Nationalisation

[Enragé]

I see many who see nationalisation as a good thing, period.

But i dont think thats the case, its only the case when the State carrying out the nationalisation is under sufficient control by the people (and well, when is that? and if it is you might as well socialise it). Basicly, if the capitalist class controls the State and then that State nationalises industry, well then you're on your way to fascism.

So, people should really stop seeing nationalisation as something progressive. In the USSR and its satellites, too, the economy was nationalised, and did that stop the people from being exploited, did the bastards at the top stop getting richer, expanding their power? No.

Socialisation is the only way forward, nationalisation is undermines it.

[More Fire for the People]

I see many who see nationalisation as a good thing, period.
Nationalization is state-capitalism. The role of the capitalist is replaced by the state which in turn becomes a capitalist itself.


But i dont think thats the case, its only the case when the State carrying out the nationalisation is under sufficient control by the people (and well, when is that? and if it is you might as well socialise it). Basicly, if the capitalist class controls the State and then that State nationalises industry, well then you're on your way to fascism.
Well, you're on the road to state-capitalism as was the case in the Soviet Union.


So, people should really stop seeing nationalisation as something progressive. In the USSR and its satellites, too, the economy was nationalised, and did that stop the people from being exploited, did the bastards at the top stop getting richer, expanding their power? No.
Well yes and no. Nationalization is not a step towards collective ownership. However, state ownership can lead to a greater accumulation of capital and greater efficiency but it would be necessary for the people to keep these state businesses under check. This could be useful under capitalism now as a means to provide social services for the working class.

[Enragé]

Well yes and no. Nationalization is not a step towards collective ownership. However, state ownership can lead to a greater accumulation of capital and greater efficiency but it would be necessary for the people to keep these state businesses under check. This could be useful under capitalism now as a means to provide social services for the working class.

that only happens when the bourgeois is scared into a position they do not actually want to take. In other words, as i said earlier, nationalisation is only a good thing when the people exert sufficient control

As for the rest i agree

[this thread was more directed towards marxist-leninists, or leninists in general, i wonder what they have to say]

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Hopscotch [email protected] 04, 2007 11:45 pm
Nationalization is state-capitalism. The role of the capitalist is replaced by the state which in turn becomes a capitalist itself.
When some companies are nationalisated, yes, the State becomes a capitalist. But this requires that most companies remain private.

If all companies become nationalisated, then, of course, the State cannot be a capitalist; there would be no competition between individual capitals, and the society would no longer function as a capitalist society..

Problem is, in "real socialist" societies, while the State becomes formally the owner of all means of production, the distribution of goods is still made by the market; goods are still commodities.

How comes that the State sells to itself? Obviously, because the supposed State ownership of means of production is a mere formality. The individual companies still act as individual capitals, not as fractions of the unified means of production within the economy. So, to call that "State capitalism" is misleading: it is still "companies capitalism". Property is still private, even if it is no longer individual. Each company owns its means of production, to the exclusion of the other companies, and the supposed ownership of all companies by the State is just legal fiction.

So, there are two confusions here. First, in the situation in which a few companies are owned by the State, yes, the State is a capitalist among other capitalists, but we have no "State capitalism": it is "normal", private capitalism, and the State owns only the companies that, for different reasons, cannot be owned by private capitalists without endangering the whole process of capital acumulation. Those are, mainly, "natural monopolies", in which normal competition is impossible or difficult for technical reasons. Second, the situation in which the State owns all companies is completely abnormal from a capitalist standing: competition is "outlawed", and companies expected to behave as if there were no competition within them. But, of course, competition continues, as companies exist exactly to compete. As it cannot be expressed in the "normal" capitalist ways - lower prices, enhanced productivity, higher quality - it becomes expressed by actual fight over scarce resources.


Well, you're on the road to state-capitalism as was the case in the Soviet Union.

No. If the capitalist class controls the State, then the State will not nationalise the means of production, exception made of a few companies as explained above. A Soviet-Union-like economy cannot exist as a "normal" development of a capitalist society; it can only happen when such development has been disturbed from outside; by a revolution in the case of the Soviet Union, by foreign ocupation in the case of the Eastern European countries.


Nationalization is not a step towards collective ownership. However, state ownership can lead to a greater accumulation of capital and greater efficiency but it would be necessary for the people to keep these state businesses under check.

Yes, nationalisation of some companies can be, and usually is, necessary and beneficial to the proper functionment of capitalism. But, in a capitalist society, this cannot possibly be kept under check by "the people". They are kept in check by capital, or by the State itself. Capital is uncontralable by the people, and so is the bourgeois State.


This could be useful under capitalism now as a means to provide social services for the working class.

