Is state socialism true socialism?

[Hungrydeer]

If I'm not wrong, socialism is the worker ownership and management of the means of production. If private property is abolished but the state owns the means of production, how is this worker ownership?

[Comrade Jacob]

The worker would democratically control it but it's surplus value would go to the state (which is run by the worker).

[Fourth Internationalist]

That's not socialism completely, though. That surely is an aspect, but that also occurs under the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the dotp, the state and workers are generally one and the same, and therefore it should not matter if the state or workers are said to own it (of course, if the state isn't a dotp, then they are not one and the same type of ownership). Keep in mind, also, that workers as a class, and therefore the state as well, do not exist under socialism.

[Blake's Baby]

No, it's not any kind of 'socialism'.

Engels wrote about this in 1880 - Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. State control of the economy brings capitalism to a head.

In 1895 Wilhelm Leibknecht said "no-one has done more than I to show that 'state socialism' is really state capitalism" - an assessment I heartily endorse, which is why I have him as an avatar.

[reb]

State socialism isn't any kind of socialism. It's about as socialist as a co-op and those advocating for state-socialism probably wouldn't consider co-ops to be socialist either. In no way does bringing industry into the state do away with the capitalist relation to production, embodied in wage-labor and surplus-value extraction. Anyone arguing that this is socialism and also considers themselves to be a marxist can have their opinions ignored until at such time they've realized what they are talking about. They are advocating a utopian socialism but dressing it up in marxist rhetoric.

[Q]

No, it's not any kind of 'socialism'.

Engels wrote about this in 1880 - Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. State control of the economy brings capitalism to a head.

In 1895 Wilhelm Leibknecht said "no-one has done more than I to show that 'state socialism' is really state capitalism" - an assessment I heartily endorse, which is why I have him as an avatar.
Don't you ever come up with an argument of your own? People might start thinking you're some sort of cultist.

But I agree with the others: The nationalisation of the top such and such is not inherently socialist. The prime question for communists is the battle for democracy: Only in a real democracy can our class rule. Only if our class rules can we start to change society and leave this misery and build towards a human society where class, state, nation, war, poverty and exploitation no longer exist.

So, state socialism - a bureaucracy that owns and manages all of the economy - is hardly democratic and no democracy means no working class rule, means no socialism. That is not to say no state exists under working class rule, but that is of such a radically different nature - a direct democracy, an abolished bureaucracy, an abolished army and police, an abolished market and an abolished hierarchy of states - that you can only speak of a semi-state at best, an instrument of the working class in the context of a dieing class society.

[G4b3n]

The statists are not concerned with what constitutes "real" or "pure" socialism upon its establishment, they are generally concerned with what they see as being necessary to abolish bourgeois property relations ("revolutionary terror", state repression, purging of "ideological impurities", and all of that nonsense).

You can call it whatever you like, it doesn't change a thing. To those of us workers who wish to see the autonomous control of workers over the means of production, we do not regard any sort of statism as even having the theoretical possibility of offering what we consider to be socialism.

[Blake's Baby]

Don't you ever come up with an argument of your own? People might start thinking you're some sort of cultist...

Your point?

No-one here is claiming that they're a disciple of mine, most people here claim to be Marxists. Mentioninging that Engels, and Leibknecht (who at one point was regarded as Marx & Engels' only follower), argued against nationalisation as being socialist in nature, seems more useful than telling anyone that's my opinion.

And you've been here a while, of course you're going to have seen me post this stuff. You can probably quote the relevant section from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific too.

[Geiseric]

Your point?

No-one here is claiming that they're a disciple of mine, most people here claim to be Marxists. Mentioninging that Engels, and Leibknecht (who at one point was regarded as Marx & Engels' only follower), argued against nationalisation as being socialist in nature, seems more useful than telling anyone that's my opinion.

And you've been here a while, of course you're going to have seen me post this stuff. You can probably quote the relevant section from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific too.

You've never read Principles of Communism then? i'll highlight the entire chapter where they are against what you're saying.

18) What will be the course of this revolution?

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.

Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat. The main measures, emerging as the necessary result of existing relations, are the following:

(i) Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance through collateral lines (brothers, nephews, etc.) forced loans, etc.

(ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.

(iii) Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.

(iv) Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, in so far as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.

(v) An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

(vi) Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.

(vii) Increase in the number of national factories, workshops, railroads, ships; bringing new lands into cultivation and improvement of land already under cultivation – all in proportion to the growth of the capital and labor force at the disposal of the nation.

(viii) Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together.

(ix) Construction, on public lands, of great palaces as communal dwellings for associated groups of citizens engaged in both industry and agriculture and combining in their way of life the advantages of urban and rural conditions while avoiding the one-sidedness and drawbacks of each.

(x) Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts.

(xi) Equal inheritance rights for children born in and out of wedlock.

(xii) Concentration of all means of transportation in the hands of the nation.

It is impossible, of course, to carry out all these measures at once. But one will always bring others in its wake. Once the first radical attack on private property has been launched, the proletariat will find itself forced to go ever further, to concentrate increasingly in the hands of the state all capital, all agriculture, all transport, all trade. All the foregoing measures are directed to this end; and they will become practicable and feasible, capable of producing their centralizing effects to precisely the degree that the proletariat, through its labor, multiplies the country’s productive forces.

Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.

[Marxaveli]

No, it's not any kind of 'socialism'.

Engels wrote about this in 1880 - Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. State control of the economy brings capitalism to a head.

In 1895 Wilhelm Leibknecht said "no-one has done more than I to show that 'state socialism' is really state capitalism" - an assessment I heartily endorse, which is why I have him as an avatar.

I agree with this post completely. There is no such thing as 'state socialism', just as there is no such thing as 'crony capitalism', 'communist countries', or 'democratic regimes vs. authoritarian regimes'.

If there is a state, that means classes exist. If classes exist, we do not have socialism. Period.

The nationalization of any industry is not a defining characteristic of socialism, just as 'monopolies' are not a defining characteristic of capitalism (even if they tend to occur).

[Blake's Baby]

You've never read Principles of Communism then? i'll highlight the entire chapter where they are against what you're saying...

Yes, I've read the Principles of Communism. I've also read the '10 Planks' section in the Communist Manifesto where very similar things are said. I've also read the Prefaces to the Communist Manifesto, written years latter (but before Socialism: Utopian and Scientific) where Marx and Engels say that if they were writing the Manifesto at that point the '10 Planks' (and by extension the Principles of Communism on which that section of the Manifesto was based) would be written very differently.

The entire output of Marx and Engels between 1844-48, though very important, does not constitiute the entire body of their work (it would be much easier if it did, it would be much shorter). Over the next 50 years they developed their ideas but also continued to analyse changing capitalism.

When they began writing (in the 1840s) Germany was a patchwork of semi-feudal states, the US was a slave-owning aristocracy (in fact, if not in name), Russia was a feudal backwater; the primary task of socialists was to support liberal movements and capitalist development in order to promote the growth of a democratic political culture among the emerging proletariat. The bourgeois revolution was not complete.

By the time Engels died, Germany was united and a world power; the USA ha fought the Civil War and become the most powerful state in the world; and Russia was quickly industrialising to become the 5th biggest economy in the world in a few short years; and he was already anticipating Lenin and Luxemburg in warning against industrial-scale war and the statisation of the economy (what we would regard today as facets of state capitalism and imperialism).

I'm happy with some parts of the Principles of Communism; Engels is quite clear that socialism must be established globally, for instance, and he and Marx never go back on that; but on the tactical questions they pose, when capitalism is still a 'progressive' system against feudalism? They went back on it when they decided that capitalism had fulfilled its historic tasks.

