Is there any difference b/w state-capitalism and lower stage socialism?

[Jacob Cliff]

It is generally held true by revolutionary leftists here that capitalism does not require individual Capitalists – that capitalism, in fact, is a mode of production which is not determined by who reaps the surplus value generated by exploitation, but rather as a system where, as Bordiga put it, "value perpetually set in motion as to multiply itself."

But here lies a problem: if capitalism does not require capitalists, and supposing we were to live under a state-capitalist regime (that being: the state acting as the national capitalist), this necessarily means there is no parasitic, "owning" class (of capitalists) that reap the surplus value for their own keepings. Rather, the only value extracted is that which would be reinvested in production – something which would certainly still exist in a developed communist society, albeit with calculations in-kind and not with [I]value (in other words: a communist society would of course have to reinvest, but just without money).

So my question is this: if there is no class personally taking in surplus value to line their own pockets, and the only surplus value generated is being used to reinvest into production, then where is the problem? Where is the taking exploitation of labor? Undoubtedly this reinvestment is only being used to expand production and, consequently, enhance the quality of life for the working class.
In a developed socialist society, without money, wages, or value, you would see the same phenomenon, just without this silly "money" nonsense. In other words, in a higher phase of socialism, we would still see certain amounts being redirected to production – only this time, the worker would not receive a wage but will have full access to the products of labor.

So hypothetically, is the only real difference between a state capitalist regime and a socialist one that the former would feature the worker buying back the products of labor, while in the latter he would simply take it as he wills? Or, more broadly: is the functioning the same, but there ceases to be money?

If so (and this is a slightly different question), is there thus any real difference between a state-capitalist regime and a "lower phase of socialism"? Because, although the state would not exist in the latter (formally, at least), the same processes would go on in the economy: society would deduct a given amount to reinvest into production, monetarily in the former and purely resource-wise in the latter, and would pay the worker a given amount for his labor (money in the former, a certificate/labor credit in the latter). These processes seem, to me, to be identical once you subtract money from the equation – and it seems to give Lenin's (in)famous statement that "Socialism is state-capitalism made to benefit the whole people" a real basis.

(And please word responses in a way that is at least comprehensible for those like myself who are not immersed in Hegelian logic and dialectical thinking; half the answers I generally see give the impression of one masking bad rebuttals with obfuscating prose. I do not mean to be ungrateful for the plethora of generous answers I have received hitherto, but there is certainly less cloudy ways of wording things for those who are fairly new to Marxism).

[The Idler]

http://i.imgur.com/UXq9eaP.jpg
From Socialist Standard February 1981

Also from the SPGB

n his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx made a distinction between two stages of ‘communist society’, both based on common ownership: a lower stage, with individual consumption being rationed, possibly by the use of labour-time vouchers, and a higher stage in which each person contributes to society according to ability and draws from the common stock according to needs. In both stages, however, there would be no money economy or state.

[Tim Cornelis]

There's no "lower phase of socialism", there's various phases in the development of communism which can be described as lower in relation to a phase that is higher, but there is no 'two phase' communism, as so many people believe for whatever reason.

The difference is the degree of material abundance, and, following from this, the degree to which the total product is distributed according to labour contribution or needs. And there is no "first" and "second" phase in communism. This is the problem with "the lower" and "the higher" phase categorisation. Marx speaks of "the first" phase of communism. The, because there is only one phase that is first. There cannot be two first phases, but there can be more than one higher phases, as they become successively more advanced they are "higher" than the previous one. "A higher", a, because there's no distinct, exclusively second phase. As Marx explains in his critique of the Gotha program, communism is in continuous internal development.

So we begin with the first phase, in this phase of communism, which is stateless, classless, moneyless, labour certificates are used to divide up the total product, with probably the exception of basic social services (healthcare, education). Then, as productive technology continues to develop, basic foodstuffs will be made freely available, and then furniture, and so forth. It is a gradual, continuous process with no distinct, qualitatively different phases. No "first" phase counter-posed to a "second".

For there to be a higher phase, there has to be a lower phase. But a phase where furniture is freely available according to needs, but not electronics, is a lower phase than one where both are freely available according to needs, but it is a higher phase than a phase where no consumer goods are freely available at all (which will be the first phase). So by speaking of "the lower phase" and "the higher phase" of communism you give rise to a misrepresentation of what communism will be like (namely two rigidly distinct qualitatively different phases), which can lead to misconceptions that communism and markets are compatible.

Marx's use of "a" in "a higher phase" is far more precise and casual than the rigid 'stagist' interpretation that later Marxists gave to it. Marx is describing "a higher phase" not "the higher phase", and gives an example of a higher phase where consumer goods are freely available. There is no one "higher phase", each phase where more consumer goods become freely available is higher than the last, and Marx gives an example of a higher phase where most/all consumer goods are freely available.

I don't see what you're getting at. There's surplus labour. So what is the difference really between capitalism and communism. Or communism and feudalism. Or... You're hinging on this inconsequential thing. Well, the difference is, there is no value, no wage-labour, no private property, no commodity production and exchange, no unemployment (or even employment i suppose), poverty, hunger, crime will be significantly diminished, no repression and oppression, no market competition, no financial insecurity, no crises. But since there's still surplus labour to be performed, does that really count as a difference?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It is generally held true by revolutionary leftists here that capitalism does not require individual Capitalists – that capitalism, in fact, is a mode of production which is not determined by who reaps the surplus value generated by exploitation, but rather as a system where, as Bordiga put it, "value perpetually set in motion as to multiply itself."

But here lies a problem: if capitalism does not require capitalists, and supposing we were to live under a state-capitalist regime (that being: the state acting as the national capitalist), this necessarily means there is no parasitic, "owning" class (of capitalists) that reap the surplus value for their own keepings. Rather, the only value extracted is that which would be reinvested in production – something which would certainly still exist in a developed communist society, albeit with calculations in-kind and not with [I]value (in other words: a communist society would of course have to reinvest, but just without money).

So my question is this: if there is no class personally taking in surplus value to line their own pockets, and the only surplus value generated is being used to reinvest into production, then where is the problem? Where is the taking exploitation of labor? Undoubtedly this reinvestment is only being used to expand production and, consequently, enhance the quality of life for the working class.

Well, the problem is what regulates reinvestment (and the allocation of resources in general). In state capitalism, the regulator is the law of value: capital flows to areas where the rate of profit is high. This in turn results in (1) all the negative social consequences of value and profit still existing; and (2) period crises due to the laws of motion of the capitalist economy. In socialism the regulator is the law of planning: we plan the allocation of resources ex ante to satisfy human need.


In a developed socialist society, without money, wages, or value, you would see the same phenomenon, just without this silly "money" nonsense. In other words, in a higher phase of socialism, we would still see certain amounts being redirected to production – only this time, the worker would not receive a wage but will have full access to the products of labor.

So hypothetically, is the only real difference between a state capitalist regime and a socialist one that the former would feature the worker buying back the products of labor, while in the latter he would simply take it as he wills? Or, more broadly: is the functioning the same, but there ceases to be money?

If so (and this is a slightly different question), is there thus any real difference between a state-capitalist regime and a "lower phase of socialism"? Because, although the state would not exist in the latter (formally, at least), the same processes would go on in the economy: society would deduct a given amount to reinvest into production, monetarily in the former and purely resource-wise in the latter, and would pay the worker a given amount for his labor (money in the former, a certificate/labor credit in the latter). These processes seem, to me, to be identical once you subtract money from the equation – and it seems to give Lenin's (in)famous statement that "Socialism is state-capitalism made to benefit the whole people" a real basis.

(And please word responses in a way that is at least comprehensible for those like myself who are not immersed in Hegelian logic and dialectical thinking; half the answers I generally see give the impression of one masking bad rebuttals with obfuscating prose. I do not mean to be ungrateful for the plethora of generous answers I have received hitherto, but there is certainly less cloudy ways of wording things for those who are fairly new to Marxism).

Here, I think you're on to something. If there is still rationing according to labour preformed, we're seeing remains of capitalist logic in the socialist society. Particularly the exchange of equal quantities of socially necessary labour time, the time one labourer spends working being exchanged for an equal time embodied in consumer goods. But the modern conception that this is a "stage" that all socialist societies must pass through is, I think, mistaken. Marx envisioned a short period of rationing given the state of the productive forces in his time. A lot has changed since then.

[Blake's Baby]

I think that you're right that Marx didn't see a long period of rebuilding. And technology (and as a result, the productive capacity of capitalism) is certainly more developed since then, whic may imply the possibility of moving to the higher stage of communism more quickly than Marx imagined.

So is the destructive capacity of capitalism. I think that the reconstruction after the world civil war might be longer than Marx thought, because capitalism has 150 years or so to really screw up the planet and vastly increase the possibility of total annihilation of humanity.

MS, I think your initial posing of the 'problem' is flawed. You say that there is no class of capitalists, but there is still capitalism. The point is, capitalism engenders capitalists. It may start out with 'no class of capitalists' but the capitalist behaviour will produce a section of society that controls production and benefits from it. Left long enough (maybe more than 3 years but considerably less than 70) this will become a new capitalist class.

[Jacob Cliff]

Well, the problem is what regulates reinvestment (and the allocation of resources in general). In state capitalism, the regulator is the law of value: capital flows to areas where the rate of profit is high. This in turn results in (1) all the negative social consequences of value and profit still existing; and (2) period crises due to the laws of motion of the capitalist economy. In socialism the regulator is the law of planning: we plan the allocation of resources ex ante to satisfy human need.



Here, I think you're on to something. If there is still rationing according to labour preformed, we're seeing remains of capitalist logic in the socialist society. Particularly the exchange of equal quantities of socially necessary labour time, the time one labourer spends working being exchanged for an equal time embodied in consumer goods. But the modern conception that this is a "stage" that all socialist societies must pass through is, I think, mistaken. Marx envisioned a short period of rationing given the state of the productive forces in his time. A lot has changed since then.
Regarding the possibility of a "short period of rationing:"

I'm actually not sure if I necessarily agree. Aside from Tim's observation that the gradual replacement of rationing in favor of "free access" (I don't like this term by the way – it does, to the ear of your average liberal, sound incredibly utopian), I, first of all, believe such a society based on 'free access' can only really be a reality on an international scale. In the US, where I am, a proletarian dictatorship would certainly not have a "rapid increase in freely accessible goods," because, without an international victory, many resources, production centers, etc., would still lay in foreign capital countries. Perhaps this makes me rather cynical, but I honestly have no faith that a revolution would be some spontaneous international event. So, for a long time, I can certainly foresee a period of strict rationing and labor discipline until global planning is a possibility. Until then, a proletarian dictatorship (in a sea of hostile capitalist countries) would have to still trade with the outside world – ergo needing money, ergo needing wage-labor, ergo needing exploitation; ergo having capitalism. I envision a state-capitalist regime, with further communization occurring as time passes by and material conditions make it possible, until international victory.

So long as capitalism exists in the industrialized and commercialized world, there is no possibility of socialism and/or "free access." I think it logically follows that the labor state will be a regime where capitalism is subjugated to the state, and would gradually wither away as elements of socialism grow.

[revnoon]

The USSR was state capitalism that called it self Communism. What happen is Lenin tried to set up workers council for the people for the people the working class that can run and own the factories, stores and businesses so on


But after Lenin the state ran and own the factories, stores and businesses where communism party members and communism party misters become the CEO. They took all the money and profit where the working class got very little.

There even some talk that they the communism party members and communism party misters even competed with other communism party members and communism misters for profit. I believe the KGB was trying to put stop of communism party members that competed with other communism party members for profit.

The profit was to go to the people and state not high up members in party overseeing the operation!!:unsure::unsure: Even the high up central command of communism party could not stop this with KGB

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think that you're right that Marx didn't see a long period of rebuilding. And technology (and as a result, the productive capacity of capitalism) is certainly more developed since then, whic may imply the possibility of moving to the higher stage of communism more quickly than Marx imagined.

So is the destructive capacity of capitalism. I think that the reconstruction after the world civil war might be longer than Marx thought, because capitalism has 150 years or so to really screw up the planet and vastly increase the possibility of total annihilation of humanity.

Perhaps. As things stand, though, the sky is not falling on our heads, and we can produce more than enough to satisfy almost all of the aggregate mass of human needs. Yes, wetlands will have to be cleaned up, land use rationalised, and so on. This will still take less time than developing the productive forces to their modern level would have taken in the 19th century (also because much of this will already happen under the d.o.t.p.).

Now, it's quite possible that the lingering presence of bourgeois right in communism will last for a long time. Unlike a long transition into socialism, it wouldn't ruin us. But why base yourself on this, by all indicators, very remote possibility? I find this problematic, particularly since many people think that socialism is the current system, minus some particularly nasty features, replace money with labour notes and job's a good'un.


Regarding the possibility of a "short period of rationing:"

I'm actually not sure if I necessarily agree. Aside from Tim's observation that the gradual replacement of rationing in favor of "free access" (I don't like this term by the way – it does, to the ear of your average liberal, sound incredibly utopian), I, first of all, believe such a society based on 'free access' can only really be a reality on an international scale. In the US, where I am, a proletarian dictatorship would certainly not have a "rapid increase in freely accessible goods," because, without an international victory, many resources, production centers, etc., would still lay in foreign capital countries. Perhaps this makes me rather cynical, but I honestly have no faith that a revolution would be some spontaneous international event. So, for a long time, I can certainly foresee a period of strict rationing and labor discipline until global planning is a possibility. Until then, a proletarian dictatorship (in a sea of hostile capitalist countries) would have to still trade with the outside world – ergo needing money, ergo needing wage-labor, ergo needing exploitation; ergo having capitalism. I envision a state-capitalist regime, with further communization occurring as time passes by and material conditions make it possible, until international victory.

So long as capitalism exists in the industrialized and commercialized world, there is no possibility of socialism and/or "free access." I think it logically follows that the labor state will be a regime where capitalism is subjugated to the state, and would gradually wither away as elements of socialism grow.

I don't think we're really clear on the timeline here. Our (Trotskyist) perspective is: after the overthrow of capitalism in one region of the world, and until the global victory of the revolution, there is a transitional stage where the relations of production are such that the law of value and the law of planning coexist. After the global victory of the revolution, the world is socialist. In the first phase of this, global socialist society, rationing might be needed for a brief period.

Indeed, '[s]o long as capitalism exists in the industrialized and commercialized world, there is no possibility of socialism and/or "free access."' But we have to go further than that: as long as capitalism exists, there is no possibility of socialism. Socialism only happens when capitalism has been entirely swept from the planet.

[RedMaterialist]

So hypothetically, is the only real difference between a state capitalist regime and a socialist one that the former would feature the worker buying back the products of labor, while in the latter he would simply take it as he wills? Or, more broadly: is the functioning the same, but there ceases to be money?.

I don't think it would be correct to say the worker "takes it as he wills." The social product would be produced and divided according to the abilities and needs of each member of society, "...from each according to ability, etc."

The real difference between the two systems is that under state-capitalism production is still based on the exchange-value of commodities, which necessarily involves the use of money, the universal exchange-value. In socialism production is only for use-value or utility.

I think under state-capitalism the worker still exchanges his commodity, labor-power (in the form of wages based on the value of his or her capacity to work) for other commodities. In addition, however, the state deducts a portion of the surplus-value for the exchange-value of social needs (education, health, re-investment, etc.) Under socialism the entire product is divided based on social and individual need.

The concepts of "worker" and "labor" will also disappear.

[RedMaterialist]

So, for a long time, I can certainly foresee a period of strict rationing and labor discipline until global planning is a possibility. Until then, a proletarian dictatorship (in a sea of hostile capitalist countries) would have to still trade with the outside world – ergo needing money, ergo needing wage-labor, ergo needing exploitation; ergo having capitalism. I envision a state-capitalist regime, with further communization occurring as time passes by and material conditions make it possible, until international victory.



Interesting observation. The proletarian dictatorship you describe has already occurred in the first state-capitalist regime in history: the Soviet Union, which, as we know, suddenly collapsed, without warning in 1989. You might even say it withered away from the inside. It was surrounded by hostile capitalist states, therefore capitalism re-entered, sort of in a vacuum.

[Guardia Rossa]

Oh my. I considered that question valid but after reading how soviet, stalinist state-capitalism* came into existence, there is no doubt that it is capitalist in character and cannot transition into socialism, communism or whatever. It can only transition into oligarchic capitalism, in the the Chinese way or in the Russian way.

*I must remember MarxianSocialist that this word also has many meanings. Generally almost everything involving the State administrating, heavily regulating (As of NEP) or more commonly creating industries "out of thin air" was at one point called state-capitalism

[SocialistInTraining]

From my knowledge, state capitalism is when the state, bourgeois or proletarian, organizes production for profit, along the lines of generalized wage labor and commodity production. It also extracts surplus value. Whether this distribution is for the benefit of society or of the capitalist class depends on who controls the state. If it is a dictatorship of the proletariat, then the distribution will most likely go to health care, education, etc.

A lower phase of communist society, from my basic understanding of the Critique of the Gotha Programme, uses labor vouchers because of the distribution maxim "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution". This would not use accumulation of capital, unlike state capitalism, because there would be no commodity production.

[Guardia Rossa]

A lower phase of communist society, from my basic understanding of the Critique of the Gotha Programme, uses labor vouchers because of the distribution maxim "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution". This would not use accumulation of capital, unlike state capitalism, because there would be no commodity production.

Yes, but in what conditions? Marx pointed out that in 18** we would need something alike labour vouchers because the production did not yet fully satisfy the needs of everyone and we had to expand production first in order to enter "full socialism". The conditions have changed and we have enough. No, we have too much.

So unless it is right after the revolution and we don't know what we have and how we have them, we don't know how to administer it in the best way, there will be enough for everyone and therefore there would be no need for labour vouchers. But that is my opinion, of course.

