Stamocap

[Die Neue Zeit]

Which brings me to my question on the future: Is it "revisionist" to believe that revolutionary stamocap can "evolve" into socialism? I do keep in mind that only revolutionary change can replace monopoly capitalism to revolutionary stamocap.

From below:


Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 06:17 pm
Hammer [...] is asking for opinions on whether:

a) some concept of the 'commanding heights' of the economy will be used to identify what will and will not be owned and/or controlled by the State and

b) whether a system of pyramidal majority shareholdings [...] by the state would be used to effect this.

ALSO, both Bolshevik-Leninists and Marxist-Leninists are WRONG in regards to their "main theory" of stamocap, about Big Business merging with the state: that's economic FASCISM.



By revolutionary stamocap, I refer again to the hourglass in the "monopoly capitalism" (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65105) thread. On a global level, under "revolutionary" stamocap the commanding heights where the consolidated multinational monopolies and oligopolies operate would be publicly owned by a combination of "pension socialism" (http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=321) (warning: "market socialist" link) and state ownership. A chained / pyramidal majority shareholding structure would exist, wherein the ultimate owners and controllers are state holding companies acting as a collective Gosplan and Gossnab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossnab), made possible due to 50%+1 ownership in company shares.

"Paramount importance attaches to the 'holding system,' already briefly referred to above. The German economist, Heymann, probably the first to call attention to this matter, describes the essence of it in this way: The head of the concern controls the principal company (literally: the 'mother company'); the latter reigns over the subsidiary companies ('daughter companies') which in their turn control still other subsidiaries ('grandchild companies'), etc. In this way, it is possible with a comparatively small capital to dominate immense spheres of production. Indeed, if holding 50 per cent of the capital is always sufficient to control a company, the head of the concern needs only one million to control eight million in the second subsidiaries. And if this ‘interlocking’ is extended, it is possible with one million to control sixteen million, thirty-two million, etc." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch03.htm#v22zz99h-226-GUESS) (Lenin)

To elaborate further on the pyramidal majority shareholding structure under the proposed revolutionary stamocap system, at the top you'd have the state holding companies - each 50+1% or more owned by the state, with the remainder owned by the public directly (but mainly through "private" pension funds, a government pension plan for retirees, and other management funds). Next, those holding companies would each own 50%+1 (or more) of the voting shares of the various consolidated companies (with remainder under direct public ownership). These consolidated companies, in turn, would own 50+1% or more of their direct subsidiaries (similar remainder fate), who may in turn assume similar ownership and control positions over lower subsidiaries (similar remainder fate), and so on.



Meanwhile, the niche businesses within the economy - and there are more and more of those by the day due to the "shrinking middle" - would remain private; they generally don't have more than 100 employees or so. They wouldn't be able to corner bigger markets - because of "Gossnab 2.0," the law, and economic disincentives (immediate nationalization upon being big enough to be deemed part of the "commanding heights").

"The production of articles for consumption has another character. To be sure we have here the gigantic industries (sugar factories and breweries), but as a general thing the little industry is still generally dominant. Here it is necessary to satisfy the individual needs of the market, and the small industry can do this better than the large. The number of productive plants is here large and would not ordinarily be capable of reduction as in the production of means of production. Here also production for the open market still rules. But because of the greater number of consumers this is much more difficult to supervise than is production for production. The number of operators’ agreements is fewer here. The organization of the production and circulation of all articles of consumption accordingly offers much greater difficulties than that of the means of production." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt2-2.htm#s6) (Kautsky)



[I'm a finance student, BTW, and two of my key studies involved the business (international) environment and financial reporting for consolidations.]



v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v
State capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no immediate rungs. (http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/solidarity_lenin.html) (Lenin)

More (same anarchist site):

"For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."

"State capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia, the transition to full socialism would be easy, would be within our grasp, because state capitalism is something centralised, calculated, controlled and socialised, and that is exactly what we lack."

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 07:21 pm
Which brings me to my next question: Is it "revisionist" to believe that "revolutionary" stamocap can "evolve" into socialism? I do keep in mind that only revolutionary change can replace monopoly capitalism to "revolutionary" stamocap.
"Stamocap" referring to State Monopoly Capitalism, I assume?

I would think it to be more of a unique fusion of revisionism and reformism to assert that socialism could emerge from capitalism without a revolution. A more orthodox fellow would say it's just revisionism, but I think it has elements of both.

(And yeah, State Monopoly Capitalism is still capitalism.)

The point is the abolition of wage-slavery, not simply a change of guard or making the chains out of gold (as I've said elsewhere: it doesn't matter whether your chains are made of gold or lead, you're still a fucking slave!).

It requires the revolutionary emancipation of the working class to bring about communism, not the "evolution" from capitalism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Please don't go into that bastardic r-word, unless you want to call Lenin a revisionist, too! :mad:

State capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no immediate rungs. (http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/solidarity_lenin.html) (Lenin)

More (same anarchist site):

"For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."

"State capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia, the transition to full socialism would be easy, would be within our grasp, because state capitalism is something centralised, calculated, controlled and socialised, and that is exactly what we lack."



I said above that even stamocap cannot be achieved without socialist revolution.


I do keep in mind that only revolutionary change can replace monopoly capitalism to "revolutionary" stamocap.

How then, comrade, can such pro-stamocap stance be revisionist? Oh - and you didn't comment yet on the consolidated ownership structure. :(

[ComradeRed]

Don't go into that bastardic r-word, unless you want to call Lenin a revisionist, too. :angry: OK, Lenin is a revisionist...if you want.

The plain fact of the matter is that Lenin used Marxist-sounding rhetoric for a particular purpose (establishing capitalism in Russia).

True, that was revolutionary for Russia since Russia was by far and large either late feudal or very slightly post-feudal in the mode of production.

A number of Leninists assert that the "peasentry" (which is magically now revolutionary in character, as opposed to the hard line stance Marx took on their reactionary core) were by far the overwhelming majority. No contest of that here.

However, the "workers" of Russia were not industrial workers. Rather they were manufacturing workers, a distinction Marx makes clear in the 15th chapter of Capital Volume 1.

This would indicate that it would not be possible for Russia to have anything beyond capitalism. That is exactly what the material conditions allowed for and that is exactly what had happened.


State capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no immediate rungs. (http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/solidarity_lenin.html) (Lenin)

More (same anarchist site):

"For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."

"State capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia, the transition to full socialism would be easy, would be within our grasp, because state capitalism is something centralised, calculated, controlled and socialised, and that is exactly what we lack." Actually marxists.org (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm) is a better source for Lenin quotes, such as the one you have given.

Based on the track records of your "revolutionary socialist societies"...all of which have returned to capitalism...I would think the logical conclusion would be to chuck the idear.

Curiously, Marx and Engels made a few predictions of what would happen to a vanguard party if they achieved power, you might be interested in what they had to say.


If conditions have changed in the case of war between nations, this is no less true in the case of the class struggle. The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of masses lacking consciousness is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in on it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are fighting for, body and soul. --emphasis added
Engels Introduction to Karl Marx's The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm)


The Blanquists [in the Paris Commune] fared no better. Brought up in the school of conspiracy, and held together by the strict discipline which went with it, they started out from the viewpoint that a relatively small number of resolute, well-organized men would be able, at a given favorable moment, not only to seize the helm of state, but also by energetic and relentless action, to keep power until they succeeded in drawing the mass of the people into the revolution and ranging them round the small band of leaders. This conception involved, above all, the strictest dictatorship and centralization of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government. --emphasis added

On the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm) by Engels

What happens when Leninism fails?


All revolutions up to the present day have resulted in the displacement of the rule of one class by the rule of another; but all ruling classes up to now have been only small minorities in relation to the ruled mass of the people.

As a rule, after the first great success, the victorious minority split; one half was satisfied with what had been gained, the other wanted to go still further, and put forward new demands, which, partly at least, were also in the real or apparent interest of the great mass of the people. In isolated cases these more radical demands were actually forced through, but often only for the moment; the more moderate party would regain the upper hand, and what had been won most recently would wholly or partly be lost again; the vanquished would then cry treachery or ascribe their defeat to accident. --emphasis added

Introduction to Karl Marx's The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1895/03/06.htm) by Engels


Incidentally, if the bourgeoisie is politically, that is, by its state power, “maintaining injustice in property relations”, it is not creating it. The “injustice in property relations” which is determined by the modern division of labour, the modern form of exchange, competition, concentration, etc., by no means arises from the political rule of the bourgeois class, but vice versa, the political rule of the bourgeois class arises from these modern relations of production which bourgeois economists proclaim to be necessary and eternal laws. If therefore the proletariat overthrows the political rule of the bourgeoisie, its victory will only be temporary, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in the year 1794, as long as in the course of history, in its “movement”, the material conditions have not yet been created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and therefore also the definitive overthrow of the political rule of the bourgeoisie. The terror in France could thus by its mighty hammer-blows only serve to spirit away, as it were, the ruins of feudalism from French soil. The timidly considerate bourgeoisie would not have accomplished this task in decades. The bloody action of the people thus only prepared the way for it. In the same way, the overthrow of the absolute monarchy would be merely temporary if the economic conditions for the rule of the bourgeois class had not yet become ripe. Men build a new world for themselves...from the historical achievements of their declining world. In the course of their development they first have to produce the material conditions of a new society itself, and no exertion of mind or will can free them from this fate. --emphasis added

Moralizing Criticism and Critical Morality 1847 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/10/31.htm) by Marx

It seems like Marx and Engels told you so!


I said above that even stamocap cannot be achieved without socialist revolution. No, it cannot be achieved without a revolution that is socialist only in name.



I do keep in mind that only revolutionary change can replace monopoly capitalism to "revolutionary" stamocap.

How then, comrade, can such pro-stamocap stance be revisionist? Revolutionary relative to what? I was referring to the system that "stamocap" usually replaces: feudalism!

Compared to feudalism, yeah stamocap is really revolutionary!

Historically there has always been a revolutionary change from feudalism to stamocap.

If you are arguing that "monopoly capitalism" (whatever that is supposed to mean) is "revolutionarily" replaced by "stamocap", that is where it becomes little more than reformism and/or revisionism!

It's simply a changing of the guards rather than the abolition of wage slavery, and if it's not for the abolition of wage-slavery...then what's the point?

And it is "revolutionary"...in name only, like the RCP.


Oh - and you didn't comment yet on the consolidated ownership structure. :( No I did not, it was late enough when I replied before so I'll do it now.


And I didn't imply the present with the PROPOSED chained consolidation structure (you're confused, I think) at all. Yeah probably, I was exhausted and it was late.

From your earlier post

On a global level, under "revolutionary" stamocap the commanding heights where the consolidated monopolies and oligopolies operate would be publicly owned by a combination of "pension socialism" and state ownership. A chained corporate ownership structure would exist, wherein the ultimate owners and controllers are state holding companies, made possible due to 50%+1 ownership in company shares. Meanwhile, the niche businesses within the economy - and there are more and more of those by the day due to the "shrinking middle" - would remain private; they generally don't have more than 100 employees or so. How would this change anything? If anything, it's capitalism packaged differently.

Perhaps a few libertarians rightists and vulgar economists might see this and think "AHA! STATES OWNZ 51% OF DA EKONOMY!!! ZOMG ITS SOCIALIZT!!!3"

No, they're incorrect in their assessment. It's little more than crippled welfare capitalism.

The point isn't simply to take over or inherit the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie rather to completely destroy it!

That's the whole point of the emancipation of the working class by the workers - not some petit bourgeois vanguard.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Given your quotes from Marx, obviously that discounts you from being an anarchist. Also, given your implicit hostility to "radical" Trotskyism and "moderate" Stalinism (which I share), that only puts you into two categories: a Spartacist, or one diagnosed with a particular "infantile disorder" (don't take it as a personal insult, because that's actually a political allusion ;) ).

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 07:25 pm
^^^ Given your quotes from Marx, obviously that discounts you from being an anarchist. Also, given your implicit hostility to "radical" Trotskyism and "moderate" Stalinism (which I share), that only puts you into two categories: a Spartacist, or one suffering from some sort of "infantile disorder" (don't take it as a personal insult, because that's actually a political allusion ;) ).
And that is called "ad hominem" when you cannot reply to the arguments made but instead make "witty" "political allusions".

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ First rebuttal: the majority of the "upper hourglass" equity in the proposal above would be owned by the publicly directly (through some "private" pension fund, a government pension plan for retirees, or some other management fund). The rest would be owned by the state, but it exercises control because of the consolidation mechanism as illustrated above.

The "libertarians" and "vulgar economists" would have reason to worry about my proposal, indeed: 100% of the means of production is owned and controlled publicly, either directly or indirectly. Meanwhile, the niche businesses below may have access to such means, but they would be denied by law from owning them.

It's NOT welfare capitalism, since THAT is a system that emphasizes milking private capital to feed the social safety net. Who owns the pie... NOT who gets what piece.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 08:41 pm
^^^ First rebuttal: the majority of the "upper hourglass" equity in the proposal above is owned by the publicly directly (through some "private" pension fund, a government pension plan for retirees, or some other management fund). The rest is owned by the state, but it exercises control because of the consolidation mechanism as illustrated above.Yes, you are using the "free market" with the government holding 51% of the shares of the companies.

And you seriously expect this to be different than capitalism? :huh:

What would prevent some "workers" from aquiring significant amounts of a given good to change it's price and keeping the surplus value?


The "libertarians" and "vulgar economists" would have reason to worry about my proposal, indeed: 100% of the means of production is owned and controlled publicly, either directly or indirectly [the niche businesses below may have access to such means, but they would be denied by law from owning them]. From a pragmatic point of view, there really is little difference between what you are proposing and capitalism.

You are merely changing who is the capitalist.

Just out of curiousity, how would you prevent the state beauracrats from becoming state capitalists? They would own the means of production after all.

Or are you abandoning that whole democratic centralism and going for a legitimate direct democracy? But then how would you get anything done with this market scheme of yours?


It's NOT welfare capitalism, since THAT is a system that emphasizes milking private capital to feed the social safety net. Who owns the pie... NOT who gets what piece. OK, so you're just planning to use the market but ignore the fact that the market creates classes which would lead to your entire scheme collapsing in on itself.

And you're only really changing the fact that the government gets 51% of the pie and everyone else acts normally with the rest.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not at all - there would be significant restrictions on the number of shares owned and exchanged by individuals. After all, in the current capitalist system, did you know that, by far, most of the exchange movement of capital actually occurs in the BOND markets?

Putting such restrictions to prevent the rise of certain "workers" (bureaucrats) wouldn't make much of a difference, since most shareholders are passive.

On your last point: most shareholders already "act normally" through non-speculative buy-and-hold transactions.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 09:06 pm
Not at all - there would be significant restrictions on the number of shares owned and exchanged by individuals. After all, in the current capitalist system, did you know that, by far, most of the exchange movement of capital actually occurs in the BOND markets?
Not my point, I'm talking about the physical commodities themselves.

If a consortium of would-be capitalists get together and decide to corner a given market by buying all the commodities available, they can then sell these goods at higher prices.


Putting such restrictions to prevent the rise of certain "workers" (bureaucrats) wouldn't make much of a difference, since most shareholders are passive. Well given that you're not really getting rid of the market or abolishing wage slavery but rather using it to your advantage (it sounds actually an awful lot like market socialism). Given also the basic marxist idea that the government is the executive committee of the ruling class, it logically follows that you are essentially replacing one group of bourgeoisie for another.


On your last point: most shareholders already "act normally" through non-speculative buy-and-hold transactions. :lol: So cute, you think bourgeois economics works :lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not my point, I'm talking about the physical commodities themselves.

If a consortium of would-be capitalists get together and decide to corner a given market by buying all the commodities available, they can then sell these goods at higher prices.

Um, wouldn't that be against the law, and wouldn't something like Gossnab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossnab) catch it? :rolleyes: I can see where you're coming from in terms of the lower half of hourglass, but certain elements of the economy aren't called "commanding heights" for no good reason.

Something I edited into my post above: They wouldn't be able to corner bigger markets - because of "Gossnab 2.0," the law, and economic disincentives (immediate nationalization upon being big enough to be deemed part of the "commanding heights").


it sounds actually an awful lot like market socialism

Hardly - the holding companies can function as a collective "Gosplan" and "Gossnab."



On your last point: most shareholders already "act normally" through non-speculative buy-and-hold transactions. :lol: So cute, you think bourgeois economics works :lol:

No (there's a concept called "the naive investor" which you should look into before rebutting my rejection of your question) - see below :rolleyes:


And you're only really changing the fact that the government gets 51% of the pie and everyone else acts normally with the rest.

Does worker ownership and control over the means of production always have to be through the state? :rolleyes: If so, when the state withers away, so does this public ownership. If anything else, worker ownership should be exercised as much APART from the state as possible!

The only reason why the state would have "chained" (chained merely in terms of consolidations, NOT in terms of your "gold chains") control over the commanding heights is because the workers wouldn't be educated enough yet to fully fulfill the premise "every cook a prime minister."

[ComradeRed]

Just out of curiousity, what the hell are you talking about? You never covered this adequately in your first post.

Are you talking about how capitalism is currently or are you talking about how things will be after the revolution?

Given your explanation involving firms, competition, and so forth, I immediately came to the conclusion that you are assessing current affairs in the economy as you perceive them.

But what really confuses me is this non-sequitur into "revolutionary stamocap evolving into socialism" which appears to simply fall from the sky as it has absolutely no relation to the first post.

[A brief aside: using simple (dare I say elementary) empiricism the answer presents itself: NO!]

However I am still stuck on this missing link that logically connects your first post to your second post.
It's as though you are talking about something else completely.

Perhaps you could clarify what you are thinking as it is unclear still after rereading your posts a number of times.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 02:48 am
Just out of curiousity, what the hell are you talking about? You never covered this adequately in your first post.

Are you talking about how capitalism is currently or are you talking about how things will be after the revolution?
^^^ Everything I said in the first part of the post you just replied to was about "after" - unless where "monopoly capitalism" is explictly mentioned as two full words.

The only part about the present was about the naive investor.



As for the VERY first post, I do suppose I'm going a wee bit off topic. I just needed to find a place to put my "revolutionary" stamocap / consolidation ideas on this board, having been floated around only as a PM question on another board. :(

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Hammer+April 10, 2007 06:51 pm--> (Hammer @ April 10, 2007 06:51 pm)
[email protected] 11, 2007 02:48 am
Just out of curiousity, what the hell are you talking about? You never covered this adequately in your first post.

Are you talking about how capitalism is currently or are you talking about how things will be after the revolution?
^^^ Everything I said in the first part was about "after" - unless where "monopoly capitalism" is explictly mentioned as two full words.

The only part about the present was about the naive investor.[/b]
So let me get this straight, you assess "monopoly capitalism" (as though this were magically different than late capitalism) in your first post.

You then have this non-sequitur into "stamocap" in your next post, and assess that because all stamocap systems have come about through revolution that stamocap is a revolutionary system. Right?

[Did you stop to think about what material conditions bring about stamocap systems? You know, late feudal societies, like pre-1917 Russia or China in the 1930s.]

I still fail to see how what you suggest in your (edited) second post is any different than market socialism, with the exception that "50+1%" of "chained corporate" firms are owned by the state (
To elaborate further on the "chained corporate ownership structure" under the proposed "revolutionary" stamocap system, at the top you'd have the state holding companies - each 50+1% or more owned by the state, with the remainder owned by the public directly.)

You seem to take precious care to preserve the firm based market structure of capitalism in your "socialist" society. It appears as though you were planning as if you were in charge of an economy at this very moment.

That's little more than an intellectual exercise with no basis in reality...unless you do have control of an economy at this very moment, but I doubt it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So let me get this straight, you assess "monopoly capitalism" (as though this were magically different than late capitalism) in your first post.

I didn't say that at all (they're the same) - and that's for the other thread, if you've got any comments on that (thanks for your split). ;)


You then have this non-sequitur into "stamocap" in your next post, and assess that because all stamocap systems have come about through revolution that stamocap is a revolutionary system. Right?

[Did you stop to think about what material conditions bring about stamocap systems? You know, late feudal societies, like pre-1917 Russia or China in the 1930s.]

Back to stamocap? Back to Lenin! [And Germany, a clearly post-feudal country, also had the potential to introduce revolutionary stamocap, but only from a successful Spartacist revolution.]


You seem to take precious care to preserve the firm based market structure of capitalism in your "socialist" society. It appears as though you were planning as if you were in charge of an economy at this very moment.

That's little more than an intellectual exercise with no basis in reality...unless you do have control of an economy at this very moment, but I doubt it.

How can the structure be "market-based" if: A) the state is running the show (no overall market where there is pervasive state monopoly in every sector of the economy, with the lower half of the hourglass existing at the mercy of the state), B) niche businesses are at the whims of their factory/workplace/workers' committees in addition to being at the mercy of the state, C) niche businesses that grow large enough to be deemed "commanding" face immediate nationalization and D) the direct public ownership exhibits no signs of disparity in terms of ownership due to fund management?

"The efforts referred to above for the organization of circulation would also lead to the greatest possible abolition of the little middlemen by crushing them out, partially through co-operatives for consumption, partly through extension of municipal activity." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt2-2.htm#s7)

As for the intellectual exercise, I was merely asking a question of advocacy. If, after the socialist revolution, the incoming revolutionary stamocap system in place (on an intercontinental basis) were based on the consolidation structure with accompanying anti-capitalist limitations outlined above, what criticisms (yours and more) would it garner?

Bernstein was referring to the pre-monopoly capitalism of his day "evolving" into socialism - a complete nonsense, of course. However, what about revolutionary stamocap?

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 07:31 pm

You then have this non-sequitur into "stamocap" in your next post, and assess that because all stamocap systems have come about through revolution that stamocap is a revolutionary system. Right?

[Did you stop to think about what material conditions bring about stamocap systems? You know, late feudal societies, like pre-1917 Russia or China in the 1930s.]

Back to stamocap? Back to Lenin! [And Germany, a clearly post-feudal country, also had the potential to introduce revolutionary stamocap, but only from a successful Spartacist revolution.]
And what happened to the revolution in Germany? It failed!

Why? Was it because the proletariat lacked "iron disciple"?

NO! It's because the material conditions did not allow for "stamocap" in Germany at that time.



You seem to take precious care to preserve the firm based market structure of capitalism in your "socialist" society. It appears as though you were planning as if you were in charge of an economy at this very moment.

That's little more than an intellectual exercise with no basis in reality...unless you do have control of an economy at this very moment, but I doubt it.

How can the structure be "market-based" if: A) the state is running the show (no overall market where there is pervasive state monopoly in every sector of the economy, with the lower half of the hourglass existing at the mercy of the state), B) niche businesses are at the whims of their factory/workplace/workers' committees in addition to being at the mercy of the state, C) niche businesses that grow large enough to be deemed "commanding" face immediate nationalization and D) the direct public ownership exhibits no signs of disparity in terms of ownership due to fund management? I still don't get this hour glass metaphor you keep using, but...

A) So by such reasoning Nazi Germany wasn't capitalist as "the state ran the show" (corporatism anyone?).

B) You suggest that "niche businesses" are still "kinda" (i.e. "50+1%") state controlled, and that this somehow magically counteracts the capitalist aspect of the firm.

C) This (expansion of firms) happens with the concentration of capital (remember the law of accumulation?), which occurs in capitalism.

D) The point isn't to change who owns the property rather it is to abolish property!


As for the intellectual exercise, I was merely asking a question of advocacy. If, after the socialist revolution, the incoming revolutionary stamocap system in place (on an intercontinental basis) were based on the consolidation structure with accompanying anti-capitalist limitations outlined above, what criticisms (yours and more) would it garner? Well we don't really know what things will be like after the revolution; the material conditions could be completely unimagineable!

Which makes such speculations a mere hobby of utopian socialists.


Bernstein was referring to the pre-monopoly capitalism of his day "evolving" into socialism - a complete nonsense, of course. However, what about revolutionary stamocap? I really don't see a distinction between late capitalism and "monopoly capitalism", and there has yet to be one property that is conclusively different.

To say that monopoly capitalism "evolves" into socialism (or "revolutionary stamocap" evolves into it, whichever) is revisionary.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 04:12 am
Which makes such speculations a mere hobby of utopian socialists.

To say that monopoly capitalism "evolves" into socialism (or "revolutionary stamocap" evolves into it, whichever) is revisionary.

A) So by such reasoning Nazi Germany wasn't capitalist as "the state ran the show" (corporatism anyone?).

No - I edited again my first post (emphasis in bold). There's a key difference between monopoly-capital Big Business merging with the State (fascism) and the workers seizing ownership and control over the monopolies (revolutionary stamocap).


Which makes such speculations a mere hobby of utopian socialists.

To say that monopoly capitalism "evolves" into socialism (or "revolutionary stamocap" evolves into it, whichever) is revisionary.

Utopian socialists plan for the socialist society - I merely plan for revolutionary stamocap, not knowing myself what the hell the socialist society will be like!

