State-capitalism

[EusebioScrib]

A state-capitalist economy is characterized as such: Commodity production, surplus value, market economics and all the other basic feartures of capitalism are intact within the economy, the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.

In typical capitalism the state, while controlled by the bourgeoisie, has "relative autonomy", I believe that was what Marx termed it. Basically sometimes the state does things against the ruling class because it views itself as a seperate entity, but still allied.

In state-capitalism such a distinction does not exist.

State-capitalism is usually characterized by totalitarianism, which is deemed 100% necessary by the ruling class.

State-capitalism develops only under certain conditions, just like other forms of capitalism i.e Fascism.

State-capitalism, as we've seen it, develops under semi-feudal conditions when there is a lack of a bourgeoisie. Because there is a lack of a bourgeoisie, usually due to foreign dominance, it is left up to the other classes to take their place and fight foreign dominance. In Russia it has been the petty-bourgeoisie who take the bourgeoisie's "leading" role in the revolution. In China it was oddly the peasantry lead by higher-ranking peasants.

So in short, that's state-capitalism and how it develops.

Thoughts?

Lets discuss.

[EusebioScrib]

A state-capitalist economy is characterized as such: Commodity production, surplus value, market economics and all the other basic feartures of capitalism are intact within the economy, the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.

In typical capitalism the state, while controlled by the bourgeoisie, has "relative autonomy", I believe that was what Marx termed it. Basically sometimes the state does things against the ruling class because it views itself as a seperate entity, but still allied.

In state-capitalism such a distinction does not exist.

State-capitalism is usually characterized by totalitarianism, which is deemed 100% necessary by the ruling class.

State-capitalism develops only under certain conditions, just like other forms of capitalism i.e Fascism.

State-capitalism, as we've seen it, develops under semi-feudal conditions when there is a lack of a bourgeoisie. Because there is a lack of a bourgeoisie, usually due to foreign dominance, it is left up to the other classes to take their place and fight foreign dominance. In Russia it has been the petty-bourgeoisie who take the bourgeoisie's "leading" role in the revolution. In China it was oddly the peasantry lead by higher-ranking peasants.

So in short, that's state-capitalism and how it develops.

Thoughts?

Lets discuss.

[EusebioScrib]

A state-capitalist economy is characterized as such: Commodity production, surplus value, market economics and all the other basic feartures of capitalism are intact within the economy, the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.

In typical capitalism the state, while controlled by the bourgeoisie, has "relative autonomy", I believe that was what Marx termed it. Basically sometimes the state does things against the ruling class because it views itself as a seperate entity, but still allied.

In state-capitalism such a distinction does not exist.

State-capitalism is usually characterized by totalitarianism, which is deemed 100% necessary by the ruling class.

State-capitalism develops only under certain conditions, just like other forms of capitalism i.e Fascism.

State-capitalism, as we've seen it, develops under semi-feudal conditions when there is a lack of a bourgeoisie. Because there is a lack of a bourgeoisie, usually due to foreign dominance, it is left up to the other classes to take their place and fight foreign dominance. In Russia it has been the petty-bourgeoisie who take the bourgeoisie's "leading" role in the revolution. In China it was oddly the peasantry lead by higher-ranking peasants.

So in short, that's state-capitalism and how it develops.

Thoughts?

Lets discuss.

[RedJacobin]

Thanks for starting the thread. I'm still unclear on a lot of this, so here are a couple of questions.

Wouldn't the Paris Commune also be state-capitalism under your definition? Did the Commune not have commodity production, money, wage labor, and other features of capitalism?

What's totalitarianism?

[RedJacobin]

Thanks for starting the thread. I'm still unclear on a lot of this, so here are a couple of questions.

Wouldn't the Paris Commune also be state-capitalism under your definition? Did the Commune not have commodity production, money, wage labor, and other features of capitalism?

What's totalitarianism?

[RedJacobin]

Thanks for starting the thread. I'm still unclear on a lot of this, so here are a couple of questions.

Wouldn't the Paris Commune also be state-capitalism under your definition? Did the Commune not have commodity production, money, wage labor, and other features of capitalism?

What's totalitarianism?

[Leo]

A state-capitalist economy is characterized as such: Commodity production, surplus value, market economics and all the other basic feartures of capitalism are intact within the economy, the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.

State monopoly capitalist system is a creature that is bound to death. The difference between a state-monopoly capitalist country and a regular capitalist country is not the state altough it appears to be so. The difference is the condition of the ruling class, in a state monopoly capitalist system, individual capitalists who compete with each other do not exist, but the capitalists class exists collectively, withing the ruling elite, within the state hiearachy. So the state mechanism is exactly the same with the state mechanism in regular capitalist countries, but production is made as if all companies formed a cartel and everyone works for that cartel and has to buy from that cartel. Yet it is a creature that is bound to die because eventually such system destroys itself in order to open the way to ambitious individual capitalists.


In typical capitalism the state, while controlled by the bourgeoisie, has "relative autonomy", I believe that was what Marx termed it. Basically sometimes the state does things against the ruling class because it views itself as a seperate entity, but still allied.

It is not that state under typical capitalism is under complete controll of the ruling class, at least in theory, but in practice the state always has to serve the ruling elite, because as it is only a tool of the ruling class, the only way for it to make profit from its existance is to serve in any means possible to the working class.


State-capitalism is usually characterized by totalitarianism, which is deemed 100% necessary by the ruling class.

State-capitalism develops only under certain conditions, just like other forms of capitalism i.e Fascism.

Altough totalitarianism is only an ignorant invention of the western media to put extreme-left and extreme-right in the same basket, state-capitalism does have a very important similarity to fascism. It is not an economical or rheotircal similarity, but both regimes use the same form of spectacle, the personality cult. I'll leave the comment to Debord here:

"The concentrated spectacle is primarily associated with bureaucratic capitalism, though it may also be imported as a technique for reinforcing state power in more backward mixed economies or even adopted by advanced capitalism during certain moments of crisis. Bureaucratic property is itself concentrated, in that the individual bureaucrat takes part in the ownership of the entire economy only through his membership in the community of bureaucrats. And since commodity production is less developed under bureaucratic capitalism, it too takes on a concentrated form: the commodity the bureaucracy appropriates is the total social labor, and what it sells back to the society is that society’s wholesale survival. The dictatorship of the bureaucratic economy cannot leave the exploited masses any significant margin of choice because it has had to make all the choices itself, and any choice made independently of it, whether regarding food or music or anything else, thus amounts to a declaration of war against it. This dictatorship must be enforced by permanent violence. Its spectacle imposes an image of the good which subsumes everything that officially exists, an image which is usually concentrated in a single individual, the guarantor of the system’s totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute star or disappear. This master of everyone else’s nonconsumption is the heroic image that disguises the absolute exploitation entailed by the system of primitive accumulation accelerated by terror. If the entire Chinese population has to study Mao to the point of identifying with Mao, this is because there is nothing else they can be. The dominion of the concentrated spectacle is a police state."


State-capitalism, as we've seen it, develops under semi-feudal conditions when there is a lack of a bourgeoisie. Because there is a lack of a bourgeoisie, usually due to foreign dominance, it is left up to the other classes to take their place and fight foreign dominance. In Russia it has been the petty-bourgeoisie who take the bourgeoisie's "leading" role in the revolution. In China it was oddly the peasantry lead by higher-ranking peasants.

Indeed, it has been like that so far. Good analysis, actually, good analysis in general. :)

[Leo]

A state-capitalist economy is characterized as such: Commodity production, surplus value, market economics and all the other basic feartures of capitalism are intact within the economy, the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.

State monopoly capitalist system is a creature that is bound to death. The difference between a state-monopoly capitalist country and a regular capitalist country is not the state altough it appears to be so. The difference is the condition of the ruling class, in a state monopoly capitalist system, individual capitalists who compete with each other do not exist, but the capitalists class exists collectively, withing the ruling elite, within the state hiearachy. So the state mechanism is exactly the same with the state mechanism in regular capitalist countries, but production is made as if all companies formed a cartel and everyone works for that cartel and has to buy from that cartel. Yet it is a creature that is bound to die because eventually such system destroys itself in order to open the way to ambitious individual capitalists.


In typical capitalism the state, while controlled by the bourgeoisie, has "relative autonomy", I believe that was what Marx termed it. Basically sometimes the state does things against the ruling class because it views itself as a seperate entity, but still allied.

It is not that state under typical capitalism is under complete controll of the ruling class, at least in theory, but in practice the state always has to serve the ruling elite, because as it is only a tool of the ruling class, the only way for it to make profit from its existance is to serve in any means possible to the working class.


State-capitalism is usually characterized by totalitarianism, which is deemed 100% necessary by the ruling class.

State-capitalism develops only under certain conditions, just like other forms of capitalism i.e Fascism.

Altough totalitarianism is only an ignorant invention of the western media to put extreme-left and extreme-right in the same basket, state-capitalism does have a very important similarity to fascism. It is not an economical or rheotircal similarity, but both regimes use the same form of spectacle, the personality cult. I'll leave the comment to Debord here:

"The concentrated spectacle is primarily associated with bureaucratic capitalism, though it may also be imported as a technique for reinforcing state power in more backward mixed economies or even adopted by advanced capitalism during certain moments of crisis. Bureaucratic property is itself concentrated, in that the individual bureaucrat takes part in the ownership of the entire economy only through his membership in the community of bureaucrats. And since commodity production is less developed under bureaucratic capitalism, it too takes on a concentrated form: the commodity the bureaucracy appropriates is the total social labor, and what it sells back to the society is that society’s wholesale survival. The dictatorship of the bureaucratic economy cannot leave the exploited masses any significant margin of choice because it has had to make all the choices itself, and any choice made independently of it, whether regarding food or music or anything else, thus amounts to a declaration of war against it. This dictatorship must be enforced by permanent violence. Its spectacle imposes an image of the good which subsumes everything that officially exists, an image which is usually concentrated in a single individual, the guarantor of the system’s totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute star or disappear. This master of everyone else’s nonconsumption is the heroic image that disguises the absolute exploitation entailed by the system of primitive accumulation accelerated by terror. If the entire Chinese population has to study Mao to the point of identifying with Mao, this is because there is nothing else they can be. The dominion of the concentrated spectacle is a police state."


State-capitalism, as we've seen it, develops under semi-feudal conditions when there is a lack of a bourgeoisie. Because there is a lack of a bourgeoisie, usually due to foreign dominance, it is left up to the other classes to take their place and fight foreign dominance. In Russia it has been the petty-bourgeoisie who take the bourgeoisie's "leading" role in the revolution. In China it was oddly the peasantry lead by higher-ranking peasants.

Indeed, it has been like that so far. Good analysis, actually, good analysis in general. :)

[Leo]

A state-capitalist economy is characterized as such: Commodity production, surplus value, market economics and all the other basic feartures of capitalism are intact within the economy, the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.

State monopoly capitalist system is a creature that is bound to death. The difference between a state-monopoly capitalist country and a regular capitalist country is not the state altough it appears to be so. The difference is the condition of the ruling class, in a state monopoly capitalist system, individual capitalists who compete with each other do not exist, but the capitalists class exists collectively, withing the ruling elite, within the state hiearachy. So the state mechanism is exactly the same with the state mechanism in regular capitalist countries, but production is made as if all companies formed a cartel and everyone works for that cartel and has to buy from that cartel. Yet it is a creature that is bound to die because eventually such system destroys itself in order to open the way to ambitious individual capitalists.


In typical capitalism the state, while controlled by the bourgeoisie, has "relative autonomy", I believe that was what Marx termed it. Basically sometimes the state does things against the ruling class because it views itself as a seperate entity, but still allied.

It is not that state under typical capitalism is under complete controll of the ruling class, at least in theory, but in practice the state always has to serve the ruling elite, because as it is only a tool of the ruling class, the only way for it to make profit from its existance is to serve in any means possible to the working class.


State-capitalism is usually characterized by totalitarianism, which is deemed 100% necessary by the ruling class.

State-capitalism develops only under certain conditions, just like other forms of capitalism i.e Fascism.

Altough totalitarianism is only an ignorant invention of the western media to put extreme-left and extreme-right in the same basket, state-capitalism does have a very important similarity to fascism. It is not an economical or rheotircal similarity, but both regimes use the same form of spectacle, the personality cult. I'll leave the comment to Debord here:

"The concentrated spectacle is primarily associated with bureaucratic capitalism, though it may also be imported as a technique for reinforcing state power in more backward mixed economies or even adopted by advanced capitalism during certain moments of crisis. Bureaucratic property is itself concentrated, in that the individual bureaucrat takes part in the ownership of the entire economy only through his membership in the community of bureaucrats. And since commodity production is less developed under bureaucratic capitalism, it too takes on a concentrated form: the commodity the bureaucracy appropriates is the total social labor, and what it sells back to the society is that society’s wholesale survival. The dictatorship of the bureaucratic economy cannot leave the exploited masses any significant margin of choice because it has had to make all the choices itself, and any choice made independently of it, whether regarding food or music or anything else, thus amounts to a declaration of war against it. This dictatorship must be enforced by permanent violence. Its spectacle imposes an image of the good which subsumes everything that officially exists, an image which is usually concentrated in a single individual, the guarantor of the system’s totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute star or disappear. This master of everyone else’s nonconsumption is the heroic image that disguises the absolute exploitation entailed by the system of primitive accumulation accelerated by terror. If the entire Chinese population has to study Mao to the point of identifying with Mao, this is because there is nothing else they can be. The dominion of the concentrated spectacle is a police state."


State-capitalism, as we've seen it, develops under semi-feudal conditions when there is a lack of a bourgeoisie. Because there is a lack of a bourgeoisie, usually due to foreign dominance, it is left up to the other classes to take their place and fight foreign dominance. In Russia it has been the petty-bourgeoisie who take the bourgeoisie's "leading" role in the revolution. In China it was oddly the peasantry lead by higher-ranking peasants.

Indeed, it has been like that so far. Good analysis, actually, good analysis in general. :)

[Janus]

Wouldn't the Paris Commune also be state-capitalism under your definition?
The Paris Commune was quite decentralized and therefore there was no true ruling power. Of course, this decentralization did hurt it in the end. The workers and people actually had control of the Commune so it couldn't really be considered state-capitalism.

That was a good analysis, EusebioScrib.


the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.
Yes, and the state officials profit in the same way that the former bourgeois did.

[Janus]

Wouldn't the Paris Commune also be state-capitalism under your definition?
The Paris Commune was quite decentralized and therefore there was no true ruling power. Of course, this decentralization did hurt it in the end. The workers and people actually had control of the Commune so it couldn't really be considered state-capitalism.

That was a good analysis, EusebioScrib.


the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.
Yes, and the state officials profit in the same way that the former bourgeois did.

[Janus]

Wouldn't the Paris Commune also be state-capitalism under your definition?
The Paris Commune was quite decentralized and therefore there was no true ruling power. Of course, this decentralization did hurt it in the end. The workers and people actually had control of the Commune so it couldn't really be considered state-capitalism.

That was a good analysis, EusebioScrib.


the only difference is that there is no distinction between the state and the ruling class.
Yes, and the state officials profit in the same way that the former bourgeois did.

[Floyce White]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false.

There is no way to "get around" logic.

What is the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey worth? The war factories leased to companies for $1 a year? The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The streets of Los Angeles? Lake Michigan? Isn't it true that the dollar value of state-owned properties in the US is far, far greater than that of all other owners combined? Yes. And it always has been.

Keynesianism is a feature of capitalism since the 1920s, but it's not particularly earth shaking. The giveaway of state lands to the railroads was probably more important in US capitalist development. Don't make Keynesianism into something it's not.

[Floyce White]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false.

There is no way to "get around" logic.

What is the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey worth? The war factories leased to companies for $1 a year? The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The streets of Los Angeles? Lake Michigan? Isn't it true that the dollar value of state-owned properties in the US is far, far greater than that of all other owners combined? Yes. And it always has been.

Keynesianism is a feature of capitalism since the 1920s, but it's not particularly earth shaking. The giveaway of state lands to the railroads was probably more important in US capitalist development. Don't make Keynesianism into something it's not.

[Floyce White]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false.

There is no way to "get around" logic.

What is the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey worth? The war factories leased to companies for $1 a year? The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The streets of Los Angeles? Lake Michigan? Isn't it true that the dollar value of state-owned properties in the US is far, far greater than that of all other owners combined? Yes. And it always has been.

Keynesianism is a feature of capitalism since the 1920s, but it's not particularly earth shaking. The giveaway of state lands to the railroads was probably more important in US capitalist development. Don't make Keynesianism into something it's not.

[Rawthentic]

And so, someone explain to me, has not Leninism and Maoism led to state-capitalism?

[Rawthentic]

And so, someone explain to me, has not Leninism and Maoism led to state-capitalism?

[Rawthentic]

And so, someone explain to me, has not Leninism and Maoism led to state-capitalism?

[Leo]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false. There is no way to "get around" logic.

The actual term is "state monopoly capitalism", you should have done your homework better before writing about a term you don't know in depth. State capitalism is a short version of "state monopoly capitalism" which is actually not very accurate and it has nothing to do with Keynesianism.


And so, someone explain to me, has not Leninism and Maoism led to state-capitalism?

Leninism and Maoism which is the most ridiculous, yet somehow most succesful variant of the paradigm, were "state monopoly capitalism".

[Leo]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false. There is no way to "get around" logic.

The actual term is "state monopoly capitalism", you should have done your homework better before writing about a term you don't know in depth. State capitalism is a short version of "state monopoly capitalism" which is actually not very accurate and it has nothing to do with Keynesianism.


And so, someone explain to me, has not Leninism and Maoism led to state-capitalism?

Leninism and Maoism which is the most ridiculous, yet somehow most succesful variant of the paradigm, were "state monopoly capitalism".

[Leo]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false. There is no way to "get around" logic.

The actual term is "state monopoly capitalism", you should have done your homework better before writing about a term you don't know in depth. State capitalism is a short version of "state monopoly capitalism" which is actually not very accurate and it has nothing to do with Keynesianism.


And so, someone explain to me, has not Leninism and Maoism led to state-capitalism?

Leninism and Maoism which is the most ridiculous, yet somehow most succesful variant of the paradigm, were "state monopoly capitalism".

[Janus]

The actual term is "state monopoly capitalism"
So, you're basically saying that the state was the one big monopoly as opposed to the many monopolies that existed for example in the Gilded Age, right?

[Janus]

The actual term is "state monopoly capitalism"
So, you're basically saying that the state was the one big monopoly as opposed to the many monopolies that existed for example in the Gilded Age, right?

[Janus]

The actual term is "state monopoly capitalism"
So, you're basically saying that the state was the one big monopoly as opposed to the many monopolies that existed for example in the Gilded Age, right?

[Leo]

So, you're basically saying that the state was the one big monopoly as opposed to the many monopolies that existed for example in the Gilded Age, right?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Leo]

So, you're basically saying that the state was the one big monopoly as opposed to the many monopolies that existed for example in the Gilded Age, right?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Leo]

So, you're basically saying that the state was the one big monopoly as opposed to the many monopolies that existed for example in the Gilded Age, right?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Janus]

OK, I see. I had always resisted the term "state-monopoly capitalism" because I thought that it referred to something like the monopolies in the US during the Gilded Age.

[Janus]

OK, I see. I had always resisted the term "state-monopoly capitalism" because I thought that it referred to something like the monopolies in the US during the Gilded Age.

[Janus]

OK, I see. I had always resisted the term "state-monopoly capitalism" because I thought that it referred to something like the monopolies in the US during the Gilded Age.

[Hit The North]

Am I the only one to think that there's a curious parallel in that the two greatest examples of state monopoly capitalism are Russia and China, who both were prior Asiatic modes of production - basically a form of state monopoly feudalism?

[Hit The North]

Am I the only one to think that there's a curious parallel in that the two greatest examples of state monopoly capitalism are Russia and China, who both were prior Asiatic modes of production - basically a form of state monopoly feudalism?

[Hit The North]

Am I the only one to think that there's a curious parallel in that the two greatest examples of state monopoly capitalism are Russia and China, who both were prior Asiatic modes of production - basically a form of state monopoly feudalism?

[EusebioScrib]

"State capitalism?" As opposed to what? "Stateless capitalism" or "state communism?" As I said in my last Antiproperty article, this compound-word term is false because its opposites are false.

You're being nitpicky here. State-capitalism implies that the state is the primary function of the ruling class. They are the state. There is no distinction, unlike regular capitalism. Although I guess state-monopoly-capitalism makes more sense, where the state has a monopoly over everything. Whatever, it's semantics!


Keynesianism is a feature of capitalism since the 1920s, but it's not particularly earth shaking. The giveaway of state lands to the railroads was probably more important in US capitalist development. Don't make Keynesianism into something it's not.

This discussion has nothing to do with Keynesianism. Keynesianism is a tactic of regular capitalism which is realted to Social Democracy, as I understand it. Anyway, in Keynesianism the state doesn't have a monopoly over the means of production, the capitalist class does. Everything the state does in regulard capitalism is in the benefit of the capitalist class in the long run, even if the class in general opposes it. However in state-capitalism there is no such distinction. There is no "relative autonomy" as Marx described it.

[Floyce White]

Capitalists are always making the self-serving propaganda that class should be defined by something other than familial property. They push the idea that some institution other than the family is the basis of class--in this case, the state. They push the idea that some relation other than ownership is the basis of class--in this case, executive management.

If your family is a petty landlord or shopkeeper, "state capitalist" theory may be "true." The employees and tenants "don't understand" and they never will.

Leo Uilleann throws in the word "monopoly." Apparently, he wants us all to be "trust busters" to help the small businesses that directly compete with monopolies.

"State capitalism," or, if you prefer, "state monopoly capitalism," is one of those well-beaten and long-discredited theories that we find being paraded around on the Internet. You know, like situationism or transhumanism. This specific phrase never became part of mass usage among working-class activists. The British SWP (American ISO) uses the term for ritual conformity (clique identification). After the fall of the Soviet Bloc, a few scattered individuals and grouplets adopted some of the "Marx not Lenin" phraseology of the 1920s Left Communist trend. By the late '90s, the opponents of the revival of "state capitalist" theory had found many old critiques and wrote some new ones. The rank opportunism of ISO's Nader campaign led to further disorientation and a major split in that organization, which initiated further scrutiny of their theories. The self-declared new "communist left" had also gone well down the road of enthusiasm-turned-criticism of Bordiga, Pannekoek, and other original Left Communists.

For those of us who actually were part of these activist discussions, the presentation of "state capitalism" in this thread is laughably weak. And it's way behind the current point of discussion. For example, Canada's single-payer medical insurance was widely discussed during the Clintons' medical insurance discussion in 1993. Canada's insurance scheme is not monopoly but monopsony. Many government "monopolies" are actually monopsonies in that they purchase not vend. It's just plain ignorance to mouth opposition to single-seller trade while using the wrong word to describe single-buyer trade. What's more, hardly any industries are truly monopolized. Cartelization--not monopolization--is the form of big-business dominance. So making noise about monopolies is just dummied-down propaganda.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Floyce White
If your family is a petty landlord or shopkeeper, "state capitalist" theory may be "true." The employees and tenants "don't understand" and they never will. So the employees and tenants ("proles") are "thus" incapable of doing anything revolutionary because they are condemned to eternal ignorance?



Leo Uilleann throws in the word "monopoly." Apparently, he wants us all to be "trust busters" to help the small businesses that directly compete with monopolies.
Brilliant non-sequitur, Floyce.


"State capitalism," or, if you prefer, "state monopoly capitalism," is one of those well-beaten and long-discredited theories that we find being paraded around on the Internet. You know, like situationism or transhumanism. This specific phrase never became part of mass usage among working-class activists. Ah! Another brilliant example of "logic"! Because the majority of the masses didn't accept the term "State capitalism", it surely can't exist...despite the "fact" that "employees and tenants 'don't understand' and they never will"!

Really, Floyce, the mind reels at your arguments; there's more contradiction in it than in a dialectician's million page book. No, that's not quite fair, it's just holier than the pope.


For those of us who actually were part of these activist discussions, the presentation of "state capitalism" in this thread is laughably weak. I think you are confusing reformism with activism, Floyce.

Or maybe Utopian Socialism would describe it better; looking at a few of your mottos from your site ("ABOLISH EMPLOYMENT–END WAGE SLAVERY", "NO RENT–NO MORTGAGE–NO HOMELESSNESS", and "COMMUNISM IN OUR LIFETIME") clearly ignore that whole materialist conception key to Marxism.

But then again, Floyce, "who cares" about Marx? "Obviously" he had little to no role in Marxism. :rolleyes:

[EusebioScrib]

Floyce, your arguements are pointless nit-pickyness of terms.


Capitalists are always making the self-serving propaganda that class should be defined by something other than familial property. They push the idea that some institution other than the family is the basis of class--in this case, the state. They push the idea that some relation other than ownership is the basis of class--in this case, executive management.

Familial propety? Since when is class defined by one's family?

I'm not sure I get where your going with this above. It seems out of place.


If your family is a petty landlord or shopkeeper, "state capitalist" theory may be "true."

So, if my gamily is petty-bourgeois, that makes state-capitalism real? I don't get it :blink:


"State capitalism," or, if you prefer, "state monopoly capitalism," is one of those well-beaten and long-discredited theories that we find being paraded around on the Internet. You know, like situationism or transhumanism.

Long-discredited? O rly? Could you explain how?

Situationism has been so involved with praxis you'd fall of your chair. You should read into a lot of the autonomist movements. Situationism had a great effect on them and vic versa.

Transhumanism is a rather new idea (however I think your only doing it to "insult" me), only becoming fully concrete in the late 80's or so. However, no one has ever really put a Marxist spin to it, well an autonomist Marxist spin. There have been some anarchist tendencies and some "socialist" tendencies, however with little coherence etc. Some a comrade from Philly (barista.marxista ;) ) and myself are planning on writing a piece on Autonomist Transhumanism over the summer. I'll be sure you get a copy.


This specific phrase never became part of mass usage among working-class activists. The British SWP (American ISO) uses the term for ritual conformity (clique identification). After the fall of the Soviet Bloc, a few scattered individuals and grouplets adopted some of the "Marx not Lenin" phraseology of the 1920s Left Communist trend. By the late '90s, the opponents of the revival of "state capitalist" theory had found many old critiques and wrote some new ones. The rank opportunism of ISO's Nader campaign led to further disorientation and a major split in that organization, which initiated further scrutiny of their theories. The self-declared new "communist left" had also gone well down the road of enthusiasm-turned-criticism of Bordiga, Pannekoek, and other original Left Communists.

I'm stopped paying attention to this bit once I saw "SWP" and "ISO" in it...



In general, I don't have any idea what your saying. Could you just try and sum up what your trying to say in a very short thesis and then we can get all big with it.

[Guest1]

Bleh, can't make a full reply right now, I keep not getting around to it in these state-capitalism threads, but I will this week I promise.

But here:

Against the Theory of State Capitalism (http://www.tedgrant.org/works/4/9/reply_to_tony_cliff.html)

[EusebioScrib]

You kidding? It's like book size. I'm not wasting time on Leninist garbage like that. I got more important shit to do like jerk off or reading to find out how to transcend human.

Just post, damnit!

[Guest1]

Haha. That's hilarious.

What is this about transcending human? I linked you to an article about state capitalism as a theory, all I did.

Anyways, the reality is that you're denying that workers broke the power of the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie in 1917.

When power passed from the Duma, and the Czar, to the Soviets (workers' councils, as many seem to forget), was the fundamental economic system transformed in Russia?

Who had power, a class of property owners, or the class of workers? Yes, it is clear a parasitic layer developed, but were they a class of their own, playing a definite role in production? Or were they merely a privileged layer, with no power of their own, who drew all their priviliges from the power of the working class? Where did they draw their power from? The support of factory owners, or the support of toilers?

The fact is, just as bonaparte's destruction of bourgeois democracy did not signal the end of bourgeois economic dominance, neither did stalin's destruction of proletarian democracy signal the end of proletarian economic dominance.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 28 2006, 04:11 AM
Bleh, can't make a full reply right now, I keep not getting around to it in these state-capitalism threads, but I will this week I promise.

But here:

Against the Theory of State Capitalism (http://www.tedgrant.org/works/4/9/reply_to_tony_cliff.html)
I am going to read this sometime. I don't know when (I have recently managed to order a copy of The Unbroken Thread.

[nickdlc]

Anyways, the reality is that you're denying that workers broke the power of the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie in 1917. We aren't denying that the russian revolution was a socialist revolution, what we are denying is that workers remained in control of the MoP for any extended amount of time. This is why left-communists say the russian revolution was effectively a bourgeois revolution, not because the bourgeosie were spearheading the revolution or supporting it but because in the end this is what it became.


Yes, it is clear a parasitic layer developed, but were they a class of their own, playing a definite role in production? Of course they were a class of their own, find me an example were a large part of the surplus product consumed by a parasitic class in any epoch does not compel the large majority, through force, to sustain it.


who drew all their priviliges from the power of the working class? Where else would they draw this from?


Where did they draw their power from? From control (ownership) over the MoP.

[Floyce White]

A thread-starter "stopped paying attention" to a reply to his post, refuses to read a rather short and relevant historical document because it's "book size" and "garbage," calls semantical discussion of his semantics "nit-pickyness," and posts the dummied-down remark "Since when is class defined by one's family?" (as if he never heard of inheritance).

This is not honest discussion. EusebioScrib, you owe the readers of this thread an apology. If you don't want to discuss your ideas, don't post them on a discussion board.

ComradeRed: "So the employees and tenants ('proles') are 'thus' incapable of doing anything revolutionary because they are condemned to eternal ignorance?"

If you will re-read it in context, you will see that I was responding to Leo Uilleann's assertion that I supposedly don't understand the subject matter. As I have written in my Antiproperty articles, truth is relative to one's class interests. A lower-class person such as myself will never "understand" (forgive, tolerate) the self-serving excuses of petty exploiters.

Frankly, if you can't get that I was ribbing Leo Uilleann, you're overrating your own analytical skills (and underrating everyone else's contributions to debate).

ComradeRed: "But then again, Floyce, 'who cares' about Marx? 'Obviously' he had little to no role in Marxism."

Agreed. "Marxism" is dogma invented at whim to justify opportunism with appeal to authority. Self-described "Marxists" take every conceivable position on a subject. From what I have read of Marx, he opposed the creation of any "Marx-ism" and instead argued issues on their individual merits.

ComradeRed, that's Mister White to you. You obviously detest me, so why do you want us to be on a first-name basis? I don't even know your name!

nickdlc: "This is why left-communists say the russian revolution was effectively a bourgeois revolution, not because the bourgeosie were spearheading the revolution or supporting it but because in the end this is what it became."

You're not really that far from my approach: that the RSDLP was a multi-class organization, and could not have been anything other than dominated by its bourgeois "theoreticians" and "leaders." The Bolshevik faction was a bourgeois party. The workers had no independent party and no perspective on building one.

[EusebioScrib]

Anyways, the reality is that you're denying that workers broke the power of the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie in 1917.

The native bourgeoisie did not have any power in 1917 Russia. It was only foreign capital, very little and insignificant was native.

Workers were merely pawns to the party just as workers and peasants were pawns of the bourgeoisie in the French Rev.



When power passed from the Duma, and the Czar, to the Soviets (workers' councils, as many seem to forget), was the fundamental economic system transformed in Russia?

Yes it certainly was. It was changed from a semi-feudal society to what would eventually become a full blown capitalist one. It would just take some time.


Who had power, a class of property owners, or the class of workers? Yes, it is clear a parasitic layer developed, but were they a class of their own, playing a definite role in production?

Uh, yea they were a class of their own. How the hell else would you define them? They owned and controlled the means of production. Hence they were the ruling class. No workers had control over the means of production. Everything was "centrally planned" by Gosplan. How can something that is "centralized" be in the hands of everyone?



Or were they merely a privileged layer, with no power of their own, who drew all their priviliges from the power of the working class?
How does a "privileged" layer (how is this different from a class?) draw their priviliges from the working class without any power? :blink:


Where did they draw their power from? The support of factory owners, or the support of toilers?

Where does the bourgeoisie get a mandate for their power? Only by compliance of the working class. Your arguements make no fucking sense.


The fact is, just as bonaparte's destruction of bourgeois democracy did not signal the end of bourgeois economic dominance, neither did stalin's destruction of proletarian democracy signal the end of proletarian economic dominance.

Don't try and pull this trotskyite thermodemore(sp?) shit on me. Although you may have some validity here. Except that both situations were from feudal to capitalist economies and even though Stalin was a dictator, the party still was the "ruling class" of the USSR.

[KC]

What the fuck is "MoP"?


We aren't denying that the russian revolution was a socialist revolution, what we are denying is that workers remained in control of the MoP for any extended amount of time. This is why left-communists say the russian revolution was effectively a bourgeois revolution, not because the bourgeosie were spearheading the revolution or supporting it but because in the end this is what it became.


So the 1917 revolution was bourgeois, even though the proletariat were the ones revolting and held power for a significant period of time? It's bourgeois because the workers lost their power? By that logic, every single working-class event is "bourgeois" because none of them ultimately succeeded in creating a communist society. To say it was a "bourgeois revolution" is to give credit to the bourgeoisie and only the bourgeoisie. Way to go.

[EusebioScrib]

MoP I believe means means of production?


So the 1917 revolution was bourgeois, even though the proletariat were the ones revolting and held power for a significant period of time? It's bourgeois because the workers lost their power? By that logic, every single working-class event is "bourgeois" because none of them ultimately succeeded in creating a communist society. To say it was a "bourgeois revolution" is to give credit to the bourgeoisie and only the bourgeoisie. Way to go.

Your taking things out of context.

The 1917 revolution was bourgeois in character, however it doesn't mean that it didn't effect workers and they recated to certain things. In the French Rev workers certainly were the ones doing all the fighting in the cities, doesn't mean it wasn't a bourgeois revolution.

The 1917 revolution was bourgeois in character from the beginning. We don't base the claim on that workers were defeated. We base it on historical materialism. Feudalism cannot go to communism. Sorry, nice try. Workers were merely spectators who got "too roudy" when their team pissed them off. So the team had to put them down.

[Guest1]

That's utterly ridiculous, materialism is not applying a rigid, dogmatic formula to history, materialism is looking at the situation at hand and drawing conclusions from it.

Marx made it clear that he believed it possible to pass from Feudalism to worker's democracy in certain situations, Lenin proved it. The issue is not whether it is possible or not, the issue is the extreme isolation russia found itself in when the Marxists in the west failed in their revolutions.

That led to the rise of bureaucrats. Just as a union is no less a workers' union because it is led by right wing bureaucrats, the russian workers' state was no less a workers' state because it was led by a corrupt layer.

If you believe in the theory of state capitalism, I suggest you complete your betrayal of materialist and revolutionary analysis and begin bombing union headquarters post-haste. Your naive idealism, the same idealism that led the mensheviks to join the white army, must be taken to its logical conclusion.

Or do you think that the "privileged layer" of bureaucrats in the unions today is something different from the privileged layer you like to think of as a class in the Soviet Union?

Control and ownership are two interrelated, but separate things. Yes, a corrupt bureaucracy in a union can gain temporary control of the union, just as a corrupt bureaucracy in a workers' state. This usually is the result of intervening factors, the death or detention of leading figures of the movement (as in the USSR in the civil war or the US unions in the 30's), the declining participation of workers, or the strengthening of the class enemy. This is a reversable trend however, as ownership remains in the hands of our class. A union's dues are paid by the workers, and that ownership can overturn the control of the bureaucracy with a movement from the rank and file. The union bureaucrats are only managers of a working class organization. In the same way, the workers' state is owned by the working class, even if the bureaucrats may manage it when workers are less organized. A political battle needs to be waged to regain control, but ownership, an economic issue, does not need to be changed.

Otherwise, a counter-revolution, where the bureaucrats overturned the workers' state and turned themselves into capitalists, would not have had to happen, dismantling the USSR. Why, exactly, would they have had to do that if Capitalism already existed?

[EusebioScrib]

Marx made it clear that he believed it possible to pass from Feudalism to worker's democracy in certain situations

And? I don't care what Marx believed or said. He got a lot of shit wrong. We found him on his head, but we gotta stand him upright.


Lenin proved it.

Err...Lenin destroyed all manifestations of workers power. And he was brutally open about it. Pig.


The issue is not whether it is possible or not, the issue is the extreme isolation russia found itself in when the Marxists in the west failed in their revolutions.

It wasn't possible. The material conditions in Russia were not there to support communism. Period. The consciousness of the workers wasn't class consciousness that leads to communism, but rather more of a reaction to terrible conditions to which workers decide to run some things themselves in order to survive.


That led to the rise of bureaucrats. Just as a union is no less a workers' union because it is led by right wing bureaucrats, the russian workers' state was no less a workers' state because it was led by a corrupt layer.

A workers' ____ implies that it is run by workers. If workers aren't running it, well then get rid of the adjective.

What led to the rise of the bureaucracy was the nature of the party and the need to develop capitalism in Russia.



If you believe in the theory of state capitalism, I suggest you complete your betrayal of materialist and revolutionary analysis and begin bombing union headquarters post-haste.

:huh:


Your naive idealism, the same idealism that led the mensheviks to join the white army, must be taken to its logical conclusion.

Leninist love to throw around words like idealism, however they never back it up. How exactly am I being idealist?

Comparing my analysis to the mensheviks is plain wrong. My analysis is in support of the revolution, however I'm able to see past all the fancy rhetoric and realize that the revolution was bourgeois, not workers.


Or do you think that the "priviliged layer" of bureaucrats in the unions today is something different from the priviliged layer you like to think of as a class in the Soviet Union?

Well union bureaucracts don't control the means of production and state, do they?

[EusebioScrib]

Sorry, I must have missed these two portions.


This is a reversable trend however, as ownership remains in the hands of our class.

No. They were a different class. They were the ruling class and the workers of Russia were the working class. No getting past the truth.



In the same way, the workers' state is owned by the working class, even if the bureaucrats may manage it when workers are less organized. A political battle needs to be waged to regain control, but ownership, an economic issue, does not need to be changed.

Ownership doesn't need to be changed? So all we need is a political battle? How strangly liberal of you.



Otherwise, a counter-revolution, where the bureaucrats overturned the workers' state and turned themselves into capitalists, would not have had to happen, dismantling the USSR. Why, exactly, would they have had to do that if Capitalism already existed?

Well, a "counter-revolution" did occur where party officials started to repress the soviets and the Workers' Opposition, which led to the establishement of the dictatorship of the party.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 02:30 AM
And? I don't care what Marx believed or said. He got a lot of shit wrong. We found him on his head, but we gotta stand him upright.
Sure, whatever you say, let's flip Marx upside down just cause it'll make us look cool at our punk shows and ignore whether it's right or not.


Err...Lenin destroyed all manifestations of workers power. And he was brutally open about it. Pig.
Sure he did. We do of course have to ignore the revolutionary imperative for that to be true though. The reality is, the majority were peasants. So long as the peasantry aquieced to the working class, the revolution was healthy. The moment the other members of the coalition, the representatives of the peasantry, declared war on the dictatorship of the proletariat, what do you think would happen?

That's right, Lenin fought back against the armies of the Left SRs and the Narodniks who allied with the white armies.

In the middle of a civil war, you choose the side of the workers or you don't, you don't have a vote about which side wins, you kill each other.


It wasn't possible. The material conditions in Russia were not there to support communism. Period. The consciousness of the workers wasn't class consciousness that leads to communism, but rather more of a reaction to terrible conditions to which workers decide to run some things themselves in order to survive.
To say that russian workers hadn't achieved consciousness when they decided they would like to run the economy is nothing but racism. Period. It's white man's burden and nothing more.

Disgusting. What more is necessary?

As for communism, the conditions for communism are workers' control across the world, period. Do you really think that the paris commune was any more advanced than the russian situation, economically?


A workers' ____ implies that it is run by workers. If workers aren't running it, well then get rid of the adjective.

What led to the rise of the bureaucracy was the nature of the party and the need to develop capitalism in Russia.
There is no need to develop Capitalism, industry can be developed by a planned economy, and led into socialism, through workers' control. Just as, believe it or not, Feudalism was not developed across the world before Capitalism was. India is one example, where a completely different system developed into Capitalism.

As for a "workers' ____", are you telling me that unions today are not workers' unions?

Workers still have the power, even if they don't use it. Certain workers, priviliged workers with a knack for corrupt wheeling and dealing, have taken control of the unions. But they remain workers' unions in the end, and a movement from below can change the leadership without needing to destroy the union itself.


huh:
If you think that bureaucrats make the gains of workers' revolution worth destroying, then bureaucrats should also make the gains of workers' unions worth blowing up, right?


Leninist love to throw around words like idealism, however they never back it up. How exactly am I being idealist?

Comparing my analysis to the mensheviks is plain wrong. My analysis is in support of the revolution, however I'm able to see past all the fancy rhetoric and realize that the revolution was bourgeois, not workers.
The mensheviks' analysis was that the revolution was and must be a bourgeois revolution. This is why they supported the kerensky government, opposed the soviets and entered the Duma. If you think what was needed was a bourgeois revolution, this is where you should stop, because the kerensky regime was a bourgeois government. There was no need for red october, putting the workers' councils in charge instead of the parliament, for the development of Capitalism.

Capitalism could have been developed better with just bourgeois parliaments rather than making power come from the factories and the farms as giving power to the soviets did.


Well union bureaucracts don't control the means of production and state, do they?
They control your union. Do they own it because they control it?


Ownership doesn't need to be changed? So all we need is a political battle? How strangly liberal of you.
How strangely materialist of me. If the workers' organizations are run by bureaucrats, do we need to destroy them to give them back to workers?

The mode of production in russia was a transitional workers' economy. The political situation was a degenerated, bureaucratic mess. Which do we need to overthrow? The part where workers have economic power? Or the part where politically, they aren't represented?

I don't know about you, but I'll get rid of my bureaucrats rather than destroy the union at my factory because I don't like its leaders.


Well, a "counter-revolution" did occur where party officials started to repress the soviets and the Workers' Opposition, which led to the establishement of the dictatorship of the party.
Oh yes, there was a political counter-revolution, that's for sure, but the real counter-revolution that overthrew the economic basis of the workers' state didn't happen until the collapse of the Soviet Union in its entirety.

Again, why would the bureaucrats need to break the Soviet Union up to make themselves into the Capitalist class if they already were the Capitalist class?

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 29 2006, 06:19 AM







the funny thing is that the term "state-monopoly capitalism" was coined out by the trotskyist tony cliff, yet most trots hate that term for some reason.



That led to the rise of bureaucrats. Just as a union is no less a workers' union because it is led by right wing bureaucrats, the russian workers' state was no less a workers' state because it was led by a corrupt layer.

that is not a very good analogy.

for one, the term "state-monopoly capitalism" is not denying that USSR was not a workers' state, it is merely stating that such "workers' state" is also state-capitalist. now i think that you need to have a pretty twisted perception of the USSR in order to consider it a "workers' state"; by addressing the USSR with such term you are basically implying that any benevolent despotism could be addressed as one of the "people's".

you do not call a kingdom with a benevolent king a "people's kingdom".

besides, "state-monopoly capitalism" is a term that basically expouses that states as the one of the USSR were not socialist, and that instead, such states werepassing through the capitalist phase.



If you believe in the theory of state capitalism, I suggest you complete your betrayal of materialist and revolutionary analysis and begin bombing union headquarters post-haste. Your naive idealism, the same idealism that led the mensheviks to join the white army, must be taken to its logical conclusion.

first, it is state-monopoly capitalism.

Second, it really depends on what is your definition of a "workers' state". certainly, the USSR was no Paris Commune.

if you are resorting to marx's visualization of how a workers' state would be, then you are pretty much misunderstanding marx, considering how good ol' karl considered the paris commune as the model of a future workers' state.



Control and ownership are two interrelated, but separate things. Yes, a corrupt bureaucracy in a union can gain temporary control of the union, just as a corrupt bureaucracy in a workers' state. This usually is the result of intervening factors, the death or detention of leading figures of the movement (as in the USSR in the civil war or the US unions in the 30's), the declining participation of workers, or the strengthening of the class enemy. This is a reversable trend however, as ownership remains in the hands of our class. A union's dues are paid by the workers, and that ownership can overturn the control of the bureaucracy with a movement from the rank and file. The union bureaucrats are only managers of a working class organization. In the same way, the workers' state is owned by the working class, even if the bureaucrats may manage it when workers are less organized. A political battle needs to be waged to regain control, but ownership, an economic issue, does not need to be changed.

yeah, and we know how the USSR ended after all. power was NEVER returned back to the working class.


Otherwise, a counter-revolution, where the bureaucrats overturned the workers' state and turned themselves into capitalists, would not have had to happen, dismantling the USSR. Why, exactly, would they have had to do that if Capitalism already existed?


(forgive me if my historical knowledge is not accurate, for the late years of the USSR i have resorted alot to mainstream history which i know is sometimes not very trustworthy.)

i think it had to do with the overall unpopularity of the russian government in the face of free-market style capitalism. (not sure about this, as i pointed out before]

however still, that doesnt dismisses that regardless if the USSR was a workers' state or not, it was still state-monopoly capitalist.

the means of production were owned collectively by the bureacratic class, and still there was a proletariat that lived through wage-slavery. the bureacratic class would profit from the proletariat, making it possible for the bureacrat to accumulate much more capital than the proletarian could.

[EusebioScrib]

Sure, whatever you say, let's flip Marx upside down just cause it'll make us look cool at our punk shows and ignore whether it's right or not.

Hey, how'd you guess! You :wub:



The reality is, the majority were peasants. So long as the peasantry aquieced to the working class, the revolution was healthy. The moment the other members of the coalition, the representatives of the peasantry, declared war on the dictatorship of the proletariat, what do you think would happen?

I never said peasants' power, I said workers' power, hence I was indicating destruction of the industrial proletariat organizations i.e. soviets. Some good examples of this are Krodstant, and Mancheknovia(sp?) (although pesants were involved here aswell). Also the Workers' Opposition was brutall crushed and all power was taken from the soviets (Funny, I sorta remember "all power to the soviets"....."No no, comrades, what we said was all power to the soviet party"...says Squeeler)


In the middle of a civil war, you choose the side of the workers or you don't, you don't have a vote about which side wins, you kill each other.

I never talked about voting. Lenin used the civil war as an excuse to destroy workers' power. Sneaky devil...


To say that russian workers hadn't achieved consciousness when they decided they would like to run the economy is nothing but racism. Period. It's white man's burden and nothing more.

No. Racism would be if I said: Slavs are too genetically inferior to have revolution. But did I say anything about race, nationality, or ehtnicity? Nope I identified the mode of production and the means of production as being not at the right level.



As for communism, the conditions for communism are workers' control across the world, period. Do you really think that the paris commune was any more advanced than the russian situation, economically?

The Paris Commune was a more or less similar situation of worker reaction, which went pretty damn far, however it could never have succeeded.

The conditions for communism to be possible are commodity production becoming obsolete and people wanting to replace it with production of use-value.



There is no need to develop Capitalism, industry can be developed by a planned economy, and led into socialism, through workers' control. Just as, believe it or not, Feudalism was not developed across the world before Capitalism was. India is one example, where a completely different system developed into Capitalism.

Yes, you are very right, Capitalism can be developed via a planned economy (because Imperialists prevent it's "natural" development") although workers' control? Please. Workers do not control anything in a planned economy, just like they do in capitalism.


As for a "workers' ____", are you telling me that unions today are not workers' unions?

Yea, workers don't run shit. The buearucracy does. Unions are obsolete today. We are starting to find new methods of organizaiton.


The mensheviks' analysis was that the revolution was and must be a bourgeois revolution. This is why they supported the kerensky government, opposed the soviets and entered the Duma. If you think what was needed was a bourgeois revolution, this is where you should stop, because the kerensky regime was a bourgeois government. There was no need for red october, putting the workers' councils in charge instead of the parliament, for the development of Capitalism.

Good point! However, you are forgetting that Russia was under foreign dominance, and hence a native bourgeoisie could not develop in the "natural" or typical way. It had to be done via a planned economy through a very centralized state.


Capitalism could have been developed better with just bourgeois parliaments

Not in this situation. Russia was under imperial dominance.


They control your union. Do they own it because they control it?

Umm. actually yea. But they're not a class. They have no control or say over the means of production. The Party did.



How strangely materialist of me. If the workers' organizations are run by bureaucrats, do we need to destroy them to give them back to workers?


Nevermind, you didn't get it. It was a spur of the moment joke!


The mode of production in russia was a transitional workers' economy. The political situation was a degenerated, bureaucratic mess. Which do we need to overthrow? The part where workers have economic power? Or the part where politically, they aren't represented?

Nothing really could have bene done. Capitalism had to develop in Russia otherwise the country would have fallen back under imperialist dominance. The working class wasn't strong enough and the peasantry was far to disorganized at the time.


I don't know about you, but I'll get rid of my bureaucrats rather than destroy the union at my factory because I don't like its leaders.

:huh:


Oh yes, there was a political counter-revolution, that's for sure, but the real counter-revolution that overthrew the economic basis of the workers' state didn't happen until the collapse of the Soviet Union in its entirety.

No that was the overthrow of the party then, so that a real bourgeoisie could develop and Russia could become a modern imperialist nation.


Again, why would the bureaucrats need to break the Soviet Union up to make themselves into the Capitalist class if they already were the Capitalist class?

They were a state-capitalist class, a centralized party. Different version. It was necessary for them to give up total state-control so that genuine capitalism could exist.