Capitalism functions better if the appropriate companies are kept in State ownership, and, yes, this "better" functioning may result, as it is often the case, in a higher living standard for the working class. But it cannot do more than that, and even that quite possibly only during a limited period. While keeping some branches of production out from the private sphere maybe beneficial to capital as a whole, individual capitals are always eager to put more and more branches of production under their own control, and they will fight for that, even if the most enlightened economists prove them that it is suicidal in the long term.

Luís Henrique

[KC]

[this thread was more directed towards marxist-leninists, or leninists in general, i wonder what they have to say]


All "Leninists" are Marxist, so I have no idea why you said this.

[Guerrilla22]

Nationalization is useless, unless the worker's control the state. Like Marx said, if simply having a centralized economy France under Napoleon and Germany at the time, would have been considered socialist.

[BobKKKindle$]

Nationalisaton is of the utmost importance in the international class struggle. The Nationalisation of important economic resources under the control of the state prevents the movement of revenue from the country in which the resources are located. If a multi-national corporation had owned the resources or the means with which they were gathered, then the economic development of the country in question would have been prohibited, due to the development of a dependency relationship between the developing country and multi-national corporations which prevents the growth of domestic industry as capital cannot become sufficiently concentrated. If the revenue is under the control of the state, it can be used to invest in the industrial development of the economy and the establishement of domestic corporations, or through social expenditure designed to raise the standard of living of those formerly subject to the abuses of multi-national corporations.

[Demogorgon]

Ok,ok, you have a completely reasonable point which has a lot going for it.

However you have to remember when all the privitisation happened here, particularly the railways, things became much worse. It hurt a lot of people and made a small minority very rich at everyone elses expense. Plainly the industries being nationalised was better than having them as they are now. And certainly re-nationalising some of them, particularly the railways is not something II could oppose.

So yes nationalisation is not the perfect thing we are looking for, but let's not delude ourselves that we should not fight privitisation.

[Enragé]

If all companies become nationalisated, then, of course, the State cannot be a capitalist; there would be no competition between individual capitals, and the society would no longer function as a capitalist society..


Alright, but then we're arguing semantics.

The point is that its not any better when the state owns the means of production, than when the bourgeoisie owns the means of production, since the proletariate still get exploited, the proletariate still have no control, since that control still resides with a small group of people, who are just called "the state" now.

Ofcourse, when the proletariat fully controls the state, if the proletariat in essence is the state,then its not really a problem, but then how would it differ from socialisation of the means of production?



oh and demogorgon we're talking about two different situations here. This was directed towards those people who think that nationalisation is a long term solution, and in fact a revolutionary one.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 01:16 pm

If all companies become nationalisated, then, of course, the State cannot be a capitalist; there would be no competition between individual capitals, and the society would no longer function as a capitalist society..


Alright, but then we're arguing semantics.

The point is that its not any better when the state owns the means of production, than when the bourgeoisie owns the means of production, since the proletariate still get exploited, the proletariate still have no control, since that control still resides with a small group of people, who are just called "the state" now.
Yes. That's the reason my post didn't stop there, but continued:


Problem is, in "real socialist" societies, while the State becomes formally the owner of all means of production, the distribution of goods is still made by the market; goods are still commodities.

How comes that the State sells to itself? Obviously, because the supposed State ownership of means of production is a mere formality. The individual companies still act as individual capitals, not as fractions of the unified means of production within the economy. So, to call that "State capitalism" is misleading: it is still "companies capitalism". Property is still private, even if it is no longer individual. Each company owns its means of production, to the exclusion of the other companies, and the supposed ownership of all companies by the State is just legal fiction.

And, further:


the situation in which the State owns all companies is completely abnormal from a capitalist standing: competition is "outlawed", and companies expected to behave as if there were no competition within them. But, of course, competition continues, as companies exist exactly to compete. As it cannot be expressed in the "normal" capitalist ways - lower prices, enhanced productivity, higher quality - it becomes expressed by actual fight over scarce resources.

So, no, it isn't the case that there is no difference between the bourgeoisie owning the means of production and the State owning them (in a monopolistic sence): the latter situation is considerably worse.

Luís Henrique

[metalero]

as someone explained above, nationalization is not necesarilly a socialist measure, but rather a tool that could enable countries to control their economies and create development that rise the working-class living standards. If the means of production are nationalized, and the working class exercise direct democratic control over them, then we would be talking about socialism.

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 11:05 pm
as someone explained above, nationalization is not necesarilly a socialist measure, but rather a tool that could enable countries to control their economies and create development that rise the working-class living standards. If the means of production are nationalized, and the working class exercise direct democratic control over them, then we would be talking about socialism.

yes, the goal is a state with a centralized economy controlled by the workers, not simply a state with a centralized economy.