Again, what did I say? [And this time I'll use a timeline to make it clearer.]

Time Point A: Pre-monopoly capitalism (free markets)
Time Point B: Monopoly capitalism (but no Big Business merging with the state yet - THIS IS WHERE WE ARE TODAY)
Time Point C: REACTIONARY stamocap (where monopoly-capital Big Business merges with the State) and, where fully-developed capitalism is in decline, this becomes economic fascism

[EDIT: The Bolshevik revolution and the period they were trying to bring about were only revolutionary-democratic in nature: the revolutionary-democratic Red October and the subsequent period of PRIMITIVE stamocap. As per this link (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65638), even the development of nationalized industrial farming can be considered to be "revolutionary-democratic." The time between this period and the proper socialist revolution is more compressed than that between Time Points A and B, and thankfully skipping Time Point C altogether. Because of this, it is possible that the socialist revolution could overthrow the very same "Party" that brought about primitive stamocap. All of this is contrasted with REVOLUTIONARY stamocap as below.]

Time Point D: Socialist revolution

Time Point E: REVOLUTIONARY stamocap (this CANNOT be achieved without revolution) / DOTP

Time Point F: Socialism and beyond



[Notice that the revolution occurs BEFORE revolutionary stamocap, and notice the lack of any revolutions in between Time Points E and F - hence the potential for revolutionary stamocap to "evolve" into socialism, unless insane workers decide to engage in a pointless revolution such as Mao's Cultural Revolution. Remember: socialism "evolves" into communism, too.

Bernstein was nuts to say that Time Point F could be arrived at smoothly at any point between Time Points A and C.]

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Hammer+April 10, 2007 08:35 pm--> (Hammer @ April 10, 2007 08:35 pm)
[email protected] 11, 2007 04:12 am
Which makes such speculations a mere hobby of utopian socialists.

To say that monopoly capitalism "evolves" into socialism (or "revolutionary stamocap" evolves into it, whichever) is revisionary.

A) So by such reasoning Nazi Germany wasn't capitalist as "the state ran the show" (corporatism anyone?).

No - I edited again my first post (emphasis in bold). There's a key difference between monopoly-capital Big Business merging with the State (fascism) and the workers seizing ownership and control over the monopolies (revolutionary stamocap).[/b]
Sure in theory.

Pragmatically speaking on the other hand, based on what empirically happened, it appears to be otherwise.



Which makes such speculations a mere hobby of utopian socialists.

To say that monopoly capitalism "evolves" into socialism (or "revolutionary stamocap" evolves into it, whichever) is revisionary.

Again, what did I say? [And this time I'll use a timeline to make it clearer.] How the hell should I know you keep editing it!


Time Point A: Pre-monopoly capitalism (free markets)
Time Point B: Monopoly capitalism (but no Big Business merging with the state yet - THIS IS WHERE WE ARE TODAY)
Time Point C: REACTIONARY stamocap (where monopoly-capital Big Business merges with the State) and, where fully-developed capitalism is in decline, this becomes economic fascism

Time Point D: Socialist revolution

Time Point E: REVOLUTIONARY stamocap (this CANNOT be achieved without revolution)

Time Point F: Socialism and beyond

[Notice that the revolution occurs BEFORE revolutionary stamocap, and notice the lack of any revolutions in between Time Points E and F - hence the potential for revolutionary stamocap to "evolve" into socialism, unless insane workers decide to engage in a pointless revolution such as Mao's Cultural Revolution. Remember: socialism "evolves" into communism, too.

Bernstein was nuts to say that Time Point F could be arrived at smoothly at any point between Time Points A and C.] Yes I see that, but you appear to be ignoring is that stamocap is still capitalism!

Hell it's even in its name! And you seriously expect it to merely "evolve" into socialism because you add the adjective "revolutionary"?!?

Look, you can have all the red flags you want, that doesn't make "stamocap" any less of a capitalist system!

To assert that stamocap magically evolves into socialism is no different than Bernstein's ideas.

Capitalism, whatever its form, magically evolving into socialism is definitionally revisionism!

And no amount of adjectives can change that.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ So you're effectively saying that, even if successful, the socialist vanguard itself that brought forth the initial socialist revolution would be overthrown in a second "revolution" instead of melting away with its revolutionary stamocap system into socialism?

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 02:00 pm
^^^ So you're effectively saying that, even if successful, the socialist vanguard itself that brought forth the initial socialist revolution would be overthrown in a second "revolution" instead of melting away with its revolutionary stamocap system into socialism?
Empirically it appears to be the case that "revolutionary stamocap" gives way to ordinary capitalism.

From there I would imagine once the material conditions are ripe there would be a workers' revolution, if Marx was right.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 10:04 pm
Empirically it appears to be the case that "revolutionary stamocap" gives way to ordinary capitalism.

From there I would imagine once the material conditions are ripe there would be a workers' revolution, if Marx was right.
^^^ Only because of its limited national application. Like I said now in other threads, it isn't enough for revolutionary stamocap to be the transitory period to socialism in just one country or several - but for the entire world.

Yes, it's still capitalism, but "socialism is merely [global] state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be [global] capitalist monopoly."

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 03:21 am
On a global level, under "revolutionary" stamocap the commanding heights where the consolidated monopolies and oligopolies operate would be publicly owned by a combination of "pension socialism" and state ownership. A chained corporate ownership structure would exist, wherein the ultimate owners and controllers are state holding companies acting as a collective Gosplan and Gossnab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossnab), made possible due to 50%+1 ownership in company shares. Meanwhile, the niche businesses within the economy.... would remain private; ..... They wouldn't be able to corner bigger markets - because of "Gossnab 2.0," the law, and economic disincentives (immediate nationalization upon being big enough to be deemed part of the "commanding heights").



To elaborate further on the "chained corporate ownership structure" under the proposed revolutionary stamocap system, at the top you'd have the state holding companies - each 50+1% or more owned by the state, with the remainder owned by the public directly. Next, those holding companies would each own 50%+1 (or more) of the voting shares of the various consolidated companies (with remainder under direct public ownership). These consolidated companies, in turn, would own 50+1% or more of their direct subsidiaries (similar remainder fate), who may in turn assume similar ownership and control positions over lower subsidiaries (similar remainder fate), and so on.




I havent folowed the previous threads to which this thread seems to relate and I find some of Hammer's posts a bit hard to follow so I may not have understood all this correctly.

But there is something in this: if we do not conceive the seizure of state power as immediately ushering a monolithically planned economy and if we ignore the pressure of counter-revolution in determining the form of the economy of the revolutionary state, we can ask what is the first post -revolutionary economic stage going to look like.

Hammer, I think, is asking for opinions on whether:

a) some concept of the 'commanding heights' of the economy will be used to identify what will and will not be owned and/or controlled by the State and

b) whether a system of pyramidal majority shareholdings (golden share systems could equally be used) by the state would be used to effect this.

My initial view is

on a): yes I think the concept of the 'commanding heights' is a key idea. Traditionally, this concept is used to refer to the levers of credit, foreign exchange and infrastructurally important production. I think it is difficult to say in the abstract what would and what would not be a 'commanding height'

on b) I think the option of structured shareholdings is an option, but it faces some significant problems. The essence of shareholding structures is that that where additional capital is required each existing shareholder either contributes proportionately or faces dilution. So whether your shareholding structure could work would depend on how you saw capital being raised to finance the commanding heights. While there is danger in the State raising such capital by credit as the main source, that is a more likely method than any other. Over time, if the shareholding of the State rose to reflect its additional capital provision then the public would be squeezed out OR if the shareholding of the State did not rise to reflect its credit provision then there would be a significant unearned benefit for those members of the public who held these shares.

WHich brings me to the second problem with b), where you say 'public' would hold th shares most socialists would say workers in those industries. If that is what you mean, those workers would, over time, gain disproportinate economic power and wealth by being in the commanding heights and, in any case, this whole ownership question is quite secondary to the control question, which you have not spoken about at all.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 06:17 pm
I havent folowed the previous threads to which this thread seems to relate and I find some of Hammer's posts a bit hard to follow so I may not have understood all this correctly.
I didn't know that my speech was that obscure. :(

It's connected a bit to this thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65105), because monopoly capitalism in the commanding heights is happening right now. Lenin said that capitalism is socializing a lot of things, so my proposal is for the revolution to simply "pick it up."


But there is something in this: if we do not conceive the seizure of state power as immediately ushering a monolithically planned economy and if we ignore the pressure of counter-revolution in determining the form of the economy of the revolutionary state, we can ask what is the first post-revolutionary economic stage going to look like.

Hammer, I think, is asking for opinions on whether:

a) some concept of the 'commanding heights' of the economy will be used to identify what will and will not be owned and/or controlled by the State and

b) whether a system of pyramidal majority shareholdings (golden share systems could equally be used) by the state would be used to effect this.

No golden shares at all - they're a counterrevolutionary concept (usually employed as the last stage of privatizations). Pyramidal majority shareholdings (as you put it more succinctly than my "chained consolidations") are the way to go.


on a): yes I think the concept of the 'commanding heights' is a key idea. Traditionally, this concept is used to refer to the levers of credit, foreign exchange and infrastructurally important production. I think it is difficult to say in the abstract what would and what would not be a 'commanding height'

Maybe or maybe not, because multinational corporate monopolies and oligopolies (in that thread) such as Microsoft, Intel, Citigroup, HSBC, Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Gazprom, Saudi Aramco, etc. constitute the majority of today's commanding heights.


on b) I think the option of structured shareholdings is an option, but it faces some significant problems. The essence of shareholding structures is that that where additional capital is required each existing shareholder either contributes proportionately or faces dilution. So whether your shareholding structure could work would depend on how you saw capital being raised to finance the commanding heights. While there is danger in the State raising such capital by credit as the main source, that is a more likely method than any other. Over time, if the shareholding of the State rose to reflect its additional capital provision then the public would be squeezed out OR if the shareholding of the State did not rise to reflect its credit provision then there would be a significant unearned benefit for those members of the public who held these shares.

WHich brings me to the second problem with b), where you say 'public' would hold th shares most socialists would say workers in those industries. If that is what you mean, those workers would, over time, gain disproportinate economic power and wealth by being in the commanding heights and, in any case, this whole ownership question is quite secondary to the control question, which you have not spoken about at all.

On the first paragraph, the assumption is that each existing shareholder contributes proportionately. For the workers, that can be done easily through share purchase plans and additional pension contributions. Good point on the two extreme scenarios.

On the second paragraph, I refer you back to the pyramidal shareholding structure. For example: State Holding Company A owns a 51% stake in Consolidated Corp. A, with the rest being held by the public. Consolidated Corp. A itself - not the state holding company - owns a 51% stake in Subsidiary Corp. A, leaving the rest to the public.

In this example only, this means that, with a little over 25% actual equity belonging to the state, the state can still control the activities of Consolidated Corp. A and Subsidiary Corp. A.

In the initial post above, however, with the state holding companies themselves being only 50%+1 state-owned, and with the existence of subsidiaries owned by companies like Subsidiary Corp. A, much less than 25% actual equity is needed. This is where my political proposal of a combination of workers' organizations controlling the state comes in. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65207)



That is why, in financial accounting standards, the parent company must produce consolidated financial statements that reflect its own activities plus the activities of its direct and indirect subsidiaries. Hell, the definition of the term "asset" now relates more to control than actual ownership (think "capital leases").

[gilhyle]

I see all that but you still have the two problems that

1) workers may not all want to participate in each capital injection, and

2) the purpose of a pyrimidal ownership structure like this (as has happened on a signifiant scale in Italy and elsewhere) is to allow a given concentration of capital - the parent company majority shareholder - to leverage off other equity owners to create consistent industrial and marketing strategies (usually - but not always - with a monopolistic intent) Now the State does not need to rely on the law of ownership, since it just changes ownership by dictat or constrains the freedom of ownership by law. So there is no significant advantage.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 10:46 pm
1) workers may not all want to participate in each capital injection
Wouldn't they have more than enough money compared to what they have now, burdened by consumer debt (another structural change to today's economy alongside global monopolization) et al?


2) the purpose of a pyrimidal ownership structure like this (as has happened on a signifiant scale in Italy and elsewhere) is to allow a given concentration of capital - the parent company majority shareholder - to leverage off other equity owners to create consistent industrial and marketing strategies (usually - but not always - with a monopolistic intent) Now the State does not need to rely on the law of ownership, since it just changes ownership by dictat or constrains the freedom of ownership by law. So there is no significant advantage.

In corporate finance, leverage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(finance)) (wiki) results in the potential for greater wealth, even with greater risk.


where you say 'public' would hold the shares most socialists would say workers in those industries. If that is what you mean, those workers would, over time, gain disproportionate economic power and wealth by being in the commanding heights

Ah, but you assume specialization. Shouldn't workers, regardless of industry, own all the commanding heights? That is where that small mention of my original post - "pension socialism" (http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=321) (warning: "market socialist" link) - comes in? Funds such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan come into play to equalize the field.

Workers in the niche companies can contribute to the pension funds, which in turn own whatever the non-state remainder happens to be. Thus, they can reap as much of the benefits as those in the commanding heights: one group helps innovate ("product differentiation" in business circles), while the other helps economize ("cost leadership"), although both can do each other's function.

What you should be asking with regards to disproportionate wealth is the question in regards to those workers in niche companies. After all, their companies don't have the "publicly traded" share ownership structure of those companies in the commanding heights, in spite of workers' control through factory/workplace/workers' committees. Even I am thinking really hard about this.

[gilhyle]

Yea they would have less debts - but that doesnt mean they will all spontaneously agree to invest rather than consume.

True leverage increases wealth...but why ? Because it mobilises assets that otherwise remain dormant. Is that the problem we are dealing with here ? No.

Pension funds are no answer to the workers control issue. Such funds can only be managed in a way that turns the investor into a passive profit seeker.

You still need to say how this model faciltiate workers control. The model is only about ownership rather than control, its about leverage rather than planning - and ownership and leverage are not the characteristic challenges facing a developed workers state. So it may be part of the immediate answer in the wake of some workers revolutions but its that at most and it would soon need to be surpassed to increase collective control.

As to the non-commanding heights sector : there is no single answer to the levels of wealth appropriate for this sector. It varies with the political economic balance of class forces and the options that the level of deveopment of the forces of production allow - this is the very point that led Lenin to NEP.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 06:01 pm
Yea they would have less debts - but that doesnt mean they will all spontaneously agree to invest rather than consume.

True leverage increases wealth...but why ? Because it mobilises assets that otherwise remain dormant. Is that the problem we are dealing with here ? No.
Fair enough.


Pension funds are no answer to the workers control issue.

No, they are not BY ANY MEANS. That is why the pyramidal state shareholding structure exists, under the political aegis of the tricameral workers' control system I proposed (communal councils, soviets, and factory committees). That is also why I put "pension socialism" in quotation marks: ownership /= control.


You still need to say how this model faciltiate workers control.

I said it above already (link):


In the initial post above, however, with the state holding companies themselves being only 50%+1 state-owned, and with the existence of subsidiaries owned by companies like Subsidiary Corp. A, much less than 25% actual equity is needed. This is where my political proposal of a combination of workers' organizations controlling the state comes in. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65207)


As to the non-commanding heights sector : there is no single answer to the levels of wealth appropriate for this sector. It varies with the political economic balance of class forces and the options that the level of development of the forces of production allow - this is the very point that led Lenin to NEP.

I'm still thinking about the "wealth accumulation" bias towards workers in non-commanding heights sectors, so I can't respond to this last part...

[gilhyle]

You might find The Labour Revolution (1925) by Karl Kautsky nd the second part of The Social Revolution (1903) by the same author of some interest if you can get your hands on a copy or on a website.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I'm looking at the latter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/index.htm) (before he turned "renegade"), and found these (and saved it):

The Organization of the Productive Process (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt2-2.htm#s6)


The production of articles for consumption has another character. To be sure we have here the gigantic industries (sugar factories and breweries), but as a general thing the little industry is still generally dominant. Here it is necessary to satisfy the individual needs of the market, and the small industry can do this better than the large. The number of productive plants is here large and would not ordinarily be capable of reduction as in the production of means of production. Here also production for the open market still rules. But because of the greater number of consumers this is much more difficult to supervise than is production for production. The number of operators’ agreements is fewer here. The organization of the production and circulation of all articles of consumption accordingly offers much greater difficulties than that of the means of production.

[...]

Nevertheless it may be granted that the small industry will have a definite position in the future in many branches of industry that produce directly for human consumption, for the machines manufacture essentially only products in bulk, while many purchasers desire that their personal taste shall be considered. It is easily possible that even under a proletarian regime the number of small businesses may increase as the well being of the masses increases. The demand for products of hand labor as a result of this may become active. Artistic hand work may accordingly receive a new impulse. However, we need not expect the realization of the picture of the future that William Morris has painted for us in his beautiful Utopia, in which the machine plays no role whatever. The machine will remain the ruler of the productive process. It will never give up this position again to hand labor. This, however, does not exclude the possibility that hand work in many artistic branches will again flourish and that it will even conquer many new fields. Meanwhile it to-day too often maintains its existence only as the product of extreme misery. As a house industry hand work in a socialist society call only exist as an expensive luxury which may in a universal well being find an extensive distribution. The foundation of the productive process will still remain the machine-driven great industry. The problematical small industries will at the most be maintained as islands in the ocean of the great social businesses.

These little industries, again, can take on the most various forms in regard to the ownership of their means of production and the disposal of their products. They may be dependent upon a great national or municipal industry, from which they receive their raw material and tools and to which they dispose of their products. They can produce for private customers, or for the open market, etc. as to-day, so then, a laborer can occupy himself in the most diverse occupations one after another. A seamstress, for example, can occupy herself for a time in a national factory and at another time make dresses for private customers at home, then again can sew for another customer in her own house, and finally she may, with a few comrades, unite in a co-operative for the manufacture of clothing for sale.

In this, as in every other relation, the greatest diversity and possibility of change will rule. Nothing is more false than to represent the socialist society as a simple, rigid mechanism whose wheels when once set in motion run on continuously in the same manner.

The most manifold forms of property in the means of production – national, municipal, cooperatives of consumption and production, and private can exist beside each other in a socialist society – the most diverse forms of industrial organization, bureaucratic, trades union, cooperative and individual; the most diverse forms of remuneration of labor, fixed wages, time wages, piece wages, participation in the economics in raw material, machinery, etc., participation in the results of intensive labor the most diverse forms of circulation of products, like contract by purchase from the warehouses of the State, from municipalities, from co-operatives of production, from producers themselves, etc., etc. The same manifold character of economic mechanism that exists to-day is possible in a socialistic society. Only the hunting and the hunted, the struggling and resisting, the annihilated and being annihilated of the present competitive struggle are excluded and therewith the contrast between exploiter and exploited.

So he beat me to the niche market remarks - nice!


Only one phase of the disturbances in circulation which spring from production is of importance to the proletarian regime, – only under-production, never over-production. To-day the latter is the principal cause of crises, for the greatest difficulty at present is the sale, or getting rid of the product. The purchase of goods, the procuring of the products that one needs, ordinarily causes very little complaint from those lucky ones who have the necessary small change in their pockets. Under proletarian regime this relation mould be reversed. There will be no need of anxiety regarding the disposal of the products when completed. Private individuals will not be purchasing for sale to other private individuals, but society will be purchasing for its own necessities. A crisis can then only arise when a sufficient amount of a number of products has not been produced to supply the need either for production or personal consumption. If accordingly there are here and there, or even anywhere, too much produced this will signify only a wasting of labor power and a loss for society, but will not hinder the progress of production and consumption. It will be the principal anxiety of the new regime to see to it that there is not insufficient production in any sphere. Accordingly it will, to be sure, also take care that no labor power is wasted in superfluous production, for every such waste signifies an abstraction from all the others and an unnecessary extension of the labor time.

A warning about the Soviet experience beforehand...



The Remnants of Private Property in the Means of Production (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/pt2-2.htm#s7)


We have seen that the proletarian regime would make short work of the smaller businesses where they represent the little, undeveloped plants, not only in industry but also in exchange.

The efforts referred to above for the organization of circulation would also lead to the greatest possible abolition of the little middlemen by crushing them out, partially through co-operatives for consumption, partly through extension of municipal activity. Superintendence and organization of the productive processes will be much easier when it is not necessary to deal with countless operators, but rather with only a few organizations.

Hence my mention of "factory/workplace/workers' committees" and "communal councils," respectively. :)

That last sentence is merely a continuation of Lenin's stuff about monopoly capitalism creating the conditions for socialization in the commanding heights (with the only prerequisites left being "nationalization" by the workers' state and the expressed intent of pursuing socialism through said "nationalization").



ComradeRed, a left-communist spoke with me recently and said that what I described in the first post wasn't really "stamocap" at all, particularly given workers' control. Nonetheless, Kautsky beat me to the punch on "my" proposal and the potential for "revolutionary stamocap" to evolve into socialism.



As a side note, agriculture can be considered to be a "commanding height," given increased industrialization and decreased profit margins for family farmers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming#Role_in_food_production). I'd personally want full-scale sovkhozy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovkhoz) in agriculture, and no more kolkhozy BS.

[ComradeRed]

I'm supposed to reply to this, it will probably take me a few hours to finish my reply not because it is such a "powerful point" but because I am doing quantum field theory on my lap whilst replying. Nonetheless, this is basically a reiteration of my earlier points.

Kautsky's second half of The Social Revolution is based on his analysis given the material conditions available to him.

The analysis is thus antiquated...for example, planning using "super computers" and the internet for "instantaneous" feedback would be unimaginable for our dear Kautsky!

Much less the advent of nanotechnology and the death of scarcity!

And yet we are supposed to accept Kautsky's analysis of "What happens day one after the revolution"?!

Could we, say, worry about what happens after the revolution after the revolution?!?

None of us can "foresee" with our "crystal ball" what material conditions will present itself to cause the revolution, much less, what effects they would have for the production of commodities!

Indeed the whole "stamocap" idea goes out the window with the advent of nanotechnology. Who knows, perhaps the introduction of such technology would be the material conditions for the revolution?!

This is chiefly the reason for me calling such speculation about "What will we do after the revolution?" utopian.

We can't ever say how anything will work after the revolution because we cannot foresee what material conditions will present themselves.

It is little more than mere speculations that quickly become obsolete with every minute change in the technological advancement of civilization.

Consequently, it would be impossible to keep up with such advancement, and thus impossible to have an accurate prediction of what things will be like "after the revolution".

It's hard to accept at first, but there is little room to challenge such a proposition.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The analysis is thus antiquated...for example, planning using "super computers" and the internet for "instantaneous" feedback would be unimaginable for our dear Kautsky!

Much less the advent of nanotechnology and the death of scarcity!

Marx himself could NOT have imagined the idea of using supercomputers, the Internet, and nanotech.

Let me put it to you in terms of your physics profession: the Law of Conservation of Energy (and good luck on your quantum field theory work ;) ). On that abstract theoretical level alone, there IS scarcity (no creation of EVEN zero-point energy). No matter how many food replicators or microchips everyone could have to satisfy all needs, there will ALWAYS be scarcity - at least at an abstract level.

Kinda like constructivist philosophy in science, wherein I know the Earth is round, but that my practical life reduces my knowledge of such to an abstract. [BTW, I'd like to know more about your stance re. Popper vs. Kuhn.]

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 04:45 pm
Marx himself could NOT have imagined the idea of using supercomputers, the Internet, and nanotech.Agreed, Marx himself remarks that the technological advancements of the capitalist mode of production would be unforeseeable.


Let me put it to you in terms of your physics profession: the Law of Conservation of Energy (and good luck on your quantum field theory work ;) ). On that abstract theoretical level alone, there IS scarcity (no creation of EVEN zero-point energy). No matter how many food replicators or microchips everyone could have to satisfy all needs, there will ALWAYS be scarcity - at least at an abstract level. This has been covered before in the Post-Scarcity Thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65494).

But when we are talking about "the end of scarcity" we are not talking about "the generation of an infinite quantity of commodities", we are talking about "the ability to create with minimal labor enough goods to satisfy all needs and a great deal of wants".

Nanotechnology has the capacity (thus far) to be a powerful medicine, and from some of the engineers I've spoken to it appears to be a very powerful miniature factory component and a device which makes solar power nearly 100% efficient.

There is little reason to believe, based on my knowledge of nanotechnology, that it would be "impossible" for nanotechnology to not satisfy people's needs practically.

The creation of food from dirt alone is an astounding feat, all the while powered by the sun, in mere minutes!

So you can assert that it's "impossible" to "satisfy all needs", but in practice that proposition too is antiquated from Marshall...who also could not have foreseen the advent of nanotechnology (not even with his powerful magic 8-ball use of calculus!).


Kinda like constructivist philosophy in science, wherein I know the Earth is round, but that my practical life reduces my knowledge of such to an abstract. [BTW, I'd like to know more about your stance re. Popper vs. Kuhn.] I have no clue what the hell you are talking about to be honest, as I don't really sit there and think "My knowledge of deformation quantization is merely an abstract of..." whatever!

[Die Neue Zeit]

ComradeRed, you might want to check this sub-site (http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/00LeninistTransition.html) out. I edited out "Marxist-Leninist" from the quotes because that implies Stalinism, which the site clearly rejects. ALSO note that I know that much of what Lenin says here is much more applicable to "revolutionary stamocap" than to the "primitive stamocap" measures the Bolsheviks undertook.

State capitalism, Leninism, and the transition to socialism (Part 1)


But Marx and Engels didn't believe that such a society could come into being all at once. It's not just that it would require a revolution to overthrow the ruling minority that presently owns the means of production. Even after a revolution, such a society could not simply be proclaimed; it could not simply be the result of a revolutionary decree. It required a lengthy process of transition from capitalist society to communism.

...

Lenin by way of contrast developed his view of the path to socialism through continuing the ideas of Marxism. His views differ from those of the "left communists" and anarchists in a number of ways, among which is that he sharply stressed the need for a revolutionary transition period prior to the classless society. His stand differs from the revisionist and Trotskyist view that state ownership is in itself socialist, and he instead looked more closely at the nature of the state and of the economic principles guiding state industry. His stand differs from the marketplace ideologists (and the anarchists) in that he pointed to the role of large-scale production and the need for society as a whole to take over the direction of production.

...

Lenin - in the preparation for the October revolution - emphasized that there could be no question of directly turning Russia into a socialist country, but instead there had to be a series of steps to socialism, a lengthy transition period. He didn't just agitate for socialism in Russia on the grounds that the world in general was ripe for socialism, nor did he hold that socialism could simply be decreed, but advocated definite measures which he held would begin the transition towards socialism.

...

"The important thing will not be even the confiscation of the capitalists' property, but countrywide, all embracing workers' control over the capitalists and their possible supporters. Confiscation alone leads nowhere, as it does not contain the element of organization, of accounting for proper distribution."

...

Lenin held that the socialist proletariat could make use of and transform some of the large-scale organization that had arisen under capitalism, including the co-operatives, banking apparatus, monopolies, etc. Some of these could be transformed into an apparatus run by the workers. Others he regarded as compromises with capitalism which could be used for awhile. Thus, in cases where the workers could not immediately take over the direction of production, he held that a sort of state-capitalism under workers' control -- that is, capitalists running enterprises under the control and regulation of the proletarian state and workers' organizations -- could be used as one part of the transitional economy. The enterprises would not yet be directly owned and managed by the proletariat and its state, but the proletariat would gain experience, force the amalgamation of industry and other changes, and prepare conditions for state ownership.

...

[n]Lenin stressed that overthrowing the old bourgeoisie didn't suffice to root out capitalist relations. Lenin stressed that the "small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale."

...

Moreover, Lenin held that the use of state capitalist methods not only had to be kept within certain bounds, but that it affects the nature of the proletarian state. He stressed that it inevitably resulted in "bureaucratic distortions of the state apparatus." When state industry in Russia went onto the so-called "commercial basis" and each industrial department had to make a profit, he pointed to "the inevitable rise of narrow departmental interests and excessive departmental zeal," giving rise to conflicts with the mass of workers. He connected this to the fact that "class struggle is inevitable" in "the period of transition from capitalism to socialism." He discussed the ramifications of this for the trade unions, which had to defend the working class against the distortions of the proletarian state and its management of industry. Indeed, he polemicized strongly against Trotsky on this issue, opposing his policy of "bureaucratic harassment of the trade unions"(14) and his failure to deal with the fact that workers must not only build up a proletarian state but defend themselves against its mistakes and errors as well.

[...]

By now it should be clear that a good deal of Jim's argumentation centers on confusing different uses of the term "state capitalism". This term refers to at least five different things.

(A) There is ordinary state capitalism. This is the economy that has developed in most advanced industrialized states of the capitalist world, in which the state plays a big role--not just in owning a number of corporations, but through marketing boards, commissions, and a variety of regulations. The state -- no matter how many elections are organized -- remains a dictatorship of the capitalist class; its bureaucracy is connected to the capitalists by a thousand strings; and state ownership is simply ownership on behalf of the capitalist class or its most powerful sections. During wars, the role of the state generally expands tremendously in capitalist countries, and part of this expansion usually remains after the war. Lenin stated repeatedly that, in a capitalist state, "'war-time socialism' is in fact war-time state-monopoly capitalism, or, to put it more simply and clearly, war-time penal servitude for the workers and war-time protection for capitalist profits. "(34)

(B) There is revisionist state capitalism. This state capitalism is actually a special variety of the first type, since it is the dictatorship of a bourgeois class. It is the economic system that generally prevails in the countries ruled by revisionist parties, such as China, Vietnam, Cuba, and previously the late Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It differs from Western state capitalism in generally having a much more bureaucratic state, and in the status of the revisionist bourgeoisie being based directly on position in the ruling party and bureaucracy. There may also be other capitalists (especially smaller ones) and petty-bourgeois strata of a more traditional type. The analysis of this type of state capitalism is specially important to us today, as it is the base for the revisionist regimes which must be exposed as fake communism and real capitalism. But it wasn't discussed by Lenin since it hadn't developed yet.

© There is capitalism regulated by a revolutionary-democratic government of the toilers. In this case, the masses have seized power and are utilizing state power to achieve their revolutionary aims. State ownership and state regulation do not make such governments socialist. But Lenin felt that this type of state capitalism, i.e. the extension of the economic role of the revolutionary-democratic state, was a step towards socialism. Unless the revolution becomes a socialist one, however, such a revolutionary-democratic regime will eventually be succeeded by, or degenerate into, an ordinary capitalist rule.

(D) There is capitalism regulated by a proletarian government. After a socialist revolution, it is unlikely that the revolutionary proletarian government will be able to take over all the economy at once. It will increasingly seek to develop workers' control and regulation over the rest of the economy. The capitalist and petty-bourgeois enterprises and trade regulated by the government constitute a "state-capitalist" part of the economy.

(E) As well, there are bourgeois methods in the state sector run by a proletarian government. The socialist revolution strives to smash up and replace the old state machine by an administration by the workers and the masses. But certain compromises with the old bourgeois methods will generally be necessary for a time--such as specially high salaries and privileges for specialists. And putting state industry on a profit basis is a compromise that is so deep that it immediately affects the relations of the state and the ruling party with the masses of workers. [/b]

(Part 3)


"State capitalism under workers' rule" is widely said to be the [Leninist] view of the path from capitalism to socialism. Yet it is doubtful that this term was Lenin's definition of a transitional economy, rather than being an attempt to describe certain of its features, with Lenin pointing out that he was not using the term state capitalism "in the literal sense." However, whether it was Lenin's definition or not, I think the term actually retards grasping various aspects of the [Leninist] theory on the transition to socialism that are important today as part of completing the anti-revisionist critique of doctrines that have passed as "Marxist" for decades.

[DrFreeman09]

I think the main thing here is that "stamocap" is not the magic solution to all of our problems. Do I believe that it will probably be necessary in one form or another? Yes. But at the same time, such a state-capitalist monopoly can exist indefinitely without establishing "socialism," because "stamocap" alone is not the way out.

What many organizations claim is that the reason why capitalism is a terrible economic system is because there is no guiding hand from above directing the economy. This is not true. The actions of "boom and bust," exploitation, wage slavery, etc. are all a result of the laws of commodity prodcution that will apply so long as the economy produces commodities. There is not some magic principle about central planning that solves this problem.

What is needed, in conjunction with this "stamocap," is a way out. I don't think that the transition to socialism would be "easy" simply by establishing state-capitalism. In fact, by relying on state-capitalism alone, the transition would be more-or-less impossible. There must be sufficient time and effort put into economic experimentation so that workers can figure out how to run an economy without money, wages, or exchange of any kind. Only in this way will the laws of commodity production be nullified.

This is the idea behind Ben Seattle's three-sector economy. The CVO's criticisms of this idea boil down to two main ones:

1. Ben's state-capitalism is Stalinist state-capitalism

2. The gift economy cannot overcome the rule of the marketplace.

The first one was a result of Joseph Green taking Ben's words out of context. Ben said that in the state-capitalist sector, state-appointed bureaucrats would not be able to run everything, but Joseph turned that into Ben supposedly saying that bureaucrats would run everything. And mostly, his criticism is irrelevant, because Joseph is far more guilty of advocating "Stalinist state-capitalism."

The second criticism is a result of Joseph not really understanding the nature of this gift economy. It would not be based on consumerism (it's a gift economy). It would not suffer from the same failures of Parecon. The gift economy would be highly experimental at first. An economy without exchange has never been done before and would take a large amount of time to accomplish. This is why it requires support from the state. However, in its full form, the moneyless sector is the only way out, because only this sector truly overcomes the laws of commodity production.

Planning alone does nothing to overcome these laws. While economic planning and "stamocap" will certainly have its uses, it does not effectively eliminate the power of the marketplace because it does not eliminate commodity production.

To elaborate, Ben's idea of the three-sector economy is more-or-less Leninism with a new twist.

Immediately after the revolution, the workers are presented with a capitalist economy that they are now in a position to transform. The workers begin to seize workplaces (or they have already), and what cannot be immediately taken over by the workers is taken over by the state. So far so good. But this alone doesn't solve any problems if the workers aren't clear on what exactly they're supposed to be doing. :) And I think this is where Ben's Self-Organizing Moneyless Economy (http://leninism.org/some) comes in.

The workers, with the resources they have seized, can now begin to experiment on how to run an economy without commodity production. Obviously, the resources they do have will be fairly limited at first, so the "state-capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people" will subsidize this economic sector at first.

But as the workers are able to take control of more and more resources and as they learn and their moneyless economy becomes more an more efficient, this sector will gradually take over the other economic sectors. When this sector has taken complete control over the economy, you will really have a society where the means of production are owned in common. The laws of commodity prodcution will no longer apply, and society will be well on its way to the stage where the state withers away.

The specifics of this moneyless economy can be found in the S.O.M.E. link I posted above. There are two versions of it on that page. For time purposes, I would choose the "popular" version. Also, keep in mind that the S.O.M.E. is a description of what society looks like when the moneyless economy has taken over the other sectors (this is because Ben wanted to "begin with the end in mind;" if you have read the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," you will recognize that strategy). I realize this doesn't do what you might want it to (i.e. describe "proletocracy") but it should help in clearing up what exactly Ben is talking about when he talks about his moneyless sector.

Also, you wouldn't mind if I post some of this discussion (on this thread and the "How should we be led?" one) to Ben's e-lists, would you?

They can be found here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-200

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-300

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ To answer the last part: Not at all for my part; go right ahead (but I think you've got to get the consent of the other posters, though).

However, you addressed only one of the main details in this thread:

1) What concept of the 'commanding heights' of the economy will be used to identify what will and will not be owned and/or controlled by the State?

[Addressed vaguely: "what cannot be immediately taken over by the workers is taken over by the state"]

2) Will a system of pyramidal majority shareholdings [...] by the state would be used to effect this? With this question comes both the concept of leverage and the continued existence of corporations.

[Not addressed]


"Paramount importance attaches to the 'holding system,' already briefly referred to above. The German economist, Heymann, probably the first to call attention to this matter, describes the essence of it in this way: The head of the concern controls the principal company (literally: the 'mother company'); the latter reigns over the subsidiary companies ('daughter companies') which in their turn control still other subsidiaries ('grandchild companies'), etc. In this way, it is possible with a comparatively small capital to dominate immense spheres of production. Indeed, if holding 50 per cent of the capital is always sufficient to control a company, the head of the concern needs only one million to control eight million in the second subsidiaries. And if this ‘interlocking’ is extended, it is possible with one million to control sixteen million, thirty-two million, etc." (Lenin)

3) Within #2, what are the effects of the minority shareholdings besides leverage?

[Not addressed, but you can refer to my discussions with gilhyle for further details]


...with the remainder owned by the public directly (but mainly through 'private' pension funds, a government pension plan for retirees, and other management funds)

4) What of the continued existence of private enterprise on a smaller level?

[Not addressed]


Meanwhile, the niche businesses within the economy - and there are more and more of those by the day due to the "shrinking middle" - would remain private; they generally don't have more than 100 employees or so. They wouldn't be able to corner bigger markets - because of "Gossnab 2.0," the law, and economic disincentives (immediate nationalization upon being big enough to be deemed part of the "commanding heights").

"The production of articles for consumption has another character. To be sure we have here the gigantic industries (sugar factories and breweries), but as a general thing the little industry is still generally dominant. Here it is necessary to satisfy the individual needs of the market, and the small industry can do this better than the large. The number of productive plants is here large and would not ordinarily be capable of reduction as in the production of means of production. Here also production for the open market still rules. But because of the greater number of consumers this is much more difficult to supervise than is production for production. The number of operators’ agreements is fewer here. The organization of the production and circulation of all articles of consumption accordingly offers much greater difficulties than that of the means of production." (Kautsky)



Delayed but succinct rebuttal to ComradeRed: Isn't the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat - all of it - still in the capitalist mode of production, not having entered the socialist (not communist) mode of production?

[DrFreeman09]

To answer the last part: Not at all for my part; go right ahead (but I think you've got to get the consent of the other posters, though).


Right, though the content of discussion on the "How will we be led" thread has been just you and me and one small post by Ben for the last several days. I was only going to take our discussion anyway.

Honestly, the reason why I did not address most of those issues is because I do not have the grasp on economics required to make intelligent comments on those sorts of things. I'm better at looking at the big picture.

The point I was trying to make, however, was that there needs to be, in conjunction with "stamocap," a way to achieve "escape velocity," because there's nothing magic about central planning and although it can improve conditions for the workers while they figure out how to run an economy without exchange, "stamocap" is not enough by itself.

These are the kinds of issues I am qualified to address, I believe.

However, I can clarify a little bit on the first point. The concept of "commanding heights" would, I believe, vary from time to time based on the situation at hand. I don't think there can be a "be-all-end-all" solution, other than the fact that different people will want to do different things and the different trends will more-or-less fight it out to determine who wins. In some cases, I think the state would have more control, and in others the workers directly would have more control, based on what is determined by the class to be best for that particular situation. I think it's one of those things that you can't really know until you're there. I realize that's not saying anything of much substance, but I'm not really qualified to say anything else.

So, I'm really not sure how much help I can be regarding the questions you've raised.

[Die Neue Zeit]

(Carried over the economics discussion in the "constitutional laws" thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1057118&postcount=10) to this thread on my initiative)


Further, there is nothing inherently wrong with competition, so long as the end result of this competition is not the production of a commodity.

Earlier in the "How should we be led" thread, ComradeRed had this to say:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1038888&postcount=5


...but perhaps we can give some rough sketches about what socialism is not.

For example, the notion of competing firms would be abolished since there is no "capitalist market".

Now, I know that this particular "orthodox Marxist" still equates the era of the DOTP with the socialist mode of production, but let's assume for a moment between the two of us that he's really referring to the DOTP and not "real existing socialism."

Care to comment on his remarks (but in the "Stamocap" thread)? Would the workers in your moneyless sector be organized into firms or not?


One problem with centralism on a massive scale is that it has a tendency to circulate crappy products throughout the economy. There is no competing trend to ensure quality.

The history of Soviet heavy industry has demonstrated otherwise, and so has the modern automobile industry (the big car makers all getting their parts from the same supplier). Again, I think this has mainly to do with deficit in informational inputs with respect to "light industry." With advances in information technology, two of the modern business rules is to "JIT" (just-in-time) everything and to have increased B2B (business-to-business) communication.

Indeed, there is B2B technology now that enables a customer to obtain instantaneous information on the current internal production of a supplier. Likewise, there is B2B technology now that enables a supplier to obtain instantaneous information on the current supply levels of a customer, and then automatically enables re-supply at a certain supply level!

Indeed, this is the case with my business school and its office supplier (an anecdote from faculty)!




Here is how trends would compete in the moneyless sector:

Different people would have different ideas about what would really be the best way to do something. In central planning, the workers would decide what trend would theoretically work best, but what they thought would work best would not always do so in practice. So it is best to let these trends fight it out. In many cases, the only way to truly know something is to pit opposing trends against each other and see which one wins.

With price as no object (there is no money or exchange), the workers would have no incentive to consume crappy products. Since other production units would be supplying this particular producer with stuff, they would see that his/her product is crappy and would see that giving this person their support is a complete waste. Thus, this crappy producer would not be supplied with the necessary resources and would not be able to produce.

This may seem like cruel Social Darwinism. But in reality, it is better and more democratic than central planning because it allows the working class to decide which trends will be successful as opposed to a bureacratic, centralized point of control.

Price is an implicit object in what you're saying. The crappy producer's product will have been deemed to be worth nothing. The only difference between this and current "market socialism" is that prices won't be able to measure products being worth "something"; the price mechanism is binary.


Again, I would like you to read the Self-Organizing Moneyless Economy by Ben and tell me what you think. The cover page can be found here, which is kind of an overview: (http://leninism.org/leninism/some/)

The more I write, the more things become clear to me. The era of "proletocracy" still has to develop a "socialist economy" before any sort of attempt is made at developing a "communist economy." IMO, there are three "economies" in the proletocratic "multi-economy": private (including cooperative at this time), state-monopoly-capitalist, and socialist.

"Single point of control" (your site): what I am merely proposing is a centralized information "node" for all input. The economic planning should have two aspects: direct democratic control and "representative" (read: bureaucratic) control. A fully socialist economy is one wherein both the "representative" control over economic planning and the private economy have withered away.

[DrFreeman09]

ComradeRed



For example, the notion of competing firms would be abolished since there is no "capitalist market".


ComradeRed's statement here is that the notion of competition would be eliminated because he says so.

Of course, the notion of capitalist competition would be eliminated. But competition, in its broad sense, being the way different trends compete to determine which one is best, is not "evil," especially when there is no commodity production involved.

There are a couple of reasons why communist competition is favorable to central planning as our long-term goal.

1. A central planning body may believe that something sounds like a good idea from atop its high pedastal. Indeed, the decision may have been reached democratically, and on the surface, everything seemed fine. But on the ground, where the workers are actually working, such a decision may actually be a completely shit idea. At this point, there's not a whole lot the workers can do about it, because there are no competing trends that they can turn to. They could take their concerns back to the planning body, but this, as will be shown next, is not very efficient.

2. With one central planning body and no competition, if a product or a decision sucked shit, without competing alternatives, the workers would have to send their complaints to the Central Committee and wait for the bureaucracy to sort it out. This problem is very similar to the "von Neumann bottleneck" in computers. Most computers are run in a centralized way, and all information has to be transfered through the CPU, where it uses an algorithm to determine what to do with it. This means that the effectiveness of the computer depends on how fast information can all be filtered through this one central unit. In practicality, this leads to what is called the "von Neumann bottleneck," because the rate of information metabolism slows down when it is forced to filter through the CPU.

On the other hand, there is research being done in "massively parallel processing" (MPP), which solves the problem of the bottleneck by having multiple processors that deal with problems parallel to each other (simoultaneously). So this allows things to be done much faster. Further, the system is extremely adaptive, because if something goes wrong, there is a parallel route which the information can take. In other words, there is another option.

So let's make an analogy:

When all information has to be filtered through the CPU (Central Committee), and dealt with based on an algorithm (central plan), the computations (economic processes) often get bottlenecked. Further, if something goes wrong, there's nothing much you can do, unless you want to wait for your complaint to be filtered through the CPU/Central Committee again, further slowing down processes. On the other hand MPP (communist competition) deals with all of the problems in a parallel fashion, so work gets done more efficiently. Moreover, if something goes wrong, the information is "re-routed" to a parallel process. In a communist economy, if something goes wrong with option A, option B is there to correct. If production unit A creates crappy products, workers can get their stuff from production unit B.

The world's greatest supercomputers use parallel computing. In an analogous way, the most advanced stage of economy (communism) will make use of parallel and competing trends to ensure quality, efficiency, and adaptivity.



The history of Soviet heavy industry has demonstrated otherwise


That's not entirely true. But even accepting that the USSR circulated great products (a rather dubious assertion), this doesn't mean that economic planning is the most advanced form of economy, or that it should be our goal.


Price is an implicit object in what you're saying.

No it's not. If workers think a product sucks, they won't consume it, and they can organize other workers to avoid consuming it as well. This wouldn't hurt the producer financially (there is no money), but it would demoralize the workers working on the product, because the only reason they work is to produce useful goods that benefit the whole. Further, the workers suplying this bad production unit with stuff would feel that their work was being wasted, and they would likely stop doing it.

Perhaps you should explain yourself further in why you think price is implicit in what I'm saying.

The bottom line, however, is that with economic planning and no competition in trends, when things go wrong or when products suck, the economy gets bottlenecked. In an economy that used communist competition, the economy would easily correct for wrong decisions and crappy products: the workers would choose another option.

If a group of workers felt that they could do something better than another group, they could simply set up another factory, and get supplies from other workers sympathetic to the cause. In a planned economy, the workers would either a) not be able to make a product that was different from the one currently being produced, or b) have to wait for the decision to be made in a planning body. With no way to demonstrate to this planning body that their idea, in practice, would be better than the one currently being used, it would be difficult to convince anyone.

Even if the decision was made by the planning body to allow these workers to produce, if they did not want competition, they would probably shut down the other factory. And if this new idea did in fact suck in practice, the end result would be that you have a worse product than before and you just shut down the other factory.

The result is that, while the correct economic decision may be made eventually, it could have been done much more efficiently if the workers had just been able to set up their own factory and let the workers decide which one is better.

Why is price not an issue here? Because the value of goods is determined by the working class and not by a price system that reduces the value of things to a single number. The worker, in a system with no formal authority and nothing to prevent the flow of information, would have a wealth of information at his/her disposal. The worker would then use this information to make the best decision based on a) what product is best for the worker and b) what product is best for the good of the whole.

In a centralized system, a planning body would decide what is best for the whole, but this is extremely inefficient for reasons analogous to the "von Neumann bottleneck."

As a business student, you have probably noticed this trend: businesses are finding out that, in many cases, they have to "kick the decisions downstairs." The people "downstairs" are more qualified to make decisions in many cases because the decisions they make will be educated based on local conditions. "Kicking the decision upstairs" (i.e. central planning) often makes the situation harder to deal with, and it bottlenecks.

Now, how will this moneyless economy emerge?

What you call the "representative element" of central planning, along with the state, will not magically wither away because of a centrally planned economy and stamocap. Joseph Green thinks there is something unique and magical about central planning, but such a system, while beneficial to the class in a transition period, does not eliminate the laws of commodity production by itself and can exist indefinitely if there is no way out.

The way out is this moneyless economy I have described. But how is this economy to emerge? The way I see it, it will start with the resources that the workers have managed to seize. Using these resources, the workers, during the transition period, will experiment with how to run an economy without exchange. They will need to be aided by the state heavily at first. But eventually, as the workers seize more resources and gain more experience, the moneyless sector will absorb the other sectors, as it will be more effective and efficient. It will be at this point when the transition period ends. The transition period exists, in my view, to aid the workers in creating a successful moneyless economy, starting with a small sector of the overall economy, and eventually taking over the economy completely.



Would the workers in your moneyless sector be organized into firms or not?



Is communism capitalism?

No.

While I think trends will have to compete in the moneyless economy, these competing trends will not operate like corporations in capitalism.

Here is Ben's rather sarcastic answer to this question in The S.O.M.E.


Are the communist wealth production units I describe the same as corporations under capitalism? I guess they must be. The only difference is in the "relations of production" and the "relations of distribution". Other than than these two minor factors, they are identical. These relations only involve minor questions like the principles on which human activity is organized. Under capitalism we have the rule of the market and the laws of wages, prices and profits. Under communism we have the rule of the material interests and consciousness of the masses. Under capitalism production is for exchange. Under communism production is for use. But other than this there are no significant differences.


The era of "proletocracy" still has to develop a "socialist economy" before any sort of attempt is made at developing a "communist economy."

Perhaps. But simply saying "socialist economy" doesn't really say much. And the term "socialism" is very confusing, which is why, generally, I don't use it.

[ComradeRed]

ComradeRed



ComradeRed's statement here is that the notion of competition would be eliminated because he says so.

Of course, the notion of capitalist competition would be eliminated. But competition, in its broad sense, being the way different trends compete to determine which one is best, is not "evil," especially when there is no commodity production involved. Semantics.

You know that when I am speaking of competing firms, that I am speaking about firms competing for the domination of their respective markets.

That's the entire notion of competition in economics!

If capitalism is overthrown, it follows that competition would cease to exist unless the market structure is preserved. But the market structure is a generator for the capitalist mode of production.

So your suggestion results in the return to capitalism. Something that would be self-defeating for a workers' liberation!

[Red Economist]

fully developed state monopoly capitalism has bureacratic tendencies-which are by their nature conservative.

in Nazi Germany and Italy under mussolini, the bureaucracy was protected by the security offered by the bourgeoisise state (state funding for private industry or even nationalisation). this in part stopped the bureaucracy from going over to the socialists and helping to organise the revolution. the same principle applies elsewhere, in the UK from 1945 to 1979 as well as the USA, (particuarly regarding the 'military industrial complex').

the bureaucracy is 'conservative' in wishing to preserve it's position of power, the integrity of it's organisation over which it rules and the privallages dervied from it. simply- it no longer has an intrest in helping to organise socialism.

economic liberalisation and technological change (the internet) have seriously weakened the bureaucracy- so there goes the possibilty of peaceful transition- the bureaucracy is no longer 'independent' (in the sense it is no longer strong enough to pursue it's own clear adgenda)- it's either sided with the bourgeosise- (becuase they now have huge shares and dividends), or is trying to survive amongst the proletariat- in the public sector (and I would guess in the trade union movement).

going from state monopoly capitalism to socialism is a remote possibility since the capitalists will oppose it; but a bureaucracy could achieve it. you would however, never escape the bureaucratic roots of the transition- so you'd have to have another revolution to get rid of the bureaucracy... it's a case of have it now- or have it later...

only a very small section of the bureaucracy could ever concieveably try this; it is creative and extremely radical in rejecting it's own class nature for the integrity of the system as a whole; bussiness exeuctives call it 'adhocracy'- check it on wikipedia- it's an intresting read. only the 'top bureaucrats' could ever consider doing it, and of course- to get there, being so radical is very rare.

however, the reverse HAS happened- with Gorbachev trying to moderate stalinism/soviet revisionism and ending up with state monopoly capitalism under Yeltsin and Putin...
Perestroika and Shock Therapy were not a happy mix... and the russian people didn't enjoy it very much...

[DrFreeman09]

You know that when I am speaking of competing firms, that I am speaking about firms competing for the domination of their respective markets.

That's the entire notion of competition in economics!



In capitalist economics.


If capitalism is overthrown, it follows that competition would cease to exist unless the market structure is preserved. But the market structure is a generator for the capitalist mode of production.

So your suggestion results in the return to capitalism. Something that would be self-defeating for a workers' liberation!

Yes, the market structure is the generator for the capitalist mode of production. What Ben Seattle and I have suggested is not a market. Goods are not bought and sold. It is the action of exchange, of commodity production, that leads to the ills of capitalism. Anyone who has read Das Kapital should know that. An economy that has eliminated exchange would not have this problem.

You are still basically saying that competition in all forms will be eliminated because you say so. Apparently, you don't need to give any more explanation because the act of saying "competition would cease to exist" is, apparently, good enough.

But it is not. First of all, you have not explained why you think any competition would lead to a return to capitalism, so we're just supposed to take your word for it.

Second of all, you have completely ignored the bulk of what I said. You refused to comment on my assertion that central planning should not be our goal for the reason that it tends to bottleneck and isn't the most efficient system that one could use. You also refused to respond to my assertion that competing trends provide parallel options that a) speed things up by dealing with problems in chunks, and b) can be used to "re-route" things if something goes wrong, as opposed to all problems being filtered through a central unit.

I should also point out that parallelism presents itself in nature as well. When a lion decides when to strike its prey, it does not ask a central committee. It makes a decision based on local conditions.

And while there is no doubt that central planning can be done democratically, and that it will be a useful tool, it should not be our goal because it is not particularly efficient on a large scale where massive amounts of information have to be filtered through one central point.

The alternative I suggested makes use of parallelism which, I believe, will prove far more effecient than any central system.

If you read my comment again, I actually provided evidence for my assertions. You have just stated that all competition equals capitalism without backing up your argument in the least and we're all just supposed to believe you.

I should also clarify some things:


First of all, the system I described is our goal: stateless, classless society. I think we need to be able to describe what it looks like so that we can work toward it. But so many of us are stuck mentally in the "transition period," and cannot think of a world without exchange, and thus have a difficult time grasping what I'm trying to say. Which brings me to my next clarification:

THERE IS NO MONEY IN A MONEYLESS ECONOMY. THERE IS NO EXCHANGE.

Therefore, different trends don't compete to crush each other and make the most money. There is no money. Groups will compete to benefit the class as a whole. If two groups disagree on how best to do something, taking it to a central committee will be slow, and if the central committee makes a bad decision, the system wouldn't self correct because there would be no competing trends. The issue would have to be taken back to the central committee, further slowing down things. I talked about this more extensively in my last post, so I suggest you go back and read that.

Further, there's nothing to say that different trends won't cooperate as well as compete. Such cooperation will be necessary. But there is no need for a central planning body to do this.

Finally, if one trend proves to be better than the other, the workers in the worse trend will not be "out of work" per se because their existence would be guaranteed. Because no one in this moneyless economy would be working for money or anything material in return for their labor, a worker could easily find work at another production unit, because that production unit would have nothing to loose by including another worker. But that's something that is a very basic Marxist principle and I doubt any of us will have any trouble understanding that.

[Die Neue Zeit]

On the other hand, there is research being done in "massively parallel processing" (MPP), which solves the problem of the bottleneck by having multiple processors that deal with problems parallel to each other (simultaneously). So this allows things to be done much faster. Further, the system is extremely adaptive, because if something goes wrong, there is a parallel route which the information can take. In other words, there is another option.

...

The world's greatest supercomputers use parallel computing. In an analogous way, the most advanced stage of economy (communism) will make use of parallel and competing trends to ensure quality, efficiency, and adaptivity.

Actually, the funny thing here is that what the very last part of my post (which you didn't comment on yet) is more similar to MPP than what your stuff, and mainly because of the nature of the processors ( ;) ).


"Single point of control" (your site): what I am merely proposing is a centralized information "node" for all input. The economic planning should have two aspects: direct democratic control and "representative" (read: bureaucratic) control. A fully socialist economy is one wherein both the "representative" control over economic planning and the private sector have withered away.

The reason why I have one "node" instead of two is because, no matter how many processors, you'll still have one motherboard. :D

If I used the wrong term, then perhaps "database" would be more appropriate. After all, the state planners would process all data fed into that "database" in one way, while workers involved in direct democracy would process that same data fed into that same "database" in another way.


The bottom line, however, is that with economic planning and no competition in trends, when things go wrong or when products suck, the economy gets bottlenecked.

That's why I outlined parallel planning above. However, competition between different workers' groups isn't exactly my cup of tea.


As a business student, you have probably noticed this trend: businesses are finding out that, in many cases, they have to "kick the decisions downstairs." The people "downstairs" are more qualified to make decisions in many cases because the decisions they make will be educated based on local conditions. "Kicking the decision upstairs" (i.e. central planning) often makes the situation harder to deal with, and it bottlenecks.

Hasn't "kicking the decisions downstairs" reduced bottlenecks, though - especially when coupled with the flattening of the organizational structures of companies (lesser and lesser middle positions - bureaucracy)? :confused:




the bureaucracy is 'conservative' in wishing to preserve it's position of power, the integrity of it's organisation over which it rules and the privallages dervied from it. simply- it no longer has an intrest in helping to organise socialism.

economic liberalisation and technological change (the internet) have seriously weakened the bureaucracy- so there goes the possibilty of peaceful transition- the bureaucracy is no longer 'independent' (in the sense it is no longer strong enough to pursue it's own clear adgenda)- it's either sided with the bourgeosise- (becuase they now have huge shares and dividends), or is trying to survive amongst the proletariat- in the public sector (and I would guess in the trade union movement).

going from state monopoly capitalism to socialism is a remote possibility since the capitalists will oppose it; but a bureaucracy could achieve it. you would however, never escape the bureaucratic roots of the transition- so you'd have to have another revolution to get rid of the bureaucracy... it's a case of have it now- or have it later...

only a very small section of the bureaucracy could ever concieveably try this; it is creative and extremely radical in rejecting it's own class nature for the integrity of the system as a whole; bussiness executives call it 'adhocracy'- check it on wikipedia- it's an intresting read. only the 'top bureaucrats' could ever consider doing it, and of course- to get there, being so radical is very rare.

This is NOT something I would expect from a Trotskyist (the typical bunch demonizing bureaucracy). Anyhow, I think you MAY be having it the wrong way, when it probably should be the other way around: the flattening of corporate structures pushes more middle-men into the ranks of the working class. Meanwhile, in the public sector, the middle-men may eventually become petit-bourgeois or bourgeois.

In any event, what you said is something I should really think about more.

[DrFreeman09]

Hasn't "kicking the decisions downstairs" reduced bottlenecks


That was my point. :)



That's why I outlined parallel planning above. However, competition between different workers' groups isn't exactly my cup of tea.


Perhaps, then, your definition of competition is different than mine.

Maybe I could get a better idea of what you mean by competition not being your "cup of tea" if you were more specific as to why.

Here is my idea of communist competition:

People will have different ways of doing things and in many cases, the best way to determine which one is better is for multiple groups to attempt their ideas simoultaneously. The idea of "no competition" that is generally accepted is that everything will essentially be monopolistic. This is Joseph Green's idea. If a product is dangerous, ban it. If one process works better than the other, ban the bad one.

But it is not always that simple (actually, it is rarely that simple). It will not always be possible to know what works better, what is dangerous, what is not good, until the theories are actually tested.

You seem to agree with the MPP perspective. In the common conception of economic planning, there would be one option. This, as I have hopefully demonstrated, leads to bottlenecks. However, with the existence of parallel trends, if option A sucks, things will be "re-routed" to option B, just as they would be in a computer that uses MPP.

These trends compete in the sense that they compete for support of the workers. Naturally, some things will work better than others. The worker, armed with information, will make a decision on what to use. If everybody uses option A, option B will be pretty much useless, and workers will determine that it is not worth putting work into. This is opposed to the centralized system where a central body would decide which one is better in advance. If the decision wasn't good, the complaint would have to be looped back to the central body, and much time would be wasted.

What I explained above is competition in a very broad sense. It certainly doesn't fit into the common conception of competition (i.e. firms competing for money and dominance over markets).

Also, the act of determining which trend (A or B) is better in practice may be planning in a very broad sense. I don't think that what you are calling "democratic" planning is planning in the formal sense. This formal sense is what I'm crusading against, not necessarily what you are saying. What I am objecting to is the idea of everything being put through one central body (the equivalent of a CPU).

Ben's idea was that what you are calling "representative" planning would be left for the state-capitalist sector. Your conception of "democratic" planning would be used in the moneyless sector.

I believe that this moneyless sector must exist, in its embryonic form, basically from the beginning. We can't wait for the "state-capitalist monopoly" to spontaneously lead to socialism and the withering away of the state.

The economic model that Ben has put forward is a product of "Beginning With the End In Mind" (again, from Covey's "7 Habits"). The way to achieve "escape velocity," if you will, is for workers to experiment in a moneyless sector of the economy that will, as they figure out how to run it, eventually absorb the other sectors.

But I think you realize this because you have proposed a three-sector economy as well.

While it is utopian, I believe, to try to know exactly how this moneyless sector will operate (figuring that out will be the job of the workers when they are actually there), there are some general principles to keep in mind because a general picture of this sector of the economy needs to be discussed.

Namely, we have to realize that central planning alone doesn't solve the problems of capitalism. It can direct the flow of capital to benefit the working class, but it, in itself, does not eliminate capital. Further, central planning in its formal (i.e. bureaucratic) sense has the same problem as a CPU: it has a very large tendency to bottleneck. What is needed instead is the equivalent of MPP in an economy.

I call this MPP "communist competition," because in a loose sense, these trends will compete for the support of the working class. But it is not competition in the same sense that we know it today. The act of deciding which of the multiple routes to go with is achieved with what you call "democratic planning." I think the difference between that and what I believe is quite small.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That was my point. :)

Perhaps I was a bit confused that time. I think I said in a Research and Online Classes thread (started by ComradeRed, which was about the Soviet pricing mechanism) that the real problems with Soviet central planning were less Gosplan's fault than they were Gossnab's (material-technical supply).

Nevertheless, the idea of coming up with one-year plans (which Gosplan did) isn't strategic at all. The original Gosplan (created at around the same time Lenin coughed up the GOELRO) wasn't involved in either "tactical" or "operational" planning.


Perhaps, then, your definition of competition is different than mine.

My kind of "socialist competition" is what I said above (and yes, I do know that the goal of communism isn't central planning) a few times: state central planning vs. direct-democratic planning, but both different takes on overall economic planning (note here that only the first of the two is definitely central, because now I'm not sure about the nature of the second).


People will have different ways of doing things and in many cases, the best way to determine which one is better is for multiple groups to attempt their ideas simultaneously. The idea of "no competition" that is generally accepted is that everything will essentially be monopolistic. This is Joseph Green's idea. If a product is dangerous, ban it. If one process works better than the other, ban the bad one.

But it is not always that simple (actually, it is rarely that simple). It will not always be possible to know what works better, what is dangerous, what is not good, until the theories are actually tested.

Yes, I know the risks of monopoly. :( Even the whole mass of society will make the occasional slip-up from time to time. What matters is ensuring that those slip-ups have no material effect on the development of "proletocracy."

Eventually, the competing "takes" on overall planning will result in the "withering away" of the state planning.


Also, the act of determining which trend (A or B) is better in practice may be planning in a very broad sense. I don't think that what you are calling "democratic" planning is planning in the formal sense. This formal sense is what I'm crusading against, not necessarily what you are saying. What I am objecting to is the idea of everything being put through one central body (the equivalent of a CPU).

Maybe our differences lie in semantics. ;)

On the other hand, I don't like the notion of having competition within the direct-democratic planning. The only competition that should go on is between the state planners (and their army of specialists :D ) and the democratic-planning process. By the time "real existing socialism" has arrived, the working class will have matured long enough to dispense with competition, with advances in information-communication technology, in the decision-making process, in education, etc.


But I think you realize this because you have proposed a three-sector economy as well.

While it is utopian, I believe, to try to know exactly how this moneyless sector will operate (figuring that out will be the job of the workers when they are actually there), there are some general principles to keep in mind because a general picture of this sector of the economy needs to be discussed.

Namely, we have to realize that central planning alone doesn't solve the problems of capitalism. It can direct the flow of capital to benefit the working class, but it, in itself, does not eliminate capital. Further, central planning in its formal (i.e. bureaucratic) sense has the same problem as a CPU: it has a very large tendency to bottleneck. What is needed instead is the equivalent of MPP in an economy.

I call this MPP "communist competition," because in a loose sense, these trends will compete for the support of the working class. But it is not competition in the same sense that we know it today. The act of deciding which of the multiple routes to go with is achieved with what you call "democratic planning." I think the difference between that and what I believe is quite small.

Perhaps, indeed... :D



However, there is still the question of land, minerals, forests, and water. Should they be owned "directly," or owned by the state?

[DrFreeman09]

and yes, I do know that the goal of communism isn't central planningGood.


note here that only the first of the two is definitely central, because now I'm not sure about the nature of the secondI'm happy as long as I got you thinking. :D

I just don't know if I would call what will occur in a communist economy "planning." Perhaps it isn't best to call it "competition" either. But of course, competition in the sense I was using it was more like two different groups trying to convince the working class that their idea is best. Figuring this out in a committee could very possibly be slow and inefficient. On the other hand, if two conflicting ideas were tested by, for example, setting up two factories, it would eventually become clear which idea was better. Further, if anything went wrong with one option, the workers could simply use the other one, or create one themselves. I don't think that the workers should have to get permission to set up their own production units and start producing goods that they believe or socially useful. However, there is nothing wrong with different production units coming together to do what you would call "democratic planning" either.



However, there is still the question of land, minerals, forests, and water. Should they be owned "directly," or owned by the state?I think, depending on the situation, it would be a combination of both. It's hard to tell in advance. But I would guess that these things could be mostly controlled by the state. In fact, I believe it is best that, initially, these things are mostly controlled by the state. The reason for this is that the success of workers' rule will depend on how well the working class is able to provide for the people. If the workers do a shit job, most people will end up wanting the restoration of bourgeois rule, because although they may be an exploitive class, at leas they know how to run things!

Health care, food, water, shelter, etc. will all have to be provided for the working class if people are to continue supporting the workers' state. And we can't expect the workers to just spontaneously know how to run the entire economy themselves. So a workers' state will have to use these resources to satisfy the needs of the public while the working class figures out how to do it themselves.

Now, what does this require? Isn't it possible for the state to completely misuse these resources? Yes. What is necessary is for the working class to have concrete democratic rights to free speech so that they can actually exercise control over their state.

Whether by a multi-party system or by multiple trends existing within one umbrella organization, the workers will have to have some way to a) voice their disagreements, and b) oversee party activities and watch for corruption and hypocrisy. And to be able to expose hypocrisy, workers need democratic rights.

The problem Ben and I have with the CVO is that for one thing, they like to use words like "Marxism-Leninism," "conscious social planning," "democratic centralism," with really explaining or even knowing what those words actually mean. Secondly, in all of their years, they have failed to mention democratic rights as a necessity of workers' rule.

Now, they say that have implied it, but that's not good enough. Why are they afraid to say, "Yes, the workers will have concrete democratic rights"? There could be a number of reasons. But I won't go into that here.

Ben has part of the "economics" section of his reply to Joseph finished. It specifically tackles economics during the transition period, so when it's done, I'll probably post the whole article here and anyone interested can discuss it.

[Red Economist]

"I think, depending on the situation, it would be a combination of both. It's hard to tell in advance. But I would guess that these things could be mostly controlled by the state. In fact, I believe it is best that, initially, these things are mostly controlled by the state. The reason for this is that the success of workers' rule will depend on how well the working class is able to provide for the people. If the workers do a shit job, most people will end up wanting the restoration of bourgeois rule, because although they may be an exploitive class, at leas they know how to run things!"

this is an extremely dangerous view point simply because state control in the earliest phases of socialist develop indicates;

-the workers aren't capable of controlling the means of production or don't want to.
-that the revolution is a top down measure, imposed upon society by a bureaucracy.

in doing this, you create the fundemental basis for a stalinesque degeneration of the revolution.

revolution and planning must be based on public self-government if 'socialism' is ever to endure beyond the pressures of capitalism- the bureaucracy and the intellegentisa must be dissolved into the proletariat.

this is happening today- with increasingly flexable working practices, such as 'multi-tasking' and the such. increasing academic achievement (based on the capitalists need for highly skilled labour) is also seriously helping to 'level out' the proletariat. it may take time- but this will ultiamtley lead to the success of a revolution and the defeat of state monopoly capitalism.

however, making a distinction between 'worker's and 'people' shows you consider that the revolution is occuring in a country where the proletariat is not in the majoirty. in which case- I would assume you are talking of a bolshevik style revolution in a third world country- where the peasentry form the majoirty, or perhaps in a country where the majority of the proletariat has been bourgeoisified by super wages, with an under belly forming the revolutionary core.

in either case- revolution focuses on the actions of a minority- and ultimaltey resorts to either a dictatorship by the intellecgentsia (bolshevism- or more likely trotskyism) which can not be sustained without a supporting bureaucracy or a bureaucratic revolution (it self very unlikely, since revolutionary action threatens the bureaucracy and it basis of power within the movement...)

the dictatorship- not a tryanny by majority, as would be under socialism (where democracy is allowed because the workers are the majoirty) it would be the violent tryanny of the minority- and would ultimatley degenerate without widespread working class support. unless it later transformed in to a 'truely socialist revolution'.

the only way a minority can lead to a democratic tryanny is once again- adhocracy. but it is so badly prepared for government- you should never attempt it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Good.

I'm happy as long as I got you thinking. :D

Now, about the private-capitalist "economy": could that "economy" be altered to be a "friendlier" environment for cooperative associations to do business in (credit unions, for example)?

Also, can parecon ( :D ) play a "positive" role within that specific "economy" (ie, not the centrally planned state-capitalist "economy" or the emerging direct-democratic "economy")?


Now, what does this require? Isn't it possible for the state to completely misuse these resources? Yes. What is necessary is for the working class to have concrete democratic rights to free speech so that they can actually exercise control over their state.

Whether by a multi-party system or by multiple trends existing within one umbrella organization, the workers will have to have some way to a) voice their disagreements, and b) oversee party activities and watch for corruption and hypocrisy. And to be able to expose hypocrisy, workers need democratic rights.

So, I see the two of us converging on our positions marginally, realizing that our original positions weren't that far off. ;)


The problem Ben and I have with the CVO is that for one thing, they like to use words like "Marxism-Leninism," "conscious social planning," "democratic centralism," with really explaining or even knowing what those words actually mean. Secondly, in all of their years, they have failed to mention democratic rights as a necessity of workers' rule.

What I like about CVO is that they deemed BOTH Trotskyism and the bureaucratic regime started by Stalin as revisionist. Which brings me to the PMs that I sent you... ;)


Ben has part of the "economics" section of his reply to Joseph finished. It specifically tackles economics during the transition period, so when it's done, I'll probably post the whole article here and anyone interested can discuss it.

Cool. :cool:

[DrFreeman09]

What I like about CVO is that they deemed BOTH Trotskyism and the bureaucratic regime started by Stalin as revisionist. Which brings me to the PMs that I sent you...

Indeed they are less confused than a lot of organizations. But they have some major problems that need to be fixed or at least exposed so that new organizations won't fall victim to the same things.

I'll check out the PM.


Now, about the "private-capitalist" sector: could that sector be altered to be a "friendlier" environment for cooperative associations to do business in (credit unions, for example)?

Also, can parecon ( http://www.revleft.com/vb/../images/smilies/biggrin.gif ) play a "positive" role within that specific sector (ie, not the centrally planned state-capitalist sector or the emerging direct-democratic sector)?

Probably. Anything to gain the workers experience so that they are better equipped to manage their own economy.

[Die Neue Zeit]

this is an extremely dangerous view point simply because state control in the earliest phases of socialist develop indicates;

-the workers aren't capable of controlling the means of production or don't want to.
-that the revolution is a top down measure, imposed upon society by a bureaucracy.

in doing this, you create the fundemental basis for a stalinesque degeneration of the revolution.

Why do you Trots keep demonizing bureaucracy (was once a Trot before becoming a Stalinist before being where I am now)? Lenin recognized it to be a two-edged sword.

On your first point, modern consumer capitalism encourages as much absence of personal responsibility as possible (focus on the TV and movies, not on town hall meetings, for example).

On your second point, certain aspects ARE top-down "revolutions from above!"


this is happening today- with increasingly flexable working practices, such as 'multi-tasking' and the such. increasing academic achievement (based on the capitalists need for highly skilled labour) is also seriously helping to 'level out' the proletariat. it may take time- but this will ultimately lead to the success of a revolution and the defeat of state monopoly capitalism.

Like I said, where capitalism giveth in one aspect (and DrFreeman09 mentioned this with regards to "kicking decisions downstairs"), it taketh away.


however, making a distinction between 'worker's and 'people' shows you consider that the revolution is occuring in a country where the proletariat is not in the majoirty.

I wasn't referring to the peasantry or to the petit-bourgeoisie, but rather to the masses of "coordinators" (Has capitalism really simplified class relations? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/has-capitalism-really-t65831/index.html)) that form mid-level management in bigger businesses and non-owning management in smaller businesses.

These people will form the economic "bureaucracy" within the state-capitalist "economy," and hopefully displace any future notion of "economists" doing the central planning there (since managers are better than economists in terms of coordinating business activities).

[Die Neue Zeit]

I came across this website this afternoon (http://struggle.net/ben/2008/126-agitation.htm), but since the bulk of my comments can be found in DrFreeman09's thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/ben-seattle-reply-t69068/index.html?), I will only quote and respond here to those portions relating specifically to "stamocap."




The state-appointed bureaucrats will not be able to "do pretty much as they please, independent of the working class". The state-capitalist sector will be a battleground of sorts. One tendency would be for state appointed bureaucrats to dominate everything. But this will be countered by the opposite tendency: for the workers (both within an enterprise and in society at large) to assert their control over the various enterprises. In some situations one tendency might come out on top, and in other circumstances the other tendency will win. Often what might emerge are partial victories for each side. But the main thing to keep in mind is that as long as the enterprise is based on commodity production -- it will tend to be a field of struggle in which the playing field is tilted against the workers and a lot of energy will be necessary to keep things from getting out of hand. This is why the gift economy (where there are no commodities and the laws of commodity production have lost their power) is the only fundamental way out.

Now I'm sorta confused. DrFreeman09, you said this:


Ben's idea was that what you are calling "representative" planning would be left for the state-capitalist sector. Your conception of "democratic" planning would be used in the moneyless sector.

On the other hand, Ben Seattle in the quote above said that the "directly democratic planning" was still thoroughly in the state-capitalist economy. His interpretation of "state capitalism" is problematic for me, though, mainly because that would actually imply that socialism is indeed "merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly."

