Having grown up in USSR, Iāll take state capitalism over actual capitalism any day. The fundamental difference between state owned enterprise and privately owned enterprise is the purpose of work. Under actual capitalism, the sole purpose of a business is to create profit for the owners of that business. On the other hand, the purpose of state enterprise is to create useful things for the people living in the country. Nobody is accumulating wealth and becoming rich of other peopleās labour when the means of production are publicly owned. It might not be perfect, but itās certainly a huge step forward from capitalist relations seen in the west.
I welcome that you openly admit that Stalinism is fundamentally a state-capitalist ideology.
Please donāt put words in my mouth. What I actually said was that state-capitalism is fundamentally a misnomer because capitalism is fundamentally a system of capital accumulation by capitalists through exploitation of the working class. This fundamental capitalist mechanic is not present in what you refer to as state-capitalism.
Nor did I ever agree with you that this somehow fundamental to Soviet style communism. Organization of industry by the state was done because of the need for rapid industrialization in face of adversity from western capitalist powers. The original model of organizing industry ad hoc proven itself to be inefficient for this task.
However the state under state-capitalism is still bound by the unalterable laws of capital- it must still accumulate capital above all else (even above āmaking useful thingsā), make a profit (profit comes from the exploitation of wage labor), and compete in a global market, just like āactual capitalismā (you seem to be calling āfree marketā capitalism āactual capitalismā to distinguish it from state-capitalism even though Marxism doesnāt really make a distinction). Just because the state owns the means of production doesnāt mean āthe peopleā own it (what does that even mean? Thatās a total abstraction from class) or that they are not exploited.
Thatās just a bunch of falsehoods. First of all, the state does not accumulate capital. The labour is directed towards productive activity such as building infrastructure, housing, food production, and so on. Thatās the core difference you seem to be missing.
Nor did USSR compete on the global market. In fact, the way USSR interacted with other countries shows another clear difference from capitalism. USSR made huge investments into countries such as Cuba and Vietnam by building out their infrastructure, providing their people with education, and food. Once USSR collapsed, the quality of life in these countries saw a sharp decline. This is literally the opposite of the extractive capitalist relations practiced by the west.
Finally, since the working class holds the power in the state the workers do in fact own the means of production by virtue of having the dictatorship of the proletariat that runs the state.
Meanwhile, your Engels quote conveniently avoids the context where both Marx and Engels recognized that some form of a worker state was necessary as a transitional entity between capitalism and communism. This is literally what withering of the state refers to. You cannot take a society that was shaped by capitalist relations and magically turn it communist because people develop their habits and sensibilities based on their environment. Only when socialist relations have become the norm can there be talk of the stat withering. And itās certainly not something thatās possible while capitalism is the dominant global ideology.
Trying to claim that Engels did not recognize the role of the state is the height of intellectual dishonesty given that this is literally the core disagreement between Engels and the anarchists.
state-capitalism is fundamentally a misnomer because capitalism is fundamentally a system of capital accumulation by capitalists through exploitation of the working class. This fundamental capitalist mechanic is not present in what you refer to as state-capitalism.
Capitalism is not only the exploitation of the working class by individual capitalists. As Marx and Engels explained, as as Engels argued, ācapitalistā is a social role, not an individual one. Youāre engaging in circular reasoning if youāre trying to say āit wasnāt capital accumulation because the state was not capitalist by definitionā.
Organization of industry by the state was done because of the need for rapid industrialization in face of adversity from western capitalist powers. The original model of organizing industry ad hoc proven itself to be inefficient for this task.
The drive towards industrialization in the USSR represented a state-led capital accumulation. Wages were quite low during this time. The fact that wages were set by state planners and not the market does not make them ānot wagesā, and the fact that their labor value was appropriated by the state instead of privately does not make them ānot wagesā either.
Thatās just a bunch of falsehoods. First of all, the state does not accumulate capital. The labour is directed towards productive activity such as building infrastructure, housing, food production, and so on. Thatās the core difference you seem to be missing.
Iām aware that the USSR set prices and produced things according to production targets rather than market demand. This does not make it ānot commodity productionā. Even if we concede that people are happy with the wages they are paid or are okay with their exploitation at the moment does not make it ānot wage laborā, ānot exploitationā and thus "not capital accumulation - itās the fact that wage labor exists at all.
Nor did USSR compete on the global market. In fact, the way USSR interacted with other countries shows another clear difference from capitalism. USSR made huge investments into countries such as Cuba and Vietnam by building out their infrastructure, providing their people with education, and food. Once USSR collapsed, the quality of life in these countries saw a sharp decline. This is literally the opposite of the extractive capitalist relations practiced by the west.
While the USSR may have been different from Western capitalist countries in significant ways, it did not represent the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of communism/ socialism, or marked a āpath towardsā communism/ socialism. Other than that, their investment into other countries was not entirely free of self-interest either. By helping to develop the industries of these countries the USSR was creating trading partners that could supply raw materials and purchase Soviet goods, increase its influence and serve as a buffer between itself and the West.
Finally, since the working class holds the power in the state the workers do in fact own the means of production by virtue of having the dictatorship of the proletariat that runs the state.
More circular reasoning. Youāre saying that thereās a dictatorship of the proletariat because thereās a dictatorship of the proletariat. Moreover, you keep conflating terms- you realize that the DoTP and socialism/ communism are not the same right?
Meanwhile, your Engels quote conveniently avoids the context where both Marx and Engels recognized that some form of a worker state was necessary as a transitional entity between capitalism and communism. This is literally what withering of the state refers to. You cannot take a society that was shaped by capitalist relations and magically turn it communist because people develop their habits and sensibilities based on their environment. Only when socialist relations have become the norm can there be talk of the stat withering. And itās certainly not something thatās possible while capitalism is the dominant global ideology.
The way this is framed is entirely wrong. The goal of socialism is not to build a workerās nation-state. The proletarian stateās role, led by the vanguard party, is to directly suppress the bourgeoisie during the transition to communism globally. The dictatorship of the proletarian is not equivalent to communism/ socialism and the proletarian state does not take over the role of āmanagingā the state capital, as capital cannot be ātamedā like Stalinists think it can. This does not take place within the context of a nation-state. It happens internationally as the proletariat are at global war with the bourgeoisie. This is Stalinās distortion of āsocialism in one countryā, where Stalin makes the argument that communism can peacefully co-exist alongside capitalism and that communism can exist standalone in the borders of a nation. Itās a complete departure from Marx and a gross misunderstanding of the role of the proletarian state.
Trying to claim that Engels did not recognize the role of the state is the height of intellectual dishonesty given that this is literally the core disagreement between Engels and the anarchists.
Now who is putting words in whoās mouth? Nowhere did say that Engels was an anarchist or argued against the need for a proletarian state. My argument is that Stalinās theories are a gross departure from Marxās theory and Leninās application it. The point of the Engels quote is to show you that your argument is entirely semantic and superficial, you donāt have socialism by re-naming things ie. The Peopleās Bank (you canāt even make this up), The Peopleās Republic, waving red flags around, and calling yourself socialist but continuing the capitalist relations of production and exploitation of wage labor as usual. Stalinists today make the same mistake as Eugen DĆ¼hring as it is not the behavior of individual capitalists, or the entity that takes on the role of the capitalist, but the relations of production themselves.
Capitalism is not only the exploitation of the working class by individual capitalists. As Marx and Engels explained, as as Engels argued, ācapitalistā is a social role, not an individual one. Youāre engaging in circular reasoning if youāre trying to say āit wasnāt capital accumulation because the state was not capitalist by definitionā.
Iām not engaging in any circular thinking here. Iām simply stating that capital accumulation is the core aspect of capitalism, thatās why itās called capitalism. Once again, the state does not accumulate capital. Thatās just something you made up and keep using as a straw man. The state directs the productive power towards producing material things people of the country use.
The drive towards industrialization in the USSR represented a state-led capital accumulation. Wages were quite low during this time. The fact that wages were set by state planners and not the market does not make them ānot wagesā, and the fact that their labor value was appropriated by the state instead of privately does not make them ānot wagesā either.
It did not, it produced infrastructure, housing, food, energy, and weapons that the people of USSR needed to live and defend themselves from the capitalist threat. Meanwhile, your argument regarding the wages is intellectually dishonest because it ignores all the things people got they didnāt need to pay money for, and the fact that prices for things like food were fixed.
Iām aware that the USSR set prices and produced things according to production targets rather than market demand. This does not make it ānot commodity productionā. Even if we concede that people are happy with the wages they are paid or are okay with their exploitation at the moment does not make it ānot wage laborā, ānot exploitationā and thus "not capital accumulation - itās the fact that wage labor exists at all.
People working to produce things that they all use collectively is not exploitation. Your whole argument here is fallacious. Nobody in USSR was exploiting the labour of the workers for personal benefit the way actual capitalism works. Labour was done in the collective interest.
You could make a coherent argument that organization of labour could have been better, or that there was lack of genuine workplace democracy. These could be sound and credible arguments drawing parallels between capitalist company structure and state owned enterprise in USSR. However, thatās not the argument youāre making.
More circular reasoning. Youāre saying that thereās a dictatorship of the proletariat because thereās a dictatorship of the proletariat. Moreover, you keep conflating terms- you realize that the DoTP and socialism/ communism are not the same right?
Iām beginning to think that you donāt understand what the term circular reasoning means. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat because the proletariat ran a communist revolution that was led by the communist party and took power. Thatās why there was a dictatorship of the proletariat.
The way this is framed is entirely wrong. The goal of socialism is not to build a workerās nation-state. The proletarian stateās role, led by the vanguard party, is to directly suppress the bourgeoisie during the transition to communism globally. The dictatorship of the proletarian is not equivalent to communism/ socialism and the proletarian state does not take over the role of āmanagingā the state capital, as capital cannot be ātamedā like Stalinists think it can.
Once somebody demonstrates a better way to do thing weāll talk. The reality is that the approach that USSR followed actually created a better state of things than a capitalist society as imperfect as it was. This was a socialist state that was moving in the direction of communism. The goal of socialism is to create a transitional state that moves society from capitalist relations towards communist ones. This does not happen overnight.
This does not take place within the context of a nation-state. It happens internationally as the proletariat are at global war with the bourgeoisie.
This argument would make sense if there was a global socialist movement which does not actually exist. In absence of such a movement, creating a socialist state is obviously the next best option. If Europeans didnāt shit the bed at the start of the 20th century and joined the communist movement, then what youāre talking about may have been possible.
My argument is that Stalinās theories are a gross departure from Marxās theory and Leninās application it.
Unfortunately, your argument is not dialectical because it ignores the material realities that drove these departures. If USSR failed to rapidly industrialize under Stalin, the most likely outcome wouldāve been that nazis Germany wouldāve taken it apart and ushered in global fascism before US finally managed to do it.
Youāre presenting a position that ignores the material realities in favor of idealism. Lenin directly addresses this style of argument in āLeft-Wingā Communism: an Infantile Disorder
What we see in China today is not fundamentally different from NEP which Lenin realized was necessary for largely the same reasons. Itās very easy to argue and criticize things in the abstract, itās much harder to actually implement these things while under duress from global capitalism.
Iām not engaging in any circular thinking here. Iām simply stating that capital accumulation is the core aspect of capitalism, thatās why itās called capitalism. Once again, the state does not accumulate capital. Thatās just something you made up and keep using as a straw man. The state directs the productive power towards producing material things people of the country use.
It did not, it produced infrastructure, housing, food, energy, and weapons that the people of USSR needed to live and defend themselves from the capitalist threat. Meanwhile, your argument regarding the wages is intellectually dishonest because it ignores all the things people got they didnāt need to pay money for, and the fact that prices for things like food were fixed.
People working to produce things that they all use collectively is not exploitation. Your whole argument here is fallacious. Nobody in USSR was exploiting the labour of the workers for personal benefit the way actual capitalism works. Labour was done in the collective interest.
Wage labor existed in the USSR. People paid for things in rubles. People purchased things on the market. The state bought and paid for things. The law of value was in operation (Stalin himself did not even contest this fact). Yes, they had some social programs, just like many social democracies do. It doesnāt become ānot wage laborā because you decided to call it āsocialist wage laborā and slap a happy face sticker on it. When wage-labor exists, capital accumulation exists by definition because the value paid in wages in only part of the total value produced. Yes, value, as in the Law of Value. Price-fixing is a thing that happens in capitalist economies as well - the existence of price-fixing does not imply non-capitalism. The fact that social programs exist does not imply that either.
You could make a coherent argument that organization of labour could have been better, or that there was lack of genuine workplace democracy. These could be sound and credible arguments drawing parallels between capitalist company structure and state owned enterprise in USSR. However, thatās not the argument youāre making.
That would be like pointing to a rotting ship at the bottom of the sea covered in barnacles and complaining that one of the planks is loose. What is āgenuine workplace democracyā anyway? Thatās not a Marxist term Iāve ever heard. I only ever hear Bernie/ Wolff enjoyers talk like that.
Iām beginning to think that you donāt understand what the term circular reasoning means. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat because the proletariat ran a communist revolution that was led by the communist party and took power. Thatās why there was a dictatorship of the proletariat.
There was not a dictatorship of the proletariat because something that called itself the communist party took over. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat for a brief time under Lenin because the bourgeoisie and the capitalist mode of production were suppressed by the vanguard party of the proletariat. However this did not last past Leninās death as the failures of the revolutions globally ultimately led to the failure of the revolution in Russia. A DotP sustaining itself in Russia alone would have been impossible. The path Russia took and where it is currently sitting at today proves that correct.
Once somebody demonstrates a better way to do thing weāll talk. The reality is that the approach that USSR followed actually created a better state of things than a capitalist society as imperfect as it was. This was a socialist state that was moving in the direction of communism. The goal of socialism is to create a transitional state that moves society from capitalist relations towards communist ones. This does not happen overnight.
This argument would make sense if there was a global socialist movement which does not actually exist. In absence of such a movement, creating a socialist state is obviously the next best option. If Europeans didnāt shit the bed at the start of the 20th century and joined the communist movement, then what youāre talking about may have been possible.
What youāre calling ācreating a socialist stateā is not possible in that manner. Attempting to create a better society is certainly possible, but that society will still be capitalist in essence no matter if the people running the country want it or not. Capitalism is not something some functionary can sign away on some decree.
Unfortunately, your argument is not dialectical because it ignores the material realities that drove these departures. If USSR failed to rapidly industrialize under Stalin, the most likely outcome wouldāve been that nazis Germany wouldāve taken it apart and ushered in global fascism before US finally managed to do it.
I wasnāt suggesting they had another choice. What I do criticize them for is for hurting future revolutions by not just admitting that socialism was not possible at that time. They didnāt have to distort Marx, Engels, and Lenin with their abomination of āMarxism-Leninismā. Iām not saying they shouldnāt have defended themselves.
Youāre presenting a position that ignores the material realities in favor of idealism. Lenin directly addresses this style of argument in āLeft-Wingā Communism: an Infantile Disorder
Now you are just throwing random quotes at me. Lenin is correct here but it he is talking about his disagreement about tactics with some other communists as he viewed as inflexible in their strategy. Nothing he says here applies to my argument or supports what youāre saying. Lenin never argued for the continuation of commodity production and would have never suggested it as a strategy for any reason, any more than he would argue for throwing up their hands and immediately surrendering to the bourgeoisie. He did acknowledge that socialist relations would co-exist alongside commodity production for a time, but he acknowledged that the parts of society where commodity production prevails are still capitalist.
What we see in China today is not fundamentally different from NEP which Lenin realized was necessary for largely the same reasons. Itās very easy to argue and criticize things in the abstract, itās much harder to actually implement these things while under duress from global capitalism.
Since weāre quoting Lenin:
āThe development of the proletarian revolution in other countries is going to be somewhat more difficult, but only for the time being, only in the present period of bourgeois-democratic revolution, only in the present period of the collapse of the Second International. We know perfectly well, however, that āfinalā victory can be achieved only on a world scale, and only by the joint efforts of the workers of all countries.ā
āThe Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautskyā (1918). Lenin knew that the success in revolution in Russia depended on the successes of the revolutions in Europe. When he talks about final victory heās not talking about some far-off future of gay space communism in 500 years. He was talking about the present period. Lenin signed the NEP and died before it was really apparent that there wasnāt any possibility left for a world revolution. Signing the NEP was a strategic action they took and they could not really have done anything else. āSocialism in one countryā is not a ātheoryā he would ever have advanced though.
Youāre either missing or intentionally ignoring my point which is the purpose of labour. The purpose of labour under capitalism is to create wealth for the capital owning class. The purpose of labour in a socialist system such as USSR is to create value for society. What youāre talking about is the organization of labour, which I completely agree can be done better than what USSR did. However, thatās an entirely separate point of discussion.
That would be like pointing to a rotting ship at the bottom of the sea covered in barnacles and complaining that one of the planks is loose. What is āgenuine workplace democracyā anyway? Thatās not a Marxist term Iāve ever heard. I only ever hear Bernie/ Wolff enjoyers talk like that.
Itās kind of amusing that you canāt even acknowledge that Marxist theory continues to evolve over time and new terminology is added. Workplace democracy typically refers to cooperative ownership of the enterprise where the workers have a democratic say over administrative functions of the business, get to elect leaders in the workplace, and have power of recall. USSR practised aspects of this, but still suffered from worker alienation.
There was not a dictatorship of the proletariat because something that called itself the communist party took over. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat for a brief time under Lenin because the bourgeoisie and the capitalist mode of production were suppressed by the vanguard party of the proletariat. However this did not last past Leninās death as the failures of the revolutions globally ultimately led to the failure of the revolution in Russia. A DotP sustaining itself in Russia alone would have been impossible. The path Russia took and where it is currently sitting at today proves that correct.
Thatās a rather superficial and frankly ahistorical interpretation of events. USSR certainly was not destined to collapse, and many alternative paths were clearly possible. Claiming that USSR was not a dictatorship of the proletariat is also demonstrably absurd.
What youāre calling ācreating a socialist stateā is not possible in that manner. Attempting to create a better society is certainly possible, but that society will still be capitalist in essence no matter if the people running the country want it or not. Capitalism is not something some functionary can sign away on some decree.
Thatās a completely baseless assertion Iām afraid. A state such as USSR can absolutely transition past capitalist relations, and it was very much happening in USSR until the counterrevolution was allowed to happen under Gorbachev.
I wasnāt suggesting they had another choice. What I do criticize them for is for hurting future revolutions by not just admitting that socialism was not possible at that time. They didnāt have to distort Marx, Engels, and Lenin with their abomination of āMarxism-Leninismā. Iām not saying they shouldnāt have defended themselves.
Again, I fundamentally disagree with your assertion that USSR wasnāt socialist, or that there was no path towards communism in USSR. While other interpretations of Marx, Engels, and Lenin are certainly valid, the interpretation USSR had was sound given the conditions USSR existed under.
Lenin never argued for the continuation of commodity production and would have never suggested it as a strategy for any reason, any more than he would argue for throwing up their hands and immediately surrendering to the bourgeoisie. He did acknowledge that socialist relations would co-exist alongside commodity production for a time, but he acknowledged that the parts of society where commodity production prevails are still capitalist.
I mean Lenin literally created the NEP, and he was clearly pragmatic enough to realize what compromises needed to be made. So far, the only tangible critique of USSR I can discern in your argument is that your disagree with the use of state owned enterprise as the mode of organizing labour. Perhaps you can articulate your critique more clearly.
āThe Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautskyā (1918). Lenin knew that the success in revolution in Russia depended on the successes of the revolutions in Europe.
This is the point I made earlier, since the conditions for a world revolution did not exist, the next best thing that could be done was to build a socialist state in form of USSR. This is what Parenti referred to as Siege Socialism. The fact of the matter is that Lenin and Marx turned out to be overly optimistic. It turns out that capitalism is much more resilient than people expected, and overthrowing it globally is a very difficult task. Creating bulwarks against capitalism is an important step towards that.
Reminds me of my city, when the internet provider was a government company. The internet was down 30% of the day, latency of 1s, nobody answered the support lines, whole portions of the city could be out for daysā¦ It was extremely expensive and the speeds were so low I remember it could take 2h to download a 5m song.
Then private companies (with wealth accumulation) were allowed to provide internet for users. Everyone started jumping on the private networks as soon as their area had coverage. It was like 1/3 of the cost of the public company and like 20 times the speed. Latencies were like 100ms.
The public company saw its reign over people crumbling and did something INSANE, totally unexpected. They actually became competitive and started giving a good service.
Thatās a lesson for yāall. If thereās no wealth large enough to compete against the state, the state becomes an inefficient monopoly.
I have no idea what country youāre in, but itās literally the opposite situation in Canada where publicly owned SaskTel provides the best service in the country while private sector managed to create some of the most expensive and slowest infrastructure out of any G7 countries.
A common pattern thatās observed is that initially there is a stage after privatization where there is competition between companies. However, eventually a few companies end up dominating the market and at that point you have all the same problems that the parent comment moans about being present under public ownership while having no actual control over the situation because the infrastructure is privately owned.
Your scenario isnāt against my point, public and private sectors should compete. It just sounds like thereās a lack of competition in your area, which is something that the government should fix, not private companies. So you want to give more power to an entity that canāt even fix a competition issue in the market? This is literally the responsibility of the government. As far as I know, Canada isnāt like the US, private companies donāt own the government, so whatās happening there?
Iām just saying, wealth accumulation isnāt necessarily an evil thing. As I showed, it can also be positive. Itās just a matter of balance. Iām much more inclined to the left than the right, but I donāt see everything that happens in the right as evil.
My scenario is actually against your point because youāre not considering the full capitalist lifecycle in your argument. Capitalist competition necessarily leads to capital consolidation and monopolies by its very nature. Meanwhile, capital owning class is very much in charge in every capitalist state. Capitalists own the media, pay for political campaigns, lobbying, and so on. Working class has no real representation in politics, and no holds no actual power. All people get to do is to once every few years decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
I think that just because capitalism can go wrong it doesnāt mean that capitalism is a failure. Sure, right now weāre living in a pretty dystopian capitalism, but this can happen to any system, no system is invulnerable to exploitation. This is just the same argument the far-right uses to say socialism and communism are failure because ālook at North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and the Soviet Unionā.
Unfortunately, they figured out how to exploit capitalism by buying politicians. This is bad because they get to do whatever the fuck they want with no consequences, but it doesnāt mean that wealth accumulation is bad.
Imagine a company that didnāt exploit workers, didnāt buy politicians, cared about the environment and payed fair taxes. These companies do exist. They exist under capitalism. The same way you imagine a government that takes care of everyone, gives free education, free healthcare, takes care of workersā¦ I could imagine a government that has too much power, destroys private companies and ignores the needs of the working class, as it has happened under socialism/communism.
It isnāt a matter of abolishing the systems we have but finding a balance between them. Plus, politicians should be subjected to extremely harsh audits to make sure they arenāt corrupt. Lobbying shouldnāt be legal, thatās insane, but it isnāt an inherente part of capitalism.
Idk, I think capitalism isnāt evil, humans are. Any system can go south with us.
I mean itās been tried for over a century, and it always goes wrong the same way everywhere itās tried because of how the system inherently functions. Meanwhile, if the problem genuinely was with the human nature thatās an argument for designing systems that inhibit negative qualities while promoting positive ones. Capitalism does the exact opposite.
Western capitalism is responsible for horrors far worse than anything that USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, or DPRK have ever done. It has enslaved majority of the human population through pure brutality and exploits it to this day to subsidize the lifestyle of the golden billion. Yet, even with this level of exploitation, the conditions in the west are now deteriorating for the majority of the people.
Imagining a company that didnāt exploit workers, didnāt buy politicians, cared about the environment and payed fair taxes is like imagining unicorns. Such companies if they ever get created will simply be outcompeted by companies that are willing to do all those things, because making profit is the sole fitness function for a capitalist business.
I could imagine a government that has too much power, destroys private companies and ignores the needs of the working class, as it has happened under socialism/communism.
Except, communists managed to achieve things such as ensuring everyone has their basic needs met, which still eludes capitalist societies to this day despite far more wealth being available.
It isnāt a matter of abolishing the systems we have but finding a balance between them. Plus, politicians should be subjected to extremely harsh audits to make sure they arenāt corrupt. Lobbying shouldnāt be legal, thatās insane, but it isnāt an inherente part of capitalism.
Itās not possible to have a neutral government in a society where there is mass wealth inequality. People who have wealth will always use it for political purposes. They buy media, pay bribes, groom politicians, and so on. This happens every single time capitalism is tried in a society. The only way to avoid the problem is to eliminate the ability for people to accumulate capital.
