State-Capitalism as the economic form of the proletarian dictatorship?

[Jacob Cliff]

Here by State-Capitalism I do not refer to the same "state-capitalism" as employed by Cliffites, nor am I referring to the "state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy" (i.e. Lenin's NEP).
I mean the state ownership, management and direction of capital. All of us, I'd assume, understand that the "birthmarks of capitalism" will carry on well into the first phases of communist society, or at least within the preceding dictatorship of the proletariat, so my question is this:

Judging by the fact that we Marxists stand for the centralization of the means of production and exchange in the hands of the State, and given that capital will not disappear overnight in a proletarian revolution, does this mean that the economy we would initially see would be "state-capitalist"? Not that we should shy away from this word, or simply get caught up in petty semantics, but technically speaking, would this be "state-capitalism"?
Thanks.

[tuwix]

First of all, it's very debatable Marxists are for centralization of production means'. It's sure that Marxist are for socialization of them. And Leninism is differs form Marxism.
In Marxists understanding the difference between capitalism and socialism is property. In socialism workplace is property of workers. So if state owns workplace, then state must be controlled by workers. Theoretically it's possible. But as far it's never happened. However, capitalism is never dictatorship of proletariat. Even state-capitalism.

[ComradeAllende]

Here by State-Capitalism I do not refer to the same "state-capitalism" as employed by Cliffites, nor am I referring to the "state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy" (i.e. Lenin's NEP).
I mean the state ownership, management and direction of capital. All of us, I'd assume, understand that the "birthmarks of capitalism" will carry on well into the first phases of communist society, or at least within the preceding dictatorship of the proletariat, so my question is this:

Judging by the fact that we Marxists stand for the centralization of the means of production and exchange in the hands of the State, and given that capital will not disappear overnight in a proletarian revolution, does this mean that the economy we would initially see would be "state-capitalist"? Not that we should shy away from this word, or simply get caught up in petty semantics, but technically speaking, would this be "state-capitalism"?
Thanks.

Well, first off (as tuwix said) there is a considerable debate as to whether or not centralization is key to our political and economic programme. Leninists (and many classical Marxists) will argue that state nationalization of major industries is key to socialization, while the Luxemburgists and left communists opt for more decentralized and worker-controlled forms of organization.

Second, I would personally prefer to see a combination of state nationalization and worker's syndicates during the transition to higher-stage communism. Some industries providing basic goods (such as food, housing, healthcare, etc.) are centralized under a national (or international) "dictatorship of the proletariat", whereas light industry and distribution networks are run by regional or local workers' syndicates, with each being run by committees divided between experts, workers' elected representatives, and consumers (i.e. other workers).

But to answer your question, state capitalism is not a viable method on the transition to communism because it already exists. Every major developed economy in the world embraces a state-capitalist approach (although it is somewhat diluted given the recent rise of neoliberalism) towards growth and development, via state-subsidized basic research, subsidies and credits for capital investment, and other "interventionist" policies. State capitalism is quite similar to social democracy in their embrace of state interventionist, although the former is more focused on expanding and optimizing the accumulation of capital whereas the latter is (usually) focused on ensuring a somewhat equitable distribution of income (and providing the workers and their organizations with some semblance of agency). It may have been feasible in the early 20th century, before the rise of postwar capitalism and the ossification and dissolution of the Stalinist and neo-Leninist bureaucracy.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, first off (as tuwix said) there is a considerable debate as to whether or not centralization is key to our political and economic programme. Leninists (and many classical Marxists) will argue that state nationalization of major industries is key to socialization, while the Luxemburgists and left communists opt for more decentralized and worker-controlled forms of organization.

Luxemburg, in the programme of the Spartakusbund:

" 7) Increase in the number of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally, in accordance with a social plan."

Bordiga, in "Seize Power or Seize the Factory?":

"It is rumoured that factory councils, where they were in existence, functioned by taking over the management of the workshops and carrying on the work. We would not like the working masses to get hold of the idea that all they need do to take over the factories and get rid or the capitalists is set up councils. This would indeed be a dangerous illusion. The factory will be conquered by the working class – and not only by the workforce employed in it, which would be too weak and non-communist – only after the working class as a whole has seized political power. Unless it has done so, the Royal Guards, military police, etc. – in other words, the mechanism of force and oppression that the bourgeoisie has at its disposal, its political power apparatus – will see to it that all illusions are dispelled."