My take on that Lenin quote was that he was merely polemical, given the content of "Left-Wing Childishness" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm):


But what does the word “transition” mean? Does it not mean, as applied to an economy, that the present system contains elements, particles, fragments of both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all who admit this take the trouble to consider what elements actually constitute the various socio-economic structures that exist in Russia at the present time. And this is the crux of the question.

Let us enumerate these elements:

1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;
2) small commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);
3) private capitalism;
4) state capitalism;
5) socialism.

Russia is so vast and so varied that all these different types of socio-economic structures are intermingled. This is what constitutes the specific features of the situation.

The question arises: what elements predominate? Clearly in a small-peasant country, the petty-bourgeois element predominates and it must predominate, for the great majority of those working the land are small commodity producers. The shell of our state capitalism (grain monopoly, state controlled entrepreneurs and traders, bourgeois co-operators) is pierced now in one place, now in another by profiteers, the chief object of profiteering being grain.

It is in this field that the main struggle is being waged. Between what elements is this struggle being waged if we are to speak in terms of economic categories such as “state capitalism"? Between the fourth and the fifth in the order in which I have just enumerated them. Of course not. It is not state capitalism that is at war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus private capitalism fighting together against both state capitalism and socialism. The petty bourgeoisie oppose every kind of state interference, accounting and control, whether it be state capitalist or state socialist.



Clearly, the socialist mode of production implied here is a combination of "directly democratic planning" and the still-evolving "moneyless economy" (with the private capitalists, cooperatives, "parecon economy," and Gosplan all gone by then).

[ComradeRed]

In capitalist economics. Partially right, in economics.

Feel free to continue to use sophistry, it makes your argument more convincing :laugh:


Yes, the market structure is the generator for the capitalist mode of production. What Ben Seattle and I have suggested is not a market. Goods are not bought and sold. It is the action of exchange, of commodity production, that leads to the ills of capitalism. Anyone who has read Das Kapital should know that. An economy that has eliminated exchange would not have this problem.

You are still basically saying that competition in all forms will be eliminated because you say so. Apparently, you don't need to give any more explanation because the act of saying "competition would cease to exist" is, apparently, good enough. Anyone who has understood Das Kapital would realize that you cannot seperate the means of production from the means of distribution.

You're suggesting to essentially change one and not the other...right, that would work.

When the mode of production changes, both the means of production and means of distribution change.

That is kind of critical in a revolutionary change.

It's not enough to simply change the means of distribution and say "All else will change because it's a deus ex machina".


Second of all, you have completely ignored the bulk of what I said. You refused to comment on my assertion that central planning should not be our goal for the reason that it tends to bottleneck and isn't the most efficient system that one could use. You also refused to respond to my assertion that competing trends provide parallel options that a) speed things up by dealing with problems in chunks, and b) can be used to "re-route" things if something goes wrong, as opposed to all problems being filtered through a central unit. The bulk of what you said mischaracterized my position so I disregarded it.

You are creating a false dichotomy that one must choose between a centralized "planned economy" or a market system. Otherwise your "points" are moot.

There is nothing really to reply to until that false dichotomy has been justified in some way.

Since you refuse to read what I have actually written, I see little reason to reiterate it as there is little reason to believe you would read it the second time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Ah, but correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that your "Karaite," Marx-and-Engels-only position ( ;) ) is one of "I don't know what will happen afterwards."

[DrFreeman09, please take note.]

As I said either here or in the "How should we be led?" thread, part of the problem with Marx's lack of attention (or ignorance, IMO, hence my historical and class ranking of Lenin way above Marx in my Political Profile) to the post-revolutionary social structure is that said proletocratic structure is still a capitalist one (although one without "Wall Street" decorations) - ie, within the capitalist mode of production!



As for choosing between said dichotomy, like in my "class relations" thread, things are more complex in the "multi-economic" era of proletocracy: the reduced private economy (with an expansion of cooperative businesses and the parecon economy within), the state-capitalist economy (centralized planning by a state BUREAUCRACY), the socialist/directly democratic economy, and the communist/moneyless economic.

Although this was hinted at decades ago in a mere era of "revolutionary democracy" (Lenin's Left-Wing Childishness), the key parts are applicable for the post-revolutionary social structure.

[DrFreeman09]

The bulk of what you said mischaracterized my position so I disregarded it.What I said about central planning falling victim to the same problem as CPUs in computers "mischaracterized" your position? I have no idea what you're talking about and methinks this is just an excuse not to think about what I actually said.

Just to clarify, here is what I actually said:


1. A central planning body may believe that something sounds like a good idea from atop its high pedastal. Indeed, the decision may have been reached democratically, and on the surface, everything seemed fine. But on the ground, where the workers are actually working, such a decision may actually be a completely shit idea. At this point, there's not a whole lot the workers can do about it, because there are no competing trends that they can turn to. They could take their concerns back to the planning body, but this, as will be shown next, is not very efficient.

2. With one central planning body and no competition, if a product or a decision sucked shit, without competing alternatives, the workers would have to send their complaints to the Central Committee and wait for the bureaucracy to sort it out. This problem is very similar to the "von Neumann bottleneck" in computers. Most computers are run in a centralized way, and all information has to be transfered through the CPU, where it uses an algorithm to determine what to do with it. This means that the effectiveness of the computer depends on how fast information can all be filtered through this one central unit. In practicality, this leads to what is called the "von Neumann bottleneck," because the rate of information metabolism slows down when it is forced to filter through the CPU.

On the other hand, there is research being done in "massively parallel processing" (MPP), which solves the problem of the bottleneck by having multiple processors that deal with problems parallel to each other (simoultaneously). So this allows things to be done much faster. Further, the system is extremely adaptive, because if something goes wrong, there is a parallel route which the information can take. In other words, there is another option.

So let's make an analogy:

When all information has to be filtered through the CPU (Central Committee), and dealt with based on an algorithm (central plan), the computations (economic processes) often get bottlenecked. Further, if something goes wrong, there's nothing much you can do, unless you want to wait for your complaint to be filtered through the CPU/Central Committee again, further slowing down processes. On the other hand MPP (communist competition) deals with all of the problems in a parallel fashion, so work gets done more efficiently. Moreover, if something goes wrong, the information is "re-routed" to a parallel process. In a communist economy, if something goes wrong with option A, option B is there to correct. If production unit A creates crappy products, workers can get their stuff from production unit B.
You (ComradeRed) have still refused to respond to that.

I will rephrase my argument here. Central planning has problems. In an advanced moneyless economy, it will probably be necessary for parallel trends to exist in order to make the economy adaptive and efficient, because more often than not, you cannot know how well something will work until you try it. A central unit making all decisions is slow compared to an economy with parallel trends, because if they make a bad decision, workers must go back to the Central Committee and complain, further slowing down processes. On the other hand, if several parallel production units existed, the workers would be able to decide which one is best based on the information they had. In other words, the decision would be "kicked downstairs."

Would we call this competition? I'm not sure. They would compete in the sense that they would compete for support of the workers. But it wouldn't be the same competition that exists in capitalism because workers would not be trying to snuff each other out or make the most money. There would be no money. The workers would have differing ideas as to what the best way to do something is, and the only way to find out is to try it. The working class should not have to take their idea to a Central Committee and wait for them to sort it out, especially since the planning body could easily make the wrong decision. Then, the workers would have to complain back to the Committee until they made the right decision. However, if these different workers all tested their ideas simultaneously and parallel to each other, the best option would soon become clear and workers would go to the best production unit to get their stuff.

And how would this stuff be distributed? For free based on what the workers need. How is it to be determined how much the workers need? The workers themselves would decide based on local conditions. It is very possible that the workers would form independent groups that would measure what the workers need and make decisions. These groups may have quite a lot of authority, but it would not be formal authority given to them by some central unit. It would be informal authoritygiven to them by the working class itself on the basis of reputation.

In short, workers should not have to get permission from a formal authority to make economic decisions. They should make economic decisions based on local conditions.

There is NOTHING magic about central planning. Central planning doesn't solve the problem without an active effort to create an economy without exchange.

You claim that I have not considered that the means of production are inseparable from the means of distribution, etc.

In capitalism, the means of distribution are obviously controlled by the price system. In gift economy, goods will be given away for free. This distribution is entirely different from the one we see in capitalism today.

And of course, this kind of economy will not emerge overnight. A period of state-capitalism, socialism, etc. will have to exist in order to give time for workers to experiment and figure out how to run an economy without exchange or money. During the state-capitalist period, central planning will direct the flow of capital to benefit the working class because the workers will control the state.

So I am not creating a false dichotomy here. I realize that central planning will be a necessary tool, and gift economy is not governed by prices and therefore is not a market.

Rather, you are making this into a choice between planning and the market. What I am offering is a general sketch for how a moneyless economy would replace a state-capitalist and/or socialist economy. I am saying that central planning is not our goal, because it does not solve the problem of commodity production and it comes with its own problems (i.e. bottleneck).

Now, to Jacob Richter:

I think it would be good for you to explain in more detail your idea of a "four-sector" economy. Ben and I agree that it's interesting, but that you need to explain it better without using words like "gosplan," "parecon," or even "socialism." These words (even socialism) can be very confusing for people who are new to this scene, so it's best not to use them when trying to explain your ideas in a K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid!) format.

[Led Zeppelin]

Anyone who has understood Das Kapital would realize that you cannot seperate the means of production from the means of distribution.

You're suggesting to essentially change one and not the other...right, that would work.

When the mode of production changes, both the means of production and means of distribution change.

That is kind of critical in a revolutionary change.

It's not enough to simply change the means of distribution and say "All else will change because it's a deus ex machina".

I'm sorry but it seems as though you didn't understand Marx:


In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!


In its first phase, or first stage, communism cannot as yet be fully mature economically and entirely free from traditions or vestiges of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that communism in its first phase retains "the narrow horizon of bourgeois law". Of course, bourgeois law in regard to the distribution of consumer goods inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the rules of law.

It follows that under communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!

This may sound like a paradox or simply a dialectical conundrum of which Marxism is often accused by people who have not taken the slightest trouble to study its extraordinarily profound content.

But in fact, remnants of the old, surviving in the new, confront us in life at every step, both in nature and in society. And Marx did not arbitrarily insert a scrap of “bourgeois” law into communism, but indicated what is economically and politically inevitable in a society emerging out of the womb of capitalism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Now, to Jacob Richter:

I think it would be good for you to explain in more detail your idea of a "four-sector" economy. Ben and I agree that it's interesting, but that you need to explain it better without using words like "gosplan," "parecon," or even "socialism." These words (even socialism) can be very confusing for people who are new to this scene, so it's best not to use them when trying to explain your ideas in a K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid!) format.

How about "global direct-democratic"? :confused:

Decisions taken together by the whole society affect it (in turn) as a whole.

[DrFreeman09]

How about "global direct-democratic"?

You could call it a "directly democratic sector." Either way, it has to be clear. While the word "socialism" may be clear to you, it is very unclear for a lot of people, because it has been used in so many different contexts. Marx used it interchangeably with "communism," Lenin distinguished socialism as the lower stage of communism, and "democratic socialists" and capitalist use it frequently to describe nations like Sweden and France (i.e. a "nicer" form of capitalism).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Fair enough, but Ben Seattle hasn't commented on my stuff besides saying "Is it realistic to postulate that an economic sector based on commodity production can be free of 'bureaucracy'? I don't see how this would be possible." (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-300/message/1851)

[Comrade Nadezhda]

I have to say that I take the same position as Jacob Richter.

I have many volumes of Lenin's work sitting right in front of me [making it easy for me to quickly page through and make quotations]. I know many comrades do not prefer long posts and quotations over that of short ones required[/B] reading].

It is important to understand that there must be a transitional phase. Lenin made great mention of this in Left-Wing Childishness. [quoted below]

It is important to understand that DotP [dictatorship of the proletariat] is the reverse of DotB [dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]. In order to replace the bourgeois ruling class with a proletarian ruling class, one cannot, in the first place, forget the transitional phases required for this transformation to occur. With the existence of the proletarian state- "capitalism" is not completely done away with. It cannot be without, first, the formation of the proletarian state. Lenin, however, refers to many features which are requirements for the progression towards socialism [furthermore, communism] and which cannot be. That aside, open your eyes and allow yourself to see the light which Lenin sheds on this subject.

Lenin [Collected Works, Vol. 27 - Left-Wing Childishness, III.] :

No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Socialist Soviet Republic implies the determination of Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the new economic system is recognised as a socialist order. But what does the word “transition” mean? Does it not mean, as applied to an economy, that the present system contains elements, particles, fragments of [I]both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all who admit this take the trouble to consider what elements actually constitute the various socio-economic structures that exist in Russia at the present time. And this is the crux of the question.Lenin, cont. :

Let us enumerate these elements:
1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;
2) small commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);
3) private capitalism;
4) state capitalism;
5) socialism.
Lenin, cont. IV.:

To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany. Here we have “the last word” in modern large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organisation, subordinated to Junker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics, and in place of the militarist, Junker, bourgeois, imperialist state put also a state, but of a different social type, of a different class content—a Soviet state, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism.Lenin, cont.:

Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. It is inconceivable without planned state organisation, which keeps tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production and distribution. We Marxists have always spoken of this, and it is not worth while wasting two seconds talking to people who do not understand even this (anarchists and a good half of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries).Lenin, cont.:

At the same time socialism is inconceivable unless the proletariat is the ruler of the state. This also is ABC. And history (which nobody, except Menshevik blockheads of the first order, ever expected to bring about “complete” socialism smoothly, gently, easily and simply) has taken such a peculiar course that it has given birth in 1918 to two unconnected halves of socialism existing side by side like two future chickens in the single shell of international imperialism. In 1918 Germany and Russia have become the most striking embodiment of the material realisation of the economic, the productive and the socio-economic conditions for socialism, on the one hand, and the political conditions, on the other.Lenin cont.:

At present, petty-bourgeois capitalism prevails in Russia, and it is one and the same road that leads from it to both large-scale state capitalism and to socialism, through one and the same intermediary station called “national accounting and control of production and distribution”. Those who fail to understand this are committing an unpardonable mistake in economics. Either they do not know the facts of life, do not see what actually exists and are unable to look the truth in the face, or they confine themselves to abstractly comparing “capitalism” with “socialism” and fail to study the concrete forms and stages of the transition that is taking place in our country. Let it be said in parenthesis that this is the very theoretical mistake which misled the best people in the Novaya Zhizn and Vperyod camp. The worst and the mediocre of these, owing to their stupidity and spinelessness, tag along behind the bourgeoisie, of whom they stand in awe. The best of them have failed to understand that it was not without reason that the teachers of socialism spoke of a whole period of transition from capitalism to socialism and emphasised the “prolonged birth pangs” of the new society. And this new society is again an abstraction which can come into being only by passing through a series of varied, imperfect concrete attempts to create this or that socialist state.Lenin, cont.:

In order to convince the reader that this is not the first time I have given this “high” appreciation of state capitalism and that I gave it before the Bolsheviks seized power I take the liberty of quoting the following passage from my pamphlet The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It , written in September 1917.
“. . . Try to substitute for the Junker-capitalist state, for the landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state-monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!
“. . . For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly.
“. . . State-monopoly capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no intermediate rungs” (pages 27 and 28)
Please note that this was written when Kerensky was in power, that we are discussing not the dictatorship of the proletariat, not the socialist state, but the “revolutionary-democratic” state. Is it not clear that the higher we stand on this political ladder, the more completely we incorporate the socialist state and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviets, the less ought we to fear “state capitalism"? Is it not clear that from the material, economic and productive point of view, we are not yet on “the threshold” of socialism? Is it not clear that we cannot pass through the door of socialism without crossing “the threshold” we have not yet reached?
From whatever side we approach the question, only one conclusion can be drawn: the argument of the “Left Communists” about the “state capitalism” which is alleged to be threatening us is an utter mistake in economics and is evident proof that they are complete slaves of petty-bourgeois ideology.

[ComradeRed]

In capitalist economics. Ah I see you are redefining the term competition based on your wishful guesses at what things are going to be like "after the revolution".

The compelling argument for your predictions being right is nonexistent at best!

Perhaps you and Ben Seattle should consult the Crystal Ball or the Ouiji board about how to justify your utopian speculations.

Not even the "Almighty" Ben Seattle can do this alone :lol:


Yes, the market structure is the generator for the capitalist mode of production. What Ben Seattle and I have suggested is not a market. Goods are not bought and sold. It is the action of exchange, of commodity production, that leads to the ills of capitalism. Anyone who has read Das Kapital should know that. An economy that has eliminated exchange would not have this problem. In other words, the method of distributing commodities changes and magically the mode of production changes.

If you've bothered to read volume 1, part I, chapter 3 of Das Kapital you'd see that removing the money commodity surgically doesn't necessitate a change in the mode of production.

That was kind of the entire point of the part II of volume I of Das Kapital. Or did you skip those chapters?

I am particularly impressed by your appeal to authority, but immediately unimpressed by your encyclopedic ignorance of Das Kapital.


You are still basically saying that competition in all forms will be eliminated because you say so. Apparently, you don't need to give any more explanation because the act of saying "competition would cease to exist" is, apparently, good enough. I thought the explanation was self-explanatory, especially to someone who has read Das Kapital :lol:

Since the notion of a "firm" is undefined in a mode of production where the workers have secured power, the notion of "competing firms" is meaningless.

So if the workers run the show after the revolution, there wouldn't be competing firms...there wouldn't even be firms.

But you of course are attempting to use sophistry to change the meaning of competition, so this argument is uncompelling to you.

Well, so much for having understood parts VII and VIII of volume I of Das Kapital!


But it is not. First of all, you have not explained why you think any competition would lead to a return to capitalism, so we're just supposed to take your word for it. Follow this through to its logical conclusion.

If competing firms exist, then firms have to exist. For a firm to exist, it implies the existence of private property...


You refused to comment on my assertion that central planning should not be our goal for the reason that it tends to bottleneck and isn't the most efficient system that one could use. Perhaps it's because you are assuming that I am supporting central planning whereas in reality I'm not?


You also refused to respond to my assertion that competing trends provide parallel options that a) speed things up by dealing with problems in chunks, and b) can be used to "re-route" things if something goes wrong, as opposed to all problems being filtered through a central unit. Well let's think about this logically.

First one should probably note that this entire argument is misleading.

All decentralized schemes provide the same "parallel options".

Why should I believe that competition is the best scheme?

It's more or less a fallacy of the excluded middle...either there is "competition" or there's a "central planning committee".

Since you claim that "...so many of us are stuck mentally in the 'transition period'..." I don't think either you or the "Almighty" Ben Seattle could assert that "competition" is the best scheme that should be followed after the revolution.

There are so many other possibilities that we cannot consider due to the material conditions of our time compared to those of post-revolutionary society...which would more than likely be completely different than ours!

For your first "point", this is actually a classic fallacy of parallel programming.

If you have one pregnant woman, it takes 9 months to have the child. If you have nine pregnant women, it won't take 1 month to have 1 child!

And if you actually look, that's the problem with multiprocessor computers nowadays.

People think they're getting faster computers because there are a million cores in it...then they wonder why it's no faster than a single core computer.

As for your second "point", that has nothing to do with "competing trends".

It has to do with competition, as previously noted.


I should also point out that parallelism presents itself in nature as well. As does incest, rape, and disease. Should we be promoting these based on the same reasoning?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Perhaps you and Ben Seattle should consult the Crystal Ball or the Ouiji board about how to justify your utopian speculations.

Not even the "Almighty" Ben Seattle can do this alone :lol:

So that makes at least four "utopians" around here speculating about the structure of the last years of the CAPITALIST mode of production, eh? :glare:

Unfortunately, the lack of such "utopianism" is a genuine crisis in Marxist theory (its Karaite form being "economist")! :(




So if the workers run the show after the revolution, there wouldn't be competing firms...there wouldn't even be firms.

Your argument here has very little difference from the political argument of anarchists regarding the STATE.


If competing firms exist, then firms have to exist. For a firm to exist, it implies the existence of private property...

State monopoly firms, anybody? :glare:


Perhaps it's because you are assuming that I am supporting central planning whereas in reality I'm not?

While the "utopians" in this thread have agreed that central planning isn't the be-all-and-end-all, without it you CANNOT have an emerging socialist economy!


First one should probably note that this entire argument is misleading.

All decentralized schemes provide the same "parallel options".

Who said that what we're talking about with regards to the state-capitalist economy and the directly-democratic economy (the socialist sector) is decentralized? Their decisions affect society as a whole!

[Unless you consider General Electric to be "decentralized" :lol:]




I don't think either you or the "Almighty" Ben Seattle

Who said that Ben Seattle is "almighty"? :thumbdown:

Even he's having issues with my logical proposition of a FOUR-sector post-revolutionary multi-economy. If there is one "almighty" figure mentioned in this thread, it's the "revisionist" Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. :p




For your first "point", this is actually a classic fallacy of parallel programming.

If you have one pregnant woman, it takes 9 months to have the child. If you have nine pregnant women, it won't take 1 month to have 1 child!

And if you actually look, that's the problem with multiprocessor computers nowadays.

People think they're getting faster computers because there are a million cores in it...then they wonder why it's no faster than a single core computer.

Care to shed some more light on this subject? You've completely lost me. :confused:

[ComradeRed]

So that makes at least four "utopians" around here speculating about the structure of the last years of the CAPITALIST mode of production, eh? :glare:

Unfortunately, the lack of such "utopianism" is a genuine crisis in Marxist theory (its Karaite form being "economist")! :( It's disadvantageous to not make wild guesses about how things will be after the revolution?

As per the "structure of the last years of capitalism", you can make predictions of course.

Whether your predictions are based off of empirical reasoning and implications of mathematical equations, or off of epiphanies from a nicotine-induced samadhi...well, that just may very well affect the accuracy of such predictions!

Marx used empiricism and reason as a basis for his paradigm, and from it he predicted certain characteristics about late capitalism.

It may very well turn out he was wrong, since it was after-all a number hypotheses.

A number of his predictions turned out to be right, he has a fairly good track record.

But as for what happens after capitalism collapses (assuming it does)...how do you know you're right?

We don't even know the material conditions that a post-revolution society will have...much less, when it would happen.

A lot of the arguments that Ben Seattle gives on his website are hand-wavy at best. Not the sort of rigor I would expect from someone dealing with such a critical topic.

I'm sorry if it comes to a shock to you that discussing "What the economy of a post-revolutionary society will be" is a utopian topic.


Your argument here has very little difference from the political argument of anarchists regarding the STATE. Anarchists argue from a position of the existence of authority, I argue from a position of the existence of private property. There is a difference...


State monopoly firms, anybody? :glare: In state monopoly capitalism no less :ohmy:


While the "utopians" in this thread have agreed that central planning isn't the be-all-and-end-all, without it you CANNOT have an emerging socialist sector! I'm not sure I follow your jargon here.

An "emerging socialist sector" in the capitalist mode of production?

Why should one believe that socialism "emerges" within capitalism then somehow gets to communism (which doesn't really make sense since the workers cannot simply obtain the organs of rule from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, they have to destroy these organs and create their own)?

Why can't socialism be emergent in the chaos-theoretic sense of the word?

I don't really see a legitimate reason to assume that socialism must first grow in the womb of capitalism before it can break away...perhaps you could give a few.


Who said that what we're talking about with regards to the state-capitalist sector and the directly-democratic sector (the socialist sector) is decentralized? Their decisions affect society as a whole!

[Unless you consider General Electric to be "decentralized" :lol:] Ah yes, more jargon. You have previously stated (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1057120&postcount=37):

"IMO, there are three sectors in the 'proletocratic' economy: private (including cooperative at this time), state-monopoly-capitalist, and socialist."

I honestly don't know what the hell you're referring to. Apparently socialism and capitalism will coexist for some time?

I don't know what you're thinking.

But I cannot agree with this assessment of this three sector description of a post-capitalist society...since it essentially still is capitalism.

When I'm referring to "decentralized alternatives", I'm referring to the structure of the whole economy not one of your damned "sectors".

I don't really understand what time period you are even referring to: before, after, or during capitalism collapsing?

I have seen no reason, nor do I see one now, that capitalism will coexist with socialism.

To believe so would kind of neglect the lessons of history...


Who said that Ben Seattle is "almighty"? :thumbdown: I thought it was obvious by those that cite his work.


Even he's having issues with my logical proposition of a FOUR-sector post-revolutionary economy. ComradeRed's Conjecture: Let n be a natural number. For each n>0, there is a logical proposition of an n-sector post-revolutionary economy. Furthermore they are all related by means of a bimorphism of their graph representation.

In all seriousness, there is equally as little grounds for both theories (i.e. none).

We can conjecture how post-revolutionary economics would work until the cows come home...but whether or not we're correct is another matter.

Since it's impossible to tell the accuracy of one theory to another, as we don't know the material conditions of a post-revolution society, it'd be more useful to simply wait for the cows to come home.


Care to shed some more light on this subject? You've completely lost me. :confused: With a computer, there are processors you know. Historically a computer has had only one processor.

Recently they have been adding more and more processors to a computer.