If you think capitalism does still have historic tasks, then that imeans that the revolution in Russia was a huge mistake, and the Bolsheviks were a hundred years premature. Socialists should be tailing the liberals and bringing about bourgeois democracy, bringing about more capitalism. Stupid Bolsheviks. Of course, coming back to Vietnam, because American capitalism is more dynamic and modern that Vietnamese capitalism, it also means that you should have supported the Americans as the most progressive capitalism. Stupid Viet-Minh.

That may be what you believe, but I don't. I think it's ridiculous.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

"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." - Engels

[Thirsty Crow]

The worker would democratically control it but it's surplus value would go to the state (which is run by the worker).
This is fundamentally confused and contradictory. The extraction of surplus value indicates that we're dealing with the relationship between wage labor and capital. No sugarcoating of workers' control and "democracy" can mask the essentially antagonistic relationship that this represents.

[reb]

Seems a little bit obtuse to use an unpublished pamphlet from Engels in 1847 to justify the idea of state-socialism when he doesn't even mention socialism. What is that phrase? Stuffing words into a dead man's mouth?

[argeiphontes]

It seems to me that under state "socialism" the workers own the means of production in the same sense that I "own" the National Parks or the Washington Monument. I don't--the state owns it, and the state is something alien to me.

[Red_Banner]

The state is used to build socialism.

Theres's a difference between a socialist state and actual socialism.

[Blake's Baby]

Much as there's a difference between a 'democratic' state and actual democracy?

In other words, 'socialist', just like 'democratic', is a fig leaf for state-capitalist tyranny?

[Red_Banner]

Much as there's a difference between a 'democratic' state and actual democracy?

In other words, 'socialist', just like 'democratic', is a fig leaf for state-capitalist tyranny?


No.

[Blake's Baby]

Well that was succinct, but not very elightening.

Do tell how 'the state builds socialism', Uncle red Banner, for we are agog to know and hanging on your every word.

Scarce as they are.

[Geiseric]

Yes, I've read the Principles of Communism. I've also read the '10 Planks' section in the Communist Manifesto where very similar things are said. I've also read the Prefaces to the Communist Manifesto, written years latter (but before Socialism: Utopian and Scientific) where Marx and Engels say that if they were writing the Manifesto at that point the '10 Planks' (and by extension the Principles of Communism on which that section of the Manifesto was based) would be written very differently.

The entire output of Marx and Engels between 1844-48, though very important, does not constitiute the entire body of their work (it would be much easier if it did, it would be much shorter). Over the next 50 years they developed their ideas but also continued to analyse changing capitalism.

When they began writing (in the 1840s) Germany was a patchwork of semi-feudal states, the US was a slave-owning aristocracy (in fact, if not in name), Russia was a feudal backwater; the primary task of socialists was to support liberal movements and capitalist development in order to promote the growth of a democratic political culture among the emerging proletariat. The bourgeois revolution was not complete.

By the time Engels died, Germany was united and a world power; the USA ha fought the Civil War and become the most powerful state in the world; and Russia was quickly industrialising to become the 5th biggest economy in the world in a few short years; and he was already anticipating Lenin and Luxemburg in warning against industrial-scale war and the statisation of the economy (what we would regard today as facets of state capitalism and imperialism).

I'm happy with some parts of the Principles of Communism; Engels is quite clear that socialism must be established globally, for instance, and he and Marx never go back on that; but on the tactical questions they pose, when capitalism is still a 'progressive' system against feudalism? They went back on it when they decided that capitalism had fulfilled its historic tasks.

If you think capitalism does still have historic tasks, then that imeans that the revolution in Russia was a huge mistake, and the Bolsheviks were a hundred years premature. Socialists should be tailing the liberals and bringing about bourgeois democracy, bringing about more capitalism. Stupid Bolsheviks. Of course, coming back to Vietnam, because American capitalism is more dynamic and modern that Vietnamese capitalism, it also means that you should have supported the Americans as the most progressive capitalism. Stupid Viet-Minh.

That may be what you believe, but I don't. I think it's ridiculous.