I don't know why people think that "left communism" = "decentralisation", if anything our comrade the lost fifth ninja turtle was far more a centralist that most Leninists save the die-hards like Larin or Sokolnikov. In any case, obviously we stand for the centralisation of the means of production. And we have since the beginning; note that Engels mocked the "socialitarian" Duehring for wanting to disperse the means of production.

Is that state capitalism? It might be; but it's not necessarily. The question is what the laws of motion of a given economic complex are. If the law of value predominates, we're talking about state capitalism. If the law of planning predominates, we're talking about the planned economy of the workers' state (what Lenin calls the socialist sector, which is to be understood analogously to the socialist government, socialist republic etc. as not socialist in the strict sense but belonging to "that state power which is desirous of socialism or which is constrained to desire it"). State capitalism is an element of the transitional period, of course, as we can't introduce the law of planning everywhere and immediately. But it's not the only one.

[Emmett Till]

Luxemburg, in the programme of the Spartakusbund:

" 7) Increase in the number of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally, in accordance with a social plan."

Indeed the idea of Rosa Luxemburg as a decentralizer is downright strange. This is after all the same Rosa Luxemburg who opposed self-determination for Poles and other Slavs (Croatians included BTW, Xhar Xhar) in the name of maintaining the revolutionary unity of the future Russian and Great German workers republics.


Bordiga, in "Seize Power or Seize the Factory?":

"It is rumoured that factory councils, where they were in existence, functioned by taking over the management of the workshops and carrying on the work. We would not like the working masses to get hold of the idea that all they need do to take over the factories and get rid or the capitalists is set up councils. This would indeed be a dangerous illusion. The factory will be conquered by the working class – and not only by the workforce employed in it, which would be too weak and non-communist – only after the working class as a whole has seized political power. Unless it has done so, the Royal Guards, military police, etc. – in other words, the mechanism of force and oppression that the bourgeoisie has at its disposal, its political power apparatus – will see to it that all illusions are dispelled."

I don't know why people think that "left communism" = "decentralisation", if anything our comrade the lost fifth ninja turtle was far more a centralist that most Leninists save the die-hards like Larin or Sokolnikov. In any case, obviously we stand for the centralisation of the means of production. And we have since the beginning; note that Engels mocked the "socialitarian" Duehring for wanting to disperse the means of production.

Is that state capitalism? It might be; but it's not necessarily. The question is what the laws of motion of a given economic complex are. If the law of value predominates, we're talking about state capitalism. If the law of planning predominates, we're talking about the planned economy of the workers' state (what Lenin calls the socialist sector, which is to be understood analogously to the socialist government, socialist republic etc. as not socialist in the strict sense but belonging to "that state power which is desirous of socialism or which is constrained to desire it"). State capitalism is an element of the transitional period, of course, as we can't introduce the law of planning everywhere and immediately. But it's not the only one.

All well put. I'll only note that Larin was personally extremely loyal to Stalin, literally proclaiming his love for Stalin on his deathbed in 1932, but was far from a "hard liner." He was the main worker organizer for the Mensheviks in Petrograd, a rather right wing Menshevik at that, till his working class constituency basically dragged him into the Bolshevik Party in 1917.

Nor did he altogether change his stripes, as shown by his most famous project, the attempt to create a "Soviet Zionist" Jewish autonomous farming colony in his native Crimea. With funding provided by anti-Palestinian-Zionism American Jewish bankers who didn't want any more Jews emigrating to America. A thoroughly Menshevik affair.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yes, Larin was an odd individual, and Lenin took a dim view of his activities even after he entered the communist party. I wasn't aware of his death-bed confession, but it doesn't particularly surprise me, either. I do think he was a hardliner on the specific question of centralism - that is, in disputes about VSNKh, German war socialism, war communism etc. he took the extreme centralist position.

Poor Rosa Luxemburg has been dragged through the mud for almost a century now. First it was necessary to invent an anti-Leninist Rosa Luxemburg, then a councilist one, then finally a decentralist one until the "Rosa Luxemburg" most people seem to "know" about is chiefly characterised by having died and holding the sort of opinions that are popular among the crowd that writes Wikipedia articles about how left communism is a type of "libertarian socialism".

[Jacob Cliff]

Luxemburg, in the programme of the Spartakusbund:

" 7) Increase in the number of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally, in accordance with a social plan."

