Social Proletocracy, Marx, and Lenin's theoretical mistakes

[Die Neue Zeit]

[Comrades and other RevLefters, I spent the better part of this morning compiling the second and third portions of "Social Proletocracy: The Revolutionary Merger of Marxism and the Workers' Movement" - Chapter 5 of The Class Struggle Revisited. Before reading this, it is highly recommended that "Plain Proletocracy" be read first.]



Lenin: Proletocratic “State Socialist”

“Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism!” (Wilhelm Liebknecht)

What was this “state socialism” that Wilhelm Liebknecht, the father of the revolutionary martyr Karl Liebknecht, was talking about? Just mere days before the “October Revolution” (November 7, 1917), Lenin had this to say about German “state socialism”:

And therefore what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Lensch, and others) call "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.

Now 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!

However, the combative tone of Liebknecht implied that he meant something much more. Indeed, in 1889, he had this to say:

For if that happens it is only too easy to forget, in the struggle for material improvements, for higher wages, that the bourgeois mode of production in its entirety has to be reorganized, that the wage system as a whole must be abolished.

Unfortunately, Lenin was all too euphoric about the potential of worker-controlled state capitalism, going as far as to equate it with “socialism”:

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.

[…]

The dialectics of history is such that the war, by extraordinarily expediting the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism, has thereby extraordinarily advanced mankind towards socialism.

Imperialist war is the eve of socialist revolution. And this not only because the horrors of the war give rise to proletarian revolt—no revolt can bring about socialism unless the economic conditions for socialism are ripe—but because 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.

To put the first part of this quote into proper perspective, it should be reiterated, but with one alteration:

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 [bourgeois] monopoly.

One more thing that should be noted is that Lenin, for all his contributions to the theoretical study of imperialism, made an equally euphoric remark about finance capital:

This brings us to another aspect of the question of the state apparatus. In addition to the chiefly "oppressive" apparatus—the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy—the modern state possesses an apparatus which has extremely close connections with the banks and syndicates, an apparatus which performs an enormous amount of accounting and registration work, if it may be expressed this way. This apparatus must not, and should not, be smashed. It must be wrested from the control of the capitalists; the capitalists and the wires they pull must be cut off, lopped off, chopped away from this apparatus; it must be subordinated to the proletarian Soviets; it must be expanded, made more comprehensive, and nation-wide. And this can be done by utilising the achievements already made by large-scale capitalism (in the same way as the proletarian revolution can, in general, reach its goal only by utilising these achievements).

Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus in the shape of the banks, syndicates, postal service, consumers' societies, and office employees' unions. Without big banks socialism would be impossible.

The big banks are the "state apparatus" which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready-made from capitalism; our task here is merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive. Quantity will be transformed into quality. A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. This will be country wide bookkeeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods, this will be, so to speak, some thing in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society.

Whatever happened to the Manifesto’s minimum demand for “centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly”? How was this minimum demand elevated to something much more? What Lenin said above was taken straight out of Rudolf Hilferding’s analysis on finance capital and especially financial leverage (which, nowadays, is the true nature of derivatives trading and even “pension fund socialism,” both of which form the basis of the modern financial system).

All in all, some proletocratic “state socialist” Lenin was! Fortunately, a second term can be adopted by modern revolutionary Marxists which goes beyond the ordinary proletocracy (be it direct or indirect through state mechanisms) – replete with unabolished wage slavery and capital – that past revolutionary Marxists such as Lenin were aiming for: social proletocracy.

Social Proletocracy: Labour Credit and the Critique of the Gotha Programme Revisited

Why the seemingly repetitive addition of the word “social”? Is ordinary proletocracy not “social” already? Eight years ago, one Scottish comrade of the Republican Communist Network, Allan Armstrong, had this to say in the Weekly Worker (# 318):

If there is a distinction to be made between pre- and post-international revolutionary wave, revolutionary social democracy, it lies in the following. The older revolutionary social democracy clung to Marx's pre-Paris Commune view that socialism would come about by further perfecting and bringing the existing capitalist state 'under workers' control' - through socialist majorities in parliament and other levels of the state. Drawing on the experience of the Paris Commune, Marx later rejected his earlier view. He now boldly declared the need to smash the capitalist state machinery.

But in the period following the Paris Commune Marx went further, making his earlier slogan, "Abolish the wages system" more concrete. He showed us that workers' economic control could not be brought about just by placing the wages system under 'workers' control'. The whole wages system needed to be abolished. This requires a double mechanism. First, we have to take over direct control of production and distribution through combining as 'freely associated labour' - what was later understood as workers' councils. Secondly, our workers' councils must plan production and distribution directly on the basis of labour time. This eliminates the distinction between socially necessary and surplus labour and allows us collectively to agree what proportion of social labour is allocated to individuals (by means of labour certificates showing the hours we have worked) and what is reserved for the meeting of wider social needs, democratically decided by the workers' councils themselves.

Sufficed to say, Armstrong went on to criticize Lenin’s non-abolitionist conception of "socialism," despite the latter's extensive citation of Critique of the Gotha Programme in his monumental The State and Revolution.

So why is Marx’s 1875 work so important? It is here where he talks about labour time, which is all the more relevant due to both lingering consumerist tendencies and the developments associated with the current “Information Age”:

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

In the very next paragraph, he talks about the differences between money as we know it today and labour-time vouchers (which, with the current “Information Age,” have been re-labelled “labour credit” by Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell):

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.

In other words, labour credit with modern information technology (and, at the present time, plastic cards like debit and credit cards) is a more restrictive form of exchange, since its does not circulate throughout the economy, thereby preventing “black market” exploitation of labour and individual capital accumulation (not to mention the circulation of counterfeit currency). In the United States today, there is precedent: “food stamp” electronic benefit transfers (EBTs). In the very next four paragraphs, he makes his strongest case against the French-socialist obsession with egalitarianism, the latter of which has consistently fed the pro-establishment, “humans are selfish” academic and media hegemons:

Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.

In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

It is in the next paragraph where Marx finally discusses proper “communism”:

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

The Italian Communist Amadeo Bordiga gave a rather excellent recap of what Marx said above regarding the three (not two) stages following the workers’ revolution, in his critique of the grossly revisionist “Comrade” Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR – titled Dialogue with Stalin:

The following schema can serve as a re-capitulation of our difficult subject [...]:

Transition stage: the proletariat has conquered power and must withdraw legal protection from the non-proletarian classes, precisely because it cannot 'abolish' them in one go. This means that the proletarian state controls an economy of which a part, a decreasing part it is true, knows commercial distribution and even forms of private disposition of the product and the means of production (whether these be concentrated or scattered). Economy not yet socialist, a transitional economy.

Lower stage of communism: or, if you want, socialism. Society has already come to dispose of the products in general and allocates them to its members by means of a plan for 'rationing'. Exchange and money have ceased to perform this function. It cannot be conceded to Stalin that simple exchange without money although still in accordance with the law of value could be a perspective for arriving at communism: on the contrary that would mean a sort of relapse into the barter system. The allocation of products starts rather from the centre and takes place without any equivalent in exchange. Example: when a malaria epidemic breaks out, quinine is distributed free in the area concerned, but in the proportion of a single tube per inhabitant.

In this stage, apart from the obligation to work continuing, the recording of the labour time supplied and the certificate attesting this are necessary, i.e. the famous labour voucher so much discussed for a hundred years. The voucher cannot be accumulated and any attempt to do so will involve the loss of a given amount of labour without restitution of any equivalent. The law of value is buried (Engels: society no longer attributes a 'value' to products).

Higher stage of communism which can also without hesitation be called full socialism. The productivity of labour has become such that neither constraint nor rationing are any longer necessary (except for pathological cases) as a means of avoiding the waste of products and human energy. Freedom for all to take for consumption. Example: the pharmacies distribute quinine freely and without restriction.

Therefore, social proletocracy, as opposed to ordinary proletocracy (again, be it direct or indirect through state mechanisms), encompasses the following:

1) The establishment of ever-increasing amounts of what many radical political liberals call “participatory democracy,” which goes beyond the current and degenerating “representative democracy” in regards to a highly engaged and highly active citizenry;
2) The revolutionary (as opposed to reformist) extension of this “participatory democracy” to socioeconomic affairs (that is, the implementation of neither state-capitalist ownership nor state-capitalist control, but rather the implementation of social ownership and social control);
3) The revolutionary worker-class-strugglist emphasis of the two features above (that is, at the expense of other classes, such as the bourgeoisie); and
4) In addition to these features of a more direct but still ordinary proletocracy, the “pre-communist” social abolition of both wage slavery and capital through the full, non-circulable credit of individual labour (albeit after income deductions or non-income, “Lassallean” taxation “for the common funds” pertaining to strategic socio-technological development, infrastructure, retirees and the disabled, etc.).



REFERENCES:

Our Recent Congress by Wilhelm Liebknecht [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lieb...r-congress.htm]

The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It by Vladimir Lenin [http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni.../ichtci/11.htm]

On The Political Position of Social-Democracy by Wilhelm Liebknecht [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lieb...l-position.htm]

Lenin's error re. state capitalism vs. "socialism" (and "left-wing" childishness) [http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenins-err...487/index.html]

Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? by Vladimir Lenin [http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...917/oct/01.htm]

Human.liberation.com or Bill Gates rules? by Allan Armstrong [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/318/hlcorbg.html]

Critique of the Gotha Programme by Karl Marx [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...gotha/ch01.htm]

Towards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell [http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/soc..._socialism.pdf]

Dialogue with Stalin by Amadeo Bordiga, 1952

Bordigism by Adam Buick [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill.../bordbuik.html]

[Tower of Bebel]

I agree, and for once I fully understood what you wrote. This article is a much better defence of socialism than your thread on Lenin's (and therefor gilhyle's) error.

[Niccolò Rossi]

I agree with Rakunin, this is defintely one of your better (if not the best) pieces.

[DrFreeman09]

You know, from a purely theoretical standpoint, Lenin was not completely in the wrong. In theory, state-capitalism, with a state controlled by the working class, would be, in effect, very close to socialism. Theoretically, that would seem to be a simple solution to capitalism. I.e. we need social control of the means of production, so let's use the state!

On the surface, this doesn't sound like a bad idea if the working class controls their state. But Lenin did not have the benefit of seeing what happened to the Soviet Union after his death, so without this theoretical backdrop, it isn't difficult to understand why Lenin may have been exited about "state-socialism." It is also worth noting that for argumentative purposes, Lenin may have been making the task of workers' rule seem a lot simpler than it actually was. These types of arguments do not hold up to scruitiny, but I can understand why they are made.

We can say with great conviction now that even if the workers do control the state, "state-capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people" is not enough to bring about classless society, and in fact, it comes with many problems that make it extremely dangerous. In other words, we know that state control should be used with restraint today. But why is this? Many of us have used the whole "power corrupts" argument. While this argument is valid, I think Kant made a much better one.

Normally, I don't like Kant and his transendentalist nonsense. However, I recently discovered that his definitions of public and private were spot on.

The commonly accepted definition of public is anything having to do with the state. After all, in theory, the state is merely a collective representation of the people's will (at least in a democracy). Private is said to be anything that goes on between individuals.

On the other hand, Kant claimed that things were the other way around. Public thought, according to Kant, presented itself in discussion between a group of people in a room, because there are no restrictions on what can be said or thought. The people involved in this "private" discussion are free to think whatever they please, which makes this interaction public. In other words, it is public thought because it belongs to the people in the streets. To Kant, anything to do with the state was private. When you work for the state, you have to follow certain guidelines, follow orders, and carry out duties based on some constitution. Thought within the state was private thought to Kant, not public, because it was limited to what was acceptable within the state apparatus.

Similarly, by definition, state control is private ownership. It is not public, because no matter how democratic the state is, it is still a private institution for the reasons described above.

So, if we take this Kantian approach to the state, "state-socialism" is really an impossibility. While state control to some degree will undoubtedly be necessary in my view, the overal focus should be on the workers' effort to run things directly and to exercise genuine social control over the means of production.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So, if we take this Kantian approach to the state, "state-socialism" is really an impossibility. While state control to some degree will undoubtedly be necessary in my view, the overall focus should be on the workers' effort to run things directly and to exercise genuine social control over the means of production.

Comrade, either I was unclear in my first post, or you have brought up a potentially worrisome "Third Way" option. Can "general social control over the means of production" occur on the basis of current monetary systems - which cannot prevent individual capital accumulation ("under the table" work arrangements between individuals) - or can it occur only on the basis of labour time?

[mikelepore]

Transition stage: the proletariat has conquered power and must withdraw legal protection from the non-proletarian classes, precisely because it cannot 'abolish' them in one go.

In the case of advanced capitalism, why can't the capitalist class be abolished in one go? Seems to me, this *absentee* ruling class is sustained in this way: they expect to receive, when they check their mailboxes, quarterly dividend checks, and an annual card to send in their vote for the board of directors. The formality of the rules keeps the the *absentee* capitalist class in existence. If socialists acquire power, we just stop sending the capitalists their dividends, we stop sending them those cards to ask them who they would like to vote for on the board of directors, and in doing that we have abolished the capitalist class.

[mikelepore]

To moderator: I didn't mean to post that to the article submissions place. I thought it was a discussion thread. Please delete my post.

[Die Neue Zeit]

[I]Transition stage: the proletariat has conquered power and must withdraw legal protection from the non-proletarian classes, precisely because it cannot 'abolish' them in one go.

In the case of advanced capitalism, why can't the capitalist class be abolished in one go? Seems to me, this *absentee* ruling class is sustained in this way: they expect to receive, when they check their mailboxes, quarterly dividend checks, and an annual card to send in their vote for the board of directors. The formality of the rules keeps the the *absentee* capitalist class in existence. If socialists acquire power, we just stop sending the capitalists their dividends, we stop sending them those cards to ask them who they would like to vote for on the board of directors, and in doing that we have abolished the capitalist class.

Keep in mind, comrade, the presence of non-bourgeois, non-proletarian classes (coordinators, lumpenbourgeoisie, lumpenproles, lumpen, petit-bourgeoisie, etc.).

I have no problem with bringing down the hammer on the bourgeoisie ("aggravation of the class struggle along with the transition to socialism"), but the other classes will be more difficult to absorb into the proletariat.

BTW, methinks your position re. the bourgeoisie is NOT militant enough (public humiliations, show trials, "corrective labour," executions, etc.).

[mikelepore]

Even though the class structure may be complicated, it's still true that there is one primary essence to a socialist revolution, and that is for the workers in the workplaces to be so thoroughly organized that can physically lock out the capitalist class and their management puppets. That may mean, if necessary, literally carrying them to the door and throwing them outside. This also means that the capitalist's paper money will be no longer accepted at the store, where only the labor credits that are issued by the socialist administration will be redeemable, so the deposed capitalist or corporate officer will either choose to become an ordinary worker or will have no food. If the degree of workers' organization, both political and industrial organization, is complete enough, I believe class distinctions can be ended nearly in a day.

[Mania]

BTW, methinks your position re. the bourgeoisie is NOT militant enough (public humiliations, show trials, "corrective labour," executions, etc.).

This is absurd.

Why would you publicly humiliate capitalists? What is the purpose of it and how does publicly humiliating people, even class enemies, define you as militant or progressive and not just a waste of time? What do you mean by public humiliation? Attaching someone to a board and throwing tomatoes at them? Don't you think there are more pressing issues?

Why would you have 'show trials' (i.e. trials where the outcome is already decided)? Are you going to put capitalists on trial for being capitalists? Why would you need the cover of judiciary to defend the suppression of the capitalist class?

And how does any of that define you as a militant communist? If anything, it defines you as a Red Alert nerd or someone whom sees revolution as a game or to fulfil your juvenile selfish notions of entertainment.

[mikelepore]

Why would you publicly humiliate capitalists? What is the purpose of it and how does publicly humiliating people, even class enemies, define you as militant or progressive and not just a waste of time?

Jacob seems to have forgotten Marx's observation that the capitalist is "merely capital personified", the "agent" of capital. Marx made this important point three times in _Capital_, in volume 1 chapter 4, volume 1 chapter 10, and volume 3 chapter 48.

[Die Neue Zeit]

To rescue this thread from the off-topic posts:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/anarchism-...849/index.html

Mike, I was merely quoting Bordiga's conception of the transition to "communism."