None of that has anything to do with Engels said. Sorry but you changed the topic, he was saying plain and clear what the immediate tasks of communists are, and as far as I know he's never gone back on what he said nor was he criticized by any other marxists for the Ten planks nor chapter 18 of principles.

The development of capitalist states has nothing to do with the demands he sets forth. By the 1840s all of those demands could of been made in any european country, as the only major economic developments in western europe by that point created an advanced proletariat through the entire continent, save maybe for Russia and some backwards parts of Eastern Europe.

But where in western europe was the "bourgeois revolution not complete"? Engels and Marx would probably of noticed such a thing since they spent most of their lives outside of Germany, which actually had a developed proletariat by the 1840s in many areas.

[Blake's Baby]

None of that has anything to do with Engels said. Sorry but you changed the topic, he was saying plain and clear what the immediate tasks of communists are, and as far as I know he's never gone back on what he said nor was he criticized by any other marxists for the Ten planks nor chapter 18 of principles...

You don't know.

The 10 planks were declared outdated by the 1870s.

Where Marx and Engels, in the 1840s, say one thing, and Marx and Engels, in the the 1870s-'80s, say something that disagrees with what they said 30 years previously, then I tend to take what they said later as being their more considered opinion, or their opinion in a new situation. History works that way, from earlier to later.


...

But where in western europe was the "bourgeois revolution not complete"? Engels and Marx would probably of noticed such a thing since they spent most of their lives outside of Germany, which actually had a developed proletariat by the 1840s in many areas.

Err, Germany, primarily. Have you never read their criticisms of the failure of the bourgeois revolutions of 1848?

And who said they were only writing for Western Europe? Obviously there were bourgeois revolutions that could have taken place in many other places, primarily Russia, but also China and Japan.

[Red_Banner]

Well that was succinct, but not very elightening.

Do tell how 'the state builds socialism', Uncle red Banner, for we are agog to know and hanging on your every word.

Scarce as they are.

The state isn't simply abolished, it withers away.

Are you some utopian with no plan that is praying for a pixie to come along and make things better?

[Brotto Rühle]

The state isn't simply abolished, it withers away.

Are you some utopian with no plan that is praying for a pixie to come along and make things better?

Contrary to Stalinist belief, the idea of the withering away of the state isn't a strong prole state which dissipates into socialism and finally dissappears in communism. But the dying of the dotp from it's very inception of being, to it's total abolition of itself at the moment of socialism (read communist) society. That is the withering away.

I think youd benefit from reading Karl Marx and the State by David Adam.

[Red_Banner]

I am not a Stalinist.

[Brotto Rühle]

I am not a Stalinist.

Whatever Leninism you so happen to support. It's irrelevant whether that's Stalinism, trotskyism or Maoism.

[Red_Banner]

Whatever Leninism you so happen to support. It's irrelevant whether that's Stalinism, trotskyism or Maoism.

It is only irrelevant to you because you have no understanding of any of them.

[Geiseric]

You don't know.

The 10 planks were declared outdated by the 1870s.

Where Marx and Engels, in the 1840s, say one thing, and Marx and Engels, in the the 1870s-'80s, say something that disagrees with what they said 30 years previously, then I tend to take what they said later as being their more considered opinion, or their opinion in a new situation. History works that way, from earlier to later.



Err, Germany, primarily. Have you never read their criticisms of the failure of the bourgeois revolutions of 1848?

And who said they were only writing for Western Europe? Obviously there were bourgeois revolutions that could have taken place in many other places, primarily Russia, but also China and Japan.

If there's an advanced proletariat a bourgeois revolution is impossible, since the national bourgeois is subservient to the international, and is thus incapable of establishing democratic demands through a revolution. Also cite where they changed their minds about principles. Was it before engels founded the SPD?

[reb]

The state isn't simply abolished, it withers away.