[Floyce White]

Personally, I liked the reference to Ted Grant. He pointed out that either workers never took power in Russia, or else it always was a "workers' state." Since there's no such thing as a "workers' state," it never existed. And unless y'all forgot history, the workers never "took power" in Russia. The Bolsheviks staged a coup during the Second Congress of Soviets, and the Bolshevik Congress delegates got a majority to vote a resolution that the new government was a soviet organ. The thousands of new worker members and sympathizers of various left factions of the RSDLP and SR initiated another of many minor, partial, and failed uprisings that year, which helped the Bolshevik coup win in Petrograd and a few other major cities. The October Revolution was the radical bourgeoisie completing the capitalist, anti-feudal revolution. The lower class did the actual fighting on both sides--as they do in all uprisings. The rebellion of the lower class is the force for all social change--as it is in all uprisings.

Throughout the winter and spring of 1917-18, the Commission led by Lenin was in a desperate struggle to strangle the workers' revolt. Soviets were gutted and disbanded, worker-seized factories were returned to ownership, and discipline was restored in the military.

Grant notes that neither the Paris Commune nor the Russian soviets conducted nationalizations, and that nationalization is the keystone of socialism but has no relation to workers' revolt. Grant points out that nationalizations really began in earnest in 1918 and were essential during the Civil War. But the Bolsheviks had crushed the soviet movement before the Civil War ever began. Workers organized in councils, not a state, didn't "take power," did workplace takeovers not statizations, and didn't choose socialism.

The idea that the Civil War or Stalin caused the degeneration of "workers' power" is falsified history. The concept of a "new capitalist class" is a pure invention. The concept of nationalizations developing the state as a "sole capitalist" is a total fiction. Nothing like that ever even remotely existed, and there is no theoretical justification for it in the abstract.

There is 90 years of history since the October Revolution. We should stop repeating the fable and discuss the facts.

[EusebioScrib]

Personally, I liked the reference to Ted Grant. He pointed out that either workers never took power in Russia, or else it always was a "workers' state." Since there's no such thing as a "workers' state," it never existed. And unless y'all forgot history, the workers never "took power" in Russia. The Bolsheviks staged a coup during the Second Congress of Soviets, and the Bolshevik Congress delegates got a majority to vote a resolution that the new government was a soviet organ. The thousands of new worker members and sympathizers of various left factions of the RSDLP and SR initiated another of many minor, partial, and failed uprisings that year, which helped the Bolshevik coup win in Petrograd and a few other major cities. The October Revolution was the radical bourgeoisie completing the capitalist, anti-feudal revolution. The lower class did the actual fighting on both sides--as they do in all uprisings. The rebellion of the lower class is the force for all social change--as it is in all uprisings.

This is a very good analysis of what took place in 1917. Well done.



Throughout the winter and spring of 1917-18, the Commission led by Lenin was in a desperate struggle to strangle the workers' revolt. Soviets were gutted and disbanded, worker-seized factories were returned to ownership, and discipline was restored in the military.

Bingo ;)



The concept of a "new capitalist class" is a pure invention. The concept of nationalizations developing the state as a "sole capitalist" is a total fiction. Nothing like that ever even remotely existed, and there is no theoretical justification for it in the abstract.

Now this blows my mind. You just supported such concepts and analyses above, but here you call them fiction and invention? I'm very lost. Your posts are the most confusing I ever read. They contain so many opposite views I don't know what your saying half the time.

[Floyce White]

EusebioScrib, it's like where you say "Unions are obsolete today." What is a "union?" It's an organization of unity. That's all. A workplace union is the unity of all the non-management employees. A neighborhood union is the unity of the renters and mortgagers. A school union is the unity of students and staff. A military union is the unity of non-officer soldiers and sailors. The union is a form of lower-class struggle. It is up to those in struggle to fill that form with the substance of anti-capitalist struggle. The AFL-CIO is obsolete. Unions are not.

The difficulty you are facing is with basic definitions. In other words, semantics, rhetoric, etiology, and so on.

[EusebioScrib]

EusebioScrib, it's like where you say "Unions are obsolete today." What is a "union?" It's an organization of unity. That's all. A workplace union is the unity of all the non-management employees. A neighborhood union is the unity of the renters and mortgagers. A school union is the unity of students and staff. A military union is the unity of non-officer soldiers and sailors. The union is a form of lower-class struggle. It is up to those in struggle to fill that form with the substance of anti-capitalist struggle. The AFL-CIO is obsolete. Unions are not.

Well it's fairly clear from the discussion that we were refering to an institutionalized union i.e. AFL-CIO. When "unions" were brought up in this discussion it was plainly obvious that we were discussing AFL-CIO-esque groups.



The difficulty you are facing is with basic definitions. In other words, semantics, rhetoric, etiology, and so on.

No, I just don't get your last passage. You write in support of various things, then in the end you say they're fiction. It confused me. Could you explain it?

[Janus]

The concept of nationalizations developing the state as a "sole capitalist" is a total fiction. Nothing like that ever even remotely existed, and there is no theoretical justification for it in the abstract.
You still haven't presented any counter-points against state capitalism. So, what is your theory of what occured in the USSR?

[rouchambeau]

If by state-capitalism you mean fascism, then state-capitalism arrises from two failures: the failure of revolutionaries to overthrow capital, and the failure of democracy to manage capital.

[EusebioScrib]

If by state-capitalism you mean fascism, then state-capitalism arrises from two failures: the failure of revolutionaries to overthrow capital, and the failure of democracy to manage capital.

No. Fascism and state-capitalism are two distinct forms of captialism.

[rouchambeau]

How?

[Floyce White]

EusebioScrib: "No, I just don't get your last passage. You write in support of various things, then in the end you say they're fiction. It confused me. Could you explain it?"

I was listing facts that were not in accord with the standard pro-USSR line. I was saying that it is tautology to say that there are various social issues and there are various theories, theories explain issues, so these particular theories explain these particular issues. In no way was I myself being tautological (implying that if a theory is wrong, and here's a different theory, the different theory must be right). I was not agreeing with "state capitalist" theory just because I was pointing out critical flaws in the "workers' state" theory.

Janus: "You still haven't presented any counter-points against state capitalism."

I do not claim there is any such thing as "state capitalism," so I do not have the burden to prove it. The proponents do. And they utterly fail. That's all I had to point out. A theory is false until it is proven by the usual standards (historical, statistical, logical argument, etc.). So the theory remains false. It's just dogmatic embellishment of some words Marx sometimes wrote for rhetorical impact.

It's also a debaters' trick to ask a debate opponent to disprove anything or everything that is not proven.

Janus: "So, what is your theory of what occured in the USSR?"

Well, the idea of the state as a "sole capitalist" is complete nonsense. Anyone with a Rubik's Cube has evidence to the contrary. Or I could point to the Peasants' Party and Rural Solidarnosc in Poland--a country where most of its farm production was never collectivized.

I analyzed several aspects of "socialist countries" in my Antiproperty essays. For instance, as I said in No Compromise With Capitalism (http://www.geocities.com/antiproperty/index.html#A16):

"The false method of defining classes by known occupation puts blinders on any analysis of socialist countries such as the former Soviet Union. Socialist countries have money, wage labor, commodity exchange, and all the other forms of capitalism–so they must have the substance of capitalism. Who are the capitalists? The lot of hired bureaucrats are arbitrarily labeled “capitalists” because their jobs have well-known perquisites and involve known managerial tasks. Meanwhile, tens of millions of family-owned small businesses circulate and accumulate capital in petty-capitalist agriculture, and in the “free,” parallel, underground, or black markets of the little-monitored “informal economy.” This actual class of capitalist families is ignored because their reported business activity seems so small compared to the gross exaggerations of production in state-owned business. The massive corruption, theft, wastage, and spoilage in state-owned industry is the wink-and-nod subsidy to family-owned business, whose members get into management jobs so that they too can steal raw materials to resell as finished consumer goods. It is putting the cart before the horse to say that employment as government or state-business bureaucrats is the cause of being capitalists, and once they become capitalists, some start little businesses on the side. The Soviet system was not a degeneration, feudalism, or a troubled new system as many socialists suggest. The Soviet economy was the finest example of the normal functioning of socialism: to assist capital accumulation while hiding the extent of family-owned business under the guise of “workers’ rule.” Nationalized property in any country is owned by the state on behalf of whatever capitalists there are. Nationalizations of heavy industry are especially useful when capitalists are tiny and scattered. The petty-bourgeois socialist movement predictably and chronically fails to develop a logically-true analysis of the Soviet Union due to foggy definitions of classes."