But inter-processor communication is kind of fudgy at best.

There are no algorithms that realistically deal with multiple processors well.

So when running a program (in the analogy, having a child), it takes a certain number of instructions for the processor to do.

Throwing more processors at the program won't speed up the program.

Some instructions cannot be done simultaneously, they need to be done sequentially.

So having nine pregnant women won't result in speeding up the birth of one child.

[ComradeRed]

I missed this one...

I'm sorry but it seems as though you didn't understand Marx:


In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!


In its first phase, or first stage, communism cannot as yet be fully mature economically and entirely free from traditions or vestiges of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that communism in its first phase retains "the narrow horizon of bourgeois law". Of course, bourgeois law in regard to the distribution of consumer goods inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the rules of law.

It follows that under communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!

This may sound like a paradox or simply a dialectical conundrum of which Marxism is often accused by people who have not taken the slightest trouble to study its extraordinarily profound content.

But in fact, remnants of the old, surviving in the new, confront us in life at every step, both in nature and in society. And Marx did not arbitrarily insert a scrap of “bourgeois” law into communism, but indicated what is economically and politically inevitable in a society emerging out of the womb of capitalism.

No, it's not that I don't understand Marx, it's that I disagree with Lenin (as usual).

Looking at feudalism, for example, they more or less completely destroyed the asiatic mode of production and started relatively "freshly".

That's how it was in Europe at any rate, circa 450 AD.

There were "nostalgic" references to the antiquities of the asiatic mode of production, e.g. the "Holy Roman Empire", etc.

The mode of production and distribution, however, changed.

Further, it's stated by Marx that:

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or - what is but a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution....No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.

Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm) by Karl Marx (1859).

SO I would assert in retrospect that abolishing money will change nothing, and the method of distributing commodities is more or less dependent predominantly on the productive forces of society.

Just food for thought...

[ComradeRed]

I'm going to split this but I first want to respond to the parts relevant to this thread, then I'm off to bed...I've got exams tomorrow :(


Anarchists want to abolish the state presto. You want to abolish even "collective"/"cooperative" property (also private, mind you) presto. :p By such reasoning, I must be a Newtonian too since Newtonian mechanics use instaneous change via their use of infinitesmals in "fluxion" equations! :lol:


I'm referring to the post-revolutionary period. Obviously, you and I have sharp disagreements over the proximity of the socialist revolution to the beginning of the socialist mode of production. EVERY political revolution thus far occurred many years before the firm establishment of the corresponding mode of production (Cromwell and the English civil war come into mind). The fall of the Roman Empire (and thus the asiatic mode of production in Europe) took far less than a century.

Certain bourgeois revolutions took longer than others.

Can we extrapolate this out to workers revolutions?

If you've taken a statistics course, you'd know the answer is a resounding "NO!" (If not, then you should learn that extrapolation of data to beyond its scope according to statistics should be treated as a guess.)

I'll continue in the morning...no, afternoon after I'm done with my exams...

[DrFreeman09]

Even he's having issues with my logical proposition of a FOUR-sector post-revolutionary economy. If there is one "almighty" figure mentioned in this thread, it's the "revisionist" Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.The reason why Ben's having trouble with your argument is because you haven't explained it. Basically, I believe he wants you to elaborate A LOT more than you have. I believe this is fair.

But yes, no one is saying he's "Almighty."

To ComradeRed: If we cite his work, does that mean we think he's "Almighty?" No. No one (not even Lenin; sorry guys) is or was "Almighty" or immune to mistakes. However, Ben does often know what he's talking about and I find that many of his works are pretty safe to cite every once in a while.


For your first "point", this is actually a classic fallacy of parallel programming.

If you have one pregnant woman, it takes 9 months to have the child. If you have nine pregnant women, it won't take 1 month to have 1 child!

And if you actually look, that's the problem with multiprocessor computers nowadays.

People think they're getting faster computers because there are a million cores in it...then they wonder why it's no faster than a single core computer.Actually, ComradeRed, you are completely wrong. When tons and tons of information is sent through one unit, it bottlenecks because of a) those outside the central unit can be slow in delivering the info when thousands of other people are trying to do the same thing, and b) there is a limit to the ability of the central unit to process information. The CPU (central committee) cannot take on billions and billions of calculations at once without slowing down. MPP limits the workload of each processor, which does, in fact, speed things up. Processors can deal with the info much more efficiently when they have less of it being sent to them at one time. Further, a CPU has to deal with a large problem one step at a time. In MPP, each processing unit deals with some of the steps simultaneously. Believe it or not, I know a little something about computers and would not have brought up the argument if it was shot down as easily as that.

Secondly, the CPU system is not adaptive. If something goes wrong (which happens a lot) you are screwed. There are no "backup" options. In MPP, there are multiple backup options.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_parallel_processing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_computing

And really, have you got any better ideas? If you do, I'm all ears. But no, you won't say anything because it's supposedly pointless to have an idea of what future society might look like.

What I advocate here is not a market. A market is a system where goods are bought and sold and goods are distributed on the basis of the price system. Gift economy doesn't look like that. Moreover, I'm also not saying that the various parallel units cannot also be coordinated in a way that might look a lot like planning. However, any planning that occurred in a moneyless gift economy would be done on the basis of self-organization and not on the basis of formal authority.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I honestly don't know what the hell you're referring to. Apparently socialism and capitalism will coexist for some time?

I don't know what you're thinking.

But I cannot agree with this assessment of this three sector description of a post-capitalist society...since it essentially still is capitalism.

When I'm referring to "decentralized alternatives", I'm referring to the structure of the whole economy not one of your damned "sectors".

I don't really understand what time period you are even referring to: before, after, or during capitalism collapsing?

I have seen no reason, nor do I see one now, that capitalism will coexist with socialism.

To believe so would kind of neglect the lessons of history...

I don't know what to say, other than ask whether or not you considered the "law of uneven development" in your answer. :(

Assuming the European revolutions succeeded for a moment (and then spread to America): Russia would still be a capitalist state, and the European colonies would all have to shift from colonial capitalism to proper national capitalism (albeit under the aid of the European working class masses and the leadership of the emerging working classes and poor peasants in the colonies).

Methinks you're too broad in your definition of "revisionism." Rosa Luxemburg NEVER attacked Lenin's position as "revisionist" in her criticism of the Russian revolution. :glare:




The reason why Ben's having trouble with your argument is because you haven't explained it. Basically, I believe he wants you to elaborate A LOT more than you have. I believe this is fair.

It's a definite personal weakness of mine: certain things I'm too brief on. :(

I'll have to think really hard on this (either that or see if Lenin wrote more on the "socialist" sector besides what he wrote in Left-Wing Childishness).


No one (not even Lenin; sorry guys) is or was "Almighty" or immune to mistakes.

I was being merely polemical. Otherwise, I wouldn't have said that Lenin SOLD OUT the Finnish workers (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1070363&postcount=14). ;)

[ComradeRed]

Actually, ComradeRed, you are completely wrong. I see you haven't tried numerically solving a system of second order, constrained hyperbolic differential equations lately.

You can't do it by programming one big program that does it in sequential order. You need to make it multithreaded to take advantage of multiple cores (or processors).

Multithreaded programming is a real ***** to actually do in practice in C (much less Fortran!). Java programmer boast of an advantage, but their advantage does not make up for how slow and bloated Java is (in addition to the serious problems of Java "multithreaded" programming).

Immediately one would say "Let the compiler do this at compile time!"

But the compiler can't have a back-end that automatically multithreads the code at compile time due to how today's instruction sets are (this has been proven mathematically).

So throwing more cores at the program won't do any good.

What you have to do is change the program itself. And even then it won't necessarily do any good.

It will still take x instructions to solve one differential equation in my system of equations. So working in 1+1 dimensional ADM general relativity, it would take just as long solving one equation as working in 3+1 dimensional general relativity.

And that's the reality of the situation, whether you acknowledge it or not. I've got the experience to testify this.

Some programs are atomic and cannot be broken into parts that can be done by multiple processors.

Too bad you missed that one too, it was a $500 question.


And really, have you got any better ideas? If you do, I'm all ears. But no, you won't say anything because it's supposedly pointless to have an idea of what future society might look like. That's no argument for a system or approach.

"Yeah, it's crap, but I can't think of anything else so this must be the best option" :lol:

Lemme ask you this what if there are von Neumann nanomechanical capital?

Would we still need your system?

The answer is "No" because we'd have self-reproducing machines that end scarcity.

Does this sound like science fiction? Of course, but this is something that is actively being researched by India, China, and Mexico (independent of each other).

Perhaps it will work, perhaps not. But neither of us will know!

Consequently, it will affect the material conditions of the post-revolution society so speculating now about how things should work in a post-revolution society is a utopian waste of time.

[ComradeRed]

I don't know what to say, other than ask whether or not you considered the "law of uneven development" in your answer. :(

Assuming the European revolutions succeeded for a moment (and then spread to America): Russia would still be a capitalist state, and the European colonies would all have to shift from colonial capitalism to proper national capitalism (albeit under the aid of the European working class masses and the leadership of the emerging working classes and poor peasants in the colonies). So for this reason there would be a capitalist sector in a revolutionary nation's economy?

Methinks thou shouldst elucidate your thoughts more, it appears as if you were thinking more than you're typing up said thoughts.


Methinks you're too broad in your definition of "revisionism." Rosa Luxemburg NEVER attacked Lenin's position as "revisionist" in her criticism of the Russian revolution. :glare: From my understanding of your proposal, within a single economy there would be a capitalist sector and a non-capitalist sector (that could be represented various "different" non-capitalist sectors...).

So the socialist republic of X would have, instead of thinking of an iron sector, etc., we'd have a capitalist sector, etc.

That's my understanding of your proposal.

As I stated, I think you are thinking more than you're typing up your thoughts :(

[Die Neue Zeit]

So for this reason there would be a capitalist sector in a revolutionary nation's economy?

Methinks thou shouldst elucidate your thoughts more, it appears as if you were thinking more than you're typing up said thoughts.

Actually, I was thinking from an "ultimatist" perspective regarding the immediate post-revolutionary "multi-economy." The global proletocracy that will have just emerged will have to contend with backward-yet-capitalist areas as well as advanced capitalist areas.

This is undoubtedly different from the era of Lenin's time (wherein capitalism wasn't really global yet, contrary to his euphoria), but there are similarities.

To put a modern parallel (and hopefully Luis Henrique won't deem my approach to be "mechanistic" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1059585&postcount=20)):

The world is ready for revolution, but it isn't ready for the socialist mode of production. America, Japan, and Western Europe would presumably be closest to being ready for socialism, but poverty-stricken regions in Africa wouldn't. Those regions would need accelerated "primitive stamocap" (hence the whole reason behind Lenin's "revolutionary democracy"). Of course, the acceleration would be made possible by aid in economic development by the more advanced capitalist countries.

[This is basically a "revolutionary extension" of subsidized trade in favour of developing countries... except that I'm not talking just about trade.]


Certain bourgeois revolutions took longer than others.

Can we extrapolate this out to workers revolutions?

If you've taken a statistics course, you'd know the answer is a resounding "NO!" (If not, then you should learn that extrapolation of data to beyond its scope according to statistics should be treated as a guess.)

I did take a stats course. I believe you are referring to t-values, no? :confused:

In any event, there is at least a decade between revolutions and proper entries into new modes of production. In the peculiar Russian case (and Marx wrote of the Russian exception in his letter to Vera Zasulich), the political revolution was too far delayed because of the historical ineptitude of developing-countries' bourgeoisie from that point onwards, hence Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia, so there is only a four-year gap (1917-1921).



Thus is one aspect of uneven development... but here's another:




From my understanding of your proposal, within a single economy there would be a capitalist sector and a non-capitalist sector (that could be represented various "different" non-capitalist sectors...).

So the socialist republic of X would have, instead of thinking of an iron sector, etc., we'd have a capitalist sector, etc.

That's my understanding of your proposal.

Not quite. My semantics are wrong here. I should have used the word "economy" instead of sector (Ben uses the two words interchangeably in his "post-revolution" articles). The whole global economy should be referred to as a "multi-economy" (for the purpose of this discussion).

Take the financial sector, for example (I'll give two or three here). The global proletocracy would absorb most of this sector into the state-capitalist economy, but there would still be the niche "credit unions" to serve as local competition (the private-capitalist economy, yet in this example "cooperative" in nature). The directly democratic elements ("socialist sector" - ie, no bureaucracy, but with sufficient communications technology to make society-wide decisions) would take quite a bit of time to wrest control of the financial sector from the state-capitalist economy, all the while competing with state enterprises. Then there are "moneyless"/communist considerations to consider (upon communism eliminating this sector completely).

Second example: in the case of the capital-intense "heavy industry" (especially construction and the related heavy urban development projects, which is dear to me (http://www.revleft.com/vb/open-question-heavy-t70433/index.html)), the "niche" would be either much smaller or non-existent (because of improved, yet capital-intensive, information technology in controlling manufacturing processes, for example), but direct democracy would also come after a protracted period of state monopoly capitalism. The moneyless/communist economy would emerge MUCH later.

Third example (and this one's dear to Ben): the media. In this one, I'm not sure if the private-capitalist economy will be existent immediately afterwards. The Big Media will have been wrested by the state-capitalist economy, and even then methinks the directly democratic economy will QUICKLY wrest this away from state capitalism. Furthermore, moneyless relations will be more prevalent here than in the financial services (the Internet). According to this example of uneven development, the full socialization of the media - and partial communization - will occur much faster than those of the financial and heavy-manufacturing sectors.

Good luck on your exam!

[DrFreeman09]

ComradeRed, my intent was not to argue "my idea sucks, but it must be right because you haven't come up with anything better."

This is my point:

We will need to paint a general picture of what future society looks like because currently, most people cannot not even begin to fathom a world without bourgeois rule. Many people either accept eternal bourgeois rule or advocate a police state like the USSR and China. So, to captivate the attention and support of the masses, we will have to demonstrate that a world without bourgeois rule is possible.

And we cannot do this by saying "hey, it's too utopian to talk about our goal, so you're just going to have to trust us and hope that we will magically figure out a solution when we inherit the capitalist economy that the bourgeoisie have left."

Secondly, the problem you seem to have with MPP is that a) communication between cores is shabby at best, and b) some programs are atomic.

To the first problem, this doesn't mean that the system currently used for MPP will not improve. To the second, more often than not things can be broken down. It's like a download manager that starts downloading a file in multiple places: if you have enough RAM, it will get done much faster because instead of doing step 1, then 2, then 3, steps 1, 2, and 3 are all being done at the same time.

If three goups of workers each had conflicting ideas about how best to produce a good and then wanted to test their ideas, naturally, I believe it would be best to set up three parallel factories. In a centralized system, option one would be tried, and if it failed, option two would be tried, and if it failed, option three would be tried (so as to avoid "competition"). Or, in a more likely scenario, the option that seemed the "best" on the surface would be set up. But often, you cannot know which one is best until all options are attempted.

If three parallel factories were set up, the best option would become apparent in a fraction of the time.

Now, how are these parallel units to communicate to create a whole economy? Of course, I agree with the model of economy working as one big factory, so it will, in my opinion, probably be necessary to use some degree of planning (large or small, depending on the situation). But in a moneyless economy, any planning and coordination that existed would not be central. It would be done on the basis of self-organization and not on the basis of some supreme authority that has the final say.

But the whole point here is that we should not be afraid of parallelism. Workers if they have a new idea of how to do something better than it is currently done, should not have to get permission from some supreme authority to set up a factory, because the central authority could easily make the wrong decision, or at best, the process would be very slow.

Where would the worker get the resoruces to set up a factory? From workers sympathetic to the cause.

Groups of workers may make decisions about the economy in a planned way, but the nature of this planning would not be central, and it would be on the basis of self-organization (i.e. democracy).

The problem I have with you, ComradeRed, is that you claim that you do not support central planning as a final goal either, but you don't say what you do think is your long-term goal because it is supposedly "too utopian" to do so.

[ComradeRed]

I'm actually writing this as I run out the door to my probability exam, then Friday discrete math! I'll get to Jacob Richter's post when I get back, I just wanted to get to a few things first...


We will need to paint a general picture of what future society looks like because currently, most people cannot not even begin to fathom a world without bourgeois rule. Many people either accept eternal bourgeois rule or advocate a police state like the USSR and China. So, to captivate the attention and support of the masses, we will have to demonstrate that a world without bourgeois rule is possible. The problem with this, as I keep pointing out time and time again, is that we won't know what sort of material conditions will be present in a post-capitalist society!

You seem to gleefully ignore the point about von Neumann nanomechanical commodities.

Should we be pointing out that a dictatorship of the proletariat is not a dictatorship over the proletariat? Yes, without a doubt.

Does that mean that we should be trying to guess at what would work?

No, instead we should be pointing out that we can do better than capitalism and at the same time that capitalism doesn't work.


Secondly, the problem you seem to have with MPP is that a) communication between cores is shabby at best, and b) some programs are atomic. Well, (a) there is no need for communication between cores because each thread is independent of each other with a total of 6 independent nonlinear second order hyperbolic constrained partial differential equations in 3+1 dimensions (or 3 such equations in 2+1 dimensions); (b) all of these nonlinear partial differential equations numerical approximation programs are atomic.

Sometimes, as you don't realize, programs have to be sequential. That's how all numerical algorithms are.

What happens in practice with numerical relativity computations is that one typically guesses using first order background dependent approximations, then perturbates around it.

Each processor corresponds to a "mesh point" (discrete region of space), and variational analysis works until a cutoff when the variation in the potential is negligible with floating point arithmetic (recall that it decreases at a rate of 1/r^2).

Since I don't have 100000 processors at my disposal, I have to work with the first approach of multithreaded numerical approximations to the system of nonlinear differential equations.

Sadly, these programs are atomic.

That's true for most user programs too!


To the second, more often than not things can be broken down. It's like a download manager that starts downloading a file in multiple places: if you have enough RAM, it will get done much faster because instead of doing step 1, then 2, then 3, steps 1, 2, and 3 are all being done at the same time.
Yes, that works great in theory but it's crap in practice.

Here's why: step 3 depends on the results of step 2 and cannot be done until it gets those results.

For an example, try solving a Gaussian eliminated system of equations all at once.

Well, with solving a Gaussian eliminated system of equations you need to do it sequentially...that is kind of the entire point!

Backsubstitution can't be made parallel because it doesn't work like that.

That's kind of a well known example too.

Hence the analogy "One woman can have one baby in nine months, but nine women can't have one baby in one month."


If three goups of workers each had conflicting ideas about how best to produce a good and then wanted to test their ideas, naturally, I believe it would be best to set up three parallel factories. In a centralized system, option one would be tried, and if it failed, option two would be tried, and if it failed, option three would be tried (so as to avoid "competition"). Or, in a more likely scenario, the option that seemed the "best" on the surface would be set up. But often, you cannot know which one is best until all options are attempted.

If three parallel factories were set up, the best option would become apparent in a fraction of the time. The problem is that what if innovation isn't needed under socialism?

This is a recurring theme of "We don't know the material conditions of a post-capitalist society!"

With von Neumann nanomechanical commodities, innovation really isn't needed!

So what then?


The problem I have with you, ComradeRed, is that you claim that you do not support central planning as a final goal either, but you don't say what you do think is your long-term goal because it is supposedly "too utopian" to do so. ...I do not suggest a "long-term goal" because I don't pretend to be omnipotent and know the material conditions of a post-capitalist society.

I more or less openly admit that I don't know such material conditions!

The "long-term goal" would be drastically different according to the material conditions.

This is kind of the logical consequences of historical materialism...

[DrFreeman09]

You seem to gleefully ignore the point about von Neumann nanomechanical commodities.



I ignored this bit because I don't see the relevance. If what you're saying is "all we need to do is wait for 'von Neumann nanomechanical commodities' and everything will be fine!" then I won't really pursue this particular line any further, because it isn't a very good argument.

First of all, in a download manager, parts a, b, and c of the file are downloaded at the same time. Therefore, the process is done faster. This is really the kind of action that I believe would be necessary in a complex, moneyless economy.

The purpose of the analogy I made to MPP wasn't to prove that computer programmers have it 100% right (plus, I'm talking about the parallel processing that exists inside the world's top supercomputers; not necessarily PCs). But generally the analogy is a good one because it shows how information slows when forced through one unit and how the problem could be solved by creating multiple points of control. A moneyless economy will not operate based on hyperbolic functions or Gaussian eliminated systems of equations or any of the other ego-dripping examples you have used.

I don't give a shit about all of that crap.

However, parallelism in a moneyless economy would work, in my view, because testing two or three different ideas would not be an "atomic" problem. The ability to test one idea would not be dependent upon testing the other. If two conflicting options existed, the could both be tested at the same time.



The problem is that what if innovation isn't needed under socialism?



What if man is perfect and will magically create great ideas the first time and no innovation will ever be needed ever and everyone will live happily ever after?

Innovation will probably exist in a moneyless economy (don't use the word "socialism" when dealing with moneyless economy), but it will be innovation directed to the betterment of the whole, not individuals. There is nothing wrong with innovation. If a group of workers has a great new idea about how to produce a good better than it is already being produced, then they can take their idea to those currently producing or set up their own factory and start producing themselves. Why shouldn't the workers want to innovate? There are almost always new and better ways to do things. Why shouldn't workers who discover these new ways test their theories to see the results? If the end result is the betterment of the whole society, there really is not problem. And if the endeavor is a complete waste of time, it will quickly become apparent to society and they won't have to support it.

Anyone who claims that there is no longer anything to gain from innovation suffers from the same mentality that led a certain head of the U.S. Patent Office in the 1800s to say, "Everything that can be invented has been."


No, instead we should be pointing out that we can do better than capitalism and at the same time that capitalism doesn't work

Nearly all Marxists do a good job at describing why capitalism doesn't work. But how can we demonstrate that we can do better than capitalism if we cannot describe what future society looks like. Do you expect the masses, when you say, "We can do better than capitalism," to suddenly cry out, "Wow! They really can do better. Let's overthrow the government and establish a new economic system we don't know anything about! Yay!"

One of the biggest reasons why the Left is paralyzed is because people cannot imagine a world without bourgeois rule and thus have doubts as to whether a world without bourgeois rule is even possible.

Sure, we can't predict everything, or even most of the things, that will happen in a post-revolutionary situation. It's wrong to have blueprints. But it is a good thing to have principles. These principles, for me, include: one party will not forcibly maintain a monopoly over political power during the transition period; the economy will consist of 3 or 4 sectors, namely a state-capitalist sector, possible "socialist" sector, and a developing moneyless economy; moneyless economy will not opperate on the basis of commodity prodcution, money, or exchange of any kind, and will make use of parallelism, etc.

What happens when someone asks you "how do we know that you Marxists know what you're doing?" What are you going to say? That it's too utopian for us to know what we're doing? What do you say when someone asks, "how are you to prevent society from collapsing into eternal state-capitalism?" Are you going to say that it's too utopian to put forward a way for society to not fall into enternal state-capitalism?

It is more than likely that the masses will not trust us if we cannot demonstrate that we can think of an alternative that is better than capitalism. Like it or not, the bourgeoisie know how to run things. They do not do it well from the perspective of the vast majority of the population, but they keep the economy going nonetheless. If we refrain from painting a general picture and creating a set of principles, that we Marxists really do have an alternative to capitalism somewhere up our sleeve.

[ComradeRed]

I ignored this bit because I don't see the relevance. If what you're saying is "all we need to do is wait for 'von Neumann nanomechanical commodities' and everything will be fine!" then I won't really pursue this particular line any further, because it isn't a very good argument. No, my point was that you are making assumptions about the material conditions of a post-revolution society.

This is something that you can't do.

Why? Because given the hypothetical situation that China et al. actually pull this feat off, you're entire theory goes into the waste bin of history...as if that'd be a shame.

When you start talking about "what things will be like after the revolution", you are implicitly making assumptions about the material conditions of such a society!

(Analogous to evaluating a differential form on a manifold requires a coordinate choice.)

Frankly, it doesn't matter what excuse you give, you are making assumptions about the material conditions of a post-revolution society.

"Coincidentally" it assumes that scarcity is a serious problem...which is exactly what vulgar Neoclassical economists do.[b/]


First of all, in a download manager, parts a, b, and c of the file are downloaded at the same time. Therefore, the process is done faster. This is really the kind of action that I believe would be necessary in a complex, moneyless economy.

The purpose of the analogy I made to MPP wasn't to prove that computer programmers have it 100% right (plus, I'm talking about the parallel processing that exists inside the world's top supercomputers; not necessarily PCs). But generally the analogy is a good one because it shows how information slows when forced through one unit and how the problem could be solved by creating multiple points of control. A moneyless economy will not operate based on hyperbolic functions or Gaussian eliminated systems of equations or any of the other ego-dripping examples you have used.

I don't give a shit about all of that crap.