[Blake's Baby]

Perhaps. As things stand, though, the sky is not falling on our heads, and we can produce more than enough to satisfy almost all of the aggregate mass of human needs. Yes, wetlands will have to be cleaned up, land use rationalised, and so on. This will still take less time than developing the productive forces to their modern level would have taken in the 19th century (also because much of this will already happen under the d.o.t.p.)...

Except for the multitude of people for whom the sea is threatening to overwhelm their homes in the near future, or who live in places blighted with pollution (chemical or nuclear) or a bunch of other shit that needs clearing up. Is Croatia still full of landmines? All sorts of shit needs dealing with. And the world civil war will produce even more shit. As the revolutionary dictatorship will primarily be concerned with keeping as many people as possible alive during the world civil war, I'm not sure we'll e doing it through the greenest possible methods. I imagine the war will be messy.



...

So unless it is right after the revolution and we don't know what we have and how we have them, we don't know how to administer it in the best way, there will be enough for everyone and therefore there would be no need for labour vouchers...


And in that case, 'labour vouchers' (rationing by work) will be better than 'rationing' (rationing by need) exactly how?

[Luís Henrique]

It is generally held true by revolutionary leftists here that capitalism does not require individual Capitalists

I am not sure that it is "generally held". There are a few groups that sustain different (and possibly incompatible) versions of a "State capitalism" theory - namely, "left communists", Cliffist Trostkyists, and left Maoists.

Most other revolutionary leftists I think do not adhere to those ideas.

Practice seems to uphold the idea that capitalism does indeed require individual capitalists: societies that expropriated individual capitalists but failed to make the transition to socialism seem to have been unstable, and either underwent political upheavals that restored private property (the SU, Eastern Europe), or are reinstating private property "from above", in a process led by their rulling parties (China, Vietnam, etc)


– that capitalism, in fact, is a mode of production which is not determined by who reaps the surplus value generated by exploitation, but rather as a system where, as Bordiga put it, "value perpetually set in motion as to multiply itself."

That is correct. What characterises capitalism is that "value is perpetually set in motion as to multiply itself", or, as Kurz puts it, "the tautological process of capitalist accumulation". But value requires competition to multiply itself; as Marx puts it, "capital exists and can only exist as many capitals, and its self-determination therefore appears as their reciprocal interaction with one another".


But here lies a problem: if capitalism does not require capitalists, and supposing we were to live under a state-capitalist regime (that being: the state acting as the national capitalist), this necessarily means there is no parasitic, "owning" class (of capitalists) that reap the surplus value for their own keepings.

That's well spot, but if capitalism requires no individual capitalists (and even if it does, as we will discuss further), then the central problem of capitalism is not that a exploitative class reaps the surplus value; it is that surplus is reaped by an automatic process of production for the sake of production.


Rather, the only value extracted is that which would be reinvested in production – something which would certainly still exist in a developed communist society, albeit with calculations in-kind and not with [I]value (in other words: a communist society would of course have to reinvest, but just without money).

In practice, it is quite clear that part, at least, of the value extracted in a so-miscalled "State capitalist society" is used to provide an "especial" life standard to a especial layer of society members (which has been called the "bureaucracy", or the "Nomenklatura", or - in order to match "State capitalism" - a "State bourgeoisie").

But this is certainly not the core of the problem. The extraction of surplus-value requires competition, that the "bureaucracy" cannot provide because it is not composed of individual controllers of individual capitals. Competition, which is at the very core of the accumulation of capital even in conditions of inexistence of private property, must then assert itself against the juridical structure, in contradiction to it, instead of in harmony with it as in a capitalist society proper.

The process is consequently even more chaotic, less socialised, and less planned, than in an ordinary capitalist society. But it still imposes itself upon the mass of workers, as an external imposition that is uncontrolled and ununderstandable: it is still the extraction of surplus value, still the reduction of human activity to senseless expense of muscle, nerve, and brain, in order that capital increases itself. Perhaps even more so, because while in an ordinary capitalist society it is obvious that this process enriches a bourgeois minority (and that enrichment in turn is a deduction from capital accumulation, ie, a properly human finality for accumulation, if only for a very small minority), in these "extraordinary" kind of capitalism, the process of accumulation is ideologically fancied as an enrichment of all society, or of the "homeland", etc.


So my question is this: if there is no class personally taking in surplus value to line their own pockets, and the only surplus value generated is being used to reinvest into production, then where is the problem? Where is the taking exploitation of labor? Undoubtedly this reinvestment is only being used to expand production and, consequently, enhance the quality of life for the working class.

This is evidently contrary to the evidence we have. In those "workers' paradises", the expansion of production has been even less related to the quality of life of the working class. Apart of some iconic developments that couldn't be undone without immediately delegitimising the structure of society (full employment, social security) but weren't directly related to production, so called "State capitalist" societies failed badly to improve life standards for their working class. Infamously, the Soviet Union could put sattelites in space, and build nukes enough to destroy the whole world, but it couldn't put enough butter in the tables of its citizens, or decent freezers in their kitchens.


In a developed socialist society, without money, wages, or value, you would see the same phenomenon, just without this silly "money" nonsense. In other words, in a higher phase of socialism, we would still see certain amounts being redirected to production – only this time, the worker would not receive a wage but will have full access to the products of labor.

The worker would also have a say in what part of his efforts would be put into improving production, and what part would result in improvement of his own life, of of those who legitimately cannot work, while in so-called "State capitalist" workers' paradises, it always went to the tautological increase of the means of production (or, worse, as an increase of means of destruction as demanded by the arms race).


So hypothetically, is the only real difference between a state capitalist regime and a socialist one that the former would feature the worker buying back the products of labor, while in the latter he would simply take it as he wills? Or, more broadly: is the functioning the same, but there ceases to be money?

The inexistence of money means the end of the accumulation of capital. Or expresses such an end. So it is not merely a superficial, cosmetic, difference: if money actually does not exist (and is not merely artificially suppressed in order to fulfill ideological fantasies), then the monstruosity of productio for the sake of production is gone (because production for the sake of production has to express itself as production for the sake of money).


If so (and this is a slightly different question), is there thus any real difference between a state-capitalist regime and a "lower phase of socialism"?

As long as this is a mere transitional issue, then yes, "State capitalism" may be a initial step in the direction of communism. But if it becomes entrenched - to the point it becomes a "regime" - then something has gone awfully wrong, and in all likelyhood society is not progressing in the direction of the abolition of capital.


Because, although the state would not exist in the latter (formally, at least), the same processes would go on in the economy: society would deduct a given amount to reinvest into production, monetarily in the former and purely resource-wise in the latter, and would pay the worker a given amount for his labor (money in the former, a certificate/labor credit in the latter). These processes seem, to me, to be identical once you subtract money from the equation – and it seems to give Lenin's (in)famous statement that "Socialism is state-capitalism made to benefit the whole people" a real basis.

The problem with Lenin's formula seems to me to be that "State capitalism" cannot be made to benefit the whole people. Capitalism exists to benefit capital, as ridiculous as this may seem. Even the bourgeois are transformed into mere tools of this blind secular deity; they are certainly well-paid functionaries of this mad system, but the system is not made to benefit them; this is a mere by-product of the accumulation of capital. And they can be benefited because, and only because, they fulfill this essential role in capitalist production: they compete against each others, and in so doing allow capital to compete against itself, allow it to "exist as many capitals". Workers cannot fulfill such role unless they cease to be workers and become capitalists. So Lenin was wrong here, positing something that could not exist, probably under the pression of the failure of the internationalisation of revolution, already giving form to ideological fantasies that could misrepresent failure as success.


(And please word responses in a way that is at least comprehensible for those like myself who are not immersed in Hegelian logic and dialectical thinking; half the answers I generally see give the impression of one masking bad rebuttals with obfuscating prose. I do not mean to be ungrateful for the plethora of generous answers I have received hitherto, but there is certainly less cloudy ways of wording things for those who are fairly new to Marxism).

Hope the above fulfills your demands.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

a proletarian dictatorship would certainly not have a "rapid increase in freely accessible goods"

Regardless of any other condition, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a regime in which the proletariat is the ruling class.

But "ruling" demands time. A class of people who works eight hours a day, five days per week, eleven months each year, is not ruling anything. So, first thing, it is necessary that a huge part of social production is redirected into allowing proletarians to work something like four hours a day, quite immediately. I mean, within the month following the political revolution. If this is not possible, then a DotP isn't possible, and if it isn't a DotP, it is something else, something else that will not and can not possibly proceed to transitioning from capitalism to communism.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

So, first thing, it is necessary that a huge part of social production is redirected into allowing proletarians to work something like four hours a day, quite immediately.

But if this is true, it follows that a socialist revolution will, other things unchanged, imply a reduction of the total output of the productive system. Which means, either this reduction in the labour journey will have to happen before "the revolution", or the revolution will have to be furthered by some kind of improvement in the productive system, either by increasing productivity or by eliminating labour that is no longer necessary due to the change in the relations of production.

