Can someone explain to me how capitalists are the ruling class instead of the state ruling? How does this make sense when the government imposes regulations on the market all the time?
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The "Ruling Class"
Can someone explain to me how capitalists are the ruling class instead of the state ruling? How does this make sense when the government imposes regulations on the market all the time?
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
Well, the bourgeois state rules on behalf of the capitalist class and is made up of capitalists. That's why there is speak of a "revolving door" where politicians and businesspeople easily swap roles, moving in and out of government and private sector positions. Corporations like General Electric (GE) are able to flaunt regulations all the time because they have lawyers who are part of the "revolving door," i.e. people who have worked in government and know how to get around regulations. GE did not even pay taxes last year because of that. Ronald Reagan also worked for GE.
Ok, that makes sense. So why can't we simply people who aren't capitalists to the government and create socialism that way?
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
That is called reformism and is frowned upon around here.
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I know that but my question is why won't it work?
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
I'm not educated on reformism so I couldn't really say but usually goes that the military and other bourgeois forces will intervene and overthrow the government.
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What exactly are you asking?
Capitalist class=State
The people who run large corporations are the same class (and many times the very same individuals) as the people who run the state. If a politician is not a corporate leader himself, he is almost always controlled by corporate interests and money.
Are you familiar with the process of lobbying? Essentially it means bribery. Politicians accept donations from special interests in exchange for support of legislation favorable to the donor. Obviously, the wealthiest among us are the ones who can afford to control the state through this practice.
As for market regulations, many of them actually favor big business. While some regulations are honestly intended to protect consumers from unethical business practices, the many of them only serve to protect the interests of the ruling class.
I'm sure there are people here who can give you a more in-depth explanation, but what I am basically trying to tell you is that the capitalist class and the modern nation state are one and the same.
But if you can avoid that? What about Venezuela?
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
There are many here which wouldn't consider Venezuela socialist.
I consider them trying to build socialism but they still have a ways to go.
Still,the detractors say much of the same, though I don't debate them on such things because it is pointless defending reformism.
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I can't guess your motivations but the questions you're asking are very valid, and socialists have a bad history of being able to adequately answer them.
The methods by which the capitalists control bourgeois-democratic states - states with a sort of liberal democracy where the majority of the population can vote and, within tight constitutional bounds, in principle move a lot of state resources to the working class - are very complex.
It's a bit easier to understand how the capitalists came to control the state, than to understand how they still control the state. In Europe more than North America, but in both cases, modern states grew significantly within and out of feudal states. Thus you did have a struggle on the part of the bourgeoisie to take control from feudal authorities. But to a significant extent, in North America especially, the bourgeoisie simply created the state, in its own interests. Politics back in the day used to be a lot more explicit and honest. Capitalists were explicitly anti-democratic; the franchise was explicitly limited, and for a reason; constitutional controls over what potential populist leaders could do were firmly established; but they were mostly moot points anyway because the bourgeoisie simply controlled the state. The working class generally wasn't organized except in minorities and to limited extents, while the bourgeoisie controlled the police and could do whatever it liked with it. Legislative and executive bodies of the state were clearly and openly staffed by capitalists and aristocrats. Until salaries for public officials were introduced, you couldn't seriously run for office without being independently wealthy. And no one bothered anyway because no one had the energy or resources to even think about mounting a serious campaign.
Many of these factors still hold today, but many don't, and in general they hold much less strongly than they used to. The franchise has been expanded. In the broad sense, workers' organizations are larger and stronger, and face less repression than they used to (as in the 20th century compared to the 19th, not as in the 1980s compared to the 1960s). Ordinary workers simply have higher levels of education and material living standards and levels of literacy and access to communications than we've ever had, and that has its effects. In general it's much easier for workers to become actively involved in the bourgeois state than it was in, say, the 1800s. But that capacity is still tightly circumscribed. Workers still live paycheque to paycheque and can't take a month or a year off to run a serious political campaign. Even if they can they simply don't have the same resources available, whether it be personal connections with lawyers and advisors, or in terms of financial resources and media support.
But even if they manage to get elected, virtually always in a minority, and virtually always having accommodate (read:capitulate) to the aforementioned lawyers, advisors, financiers and media barons - they still find themselves sharply constrained by a bourgeois state whose whole institutional structure, legal and constitutional structure, and massive armed bodies in the military and police are organized, and have been organized for centuries, to defend private property and the bourgeoisie.