However, parallelism in a moneyless economy would work, in my view, because testing two or three different ideas would not be an "atomic" problem. The ability to test one idea would not be dependent upon testing the other. If two conflicting options existed, the could both be tested at the same time. It's [b]alarming that you openly "don't give a shit" about the problems of the "target" of your analogy!

If you can't find flaws in your own ideas, it suggests sloppy thinking...or egotism on the part of the thinker ("flawless" ideas need no inspection! :lol:).

Plus, I am talking about parallel computing which involve the same algorithms used in two or a million processors!

I would have hoped that someone who is using parallel computing as an analogy would at least have some knowledge of the subject.

Instead we have someone who openly acknowledges his ignorance of the matter of the countless open unanswered problems in the target of his analogy.

So when we have any realistic constraints of limited supplies, we would run into serious problems. Well I'm glad you thought this one through carefully :glare:


It is more than likely that the masses will not trust us if we cannot demonstrate that we can think of an alternative that is better than capitalism. It is absolutely certain that if we need to "coach" the workers into doing something when there is no material conditions for it, that it won't be abolishing wage-slavery!

You appear to be rather idealistic with making history as you please, rather than having a materialistic approach to it.

Why is it that I am not surprised a Utopian socialist is an idealist?

[Die Neue Zeit]

DrFreeman09, since ComradeRed has suspiciously avoided the subject of uneven development, I think I have a better idea of what the "directly democratic economy" will look like in the post-revolutionary "multi-economy," mainly because of how it differs from the "state-capitalist economy."

Personally, I think that the state-capitalist economy, with its state corporations (facilitating better economic management than mere government ministries), should be managed by technocrats (since this "economy" is capitalist, knowledge and skill specialization applies here). The key to the directly democratic economy lies in something similar to Lenin's remark on post-revolution responsibility (not entitlement): Every cook must learn to govern the state.

Undoubtedly there will be many trials and errors, but improvements in many-to-many communication technology will facilitate better attempts to have this "economy" grow and eventually replace the technocratic state-capitalist economy.

[DrFreeman09]

It's alarming that you openly "don't give a shit" about the problems of the "target" of your analogy!

I don't give a shit about many of the things you brought up because what you brought up had no relevance to the point I have been trying to make. Sure, maybe I don't know as much about the mathematics of computers as you, but I honestly don't care. What I do know is that the general idea, while it may not work in computers, is still a good model for an economy because the problems you have mentioned (no communication between processors, problems being atomic) do not apply to what I was talking about, as three different ideas being tested simultaneously is ipso facto not and "atomic" issue.

Basically, you still have not really dealt with my central point: an economy that makes use of parallelism would allow the struggle to find the best way to do something much faster and more efficient, and would make the economy far more adaptive than one where no parallel trends existed.

The specific equations and functions used to make an MPP computer work are non-applicable in what I'm trying to say. Does this mean that the "download manager" example is a better one? Now that I think about it, probably. But you conveniently ignored most of the part you quoted and instead only focused on the "I don't give a shit" part, because it was easier...



Why is it that I am not surprised a Utopian socialist is an idealist?
Your assumption that I am a "Utopian socialist" is a result of the fact that you haven't actually read anything that I have been talking about in this thread. How is it that a Leninist (such as myself) is Utopian, or an "idealist?"

Moneyless economy will emerge after decades of transition (i.e. the workers setting up conditions so that a moneyless economy will be successful). But we have to be clear that such a thing will have to emerge if wage-slavery is to be abolished. Creating an organization capable of mobilizing the masses will require confronting the crisis of theory, which your "I have no idea what the future looks like" position fails to do. Your completely non-committal approach keeps activists and revolutionaries in the dark. Of course, blueprints are useless, and you are right that we can't plan everything (or even most things) in advance because we can't predic material conditions.

But it is important to have pricniples. You don't even venture to put forward some principles.

Further, I have not ignored history or materialism. Rather, the conjectures Ben, Jacob, and I have made are based on the study of history and applying it to the scientific method.



Frankly, it doesn't matter what excuse you give, you are making assumptions about the material conditions of a post-revolution society.

Unfortunately, we have to make some educated guesses. Imagine if scientists never made educated guesses?

Let's look into the history of quantum mechanics (a simplified history that is):

Quantum mechanics is one of the most bizarre theories if physics today, but it has (relatively) quickly become accepted with a majority of physicists because it appears (due to tests with quantum entanglement, etc.) that it is how the universe actually works.

So how did scientists come up with the idea that an object's state is indeterminate until measured by an outside observer? Well, it was a guess. It was a guess made from looking at strange phenomena, namely what happens with the double slit experiment. If you cut two slits in a barier and shine light, one photon at a time, through it onto a light detector, and if you do not know the path the photon will take (i.e. which slit it will travel through), then you get an interference pattern on the detector. It looks as if the photon were traveling through both slits at the same time. On the other hand, if you go and try to measure where the photon will go, you will not get an interference pattern on the detector.

This phenomenon was more-or-less a "WTF" moment for scientists, and the only way to explain it was through what is now known as the coppenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Pretty bizarre right? Many, including Einstein, were extremely skeptical.

In fact, Einstein tried to disprove quantum mechanics. He said, if measurement were a special thing that determined the state of an object, then two objects whose measurements were dependent on each other would have a non-local effect on each other. He called this "spooky action at a distance," or quantum entanglement. To Einstein, this was impossible.

Yet he ended up strengthening quantum mechanics because it has now been proven that entanglement really exsits, which is how scientists were able to circumvent the uncertainty principle and successfully achieve quantum teleportation with small amounts of matter.

So it has become clear to many physicists that despite how bizarre quantum mechanics seems, it is probably how the universe actually works. But what would have happened if scientists had refused to make educated guesses and assumptions? Would any "materialist" have concluded that the universe is incomplete and nature kind of "fills in the gaps" according to probability when we are in a position to measure it? Probably not. [Not to discredit materialism (I am indeed a materialist), but the potential correctness of quantum mechanics demands that we think of materialism in a new way.]

Using the scientific method we can make educated guesses about what the future will look like. Of course, the actual process in the future may be different. But there are certain principles that are important to articulate, and while I do no advocate the drawing of blueprints, your refusal to even put forward any principles is where I do not see eye-to-eye with you at all.

What I've been advocating are by no means blueprints. But like I said, revolutionaries, in a very confusing time, are left in the dark if we don't put forward principles that prove that workers' rule will work better than bourgeois rule today.

We cannot predict the material conditions of the future, but we also cannot count on some magical new technology that will solve all of our problems, so it is still useful to paint a general picture of how a future society would deal with the many problems economies face. I should also point out once again that this sketch of moneyless economy was created on the basis of "beginning with the end in mind." This is how I believe the highest stage of "communism" or "socialism" might work. It would emerge after the economy has transitioned, over decades, from the capitalist economy the workers inherited, to a genuinely "communist" economy where the means of production are owned in common and there is no exchange or wage-slavery.

Why do I sketch out what this economy might look like now? Because there are certain principles that we will need to take with us if we are to be successful. It is all-too-easy for state-capitalism and/or "socialism" to exist indefinitely. To avoid this, we need principles.

[A note: you may think that my mini-lecture there on quantum mechanics may seem unnecessary to a similar extent that I claimed your points about MPP were irrelevant to the point I was trying to make, but I brought it up to show how bizarre conjectures and guesses can prove to be right and if we never make assumptions or guesses, we will never get anywhere. What you did, however, was slightly different: what you did was take the problems that exist in an MPP computer and somehow connect them to the example I had given about three different ideas being tested simultaneously, an issue that obviously does not suffer from the problems you mentioned.]

[ComradeRed]

I don't give a shit about many of the things you brought up because what you brought up had no relevance to the point I have been trying to make. Sure, maybe I don't know as much about the mathematics of computers as you, but I honestly don't care. What I do know is that the general idea, while it may not work in computers, is still a good model for an economy because the problems you have mentioned (no communication between processors, problems being atomic) do not apply to what I was talking about, as three different ideas being tested simultaneously is ipso facto not and "atomic" issue. Look, here's the crux of my entire point here: using an open problem as the target for an analogy is a bad idea in general.

More specifically, about the MPP approach, how it is used in practice is to basically write up some code that works on one computer, then have a million independent processors run it independently and in parallel.

Supposing we did use your analogy that a processor corresponds to a factory with a particular method of production, it's obvious that we tacitly make assumptions about the material conditions which I've pointed out.

But it should be noted that Anarchists have been proposing this model for quite some time.

They believe that it should be done as soon as possible after the revolution, whereas you propose some transition.

There is the obvious problem of communication between factories, which you ignore still; communication and scheduling between processors is the real problem with parallel computing you see.

That would be the problem with your model, scheduling shipment of goods and communication between factories.

The whole point about "Nine women with one baby in one month" was a scheduling misconception that exists in parallel computing as viewed by the public.

MPP would simply say "Wait nine months, and with nine women we'll have nine babies" which is not the same as what would be desired. It doesn't avoid the scheduling problem, it simply hides it in a black box.

Back to scheduling problems with interprocessor parallel computing...

The logical answer would be have a processor dedicated to handle inter-processor communication and inter-processor scheduling of programs.

This actually has some serious short comings on its own, there is processor time wasted.

You see, this is the problem with using an open problem as the target of an analogy! It presents more problems that people don't know the answer to!

So one would need a way to predict when what will be done then who and where to send it to, in addition to factoring in problems with the production process, etc.

I think this is the wrong path to go down; I'd think that making self sustainable regions would work better.

It's a more decentralized approach than yours. Another difference: it works too.


Basically, you still have not really dealt with my central point: an economy that makes use of parallelism would allow the struggle to find the best way to do something much faster and more efficient, and would make the economy far more adaptive than one where no parallel trends existed. No, I've agreed that a decentralized approach works better than a centralized one.

What I disagree with is your implementation since it requires assumptions about the material conditions of a post-revolution society.

Unlike you, I don't assume that capitalism has been overthrown, then work from there.

I assume that capitalism has not been overthrown, then work from there.

That's the difference between you and I. You admitted this later in your post, you work from the end back; I work forwards.

Consequently, you think we should know exactly what a post-revolution society should look like because it's something urgent.

On the other hand, since I believe capitalism still exists, it's necessary to work as energetically as possible to overthrow it!

You argue that workers won't do anything without a plan.

That's a rather weak argument..."The workers are sheep without knowledge of how a post-revolution society will work!"

Whenever the "The workers are sheep without..." card is pulled, one should recognize that it is a reactionary argument to begin with.

The revolutionary class are sheep without the existence of a proposition. Screw material conditions, it's all down to the existence of this single map!


The specific equations and functions used to make an MPP computer work are non-applicable in what I'm trying to say. Does this mean that the "download manager" example is a better one? Now that I think about it, probably. Well, downloading has problems of its own as an analogy.

For starters, it happens sequentially whereas you are trying to posit that parallel "innovation" is better than sequential "innovation".

That's not a good analogy in the least!

It's hard to come up with a good analogy because of your approach of working backwards.


Your assumption that I am a "Utopian socialist" is a result of the fact that you haven't actually read anything that I have been talking about in this thread. How is it that a Leninist (such as myself) is Utopian, or an "idealist?" My deduction that you are a Utopian socialist is based entirely on this thread!

The fact that you call yourself a "Leninist" (whether you are or not I don't give a damn about) is irrelevant to being either a Utopian or an idealist.

More comically, you insist your a materialist despite your assertion that communism will only come about by the existence of "principles". Yes, material conditions have nothing to do with it! :lol:

As for your Utopian nature, you are trying to make a post-revolution society work in pre-revolution material conditions. Need I really continue explaining?


Moneyless economy will emerge after decades of transition (i.e. the workers setting up conditions so that a moneyless economy will be successful). Not if they have "principles"! :lol:

[devil's advocate]In all seriousness, this is an assertion that is backed by the authoritative weight of Marx, et al. Why should we expect it to take decades?[/devil's advocate]

(Hell, you're assuming that the material conditions won't change significantly...)


But we have to be clear that such a thing will have to emerge if wage-slavery is to be abolished. Creating an organization capable of mobilizing the masses will require confronting the crisis of theory, which your "I have no idea what the future looks like" position fails to do. Your completely non-committal approach keeps activists and revolutionaries in the dark. Of course, blueprints are useless, and you are right that we can't plan everything (or even most things) in advance because we can't predic material conditions. I see, the workers are unable to organize themselves, so we need to come up with wild guesses about post-revolution society in order to make a movement that the workers will rally behind.

It makes perfect sense!

My approach is different from yours because you begin by assuming that capitalism has fallen. I begin by assuming that I am facing current circumstances.

You yourself admit your approach is "back to front", mine's just that of a realist's -- "front to back".

The reason being is that you get in a lot of trouble, and waste a lot of time, if you don't achieve your assumption. But you have no road map on how to do it! You have no blueprints, nothing! :glare:


But it is important to have pricniples. You don't even venture to put forward some principles. My principles are principally outlined here (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm).


Further, I have not ignored history or materialism. Rather, the conjectures Ben, Jacob, and I have made are based on the study of history and applying it to the scientific method. Not quite true, for several reasons.

One, which I elaborate on below, is that the "scientific method" looks for open problems and solves them. It does not predict the future!

Two, if you have been paying attention to the status of technological innovation, it has been accelerating.

Given that you are assuming the material conditions of a post-revolution society would be identical to those currently facing capitalism, it is safe to say you are being unrealistic.

Just look at the amount of innovation in the past 5 years in stem cells, or nanomedicine, or...


Unfortunately, we have to make some educated guesses. Imagine if scientists never made educated guesses? The difference is that scientists are performing repeatable experiments.

Theoretical scientists work sometimes by ansatz (use of heuristics), other times they simply try to simplify equations (e.g. Lagrange's simplifications of Newton's second laws).

They then test their theoretical framework against experiments.

Looking empirically at material reality, the technological innovation in capitalism appears to be accelerating.

That's bad if you're trying to make a guesstimate of the material conditions for a post-revolution society.


Let's look into the history of quantum mechanics (a simplified history that is):

Quantum mechanics is one of the most bizarre theories if physics today, but it has (relatively) quickly become accepted with a majority of physicists because it appears (due to tests with quantum entanglement, etc.) that it is how the universe actually works.

So how did scientists come up with the idea that an object's state is indeterminate until measured by an outside observer? Well, it was a guess. It was a guess made from looking at strange phenomena, namely what happens with the double slit experiment. If you cut two slits in a barier and shine light, one photon at a time, through it onto a light detector, and if you do not know the path the photon will take (i.e. which slit it will travel through), then you get an interference pattern on the detector. It looks as if the photon were traveling through both slits at the same time. On the other hand, if you go and try to measure where the photon will go, you will not get an interference pattern on the detector.

This phenomenon was more-or-less a "WTF" moment for scientists, and the only way to explain it was through what is now known as the coppenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Pretty bizarre right? Many, including Einstein, were extremely skeptical.

In fact, Einstein tried to disprove quantum mechanics. He said, if measurement were a special thing that determined the state of an object, then two objects whose measurements were dependent on each other would have a non-local effect on each other. He called this "spooky action at a distance," or quantum entanglement. To Einstein, this was impossible.

Yet he ended up strengthening quantum mechanics because it has now been proven that entanglement really exsits, which is how scientists were able to circumvent the uncertainty principle and successfully achieve quantum teleportation with small amounts of matter.

So it has become clear to many physicists that despite how bizarre quantum mechanics seems, it is probably how the universe actually works. But what would have happened if scientists had refused to make educated guesses and assumptions? Would any "materialist" have concluded that the universe is incomplete and nature kind of "fills in the gaps" according to probability when we are in a position to measure it? Probably not. [Not to discredit materialism (I am indeed a materialist), but the potential correctness of quantum mechanics demands that we think of materialism in a new way.] Wahoh, a discussion of quantum mechanics!

Just to let you know, this is my field (or rather, intimately related to it -- quantum gravity).

First let me just say that you have been more or less misinformed about the status of quantum theory...it is not as infallible as you suggest!

See e.g. Obstruction Results in Quantum Theory (http://arxiv.org/abs/dg-ga/9605001), or Between classical and quantum (http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0506082).

Just one instance of the problem is taking the classical limit is ill defined in most practical circumstances.

Or the fact that given a classical system, choose a set of coordinates A, then quantize it. Choose a different set of coordinates B for the classical system then quantize it. These two quantum theories are physically different. That's bad!

Furthermore, quantum entanglement has not been demonstrated to exist. It has been assumed to exist because all the other predictions from quantum mechanics turn out to be right.

There is going to be an experiment (or perhaps there was, quantum optics isn't my field) to test quantum entanglement.

Also your presentation of the history of quantum mechanics overlooks a number of events...see the Between Classical and Quantum paper for a more thorough discussion.

But you seem to ignore the classical singularity for a Hydrogen atom.

And Bohr-Summerfield quantization of Action-Angle coordinates.

And...

Long story short: there were a number of open problems that people were trying to solve when Einstein and Planck came up with Black Body radiation.

One such open problem was why won't an electron simply fly into the proton in a hydrogen atom? That's what classical mechanics predicts!

Well, Planck's work was applied to Action-Angle coordinates for the aforementioned system resulting in a sort of "proto-quantization" procedure called Bohr-Summerfield quantization.

But this only really worked for the Hydrogen atom.

That's when others noted that if you use matrices, you get physically correct results.

Or when treating electrons as waves, you get physically correct results.

Then, cutting through forty years of history in less than forty lines, Dirac basically showed these two to be equivalent.

Oh, and for the record, no one really disproved Einstein. Actually, they never addressed his point, they just did it so cleverly that people ignored Einstein as "senile".


Using the scientific method we can make educated guesses about what the future will look like. Uh, no, not really.

The "scientific method" is basically boiled down to doing one of several things: 1) observing new phenomena and explaining it, 2) doing experiments and explaining it, 3) looking for new phenomena (or predicted phenomena) in experiments and explaining the discrepancies.

It basically boils down to "Look for a problem, then solve it."


Of course, the actual process in the future may be different. But there are certain principles that are important to articulate, and while I do no advocate the drawing of blueprints, your refusal to even put forward any principles is where I do not see eye-to-eye with you at all.

[QUOTE]What I've been advocating are by no means blueprints. But like I said, revolutionaries, in a very confusing time, are left in the dark if we don't put forward principles that prove that workers' rule will work better than bourgeois rule today. I think there is a bit of a disconnect here.

I think you can agree one of the main "missions" of a Leftist is undermining the functioning, credibility, and/or legitimacy of capitalism.

That's one of my "guiding principles" -- you are what you do.

On the other hand, you would probably argue that workers won't do anything without a plan...or road-map or principles or whatever you are calling it.

Yes, the social being does not determine the social consciousness of the working class, but the existence of nonexistence of a "post-revolution plan"!


We cannot predict the material conditions of the future, but we also cannot count on some magical new technology that will solve all of our problems, so it is still useful to paint a general picture of how a future society would deal with the many problems economies face. If you were to go about this scientifically, you wouldn't say what a post-revolution society would look like.

You'd point out how it's different from other "socialist" countries. Or point out the merits of certain systems, like the Oaxaca commune...somewhat like what Marx did.

Further, no one is suggesting "Sit on your hands until this new technology is out!" That's a straw man of your own creation.

What I am saying is that for the most part, your entire plan is dependent on technological innovation not happening.

Otherwise, your plan would no longer be applicable...because you're plan begins with the assumptions of the material conditions of a post-revolution society.

It's possible that some of it may work, but the odds are stacked heavily against it.


I should also point out once again that this sketch of moneyless economy was created on the basis of "beginning with the end in mind." This is how I believe the highest stage of "communism" or "socialism" might work. It would emerge after the economy has transitioned, over decades, from the capitalist economy the workers inherited, to a genuinely "communist" economy where the means of production are owned in common and there is no exchange or wage-slavery. Yeah, that's actually a similar tactic used by mathematicians.

"We can't prove Riemann's conjecture, so we'll simply assume it works and prove other stuff based off of it."

Bad idea, because as soon as Riemann's conjecture has been disproved all that work goes out the window...or in your case, as soon as the material conditions change, all your work goes out the window.

But this doesn't seem to bother you at all.


Why do I sketch out what this economy might look like now? Because there are certain principles that we will need to take with us if we are to be successful. It is all-too-easy for state-capitalism and/or "socialism" to exist indefinitely. To avoid this, we need principles. Yes, not material conditions, but principles will determine the success of any revolution :lol:

And who says you're an idealist?!

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ It's been days since you said you'd get around to my application of the law of uneven development. :(


What I am saying is that for the most part, your entire plan is dependent on technological innovation not happening.

Otherwise, your plan would no longer be applicable...because you're plan begins with the assumptions of the material conditions of a post-revolution society.

It's possible that some of it may work, but the odds are stacked heavily against it.

How so? :confused:

In all my posts thus far regarding the directly democratic "economy," emphasis is placed on the further development of many-to-many communication technology.





So for this reason there would be a capitalist sector in a revolutionary nation's economy?

Methinks thou shouldst elucidate your thoughts more, it appears as if you were thinking more than you're typing up said thoughts.

Actually, I was thinking from an "ultimatist" perspective regarding the immediate post-revolutionary "multi-economy." The global proletocracy that will have just emerged will have to contend with backward-yet-capitalist areas as well as advanced capitalist areas.

This is undoubtedly different from the era of Lenin's time (wherein capitalism wasn't really global yet, contrary to his euphoria), but there are similarities.

To put a modern parallel (and hopefully Luis Henrique won't deem my approach to be "mechanistic" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1059585&postcount=20)):

The world is ready for revolution, but it isn't ready for the socialist mode of production. America, Japan, and Western Europe would presumably be closest to being ready for socialism, but poverty-stricken regions in Africa wouldn't. Those regions would need accelerated "primitive stamocap" (hence the whole reason behind Lenin's "revolutionary democracy"). Of course, the acceleration would be made possible by aid in economic development by the more advanced capitalist countries.

[This is basically a "revolutionary extension" of subsidized trade in favour of developing countries... except that I'm not talking just about trade.]




Thus is one aspect of uneven development... but here's another:




From my understanding of your proposal, within a single economy there would be a capitalist sector and a non-capitalist sector (that could be represented various "different" non-capitalist sectors...).

So the socialist republic of X would have, instead of thinking of an iron sector, etc., we'd have a capitalist sector, etc.

That's my understanding of your proposal.

Not quite. My semantics are wrong here. I should have used the word "economy" instead of sector (Ben uses the two words interchangeably in his "post-revolution" articles). The whole global economy should be referred to as a "multi-economy" (for the purpose of this discussion).


Personally, I think that the state-capitalist economy, with its state corporations (facilitating better economic management than mere government ministries), should be managed by technocrats (since this "economy" is capitalist, knowledge and skill specialization applies here). The key to the directly democratic economy lies in something similar to Lenin's remark on post-revolution responsibility (not entitlement): Every cook must learn to govern the state.

Undoubtedly there will be many trials and errors, but improvements in many-to-many communication technology will facilitate better attempts to have this "economy" grow and eventually replace the technocratic state-capitalist economy.


Take the financial sector, for example (I'll give two or three here). The global proletocracy would absorb most of this sector into the state-capitalist economy, but there would still be the niche "credit unions" to serve as local competition (the private-capitalist economy, yet in this example "cooperative" in nature). The directly democratic elements ("socialist sector" - ie, no bureaucracy, but with sufficient communications technology to make society-wide decisions) would take quite a bit of time to wrest control of the financial sector from the state-capitalist economy, all the while competing with state enterprises. Then there are "moneyless"/communist considerations to consider (upon communism eliminating this sector completely).

Second example: in the case of the capital-intense "heavy industry" (especially construction and the related heavy urban development projects, which is dear to me (http://www.revleft.com/vb/open-question-heavy-t70433/index.html)), the "niche" would be either much smaller or non-existent (because of improved, yet capital-intensive, information technology in controlling manufacturing processes, for example), but direct democracy would also come after a protracted period of state monopoly capitalism. The moneyless/communist economy would emerge MUCH later.

Third example (and this one's dear to Ben): the media. In this one, I'm not sure if the private-capitalist economy will be existent immediately afterwards. The Big Media will have been wrested by the state-capitalist economy, and even then methinks the directly democratic economy will QUICKLY wrest this away from state capitalism. Furthermore, moneyless relations will be more prevalent here than in the financial services (the Internet). According to this example of uneven development, the full socialization of the media - and partial communization - will occur much faster than those of the financial and heavy-manufacturing sectors.

[DrFreeman09]

To ComradeRed:

Fine, fine, fine, I guess I'm an idiot and you're a complete genius.

You seem to have a need to express how much smarter you are than everyone else here. Granted, it is obvious that you are very intelligent, but your tactics in argument seem to be trying to make yourself look like an expert.

I'm sure Ben Seattle won't mind me quoting him here, as in a recent discussion, he brought up this point: "An expert is guy who knows a hundred postions in which to make love--but who is a virgin."