[robbo203]

Originally posted by Zampanò@February 06, 2007 01:55 am


[this thread was more directed towards marxist-leninists, or leninists in general, i wonder what they have to say]


All "Leninists" are Marxist, so I have no idea why you said this.
[QUOTE]


I disagree. There are considerable differences between Leninism and Marxism which are often overlooked. See the article below from http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/dec01/marx.html


Robin
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldincommon

___________________________________________



Marx and Lenin's views contrasted


Lenin stood for state capitalism and argued that socialist democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person. Was Lenin a Marxist?

Marx and his co-worker, Engels, consistently argued that socialism (or communism, they used the terms interchangeably) could only evolve out of the political and economic circumstances created by a fully developed capitalism. In other words, production would have to be expanded within capitalism to a point where the potential existed to allow for "each [to take] according to their needs". In turn, this objective condition would have created the basis for a socialist-conscious majority willing to contribute their physical and mental skills voluntarily in the production and distribution of society's needs.

With the extension of the suffrage, Marx claimed (in 1872) that the workers might now achieve power in the leading countries of capitalism by peaceful means. Given the fact that socialism will be based on the widest possible human co-operation, it need hardly be said that Marx consistently emphasised that its achievement had to be the work of a majority.

Again, given their understanding of the nature of socialist society, Marx and Engels saw socialism essentially in world terms: a global alternative to the system of global capitalism.

In the very first sentence of his monumental work, Capital, Marx wrote that "the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails presents itself as a vast accumulation of commodities". He then went on to define the nature of a commodity in economic terms as an item of real or imagined wealth produced for sale on the market with a view to profit.

Marx claimed the wages system was the quintessential instrument of capitalist exploitation of the working class. He urged workers to remove from their banners the conservative slogan of "A fair day's pay for a fair day's work" and to inscribe instead "Abolition of the wages system!" Throughout his writings, he repeats in different form the admonition that "wage labour and capital are two sides of the same coin".

Marx considered that nationalisation could be a means of accelerating the development of capitalism but did not support nationalisation as such. On the contrary, he argued that the more the state became involved in taking over areas of production, the more it became the national capitalist.

Marx saw the state as the "executive committee" of a ruling class. In a socialist society, he affirmed, the state, as the government of people, would give way to a simple, democratic "administration of things".

Marx's vision of a socialist society can be fairly summed up as a world-wide system of social organisation based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole community.

In other words, a universal classless, wageless and moneyless society wherein human beings would voluntarily contribute in accordance with their mental and/or physical abilities to the production and distribution of the needs of their society and in which everyone would have free and equal access to their needs.

Lenin's distortions
Post-Czarist Russia was a backward poorly developed and largely feudal country where the industrial proletariat was a relatively small minority. To suggest that Russia could undergo a socialist revolution (as Lenin did in 1917) is a complete denial of the Marxist view of history. Indeed, following the news of the Bolshevik coup, the Socialist Standard (official organ of the Socialist Party of Great Britain) wrote:

"Is this huge mass of people, numbering about 160 million and spread over eight and a half million of square miles, ready for Socialism? Are the hunters of the north, the struggling peasant proprietors of the south, the agricultural wage slaves of the Central Provinces and the wage slaves of the towns convinced of the necessity for, and equipped with the knowledge requisite for the establishment of the social ownership of the means of life? Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place or an economic change immensely more rapidly than history has ever recorded, the answer is 'NO!'"(August 1918).

Lenin persistently rejected the view that the working class was capable of achieving socialism without leaders. He argued that trade union consciousness represented the peak of working class consciousness. Socialism, he affirmed, would be achieved by a band of revolutionaries at the head of a discontented but non-socialist-conscious working class. The Bolshevik "revolution" was a classic example of Leninist thinking; in fact it was a coup d'état carried out by professional revolutionaries and based on the populist slogan, "Peace, Land and Bread". Socialism was not on offer, nor could it have been.

It is true that Lenin and his Bolsheviks wrongly thought their Russian coup would spark off similar revolts in Western Europe and, especially, in Germany. Not only was this a monumental political error, but it was based on Lenin's erroneous perception of socialism and his belief that his distorted conceptions could be imposed on the working class of Western Europe which was, generally, better politically organised and more sophisticated than the people of Russia.

Probably for practical purposes – since no other course was open to them – Lenin and his Bolsheviks could not accept the Marxian view that commodity production was an identifying feature of capitalism. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, the production of wealth in the form of commodities was the only option open to the misnamed Communist Party. Commodity production continued and was an accepted feature of life in "communist" Russia, just as it is today following the demise of state-capitalism in the Russian empire.