Luís Henrique

[Comrade-Z]

But here lies a problem: if capitalism does not require capitalists, and supposing we were to live under a state-capitalist regime (that being: the state acting as the national capitalist), this necessarily means there is no parasitic, "owning" class (of capitalists) that reap the surplus value for their own keepings. Rather, the only value extracted is that which would be reinvested in production – something which would certainly still exist in a developed communist society, albeit with calculations in-kind and not with value (in other words: a communist society would of course have to reinvest, but just without money).

Not sure where you got this idea that all of the surplus automatically gets re-invested under state-capitalism. One piece of evidence that people have always used to try to demonstrate that the Soviet Union was state-capitalist was that not all of the surplus was being reinvested in means of production. Instead, the bureaucrats diverted more and more of this surplus to their own personal consumption over time.

That said, it never reached the levels of consumption of corporate CEOs in the West (which is one reason why these bureaucrats themselves increasingly wanted to do away with the vestiges of the Soviet system and go towards full capitalism, so that they could experience real luxury at the expense of their workers), but by the 1980s the advantages of being an upper bureaucrat were palpable--analogous to making $50,000 a year while ordinary workers got only $10,000 a year. (This is just an analogy. In reality, the advantages were not so easily translatable to an income figure because much of the bureaucracy's personal consumption came in the form of extra perks, such as chauffered car rides in cadillacs and access to dachas and things that they technically didn't "own" but got first dibs on (and in reality, exclusive access to)).


The point is, capitalism engenders capitalists. It may start out with 'no class of capitalists' but the capitalist behaviour will produce a section of society that controls production and benefits from it. Left long enough (maybe more than 3 years but considerably less than 70) this will become a new capitalist class.

This is important. And if you wonder why this happens, just look at my first part above. If you as a state-capitalist bureaucrat (rather than the working class) control production and could theoretically divert it towards whatever ends, would you rather reward yourself with $50,000 a year or $50 million a year? If you know that the only way to get your hands on $50 million a year would be to re-introduce fully capitalist relations, then....


So we begin with the first phase, in this phase of communism, which is stateless, classless, moneyless, labour certificates are used to divide up the total product...

Okay, but be careful here with these "labour certificates." It's okay if some sort of certificate merely determines who gets first dibs on rationed goods. But are you assuming that exchange of these will be a necessary condition for receiving goods? If so, then you have just re-introduced a type of money and commodity production, with all of the problems entailed: namely, the potential for crises of overproduction in which you have plenty of goods produced, but not enough labor certificates ("monetarily-effective demand") possessed by the people who need those goods to purchase them. Also, if labour certificates are exchangeable for other things, then you have introduced a mechanism by which people can hire others out for favours or other services in exchange for those certificates--wage labor--even if it initially has to be done on a black market.

Socialist or communist production must be production for use, which simply means that hoards must not be legally respected and enforced. If someone is not using something, it gets put up for grabs for someone else to use it. Nor can producers hold onto the stuff that they have produced in the hope of exchange it for other stuff. If you want some sort of voucher to provide incentives for labouring, then that's okay, as long as it influences nothing more than who gets first dibs to use scarce resources, and as long as those vouchers are tied to specific names and are non-exchangeable.


The extraction of surplus-value requires competition, that the "bureaucracy" cannot provide because it is not composed of individual controllers of individual capitals. Competition, which is at the very core of the accumulation of capital even in conditions of inexistence of private property, must then assert itself against the juridical structure, in contradiction to it, instead of in harmony with it as in a capitalist society proper.

This is very interesting, Luis Henrique! I would be curious to learn more about how competition manifested itself in the Soviet system.

I go back and forth on whether to think about the Soviet Union as state-capitalist. I need to do more research on the collapse of the Soviet Union and figure out whether the economic malaise in the 1980s leading up to the collapse was a crisis of underproduction or a crisis of overproduction.

If it was a crisis of underproduction, of not producing enough food and consumer goods to satisfy its own citizens, then that suggests to me that the Soviet Union was indeed socialist economy that simply did not produce enough use-values or that produced the wrong types of use-values (military equipment, etc.) that the citizens did not think were to their benefit.

If the crisis was of overproduction--if there were goods being produced, but not enough rubles in the pockets of Soviet citizens or even Soviet productive enterprises to buy those goods/inputs--then that suggests state-capitalism.

If the crisis was of underproduction, then Soviet citizens made a huge mistake in letting the Soviet Union get overthrown. They would have been better off campaigning in some fashion to obtain more control over the decision of which use-values society produced, and kept the basic economic model.

If the crisis was of overproduction, then Soviet citizens can't be faulted too much because all they did is let a system of obfuscated capitalist commodity production (the Soviet system) disintegrate into something more transparently and conventionally capitalist.

[Comrade-Z]

But here lies a problem: if capitalism does not require capitalists, and supposing we were to live under a state-capitalist regime (that being: the state acting as the national capitalist), this necessarily means there is no parasitic, "owning" class (of capitalists) that reap the surplus value for their own keepings. Rather, the only value extracted is that which would be reinvested in production – something which would certainly still exist in a developed communist society, albeit with calculations in-kind and not with value (in other words: a communist society would of course have to reinvest, but just without money).

Not sure where you got this idea that all of the surplus automatically gets re-invested under state-capitalism. One piece of evidence that people have always used to try to demonstrate that the Soviet Union was state-capitalist was that not all of the surplus was being reinvested in means of production. Instead, the bureaucrats diverted more and more of this surplus to their own personal consumption over time.

That said, it never reached the levels of consumption of corporate CEOs in the West (which is one reason why these bureaucrats themselves increasingly wanted to do away with the vestiges of the Soviet system and go towards full capitalism, so that they could experience real luxury at the expense of their workers), but by the 1980s the advantages of being an upper bureaucrat were palpable--analogous to making $50,000 a year while ordinary workers got only $10,000 a year. (This is just an analogy. In reality, the advantages were not so easily translatable to an income figure because much of the bureaucracy's personal consumption came in the form of extra perks, such as chauffered car rides in cadillacs and access to dachas and things that they technically didn't "own" but got first dibs on (and in reality, exclusive access to)).


The point is, capitalism engenders capitalists. It may start out with 'no class of capitalists' but the capitalist behaviour will produce a section of society that controls production and benefits from it. Left long enough (maybe more than 3 years but considerably less than 70) this will become a new capitalist class.

This is important. And if you wonder why this happens, just look at my first part above. If you as a state-capitalist bureaucrat (rather than the working class) control production and could theoretically divert it towards whatever ends, would you rather reward yourself with $50,000 a year or $50 million a year? If you know that the only way to get your hands on $50 million a year would be to re-introduce fully capitalist relations, then....


So we begin with the first phase, in this phase of communism, which is stateless, classless, moneyless, labour certificates are used to divide up the total product...

Okay, but be careful here with these "labour certificates." It's okay if some sort of certificate merely determines who gets first dibs on rationed goods. But are you assuming that exchange of these will be a necessary condition for receiving goods? If so, then you have just re-introduced a type of money and commodity production, with all of the problems entailed: namely, the potential for crises of overproduction in which you have plenty of goods produced, but not enough labor certificates ("monetarily-effective demand") possessed by the people who need those goods to purchase them. Also, if labour certificates are exchangeable for other things, then you have introduced a mechanism by which people can hire others out for favours or other services in exchange for those certificates--wage labor--even if it initially has to be done on a black market.

Socialist or communist production must be production for use, which simply means that hoards must not be legally respected and enforced. If someone is not using something, it gets put up for grabs for someone else to use it. Nor can producers hold onto the stuff that they have produced in the hope of exchange it for other stuff. If you want some sort of voucher to provide incentives for labouring, then that's okay, as long as it influences nothing more than who gets first dibs to use scarce resources, and as long as those vouchers are tied to specific names and are non-exchangeable.


The extraction of surplus-value requires competition, that the "bureaucracy" cannot provide because it is not composed of individual controllers of individual capitals. Competition, which is at the very core of the accumulation of capital even in conditions of inexistence of private property, must then assert itself against the juridical structure, in contradiction to it, instead of in harmony with it as in a capitalist society proper.

This is very interesting, Luis Henrique! I would be curious to learn more about how competition manifested itself in the Soviet system.

I go back and forth on whether to think about the Soviet Union as state-capitalist. I need to do more research on the collapse of the Soviet Union and figure out whether the economic malaise in the 1980s leading up to the collapse was a crisis of underproduction or a crisis of overproduction.

If it was a crisis of underproduction, of not producing enough food and consumer goods to satisfy its own citizens, then that suggests to me that the Soviet Union was indeed socialist economy that simply did not produce enough use-values or that produced the wrong types of use-values (military equipment, etc.) that the citizens did not think were to their benefit.

If the crisis was of overproduction--if there were goods being produced, but not enough rubles in the pockets of Soviet citizens or even Soviet productive enterprises to buy those goods/inputs--then that suggests state-capitalism.

If the crisis was of underproduction, then Soviet citizens made a huge mistake in letting the Soviet Union get overthrown. They would have been better off campaigning in some fashion to obtain more control over the decision of which use-values society produced, and kept the basic economic model.

If the crisis was of overproduction, then Soviet citizens can't be faulted too much because all they did is let a system of obfuscated capitalist commodity production (the Soviet system) disintegrate into something more transparently and conventionally capitalist.