The problem here is that there is, I think, a misunderstanding about what the disagreement between us actually is. Perhaps this is lack of experience in building the revolutionary movement. Perhaps you haven't really been in a position to gain this experience. This is fine, but it means that discussion between you and me is somewhat useless because there is great confusion as to what is actually being discussed.

Are we here to discuss the quality of my analogy (which could very well need improvement), or are we here to discuss the principle behind it, i.e. decentralized structure?

My intent was to discuss the latter. Instead, you have spent countless words describing the limitations of my analogy. While computers and theoretical physics are interests of mine, they are not my "fields." Music is actually my field. And while I could go into how the physical aspects of music theory, with overtones, partials, etc. could theoretically justify my theories, I'm not going to because it's not relevant to this discussion.

The MPP analogy was designed to articulate how a decentralized system would work better than a centralized one in a way that would be easy for readers to understand. In this sense, I believe the analogy has been effective, because readers, until this point, have focused not on whether or not MPP is effective in computers (a largely irrelevant question), but on the assertion that central planning is not our goal for reasons analogous to the problem that CPUs suffer.

This is what I had hoped you would address, but that is not what happened.

Perhaps the analogy would be better if I simply said that CPUs have problems and that many attempts are being made to create decentralized schemes that work better, while not mentioning MPP. I don't know. But that's not really the point here.

The point is to discuss why and how a decentralized system would be more effective than a centralized one. Now that we are clear on that, I am going to move on.

Am I an Idealist?

You claim that my supposed obsession with principles makes me an idealist and a "Utopian."

While we are materialists and we do recognize the nature of material conditions in determining consciousness, it had been shown time and time again that the bourgeois propaganda machine can successfully stop the masses from spontaneously organizing and overthrowing the system. It has become clear enough, in my view, that the masses can be kept in the dark for an eternity, that capitalism can exist indefinitely, without some kind of external stimulus to spur the masses into action.

The people aren't blind. They have seen the failures of the Soviet Union and China and other supposedly "communist" regimes. This has instilled a sentiment in the working class that a world without bourgeois rule may not even be possible, so generally, they except the conditions that they live in because they can't imagine a better world.

At the same time, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party (with the help of certain "communist" groups like the RCP) has promoted the illusion that the Democratic Party can be fundamentally changed, and that capitalism can be "tamed" if only activists lay down their militancy and kiss enough ass.

So on the one hand, you have the demoralizing image of the failures in the USSR and other "communist" regimes, and on the other, you have bourgeois "saviors" telling you that if you just give up, everything will be OK. These two things coupled create complete stagnancy in the Left. And this stagnancy has not been effectively countered by current supposedly "revolutionary" organizations. The organization that get it right are not big enough to have a lot of influence, and the big organizations consistently get it wrong. It is a mess.

To confront this crisis of theory and to build a genuinely revolutionary organization, Leftists will have to a) expose the Democratic Party and its allies for what they are and eliminate the liberal illusions being promoted by reformist groups, and b) prove to the working class that a world without bourgeois rule will work better than current bourgeois rule.

To do this, we have to have principles.

I have experienced first hand the crippling effect that the crisis of theory has had on the Left. Your stance does nothing to confront the crisis of theory and therefore does nothing to further the struggle against capitalism.

What Principles do the Working Class Need to Know About?

What do you say when someone asks you, "Will workers have concrete democratic rights during workers' rule?" There seems to be an obvious answer (i.e. "Yes"), but the real question that is more-or-less hidden beneath the surface is, "How will the working class prevent the bourgeoisie from retaking power without subsequently suppressing workers' rights?" This is the question of the ages isn't it? Without some kind of answer, it is unlikely that the workers will support a Marxist movement, because the degeneration of the USSR "proves" to many that Marxism is a fine idea in theory but wrong in practice.

If we cannot counter this argument, then we are lost.

What do you say when someone asks you, "How will workers' rule ensure that state-capitalism and/or "socialism" will not exist indefinitely and fail to give way to genuinely classless society?" If we cannot answer this question, we are lost.

What do you say when someone asks you, "Will one party maintain a monopoly over political power?" The obvious answer to many of us is "no," but it is not enough to just say "no." How will workers maintain power without one party maintaining a legal monopoly over power? If we cannot answer this question, we are also lost.

In short, we have to ensure the masses that a world without bourgeois rule is both possible and necessary, and we cannot do this is we do not have some principles that let the masses know that such a world is possible.

The Scientific Method and Principles

The scientific method cannot predict the future, but it can test hypotheses. That is the whole point.

Different ideas can be tested by scientific debate between people. While it is impossible to predict the future, the principles that will be necessary to articulate to the masses can be tested using logic and the scientific method. In forums like this, discussion between serious people can produce good ideas capable of mobilizing the masses.

We have not yet compiled all of our ideas into clear principles that are easy for people to understand, be we can and must work to get there. In a time of disillusionment in the Left, it is extremely important for us to have principles.

Does that make me an idealist? No. The principles that we will reach are a direct result of the material conditions in which we live. The argument that we can't have principles because of materialism is not a very good one, because the principles reached, according to materialism, will be a product of our material conditions (i.e. the conditions create the consciousness).

We Cannot Worship nor Fear Spontaneity

It goes against my experience to assume that the masses, as a whole, will just spontaneously wake up and overthrow the system. Those who worship spontaneity are part of the problem in the crisis of theory: they deny that we need revolutionary organization because someday and that the masses will just magically wake up and see the capitalist sham for what it is. This is a pretty hopeless view, in my opinion, because it is more-or-less denial.

On the other hand, those who fear spontaneity are generally egotistical sectarians who want everyone to think their way. This is also part of the problem in the crisis of theory.

The bottom line is that we need revolutionary organization that can use theory and principles as a light to help the masses see. Principles are not a glue that holds us together or a stick we use to beat heretics with; it is a light that helps us see (this is a nod to "Cargo-Cult Leninism vs Political Transparency" (http://struggle.net/struggle/mass-democracy)).

We need organization that can confront both the crippling forces of reformism and sectarianism and the crisis of theory that has arisen from the degeneration of the USSR and other "communist" regimes. For this, we need principles.

Conclusion

It is my conclusion that you probably don't have very much experience in building revolutionary organization if any at all. Granted, I am pretty new to this scene, so I can't say I have vastly huge amounts of experience either. But I have enough to have seen the results of the crisis of theory and to know that topics such as these are far from pointless to be discussing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What do you say when someone asks you, "Will one party maintain a monopoly over political power?" The obvious answer to many of us is "no," but it is not enough to just say "no." How will workers maintain power without one party maintaining a legal monopoly over power? If we cannot answer this question, we are also lost.

You should have mentioned Ben Seattle's four possibilities instead of skipping right to your specific position. :crying:

[ComradeRed]

Jacob Richter, I'm still working on "unequal development" so hold your horses before you jump all over me for not responding.


Fine, fine, fine, I guess I'm an idiot and you're a complete genius.

You seem to have a need to express how much smarter you are than everyone else here. Granted, it is obvious that you are very intelligent, but your tactics in argument seem to be trying to make yourself look like an expert. Uh, I get paid to do research on quantum gravity including numerical approximations to current models (e.g. the Dynamical Triangulations model).

You chose the analogies, it was just by chance that it was my field.

The fact remains that the whole point of being a thinker is to: 1) identify problems, 2) come up with solutions, 3) identify problems with your own solutions and then solve these new problems.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Since you've done two of the three, it concerns me that the third is more or less overlooked.

And when pointed out that the analogy which you are using for your solutions itself has problems, you seem to react rather indignantly.


I'm sure Ben Seattle won't mind me quoting him here, as in a recent discussion, he brought up this point: "An expert is guy who knows a hundred postions in which to make love--but who is a virgin." I wonder which Ben would want to have do surgery on him. :lol:


The problem here is that there is, I think, a misunderstanding about what the disagreement between us actually is. Perhaps this is lack of experience in building the revolutionary movement. Perhaps you haven't really been in a position to gain this experience. This is fine, but it means that discussion between you and me is somewhat useless because there is great confusion as to what is actually being discussed.

Are we here to discuss the quality of my analogy (which could very well need improvement), or are we here to discuss the principle behind it, i.e. decentralized structure?

My intent was to discuss the latter. Instead, you have spent countless words describing the limitations of my analogy. While computers and theoretical physics are interests of mine, they are not my "fields." Music is actually my field. And while I could go into how the physical aspects of music theory, with overtones, partials, etc. could theoretically justify my theories, I'm not going to because it's not relevant to this discussion. The real problem here is that all the examples in nature of decentralized systems are highly nonlinear.

I was talking about this with one of my friends, about parallel computing. The best approach is simply mooch off of nature, since nature has had billions of years to perfect itself.

So here are the various possible analogies:
1. Multicellular organisms, treat each cell as a processor.
2. Predetor-Prey model, treat "prey" as a buffer in memory keeping track of free processors.
3. The Human Brain, which appears to work pretty well...

Here's the problem: we don't know how each of these work exactly.

So my friend and I can't use them.

That's life.


The MPP analogy was designed to articulate how a decentralized system would work better than a centralized one in a way that would be easy for readers to understand. In this sense, I believe the analogy has been effective, because readers, until this point, have focused not on whether or not MPP is effective in computers (a largely irrelevant question), but on the assertion that central planning is not our goal for reasons analogous to the problem that CPUs suffer.

This is what I had hoped you would address, but that is not what happened.

Perhaps the analogy would be better if I simply said that CPUs have problems and that many attempts are being made to create decentralized schemes that work better, while not mentioning MPP. I don't know. But that's not really the point here. I think you're analogy never really worked out from the beginning because you were using factories as processors.

A more apt analogy would be having self-sufficient "communes" as processors.

Recall with the MPP approach, you basically have a million processors running a million programs simultaneously with slightly different parameters.

Generalize this to be a million processors running a million programs.

It seems that with factories, there needs to be inter-factory communication to deliver goods and whatnot.

That destroys the analogy. I've made that point before, and you reacted with hostility towards it.

A better approach would be to say "Ah, well, each program is self-sufficient on each processor."

That's kind of a corollary to the point I made about understanding the target of the analogy.

This is pretty much the extent that we can talk about the structure of a post-revolution society because we don't know what material conditions such a society will face.

That's not the end of the world, but we can do little more than guess about the details.

Again, such is life.


You claim that my supposed obsession with principles makes me an idealist and a "Utopian."

While we are materialists and we do recognize the nature of material conditions in determining consciousness, it had been shown time and time again that the bourgeois propaganda machine can successfully stop the masses from spontaneously organizing and overthrowing the system. It has become clear enough, in my view, that the masses can be kept in the dark for an eternity, that capitalism can exist indefinitely, without some kind of external stimulus to spur the masses into action. :lol: "While we are materialists, here's my totally idealistic proposition that being doesn't determine consciousness."

Perhaps you should rethink this one, since you are essentially offering an inconsistent proposition as your argument...


The people aren't blind. They have seen the failures of the Soviet Union and China and other supposedly "communist" regimes. This has instilled a sentiment in the working class that a world without bourgeois rule may not even be possible, so generally, they except the conditions that they live in because they can't imagine a better world. For a materialist, you seem to ignore materialism a great deal.

"Social being determines social consciousness", etc. etc. etc.

Obviously it is antiquated to suggest seriously that material conditions affect people's consciousness.

Equally as obvious, this "sentiment" among the working class is static and unchanging.

Well, uh, I don't know about you, but I'm a Marxist...and one of the critical assumptions that Marx left behind was that change is constant.

Another tool Marx left to us was that social being determines social consciousness.


To confront this crisis of theory and to build a genuinely revolutionary organization, Leftists will have to a) expose the Democratic Party and its allies for what they are and eliminate the liberal illusions being promoted by reformist groups, and b) prove to the working class that a world without bourgeois rule will work better than current bourgeois rule.

To do this, we have to have principles.

I have experienced first hand the crippling effect that the crisis of theory has had on the Left. Your stance does nothing to confront the crisis of theory and therefore does nothing to further the struggle against capitalism. Yes, this will cause capitalism into its final throes! :lol:

Inspecting these two points, they are rather...naive.

The first assumes the Democratic party is a serious threat. :lol:

The second assumes that workers will only gain consciousness if and only if "there are principles".

Truly a materialist proposition :lol:

This is how revolutions have come about before.

If Adam Smith never wrote his tome, capitalism wouldn't have had those series of revolutions...several centuries prior to his writing...

Feudalism would've never have come about in Europe if the Barbarians didn't have a firm set of principles...oh wait...

You apparently have this fetish with "a strong, firm set of principles" will create consciousness.


What do you say when someone asks you, "Will workers have concrete democratic rights during workers' rule?" There seems to be an obvious answer (i.e. "Yes"), but the real question that is more-or-less hidden beneath the surface is, "How will the working class prevent the bourgeoisie from retaking power without subsequently suppressing workers' rights?" This is the question of the ages isn't it? Without some kind of answer, it is unlikely that the workers will support a Marxist movement, because the degeneration of the USSR "proves" to many that Marxism is a fine idea in theory but wrong in practice.

If we cannot counter this argument, then we are lost. Well if you say so...you haven't been wrong yet! :lol:

The series of questions you pose, pseudo-rhetorically, are deep philosophical questions. It is of no surprise that they are ambiguous and incorrect questions.

Let me explain by example.

Suppose you are a burgess in Germany in the late 1400s. You have this idea that one day the market will allocate resources.

A feudal lord says "Sure that sounds great, how would it work in practice?"

Or for your questions, another burgess asks "How will the bourgeoisie class prevent the feudal aristocracy from retaking power without subsequently suppressing bourgeois rights?"

How would you give a serious answer? You can't.

Any response you give would be a guess.


The scientific method cannot predict the future, but it can test hypotheses. That is the whole point. It tests hypotheses through experiments or empirical observation, yes so far so good...


Different ideas can be tested by scientific debate between people. Uh no, no they can't.

Otherwise String Theory would have gone the way of the dodo a long time ago.

That's one of the serious problems of quantum gravity...there is no way to test different ideas through debate alone!


While it is impossible to predict the future, the principles that will be necessary to articulate to the masses can be tested using logic and the scientific method. I assume you are now referring to different "tools" used by paradigms, by your use of "principles"...even if we have to "invent" those "tools".

Because principles are not really "testable". They are not scientific, they are not rational. They are core beliefs.

Tools on the other hand are testable...that was the whole point of paradigm shifts a la Kuhn.

I suspect reading between the lines that you aren't fully reading my posts, so I don't know if this is what you mean by "principles" and suspect I never will find out.

But Marx did lay out an assortment of tools for us to use. The two powerful ones are historical materialism and his economics.

Some of his tools have been debunked more or less ("dialectics" comes to mind).

Others have only recently received empirical strength (the labor theory of value).

The tools that have remained strong are those used to analyze our current surroundings. For examples of their implementation, see The Eighteenth Brumaire, etc.

Some tools I have been curious about, specifically whether one could have classes be an emergent phenomena explained by game theory, for example.

For the most part, I don't see anything wrong with the Marxist tools.

I've even played around with some math trying to formulate some of them mathematically, so they'd be more precise.

But with regards to principles, i.e. beliefs, being testable. I would truly love to see an example of this.


Does that make me an idealist? No. The principles that we will reach are a direct result of the material conditions in which we live. The argument that we can't have principles because of materialism is not a very good one, because the principles reached, according to materialism, will be a product of our material conditions (i.e. the conditions create the consciousness). And yet proposing that until principles come about revolution is hopeless is a "materialist" idea?! :lol:

That's as materialist as Hegel and Heidegger combined.


It goes against my experience to assume that the masses, as a whole, will just spontaneously wake up and overthrow the system. Those who worship spontaneity are part of the problem in the crisis of theory: they deny that we need revolutionary organization because someday and that the masses will just magically wake up and see the capitalist sham for what it is. This is a pretty hopeless view, in my opinion, because it is more-or-less denial. I think this may be a tad of a mischaracterization...

IF Marx was right in his hypothesis that capitalism would collapse, then there would be at some point in time some material condition for the workers to take action.

Do not confuse this with "Lets all sit on our hands until capitalism collapses".

The point that is being made is that there is a bounded time interval for capitalism to be around.

Perhaps there would be a material condition that triggers workers overthrowing it sooner...I don't know.

I do know that assuming that capitalism can be overthrown willy-nilly is a rather naive way of looking at things.

It has accomplished nothing, and is more or less idealistic due to the notion that humanity is no longer bound by materialism.

The odds are overwhelmingly against your favor of you overthrowing capitalism with such idealistic attempts. And yes, the notion that working class consciousness is determinable by propaganda and not material conditions is idealism, so sorry you disagree.

That may be pessimistic, but that's the reality of the situation. You can't change what you want whenever you want to, you're constrained by the material conditions of material reality.

[DrFreeman09]

I'm not going to waste too much time on this, but I will say this:

Marx predicted that capitalism created its own gravediggers, etc. But in Das Kapital, he ALSO put forward a model of capitalism that could exist indefinitely. This was typical of how Marx wrote. He worded Das Kaptial so that he was right both ways. "Yes, it could work like this, but in this situation, it could also work like this."

Unfortunately, you are more guilty of the "Marx could never be wrong" position than most of the cultists "Leninists" I am used to dealing with. If Marx was never wrong, it was because of how he worded all of his arguments.

Yes, material conditions create consciousness. It's obvious that in times of crises, i.e. The Great Depression, consciousness has been higher. But this consciousness is thrown into a significant amount of confusion by the events that occurred in the Soviet Union. Your position completely ignores the crisis of theory that has resulted from this. People, in times of crisis, have no trouble recognizing the capitalism is a dreadful economic system. However, they can't imagine anything better because the only attempts so far have ended in miserable failure. And if we can't explain why those attempts failed, and how the working class really will be able to run society better than the bourgeoisie, we are completely lost.

The principles that the working class comes up with will be because of material conditions. The material conditions lead us to create the principles that will guide the working class to victory. By your argument, every fucking Marxist writer (including Marx) was wrong for having principles. By your argument, Marx's principles (i.e. that the workers should rise up and replace capitalism with stateless, classless society) are idealist because they were intended to guide the working class to victory.


The first assumes the Democratic party is a serious threat.Now it is completely obvious that you have absolutely zero experience in the workers' movement. Theory without practice is completely useless.

The "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party give hope to the working class by promising that the party can be fundamentally changed if activists kiss enough ass. Reformism is a very powerful trend that has to be dealt with. You fail to deal with it. Actually, you fail to deal with pretty much everything.

Q: "Will the working class have to suppress democratic rights?"

A: "I don't know."

Q: "Is it even possible for the laws of commodity production to be eliminated?"

A: "I don't know."

Q: "Is workers' rule possible?"

A: "I don't know."

This is what your position amounts to, and when people don't have principles and aren't sure whether or not a world without bourgeois rule is even possible, they usually become reformists. You obviously don't have any experience with this, so arguing with you further is pretty pointless.


The second assumes that workers will only gain consciousness if and only if "there are principles".Workers will gain consciousness when a) the conditions are right, and b) there are principles. You have to have both. Revolution without principles will not work, and revolution without conditions being right will not happen. You can't just ignore principles. But it's pointless to try to convince you of this, because you simply haven't had the experience in the workers' movement to see this for yourself.


And when pointed out that the analogy which you are using for your solutions itself has problems, you seem to react rather indignantly.I reacted harshly because you didn't tackle the meat of the subject. You did not deal with the principle I was describing. Do I need a better analogy? Probably. But you spent ALL of your time on the analogy and NONE on the principle. This is why I was upset with you.

I have a feeling that Ben, Jacob, myself, and probably many others simply rub you the wrong way. I don't care. Zapata once wrote, "I wish to die as a slave to principles, not to men." Likewise, I deal not with the personalities of the people I'm dealing with, but what they are advocating.

You don't deal with principles and your excuse is that it somehow is "idealist" to do so. But you might as well scrap this entire Theory section of the board because it's full of "idealists!"

I'm done arguing with you because, as I said, theory without practice is weak and useless.

A revolutionary organization of the working class will be, as Lenin advocated, a merger between Marxist theory and the workers' movement. Marxist theory is viewed in the workers' movement with a large degree of fuzziness. To combat this, we need to come up with a set of principles (through open debate) that will help to clear up the crisis of theory and allow the masses, when the time comes, to rise up and overthrow capitalism without hesitation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Historically speaking, though, the "merger of Marxism and the workers' movement" was conceived by the "renegade" Kautsky, not his "disciple" Lenin. :p ;)

http://trotsky.org/archive/kautsky/1892/erfurt/index.htm

[ComradeRed]

Now it is completely obvious that you have absolutely zero experience in the workers' movement. Theory without practice is completely useless. I should be informing my group, then, that our experience is apparently vacuous because of the conjecture that democrats are a credible threat to workers liberation :lol:

Didn't stop us from taking the streets on may day led by the workers I may add (ahem (http://daviswiki.org/UCD_May_1,_2007:_Day_of_Action)).

Good luck ignoring what I wrote, and ignoring materialism while your at it. Kautskyite revisionism is the way to go! :lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ In brief defense of Kautsky, though, his line of thought was coughed up while he was "upside down." Certain key ideas of his are indeed really good and relevant for modern Marxists (the merger formula that is the core of what I call "Erfurtianism"). Like Marx turning Hegel right side up, somebody needs to turn Kautsky right side up, as well!

[Alas, Lenin was more interested in the Russian situation, Luxemburg was more interested in criticizing Lenin, and Connolly was more interested in the Irish question. :( ]

[Awful Reality]

It's probably more likely that Stamocap would lead to Fascism as opposed to socialism.

Frankly, I think that Stamocap makes a workers' revolution even more likely than in a free-market state- and thus, in a Italy type scenario, it would evolve into Fascism.

A socialist party must take power through revolution to establish a DOP. Any other form of power just leads to Social-Democracy, something quite revisionist. Not that revisionism is inherently wrong, but in this form it simply won't work.

[DrFreeman09]

I should be informing my group, then, that our experience is apparently vacuous because of the conjecture that democrats are a credible threat to workers liberation :lol:

Didn't stop us from taking the streets on may day led by the workers I may add (ahem (http://daviswiki.org/UCD_May_1,_2007:_Day_of_Action)).

Good luck ignoring what I wrote, and ignoring materialism while your at it. Kautskyite revisionism is the way to go! :lol:

Just because you organized on May Day doesn't mean that you have any valuable experience or that reformism is not a threat. Your assertion that there is no crisis of theory and that we don't have to resolve it is a sure-fire sign that you don't have the kind of experience necessary to back up your theory. Try telling people like Frank Arango (a CVO and SAIC [ http://seattleaic.org ] supporter with around 40 years of experience) that reformism isn't a threat!

The Democrats won't stop you from organizing, but both parties will do everything in their power to stop demonstrations from being effective. Nearly all of the nation's mainstream Leftist organizations are tied with a thousand threads to the Democratic Party and its allies. The rest are either small and do not get their voice heard, or they simply ignore the crisis of theory and are more-or-less part of the problem.

The Democrats are a particular danger because they use their "progressive" wing to try to convince the masses that they are an anti-war party capable of being changed if we just give up and elect the "right" candidates or write letters to our Congressmen. And in a time of extreme confusion in the Left, this trend (reformism) has drawn a huge portion of the Left into it.

If you haven't seen this trend, then you are either blind or you have had very little meaningful experience in the workers' movement.

Secondly, you have cultist organizations that proclaim loudly that the way for workers' rule to be successful is for one party to maintain a monopoly over all political power, using shifty phrases like "the class must be merged with the party," and when asked about the need for concrete democratic rights under workers' rule, they can't give a straight answer!

So you have the confusion that has resulted from the degeneration of all proletarian revolutions in history. You couple that with cults that turn "Marxism" and "Leninism" into a religion, and then you throw in the Democratic party who uses its "progressive" wing to lure activists into pacifism, you are left with a giant mess that leads to complete stagnancy.

And really, what do these countless demonstrations really do if they do not help resolve the crisis of theory? Really, nothing.

What we need is real revolutionary organization that can resolve the crisis of theory and eventually lead the working class to victory. It is fundamentally wrong to start out with a program of principles and then attempt to convince everyone to subscribe to your ideas. It has been demonstrated by history that revolutionary organization must be initially loosely unified, where opposing trends in the left (Marxist, anarchist, reformist, revolutionary) cooperate to aid the workers' movement. But during this time, there will be open struggle for all to see where these opposing trends fight for the support of the masses. When one trend (the revolutionary one) gains the support of the majority of the masses, there will be no need for it to cooperate with the rest of the trends and it will break off and become a genuinely revolutionary organization. In other words, the various trends will fight it out to determine which principles are deserving of the support of the working class.

But this is dreadfully off-topic, so I'm going to stop now.

[jacobin1949]

State monopoly capitalism is actually far worse than liberal capitalism. It is what breeds corporatism and fascism. The CPUSA would prefer to see liberal Democrats restore genuine free market capitalism than see State-Monopolist trends accelerate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I don't think you understand either the state-monopoly capitalism or the state-capitalist monopoly that both are the subjects of this discussion. :confused: