Can nationalizations be progressive?

[OI OI OI]

Following the brief discussion on whether or not we should support Chavez's action of nationalization (and other progressive radical reforms), or even any action of nationalization by a reformist (who was forced to do so by the pressure of the mass), I am forwarding you a good article to read: Nationalized Industry and Worker's Management (1938) by Trotsky

In 1930s, the president of Mexico (a reformist, not even close to Chavez) nationalized the oil industry, Trotsky who was in Mexico at that time asked: What should be the attitude of revolutionaries? Clearly, the Mexican president didn't have any socialist aim and reacted under the pressure from the mass (and other factors).

A short quote from the article:
"The bourgeois government has itself carried through the nationalization and has been compelled to ask participation of the workers in the management of the nationalized industry. One can of course evade the question by citing the fact that unless the proletariat takes possession of the power, participation by the trade unions in the management of the enterprises of state capitalism cannot give socialist results. However, such a negative policy from the revolutionary wing would not be understood by the masses and would strengthen the opportunist positions. "

"For Marxists it is not a question of building socialism with the hands of the bourgeoisie, but of utilizing the situations that present themselves within state capitalism and advancing the revolutionary movement of the workers."

Here's the link to the article, enjoy reading it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/xx/mexico03.htm

This is a good email I received from a comrade and I am absolutely in agreement with.
The reason I posted it is because I feel that I could not have expressed this clearly myself.
This is also a slap in the face to the attitude of some "trotskyists" towards the events in Venezuela.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You should probably question the validity of Trotsky's transitional demand for "commanding heights" expropriation:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#sg

[Led Zeppelin]

You should probably learn to understand the fact that the transitional demands are dependant on circumstances and historical situations, and not meant to be applied the same dogmatically in all cases and at all times, because Trotsky wasn't an idealist.

[OI OI OI]

You should probably learn to understand the fact that the transitional demands are dependant on circumstances and historical situations, and not meant to be applied the same dogmatically in all cases and at all times, because Trotsky wasn't an idealist.

Is this directed to me or JR?

[AGITprop]

Is this directed to me or JR?

JR.

Obviously.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You should probably learn to understand the fact that the transitional demands are dependant on circumstances and historical situations, and not meant to be applied the same dogmatically in all cases and at all times, because Trotsky wasn't an idealist.

I never said "dump the transitional method." :glare:


If you want to invent a new concept with a new name for achieving the same thing, I wish you good luck with it, but I'm not interested.

On the other hand, you're right: Trotskyists have NOT dumped the "minimum" programme. From my current WIP (not the completed CSR, an older version of which you have ;) )...




"TO BEGIN WITH..."



“Proceeding from these principles, the Social Democratic Party of Germany demands, to begin with [...]” (Eduard Bernstein)



Yes, those words were written by Eduard Bernstein, the official spokesperson and theoretician of opportunist tred-iunionisty and careerists in the international proletariat’s first vanguard party, the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD). Although many Trotskyists and other “anti-capitalists” prefer the transitional and directional methods, respectively (as addressed in Chapter 2), the condition of the modern class struggle is such that Social-Labourists should consider Lenin’s own evaluation, in 1899, of the overly maligned Erfurt Program of the SPD:

We are not in the least afraid to say that we want to imitate the Erfurt Programme: there is nothing bad in imitating what is good, and precisely to day, when we so often hear opportunist and equivocal criticism of that programme, we consider it our duty to speak openly in its favour. Imitating, however, must under no circumstances be simply copying.

In my earlier work, I deemed the original minimum-maximum programmatic approach by Marx, Engels, and Kautsky to be problematic. Minimum demands were historically interpreted as being on the threshold (that is, the maximum that could possibly be achieved under bourgeois capitalism). With the historical development of bourgeois capitalism, the second theoretical founder of “participatory economics,” Robin Hahnel, countered this static programmatic interpretation best:

In sum, any reform can be fought for in ways that diminish the chances of further gains and limit progressive change in other areas, or fought for in ways that make further progress more likely and facilitate other progressive changes as well.

On the other hand, those Trotskyists who adhere to the transitional method have abandoned the aforementioned static interpretation and complemented their static transitional method with a vulgar, defensive interpretation of minimum demands. In between the two extremes stands the dynamic minimum method, part of which coincides with some of the maximum “ideals” of modern “social-democrats,” part of which already goes beyond them, but which in its entirety facilitates the issuance of intermediate and threshold demands later on while simultaneously enabling the basic principles to be, as Kautsky once said, “kept consciously in view.” Some of these demands are so dynamic that they transcend the political-economic divide of traditional minimum demands.

“So long as socialist production is not kept consciously in view as its object, so long as the efforts of the militant proletariat do not extend beyond the framework of the existing method of production, the class-struggle seems to move forever in a circle. For the oppressive tendencies of the capitalist method of production are not done away with; at most they are only checked.” (Karl Kautsky)

Some demands under consideration ("Proceeding from the above, the Social-Labourists issue these political and economic demands for immediate but real, reform-enabling reform – to begin with"):

- 32-hour workweek
- Totally party-controlled proportional representation
- Gun rights and citizens’ militias
- Class-based affirmative action (even if income-based)
- Anti-inheritance measures
- Abolition of indirect taxes
- National votes on all rates of income tax (including the right to raise upper tax rates)
- Inflation-indexed, deflation-protected minimum wage
- Worker buyouts (Schweickart)
- [Open source and the peer-to-peer movement as a nascent form of non-commodity economy]



* Bolded words indicate a new programmatic approach: "immediate"-"intermediate" (dynamic minimum) - threshold-directional-"velvet" ("reformist") - revolutionary*

[Led Zeppelin]

Is this directed to me or JR?

Yeah, it wasn't directed at you.

[BobKKKindle$]

Nationalization is generally a progressive reform especially when it takes place in developing countries, because when foreign firms control the exploitation of a country's major natural resources (for example, Venezuela's oil reserves) the profits generated from the sale of these resources do not remain in the country where production actually takes place, but are transported overseas to the country where the firm is based. This is known as profit repatriation, and is a major component of imperialism, as recognized by Lenin, who identified the advanced capitalist powers as "rentier states", or states which derive a large part of their income from the exploitation of the developing world (by means of financial transfers, including but not limited to profit repatriation) and not through productive economic activity. Nationalization is progressive in this respect because it allows a developing country to take full advantage of its natural resources and prevent the continuous loss of capital which occurs under a system of foreign ownership. The danger posed by nationalization to imperialist interests is shown by the fact that, when governments have threatened to nationalise strategic sectors of the economy which were previously under foreign ownership, imperialist governments have often responded with violence by forcing a change of government and supporting an authoritarian regime which agrees to recognize the legitimacy of property rights, as occurred in the case if Iran in 1953, under the reformist administration of President Mossadeq.

[OI OI OI]

The funny thing is that the people I directed this threat to did not even reply.
They claim that although nationalizations can be progressive , they are not progressive in Venezuela because there are different conditions there.
Of course they did not analyse why the situationin Venezuela makes nationalizations not progressive.

This shows their complete shalowness and their blind dedication to the party line.

That is the reason why people on revleft can't take them seriously.

People who read the chavez thread know what I am talking about

[Die Neue Zeit]

An interesting blog:

http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-marxists-do-not-call-for.html


In the “Transitional Program” Trotsky outlines further demands for the nationalisation of the Banks and finance houses, and of the “expropriation of these 60 or 200 feudalistic capitalist overlords (in the US)”, and so on.

In the USSR the process of socialist construction set out by Lenin was clearly one by which the State would guide economic activity, and impose its will upon any remaining capitalist enterprises, including the confiscation of such capitalist property. A look at the propaganda and programmes of virtually all Left wing groups shows the repeated demand for the nationalisation of private capitalist property as a solution to this or that immediate problem, or even as was the case with the Militant in their call for the nationalisation under workers control of the commanding heights of the economy served as the actual Socialist Revolution istelf implemented through Parliament.