Dogma. You're taking a quote out of context and using it to attack people you don't agree with thus displaying an utter lack of understanding. Thus far, no stalinist as far as I have seen has ever described a mechanism that allows for the state to just "wither away" let alone one that fits in with "socialism" in one country.


Are you some utopian with no plan that is praying for a pixie to come along and make things better?

And again, you seem to have absolutely no understanding of any marxist concepts. You do understand that utopian actually involves putting things to a plan, don't you?

[Brotto Rühle]

It is only irrelevant to you because you have no understanding of any of them.

Zingggggggggggg.:rolleyes:

[Paul Cockshott]

If I'm not wrong, socialism is the worker ownership and management of the means of production. If private property is abolished but the state owns the means of production, how is this worker ownership?

Read the Communist Manifesto. There are many types of socialism.

[reb]

Read the Communist Manifesto. There are many types of socialism.

The whole point of that chapter was to show that there are only types of socialism utopian and the one that Marx and Engels were advocating.

[freecommunist]

Seriously how can you even talk about the DOP with regards the states you mention?

Even by Trotskyist standards that is a new one on me.

[Five Year Plan]

No, it's not any kind of 'socialism'.

Engels wrote about this in 1880 - Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. State control of the economy brings capitalism to a head.

Do you mind showing us the exact quote in context so we can all follow along?

The closest quote I can find to this is: "In the trusts, freedom of competition changes into its very opposite — into monopoly; and the production without any definite plan of capitalistic society capitulates to the production upon a definite plan of the invading socialistic society. Certainly, this is so far still to the benefit and advantage of the capitalists. But, in this case, the exploitation is so palpable, that it must break down. No nation will put up with production conducted by trusts, with so barefaced an exploitation of the community by a small band of dividend-mongers. In any case, with trusts or without, the official representative of capitalist society — the state — will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production. 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."

Here Engels is very clearly talking about state ownership by a bourgeois state, not a workers' state, and explaining how capitalism's weakness requires that the bourgeoisie adopt a proletarian property form through their state. Why do I think this? Because he also described a socialist revolution in this way in Anti-Duhring, from 1877: "The proletariat seizes state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with."

When does that property cease being state property? When the state withers away: "The state is not 'abolished'. It withers away. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase 'a free people's state', both as to its justifiable use for a long time from an agitational point of view, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the so-called anarchists' demand that the state be abolished overnight."

Engels distinguished between the workers' state "owning" the means of production, and planning according to the needs of workers, and the capitalist "barefaced exploitation of the community by a small band of dividend-mongers," even if, for whatever reason, you don't want to.

[Blake's Baby]

Do you mind showing us the exact quote in context so we can all follow along?...


Danielle Ni Dhighe quoted it already:


"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." - Engels

The full paragraph is:

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.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

[Red_Banner]

Zingggggggggggg.:rolleyes:

That's all you have to say?

It seems you think Lenin and Stalin are the same guy.

[Thirsty Crow]

The development of capitalist states has nothing to do with the demands he sets forth.
Fuck.
So, suppose that universal public education would be deemed as a transitional demand, and therefore a communist demand, and whoa wait there the capitalist state institutes universal public education. The development of the capitalist state and of the wage labor-capital relationship means nothing? Man you're more Bordigist than Bordiga.

[Five Year Plan]

Danielle Ni Dhighe quoted it already:



The full paragraph is:

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.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

Yes, that is the section I figured you were quoting from. He states again and again that he is talking about the modern bourgeois state, sometimes simply calling it the "modern" state. He says that no matter what its "form," no matter the differences from country to country, such a state is an integral part of the capitalist mode of production.

This is why Engels, like Marx, and like Lenin and Trotsky after him, called for smashing that state and replacing it with a workers' state that abolishes capitalism by that state (not a bourgeois state) taking ownership of all the means of production. Do I need to quote Engels saying this in Anti-Duhring again? Or can you just look two posts above mine and read it for yourself?

[Blake's Baby]

... Also cite where they changed their minds about principles...