Back in 1905 Stalin, in a pamphlet (Socialism or Anarchism), argued the Marxian view that "future society would be . . . wageless . . . classless . . . moneyless", etc. In power the Bolsheviks proliferated the wages system making it an accepted feature of Russian life. Wage differentials, too, were frequently greater than those obtaining in western society. Surplus value, from which the capitalist class derives its income in the form of profit, rent and interest became the basis of the bloated lifestyles of the bureaucracy. A contrasting feature of state-capitalism and "private" capitalism is that, in the latter, the beneficiaries of the exploitation of labour derive their wealth and privilege from the direct ownership of capital whereas, in the former, wealth and privilege were the benefits of political power.

There is a wide chasm between the views of Marx and those of Lenin in their understanding of the nature of socialism, of how it would be achieved and of the manner of its administration. Marx sees socialism as the abolition of ownership (implied in the term "common ownership"). His vision is a stateless, classless and moneyless society which, by its nature, could only come to fruition when a conscious majority wanted it and wherein the affairs of the human family would be democratically administered. A form of social organisation in which people would voluntarily contribute their skills and abilities in exchange for the freedom of living in a society that guarantees their needs and wherein the poverty, repression and violence of capitalism would have no place.

Lenin's simple definition of socialism is set out in his The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It (September 1917): "Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the whole people". Lenin knew that he was introducing a new definition of socialism here which was not to be found in Marx but claimed that there were two stages after capitalism: socialism (his new definition) and communism (what Marxists had always understood by socialism: a stateless, classless, moneyless, wageless society). However, so new was this definition that other Bolshevik publications of the same period still argued that "socialism is the highest form of social organisation that mankind can achieve".

Marx would obviously have concurred with the latter claim but, as has been shown, would have rejected completely the suggestion that socialism had anything to do with nationalisation or that it could be established over the heads of the working class.

Obviously Lenin was being consistent with his "nationalisation" theory when, in Left-Wing Childishness (May 1918) he proclaimed the need for state capitalism. It is true, of course, that the situation in Russia left the Bolsheviks no alternative to the development of capitalism under the aegis of the state. The fact is, however, that the concept of state capitalism is wholly consistent with Lenin's misunderstanding of the nature of socialism. State capitalism achieved a permanent place in the Russian economy and Communist Party propaganda exported it as being consistent with the views of Marx.

The contrast between Marx and Lenin is demonstrated most strikingly in Lenin's view of the nature and role of the state. Whereas Marx saw the state as a feature of class society that would be used by a politically-conscious working class to bring about the transfer of power and then be abolished, Lenin saw the state as a permanent and vital part of what he perceived as socialism, relegating Marx's abolition of the state to the dim and distant future in communism while in the meantime the state had to be strengthened. The Russian state and its coercive arms became a huge, brutal dictatorship under Lenin, who set the scene for the entry of the dictator, Stalin.

That Lenin approved of dictatorship, even that of a single person, was spelt out clearly in a speech he made (On Economic Reconstruction) on the 31 March 1920:

"Now we are repeating what was approved by the Central EC two years ago . . . Namely, that the Soviet Socialist Democracy (sic!) is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person; that the will of a class is at best realised by a Dictator who sometimes will accomplish more by himself and is frequently more needed" (Lenin: Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 89. First Russian Edition).

This statement alone should be enough to convince any impartial student of Marxism that there was no meeting of minds between Marx and Lenin.

Russia, after the Bolshevik coup and the establishment of state capitalism became a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship. The fact that that its new ruling class exploited the working class through its political power instead of economic power meant that the workers were denied the protection of independent organisations such as trade unions or political organisations.

The western media, particularly oblivious to the implications of communism even as defined sometimes in their dictionaries, frequently drew attention to the poverty of the Russian workers. Conversely, and correctly, it also drew attention to the privileged and opulent lifestyles of the "communist" bosses. The same media, apparently without any sense of contradiction, was telling the public in the western world what the "Communist"-controlled media were telling workers in the Russian empire: that Russia represented the Marxian concept of a "classless" society.

The litmus test of the existence of "communism" for western journalists was recognition of the claim, by a state or a political party, that is was either "socialist" or "communist". Similar claims by such states and parties to be "democratic" was never given the slightest credibility. It might be argued that those who rejected the "democratic" claim knew a little about democracy whereas they appear to know nothing whatsoever about socialism.

The contradiction between the views of Marx and Lenin set out above relate to fundamental issues. Inevitably, however, they formed the basis for numerous other conflicts of opinion between Marxism and Leninism. In the light of these basic contradictions, it is absurd and dishonest to claim that there is any compatibility between Marx's concept of a free, democratic socialist society and the brutal state capitalism espoused by Lenin. Journalists, especially, should be in no doubt about the interests they serve when they promulgate the lie that Marxism or socialism exists anywhere in the world.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

All "Leninists" are Marxist

I too disagree.

If you had said "all leninists pretend to be marxist", that would have been a whole different matter.