But, in fact all of these demands show just how far modern day Marxism has veered away from the Marxism of Marx and Engels. The truth is that not only did Marx and Engels not call for such nationalisations, but they in fact argued against nationalisation by the capitalist state! These demands for nationalisation are not the demands of Marxism, but the demands of Lassalleanism, a trend within the workers movement that both Marx and Engels went out of their way to combat.

[...]

It is possible, particularly with the assistance of a Workers Party to help educate the workers and point the way, for groups of workers to establish co-operatives, and thereby begin to change the basis of the productive relations, and thereby social relations. It is on this basis through a prolonged period of class struggle and using the experience gained in this process that wider and wider groups of workers can be drawn into the process, and co-operative enterprise spread throughout the economy. For the historical materialist it is this changed material condition, which provides the basis of the ideas, which come to be dominant within society, it is this, which is the real social revolution.

In Marx’s time the ability of the workers to achieve this was limited because of the low level of wages, and of education, though clearly not impossible as the number of co-operatives established during his time demonstrated, and indeed as the number of capitalists like Wedgwood who had themselves been workers also demonstrated. In the developed economies of today the process is much easier in some respects much more difficult in others. It is more difficult for the simple reason that capitalism is now a truly global economic system, and the amount of Capital required to produce many commodities is now incomparably higher than in Marx’s time. Yet it is easier because not only are workers themselves overall the possessors of individual savings, but also collectively through their pension funds, they are the owners of a large amount of Capital. In Britain around 500 billion pounds worth.

[...]

500 billion pounds is sufficient to buy up 100% at least the bottom 50 of the FTSE 100 companies. In reality the figure is much larger than that, and with the use of leverage, the need only to buy up around 30% of shares for a controlling stake, and the utilisation of credit, these workers pension funds could buy up and place directly in the hands of workers a large part of the most important sections of British industry. The same is true of Western Europe, and to a lesser extent the US. The condition is that workers gain the fundamental democratic right to have collective control over their own money tied up in these pension funds.

[...]

Such is the power of the working class today to effect almost overnight, and by entirely peaceful and legal means its own emancipation. Of course, though this method itself provides the basis of such a legal and peaceful transformation that is no reason to beleive that the capitalists will not try to frustrate such a process.

[...]

Under such conditions to call for the capitalist state to nationalise property is in effect to call for that capitalist state to confiscate what is theoretically already in large part workers property. It is a reactionary demand on so many levels.

No to calls for nationalisation by the capitalist state. Yes to workers ownership and management. For the basic democratic demand that workers have control of their money in their pension funds.

[Revolution 9]

Nationalization is just statism, and inefficient statism at that. Why doesn't the government just abolish itself?

[Lynx]

[...]

Such is the power of the working class today to effect almost overnight, and by entirely peaceful and legal means its own emancipation. Of course, though this method itself provides the basis of such a legal and peaceful transformation that is no reason to beleive that the capitalists will not try to frustrate such a process.

[...]

Under such conditions to call for the capitalist state to nationalise property is in effect to call for that capitalist state to confiscate what is theoretically already in large part workers property. It is a reactionary demand on so many levels.

No to calls for nationalisation by the capitalist state. Yes to workers ownership and management. For the basic democratic demand that workers have control of their money in their pension funds.
An interesting alternative.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Keep in mind, comrade, that this "pension fund socialism" (you'll recall my Appendix material ;) ) still has a monetary basis.

[Lynx]

Yes, the means of money are useful only for as long as money remains the means. I assume this to be part of the transition phase. An early part.

[Zurdito]

The post started badly:




In 1930s, the president of Mexico (a reformist, not even close to Chavez) nationalized the oil industry, Trotsky who was in Mexico at that time asked: What should be the attitude of revolutionaries?


