Revolution Hero
2nd April 2004, 21:01
Just like private property on the means of production is the fundament of capitalist way of production, public (socialized) property is the basis of socialist way of production. Thus we have to proceed from the nature of property and its effect on whole socialist economy in order to understand the nature of socialist way of production.
Public property belongs to all people, in other words it is used and controlled by all working people of a socialist formation. Each product of labor under such conditions represents a product of a whole society, as it is derived from the common use of property on the means of production. Lenin said: “Communism means common. Communist society means that everything is common: land, factories, common labor, - that what communism is”. In this aspect socialism has a communist character, indeed socialism and communism are not separate social – economic formations, but the first is the integral part of the latter.
From the said above it appears evident that socialist way of production, unlike the one, which exists under capitalism, is aimed not for gaining profits, but has the task of satisfaction of people’s needs. It is true that capitalist while producing any kind of commodity indirectly satisfy needs of buyers, nevertheless he cares mostly about his personal interest of receiving profit out of additional labor of his workers. And if private interests rule over public interests under capitalism, because of the dominant position of private property on the means of production, then socialism, characterized by the total domination of public property, is such kind of society, in which there is no place for private interests as there is under capitalism. The effectiveness of socialist enterprises is evaluated not on the criterion of how much profit they make, but on the criterion of how they satisfy people’s needs. This principle was respected in the USSR under Stalin.
An economical reform initiated by a group of soviet economists in 1965 had the purpose of establishing profit as the criterion of enterprise work efficiency. So this reform had put the interests of the enterprises higher than the interests of society and therefore created a contradiction between the public nature of the enterprises and the task, which these enterprises had to accomplish. A collective interest of an enterprise received a form of collective egoism. The bourgeoisie character of the reform not only weakened soviet economy, but also was one of the factors that influenced on the future destiny of world’s first socialist country.
Public property belongs to all people, in other words it is used and controlled by all working people of a socialist formation. Each product of labor under such conditions represents a product of a whole society, as it is derived from the common use of property on the means of production. Lenin said: “Communism means common. Communist society means that everything is common: land, factories, common labor, - that what communism is”. In this aspect socialism has a communist character, indeed socialism and communism are not separate social – economic formations, but the first is the integral part of the latter.
From the said above it appears evident that socialist way of production, unlike the one, which exists under capitalism, is aimed not for gaining profits, but has the task of satisfaction of people’s needs. It is true that capitalist while producing any kind of commodity indirectly satisfy needs of buyers, nevertheless he cares mostly about his personal interest of receiving profit out of additional labor of his workers. And if private interests rule over public interests under capitalism, because of the dominant position of private property on the means of production, then socialism, characterized by the total domination of public property, is such kind of society, in which there is no place for private interests as there is under capitalism. The effectiveness of socialist enterprises is evaluated not on the criterion of how much profit they make, but on the criterion of how they satisfy people’s needs. This principle was respected in the USSR under Stalin.
An economical reform initiated by a group of soviet economists in 1965 had the purpose of establishing profit as the criterion of enterprise work efficiency. So this reform had put the interests of the enterprises higher than the interests of society and therefore created a contradiction between the public nature of the enterprises and the task, which these enterprises had to accomplish. A collective interest of an enterprise received a form of collective egoism. The bourgeoisie character of the reform not only weakened soviet economy, but also was one of the factors that influenced on the future destiny of world’s first socialist country.