Bordiga, in "Seize Power or Seize the Factory?":

"It is rumoured that factory councils, where they were in existence, functioned by taking over the management of the workshops and carrying on the work. We would not like the working masses to get hold of the idea that all they need do to take over the factories and get rid or the capitalists is set up councils. This would indeed be a dangerous illusion. The factory will be conquered by the working class – and not only by the workforce employed in it, which would be too weak and non-communist – only after the working class as a whole has seized political power. Unless it has done so, the Royal Guards, military police, etc. – in other words, the mechanism of force and oppression that the bourgeoisie has at its disposal, its political power apparatus – will see to it that all illusions are dispelled."

I don't know why people think that "left communism" = "decentralisation", if anything our comrade the lost fifth ninja turtle was far more a centralist that most Leninists save the die-hards like Larin or Sokolnikov. In any case, obviously we stand for the centralisation of the means of production. And we have since the beginning; note that Engels mocked the "socialitarian" Duehring for wanting to disperse the means of production.

Is that state capitalism? It might be; but it's not necessarily. The question is what the laws of motion of a given economic complex are. If the law of value predominates, we're talking about state capitalism. If the law of planning predominates, we're talking about the planned economy of the workers' state (what Lenin calls the socialist sector, which is to be understood analogously to the socialist government, socialist republic etc. as not socialist in the strict sense but belonging to "that state power which is desirous of socialism or which is constrained to desire it"). State capitalism is an element of the transitional period, of course, as we can't introduce the law of planning everywhere and immediately. But it's not the only one.
Interesting – but that leads me to wonder:
If the law of planning taking precedence over the law of value is what defines an economy as being a planned-economy or a state-capitalist one, then what would one consider a bourgeois state's planned-economy-esque monopolization of, say, national railroads? Or the post office?

[Jacob Cliff]

And wait – wasn't Luxemburg anti-Lenin? I've always thought she was a decentralist (probably from the same sources you listed), and I think I vaguely remember her writing an essay called "socialism or Leninism" or something.. What texts by her affirms a centralist, genuinely Marxist position?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Interesting – but that leads me to wonder:
If the law of planning taking precedence over the law of value is what defines an economy as being a planned-economy or a state-capitalist one, then what would one consider a bourgeois state's planned-economy-esque monopolization of, say, national railroads? Or the post office?

Well, again, look at the laws of motion. When the bourgeois state nationalises the railways, what laws drive the operation of the new monopoly? Obviously it's the law of value; a capitalist economy such as that of the Republic of China on Taiwain might nationalise everything that's not bolted down, but the ultimate aim is to make profit. So if an enterprise, no matter how nationalised, "strategic" etc. is bringing the rate of profit down, it will be privatised or disbanded.


And wait – wasn't Luxemburg anti-Lenin? I've always thought she was a decentralist (probably from the same sources you listed), and I think I vaguely remember her writing an essay called "socialism or Leninism" or something.. What texts by her affirms a centralist, genuinely Marxist position?

Luxemburg was part of the same group as Lenin, the left of the old Second International. As were Liebknecht, Rakovsky, Balabanov etc. And unlike some in the pre-war left of the International, she maintained an internationalist throughout the war. The myth that Luxemburg was opposed to Lenin stems from the publication of fragments Luxemburg wrote in prison, some of which were critical of the Bolsheviks, by Paul Levi after he had been expelled from the KPD (subsequently he rejoined the SPD). Luxemburg herself decided not to publish those fragments, and the consensus of her political colleagues (e.g. Zetkin in "Um Rosa Luxemburgs Stellung zur russischen Revolution", which unfortunately I don't think is available online) was that Levi was misrepresenting her.

(Luxemburg did, of course, disagree with Lenin, e.g. on imperialism and the right to self-determination. The former disagreement led to a short-lived "luksemburgovtsy" school in Soviet Russia. But at no point when she was alive did Luxemburg oppose the October Revolution or Lenin.)

As for centralism, again, the discussion on the programme of the Spartakusbund (https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/12/31.htm) (not the programme, as I wrote by mistake in a previous post) is relevant, particularly when Luxemburg cites Marx approvingly in opposition to what she understood to be Engels's view on the transition into socialism (actually the view of SPD editors of Engels, but this was not proven until after Luxemburg was dead).

