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Yes and no.
Yes, the state is abolished/smashed in the process of the proletariat taking power. But going onto your second point, how does the working class 'fight the invaders and fascists' while also organizing society's most basic functions (as stated before, production, food, housing and all that that entails). How does it defend itself? The militia, when applied to class and not some ideological group, serves as a functioning arm of force representing a class' interest. Those bodies which operate, organize, and direct those militias engender themselves as state institutions.
And no, the state does not have the power to destroy itself. There is no 'off switch' for the state. And the abolition of the capitalist or feudal state necessitates the creation of a proletarian state by virtue of class dynamics globally.
Unless class is abolished globally, the state cannot cease to exist. Class forces will seek to preserve or advance their class interests so long as class division exists. out of this the state arises, as has been pointed out several times already.
"Dictatorship of the corporation," lol.
What runs a corporation is what would in this scenario exercise a position of class dictatorship. The bourgeoisie.
In such a scenario, there would still be class division as it is still capitalism. As a result, you have the institutions of the state coming into being.
If, hypothetically, one company ("Instead of a state you have a corporation.") became the sole ruler of a territory and people, then within it would exist antagonisms between those who produce but do not own that corporation and those who do own but do not produce. The corporate hierarchy would take on the characteristics of the state. you have regional directors, local management, various management bodies for the whole corporation, a board of directors and various top officers and finally a chief executive officer.
but how could that corporation actually be profitable if it is the only institution it does commerce with? would it produce everything? have different divisions and departments for the production of various goods?
does that corporation, if it takes the place of the state, therefore employ everyone? what does it do with those it fires? launch them into space?
and enforcement of policy obviously would take the form of security and various bodies that manage that 'division' of the company.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
From the Maoist point of view, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the beginning of socialism. Since classes exist in socialism, and the existence of classes implies the existence of state, the state cannot even start to wither away without capitalism being overthrown all over the world and the overthrown capitalist classes being weakened substantially. Until this happens, the workers' states that take over immediately after the revolutions, can only strengthen themselves.
I don't see what is so hard hard about understanding this. Perhaps the phrase "whither away" wasn't the best way of communicating the point, Lenin wasn't a stranger to using phrases or words or definitions inaccurately and in turn spawning a century's worth of misconceptions and fruitless debate. Must have been a curse (at least I think it was Lenin who first used the phrase "whither away," might not have been, but in any event the concept can be traced back to Marx's and Engels's conception of the proletarian dictatorship, with it being wholly in line with their perspective on the state).
In any event, when we say "whither away" we are not making the same mistake as the anarchists who view the state as a self-serving entity conscious of itself and with the capability of ruling voluntarily for itself. Marxists generally just see it as an issue of a social entity existing only in relation to the conditions that necessitate its existence, and all the same ceasing to exist upon the conditions for its existence ceasing to exist.
You're getting lost in your false premises, particularly your fantastic claim that not only can the state only exist in relation to classes and property (which is true), but that the only relationship it can have to property and classes is of defense rather than destruction.
I'm not sure if you're attributing that view to Marxists or if that is your own view. If the case is the former then it is no more or less than an outrageous strawman, if the latter, it is entirely inconsistent with your own view of the state as a pure "accident of history" if you will, as a random development that resulted from some conspiracy of people that wanted to be statesmen.
And you're goddamn right we can't change a thing until the majority of the world's workers commit to revolution. That's not pessimism or dogmatism, that's reality. Does that mean, however, that workers in a country that is ripe for revolution should not go through with it just because the rest of the world isn't ready? No, and nobody has ever argued as such. It just means that the isolated proletarian dictatorship can only hope to reorganize capitalism in different ways until it is ameliorated by world revolution.
Workers are the productive class, the backbone, and the foundation of society. But this does not mean that they are supermen and superwomen. They cannot supersede the conditions under which they operate through sheer force of will.
Not particularly, but that isn't the issue at all. All I was saying was that whether or not we choose to call it a state, workers instituting armed enforcement of their isolated class dictatorship's defense does indeed qualify as what we would call a state. Whether we call it the Glorious People's Republic, the Freest and Most Stateless of all Free and Stateless Territories, or the Ninth Kingdom of Heaven makes no difference.
What I was saying, however, has nothing to do with how the proletarian dictatorship is expressed, which I am of the opinion will take a more council-oriented approach than party.
