor, production for market exchange, capital accumulation, all existed in September, 1917, and continued to exist in October, 1917. Under Soviet Socialism these characteristics of capitalism were administered not on behalf of private capitalists but on behalf of the Soviet state and, indirectly it is true, on behalf of the Soviet comrades.

This is breathtaking in its naivete. You are not seriously trying to suggest here that the Bolshevik revolution ushered in something akin to the lower phase of communism as per the Critique Those passages you quote are a reference to the need to institute a form of ratioining in the guise of labour vouchers which is totally different from a society still based on wage labour, buying and selling, and money. In fact if you read further you will see why.

For instance, here

Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning.

and here


Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption

In other words labour time regulates the system of labour vouchers as it does the system of commodity exchange but these two systems are nevetheless fundamentally and qualitatively different.

In Capital vol 2 Marx makes it clear that labour vouchers are in no way comparable to money

“The producers may . . . receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate” (Capital, Vol II, Moscow, 1957, p. 358)

Marx makes the point that a labour voucher is no more money than is a ticket to a concert

Im not a fan of Marx's labour voucher system and Marx himself was not a particularly enthusiastic exponent of it. There is quite a good discussion on the subject here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/history/labour-vouchers

and here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1971/no-801-may-1971/labour-time-vouchers

What is clear is that, for Marx, the lower phase of communism was a classless stateless society based on the common ownership of the means of production and the absence, therefore, of economic exchange or exchange related phenomena like money and wage labour. It differered only from the higher stage of communism in that, with the further development of the prpductive forces and the elimination of material scarcities , the latter would permit generalised free dstribution according to the principle from each according to ability to each according to need prevailed. Rationing would no longer be required.


You seriously delude yourself if you imagine for one moment that post revolutionary Russia under the Bolsheviks - a statist (and therefore class based) society in which production for exchange continued, as you admit, bore any relation to Marx's lower phase of communism



Why did the "slaves" not rebel? They did rebel and killed the slave-owners. But the freed slaves did not suddenly find themselves transported into post-slavery paradise. They still had to farm the same land on which they had been slaves before, use the same farming techniques, they still used the same tools, lived in the same slave quarters they had before, and sold their goods in the same market as their owners had done before with the crucial difference: they were no longer slaves. Did that make any difference to them? We'll let you ask them.


This is ridiculous. You seem to be in complete denial about what actually happened post-revolutiuon . Those institions set up by the Russian workers to defend their interests, such as the trade unions and the factory committees, were increasingly emasculated , repressed , coopted and crushed as the new state capitalist system established itself and the centralisation of power in the hands of the party-state proceeded. Lenin (an admirer of "scientific Taylorism") imposed top-down one-man management on the factories and under Trotsky's management we saw the "militarisation of labour" programme being instititued - a brutal anti working class measure. If you have net heard about any of this I suggest you do some serious reading

In effect what happened was that the Russian workers had swapped one group of odious slave owners for another. Soviet capitalism was to institute one of the most viciously anti-working class regimes the world has ever seen and install a horrendous dictatorship of the Party over the proletariat while cynically pretending this was all done in the name of the proletariat. It was the Red Fat Cats who operated this system of state-based exploitation who, as I mentioned earlier. were the foremost force in overthowing the old state command model of capitalist management in order to grab all those state assets being sold off in the priviatision frenzy of the 1990s. That was when Lenin's so called Vanguard Party - the pseudo Communist Party of the Soviet Union - showed its true colours and exposed itself for what it was - a glorified business racket to screw the workers


And yet there are still gullible fools around who think state capitalism has something to do with socialism or could ever led to socialism. History has decisively blown away such delusions

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE] You are not seriously trying to suggest here that the Bolshevik revolution ushered in

According to you there was no Bolshevik revolution, it was the capitalist revolution.




[I]Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production,

The Soviet Union was not a co-operative society. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat. Means of production were owned by the state.



What is clear is that, for Marx, the lower phase of communism was a classless stateless society based on the common ownership of the means of production and the absence, therefore, of economic exchange or exchange related phenomena like money and wage labour.

Classless, stateless?:

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Marx, also Gotha. Yes, Marx actually wrote that last phrase.

There is nothing classless or stateless about any kind of dictatorship. It is clear that you are one of the class of utopian socialists who dream of the day when pure socialism will descend upon humanity. For you there is no need of emergence of socialism in a bloody, protracted battle. It will all be given to you. No need of any transformation, revolutionary or otherwise. For you birth is quick, painless, and bloodless. The proletariat is not, for you, a class that develops, emerges, and then takes political power and uses it. For you it is a class that suddenly appears in its perfect form.

You are like a socialist reformer who stands in front of a factory gate and tries to convince workers in Moscow in November, 1917, to give up their jobs and their wages, in exchange for pieces of paper signed by the Utopian Socialist Paradisical Stateless Society.

[robbo203]

According to you there was no Bolshevik revolution, it was the capitalist revolution.


No, there was a Bolshevik revolution but its outcome was state capitalism. Since it is the outcome that determines the character of a revolution, then logically the Bolshevik revolution was therefore a capitalist revolution




The Soviet Union was not a co-operative society. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat. Means of production were owned by the state.


No the soviet union was a dictatorship over the proletariat - by those who controlled the state. If you think otherwise you have a lot of explaining to do - like why were the institutions workers set up, like the trade unions and factory committees, crushed , emaculated or coopted: Why under Lenin was authoritarian one-man management imposed on the factories? Why the viciously repressive "miiltarisation of labour" programme? Why the banning of oppostion to central rule by the party elite? etc etc ad nauseum You seem to think that because some politician declares something to be a "dictatorship of the proletariat" it must be so. Are you really that gullible? Are you incapable of looking at things objectively on the ground and seeing them for what they really are? How on earth can you seriously manitain that Russian workers exercised some kind of "dictatorship" when all the evidence points to the fact that they were comprehensively repressed and dictated to? They no more had ownership of the means of production than wage slaves elsewhere; they were the expolited class in Soviet capitalism




Classless, stateless?:

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Marx, also Gotha. Yes, Marx actually wrote that last phrase.

There is nothing classless or stateless about any kind of dictatorship. It is clear that you are one of the class of utopian socialists who dream of the day when pure socialism will descend upon humanity.

Your inability to marshall evidence is matched by your complete inattentiveness. What you say above is supposed to be a response to what I said here - namely:

What is clear is that, for Marx, the lower phase of communism was a classless stateless society based on the common ownership of the means of production and the absence, therefore, of economic exchange or exchange related phenomena like money and wage labour.


The lower phase of communism has got nothing to do with the so called dictatorship of the proletariat. Astonishingly , you even quote Marx saying "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other" Between capitalsim and communism means it is NOT communiusm whether lower or higher



For you there is no need of emergence of socialism in a bloody, protracted battle. It will all be given to you. No need of any transformation, revolutionary or otherwise. For you birth is quick, painless, and bloodless. The proletariat is not, for you, a class that develops, emerges, and then takes political power and uses it. For you it is a class that suddenly appears in its perfect form. .


You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about - still less what my views are. So you invent things as you go along in a desparate bid to hide your own ignorance.

I dont deny the possibility of some violence in the course of socialist transformation though neither do I fetishize and glorify violence like some armchair revolutionaries who, away from their laptops ,wouldnt know which end of gun to fire from. I also dont deny it could be a substantially peaceful process and certainly hope that is the case. Violence does the socialist movement no favours and should be absolutely minimised. Incidentally nor did Marx deny the possibility that socialism could be achieved peacefully and he cited several countries where this might be possible in his day


I dont deny the need for transformation. This is a really dumb claim on your part. I have reatedly said that socialism/communism requires a transformation in the outlook of workers ; they need to want it and understand it before you can have it. Its not something that can be imposed from above.

I dont deny that the proletariat is class that develops and then takes power. Quite the contrary, Ive said all along that the proletariat must develop in class consciousness ("for itself" and not just of itself as Marx put it) and then democratically take power in order to abolish capitalism and the state along with it. The transformation happens before the socialist revolution, in other words, and the latter must be predicated on the former or it will not be a socialist revolution

Your last assertion that, for me, the proletariat "is a class that suddenly appears in its perfect form" is just gibberish. The proletariat exists as an objective structural fact of capitalism. Currently the proletariat acquiesces en masse in the continuation of capitalism and this is why capitalism continues. To bring capitalism to an end requires a mass change in the outlook of workers. How that can happen is what we we should be talking about.

[Paul Cockshott]

What is clear is that, for Marx, the lower phase of communism was a classless stateless society
You are infering more than he says. He never says that lower phase of communism is a classless stateless society. He only says it is a society in which payment is only according to labour. He says nothing about the phasing of communism and the withering away of the state, does the state wither away some time after communism or before? Nor does he address the issue of class relations arising from econmic relationships other than that between capital and labour. Class differentiation between the manual working class and intelligentsia is not dealt with by Marx nor is there any serious treatment of the agrarian question. Nor is there any serious treatment of uneven development on a global scale.

Reality is complex, if you attempt to cram in into simple formulae, it will not fit. So we get apriorist ahistorical nonsense like:

No, under socialism there are no classes, there's no state ownership, there's common ownership
Whereas history teaches, as Mao said that socialism is a long historical period during which classes and class struggle still exist. The point about a scientific theory is to enable you to understand real living history, theory must conform to reality, reality has no obligation to conform to apriori speculation

[RedMaterialist]

No the soviet union was a dictatorship over the proletariat - by those who controlled the state. If you think otherwise you have a lot of explaining to do - like why were the institutions workers set up, like the trade unions and factory committees, crushed , emaculated or coopted: Why under Lenin was authoritarian one-man management imposed on the factories? Why the viciously repressive "miiltarisation of labour" programme? Why the banning of oppostion to central rule by the party elite?

The dictatorship of the proletariat is not managed by a daily vote of all the workers in the country. It is managed by the Communist Party which selects its own leaders. The lower levels of the party are elected by local soviets which then delegate authority to the national party.