[Asero]

And wait – wasn't Luxemburg anti-Lenin? I've always thought she was a decentralist (probably from the same sources you listed), and I think I vaguely remember her writing an essay called "socialism or Leninism" or something.

It was called Marxism or Leninism, and in it, from my knowledge (I haven't read it, sorry. Most of what I'm going to say is from Lenin Rediscovered) she charges Lenin of wanting a centralism that creates a "strait-jacket of bureaucratic centralism that reduces the militant workers to a docile instrument of a committee."

The problem with the critique however, is that it wasn't really based on any hard evidence. It has been read in anachronism (and can only be with the one-sided translation available online (https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/) that was interpreted with a political bent), ignoring the context behind it.

A little detour into history is necessary. A principle point of the Menshevik/Bolshevik split initially was the issue of whether or not Iskra, the official Party newspaper, should have its editorials submit to the will of the Party, in particular at the time, the Central Committee. Because Iskra was meant to be the official organ of the Party, quite a few of the members of the editorial committee positions were removed, most of whom were Mensheviks, and were replaced by a committee of three: Plekhanov (then a Bolshevik), Lenin, and Martov. Martov, a Menshevik, refused to participate and resigned his position. Plekhanov then sided with the Menshevik and threatened Lenin that he (Plekhanov) would resign if Lenin would not step down. Plekhanov, being the only member in the editorial board, 'unanimously' brought back the old editors.

Lenin was furious. In response to this he wrote the famous polemic One Step Forwards, Two Steps Backwards. Within it contained two remarks that would become infamous: a comparison of the Bolsheviks to the Jacobins and the Mensheviks to the Girondins; and of the statement that the working class rank-and-file, of which Lenin and the Bolsheviks received their support, were tempered by the steel of discipline of factory work unlike the 'bourgeois' intellectuals, of which the Mensheviks were proud to proclaim be 'always remain in the minority'. Many of these editors were established Social-Democrats, so some lone individual (Lenin) denouncing them as 'opportunists' would have surprised western Social-Democrats, Luxemburg included. It seemed to many that it was actions from this one man, Lenin, that tore the Party apart. As an aside, that's how they were able to attack Lenin as 'dictator' despite his support from Party rank-and-file.

The melodramatic flair added with the common practice (everyone did it) of quote-mining to construct strawmen to beat your opponent over the head with, made the polemics of Old Social-Democracy rather nasty. Rosa Luxemburg was no different. The steel of factory discipline can be portrayed as support of factory monotony and submission, put alongside Lenin's desire to have the official Party newspaper abide by Party sovereignty, can be used to portray a Lenin that advocated for an "ultracentralist tendency".

Ultimately however, the problem wasn't with principles over centralism. In the same article, Luxemburg herself advocated for more centralism in German Social-Democracy to ward off opportunism. The problem, to Luxemburg, was that centralism was not possible in Russian conditions at the then present moment, and that this isn't just because the intelligentsia lack discipline.

Sorry for the wall of text on a subject that isn't related to the OP. I'm just tired of Anarchists portraying Luxemburg as some anti-Leninist.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It was called Marxism or Leninism

Not when it was originally published. The title was "given" to the work by the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation. And yes, Luxemburg was to the right of Lenin on certain organisational questions (including the attitude of communists to the SPD, prompting a very mean-spirited remark by Dauve that if Luxemburg thought that social-democracy was a "noxious corpse", she was nonetheless "quite the necrophiliac"). But most people only refer to disputes from 1906 when they've run out of things to say, and in any case Luxemburg would later come around (like Trotsky) to Lenin's view of the party.

[Burzhuin]

Here by State-Capitalism I do not refer to the same "state-capitalism" as employed by Cliffites, nor am I referring to the "state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy" (i.e. Lenin's NEP).
I mean the state ownership, management and direction of capital. All of us, I'd assume, understand that the "birthmarks of capitalism" will carry on well into the first phases of communist society, or at least within the preceding dictatorship of the proletariat, so my question is this:

Judging by the fact that we Marxists stand for the centralization of the means of production and exchange in the hands of the State, and given that capital will not disappear overnight in a proletarian revolution, does this mean that the economy we would initially see would be "state-capitalist"? Not that we should shy away from this word, or simply get caught up in petty semantics, but technically speaking, would this be "state-capitalism"?
Thanks.
As I understand the theory, you cannot avoid State Capitalism state on the way from Capitalism to Socialism. Probably in some ideal world you can but not on the Good Old Earth.