Oh I wouldn't doubt that the Bolsheviks, most of whom were at least somewhat well-informed Marxists, had a basic understanding of the key tenants of Marxist theory.
Just like that, huh? Create and enforce with arms (fighting off invaders and fascists, mind you) the systematic liquidation of the old order, and call it stateless?
You stealthy bastard!
Oh boy. So please tell us. What is the social basis of the state, then? Does it just come out of fucking nowhere? Why is it that we can anthropologically identify the state as something that is only as old as class society give or take a little perhaps? Was it just a coincidental conspiracy that not only has held up until now without fault but has also kept social scientists of the last two centuries clueless? Do you know better than them? What makes you think you have the answers?
...And before the semantic police come. No obviously the dictatorship doesn't necessarily equate socialism, we simply call it socialism because it is the first step to socialism, much like Marx used Communism and socialism interchangably. The recognition of capitalist social relations under the DOTP/socialism is an acknowledgement of the fact that the very existence of the DOTP logically implies that there is a class over which there is a dictatorship over.
Men vanish from earth leaving behind them the furrows they have ploughed. I see the furrow Lenin left sown with the unshatterable seed of a new life for mankind, and cast deep below the rolling tides of storm and lightning, mighty crops for the ages to reap.
~Helen Keller
To despise the enemy strategically is an elementary requirement for a revolutionary. Without the courage to despise the enemy and without daring to win, it will be simply impossible to make revolution and wage a people’s war, let alone to achieve victory. ~Lin Biao
http://commiforum.forumotion.com/
It was Engels.
The idea is simple enough. Property relations are the roots of the state - destroy those roots and the plant - the state - will wither and die.
This exactly. You can't will the state out of existence because it depends on material conditions. It can wither away if those material conditions cease to exist.
Much as the garden doesn't weed itself just because you've decided that you're going to 'abolish' weeds. You actually have to go and dig them up.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
I see that ML's argue for the existence of the state as long as the revolution didn't become global and we still have a class society. However they fail to see that in countries where a revolution was successful, the bourgeoisie was abolished and the DOTP was established a new class of rulers emerged out of it as History as shown to us. Then how it would be after the revolution became global? You still have a class society even after the bourgeoisie was extinguished.
Love the use of "smashed".
I forget you guys think everything is a state.
It can't be switched off, but it can wither away?
This brings up an interesting topic of discution. Imagine there had been a revolution on an isolated island, and the people had collectivised, ended private property and classes, and abolished the state. Theoreticaly that island could continue to exist in anarchy until some country nearby invades and occupies the island. So, theoreticaly, if one can defend the territory from invasions from outside, there can be socialism in one country.
If the problem is lack of acess to resources needed for the island, we can put into practice expropriative anarchism, meaning using the exproriated property of the rich (money and stuff like that) to trade for the island's resources. Although I am prety sure that, for example, Italy is perfectly able to provide for all its citizens with basic needs, and it can develop to provide for luxury needs. Now imagine the Iberian peninsula, if Spain and Portugal had their revolutions at the same time they could join together. Portugal has the ability to provide for all its citizens, but lacks industry, Spain can provide for itself, and has the industry needed to produce luxury items. A union of Portugal and Spain would make an area that would not have any problems with lack of resources. Plus with Spain's military we are safe until all of NATO decides to kill us all.
Yeah, I know.
I distinguish the bourgeosie from the capitalists, because the first is refering to gigantic class with gigantic differences in power, and the latter is refering to a tiny class with big power over the world.
Yeah, I know. In this case the corporation itself.
That is why they divide into several countries. A corporation could occupy the functions of a state, but still being a company.
It is still a corporation, it does not care what happens to you if you are not working. I imagine a corporation-state would have the powers of the state, but they would not have any of the state's responsabilities towards its citizens. Complete removal of social state.
Yeah, because to me wither away seems like you are saying that it will just gradualy lose power until it disapears completely. This completely ignores ambition and selfish desire to be superior to others, that some people have. Not to mention that it appears to see the state as something you create with your mind, and ignores the fact that it is a material thing, with real institutions, with real people.
Again you are forgetting the state is made up of individuals, with own wills, with own ambitions, with own lives. When one finds himself in a position of power he will do anything to remain there. If you apply this to the big ammount of people that make up the state, you get an entitiy with its own will. Even if the state was made up of only one person it would have the will of that one person.
The state does not serve itself, it serves to regulate society to maintain status quo. In capitalism the capitalists have the most power, so they ally with the state in symbiosis, one provides the individuals within the state with money and power, and the other provides protection.
You just said it couldn't be willed out of existance!
A state cannot destroy property, it is the thing that maintains its relations with the capitalists. You destroy property and you destroy the capitalists, and without property the state cannot function.
I think the state originated right after property. Property originated with the great discovery of agriculture. You can see that communities that have not evolved agriculture have not developped a state. So if the state always worked for the defence of property, and depends on property to function, why would it do its utmost to destroy it? Even if the state was made up of harcore anarchists, you still wouldn't see the state working for its own abolition, because when one finds himself in a position of power, one does everything to maintain that position.
You are justifying dictatorship of the party.
Say what?
Can you translate that to a language I can understnad?
Then abolish the old state and don't create another one that works exactly like the old one. That is what was done during all communist revolutions.
What I call a state is an institution that works like the state we have now, not a confederation of workers councils. State is an authoritarian institution. The closest you are going to get to a state in anarchist theory is the platform, which does the functions of a state but in a libertarian way.
That is not a state, that is a federation of soviets. Completely different things.
Yeah, they just disregarded it.
Haven't you heard I am a statist and secretly a stalinist.Just like that, huh? Create and enforce with arms (fighting off invaders and fascists, mind you) the systematic liquidation of the old order, and call it stateless?
You stealthy bastard!
Seriously now. A state is authoritarian, a federation of soviets is not. How can a workers militia, controled by the workers through workers councils, be a state?
But you can abolish property and classes, and patiently wait for the state to wither away?
Also, who said the state can be willed out of existance? I have been trying to will the state out of existance for years and it still hasn't worked.
The question of the state withering away is not the immediate concern of a country that has undergone a socialist revolution that didn't spread beyond its borders. The priorities would then be defense, food security, healthcare, education, industrialization etc. That western leftists agonize over the body of armed men that is the state continuing to exist even if its purpose is to defend collectivised property relations while ignoring all the other far more pressing concerns is indeed a worry. What fascinates me about the 20th century workers states is not that they were dismantled eventually but how and why they were able to survive for that long and how those societies could have been strengthened to withstand their isolated existence through greater democracy etc.
"Machinery in itself is a victory of man over the forces of nature, but in the hands of capital it makes man the slave of those forces" - Uncle Karl
I've always been puzzled by how anyone could think that a draconian nightmare like the Soviet Union could simply "wither away" into communism.
It couldn't. No-one but the user here called 'RedShifted' has ever claimed it would or did. Why would anyone think it could?
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
Cute vocabulary but no substance.
The USSR was hardly a nightmare for the masses which gained so much from the revolution. And like I said in a pervious post, until capitalism is completely rid of there will need to be the DotP so of course the state of the USSR wasn't going to be fading away.
Last edited by Leftsolidarity; 22nd February 2013 at 00:48.
Freedom before Peace
The state doesn't "whither away." any transitional state, no matter how revolutionary it's rhetoric, would tend to become an end in itself, to preserve the very material conditions it had been created to remove. For such a state power to whither away, or promote its own dissolution, would require that its leaders and bureaucracy be people of superhuman moral qualities.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
Or a series of mass-revolutions against the bureaucracy addicted to power.
But this is supposed to be a "workers state." will the workers revolt against themselves?
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
A workers' state is not free from the remnants of capitalism or a bureaucracy. Hence, successive revolutions are required till the hierarchical state remains no more, and workers directly take control of the society without the mediation of a party.
Your comments have made a stronger statement of your anti-materialist analysis, then it has on the material conditions which would necessitate the state withering away; its honestly quite funny how the longer you are on revleft, the more you realize the board is populated by mostly liberals waving red or black flags.
I don't see how he's being "liberal" through his claim.
Cause the argument he is putting forth is one which is ultimately 'power corrupts,' a notion which traces its roots to classical liberalism. The best of the anarchists have abandoned this notion about a century ago, but the vast majority of anarchists on revleft (including 'lets get free' are nothing but liberals waving black flags and coming from idealist paradigms). The only good anarchists I've engaged in polemics with on the site are VMC and Tim Cornellis (however Tim has recently stopped identifying as an anarchist).
