What is Socialism?

[Blake's Baby]

Due to the post at the top of page three of this thread - http://www.revleft.com/vb/few-questions-t183425/index3.html - by Shmuel Katz, who claims, quite wrongly in my opinion, that "Socialism is generally considered to be contiguous with the dictatorship of proletariat", I thought I'd add this poll so that we can all, Shmuel Katz included, learn what the opinion of RevLeft generally is on this topic.

Doesn't stop y'all being wrong if you pick an answer that isn't the right one, but I'm interested in what proportions of people here ascribe to these mutually-exclusive views of what 'socialism' actually is.

Feel free to explain your choice, why you think you're right, etc.

[Tenka]

I think the idea of Socialism as some sort of lower stage of Communism entailing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat originates in Lenin. In proper usage, as far as I know, Socialism and Communism are the same thing, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is something entirely different but probably necessary.

[The Feral Underclass]

Can it not be all three?

[cliffhanger]

Socialism is an intermediary form of social organization where the working class has achieved leadership and has built an economy on an administrative, planned basis where work is compensated according to contribution based on skill and quality.

[Blake's Baby]

Can it not be all three?

Can it be a classless class society with free access and without free access, is that what you're asking?

[The Feral Underclass]

Lol, I guess that's what I was asking yeah :o

[Stalinist Speaker]

there are classes in socialism but they are minimal.

[Per Levy]

there are classes in socialism but they are minimal.

what does that mean exactly? right now there are only like 3 or 4 classes, thats quite minimal isnt it?

or do you mean that the social differences between the classes would be minimal?

anyway, to me socialism is communism and vise versa, 2 words to describe the same.

[Remus Bleys]

Lower phase of communism - thouggh I don't believe that it has to be borderless.

[Lokomotive293]

Due to the post at the top of page three of this thread - http://www.revleft.com/vb/few-questions-t183425/index3.html - by Shmuel Katz, who claims, quite wrongly in my opinion, that "Socialism is generally considered to be contiguous with the dictatorship of proletariat", I thought I'd add this poll so that we can all, Shmuel Katz included, learn what the opinion of RevLeft generally is on this topic.

Doesn't stop y'all being wrong if you pick an answer that isn't the right one, but I'm interested in what proportions of people here ascribe to these mutually-exclusive views of what 'socialism' actually is.

Feel free to explain your choice, why you think you're right, etc.

Do we agree that all those three stages exist and are neccessary? If yes, agreeing on what to call them won't be that hard (A rose by any other name is still a rose?), if no, that is what we have to talk about, not semantics.

[robbo203]

Can it not be all three?

How can you have a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in a classless socialist society? So, no, it cant be

[Blake's Baby]

Do we agree that all those three stages exist and are neccessary? If yes, agreeing on what to call them won't be that hard (A rose by any other name is still a rose?), if no, that is what we have to talk about, not semantics.

No, we don't. But we all have something called 'socialism'. So what is it we're talking about, is what I'm trying to get at. If the semantic confusion is cleared up, or at least, taken into consideration, then it might be possible to discuss some of the other stuff (like what a state is, whether or not the DotP is necessary, etc).

[Per Levy]

Do we agree that all those three stages exist and are neccessary? If yes, agreeing on what to call them won't be that hard (A rose by any other name is still a rose?), if no, that is what we have to talk about, not semantics.

well, we have to talk about semantics since clearly capitalist states are still called socialist(because of red flags and "communist partys" ruling them) and that many people belive socialism did exist and that socialism is a party dictatorship where workers get paid shitty wages and have little to no influence on the system. and to me that just isnt socialism but statecapitalism.

[cliffhanger]

many people belive socialism did exist and that socialism is a party dictatorship where workers get paid shitty wages
Imagine you are in the Soviet Union in the late 1930s. How do you propose to increase wages of the average worker, and by how much? For example, let's say you completely flattened the wage structure by somehow taking everything away from engineers and managers and such, would that redistribution be enough to make wages "non-shitty"? Because otherwise your complaint seems empty.

[Lokomotive293]

No, we don't. But we all have something called 'socialism'. So what is it we're talking about, is what I'm trying to get at. If the semantic confusion is cleared up, or at least, taken into consideration, then it might be possible to discuss some of the other stuff (like what a state is, whether or not the DotP is necessary, etc).

Of course, that is an argument, and knowing what other people mean when they talk about "socialism" is helpful.
However, unfortunately, my experience is that this discussion comes up over and over again, in a very un-constructive way (e.g. You don't know what socialism is! STFU!, exaggerating, of course), and that it serves as a way to hide disagreements that are really political behind disagreements about semantics.
So, I hope it will be different this time.

[helot]

I don't think the word "socialism" actually has a distinct meaning, i think it's likely it has hundreds. I think this thread will show that even amongst members of this board there will be atleast 5 different meanings.


Personally, i define it as stateless, classless but not necessarily communism (even though i don't think any form of non-communistic socialism would actually function) as some socialists have some pretty crazy ideas e.g. mutualism

[Tim Cornelis]

Socialism is an intermediary form of social organization where the working class has achieved leadership and has built an economy on an administrative, planned basis where work is compensated according to contribution based on skill and quality.

But then, say we have this hypothetical system where healthcare, food, clothing, public transportation, electricity, furniture, housing, etc. are provided for free (not according to contribution), and we have entertainment, TVs, consoles, private transportation, and luxury items are rationed on the basis of contribution. Would it be socialism or communism?
I think it's meaningless to say socialism is based on distribution according to contribution and communism based on free access, or needs, as if they are unable to co-exist and one will end abruptly and give way for the other.

[Fourth Internationalist]

A synonym for communism in my opinion. That's the way it had always been used by Marx, Engels, and the other famous communists.

[Brutus]

A synonym for communism in my opinion. That's the way it had always been used by Marx, Engels, and the other famous communists.

Yes, but they made sure to distinguish between the upper an lower stage.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Of course, that is an argument, and knowing what other people mean when they talk about "socialism" is helpful.
However, unfortunately, my experience is that this discussion comes up over and over again, in a very un-constructive way (e.g. You don't know what socialism is! STFU!, exaggerating, of course), and that it serves as a way to hide disagreements that are really political behind disagreements about semantics.
So, I hope it will be different this time.

talking about whether socialism = communism or some bastardised lower form is hardly 'semantics'. That is politics.

[cliffhanger]

I think it's meaningless to say socialism is based on distribution according to contribution and communism based on free access, or needs, as if they are unable to co-exist and one will end abruptly and give way for the other.Who says one will end abruptly? Who says that socialism doesn't have aspects of free access? Socialism is a lower stage of communism because oppression of labour has ended but it is not yet completely free from the regulation of the law of value. Obviously, as a social system, it's an abstraction from concrete circumstances, there is always going to be some level of debate over what counts.

[Tenka]

But then, say we have this hypothetical system where healthcare, food, clothing, public transportation, electricity, furniture, housing, etc. are provided for free (not according to contribution), and we have entertainment, TVs, consoles, private transportation, and luxury items are rationed on the basis of contribution. Would it be socialism or communism?


Neither as far as I'm concerned. Why are items "luxury"? Why cannot we produce enough "entertainment" and electronics for all? And private transportation, in my opinion, should be on a need-to-use basis. What's the point in allowing such things only for "contributors"? It implies scarcity, artificial or otherwise, and I would spit in the face of this new haughty Contributor Class!


I think it's meaningless to say socialism is based on distribution according to contribution and communism based on free access, or needs, as if they are unable to co-exist and one will end abruptly and give way for the other.

You are right though. What some call Socialism cannot be developed quite evenly the world over. (However if one considers Socialism and Communism to be synonymous, we're only there when we're all there.)

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, but they made sure to distinguish between the upper an lower stage.

But they didn't call one 'socialism' and the other 'communism'. They called them the 'first phase' and 'a higher phase' of communism. "A" higher phase, implying there may be more than one 'higher' phases, though what these other phases might be is not explained as far as I know.

So, yes for Marx and Engels, communism has 2 (or possibly more) phases.

But they use 'socialism' as a synonym for 'communism' and don't distinguish between 'first' and 'higher' stages by using different names.

[TheIrrationalist]

I think that socialism can have many definitions depending on who is using it, where and when. I usually don't use socialism as a synonym for communism. Usually I just go with the predominant definition, meaning that in socialism the means of production are controlled by society or "the state" contrasting with communism where the means of production are controlled by all. Don't care how Marx or Lenin used it, and after all it was Henri de Saint-Simon who invented it.

The word socialism has lost all its meaning today, so I don't bother for what you use it. It is like libertarian equivalent for the "leftist" use of the word fascism; a dirty word.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm interested where this notion that 'socialism means control by the state is the majority view' comes from. The majority of people here (I don't care about outside) use 'socialism' as a synonym for 'communism'. It's those who have other definitions that are in a minority (or three or more minorities that even added together still seem to be a minority).

[TheIrrationalist]

Well maybe it isn't majority view, but what people are you talking about? What majority? It would be hard to say what is a majority concerning the understanding of meaning of a word, but what I have seen socialism is usually used to draw a distinction between communism and socialism, and communists and socialists. I don't think that there is a right interpretation of words or that they always correspond to the 'right' concept. Marx said what socialism is, Lenin said what socialism is, Henri de Saint-Simon said what socialism is etc. But who is 'right'?

[Blake's Baby]

I have a view on what 'socialism' means (bearing in mind that words mean what we want them to). But I think the interpretation of 'socialism' that I have is that that Marx and Engels had. The usage that they meant is the one that should be used in relation to what they're saying, I'd argue - it makes no sense to use a different definition of the word and claim it's consistent with what they meant. So that's what I mean by 'wrong'.

Talking about 'wrong' definitions is not necessarily to be taken seriously; this isn't about my definition of socialism, but about whether socialism 'generally' is understood on RevLeft to be the same as 'the dictatorship of the proletariat', as Shmuel Katz claimed. As that's currently standing at less that 1/3 of respondents, whatever the objective definition (if there is one) of 'socialism', it's patently absurd to claim that the 'general' understanding of the word is one that slightly more than 1/4 of the people using RevLeft use. There's nothing 'general' about it. It's a pretty specialised, not-generally-accepted, niche definition, in fact. If there is a 'generally understood' definition, according to the polling so far it's the definition I have, which is standing at 50% of respondents.

So; 'wrong' (or 'right') definitions of socialism don't matter so much as finding out what proportions of people use different definitions, in order to determine if there really is a 'generally understood' definition (and if so, what it is).

[Brotto Rühle]

I don't think 2 is wrong, but I voted one because of the semantically issues that are confusing

[Blake's Baby]

Option 2 would mean socialism is only the 'first phase' of communism and not ever any 'higher phase'. So socialism is a 'stage' on the way to 'full/true/free communism'.

[TheIrrationalist]

Yes, I agree we should use the definitions in relation to who used them; when talking about Marx one should use his definition etc. Maybe that 'right/wrong' went bit off what you were looking for, but generally speaking socialism's definition changes with the relation of whose using it in what purpose. I'm implying that I don't really have my own definition or understanding of what socialism is, but rather it derives from the context it's being used: I use Lenin's definition when talking about Lenin and so forth. That is why I picked 'other'.

[Brotto Rühle]

Option 2 would mean socialism is only the 'first phase' of communism and not ever any 'higher phase'. So socialism is a 'stage' on the way to 'full/true/free communism'.

I'll have to agree there. Great point.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Since this is 'Learning' could we find out which historical person or political tendency uses which definition? Clearly there is no consensus on this subject.

I have to admit that I personally haven't given the subject much thought. I picked up along the way the definition of socialism as being pretty much the later phase of the DOTP. I am not saying this is theoretically correct.

I came of age when the 'convergence theory' was still a believable scenario. The capitalist West and the socialist East would converge over time towards some type of democratic socialism. The science fiction novels I consumed in my early adolescence often had the future Earth divided in some type of co-dominion between the United States and the Soviet Union. The authors either embraced it or despaired of it. What ever their opinion of such a development it was seen as inevitable. Obviously it wasn't. Instead we had catastrophic convergence with the collapse of the former Soviet Union and its successor states embracing gangster capitalism. (The Chinese have their "capitalism with Chinese characteristics".)

[Blake's Baby]

Since this is 'Learning' could we find out which historical person or political tendency uses which definition? Clearly there is no consensus on this subject...

I'm learning what the opinions of people here. Anyone else can too. So, that's 'learning'.

Surely, it's possible to learn how historical persons use the term. Maybe you could set up a thread about that?

You're right there is no consensus. If there were, it would hardly have been necessary to set up this poll. But there is a majority view, and there are some minority views. By far the biggest - pretty consistently bigger than all the others combined - is the view that 'socialism' is a classless communal society without states or money. That view is consistent with Marx. The other views - those of Lenin and Mao - are very much minority views. As I originally set up the poll to find out if, as claimed by Shmuel Katz, the idea that socialism=the dictatorship of the proletariat was the majority view, I have certainly learned that Shmuel Katz vastly over-estimated support for the view that socialism should be identified with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Popular Front of Judea]

A majority on Revleft is not exactly statistically or theoretically relevant. To each their own I guess.

So who is Shmuel Katz?


I'm learning what the opinions of people here. Anyone else can too. So, that's 'learning'.

Surely, it's possible to learn how historical persons use the term. Maybe you could set up a thread about that?

You're right there is no consensus. If there were, it would hardly have been necessary to set up this poll. But there is a majority view, and there are some minority views. By far the biggest - pretty consistently bigger than all the others combined - is the view that 'socialism' is a classless communal society without states or money. That view is consistent with Marx. The other views - those of Lenin and Mao - are very much minority views. As I originally set up the poll to find out if, as claimed by Shmuel Katz, the idea that socialism=the dictatorship of the proletariat was the majority view, I have certainly learned that Shmuel Katz vastly over-estimated support for the view that socialism should be identified with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Red_Banner]

I'm going to go with lower phase.

Marx and Engles didn't use socialism and communism as synonyms, atleast not pure ones.

[robbo203]

I'm going to go with lower phase.

Marx and Engles didn't use socialism and communism as synonyms, atleast not pure ones.


The identification of socialism as the lower phase of communism was an innovation by Lenin. It had nothing to with Marx and Engels, Even then Lenins description of what he called the lower stage of communism was completely at variance with Marx and Engels own views. Where Marx advocated a system of Labour vouchers, Lenin in The State and Revolution talked of "all citizens being transformed into hired employees of the state" when the very existence of a state was incompatible with communism in Marx's view - be it the lower phase or the higher phase of communism(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm) Engels in his letter to Bebel, 18-28 March 1875
is quite clear about this and incidetnally also spefically talks here of a socialist society being a stateless society

The free people's state is transformed into the free state. Grammatically speaking, a free state is one in which the state is free vis-à-vis its citizens, a state, that is, with a despotic government. All the palaver about the state ought to be dropped, especially after the Commune, which had ceased to be a state in the true sense of the term. The people's state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx's anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear (my bold)

Not only that, in the same year that saw publication of The State and Revolution, Lenin contradicted himself by putting forward yet another definition of socialism. In The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It,(1917) he now argued that "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 communism and a state capitalist monopoly (albeit one allegedly made to serve the interests of the whole people) is, to say the least, puzzling

[Blake's Baby]

A majority on Revleft is not exactly statistically or theoretically relevant...

Relevant to what?


...So who is Shmuel Katz?

Shmuel Katz is the person who claimed that 'generally' people on RevLeft understand socialism to be the dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm testing that bold, and I'm fairly confident in asserting, wholly erroneous, notion.

[Old Bolshie]

The options 2 and 3 could be merged into one though. The majority of ML's hold this view. For instance, in 1936 Stalin considered USSR to be a DOTP while at the same time proclaiming that the soviet society had achieved socialism, i.e., the lower, phase of Communism.

[Blake's Baby]

If you think the lower phase of communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, then you believe that communism is a class society. That's not my business, I can't set up a poll that includes every possible misinterpretation based on Stalin's incoherence. Either pick one - 'first phase of a classless society' or DotP (a class society), or got for 'other' and define it as 'a classless society with classes'.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I use it as a synonym for communism.

[Old Bolshie]

If you think the lower phase of communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, then you believe that communism is a class society. That's not my business, I can't set up a poll that includes every possible misinterpretation based on Stalin's incoherence. Either pick one - 'first phase of a classless society' or DotP (a class society), or got for 'other' and define it as 'a classless society with classes'.

I don't give a fuck if it is your business or not. I was making an interpretation of the options available from a ML perspective which tends to associate the DOTP with socialism.


If you think the lower phase of communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, then you believe that communism is a class society.

Not communism but socialism which for the ML's doesn't means the same. And what is the fucking surprise about it? If both meant the same why the poll in first place?

[Blake's Baby]

If you believe that the first phase of communism is a the same as the DotP then you believe that the first phase of communism is a class society. I don't see how you can argue with that.

So which is it to be? Is socialism a class society? Is communism a class society, in its 'first phase' or any others? Is the DotP really communism? Once you start putting the DotP, the first phase of communist society and the higher phase into the same pot, anything is possible. All of a sudden communism has states and classes.

[Q]

I made a simple overview to give my view on the question:


http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/7193/44ol.png


A little explanation is in order:

I made two axis: And economic and political one. The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' simply can't be understood as a mode of production. It expresses a political hegemony. Today with the same token we live in the 'dictatorship of the bourgeoisie' which can vary from Western parliamentary regimes to tinpot dictatorships in the third world. The 'dictatorship of the proletariat' however must be a radical democracy for the simple reason that for the proletariat to rule as a class, it must be within the framework of a genuine democracy.

The modes of production, in the economic axis, have two main states: Capitalism as the 'old order' and communism as the 'new order'. Of course we can't achieve full free-access communism overnight. This will take a period. This then is the transition from the old to the new: Socialism or the 'lower stage of communism'. So socialism is not a "mode of production" in itself, but a stage where both the old and new society intermix.

The dictatorship of the proletariat, the political hegemony of our class, must logically start within capitalism because only with political power can we transform society and, as such, its mode of production. It is even conceivable that we'll run a socialised form of capitalism for some time, for example when we encounter imperialist counter-attack. Hopefully this will be as short as possible (hence the need for international party-movements).

Socialism, the transitional period, will see some overlap from a class to a classless society. This is because while we can expropriate the proper bourgeoisie (the "1%") pretty much overnight, we cannot say the same for the much larger petty-bourgeoisie or middle layers such as accountants, lawyers, etc.) These layers can only be assimilated into our class bit by bit. We risk full scale civil war if we don't take account of this and simply socialise everything overnight.

That said, socialism is clearly a "dying class society" and, therefore, also a dying dictatorship of the proletariat and, thus, has a "dying state". The dotp, a radical democracy, starts with what can best be described as a "semi-state" anyway.

I'm sorry if this doesn't comply with the Talmudian socialists that view Marx' writings as holy scripture. But I have yet to see a good reply to this view I have described that makes most sense to me anyway.

Addendum:
I was asked why I decided to graph communism later than the start of a classless/stateless society, a society that consists of free producers? This is a good question and has to do with the definition of communism used here. For this thread I decided to stick to Blake's definition of "free-access" communism. And while it could be that complete free-access communism is achieved at the same time that classes disappear, I don't see how the two are necessarily connected. It could quite well take some time before communism in this sense is achieved, even after classes have disappeared.

[Blake's Baby]

...
It could quite well take some time before communism in this sense is achieved, even after classes have disappeared.

Yeah, that's option 2. A classless society that hasn't reached free access.


...
I'm sorry if this doesn't comply with the Talmudian socialists that view Marx' writings as holy scripture...

You're a piece of work, you really are.

[robbo203]

Socialism or the 'lower stage of communism'. So socialism is not a "mode of production" in itself, but a stage where both the old and new society intermix.

As in being a just a little bit pregnant perhaps?

Sorry, Q, but this is just incoherent. You simply can't have common ownership of the means of production co-existing or mixing with private ownership. It is logically one or the other. Like oil and and water, communism and capitalism cannot mix. If there is common ownership of the means of production there is no economic exchange. If there is no economic exchange there is no exchange value. There is no capitalism.

Your "socialism" as some kind of intermediate stage is a "will-o'-the-wisp". It cannot exist



Socialism, the transitional period, will see some overlap from a class to a classless society. This is because while we can expropriate the proper bourgeoisie (the "1%") pretty much overnight, we cannot say the same for the much larger petty-bourgeoisie or middle layers such as accountants, lawyers, etc.) These layers can only be assimilated into our class bit by bit. We risk full scale civil war if we don't take account of this and simply socialise everything overnight.

I don't get this at all. If the capitalists are expropriated there is no capitalist class - obviously - since the capitalist class only exist by vritue of their ownership of the means of production which is now taken away from them. If the capitalists dont exist then a working class cannot exist either since a working class is defined by the fact that it is alienated from the means of production and must therefore sell its working abilities to those who do own the the means of prpduiction - the capitalists. The same capitalists who no longer exist! So where's the problem? What's the point of trying to "assimilate" people like accountants or lawyers - who, in any case, I would class as just relatively well paid workers for the most part - into our class when "our class" no longer exists?



That said, socialism is clearly a "dying class society" and, therefore, also a dying dictatorship of the proletariat and, thus, has a "dying state". The dotp, a radical democracy, starts with what can best be described as a "semi-state" anyway.


While I have serious reservations about this whole DOTP business - I think the idea shold be scrapped since it is fundamentally incoherent (but that is probably for another thread) - it has to be said that if you are talking about a DOTP you are talking about a class society and therefore class ownership of the means of production. Again, I come back to you claim about socialism being a mixture of capitalism and communism. How is that possible? How can you have common ownership of the means of production and, at the same time, have class ownership



I'm sorry if this doesn't comply with the Talmudian socialists that view Marx' writings as holy scripture. But I have yet to see a good reply to this view I have described that makes most sense to me anyway.

As a "Talmudian socialist "myself - ;)- I dont regard Marx's writing as holy scripture and am quite happy to state that I have number of criticisms to make of Marx - such as on the DOTP. But I am concerned with historical accuracy and I think if you are going to make a case that socialism means something other than what it meant in the Marxist tradition - as a synonym for communism - then you should be open about it and acknowlege that you are departing from that tradition rather than invoke Marxism in support of your posture.

Its not really so much the word "socialism" itself that matters. Its the baggage that goes with it - that is, with one's understanding of the term - that is the real issue. In other words it is a political issue not simply a semantic issue. If you think socialism has something to do with the state and with nationalisation of the means of production then to advocate "socialism" in that sense is a huge concern, as far as I am concerned, as such "socialism" is nothing more than a devastating diversion away from the struggle to establish an authentic socialist society

[Marxaveli]

Voted for the first option. I always use the terms 'socialism' and 'communism' interchangeably, though I personally identify as a communist in most political discourse for the sake of not creating confusion since 'socialism' is considered a broader term by some. But in essence, to be a socialist is to be a communist.

[Q]

Sorry, Q, but this is just incoherent. You simply can't have common ownership of the means of production co-existing or mixing with private ownership. It is logically one or the other. Like oil and and water, communism and capitalism cannot mix. If there is common ownership of the means of production there is no economic exchange. If there is no economic exchange there is no exchange value. There is no capitalism.
Like I said, expropriating the bourgeoisie proper overnight is not much of an issue. This act would by itself socialise huge parts of society. However, what about the petty-bourgeoisie? What about those middle layers that hold monopolies in skills and knowledge? How would you socialise those overnight without igniting a civil war?

And what is this nonsense that interpenetration of social orders isn't possible? Surely we're now living in a period where genuine "free market" capitalism cannot exist without strong management and intervention by the state, this is in itself a form of social management, be it pro-private property obviously.


I don't get this at all. If the capitalists are expropriated there is no capitalist class - obviously - since the capitalist class only exist by vritue of their ownership of the means of production which is now taken away from them.
I hope it is now clarified that I wasn't merely talking about big capital, which indeed can be expropriated overnight.

If however you really think you can just abolish class society by decree, then you're nothing more than a dangerous madman.


... it has to be said that if you are talking about a DOTP you are talking about a class society and therefore class ownership of the means of production.
Indeed. The working class, politically hegemonous, socialises the means of production. This, as said, cannot be done overnight. Once completed, classes disappear and, as such, the DotP disappears.


But I am concerned with historical accuracy and I think if you are going to make a case that socialism means something other than what it meant in the Marxist tradition - as a synonym for communism - then you should be open about it and acknowlege that you are departing from that tradition rather than invoke Marxism in support of your posture.
I'm a Marxist, which is a scientific method. There is a squable between scientists about definitions all the time. What matters here is the argument, the theses, used. What does not matter is that a certain definition is correct because someone used it in a certain way. That is not science, but dogma and cultism.

That said, I'm more than willing to drop "socialism" altogether and use "transitionary period" or something similar.


Its not really so much the word "socialism" itself that matters. Its the baggage that goes with it - that is, with one's understanding of the term - that is the real issue. In other words it is a political issue not simply a semantic issue. If you think socialism has something to do with the state and with nationalisation of the means of production then to advocate "socialism" in that sense is a huge concern, as far as I am concerned, as such "socialism" is nothing more than a devastating diversion away from the struggle to establish an authentic socialist society
Glad we agree at least here. I nowhere said anything like that.

[Brotto Rühle]

Anyone who claims that "socialism" is more than just a name for the initial phase of COMMUNIST society... is at odds with Marx.

Anyone who claims the DOTP exists into the initial phase of communism, is at odds with Marx.

The DOTP is a political transition, which oversees the transformation of capitalism into communism (Marx). Note, there, that Marx used socialism and communism interchangeably. "Socialism", or the "initial/lower/first phase/stage of communism" in Marxs view, is a CLASSLESS society... it is COMMUNISM.

[Red_Banner]

Anyone who claims that "socialism" is more than just a name for the initial phase of COMMUNIST society... is at odds with Marx.

Anyone who claims the DOTP exists into the initial phase of communism, is at odds with Marx.

The DOTP is a political transition, which oversees the transformation of capitalism into communism (Marx). Note, there, that Marx used socialism and communism interchangeably. "Socialism", or the "initial/lower/first phase/stage of communism" in Marxs view, is a CLASSLESS society...because it is COMMUNISM.

Here's what Engels calls "communism":
"Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat."

[Brotto Rühle]

Here's what Engels calls "communism":
"Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat."Whoa, you beat me. I take the knee. C'mon, try harder.

[Red_Banner]

You don't seem to understand that communism isn't merely the name of the goal, but the process that leads to it too.

[Marxaveli]

You don't seem to understand that communism isn't merely the name of the goal, but the process that leads to it too.

So by that definition, you believed the Paris Commune and the USSR achieved communism?

[Red_Banner]

So by that definition, you believed the Paris Commune and the USSR achieved communism?

No, they were building socialism and communism.

It isn't just you wake up one day and "ploop!" we have communism.

[RedMaterialist]

You simply can't have common ownership of the means of production co-existing or mixing with private ownership. It is logically one or the other.

That may be true, but you can have state ownership of some of the means of production with some private ownership. If the state is controlled by a communist party acting as a dictatorship of and on behalf of the working class, then that would constitute a transition from capitalism to communism. During that period the communist party would continue the process of eliminating the bourgeois class and the far more numerous petit-bourgeois class.

It is only when the vast majority of the bourgeois classes has been eliminated and made impossible to be re-constituted (and that only on a world basis), only then will society become classless and the state disappear. And this because the last class, the working class, is the last class in history to function as a repressing or exploiting class.

The basis of the transition argument is that of progression, a gradual transformation of one stage into another (although with the possibility of "abrupt" changes as in biological evolution.)

Surely, after Hegel, we have gone past either/or, subjective/objective, true/false, birth/death, etc.

[Red Hornet]

Socialism for me is workers control. I don't consider the state owning and controlling the economy to be socialist, id call that state capitalism.. Nor do I think capitalist welfare states like Sweden to be socialist either.

Communism is a stateless, classless, society.

[Brotto Rühle]

You don't seem to understand that communism isn't merely the name of the goal, but the process that leads to it too.

Yes, just as you can say socialism/communism is the movement itself.

However, we are talking specifically of the society. Not of the process or anything else.

[Blake's Baby]

Anyone who claims that "socialism" is more than just a name for the initial phase of COMMUNIST society... is at odds with Marx...

Care to back up the view that Marx believed that 'socialism' was 'the initial phase' of communist society? I think you'll likely find it was Lenin.

[Brotto Rühle]

Care to back up the view that Marx believed that 'socialism' was 'the initial phase' of communist society? I think you'll likely find it was Lenin.

I totally agree that Marx never called the first phase of communism "socialism", and that was something Lenin did. What I'm saying, maybe I should have worded it better, is that there wasn't a separate "socialism" to Marx. There was capitalism, and then communism. No in between society, be it a "transitional mode of production" like the Trots suggest, or a "socialism" as the ML's say.

[Blake's Baby]

There is, of course, 'the transfomation of the one into the other'. From 'Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV':

"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."

But I agree, the transformation under the Dotp is not a stable 'in-between society', it's a period of radical upheaval to get from one society to another.

[Brotto Rühle]

There is, of course, 'the transfomation of the one into the other'. From 'Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV':

"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."

But I agree, the transformation under the Dotp is not a stable 'in-between society', it's a period of radical upheaval to get from one society to another.

Precisely. As Marx says, "political transition". Political in the sense that the working class seizes political power, only to abolish it in the end. Perhaps you disagree, but I always said that the mode of production remains capitalist, even if the workers' manage production. So long as the law of value operates, which is so long as global capitalism exists, socialism is not possible.

[Blake's Baby]

Don't disagree at all, I regularly get into arguments by saying that the mode of production under the DotP is capitalism. Sometimes I throw in words like 'attenuated' to make it clear I don't think everything goes on as before. But it's still a form of capitalism. What else could it be?

[RedMaterialist]

Care to back up the view that Marx believed that 'socialism' was 'the initial phase' of communist society? I think you'll likely find it was Lenin.


The closest Marx, in my opinion, came to understanding socialism as a transition period was in The Critique of the Gotha Program where he talked about a society emerging out of capitalism still retaining some of the characteristics of that system. But Marx never witnessed a full scale and successful workers' revolution as Lenin did. So he had no historical or empirical evidence of how exactly the transition to communism would work.

Lenin, however, in the midst of the Russian Revolution and the first few years of the Soviet state was able to perceive that socialism could be defined as part of the transition to communism. Thus, Lenin and Trotsky's theories of revolution, the state, and the economics of socialism were more advanced and historically more developed than Marx's.

And, later, Mao developed new theories of national liberation, guerilla war, etc. (I'm not sure if Mao ever wrote extensively about the role of the state.) Mao of course believed communism could be achieved through the immediate destruction of the capitalist state without a necessary transition to a fully developed capitalism. It looks like Marx was right about that: China, Vietnam, Cuba, some countries in Africa and South America are letting their economies develop capitalism more fully. In effect, they are playing with historical dynamite.

[RedMaterialist]

I would suggest you re-draw the graph as a traditional x/y axis with the x axis being time, and the y axis being political system. It is always hard to understand the graphs not in traditional mathematical form.

something like this:

http://img.sparknotes.com/figures/3/393a0f9064f0cef5c349ab5966e8842d/xy-graph2.gif

Using only the upper right quadrant and starting the time at, say 1200, which would include late stage feudalism, then early capitalism, then monopoly capitalism, etc.; you could identify each stage by some color and show the overlapping periods, punctuated by revolution, reactionary wars, etc.

I'm trying to work on one myself but I can't figure out how to get the graph to post.
__________________________________

[robbo203]

Like I said, expropriating the bourgeoisie proper overnight is not much of an issue. This act would by itself socialise huge parts of society. However, what about the petty-bourgeoisie? What about those middle layers that hold monopolies in skills and knowledge? How would you socialise those overnight without igniting a civil war?


What are you talking about? Im really curious. Why are the skills and knowlege of what you call the middle layers problematic? These people are, for the most part, relatively higher paid members of the working class that you are talking about. Since socialism cannot happen without a majority of workers being conscious socialists which will doubtless include a majority of the more highly paid workers as well, what exactly is the problem? Are you saying they will refuse to work, come socialism? If so perhaps you need to flesh out some more substantial argument to back up such a claim than mere assertion. Production is a more or less completely socialised process already: we are all interdependent . "[/I]No man is an island apart froim the main" as John Donne said. Would the so called middle layers you speak of seriously want to cut off their noses to spite their faces. I dont think so



And what is this nonsense that interpenetration of social orders isn't possible? Surely we're now living in a period where genuine "free market" capitalism cannot exist without strong management and intervention by the state, this is in itself a form of social management, be it pro-private property obviously.

Firstly, I did not say the interpenetration of social orders per se isn't possible. I was specifically talking about communism. Unlike with capitalism and feudalism, say, where two or even more modes of prpduction can jointly articulate based on sectional ownership, with communism this is simply not possible. You cant have common ownership of the means of production existing alongside private ownership . One excludes the other by defintion.. I surely dont need to explain to you again why this cannot happen. The Communist Manifesto made the prescient point that communism represents the [I]"most radical rupture with traditional property relations. That is, it breaks cleanly away from all previous property relations and for the very good reason that it cannot coexist with them

Secondly your example of social orders interpenetrating is absurd . You counterpose the free market to strong state intervention - as if state intervention is not equally as much capitalist as the the so called free market. State intervention and the free market are just the two extreme poles along the capitalist spectrum

As Engels put it

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"



I hope it is now clarified that I wasn't merely talking about big capital, which indeed can be expropriated overnight.

If however you really think you can just abolish class society by decree, then you're nothing more than a dangerous madman.




Nobody has suggested you can just abolish class society by decree, The social environment has to be ready to enable this to happen. There has to be in other words, a conscious socialist majority. That takes a considerable length of time to come about. Its a slow and painful process though I believe the pace of change will quicken as the socialist movement itself gets bigger

Once we have a clear majority of socialists the "enactment" - for want of a better word - can happen more or less immediately. You can hardly deny this possiblity since you yourself have said that big capital can indeed be expropriated overnight - i.e. more or less immediately. Personally I think the word "overnight" is inapt since it detracts from the fact that what are talking about is a conscious political process and not something undertaken when we are asleep!

[G4b3n]

Public ownership of the means of production. It could entail more but nothing less.

[Klaatu]

Pardon my confusion, I thought Socialism uses money, (or labor vouchers) while Communism does not. (Both are classless societies)

And I dislike the term "dictatorship" however or for whomever it's used (but perhaps I do not yet fully understand the concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat") explain?

[Skyhilist]

Wow, nice job. There's no way I could've managed to word things so to fit over 90% of everyone's definition of socialism on here in only 3 categories. I voted synonymous with communism though.

[robbo203]

Pardon my confusion, I thought Socialism uses money, (or labor vouchers) while Communism does not. (Both are classless societies)

And I dislike the term "dictatorship" however or for whomever it's used (but perhaps I do not yet fully understand the concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat") explain?


Strictly speaking, labour vouchers are not money since they do not circulate. Marx (somewhat unenthusiastically) suggested the idea of a labour voucher scheme for the lower stage of communism but did not ever identify this lower stage with socialism. The culprit was Lenin. See his The State and Revolution

I personally consider the labour voucher idea to be a very poor solution to the problems facing communist/socialist society in its early stages. I dont think the scheme is a very practical at all. It will require the monitoring of everyone's labour contributions and so necessitate a huge bureacracy, drawing resources away from socially useful production . It will also require the pricing of goods in terms of labour time units which is intrinsically problematic. And, above all, I think it will be massively socially divisive

I agree with your sentiments regarding the so called "dictatorship of the proletariat". Its a a concept that should be completely scrapped and removed from the communist lexicon. The very idea of the slaves being able to "dictate" terms to the slave owners while insisting on remaining slaves, is inherently implausible.

[Blake's Baby]

Quite where Robbo gets 'slaves insisting on remaining slaves' is not clear.

But otherwise, you have to realise that Robbo believes that capitalism can be abolished on a local basis. He denies that this a variant of 'socialism in one country'. But it is 'socialism in one territory' (it's not a 'country', Robbo believes, because once you abolish capitalism locally there is no local class system and therefore no state and therefore no 'country' to have socialism in).

I think this is fundamentally mistaken. Capitalism cannot be abolished unless the abolition is total (that is worldwide). It seems to me that until all property is collectivised, 'property' (both as a concept and physically) hasn't been abolished; and while property exists so do classes. The property that exists in the 'still-capitalist' portions of the world mean that the victorious workers in the revolutionary parts of the world still have a class-based relationship to that property - so even if everything in the revolutionary areas has been collectivised, the existence of external non-collectivised property means that not all property has been abolished. In these circumstances, there is no 'socialism'.

In the end, the dictatorship of the proletariat is what the proletariat is doing as it is wresting control from the bourgeoisie. It's the proletariat's attempt to transform society from a capitalist to a communist one. The transformation has to start (in capitalism) and it ends when we reach a socialist society. But it involves the working class becoming the hegemonic class in society and exercising its own power. That's why it's the 'dictatorship' of the proletriat.

[argeiphontes]

I personally consider the labour voucher idea to be a very poor solution to the problems facing communist/socialist society in its early stages. I dont think the scheme is a very practical at all. It will require the monitoring of everyone's labour contributions and so necessitate a huge bureacracy, drawing resources away from socially useful production. It will also require the pricing of goods in terms of labour time units which is intrinsically problematic.

Some of those systems are already in place (bank cards and what not). I agree it's wasteful, though. But if pay suddenly turned into remuneration for time and effort, "prices" might take care of themselves since they are two sides of the same coin, in a way.

I think some of these disputes over transitional systems arise from a premature desire to remove commerce from the transitional system. The key, IMO, would be to eliminate the relation of capital to labor. The organization of production into collectives would lay the groundwork for coordinating production between producers and consumers without the market.



But otherwise, you have to realise that Robbo believes that capitalism can be abolished on a local basis. He denies that this a variant of 'socialism in one country'.

To me, that's a purely empirical question without any natural relationship to any previous theories denying that Socialism In One X is impossible. If the first thing to be eliminated would be relations, and not the 'market', a nascent socialist state or area would still be able to trade for outside goods and services. It's not like they'll deny you the rope to hang them with ;) At least not at first...

The DoP is a fetish for using the state to resolve problems with the economy, of which the state is just superstructure.

[Blake's Baby]

No, the DotP is a recognition that until capitalism is abolished entirely, the state continues to exist, precisly because it's superstructural. It's an outgrowth of the base, and without the destruction of the roots (property and therefore classes) there can be no 'withering away of the state'.

[argeiphontes]

No, the DotP is a recognition that until capitalism is abolished entirely, the state continues to exist, precisly because it's superstructural. It's an outgrowth of the base, and without the destruction of the roots (property and therefore classes) there can be no 'withering away of the state'.

I should have put a ;) at the end of that line. In a transitional period, though, you should have a different base, requiring a different superstructure. But I would like the superstructure to "tail" the base, not vice versa. So I still think this is state-centered because in this conception of how communism comes into being, it is the state that is taking steps to bring about the system. So the tail wags the dog in a way.

For example, in another thread somebody mentioned the necessity of the state in suppressing the remnant bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. But in a transitional system where work is collectivized, there is nobody willing to become a wage slave because they prefer the new system to the old. So, these petit-bourgeoisie "employers" would have no willing employees and just dry up.

[Blake's Baby]

I should have put a ;) at the end of that line. In a transitional period, though, you should have a different base, requiring a different superstructure...

How? Capitalism can't be abolished locally as it's not a local system. It needs to be abolished as a whole. How do you do that if you only control a little bit of it? That's like trying to cure blood poisoning one limb at a time.

'We saved your husband's leg Mrs Stevenson! Unfortunately, the rest of him died.'


...But I would like the superstructure to "tail" the base, not vice versa. So I still think this is state-centered because in this conception of how communism comes into being, it is the state that is taking steps to bring about the system. So the tail wags the dog in a way...

It's not 'the state', it's 'the working class'. The only way the working class could do away with the state is if socialism in one country were possible. They would cease, by the by, to be 'working class' either, and a classless, communal society (without borders? How, when surrounded by other states?) brought into being in the midst of a capitalist world.

It's not that the tail wags the dog; it's more like you can't have a tail unless a dog goes with it. The tail (the state) is an outgrowth of the dog (class society).

Have you seen what happens when you have a mass of bubbles and one in the middle pops? The other bubbles don't go 'oh, well, let's just leave that space Derrick was occupying'. They crowd in to the space. Surface tension compels them to expand into it to fill the gap. 'Nature abhors a vacuum' and all that. Similarly, 'abolishing the state' on a local level merely means that the neighbouring non-revolutionary territories will invade. How can the working class fight back except by organising a 'revolutionary' state?


...For example, in another thread somebody mentioned the necessity of the state in suppressing the remnant bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. But in a transitional system where work is collectivized, there is nobody willing to become a wage slave because they prefer the new system to the old. So, these petit-bourgeoisie "employers" would have no willing employees and just dry up.

Who organises this 'collectivized' work? The working class. Who defends the revolutionary territory, against external enemies, and internal wreckers? The working class.

So, the working class is acting as a state, via the workers' councils. Can it do otherwise, in a situation where the revolution is only partial?

[argeiphontes]

How?

By using the relative freedom available in the modern liberal state to revolutionize the economy first. To do that, you take the "next step" and revolutionize whatever relations of production you can, since revolutionizing the relations of production is part of the goal anyway. "Really simple-minded stuff" as Chomsky might say.



Capitalism can't be abolished locally as it's not a local system. It needs to be abolished as a whole. How do you do that if you only control a little bit of it?It's a "system", sure, but it's not like a human limb because it's decentralized and there are individual actors/firms/producers/workers that are somewhat autonomous. Why not advocate to set up a system of worker collectives that you could use as the base for both politics and further systemic transformations? An adjunct to the parliamentary and other parts of the movement that takes advantage of reciprocal relations between the base and superstructure.

I think your whole line of thinking is coming from a very 'statist' concept of transition. Why not borrow something from the anarchists and just make the new society in the shell of the old. I realize I keep beating this horse (dead or not) on this board, but I don't really see anything other than ideological obstacles and this is part of my frustration with the seeming inaction on the left--remaining in this statist frame of reference when there are other options.

Nothing personal, just my opinion.

[Blake's Baby]

It's not just a matter of wishing. If it is, you coul abolish capitalism now. Go on, do it. It's just killing the capitalist in your head after all.

Or, you know, it's the complete overthrow of all existing social conditions - one or the other, and it's so hard to tell which is which.

[Brotto Rühle]

The closest Marx, in my opinion, came to understanding socialism as a transition period was in The Critique of the Gotha Program where he talked about a society emerging out of capitalism still retaining some of the characteristics of that system. But Marx never witnessed a full scale and successful workers' revolution as Lenin did. So he had no historical or empirical evidence of how exactly the transition to communism would work.

Lenin, however, in the midst of the Russian Revolution and the first few years of the Soviet state was able to perceive that socialism could be defined as part of the transition to communism. Thus, Lenin and Trotsky's theories of revolution, the state, and the economics of socialism were more advanced and historically more developed than Marx's.

And, later, Mao developed new theories of national liberation, guerilla war, etc. (I'm not sure if Mao ever wrote extensively about the role of the state.) Mao of course believed communism could be achieved through the immediate destruction of the capitalist state without a necessary transition to a fully developed capitalism. It looks like Marx was right about that: China, Vietnam, Cuba, some countries in Africa and South America are letting their economies develop capitalism more fully. In effect, they are playing with historical dynamite.

You've clearly never read the critique of the Gotha programme.