Lenin, along with most of the Communist Party, considered trade unions to be highly reactionary, primarily due to the narrow, craft interests of the unions. Anyone looking at trade unions, especially in the US, knows how reactionary they are. They are, as Lenin quoted De Leon, lieutenants of the capitalist class (this is why the unions supported the capitalist war against the Vietnamese.) With much opposition from the left communists Lenin advocated an alliance with the unions before and during the revolution. Afterwards, the alliance was no longer needed and the unions were crushed. If worker committees began to develop along the same lines, and they would because of the natural class and competitive economic interests of the worker groups, then they would also be abolished. The factories (especially the smaller ones) were still operated under the conditions inherited from the petit-bourgeois class. Is it any surprise that these factories were taken over and managed by the party?


"Crushed, emasculated, co-opted, repressed, banned..." All of these actions are taken by a dictatorship. The capitalist class does the same thing, although covered with the veil of the liberal democratic state.


Militarization of labour? The Soviet Union was invaded by the Western Alliance from the day it was created; a brutal four year civil war followed; a famine occurred in the early 1920s (and famines were nothing new then); a trade boycott was imposed by the west; constant threats were made to destroy the SU, such as the anti-Comintern Pact; Hitler made his career promising to destroy international bolshevism; (if only Hitler had known the Soviet Union was actually capitalist!); American "heroes" like Lindburg, Henry Ford, were openly fascist and anti-communist; US authorities were arresting, and in some cases, murdering communists. The early stage of Soviet socialism was called "war communism" and the working class was militarized for good reason, the SU was constantly at war.

Lenin did actually begin an attempt to modernize the Soviet economy by bringing market reform, particularly in farming, in the New Economy Program. The Soviet Union became, according to some statistics, the largest grain producer in the world. Of course, most of this production went to speculation on the world market. Stalin, on the other hand, believed only rapid development of large scale industry would protect the SU from destruction by the West. The NEP failed mainly due to the tendency of the peasant, small land-owing class to hoard their grain during shortages. Peasants have been doing this for centuries (they also destroy barrels of milk, throw thousands of pigs into rivers, burn wheat fields.) Capitalists still do it today. The oil industry will purchase millions of barrels of oil on the 'spot' market, put it in tankers offshore, and simply sit on it until prices rise.

Stalin decided, correctly or not, to collectivize everything and impose a real dictatorship on every aspect of Soviet production, from potatoes to vodka to millions of tons of steel. This ended the speculation in grain and attempted to rationalize factory production and distribution. When Hitler invaded, to the delight of the capitalists in the west (and, I suppose, the capitalists in the Communist Party), the SU after 1-2 years was able to produce tanks and airplanes far faster than could the Nazis. Is this how Stalin was able to defeat Hitler? If a German Panzer was coming at me, I would like to have four or five smaller, faster T-34s on my side if I did not have the time or money to produce thousands of Panzers. Also, the Russians were able to move their entire tank production east of the Urals. It is impossible to believe this could have happened without socialist co-ordination.

By the way, if you have never had a loaded gun pointed at your head by someone intent on killing you, don't lecture me about armchair revolutionaries. You are unconvincing.

As far as your claim to believe in transformation, if I am 'dumb' about it then you are idealistically stupid, dense, blind, deaf and dumb about it. For you, the transformation never happens until it is over. Open your eyes and look at the Soviet Union. If you don't see a transformation there, then you can't see anything. Lenin recognized the disorder of juvenile leftism as early as 1905. It is still with us.

God save us from the sincere socialists.

[robbo203]

You are infering more than he says. He never says that lower phase of communism is a classless stateless society. He only says it is a society in which payment is only according to labour. He says nothing about the phasing of communism and the withering away of the state, does the state wither away some time after communism or before? Nor does he address the issue of class relations arising from econmic relationships other than that between capital and labour. Class differentiation between the manual working class and intelligentsia is not dealt with by Marx nor is there any serious treatment of the agrarian question. Nor is there any serious treatment of uneven development on a global scale.


Marx did not say much on a lot of things, granted , but what he did say about communism and the state, we know for sure that he held that these were mutually exclusive. Where there was a state there was no communism. where there was communism there could not be a state. Why? Because according to Marxist theory the state is a product of class society and would perish with the demise of class society. As Engels put it

The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State..
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...-utop/ch03.htm


Everyone in the world plus his or her dog knows this but not Paul Cockshott who presumes to lecture us about Marxism but who repeatedly gives substance to the saying "empty vessels make the most noise".


If the state is an institition of class society then how in the name of all that is holy can the state exist in a society where there are no classes, huh ???


You witter on inanely : "Class differentiation between the manual working class and intelligentsia is not dealt with by Marx nor is there any serious treatment of the agrarian question". But that is NOT what was meant by class in the Marxian sense and even you should by now have grasped this simple point. Class has to do with your relationship to the means of prpdiction - NOT your occupation You are (unsurprisingly) employing a bourgeois sociological concept of class which has got nothing to do with how Marxists view class

In fact in the Critique of the Gotha programme Marx is quite explicit on the subject of class. Communist society in its lower phase " recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. and "Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products;


There is a useful summary of Marx's conception of state (which like commodities and religion he saw as a form of alienation) here:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-832-december-1973/marxs-conception-socialism


I quote from the relevant section:


In these circumstances the State as an instrument of political rule over people would have no place. Such a social organ of coercion was, in Marx's view, only needed in class-divided societies as an instrument of class rule and to contain class struggles. As he put it, in socialist society "there will be no more political power properly so-called since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society" (PP, p. 197) and "the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another" (CM, p. 81).

Socialist society would indeed need a central administration but this would not be a "State" or "government" in that it would not have at its disposal any means of coercing people, but would be concerned purely with administering social affairs under democratic control. Marx endorsed the proposal of Saint Simon and other early critics of capitalism for "the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production" (CM, p. 98), and also declared that "freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it" (CGP, p. 32). In other words, once Socialism had been established and classes abolished, the coercive and undemocratic features of the State machine would have been removed, leaving only purely administrative functions mainly in the field of the planning and organization of production

It seems to me that the basic confusion you and some others here make is the confuse the "lower phase of communism" with the "dictatorship of the proletariat" The latter is a (supposed) transitional period BETWEEN capitalism and communism when the state would indeed exist but I repeat again - this is not to be confused with communism , lower or higher, and Marx's use of the word "between" makes this abundantly clear.




Reality is complex, if you attempt to cram in into simple formulae, it will not fit. So we get apriorist ahistorical nonsense like:

No, under socialism there are no classes, there's no state ownership, there's common ownership

Whereas history teaches, as Mao said that socialism is a long historical period during which classes and class struggle still exist. The point about a scientific theory is to enable you to understand real living history, theory must conform to reality, reality has no obligation to conform to apriori speculation


This is special pleading with a vengeance. You just dont like or want to accept the plain historical fact that in traditional Marxian usage, socialism and communism meant the same thing . So you wriggle and try to ponfitifcate your way out of the intellectual bankrupty that surrounds your whole discredited state capitalist dystopia by airily dismissing what others have to say as...er.... "apriorist ahistorical nonsense". :laugh:


Im not a Maoist and I couldnt care a toss what that particular unsavoury despot had to say about the historical experience of what he presumes to call "socialism." Im using the term socialism in its Marxian sense as a synonym for communism and therefore a society without classes

[RedMaterialist]

An advert just showed up on my revleft page. It shows a working guy holding a carpenter's level with the words: Irwin Tools..Proud Supporters of Our Country's REAL working hands.

I suppose I am the recipient of this nationalistic blurb because I typed in the words "trade union" in my last post. Irwin Industrial Tools (see Wiki) is a classic petit-bourgeois company, they make the famous 'vice-grip' pliers; it closed its US production in 1980 and moved it to China. It supports "our" "REAL" workers by selling them tools produced by "their" "UNREAL" cheap wage workers.

So, after the revolution, how would a state-capitalist, dictatorship of the proletariat, and a True Socialist, deal with this petit-bourgeois company and the reactionary, nationalistic trade union whose members buy their tools from the company?

[Tim Cornelis]

Whereas history teaches, as Mao said that socialism is a long historical period during which classes and class struggle still exist. The point about a scientific theory is to enable you to understand real living history, theory must conform to reality, reality has no obligation to conform to apriori speculation

By the same logic we can claim Sweden to be socialist, as 'a priori speculation' regarding the nature of socialism does not correspond to the 'existing' 'socialism' as manifested in Sweden. Of course, this presupposes that the experiments of China and Russia were socialistic.

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE] Where there was a state there was no communism. where there was communism there could not be a state. Why? Because according to Marxist theory the state is a product of class society and would perish with the demise of class society. As Engels put it[I]

Why then did Marx advocate the dictatorship of the proletariat?

How long do you think the average "dictatorship of the proletariat" will last and what kind of economic relations of production will dominate during the dictatorship?




You just dont like or want to accept the plain historical fact that in traditional Marxian usage, socialism and communism meant the same thing .

It is true that Marx did not distinguish between socialism and communism. That distinction arose historically from the plain historical concrete facts and conditions existing during the 1905 and 1917 Russian Revolutions and from the experience of the Soviet Union directly after the revolution.

It is clear as crystal that Marx saw a transition from capitalism to communism. This period he called the dictatorship of the proletariat. During that period he saw that the economic relations of production would include some capitalist characteristics, wage-labor (unequal pay for unequal work) in particular. Socialism is part of the initial stage of the transformation to communism. This is why it is a complete contradiction for the Chinese to claim to be a Communist State. They are a socialist state, managed as a dictatorship, with some capitalist characteristics, in the transition to communism. This is also why the western liberal welfare state is engaged in an extremely slow transition to socialism. The idea of national health care in the U.S. was unthinkable even 30 yrs ago (Reagan called it in the form of Medicare "socialized" medicine. a)

To say now, 125 years after the death of Marx, that the words socialism and communism always and everywhere have the same meaning, is a denial of historical development as well as a distortion of Marxist thought into religious dogma. Marx would not appreciate being made a fetish.

But all this is mere speculation and analysis. What is to be done right now?

[RedMaterialist]

By the same logic we can claim Sweden to be socialist, as 'a priori speculation' regarding the nature of socialism does not correspond to the 'existing' 'socialism' as manifested in Sweden. Of course, this presupposes that the experiments of China and Russia were socialistic.

I would say Sweden is socialist "light." Measuring it scientifically, as it were, on a scale of 1-10, pure capitalism being 1 and pure communism being 10. Sweden in 1850 would be a 1, in 1920, a 1.5, and 1940, a 2, 1980, a 3, today a 3.5. The scale between 2-9 are the transition stages of socialism to communism. Simplistic? The thermometer is simplistic, but it works.

The scale can be reversed or slowed down, thus Hitler and his bastard daughters Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.

[Tim Cornelis]

I would say Sweden is socialist "light." Measuring it scientifically, as it were, on a scale of 1-10, pure capitalism being 1 and pure communism being 10. Sweden in 1850 would be a 1, in 1920, a 1.5, and 1940, a 2, 1980, a 3, today a 3.5. The scale between 2-9 are the transition stages of socialism to communism. Simplistic? The thermometer is simplistic, but it works.

The scale can be reversed or slowed down, thus Hitler and his bastard daughters Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.

This is the root of the problem: idealism. Different gradations of socialism in its development toward it negates materialism entirely. To continue this discussion we first need to change your entire methodical paradigm. A transition toward a different mode of production (the socialist one in this context) is not subject to policy, but rather class struggle. Such a paradigm shift will not happen out of this discussion, and it will be an upward sloping discussion so I'm just going to leave it at this.

And just because you randomly relegate this or that does not make "scientific" and it doesn't work. Incidentally, Sweden has neoliberalised considerably since the 1970s, reducing social welfare and so forth.




Why then did Marx advocate the dictatorship of the proletariat?

The dictatorship is a political stage, and it 'oversees' capitalist remnants. It dies out when communism is realised.


How long do you think the average "dictatorship of the proletariat" will last and what kind of economic relations of production will dominate during the dictatorship?

This is impossible to determine. An array of factors weigh into the longevity of the the workers' state, with economic development, degree of reaction, and isolation coming to mind.


It is clear as crystal that Marx saw a transition from capitalism to communism. This period he called the dictatorship of the proletariat. During that period he saw that the economic relations of production would include some capitalist characteristics, wage-labor (unequal pay for unequal work) in particular.

That's not wage-labour, that's a wage system. Wage-labour means selling your labour-power to an employer. This certainly isn't a characteristic of the workers' state, it's what the workers' state combats.


Socialism is part of the initial stage of the transformation to communism. This is why it is a complete contradiction for the Chinese to claim to be a Communist State.

Did they ever do that?


They are a socialist state, managed as a dictatorship, with some capitalist characteristics, in the transition to communism. This is also why the western liberal welfare state is engaged in an extremely slow transition to socialism. The idea of national health care in the U.S. was unthinkable even 30 yrs ago (Reagan called it in the form of Medicare "socialized" medicine. a)

This is wrong, and stems from an idealist paradigm, one I cannot begin to challenge even.


To say now, 125 years after the death of Marx, that the words socialism and communism always and everywhere have the same meaning, is a denial of historical development as well as a distortion of Marxist thought into religious dogma. Marx would not appreciate being made a fetish.


Of course they do not mean the same in the popular mind. But from a materialist perspective they do.

[Paul Cockshott]

By the same logic we can claim Sweden to be socialist, as 'a priori speculation' regarding the nature of socialism does not correspond to the 'existing' 'socialism' as manifested in Sweden. Of course, this presupposes that the experiments of China and Russia were socialistic.

Well one has to take the meaning of socialism or communism as understood by the socialist political parties of the working class. This has entailed as its prime objective the public ownership of the means of production. This was true of documents as varied as the Communist Manifesto, the Erfurt Programme, the 1897 Swedish social democrat programme, the British Labour Party Clause IV.

The exact form of public ownership was explicit in the case of the Communist Manifesto - ownership by the workers state.


We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible

A similar formulation was used by the Swedish Social Democracy, clearly modelled on the Communist Manifesto:

The social democracy therefore wants to enforce also the political organisation of the working class, take possession of the public power and gradually transform to common property all means of production — the means of transportation, the forests, the mines, the mills, the machines, the factories, the earth.

From the 1920s on we started to see societies in which these programmatic aims were put into practice, in which private ownership of the means of production was abolished. These societies are the ones that we can study to gain an understanding of the socialist mode of production. The Social Democracy of Sweden was indeed the second social democratic party, after the Russian Social Democracy, to take power and hold it for a prolonged period. But before it came to power Swedish Social democracy had abandoned the objective or socialism in the sense of public ownership. What it administered was an economy the was predominantly privately owned. The Swedish economy was not a socialist economy in the sense that the USSR, CSSR, DDR etc were, and the political leadership of Swedish Social democracy never claimed that it was.

[Paul Cockshott]

I would say Sweden is socialist "light." Measuring it scientifically, as it were, on a scale of 1-10, pure capitalism being 1 and pure communism being 10. Sweden in 1850 would be a 1, in 1920, a 1.5, and 1940, a 2, 1980, a 3, today a 3.5. The scale between 2-9 are the transition stages of socialism to communism. Simplistic? The thermometer is simplistic, but it works.

The scale can be reversed or slowed down, thus Hitler and his bastard daughters Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher.

I would say that Sweden has moved backwards since the 1980s with the election of a series of conservative governments.

[robbo203]

Well one has to take the meaning of socialism or communism as understood by the socialist political parties of the working class. This has entailed as its prime objective the public ownership of the means of production. This was true of documents as varied as the Communist Manifesto, the Erfurt Programme, the 1897 Swedish social democrat programme, the British Labour Party Clause IV.

The exact form of public ownership was explicit in the case of the Communist Manifesto - ownership by the workers state

There is a big difference between advocating such reformists measures as mentioned in the Communist Manifesto (which Marx and Engels later more or less repudiated in their 1872 Preface stating that "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today") and describing the kind of society in which such measures were enacted as somehow "socialist" or "communist". State ownership has got nothing to do with social or common ownership. They are totally different things.

Marx and Engels were clear that communism - aka socialism as far as they were concerned - would be a stateless classless moneyless society based on the common ownership of the means of production. In no way did they ever consider centralisation of the means of production in the hands of the state as socialism . Whether or not you agree with this nationalisation proposal of theirs - and I dont - they had no illusions that nationalisation or state ownership was anything other than capitalism.. Centralisation of the means of the production in the hands of the state was purely a transitional measure en route to socialism. It was not socialism itself.

Incidentally, the Nazis called themselves "National Socialists". Does Cockshott consider that they were socialists of a sort because they self-defined themselves in this way and were regarded by many of their opponents too as exemplars of "socialism"

[Zulu]

Centralisation of the means of the production in the hands of the state was purely a transitional measure en route to socialism. It was not socialism itself.
And that is exactly how any Comintern-aligned commie has understood the term "socialism", ever since Lenin's "State&Revolution". Not a full synonym to the term "communism", but as its lower stage, a period of transition from capitalism (in the form of its highest stage called "imperialism") to "complete" communism, which alone (as opposed to the transitional period of socialism) is a "stateless classless moneyless society based on [perfectly] common ownership". (BTW, the clause "moneyless" can be left out now, that the present imperialist society has already become moneyless in the Marxist meaning of the term "money".)

Therefore, instead of arguing on the essence of the matter you basically kick down the strawman every time you pronounce that "Stalinists" lie about the socialist "nature of the USSR". Because in the "Stalinist" tongue what you say sounds like "USSR was not communist", and the "Stalinists" can't but wholeheartedly agree with you on this particular issue. Even the "victory of socialism" was not and could never be "final" in a separate country. (So you might want to add the clause "global" to the list of features obligatory to recite every time about the bright communist future.)




Incidentally, the Nazis called themselves "National Socialists". Does Cockshott consider that they were socialists of a sort because they self-defined themselves in this way and were regarded by many of their opponents too as exemplars of "socialism"

Yes, the Nazis are an example of a "reactionary socialism" or a combination of it with "conservative/bourgeois socialism" as per Chapter III of "The Communist Manifesto" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm).

There have been other instances of "national socialism" which were not so explicitly violent due to the smaller productive forces at their disposal. I mean, for instance, the "Arab Socialism". The particular Gaddafi variety of it even included anarchistic (Bakunite) elements. But, of course, these are mere ideologies, which put some sort of morality ahead of economic material basis of society, so the states run by the exponents of these ideologies could never depart from some kind of capitalist economy. Unlike the USSR.

[Paul Cockshott]

There is a big difference between advocating such reformists measures as mentioned in the Communist Manifesto (which Marx and Engels later more or less repudiated in their 1872 Preface stating that "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today")

This is a paper thin basis to build a doctrine on. That Engels said he would have worded a passage in the manifesto differently!
Differently in what way?
He does not say, but we are not obliged to assume that he 'repudiated' the Communist Manifesto. If he wanted to radically repudiate it he should have openly said so, or be guilty or rank dishonesty. So since you do not agree with the Communist Manifesto, you project your repudiation of it onto poor Engels.
For all we know, the 'different wording', might have been towards a less revolutionary set of demands along the lines of the more watered down programmes that were being put forward by the German social democrats. Or for that matter the relatively modest programme drafted by Marx for the French Worker's Party.

[robbo203]

And that is exactly how any Comintern-aligned commie has understood the term "socialism", ever since Lenin's "State&Revolution". Not a full synonym to the term "communism", but as its lower stage, a period of transition from capitalism (in the form of its highest stage called "imperialism") to "complete" communism, which alone (as opposed to the transitional period of socialism) is a "stateless classless moneyless society based on [perfectly] common ownership".

Quite. And this basically confirms my point that this particular usage of the term socialism as a transitional stage before communism is a leninist invention (as you put, "ever since Lenin's "State&Revolution") and has thus nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional Marxian usage according to which socialism and communism were interchangeable synonyms and state ownership had nothing to do with either. Even under the so called proletarian state there is still capitalism, as Marxists would see it. How could it not be, the proletariat being a class category of capitalism and the state being proof positives of the existence of economic classes and therefore economic exploitation



Yes, the Nazis are an example of a "reactionary socialism" or a combination of it with "conservative/bourgeois socialism" as per Chapter III of "The Communist Manifesto" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm).


Any sympathetic reading of Chapter 3 of the Communist Manifesto would come to the conclusion that Marx and Engels were simply being ironic in their reference to various forms of "reactionary socialism". They were emphatically not according legitimacy to claims of these various reactionary expressions of "socialism" to be socialist but on the contrary were intent on showing how despite their claim to be socialist they were far from that. They took those claims at face value and showed them to be false in other words


So for example on "bourgeois socialism" we find them saying

"Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech.

Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant word of bourgeois socialism."

Bourgeois socialism in other words is not socialist at all but a fraud claiming to be socialist . A "mere figure of speech"


That apart there is a basic misunderstanding in that "socialism" actually descibes a system of society whereas the various forms of reactionary socialism are idelogical expressions

[robbo203]

This is a paper thin basis to build a doctrine on. That Engels said he would have worded a passage in the manifesto differently!
Differently in what way?
He does not say, but we are not obliged to assume that he 'repudiated' the Communist Manifesto. If he wanted to radically repudiate it he should have openly said so, or be guilty or rank dishonesty. So since you do not agree with the Communist Manifesto, you project your repudiation of it onto poor Engels.
For all we know, the 'different wording', might have been towards a less revolutionary set of demands along the lines of the more watered down programmes that were being put forward by the German social democrats. Or for that matter the relatively modest programme drafted by Marx for the French Worker's Party.


You need to read more carefully. I did not say he repudiated the Manifesto. What I was referring to was the ten reformist measures at the end of chapter 2 of the Manifesto about which he (and Marx - who was still alive) said "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today

It is very clear what they were getting at even if that makes uncomfortable reading from your own state capitalist perspective. This is demonstrated in the sentence that immediately follows the one above i.e.

That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated.



The original 1848 manifesto had stated

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.


The reference to the "gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848" would seem to suggest that the centralisation of the means of production allegedly to assist the development of the productive forces, was significantly less pressing in 1872 then it was in 1848 and of course by the turn of the century, there was no case at all for the advocacy of state capitalist measures en route to socialism - if there ever was.

Today over 160 years after the Manifesot, the advocacy of state capitalism in any shape or form is downright reactionary

[Paul Cockshott]

That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated.



The original 1848 manifesto had stated

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.


The reference to the "gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848" would seem to suggest that the centralisation of the means of production allegedly to assist the development of the productive forces, was significantly less pressing in 1872 then it was in 1848 and of course by the turn of the century, there was no case at all for the advocacy of state capitalist measures en route to socialism - if there ever was.

By 1872 industrialisation had advanced significantly in Germany, but Germany and France were not the whole world Whilst the productive forces in Germany might have looked impressive to Engels in 1872, they would look pretty meagre by mid 20th century standards, so the idea that there was no longer a need to develop the productive forces is ridiculous. If state ownership was necessary to develop the productive forces in Germany in 1848, it still was in most countries in 1872, and unless one wanted to stagnate at 1870s living standards, it was in Germany too.

But you can plausibly argue that the point about forming industrial armies was no longer necessary due to fact that an industrial working class was already coming into existence in Germany.



Today over 160 years after the Manifesot, the advocacy of state capitalism in any shape or form is downright reactionary
Well I am not advocating state capitalism but socialism, which does involve public ownership of the means of production and central planning.

If you think there is a difference between state ownership and public ownership let us see you spell out what the difference is, and the precise institutional form of public ownership you advocate.

[Zulu]

Bourgeois socialism in other words is not socialist at all but a fraud claiming to be socialist . A "mere figure of speech"


The same can be said about any socialism that disavows the method of central planning as pivotal for the society that is to emerge after the capitalist mode of production is done away with.

This, BTW gives certain ground for different von Hayeks to call the Nazis "genuine socialists" pointing to the central planning that was increasingly taking over the economy of the Nazi Germany. However, the difference is that for the Communists establishing a system of central planning is a programmatic aim, because they know for sure it is more efficient than any kind of exchange economy (at least after a certain level of scientific-technological development is achieved), while the Nazis learned this the hard way after plunging themselves into an extremely disadvantageous position of waging a war against the whole world.

[Martin Blank]

What a horribly long thread for such a simple question.

The USSR was state-capitalist because it couldn't be anything else. The October Revolution put Russia in the transition between two distinct modes of production: capitalism and communism. There is no intermediate, "socialist" mode of production that stands between the two (in spite of what Stalin said). It was impossible for the Soviet economy to progress beyond the highest level of capitalist development -- state monopoly capitalism -- without the success of revolutions in the Great Power centers. The failure of international extension meant that the most the USSR could achieve was a highly modified form of state capitalism, with a few minor elements that would be common to the communist mode of production grafted on.

The real question, when it comes to the USSR, is: Which class ruled?

[RedMaterialist]

The real question, when it comes to the USSR, is: Which class ruled?

The Communist Party ruled directly in the name of the working class. In the U.S. the capitalist class rules indirectly and behind the facade of the democratic state. This explains why the capitalist class constantly denounces the government while at the same time it manages the economy through the same government. They say, "Government is the problem, when if fact it is the government which manages the "affairs of the bourgeoisie."

There is a clear distinction between private ownership of the means of production and state ownership. For instance, the pension insurance sector in the U.S. used to be completely privately owned and worked well for the wealthy and upper middle class. In 1933-35 Roosevelt created the Social Security system, a system used in almost all modern welfare states. It is an old-age pension insurance plan which keeps millions of elderly citizens out of abject poverty. I see it working every day. It is owned by the citizens of the United States, funded by them, and managed for them by the State. It is a means of production, pension insurance, socially owned. It is also underfunded and constantly under attack by the capitalist class.

As far as Hitler being a national socialist, he was the pre-eminent Orwellian leader in history. He said, "I am a socialist," in reality he was a barbaric anti-socialist fascist. The Hitler type was predicted by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto:

(From the Chapter, German or 'True Socialism')

"To preserve this class [the petty bourgeoisie] is to preserve the existing state of things in Germany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie threatens it with certain destruction — on the one hand, from the concentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a revolutionary proletariat. “True” Socialism appeared to kill these two birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic...

"And on its part German Socialism recognised, more and more, its own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty-bourgeois Philistine...

"It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of this model man, it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature.(3)" (my emphasis)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm

What is this but an incredibly accurate description of the Nazis?


The real question in the state capitalism, socialism debate is whether there is any real distinction between private property and public property.

[Thirsty Crow]

The Communist Party ruled directly in the name of the working class.
A section of the working class substituting itself for the class itself, giving rise to class division due to the crucial difference in the relation to the means of production, although the formation of the ruling class hasn't exhibited the characteristics that were historically present in what people perceive as capitalism proper. You should really think about the division of labour and its potential to serve as the basis of class division.

Finally, I think it is clear that a stateless, classless society, the prospect for its creation, is antithetical to this process of substitutionism. So the real question in fact is "was there class division in the former USSR".

[robbo203]

Well I am not advocating state capitalism but socialism, which does involve public ownership of the means of production and central planning.

If you think there is a difference between state ownership and public ownership let us see you spell out what the difference is, and the precise institutional form of public ownership you advocate.


There is a huge difference between common ownership and state ownership and this has been explained to you umpteen times, seemingly to no avail. You may well believe that you are advocating socialism but you are not.


The quickest way of cutting through the crap and getting to the gist of the matter is to explain that common ownership is logically completely incompatible with economic exchange and therefore any kind of exchange-related phenomena such as wages, buying and selling, profits etc etc all of which, needless to say, exist and have existed under a system of state-run capitalism - what you call "socialism". Why? Because economic exchange is based on the mutual exclusivity of property rights involved in any market transaction. What is being exchanged are property rights which by definition signifies the non-existence of common ownership. It is absurd to posit having to buy something which is already your in the first place - which is precisely why Marx and Engels called for the "communistic abolition of buying and selling" (Communist Manifesto)

What you call "public ownership" (under state capitalism) is an utter fraud. The public do NOTown the means of production. What is the difference between your relation as a member of the public (whether as a worker or a conumser) to , say, a nationalised indiustry like the old British Railways and todays' privatised raliways? The answer is absolutely zilch! You have never ever engaged with this argument preferring to hide behind dogmatic assertions that the Soviet Union must be socialist becuase it called itself so. Im more interestsed in the underlying logic of your argument which in your case, Im afraid, is conspicuously lacking


How you plan in a socialist society is a somewhat different matter. If you mean by "central planning" the idea of one single gigantic that plans in advance the production targets of millions of inter-linked inputs and outputs in the appropriate ratios then sorry to disillusion you but there is no way that this little fairly tale is ever gonna happen - whether in socialism or any other kind of advanced industrialised society.

As a matter of fact even if it were remotely possible there are very strong grounds for saying that it would still be totally incompatible with the nature of a socialist society nevertheless. But that is probably the subject of another thread.....

[Brotto Rühle]

Read state and revolution today. Poorly written, flawed and whatnot...but...uh...nowhere does Lenin call socialism the transition to communism... he in fact emphasizes that it is classless, and therefore the state is withered away... Do you Stalinists actually read Lenin, or just...assume stuff?

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]There is a huge difference between common ownership and state ownership and this has been explained to you umpteen times, seemingly to no avail.

I think the question is what is the difference between private ownership and public ownership.


the idea of one single gigantic that plans in advance the production targets of millions of inter-linked inputs and outputs in the appropriate ratios then sorry to disillusion you but there is no way that this little fairly tale is ever gonna happen - whether in socialism or any other kind of advanced industrialised society.


This kind of planning already exists and is spectacularly successful: gigantic corporations like Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, Exxonmobile, etc. all plan their production, advertising, distribution as far in advance as possible and down to the last penny or even hundreth of a penny or fraction of a second of labor time. Nothing is left to the "freedom" of the market; the free market is left to the little guys and to professional apologists for capitalism, like Milton Friedman. See J. Kenneth Galbreath's The New Industrial State,; I know he is a bourgeois, Keynesian, economist, etc.

What has made this planning possible is the modern supercomputer.

And inevitably, the modern state takes on the characteristics of the underlying structure, i.e., it begins itself to centrally plan. It took less than a millioneth of a second to transfer trillions of dollars to Wall Street in October of 2008.

A triumph of central planning. Of course it was done for the banks and not for the people.

[robbo203]

Read state and revolution today. Poorly written, flawed and whatnot...but...uh...nowhere does Lenin call socialism the transition to communism... he in fact emphasizes that it is classless, and therefore the state is withered away... Do you Stalinists actually read Lenin, or just...assume stuff?

Not quite sure which "Stalinist" you are referring but, for what is worth, here are one or two quotes from State and Revolution which somewhat contradict what you are saying

Accounting and control--that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state “syndicate”. All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay


That doesnt sound very much like the state has disappeared in Lenin's version of socialism which he called the "first phase of communist society" - a distinction which never existed in Marx's writings. Lenin invented this distinction. Once again from The State and Revolution:


"But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word “communism” is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism."


What with everyone being employed by the state it doesnt sound even remotely like stateless classless commuinsim at all.


Of course The State and Revolution was not the only attempt on the part of Lenin to define - or, rather, redefine - socialism . Here's another from The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It,(1917)

"socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly".


How socialism can be both "the lower phase of communiusm" AND a "state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people" is anyone's guess.


To ram the point home - Lenin was an admirer of big banks those arch capitalist insitutions despised by socialists (he also admired scientific Taylorism - the science of how to screw your workforce which capitalist like Henry Ford put to good use)

Here's what he said about big banks in Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power

"Without big banks socialism would be impossible. The big banks are the "state apparatus" which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready-made from capitalism;..A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus" (Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? October 1, 1917 Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972, pp. 87-136).


So lets recap - according to you, Lenin considered socialism to be a classless society in which the state has withered away, But now we see, to the contrary, that for Lenin socialism was:


A state capitalist monopoly run in the interests oif the whole people


A society in which everyone would be employed by the state i.,e. there is still wage labour


A society in which big banks will constitute 9/10s of the socialist apparatus meaning there will still be money, buying and selling , profit, interest all the other paraphenalia of a capitalist exchange economy. And friggin bankers!


And to think there are still people around who think Leninism is some kind of updated version of Marxism:rolleyes:

[robbo203]

This kind of planning already exists and is spectacularly successful: gigantic corporations like Microsoft, Apple, Walmart, Exxonmobile, etc. all plan their production, advertising, distribution as far in advance as possible and down to the last penny or even hundreth of a penny or fraction of a second of labor time. Nothing is left to the "freedom" of the market; the free market is left to the little guys and to professional apologists for capitalism, like Milton Friedman. See J. Kenneth Galbreath's The New Industrial State,; I know he is a bourgeois, Keynesian, economist, etc.

What has made this planning possible is the modern supercomputer.

And inevitably, the modern state takes on the characteristics of the underlying structure, i.e., it begins itself to centrally plan. It took less than a millioneth of a second to transfer trillions of dollars to Wall Street in October of 2008.

A triumph of central planning. Of course it was done for the banks and not for the people.


For heaven's sake read what I said. Planning within gigantic corporations has no bearing whatsoever on the definition of central planning I provided which is in fact the classical defintion of central planning - one big society wide plan covering literally everything

[RedMaterialist]

For heaven's sake read what I said. Planning within gigantic corporations has no bearing whatsoever on the definition of central planning I provided which is in fact the classical defintion of central planning - one big society wide plan covering literally everything

What is the difference between central planning within a gigantic, world-wide monopoly corporation and central planning by a large, complex state? By who does the planning? What is the difference between a corporate bureaucrat or technocrat and a government bureaucrat or technocrat? Nowadays they all move back and forth between the government and the corporations, at least in the U.S. Or whether it is done for production of monopoly profit or to protect monopoly profit, or maybe to benefit the people as a whole? Who gave us the "classical" definition of central planning?

[RedMaterialist]

How socialism can be both "the lower phase of communiusm" AND a "state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people" is anyone's guess.


Lenin did not say the two were the same system; he said that socialism was a step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Lenin was able to produce a great expansion of Marxist thought: he saw that the concept of socialism had evolved into an early stage in the development of communism.

As Lenin said, "Two steps forward, one step back." Or Trotsky, "Uneven development." I think it is true to say that Lenin was first a revolutionary and secondly a socialist manager. Marx never made this transition because all the revolutions he had witnessed or participated in had failed. He simply had no concrete experience to develop a theory of socialism which transforms into communism. Even Engels who lived until late into the 19th century was unable to foresee the development of a "state" which could be anything other than a capitalist state. The Soviet Union was clearly a completely new experiment in human history.

[RedMaterialist]

And to think there are still people around who think Leninism is some kind of updated version of Marxism:rolleyes:

Ahh...not an updated version, a revolutionary expansion of Marxism.

[Martin Blank]

The Communist Party ruled directly in the name of the working class.

The Republican and Democratic parties rule directly in the name of "the people". Does this make the American government class-neutral? You need to look past the parties and analyze the class character of the state -- whom the armed bodies of police, military, courts, etc., serve.

[RedMaterialist]

The Republican and Democratic parties rule directly in the name of "the people". Does this make the American government class-neutral? You need to look past the parties and analyze the class character of the state -- whom the armed bodies of police, military, courts, etc., serve.

The capitalists rule indirectly through the liberal democratic state because American society is based on the class rule of the capitalists. The Soviet Union was also based on class rule, the proletariat class ruled over Russian society through the Communist Party. The armed bodies of the American police, military, courts, etc. serve the class interests of the American capitalist class. What class interests did the Soviet Communist Party serve? And the Soviet government did serve a class interest, that is what made it a state.

What was the class make-up of the Soviet Union? There were the peasants who worked on farms (sometimes commune type farms, before collectivization,) there were the Kulaks, the "rich" large farm owners, there was a huge class of small business people, the petit-bourgeoisie, then a relatively small working class, or proletariat. The November 1917 Russian Revolution was led and won by the working class, through its leaders, such as Lenin, in the Communist Party. Is it really surprising that the Communist Party then ruled Russia as a dictatorship of the proletariat? After all, they won the revolution.

[robbo203]

Lenin did not say the two were the same system; he said that socialism was a step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Lenin was able to produce a great expansion of Marxist thought: he saw that the concept of socialism had evolved into an early stage in the development of communism.

As Lenin said, "Two steps forward, one step back." Or Trotsky, "Uneven development." I think it is true to say that Lenin was first a revolutionary and secondly a socialist manager. Marx never made this transition because all the revolutions he had witnessed or participated in had failed. He simply had no concrete experience to develop a theory of socialism which transforms into communism. Even Engels who lived until late into the 19th century was unable to foresee the development of a "state" which could be anything other than a capitalist state. The Soviet Union was clearly a completely new experiment in human history.

I ve come across the claim once before from someone else on this list. Its is bogus. Lenin's words were:

"socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly".

pou can't get round thre fact that what is being said here is

socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people


This seems to contradict what he said about socialism being the "next step forward" from state capitalist monopoly but it is not becuase what Lenin is really saying here is that there are two kinds of state capitalist monopoly. Indeed. this point was further developed by Lenin at the Third Congress Of The Communist International in June 22-July 12, 1921 when he declared:


But state capitalism in a society where power belongs to capital, and state capitalism in a proletarian state, are two different concepts. In a capitalist state, state capitalism means that it is recognised by the state and controlled by it for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, and to the detriment of the proletariat. In the proletarian state, the same thing is done for the benefit of the working class, for the purpose of withstanding the as yet strong bourgeoisie, and of fighting it.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jun/12.htm)


Marx, of course, never developed a theory of socialism which transforms into communism. for ther simple reason that he never distinguised between socialism and communism -that was Lenin's invention

And as for your claim that the moderrn could be anything other than a capitalist state that is, of course, complete nonsense . The Soviet Union was a completely new experiment in human history only in the sense that it was a new kind of capitalist state

[Martin Blank]

What class interests did the Soviet Communist Party serve?

You answer the question yourself.


What was the class make-up of the Soviet Union? There were the peasants who worked on farms (sometimes commune type farms, before collectivization,) there were the Kulaks, the "rich" large farm owners, there was a huge class of small business people, the petit-bourgeoisie, then a relatively small working class, or proletariat.

The 1917 October Revolution was led by the working class, but they were not able to hold on to power. The leading sections of the proletariat were liquidated during the Civil War period -- those who did not march off and die in the war were brought into the state apparatus and integrated into the class of petty-bourgeois "specialists", managers and police resurrected from among the (briefly) dispossessed elements of the old tsarist regime.

By the end of the Civil War, the central "Soviet government" in Moscow had wrested political power from the working class. The Factory-Shop Committees had been liquidated, with individual managers and state ministers in control (and "workers' control" reduced to the unions acting as police on the shop floor enforcing "labor discipline" and Taylorism). The local soviets had lost all measure of independence, becoming extensions of the RCP(b) (and most non-Party workers walking away from the charade). Even the Congress of Soviets and All-Russian C.E.C. lost its powers, with the Sovnarkom being reorganized and run like a bourgeois cabinet. The RSFSR/USSR was a bureaucratized workers' republic with a kind of "dual power" existing between the working class and the petty bourgeoisie.

The initiation of "reforms" under the Stalin regime in 1931 (cutting the connection between local soviets and the central government, the end of the equalization of wages, etc.), ending with the 1936 "Stalin Constitution", saw the end of the workers' republic, with the petty bourgeoisie holding unchallenged state power as a kind of bureaucratic socialism on top of a state-capitalist economy.

The AUCP(b), later the CPSU, had become the central political instrument of the petty bourgeoisie, using its party machinery for the selection and preparation of managers, bureaucrats and police agents. This arrangement, inherently unstable, only began to change after the Second World War, as the influx of resources and productive capacity resulting from the defeat of the Axis allowed the bureaucracy to become relatively self-sustaining.

[robbo203]

What is the difference between central planning within a gigantic, world-wide monopoly corporation and central planning by a large, complex state? By who does the planning? What is the difference between a corporate bureaucrat or technocrat and a government bureaucrat or technocrat? Nowadays they all move back and forth between the government and the corporations, at least in the U.S. Or whether it is done for production of monopoly profit or to protect monopoly profit, or maybe to benefit the people as a whole? Who gave us the "classical" definition of central planning?

You dont know what you are talking about becuase you dont understand what is being proposed by the concept of society wide centralised planning. Yes of course every business entity in the world "plans" - including big corporations. However central planning in its classic sense means the planning of the interactions between the millions upon millions of plans that exist in the world today in the sense that they no longer constitute separate plans but are absorbed into a single society wide apriori plan covering literally everything.

What this means in effect is that single plan would have to work out in advance a a total global target for every single product in existence right down to your humble 2 inch copper screw. It would have to calculate in advance using the known technical ratios how much copper would be needed to produce let us say, 10 million of such screws. Since copper is used in all sorts of other applications, the total planned output of coppper would have to be calculated with these other uses in mind as well, And since mining copper itself depends on millions of inputs. the produiction target of each of these inputs would have calculated in advance too taking into account also their other multiple uses.

You would end up with a super gigantic input output matrix which even if some super-computer could figure out the numbers - the production targets for millions upon millions of different items - has absolutely zero chance of ever being implemented. Why? Becuase the slightest deviation from the planned target for any one of these millions of items has ripple effects throught the economy that completely undermine the coherece of the plan. If only 9.5 million 2 inch screws were produced that would mean some end use somewhere = for example the output of bedside cabinets - would not be able to meet its prucdction targets. There would be a surplus of wood lying around for the cabinets becuase of the lack of screws if you get my drift


Central planning in this classic sense is thus a literal impossiblility but the corrollary of that is that any kind of advanced economy has to have some kind of feedback mechanism to work, In fact even the big corporations you speak of are nowhere near as centralised as you claim but depend upon a degree of decentralisation and devolution and even an element of internal marketing. Practical expediency requires a significant degree of spontaneity in the way a mutitutde of plkans interact. This will be the case in socialism except it wont happen at all via the market. Planning under Soviet state capitalism was a joke. No GOSPLAN was ever strictly meet. The targets were regularly revised to makie it look like the plan was being fulfilled. In reality , the plan in "soviet central planning" was little more than a wishlist of things the planners wanted to produced. ice. Soviet capitalism guided the plan, not the other way round

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]What class interest did the Communist Party serve?


You answer the question yourself.

The interests of the proletariat class. The rest of your post fairly well describes how a dictatorship works.

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE] What this means in effect is that single plan would have to work out in advance a a total global target for every single product in existence right down to your humble 2 inch copper screw. It would have to calculate in advance using the known technical ratios how much copper would be needed to produce let us say, 10 million of such screws.

And that is exactly what is done right now. An exact tonnage of copper is mined in Chile, Australia, Zimbabwe, and dozens of other countries. It is shipped on hundreds of cargo vessels on exact schedules to steel mills in China, India, and elsewhere. The steel is milled to exact specifications and then shipped to production factories usually in third world countries. The people in those factories are forced to produce an exact number of screws in an exact period of time. Then an exact number of screws are shipped to millions of Walmart and Home Depot stores and other retailers around the world. All of this is coordinated or 'mediated' by computer. The distribution is carefully monitored to ensure no excess supply of screws, otherwise the price for a pound of screws would be a few cents or pence.

This system has made a very few people fantastically rich. The problem of the capitalist nature of the system, as is well known, is that whenever demand falls over a long enough time then the whole system comes crashing down. If houses are not being built, nobody wants to use the screws. Or more importantly, if employment rises due to the system working as designed, then wages rise and profits fall. When profits fall enough capital leaves that production process or even withdraws completely from the market. Right now, for instance, there are 25 trillions dollars tied up in one bank in New York. Capitalists cannot transform the money into capital. This is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, at least in my reading of Marx.

The socialist system, of course, says that a rational producer, the state, will operate the same system for society as a whole, rather than for the profit of a very few people. It is an illusion to believe that one day the entire machinery of capital production and distribution will simply disappear. Socialists must understand that they must be willing to take over that machine and use it for social production. Then the next stage is to reorganize the factories solely for administration of the things themselves rather than of people.

[Tim Cornelis]

[QUOTE=Martin Blank;2656938]





The interests of the proletariat class. The rest of your post fairly well describes how a dictatorship works.

First of all, how can we determine who rules in the interests of the proletariat?
Secondly, I don't consider it relevant as it is subjective, and the objective conditions determine the social form of existence. If purport to rule on behalf of the proletariat, in their interests, but this rule recreates class dynamics then the objective conditions are that of class rule over the proletariat.

[robbo203]

And that is exactly what is done right now. An exact tonnage of copper is mined in Chile, Australia, Zimbabwe, and dozens of other countries. It is shipped on hundreds of cargo vessels on exact schedules to steel mills in China, India, and elsewhere. The steel is milled to exact specifications and then shipped to production factories usually in third world countries. The people in those factories are forced to produce an exact number of screws in an exact period of time. Then an exact number of screws are shipped to millions of Walmart and Home Depot stores and other retailers around the world. All of this is coordinated or 'mediated' by computer. The distribution is carefully monitored to ensure no excess supply of screws, otherwise the price for a pound of screws would be a few cents or pence.


No no no - you really dont understand, do you? This is not what is meant by central planning - at least in it its classic sense. Each production unit in the chain you have described responds to orders for its particular products and in turn places orders for inputs with production units further up the chain. The production unit providing the input further up the chain could be providing inputs for hundreds or thousands of other clients as well. It is neither here nor there that an "exact" number of screws are shipped to Walmart. Obviously if Walmart are placing an order with the manufacturers of screws they will want to give an exact figure of how many they require.

But the point is that it is Walmart that comes up with a figure for the number of screws it needs (and even Walmart cannot be certain the figure is correct since it will depend on the rate of uptake of screws by Walmarts customers). It not some mythical over-arching central planning body which determines not only how many 2 inch screws Walmart shall be allocated but also how many tonnes of steel shall be manufactured and how much ore shall be mined. The overall pattern of supply-demand interactions cannot possibly be planned in advance in that sense. It is arrived at through a process of spontaneous adjustment affecting millions upon millions of diffrents kinds of items of all shapes sizes and colours

There is in other words , an automatic feedback mechanism in place by which the parts of the system adjust to each other. What they are doing when they adjust to each other is "planning". The manufacturer receives an order for X number of screws. What he or she then has to do is assemble the materials and manpower required to meet that order. He or she reacts or responds to what others want ...


In classic central planning there is no reactive response whatsoever, no spontaneous adjustment, no feedback mechanism. It is simply an idealised abstract construct which is incapable of real world application. It posits that everything - and I mean literally everything - should be incorporated in a single gigantic society wide plan - and that production targets for each and every single item should be worked out in advance using known technical ratios e.g. how many tonnes of X is required to produce how many items of Y.

It is a hopelessly impossible task. Yes computers can make very sophisticated calculations but computers cannot control what goes on in the real world out there. If there is the slightest shortfall in X, that will affect how much of Y is produced which, in turn, could affect the output of Z. There would be miillions upon millions of these microscale knock on effects happening every single day which means the whole centralised plan would have to be continuously reconfigured all the time. It wont even be worth the paper it is published on assuming you could ever get round to publishing it!

Im not saying that Leontif type input-output matrices dont have some role in the planning process but only in the most highly aggregated form. In that sense they can provide suggstive if provisional data that might be useful for example in large scale projects such as constructing a hydroelectric dam. But planning the entire production system of society is out of the question. The real problem lies in the nature of what you are trying to plan. That is why a polycentric system of planning is not only needed but is absolutely inescapable in any kind of advanced indsitrual economy






The socialist system, of course, says that a rational producer, the state, will operate the same system for society as a whole, rather than for the profit of a very few people. It is an illusion to believe that one day the entire machinery of capital production and distribution will simply disappear. Socialists must understand that they must be willing to take over that machine and use it for social production. Then the next stage is to reorganize the factories solely for administration of the things themselves rather than of people.


No one in suggesting that the machinery of capital production and distribution will simply "disappear". Socialism will bring into common ownership the means of wealth production and in the process dispense completely with the state as an instrument of class rule. Production will be operated solely for the benefit of people and not for the purpose of making profit

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE=redshifted;2657047]

First of all, how can we determine who rules in the interests of the proletariat?
Secondly, I don't consider it relevant as it is subjective, and the objective conditions determine the social form of existence. If purport to rule on behalf of the proletariat, in their interests, but this rule recreates class dynamics then the objective conditions are that of class rule over the proletariat.

I agree, but what class was ruling over the proletariat?

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE] The overall pattern of supply-demand interactions cannot possibly be planned in advance in that sense. It is arrived at through a process of spontaneous adjustment affecting millions upon millions of diffrents kinds of items of all shapes sizes and colours


The overall pattern of supply-demand is, in fact, exactly what is replaced by gigantic corporate planning. Production is planned down to the last minute of work and the last screw long before production actually begins. Advertising is meticulously planned well in advance of the introduction of a new product to insure that there will be sufficient demand. That is what modern advertising is all about: creating, adjusting, perfecting demand.


spontaneous adjustment is just another way of saying "the magic of the market place." Walmart has an absolute economic interest in eliminating any need for any "spontaneous adjustment." They demand their screws be delivered on time and at the right place, and most importantly, at a price that Walmart sets. Walmart and Microsoft have a monopoly on demand but also a "monopsony" a monopoly on its own supply. They control both supply and demand. "Spontaneous adjustment" for them is just another addition in costs which they cannot control.



Socialism will bring into common ownership the means of wealth production

I agree, but the question is specifically how to get to this common ownership, how much of capitalist production realities (moments, factors, characteristics, etc.) will be retained and for how long. What will be the role of the state and the party in this transition period to full common ownership?

[Martin Blank]

The interests of the proletariat class. The rest of your post fairly well describes how a dictatorship works.

It describes a dictatorship of the petty bourgeoisie over and against the working class, which also best describes the role of the RCP/AUCP/CPSU. After 1920, the state served the bureaucrats, managers and "specialists", not the workers. The existence of the local soviets did afford the working class a limited check on the central government, but not on the state itself, which was firmly in the hands of the Kremlin. This "dual power" could not last, and was finally eliminated with the Stalin "reforms".

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I agree, but what class was ruling over the proletariat?

If you can't look at the Soviet Union and suss out who was in charge, you're not carrying out much of an investigation into the matter.

In short, if we accept that the Soviet Union was doing commodity production, wage labour, etc. (aka capitalism), it follows that the folks directing said system were de facto capitalists. They may not have individually gotten fat stacks, but they were certainly deciding, collectively, about where surplus value was being reinvested . . . which, you may note, sounds suspiciously like what happens with a corporate board of directors.

In any case, the defining class of capitalism is not the bourgeoisie - it's the proletariat. The production of surplus value by wage-workers creates capitalists, and not vice versa.

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]classic central planning

...is a hopelessly impossible task.

If central planning is impossible, then how do you suggest a socialist, commonly owned economy just emerging from capitalism will work? Will it be millions of small business each spontaneously adjusting to the imbalances in the supply and demand of the market? Will the economy be decentralized? And if a crisis occurs and small business begin to devour each other creating big and bigger companies will you make monopolies illegal under anti-trust law? That sounds suspiciously like the economics of the petit-bourgeoisie.

By the way, the argument of the impossibility of central planning was advanced by Hayek and Von Mises.

[RedMaterialist]

If you can't look at the Soviet Union and suss out who was in charge, you're not carrying out much of an investigation into the matter.

I've already said the Communist Party was in charge. The question was what class interest was the Communist Party serving?


In short, if we accept that the Soviet Union was doing commodity production, wage labour, etc. (aka capitalism), it follows that the folks directing said system were de facto capitalists.

Actually, that is the question under discussion: Was the Soviet Union a state-capitalist because there was commodity production, wage-labor, etc. It does not follow that folks directing the said system were capitalists. Look at The Gotha Program.


They may not have individually gotten fat stacks, but they were certainly deciding, collectively, about where surplus value was being reinvested . . .

And those making the 'collective' decision, what class interest were they serving?



In any case, the defining class of capitalism is not the bourgeoisie - it's the proletariat. The production of surplus value by wage-workers creates capitalists, and not vice versa.

The ruling class of capitalism is the bourgeoisie. Slaves produced surplus value and serfs produced surplus value (although not manifested as exchange-value,) as do wage-workers. What counts is what class controls and appropriates the surplus value.

What class owned, controlled and appropriated the surplus value in the Soviet Union?

[RedMaterialist]

It describes a dictatorship of the petty bourgeoisie over and against the working class,

so now the Soviet Union was not State-Capitalism, but State Small-Capitalism.


the state served the bureaucrats, managers and "specialists", not the workers.

According to your argument the state served the interests of the petit-bourgeois class. However, you can make the argument that the bureaucracy emerged as a kind of political class, but not as a capitalist class, big or small.


This "dual power" could not last, and was finally eliminated with the Stalin "reforms". Correct, Stalin was a dictator.

[Thirsty Crow]

According to your argument the state served the interests of the petit-bourgeois class. However, you can make the argument that the bureaucracy emerged as a kind of political class, but not as a capitalist class, big or small.

Martin's argument rests on the identification of specialists and bureaucrats with the petite bourgeoisie, or better yet, on drawing the analogy between the traditional petite bourgeoisie and these "middle classes". However, since individual private ownership was abolished in the USSR, and if we reasonably conclude (that is a matter of a detailed historical-materialist examination of the social relations of production) that the means of production were operated as capital in the USSR, then it is also reasonable to conclude that this class represented the functional national capitalist.

You should observe the notion of the political class more closely. Surely, if we do not alter the notion of class, if it is still used to refer to differences in relation to the means of production, then the notion of a "political class" would amount to something like the class controlling and owning the means of production through specifically political means, by political mechanisms. The question regarding capital remains open.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I've already said the Communist Party was in charge. The question was what class interest was the Communist Party serving?

Well, how are we going to assess that? Are we going to look at their own pronouncements and say, "Aha! Look! They say so right here! They're serving the interests of the working class!"? Are we going to try and judge the moral/ethical character of the Soviet leaders? I would hope not.
So, let's take this on as materialists: What actually happened? Was there workers' control over production? No. Was there the abolition of wage labour? No. And the final result? Well, unsurprisingly, the Soviet experiment ended in . . . *drum roll* . . . capitalism.
So, we could say, at best, that the Communist Party served the interests of the workers vis-a-vis capitalism (the same way the AFL, the Labour Party, Credit Unions, etc. do), but who came out on top? The bourgeoisie.


Actually, that is the question under discussion: Was the Soviet Union a state-capitalist because there was commodity production, wage-labor, etc. It does not follow that folks directing the said system were capitalists. Look at The Gotha Program.

"The capitalist mode of production, for example, rests on the fact that [. . .] the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labor power."
-Critique of the Gotha Program

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges [. . .] [The worker] receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost."
-Critique of the Gotha Program

While I don't agree with Marx on the question of labour vouchers, it seems obvious that the abolition of wages and wage labour are part of the immediate tasks of any communist project. Their existence as the driving and defining character of social production, on the other hand, implies ipso facto capitalism. It therefore follows that those who are calling the shots are, in fact, capitalists. Admittedly, in their specificity they are not identical to capitalists elsewhere: but this misses the point.


And those making the 'collective' decision, what class interest were they serving?

Well, you answer that relatively well yourself:


The ruling class of capitalism is the bourgeoisie. Slaves produced surplus value and serfs produced surplus value (although not manifested as exchange-value,) as do wage-workers. What counts is what class controls and appropriates the surplus value.


Unless you believe the workers, as a class, controlled and appropriated surplus value in the Soviet Union (hint: they didn't), it follows that the Red Bourgeoisie was, well, a Red Bourgeoisie.

[RedMaterialist]

Unless you believe the workers, as a class, controlled and appropriated surplus value in the Soviet Union (hint: they didn't), it follows that the Red Bourgeoisie was, well, a Red Bourgeoisie.

The Red Bourgeoisie. The Communist-Capitalist. The capitalist class emerged from the Russian Revolution as a new world-historical class: the Communist-Capitalist class. It's too bad Hitler did not know the communists were actually capitalists or that Stalin was actually Henry Ford in disguise. It would have saved everybody a lot of grief. If only Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had known that Ho Chi Minh was actually David Rockefeller in disguise, it would have saved about 5 million lives in Southeast Asia. Reagan must have been the real genius, he knew that Gorbachev was really a capitalist all the time. All Reagan had to do was say, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," and the Communist-Capitalist state just crumbled away, you might say it "withered away and died."

Well, anyway, we know now that the Soviet Union was a state which served the interests of the Communist-Capitalist class, as the United States, British and France, etc. governments serve the interests of the Capitalist class.

This will explain why the lunatics in the Tea Party think Barak Obama is a communist. Their analysis is simply too one-sided. The true dialectical-historical-materialist analysis clearly shows that Barak Obama is a Capitalist-Communist. You might say he is a Profit-Communist, or a Private Property-Communist, or a Black Communist (as in keeping the business of America in the black.) Red Bourgeoisie meet Black Communist.

[robbo203]

The Red Bourgeoisie. The Communist-Capitalist. The capitalist class emerged from the Russian Revolution as a new world-historical class: the Communist-Capitalist class..

I think "Red Bourgeoisie" is a very apt description. This tiny privileged and extremely powerful class which enjoyed a lifestyle far removed from the average Russsian worker - dont forget, levels of inequality were at times comparable to countries like the UK in the post war period- also had absolute and total control over the means of production. They made all the important decisions affecting the allocation and distribution of the social product by virtue of their compelete stranglehold on the state machine. This ultimate control that they exercised amounted to de facto ownership. If you own something you ultimnately control it and vice versa . It means the same thing. The red bourgeoisie owned the means of production not as private individuals but as a class and that is the most important difference between soviet capitalism and western capitalism

To suggest that the Soviet Union was some kind of workers state or = heaven forfend! - "dictatorship of the proletariat" is about as dotty as saying that Mrs Thatcher or Ronald Reagan operated a proletarian dictatorship becuase the the Brish and American proletarians respectively voted them in en masse.

[robbo203]

If central planning is impossible, then how do you suggest a socialist, commonly owned economy just emerging from capitalism will work? Will it be millions of small business each spontaneously adjusting to the imbalances in the supply and demand of the market? Will the economy be decentralized? And if a crisis occurs and small business begin to devour each other creating big and bigger companies will you make monopolies illegal under anti-trust law? That sounds suspiciously like the economics of the petit-bourgeoisie.

By the way, the argument of the impossibility of central planning was advanced by Hayek and Von Mises.

The advocacy of central planning is precisely what plays right into the hands of people like Hayek and Von Mises. However, these people have no answer at all to the proposition that socialism can dispense with the market and at the same time be a self regulating system of production for use. It is this idea which alone completely destroys the so called "economic calculation" argument

If you want to know how that might be organised here's a link that might be of some use

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative#ch4

I suggest you read chapters 4 and 5. They are short, readable and to the point.


There wont be "millions of small businesses" in socialism spontaneously adjusting to each other because business as such - production for the market and economic competition - will cease to exist. You are presupposing the economics of a capitalist system in your scenario which, needless to say, is totally invalid

[Tim Cornelis]

The Red Bourgeoisie. The Communist-Capitalist. The capitalist class emerged from the Russian Revolution as a new world-historical class: the Communist-Capitalist class. It's too bad Hitler did not know the communists were actually capitalists or that Stalin was actually Henry Ford in disguise. It would have saved everybody a lot of grief. If only Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had known that Ho Chi Minh was actually David Rockefeller in disguise, it would have saved about 5 million lives in Southeast Asia. Reagan must have been the real genius, he knew that Gorbachev was really a capitalist all the time. All Reagan had to do was say, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," and the Communist-Capitalist state just crumbled away, you might say it "withered away and died."

Well, anyway, we know now that the Soviet Union was a state which served the interests of the Communist-Capitalist class, as the United States, British and France, etc. governments serve the interests of the Capitalist class.

This will explain why the lunatics in the Tea Party think Barak Obama is a communist. Their analysis is simply too one-sided. The true dialectical-historical-materialist analysis clearly shows that Barak Obama is a Capitalist-Communist. You might say he is a Profit-Communist, or a Private Property-Communist, or a Black Communist (as in keeping the business of America in the black.) Red Bourgeoisie meet Black Communist.

Your comment doesn't really substantiate anything though, it just ridicules as substitute for argument. And conversely, would praise by Rockefeller of Mao proof that he was a capitalist?
But are you suggesting, then, that strife between countries is purely ideological, and has no economic basis? That from this premise we can conclude that if there was some acknowledgement of superficial ideological agreement between Vietnam and the USA, namely that capital has to be managed somehow, that it would not have lead to war? By extension of your logic Saddam Hussein may have been a socialist because he was attacked by capitalist nations, right? As if inter-capitalist warfare is something alien to capitalism! Is Assad a socialist because he is being besieged by capitalists? No, then why should the USSR or Vietnam or China have been socialist because they were attacked economically and/or militarily by capitalists?

Vietnam was attacked by the USA because it posed a threat to US economic interests, not to capital.

[RedMaterialist]

Vietnam was attacked by the USA because it posed a threat to US economic interests, not to capital.

I believed that for a long time, too. How else could you explain the war? But the US never really had any economic interests in Vietnam. Importing rubber, rice, fish sauce? The real interests of the US in Vietnam was what Johnson and Nixon said: to prevent the communists from taking over power there and to prevent the spread of communism elsewhere. In that sense it really was a threat to capitalist economic interests.

The US does, of course, now import goods from Vietnam. But the production of those goods is managed, directly or indirectly (through a mixed economy system), by the Vietnamese Communist Party functioning as the head of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

What are US economic interests other than capital?

[Tim Cornelis]

I believed that for a long time, too. How else could you explain the war? But the US never really had any economic interests in Vietnam. Importing rubber, rice, fish sauce? The real interests of the US in Vietnam was what Johnson and Nixon said: to prevent the communists from taking over power there and to prevent the spread of communism elsewhere.

Which is exactly what I meant. The spread of 'communism' jeopardises US economic interests, in the same way that maybe toppling, say, the Bolivarian governments in Bolivia and Venezuela is in US economic interests. It does not mean that they are socialist.

[RedMaterialist]

f you want to know how that might be organised here's a link that might be of some use

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative#ch4

I suggest you read chapters 4 and 5. They are short, readable and to the point.


Here is a section from chapter 4:

"No Need For The Market

Socialism will remove every factor of value, cost and price involved in production and therefore there will be no use for money. As marketable commodities under capitalism, bread, shoes, housing and, indeed, labour power are in value relationships to each other which are expressed through prices. In socialism these value relationships will not exist.

Capitalism is an exchange economy which begins with an exchange of workers’ labour power for wages and ends with the realisation of profit through the exchange of goods for money in the market. Socialism will relate productive activity directly to needs.

Production for use will begin with co-operation between producers and end with the direct supply of goods to the members of the community for whose needs they have been produced. Only socialism can be a practical system for the production and distribution of goods directly for consumption."

No one can argue with this. It is the essential argument for socialism. What is not addressed in the article is how this is to be achieved. The capitalists, small business people and peasants (in an agricultural country) are going to be extremely angry at you for taking away their market. Even if you do gain power you are going to attacked at every point by the capitalist system.

My point is, and I believe Marx and Lenin's point, that this period of war - and it is a war - is a long and bloody transition from capitalism to the socialism described in the above article. Part of this transition will be in the form of a dictatorship because the bourgeoisie are not going to give up their massive wealth to a committee of social workers. And this dictatorship will use the existing forms of production, capitalism, to destroy the capitalist and petit-bourgeoisie class.

[robbo203]

Here is a section from chapter 4:

"No Need For The Market

Socialism will remove every factor of value, cost and price involved in production and therefore there will be no use for money. As marketable commodities under capitalism, bread, shoes, housing and, indeed, labour power are in value relationships to each other which are expressed through prices. In socialism these value relationships will not exist.

Capitalism is an exchange economy which begins with an exchange of workers’ labour power for wages and ends with the realisation of profit through the exchange of goods for money in the market. Socialism will relate productive activity directly to needs.

Production for use will begin with co-operation between producers and end with the direct supply of goods to the members of the community for whose needs they have been produced. Only socialism can be a practical system for the production and distribution of goods directly for consumption."

No one can argue with this. It is the essential argument for socialism. What is not addressed in the article is how this is to be achieved. The capitalists, small business people and peasants (in an agricultural country) are going to be extremely angry at you for taking away their market. Even if you do gain power you are going to attacked at every point by the capitalist system.

My point is, and I believe Marx and Lenin's point, that this period of war - and it is a war - is a long and bloody transition from capitalism to the socialism described in the above article. Part of this transition will be in the form of a dictatorship because the bourgeoisie are not going to give up their massive wealth to a committee of social workers. And this dictatorship will use the existing forms of production, capitalism, to destroy the capitalist and petit-bourgeoisie class.

Socialism is in the interests of the vast majority. Some would say in the interests of humanity as a whole. What are those small businesses and peasants you talk of going to be "angry" about? Taking away "their" market? Are you serious? Why do they produce for a market? To get an income. Why do they need to get an income? To buy the things they need to live on. But socialism does away with all economic exchange by virtue of the fact that the means of production are brought into common ownership. You wont need to "buy" anything anymore. You would take according to your self determined needs and give voluntarily according to your ability. The vast majority will gain far more than they could possibly lose by opting for socialism and for all sorts of reasons - not the least of which is a vastly improved quality of life free of the competitive stresses and insecurities of capitalism.


This, of course presupposes that that vast majority want and understand socialism and, in particular, understand the implications that flow from this arrangement. Above all , the fact that we all depend upon each other. A majority wanting and understanding socialism makes the prospect of violence recede significantly in my view. How is a tiny minority going to respond to a determined political majority seeking socialism (including even amongst the armed forces) which has never yet happened anywhere in the world to date? I suspect that minority will almost entirely throw in the towel Marx and Engels both regarded a peaceful democratic changeover to socialism as distinctly possible and cited several countries where this might happen in their day


A growing socialist movement will radically alter the whole social environment making it more and more difficult for the capitalists to resort to violence (how many plutocrats have you seen wielding an LMG lately anyway? Its is workers who do the fighting for the capitalists unfortunately). Indeed Marx argued that the more enlightened capitalists are likely to throw their weight behind the socialist revolution and I dont need to remind you that Frederich Engels was a capitalist himself. If he can take up a socialist perspective on things, others can too

[Paul Cockshott]

As marketable commodities under capitalism, bread, shoes, housing and, indeed, labour power are in value relationships to each other which are expressed through prices. In socialism these value relationships will not exist.
This is a serious misunderstanding of political economy. The value relationships are relationships between parts of the social division of labour. These relationships can not be abolished whatever the social relations, all that can change is the social form in which they are expressed.

[Communist(stalinist)]

Ussr was alwAys communist, from 1922 to 1985. After 1985 Gorbachev - the man who made the union collapse - came to power. From that time ussr already collapsed.

[Dodo]

Ussr was alwAys communist, from 1922 to 1985. After 1985 Gorbachev - the man who made the union collapse - came to power. From that time ussr already collapsed.

I love how you do not learn from the other threads and keep saying the same thing. Sometimes I feel like people like you are a waste of time. At least state why you think this way or something....go ahead now, define communism...what is communism?

[Geiseric]

Vietnam had nothing to do with socialism, it was a proxy war between countries with planned economies who traded with the fsu and NATO. Planned economy =\= state capitalism =\= communism. This shouldn't seem like old news. Vietnamese working class and peasantry were more interested in economic independence from the french, US, China, and Japan. There was hardly a Vietnamese bourgeoisie which existed independent of international finance capital. Left communists think that these countries including Cuba, the fsu, and Vietnam were all straight up capitalist countries though, instead of areas where the working class gained power over the means of production by forcing nationalizations of all industries instituting planned economies, which differ from market economies, as the rest of the world thinks. If that's true than why was there a war anyways?

[Brutus]

If that's true than why was there a war anyways?
For the same reason as any other war: to destroy overproduction.

[adipocere12]

For those that accept that systems like the USSR were state-capitalists, I have a question that will clear some details about this opinion of ours.

So, why do you consider the USSR to have been state-capitalist? Is it because there existed the party/state hierarchy/bureaucracy, which was the new capitalist class; is it because money wasn't abolished; or is it because the USSR existed in a capitalist worlds and therefore had to participate in the international capitalist market?

Of course, one can hold more then one of these positions, but I found it interesting that there exist people who hold the two latter positions exclusively, as in- everything was cool with the USSR, except that they used money, if they did't do that but used calculation in natura, they'd be proper socialism; or- everything was cool with the USSR, except they were one country in a capitalist world, if the entire world had established the USSR system, that'd be proper socialism.
I think the idea is that Marx concentrated a lot on the production process. In capitalism workers create a surplus which is appropriated and distributed by someone other than themselves (the capitalist). The Soviet Union is described as state capitalist because the same still applies. Except rather than a capitalist appropriating and distributing the workers surplus it's some state official.

It's not until the workers and the appropriators and distributors are the same people that capitalism is abolished.

[RedMaterialist]

Vietnam had nothing to do with socialism... If that's true than why was there a war anyways?

Bourgeois liberals were never able to answer that question. Norman Mailer wrote a book titled "Why We Are in Vietnam," and never answered his own question.

The reactionaries on the American right were always clear about why they were in Vietnam: to stop socialism in Southeast Asia and to kill as many communists, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians as it took. The war wasn't about economics, it was about capitalism v. socialism.

[Tim Cornelis]

So wait, was Nazi Germany socialist? If not, why was there a war anyways? Was Angola socialist, if not why was there a war anyways? Was Argentina socialist, if not, why was there a war anyways?