The staff of the executive of the state might well be selected simply on the basis of merit, but on this count the above constraints apply: if you work really hard in school in a lot of cases you can become a bureaucrat, but only by learning to conform to what the bourgeois state needs of you.
At the end of the day, the bourgeoisie controls the means of production and reproduction. The bourgeoisie becomes massively wealthy, and they own the internet and the publishing houses and the schools and so. They have as much money with which to buy politics as they need. The state has been designed by and for them, and they have resources to protect it, whereas we have few.
This all leaves aside competition between different capitalists within and for control over the state, but that's a whole other matter.
Simply because the system is designed in such a way that will make that change impossible. Parties with radical ideas who will try to enter the "representative" government will be marginalized. Bureaucracy rules all.
I also see a difference between bourgeoisie class and politicians. I mean while most politicians are burgeioue, not all of them are in that class when they get into politics.
“To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.”
Electing socialists into government can be useful in building class consciousness and as a means to speak to people about socialism, but socialism can't be created in a top-down fashion. Workers have to consciously be aware of what socialism (proletarian democracy) means and act on their own understanding (not simply follow orders) before such a system can replace capitalism. Socialists elected to government could use their position as a rallying point for the cause and as a platform to educate people on the need to abolish capitalist rule, but they would be unable to create socialism by their own will or legislative maneuvering.
Bourgeois state institutions are designed to protect the capitalist system. Socialism is only possible by abolishing those institutions and building independent working class ones (democratic workers' councils, etc.) "Simply" electing socialist politicians to government would mean leaving all the capitalist infrastructure intact. Socialists elected to capitalist government must actively promote the dissolution of that government, otherwise the right-wing will regroup in those capitalist institutions left intact (such as the military and corporate media) and overthrow the democratically-elected socialist politicians in a coup d'tat, like has happened in Chile in 1973 and countless other countries (Haiti 2004, Honduras 2008, nearly in Venezuela and Ecuador in 2002 and 2010 respectively, etc.)
Attempts to do this often lead to a watered down program - as parties change their policies to match whatever they think is popular at the time, it is highly unlikely to succeed as the ruling class will do everything to prevent it, and they hold all the power here (examine the superhuman effort of the US, the Catholic Church and the Italian capitalist class to defeat the Popular Front in the Italian election of 1948), strongly left wing governments have at times faced military coups to prevent a radical programme.
A socialist revolution is not something that can just be imposed in this way, but has to come from the working class itself which must be willing to rise up and begin the reapropriation of property.
Essentially, a socialist revolution has little hope of being brought about in this way. So little that it scarcely seems possible.
On the topic of reformism, I think the greatest weakness in reformism is that because it leaves private property in the lands of the capitalist class, that class will always work to undo those reforms, before they go too far. Even the social-democracies of Scandinavia are currently under attack by proponents of austerity measures and neo-liberalism.
I read Marx and Lenin last night and this is kinda what I got out of it.
The state rose with class divisions, and is a tool for the rule of class over class, be it slave owners over the slaves, nobles over the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, or the proletariat over the defeated bourgeoisie. It is a product of class antagonisms and (this is my bit) thus reflects whatever common denominators exist in the desires and interests (but not necessarily both) of the propertied classes in its policy or actions. So, in capitalism, "the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Things like lobbying, bribery, etc. are just luxuries that individual capitalists or groups of capitalists use to put themselves ahead of the game. That's not what makes them the ruling class.
Old school reformism was flawed in that it saw the state as an organ for the reconciliation of classes rather than class dictatorship. I think most modern reformism is just applying certain "egalitarian" ideals present within liberalism into politics.
Venezuela is just a capitalist state wearing a Che shirt. All the bourgeois state is capable of doing with regards to reform is giving minor concessions and establishing things like a welfare apparatus. It can often change the individual capitalists and the form they take, such as in nationalization, but it cannot change the essence of capitalist property relations.
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
Is this correct? ^
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
Not necessarily the propertied classes, just the ruling class. The proletariat can become the ruling class briefly, before abolishing class of course.
Except for my nitpick, yes.
Yes, that's why I included "proletariat over the defeated bourgeoisie".
I never would have guessed socialism would make so much sense. Huh.
We're all disillusioned with capitalism.
I'm glad to hear it's making sense to you. Really, the biggest problem to understanding socialism is how much it clashes with the liberal presuppositions drilled into our heads by bourgeois society from a young age. Once you discard those, socialism makes all the sense in the world.
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