[Raj Radical]

Why was EusebioScrib banned?

[Janus]

Why was EusebioScrib banned?
Look in the Trash bin. He and his buddies wanted to play internet revolutionary.

So if you wanna continue the debate with him, you'll have to head to Rebel Forums.

[Janus]

It's also a debaters' trick to ask a debate opponent to disprove anything or everything that is not proven.
OK, but this is a discussion so I was just asking for your counterpoints against it.


Meanwhile, tens of millions of family-owned small businesses circulate and accumulate capital in petty-capitalist agriculture, and in the “free,” parallel, underground, or black markets of the little-monitored “informal economy.” This actual class of capitalist families is ignored because their reported business activity seems so small compared to the gross exaggerations of production in state-owned business.
Thanks. That's all I was asking for.

So these family owned businesses are only in agriculture? Where are you getting these figures of "tens of millions"? How much profit can they generate if they are so small?

Even if this is true, it seems to be more nitpicking than anything else.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by Floyce [email protected] 29 2006, 10:00 PM
Personally, I liked the reference to Ted Grant. He pointed out that either workers never took power in Russia, or else it always was a "workers' state." Since there's no such thing as a "workers' state," it never existed. And unless y'all forgot history, the workers never "took power" in Russia.
See you assume there is no such thing as a workers' state, because of your political beliefs and not because of any objective look at the situation. You have formulated a perfectly beautiful, internally consistent construct. Except, what if your premise is wrong? Then your construct is consistently false.

How did workers not take power in Russia? Do you deny the soviets as organs of workers power?


The Bolsheviks staged a coup during the Second Congress of Soviets, and the Bolshevik Congress delegates got a majority to vote a resolution that the new government was a soviet organ.
Wow, the majority of the soviets, democratic organs of workers' power, voted that they were the legitimate leadership of the country and not the bourgeois parliament.

Bad workers! It has to be a coup if the majority vote for it!


The thousands of new worker members and sympathizers of various left factions of the RSDLP and SR initiated another of many minor, partial, and failed uprisings that year, which helped the Bolshevik coup win in Petrograd and a few other major cities.
Yes, those evil bolsheviks tricked all the soviets into taking power into their own hands as workers' councils, how dare they!


The October Revolution was the radical bourgeoisie completing the capitalist, anti-feudal revolution. The lower class did the actual fighting on both sides--as they do in all uprisings. The rebellion of the lower class is the force for all social change--as it is in all uprisings.
You assert this, but don't back it up. How do workers' councils taking control and planning of the government and the economy mean a capitalist revolution?

[Rawthentic]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 8 2006, 01:50 PM


How did workers not take power in Russia? Do you deny the soviets as organs of workers power?


Wow, the majority of the soviets, democratic organs of workers' power, voted that they were the legitimate leadership of the country and not the bourgeois parliament.

Bad workers! It has to be a coup if the majority vote for it!
few other major cities.

Yes, those evil bolsheviks tricked all the soviets into taking power into their own hands as workers' councils, how dare they!


They might have taken control at first, but that was all screwed when the Bolsheviks took over. Why the hell would the workers choose to be governed by a fucking party? And if they actually voted for it, then that Lenin must have been really good at lying.

And the Bolsheviks told the workers to take control of their own lives right? Ha, it was more like the Bolsheviks took that power from them.

Its sickening to see so many Leninist apologists when its so evident that it was a failure and the USSR was never a workers state. Why all the crap? You act like those Holocaust revisionists who deny the Holocaust and defend Hitler.

[Floyce White]

EusebioScrib: "You're being nitpicky here."

Janus: "Even if this is true, it seems to be more nitpicking than anything else."

You must live a comfortable life to think that the personally insulting, humiliatingly stingy petty-capitalist dealings with the poor are just fine, and complaints by the poor are "nit picking." (Note the elitism in your choice of words: rich people don't get head lice.) Is this what you really believe because of your class upbringing, or are you just a fool who repeats anybody's debaters' trick?

Maybe we can all just do inane Internet chat; be real informal and one-up each other with insults and stupid trickery as if it is meaningful discussion? After all, the title of the thread is the entire discussion, right? There is nothing beyond the surface, certainly no substantive disagreement with this shallowness, right?

Contemptible Gen-X clones. Do you even know what the word "sophistry" means?

"State" + "capitalism" = "state capitalism."

"State monopoly" + "capitalism" = "state monopoly capitalism."

Instant theory mix from Con Agra.

Reminds me of "industrial workers" + "working class" = "industrial working class" false concatenation from the "go to the workers" fad of the '70s.

Che y Marijuana: "See you assume there is no such thing as a workers' state, because of your political beliefs and not because of any objective look at the situation."

My beliefs are irrelevant, whether expressed from the perspective of subject or object. Communism and capitalism are the actions of people, not mere belief systems. The state is a form of upper-class struggle. You might as well try to prove that capitalists organize themselves in labor unions as to try to prove that workers organize their struggle in states.

The police and military are the core functions of the state. To say that the police and military are sometimes a form of upper-class struggle but also sometimes a form of lower-class struggle is to play good cop, bad cop. It reveals your illusions in the system.

Che y Marijuana: "...what if your premise is wrong?"

What if you actually tried to disprove my arguments instead of saying "what if?"

Che y Marijuana: "How did workers not take power in Russia? Do you deny the soviets as organs of workers power?"

The dispossessed lower class has no property to defend. There is no material basis for the claim that workers could, should, or did ever try to "take power" to defend their non-existent property claims. To the contrary: the lower class is highly motivated to smash the property system including its armed guard. The concept of "workers' power" is petty-bourgeois propaganda to the workers about what the aims and goals of struggle should be.

Che y Marijuana: "Wow, the majority of the soviets, democratic organs of workers' power, voted that they were the legitimate leadership of the country and not the bourgeois parliament."

"Leadership" and "followership." Legitimacy and illegitimacy. Power and powerlessness. Group opinion and representative action. The theory of "dictatorship of the proletariat"/"lower order of communism" depends on such arbitrary categorization to justify opportunistic substitutionism.

If you prefer, we can look at it with parliamentary formalism. Were the Bolshevik Deputies to the Second Congress under discipline to carry out the directives from the central organs of the Party? Yes. They called it "democratic centralism." So they really didn't represent the workers who voted for them back in the local soviets. They really didn't listen to the urgent demands of the workers. Well, that's democracy anywhere. So let's not get all jazzed up about how "wonderful" is democracy.

What was the highest day-to-day organ of the Party? The Politburo. Was the Politburo composed of ordinary worker-activists? No. It didn't have even a single working-class member. It was a circle of petty-bourgeois professional politicians, "theoreticians," and "intellectuals." They were mostly emigres and exilees who for years had no actual contact with the workers whose struggles they claimed to be interpreting. Do bourgeois ever fight for the workers? No. Capitalist-class activists join into workers' struggles in order to co-opt them into fighting for the property interests of their own bourgeois faction. They organize phony "labor parties"--such as the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party--to capture and tame rebellious workers, to use them as political labor until they get discouraged and "burn out." So the Bolshevik Congress Deputies represented a faction of the capitalist class, whose ideology was presented by their party and its Politburo.

Che y Marijuana: "Bad workers! It has to be a coup if the majority vote for it!"

When I was young and stupid, I too pushed the "workers' state" theory, and I too was accustomed to being mocked and mocking in return. It's out of place here.

When small bands of soldiers are sent to take over the railroad station, the telephone exchange, and so on, that's a coup d'etat. When the rail workers take over the railroads, when the telephone workers take over the communications facilities, that's worker's revolution.

Floyce White: "The October Revolution was the radical bourgeoisie completing the capitalist, anti-feudal revolution."

Che y Marijuana: "You assert this, but don't back it up."

Are you going to try to prove that the October Revolution was a feudal restoration, or that it was the communist abolition of property? No, not either. I'm not going to play the game of "Ooh, it was a transitional period to a transitional period to a transitional period!"

System of wage labor before October, system of wage labor after October. Capitalism before, capitalism after.

The only real question is whether it was just a change of government, or whether it had to do with the progress of the capitalist system in forcing all human relations to be cash transactions. I assert the latter.

hastalavictoria: "And if they actually voted for it, then that Lenin must have been really good at lying."

Lenin didn't lie. To him, what he said was rock solid and clearly obvious. Once you become versed in the lingo, you understand the euphemisms and winky-winky stuff (like saying "nit picking" to show that you're condescending to the poor).