Cardenas was not a classified specifically as a reformist, he was classified by trotsky as a left-bonapartist, i.e. someone who rested betweent he two classes in a situation where neither class could establish dominance.

In addition, cardenas' actions were much more radical than Chavez's. (by saying "not even close to Chavez", are you implying that Chavez is more than what Cardenas was? if so, what?)

and finally, Trotsky, despite Cardenas' strong anti-imperialism and radicalism, never called for entryism in Cardenas' party and never called for "critical support" for him in elections or referendums.

[Jazzratt]

Nationalization is just statism, and inefficient statism at that. Why doesn't the government just abolish itself?

Idealist bullshit. As the government won't abolish itself then there are two choices - to nationalise (money from government who nominally represent "the people") or privatisation (giving the service over to the bourgeoisie); it may be distasteful to support governments they at least provide checks and balances toward bourgeois enterprises.

Looking at free market privatisation policies in the past it is obvious that they do not benefit workers (chile, UK under thatcher, south africa, indonesia, poland, the USA and so on) it is obvious that nationalisation is of the greater benefit to workers.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Cardenas was not a classified specifically as a reformist, he was classified by trotsky as a left-bonapartist, i.e. someone who rested between the two classes in a situation where neither class could establish dominance.

In addition, cardenas' actions were much more radical than Chavez's. (by saying "not even close to Chavez", are you implying that Chavez is more than what Cardenas was? if so, what?)

and finally, Trotsky, despite Cardenas' strong anti-imperialism and radicalism, never called for entryism in Cardenas' party and never called for "critical support" for him in elections or referendums.

Well, did Cardenas establish communal councils?

[Led Zeppelin]

Here's another good quote on the matter:



The nationalization of railways and oil fields in Mexico has of course nothing in common with socialism. It is a measure of state capitalism in a backward country which in this way seeks to defend itself on the one hand against foreign imperialism and on the other against its own proletariat.

The management of railways, oil fields, etcetera, through labor organizations has nothing in common with workers’ control over industry, for in the essence of the matter the management is effected through the labor bureaucracy which is independent of the workers, but in return, completely dependent on the bourgeois state.

This measure on the part of the ruling class pursues the aim of disciplining the working class, making it more industrious in the service of the common interests of the state, which appear on the surface to merge with the interests of the working class itself.

As a matter of fact, the whole task of the bourgeoisie consists in liquidating the trade unions as organs of the class struggle and substituting in their place the trade union bureaucracy as the organ of the leadership over the workers by the bourgeois state.

In these conditions, the task of the revolutionary vanguard is to conduct a struggle for the complete independence of the trade unions and for the introduction of actual workers’ control over the present union bureaucracy, which has been turned into the administration of railways, oil enterprises and so on.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/tu.htm)

Nationalizations in "underdeveloped capitalist nations" have "nothing in common with socialism", but when they are carried out under pressure of the proletariat and foreign imperialists, they present us with an oppertunity to "conduct a struggle for the complete independence of the trade-unions and for the introduction of actual workers' control over the Union bureaucracy."

That's what Trotsky wrote in 1940, he said pretty much the same thing in 1938 but he had to "bend the stick" the other way a little in that article, despite that he still made clear: "One can of course evade the question by citing the fact that unless the proletariat takes possession of the power, participation by the trade unions in the management of the enterprises of state capitalism cannot give socialist results."

It's a "fact" that unless the proletariat takes possession of power, participation by the trade-unions in the management of enterprises of state-capitalism, i.e., nationalizations by a capitalist state, cannot give socialist results.

But, he adds: "However, such a negative policy from the revolutionary wing would not be understood by the masses and would strengthen the opportunist positions."

So the issue was merely limited to what slogans are most effective for us to use in this situation? It was an issue of practical politics. Trotsky did not believe that nationalizations by an underdeveloped capitalist nation could "result in socialism", that's just absurd.

The same applies to Chavez, he's not "building socialism" just because he's nationalizing state-capitalist enterprises. When the proletariat takes power, i.e., when actual workers' control over the trade union and state-machinery exists, it will be socialism.

[Devrim]

The nationalization of railways and oil fields in Mexico has of course nothing in common with socialism. It is a measure of state capitalism in a backward country which in this way seeks to defend itself on the one hand against foreign imperialism and on the other against its own proletariat.

The management of railways, oil fields, etcetera, through labor organizations has nothing in common with workers’ control over industry, for in the essence of the matter the management is effected through the labor bureaucracy which is independent of the workers, but in return, completely dependent on the bourgeois state.

This measure on the part of the ruling class pursues the aim of disciplining the working class, making it more industrious in the service of the common interests of the state, which appear on the surface to merge with the interests of the working class itself.

As a matter of fact, the whole task of the bourgeoisie consists in liquidating the trade unions as organs of the class struggle and substituting in their place the trade union bureaucracy as the organ of the leadership over the workers by the bourgeois state.

In these conditions, the task of the revolutionary vanguard is to conduct a struggle for the complete independence of the trade unions and for the introduction of actual workers’ control over the present union bureaucracy, which has been turned into the administration of railways, oil enterprises and so on

Trotsky is right in his analysis of the situation here, but wrong in his conclusions. The trade unions have been liquidated as organs of class struggle, a process which had been completed by 1940 when Trotsky wrote, and can not be made independent again.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

Well, obviously we disagree about that Devrim, but still, don't you consider there to be a difference between a trade-union in a underdeveloped capitalist nation and a trade-union in a advanced capitalist nation?

For example, the trade-union movement in Iran has a strong class-struggle history behind it, it is involved in one right now actually, and there is a lot of working-class potential in it, do you believe that we should just ignore that struggle?

[Zurdito]

Well, did Cardenas establish communal councils?

I'm not sure what his policy was regarding bureaucratic neighbourhood committees. From my knowledge he favoured other means of organising the masses for his own benefit and controlling them, bureaucratic trade unionism especially. but this is the difference between a traditional populist, Cardenas, who knew the working class existed, and a post--modernist populist, Chavez, who instead prefers to talk about parallel democracy within the bourgeois state based on community participation, etc.

I do know that in terms of economic nationalism and concrete reforms and redistribution (such as that of land) to buy the loyalty of the masses, Cardenas was more radical than Chavez.

[Devrim]

Well, obviously we disagree about that Devrim, but still, don't you consider there to be a difference between a trade-union in a underdeveloped capitalist nation and a trade-union in a advanced capitalist nation?

For example, the trade-union movement in Iran has a strong class-struggle history behind it, it is involved in one right now actually, and there is a lot of working-class potential in it, do you believe that we should just ignore that struggle?

I don't believe that we should ignore the struggles that are going on in Iran. I believe that they are really inspirational for the working class all across the Middle East.

The point is, however, about the nature of these struggles. Certainly a lot of them are under the trade union blanket, but in many of these struggles we can see the cracks between the workers and the unions starting to develop.

Trade unions can only really legally exist in Iran as a method of labour discipline, as they exist in the West, and as Trotsky so rightly explains in his point.

Devrim

[Led Zeppelin]

Trade unions can only really legally exist in Iran as a method of labour discipline, as they exist in the West, and as Trotsky so rightly explains in his point.

There is also a lot of illegal trade-union activity as a result of this, do you not support their struggles?

[Devrim]

There is also a lot of illegal trade-union activity as a result of this, do you not support their struggles?

It is not a point of supporting the struggles of the trade unions or not. The point is about supporting working class struggles. It is workers who strike not trade unions, and just as in the west we support strike on behalf of class demands whether they are 'organised' by the trade unions or organised outside of them.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm not sure what his policy was regarding bureaucratic neighbourhood committees.

Why the word "bureaucratic"?


From my knowledge he favoured other means of organising the masses for his own benefit and controlling them, bureaucratic trade unionism especially. but this is the difference between a traditional populist, Cardenas, who knew the working class existed, and a post--modernist populist, Chavez, who instead prefers to talk about parallel democracy within the bourgeois state based on community participation, etc.

That was my central point. On this grossly underrated aspect of participatory democracy, Chavez is leaps and bounds ahead of post-war and even inter-war "social democracy." As for "post-modern populism," if Chavez didn't recognize the existence of workers, he wouldn't be cozy with the IMT, would he (not that I condone the IMT's blatant opportunism)?


I do know that in terms of economic nationalism and concrete reforms and redistribution

Don't you think that perspective is one of, how shall I say, broad economism?

[Zurdito]

Why the word "bureaucratic"?

because of their function as an auxilliary to chavismo heavily infiltrated by the PSUV and dependent on funding from...Chavez.


That was my central point. On this grossly underrated aspect of participatory democracy, Chavez is leaps and bounds ahead of post-war and even inter-war "social democracy."

I don´t think there is any substance, it´s just propaganda and a way to look progressive without doing anything concrete.


As for "post-modern populism," if Chavez didn't recognize the existence of workers, he wouldn't be cozy with the IMT, would he (not that I condone the IMT's blatant opportunism)?

ok, he akcnowledges the existence of the workers movement ins ome sense, asall governemnts do. but in no way does he see class in the marxist sense as a primary contradiction.

The IMT choose ot support him, they mobiliise some troops and proaganda for him, why would´t he use them. Ultimately I don´t think Chavez rests on them in any sense.



Don't you think that perspective is one of, how shall I say, broad economism

Plase explain.

For marxists the primary immediate task is the organisation fo the working class vanguard under a political programme and for co-ordination across sectors, and a big task of populism is avoiding this, hence hte harsh repression at sanitarios maracay or SIDOR, or the desperate attempts to bring the unions under the control of chavistas who sign up to business friendly social pacts.

In such a context, to talk about "participatory demcoracy" is empty, because on their own communal councils are a dead end.

I believe that the working class needs to be the tribune of thepeople and lead all the masses of oppressed. However ina time when the workign class vanguard is not linked with these "parralel demcoracy" movements, they are not ever ontheir own going to be anything mroe than reformist civil rights movements. They can´t be a vanguard. The promotion of these strategies at the expense of class based action (i.e. workers actions against their bosses, including occupations) is a strategy to keep the masses subordinate, and not progressive.

This is not the same as saying that a working class vanguard party would not need to promote comunal assemblies, unemployed movements, etc. Of course it would. But currently we don´t yet have that working class vanguard party, and our strategy must be to build it, and to do so we need to tell the truth about chavismo and this excuse for a "parrallel democracy", and to tell the need for workers to base themselves on their own economic power and not on state-dependent neighbourhood committees.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I hope you got my e-mail regarding my next work, because the question of democracy is examined in greater detail there, using once more the theoretical development method of ["Marxism"]'s true founder.


Please explain.

Well, most Marxists claim that the era of the "democratic revolution" is over in the First World, and that it is tied directly to the bourgeois revolution: hence the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

Consider, however, Comrade Rakunin's post in this thread (#16) and my response after:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/discussion-imperialism-world-t87730/index.html

Also consider this CPGB article:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/540/economism.htm

On the one hand, most Marxists limit themselves to the question of "revolution" vs. parliamentarism, without considering higher forms of political democracy (in fact, according to the Aristotle-inspired Paul Cockshott, electoralism isn't really democratic, but aristocratic / oligarchic). On the other hand, there are "democratist" idealists out there who advocate participatory democracy, including demarchy, but either ignore or are unaware of the necessary class-strugglist emphasis.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Nationalization cant be progressive because it puts more power into the hands of the state. Anything adding to federal power is counter-productive.