Command economy

[spartan]

Can someone please tell me where Marx, Engels or any other Communist writer before Lenin, proposed a command economy, controlled by an unelected Bureaucracy, as a model for a transitionary Socialist state?

The reason i ask this is because a command economy, controlled by a Bureaucracy, is a major feature of most of the sub-ideologies derived from Leninism (Stalinism, Trotskyism, etc) which, if proven to be invalid as a model for a transtionary Socialist state, would make Leninism, and its various derivative sub-ideologies, completely seperate and unrelated to Marxism.

The whole command economy controlled by a Bureaucracy appears to be a Leninist invention to make the adoption of State Capitalism easier in a Feudal society.

[spartan]

*Bump*

Surely some one can answer this?

[ComradeRed]

*Bump*

Surely some one can answer this? Marx and Engels didn't really write about how things would be after the revolution.

Some Utopian socialist probably did write something you are looking for (barracks socialism).

[Marsella]

At this juncture, there came forward as a reformer a manufacturer 29-years-old – a man of almost sublime, childlike simplicity of character, and at the same time one of the few born leaders of men. Robert Owen had adopted the teaching of the materialistic philosophers: that man’s character is the product, on the one hand, of heredity; on the other, of the environment of the individual during his lifetime, and especially during his period of development. In the industrial revolution most of his class saw only chaos and confusion, and the opportunity of fishing in these troubled waters and making large fortunes quickly. He saw in it the opportunity of putting into practice his favorite theory, and so of bringing order out of chaos. He had already tried it with success, as superintendent of more than 500 men in a Manchester factory. From 1800 to 1829, he directed the great cotton mill at New Lanark, in Scotland, as managing partner, along the same lines, but with greater freedom of action and with a success that made him a European reputation. A population, originally consisting of the most diverse and, for the most part, very demoralized elements, a population that gradually grew to 2,500, he turned into a model colony, in which drunkenness, police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, charity, were unknown. And all this simply by placing the people in conditions worthy of human beings, and especially by carefully bringing up the rising generation. He was the founder of infant schools, and introduced them first at New Lanark. At the age of two, the children came to school, where they enjoyed themselves so much that they could scarely be got home again. Whilst his competitors worked their people 13 or 14 hours a day, in New Lanark the working-day was only 10 and a half hours. When a crisis in cotton stopped work for four months, his workers received their full wages all the time. And with all this the business more than doubled in value, and to the last yielded large profits to its proprietors.

In spite of all this, Owen was not content. The existence which he secured for his workers was, in his eyes, still far from being worthy of human beings. "The people were slaves at my mercy." The relatively favorable conditions in which he had placed them were still far from allowing a rational development of the character and of the intellect in all directions, much less of the free exercise of all their faculties.


“And yet, the working part of this population of 2,500 persons was daily producing as much real wealth for society as, less than half a century before, it would have required the working part of a population of 600,000 to create. I asked myself, what became of the difference between the wealth consumed by 2,500 persons and that which would have been consumed by 600,000?”
The answer was clear. It had been used to pay the proprietors of the establishment 5 per cent on the capital they had laid out, in addition to over £300,000 clear profit. And that which held for New Lanark held to a still greater extent for all the factories in England.

“If this new wealth had not been created by machinery, imperfectly as it has been applied, the wars of Europe, in opposition to Napoleon, and to support the aristocratic principles of society, could not have been maintained. And yet this new power was the creation of the working-classes.”
To them, therefore, the fruits of this new power belonged. The newly-created gigantic productive forces, hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the masses, offered to Owen the foundations for a reconstruction of society; they were destined, as the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all.

Owen’s communism was based upon this purely business foundation, the outcome, so to say, of commercial calculation. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If one is to be a revolutionary Marxist, one must recognize that so many things have changed since Marx's and Lenin's respective times.

One must also recognize that the immediate period after the revolution is still thoroughly in the capitalist mode of production. It is not utopian to "plan ahead" for the remaining years of the capitalist mode of production.

I believe this Theory thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stamocap-t59014/index2.html), from DrFreeman09's first post onwards, addresses your last two paragraphs.

[FireFry]

Marx and Engels didn't really write about how things would be after the revolution.

Yes they did.

I think you mean a revolution, there have been millions of attempted revolutions throughout history. Each of different cultural and material flavors, each attempting to improve the life of the "working man" or "the average joe", andsoforth. None of them have yet been succesful in organising society according to how Marx proposed, that is, the society where the proletariat interests rule over bourgois, property-owning interests.

Do you understand now? There is no "the revolution", there is only "a revolution."

Engels is far more coherent at explaining what he means in a fashion that appeals to public culture, while Marx's explaination of communism appeals to academic culture with it's large words that few understand.

[Coggeh]

Can someone please tell me where Marx, Engels or any other Communist writer before Lenin, proposed a command economy, controlled by an unelected Bureaucracy, as a model for a transitionary Socialist state?

The reason i ask this is because a command economy, controlled by a Bureaucracy, is a major feature of most of the sub-ideologies derived from Leninism (Stalinism, Trotskyism, etc) which, if proven to be invalid as a model for a transtionary Socialist state, would make Leninism, and its various derivative sub-ideologies, completely seperate and unrelated to Marxism.

The whole command economy controlled by a Bureaucracy appears to be a Leninist invention to make the adoption of State Capitalism easier in a Feudal society.
We don't propose a bureaucratic economy in the transitional state .Trotskyists propose a system of democratic workers control of the means of production I.E democratic socialism .Who cares if marx and engels write about it or not , socialism is a progressive theory which needs to be built on and moderinzed but what was true in marx's day is still true today ,still no point being dogmatic about it all though .

[ComradeRed]

Yes they did. In fragments and in letters to each other.

Even the "All mighty" Lenin himself noted that Marx and Engels specified so little about what would happen after a revolution occurs.

Perhaps you would like to cite a source where Marx and Engels speak about post-revolution society?

The best bet you've got is Critique of the Gotha Programme which is criticism of Lassalle's programme (mostly following it through to its logical conclusions that it wouldn't work in practice).

The other way would be to look at their criticisms of Utopian socialists...like Robert Owen.

In the latter case, it's mostly vague and there is nothing specifying the structure of post-revolution society besides vague generalities...e.g. "To them, therefore, the fruits of this new power belonged. The newly-created gigantic productive forces, hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the masses, offered to Owen the foundations for a reconstruction of society; they were destined, as the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all.

"Owen’s communism was based upon this purely business foundation, the outcome, so to say, of commercial calculation."

Note that nowhere in the passage that Martov gave does Engels specify anything about bureaucrats managing the economy. Nor is there a passage to be found like that, since Marx and Engels didn't propose this.

Marx and Engels didn't specify how the structure of a post-revolution society would be. Now do you understand? :rolleyes: