Babeuf's "partition" communism

[ñángara]

Imagine a socialist revolution in an oil producer little country, like the Arab Emirates. Is it worth that the State thinks of spending a lot of capital in constructing, lets say, factories for producing TV-sets, cars, or whatever, when it will be cheaper to rationally import these products from an already industrial country and sell them directly to the people?

Is this a kind of the "partition or distributive" communism Babeuf considered during the French revolution, as they say French historian George Lefevbre called it?

[Sinister Intents]

They will be subject to remaining capitalist, and will reproduce the capitalist system within the nation. Commodity production and wage slavery will still exist in this setting. What you're describing doesn't make me think of communism at all, but rather a capitalist society. In essence it makes me think of a reformed capitalist economy, there may not be classes, but it may be the same exact game. It should be known I haven't read Babeuf, minus snippets here and there, So I could very well be wrong.

[Art Vandelay]

there may not be classes, but it may be the same exact game.

How can a state exist - capitalist or otherwise - without the existence of socioeconomic classes?

[Sinister Intents]

How can a state exist - capitalist or otherwise - without the existence of socioeconomic classes?

True that, didn't notice that, I was more trying to state socialism cannot exist in one country. You essentially would have a society being forced to conform economically speaking. Class divisions would still exist and the state would remain a necessity for its functioning in the world. I'm trying to use what I know here.

[Sinister Intents]

I can, I think weakly, use my business as an example here.

A business as a hierarchical structure with an owner at the top and the laborers at the bottom. I am petit bourgeois and my workers the proletarians. They sell me their labor and I accordingly pay them a wage per hour. If we were a workers' cooperative we'd still be suspended in the capitalist framework and the maintenance of the business and the extraction of surplus value would be our cooperative interest. Me and the other workers would be of the same class and we'd split profits accordingly and be involved in all aspects. The cooperative would be a part of the problem itself, it would still be a capitalist enterprise competing with other firms on the market.

Let's say in stead of a business now that it's a small oil producing nation. Let's say that some kind of workers' revolt occurred and attempted to yield workers' control of all capital. This small nation would still remain a hierarchy and it'd be necessary for it to function and compete as a capitalist entity. There would exist a minority of owners and a majority of workers still that would have to sell their labor to the minority to survive. The game would remain the same.

I'm tired pardon my crappy example, but I think it partly follows at least

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I have no idea what the question here is.

Does the success of the revolution (by necessity, a highly reversible success) in one territory mean this territory needs to have factories for every possible good in existence? No, that would be absurd.

Is a state, trading on the global market, and selling commodities to its citizens, an example of some kind of communism? No, communism is global and means the end of commodity production and the market.

[Luís Henrique]

Imagine a socialist revolution in an oil producer little country, like the Arab Emirates.

Well, for the sake of argument only, because it doesn't seem probable at all - or, at least, it does seem much less probable than socialist revolutions in more diversified, either agricultural or industrial countries.


Is it worth that the State thinks of spending a lot of capital in constructing, lets say, factories for producing TV-sets, cars, or whatever, when it will be cheaper to rationally import these products from an already industrial country and sell them directly to the people?

No. This would result in what Robert Kurz called "bonsai Fordism", and would require a demented level of repression (jailing people for the terrible crime of buying foreign gadgets, so to protect an inviable industry that will fail anyway).

So the best, or least bad, option is to import products from industrialised countries. With the result that local industry will be drowned by foreign products.

In practice, any real world policy will be a mix. Even the most crazed Stalinist dictatorship will have to realise that you cannot set up industrial plants without importing machinery from abroad. And even the most wishy-washy comprador regime will realise that a few industrial (and agricultural!) sectors are strategic for the survival of the national economy.

But that mix won't be random. Insertion into the international market will have to take precedence, and if it doesn't, we will see regressive phenomena like those in the Soviet Union and similar societies - only worse, because of a much less diverse economy. Queue-munism, if we are into the game of word coining.


Is this a kind of the "partition or distributive" communism Babeuf considered during the French revolution, as they say French historian George Lefevbre called it?

I am not sure of what Babeuf would call "distributive communism", but a society like you suggest would be extremely vulnerable to foreign pressure. If all they have to sell is oil, and they have to buy everything from abroad, from computers to wheat, the limits for their political criativity would be most stringent. They may not be able to feed their populace without complying to foreign political demands. Which is, I guess, the reason that oil exporting countries are so politically unstable (such as Libya, Venezuela, or Nigeria), and seem to only find some kind of stability in very backward political regimes (such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait).

The hypothethical somehow reminds me of Sartre's L'engrénage...

Luís Henrique

[RedMaterialist]

Let's say in stead of a business now that it's a small oil producing nation. Let's say that some kind of workers' revolt occurred and attempted to yield workers' control of all capital. This small nation would still remain a hierarchy and it'd be necessary for it to function and compete as a capitalist entity.

If a worker's revolt occurred in this small oil producing nation, there would be a military invasion within a few weeks to restore the natural order of freedom and democracy.

[Rafiq]

Migrant workers in the UAE constitute 90% of the workforce and some 7/9 residents are migrant workers. The conclusion of course is that the UAE is largely a parasitic state whose predispositions to revolution amount to its enslaved population laying waste to Dubai. There is no need to appropriate the means of production in the UAE, because it's a state which is sustained by its relationship to global capital, like Singapore. There is no reason to think that following a revolution it would be as inhabited or important as it is now.

[ñángara]

Let me try to explain what I meant.

These communist guys seized power in a very rich oil producing country with a scarce population. There is no need for a "primitive" socialist accumulation because they already have a great capital!

Now, they can implement a partition or distribution of products "to any one according his needs". Is that a "ready-made" communism of partition or distribution of the wealth ?

[Sinister Intents]

Let me try to explain what I meant.

These communist guys seized power in a very rich oil producing country with a scarce population. There is no need for a "primitive" socialist accumulation because they already have a great capital!

Now, they can implement a partition or distribution of products "to any one according his needs". Is that a "ready-made" communism of partition or distribution of the wealth ?

I would have to say that's not communism what you're describing. Communism is a society where the state, an organ of class dominance, has been rendered obsolete, and all class divisions and antagonisms between the owners and workers eliminated. Communism is anarchy: A stateless, classless society of freely associating producers where the means of production are are collectively owned and operated. What this will exactly look like is yet to be determined, but history shows us glimmers of what may be.

Capitalism cannot be reformed or flipped around, it will remain capitalism; the system of private ownership where a state became necessary to maintain divisions and protect and maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie.

If there exist class divisions; it isn't communism, and if their remains wage labor and owners; it isn't communism.

[Guardia Rossa]

It will remain capitalist. The boureocracy functions almost as the (capitalist) aristocracy when they are in power.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If there exist class divisions; it isn't communism, and if their remains wage labor and owners; it isn't communism.

Good that you distinguished between "wage labour" and ownership, and not just stuck to the ownership question!

(And welcome to the group)