They didn't change their mind about 'principles', they changed their mind about tactics. Nationalisation isn't a 'principle'.

I have read the 'Prefaces' many times: I can't recall which of them it was, and don't intend to go and root out my copy of the Manifesto now.

I advise you to read the 'Prefaces'.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm

There are only 7 of them, they're all pretty short. It's in one of them.

[Geiseric]

Fuck.
So, suppose that universal public education would be deemed as a transitional demand, and therefore a communist demand, and whoa wait there the capitalist state institutes universal public education. The development of the capitalist state and of the wage labor-capital relationship means nothing? Man you're more Bordigist than Bordiga.

The only reason public education exists is because it was struggled for in the first place, by striking workers who wanted to get rid of child labor. And in every capitalist country the bourgeois are struggling, going out of their way to get rid of public education, a la Jerry Brown. So it is a transitional demand, if we look at what's going on as we speak in Mexico, Turkey, and Brazil, for the entire working class to have access to higher education. Otherwise children would be working in factories, like things were in the 1800s.

Universal public education was not "instituted" by any capitalist state without struggle from the working class as a pretext. It all goes together, because educated people will demand higher wages. And as we see there is class struggle present in the public school system of most capitalist countries.

[Thirsty Crow]

The only reason public education exists is because it was struggled for in the first place, by striking workers who wanted to get rid of child labor. Irrelevant. The point is that the nature of the so called transitional, communist demands changes with the development of both the capitalist state and capital.


And in every capitalist country the bourgeois are struggling, going out of their way to get rid of public education, a la Jerry Brown.So you'd argue that the drive to mandatory public secondary education (such as in the EU) means that the capitalist class is going out of its way to get rid of public education?

So it is a transitional demand,According to the twisted logic of certain brand of Trots, that's for sure.


if we look at what's going on as we speak in Mexico, Turkey, and Brazil, for the entire working class to have access to higher education. I'm not talking about higher education.


Otherwise children would be working in factories, like things were in the 1800s.
Thank you for teaching me. I don't know where I'd be without folks such as yourself,


Universal public education was not "instituted" by any capitalist state without struggle from the working class as a pretext.Again, irrelevant. This example does only one thing - it shows that so called communist demands have historically been dependent on the development of capital and the state (and, of course, class struggle).

[argeiphontes]

The only reason public education exists is because it was struggled for in the first place, by striking workers who wanted to get rid of child labor.

Bowles (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/BowlesEducation.htm) (and Gintis (http://www.amazon.com/Schooling-Capitalist-America-Educational-Contradictions/dp/0465072305)) claim that it's a result of capitalism's need to reproduce the workforce.

[Brotto Rühle]

That's all you have to say?

It seems you think Lenin and Stalin are the same guy.

I certainly do not.

[Klaatu]

The way I see it, one of the first and foremost things that needs to be done is to get all money, down to the last penny, out of politics. That is because the capitalist ruling class survives and maintains it's stranglehold on it's power and political ownership by means of money.

No money, and their power dwindles much as "Roundup" spray withers weeds.

[Zukunftsmusik]

I have read the 'Prefaces' many times: I can't recall which of them it was, and don't intend to go and root out my copy of the Manifesto now.

It's the first one in your link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm), the one written for the 1872 German edition:


However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, 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. 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. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”


The development of capitalist states has nothing to do with the demands he sets forth. By the 1840s all of those demands could of been made in any european country, as the only major economic developments in western europe by that point created an advanced proletariat through the entire continent, save maybe for Russia and some backwards parts of Eastern Europe.

This is kinda the point, though, isn't it? The "ten planks" and the "course of the revolution" laid out by Marx and Engels were demands from the 1840s. Lots of the demands have already been fulfilled (as other demands coming from the class struggle, such as public school systems, which has been discussed in this thread). Do you seriously think a demand for a central bank is important today? Or a demand for public schools? Because it seems like capitalism has done this already (whether or not these things were fought through by the working class is irrelevant here and now).

[Zukunftsmusik]

Bowles (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibson/BowlesEducation.htm) (and Gintis (http://www.amazon.com/Schooling-Capitalist-America-Educational-Contradictions/dp/0465072305)) claim that it's a result of capitalism's need to reproduce the workforce.

It is. It's also a result of more complex and specialised labour, needing longer and more specialised education. This doesn't contradict that public education, cheaper or free higher education etc. were demands rising form the class struggle, it just means that these demands (in most countries to a large degree) are antiquated.

[Q]

Was it before engels founded the SPD?
Engels didn't found the SPD. That was August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. In fact, I'm not even sure Engels ever formally joined the SPD...

[Paul Cockshott]

The whole point of that chapter was to show that there are only types of socialism utopian and the one that Marx and Engels were advocating.

Or was it to contrast Communism to socialism?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Engels didn't found the SPD. That was August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. In fact, I'm not even sure Engels ever formally joined the SPD...

Doubt it since he was an exile and all. Marx and Engels did however support the German socialists. Marx for example tried to get american journalists to write about the German conditions and Bismarck: "Now we here at London, Paris, etc., will do our best. At the same time, I believe that a man of your influence might organize a subscription in the United States. Even if the monetary result were not important, denunciations of Bismarck’s new coup d'etat in public meetings held by you, reported in the American press, reproduced on the other side of the Atlantic, would sorely hit the Pomeranian hobereau and be welcomed by all the socialists of Europe. More information you might get from Mr. Sorge (Hoboken). Any money forthcoming to be sent over to Mr. Otto Freytag, Landtagsabgeordneter, Amtmannshof, Leipzig. His address ought, of course, not to be made public; otherwise the German police would simply-confiscate." He wrote to John Swinton, a journalist who had written a sympathetic report about him. Marx and, mostly, Engels wrote a lot for and criticising the German socialists but I am inclined to believe they would have been members were they not exiles. Being exiles them being members would probably have had bad consequences for the SPD because of the anti-socialist laws.

[reb]

Or was it to contrast Communism to socialism?

Do you even claim to be a marxist or do you just use marx to prop up your own utopian arguments? I have absolutely no idea how anyone can take this message away from the Manifesto unless they have totally misunderstood what this section, and the rest of Marx's work, was about. You appear to be some professor as some university, how can it be that you can't read a basic text?

EDIT: I just looked up the place where you work and you work in the same university as Hillel Ticktin. Does your college also offer courses on how to jump into a bucket of water from atop a tall ladder, the intricacies of face panting and the comedic appeal of the prat fall?

[WilliamGreen]

I think another poster noted this but this is just state capitalism

[Brotto Rühle]

Or was it to contrast Communism to socialism?

How does one contrast a society with itself?

[Rafiq]

There is no "true socialism" other than the ideology which supplements or embodies the class interests of the proletarian class. Socialism is not a mode of production, and if it is, to hell with it, should the proletariat attain state power and call their state of affairs state socialism than it is all the more preferable to some abstract and meaningless utopia that is more pure.

[Brotto Rühle]

There is no "true socialism" other than the ideology which supplements or embodies the class interests of the proletarian class. Socialism is not a mode of production, and if it is, to hell with it, should the proletariat attain state power and call their state of affairs state socialism than it is all the more preferable to some abstract and meaningless utopia that is more pure.

Your whole post is void of any analysis of what constitutes the mode of production within a communist society. Of course Socialism isn't JUST a mode of production, but it quite obviously HAS a mode of production... which, you guessed it, we call the Socialist mode of production. If the "proletariat attain state power" and do nothing to abolish the capitalist mode of production, and decide to call it socialism, then that is a failed revolution. The interests of the proletariat is to abolish itself as thus, to eliminate it's own existence, and the existence of every class. Taking political power, saying "We did it! We're done! We have socialism!" is ignorance of reality, of what socialism IS (as described by Marx - Classless and thus stateless society), and will not last.