First, to clarify, Iām a social democrat, so I do believe workers shouldnāt be exploited but I also think private property has a valuable purpose. Iām not far-right or a billionaire supporter.
Everything positive youāre saying about communism is just about the idea of communism. Everything negative youāre saying about capitalism is about its implementation in the real world. I donāt think Venezuelans are escaping the country because they are happy, their human rights are being violated.
Again, I donāt like talking about the problems of implementing these systems because it is just a reflection of human corruption, not the system itself.
I think the problem in any system is the government being corrupted. Right now capitalism is going wrong because the government can be bought by private interest. In an authoritarian system, corruption is an internal problem because they already have centralized power. In both cases, the worker class suffers.
If in capitalism the governments werenāt corrupted, companies wouldnāt become that large mostly because they are monopolies. Also, the government would severily punish them for exploiting their workers. None of these things are ānormalā or accepted in capitalism, the same way a corrupted government denying people their basic needs is not normal or accepted in communism. But it can happen.
I donāt know what the solution is. Human corruption fucks everything, I donāt think changing systems will actually help at all. But thatās not the point. To be honest, I think weāre already fucked, corruption is too widespread. Anyone in power, left or right, just wants their cut. And if they actually try to do anything positive, theyāll be sabotaged by the corruption forces that remain.
We have a real problem. I donāt think capitalism is the root of the problem, and I donāt think socialism or communism are the cure.
I think there needs to be a mix of cooperative ownership and state owned industry. State owned industry does a good job providing basic services everyone needs that have to be done without a profit motive. Private industry under cooperative ownership can provide nice to have things on top of that.
The capitalist model has no place in decent society, and itās not necessary for anything. While corruption exists in all human societies, itās at absolutely stratospheric levels under capitalism. There was inequality, but there simply werenāt people like Musk or Bezos running around USSR.
Changing systems demonstrably does have a huge effect on society. You can just look at what happened to post Soviet republics after introduction of capitalism. The same people who behaved decently under the communist system turned into oligarchs overnight. Itās pretty clear that capitalism is in fact the problem. Communism might not be the ideal system, but itās certainly a step in the right direction.
Having grown up in USSR, Iāll take state capitalism over actual capitalism any day. The fundamental difference between state owned enterprise and privately owned enterprise is the purpose of work. Under actual capitalism, the sole purpose of a business is to create profit for the owners of that business. On the other hand, the purpose of state enterprise is to create useful things for the people living in the country. Nobody is accumulating wealth and becoming rich of other peopleās labour when the means of production are publicly owned. It might not be perfect, but itās certainly a huge step forward from capitalist relations seen in the west.
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Please donāt put words in my mouth. What I actually said was that state-capitalism is fundamentally a misnomer because capitalism is fundamentally a system of capital accumulation by capitalists through exploitation of the working class. This fundamental capitalist mechanic is not present in what you refer to as state-capitalism.
Nor did I ever agree with you that this somehow fundamental to Soviet style communism. Organization of industry by the state was done because of the need for rapid industrialization in face of adversity from western capitalist powers. The original model of organizing industry ad hoc proven itself to be inefficient for this task.
Thatās just a bunch of falsehoods. First of all, the state does not accumulate capital. The labour is directed towards productive activity such as building infrastructure, housing, food production, and so on. Thatās the core difference you seem to be missing.
Nor did USSR compete on the global market. In fact, the way USSR interacted with other countries shows another clear difference from capitalism. USSR made huge investments into countries such as Cuba and Vietnam by building out their infrastructure, providing their people with education, and food. Once USSR collapsed, the quality of life in these countries saw a sharp decline. This is literally the opposite of the extractive capitalist relations practiced by the west.
Finally, since the working class holds the power in the state the workers do in fact own the means of production by virtue of having the dictatorship of the proletariat that runs the state.
Meanwhile, your Engels quote conveniently avoids the context where both Marx and Engels recognized that some form of a worker state was necessary as a transitional entity between capitalism and communism. This is literally what withering of the state refers to. You cannot take a society that was shaped by capitalist relations and magically turn it communist because people develop their habits and sensibilities based on their environment. Only when socialist relations have become the norm can there be talk of the stat withering. And itās certainly not something thatās possible while capitalism is the dominant global ideology.
Trying to claim that Engels did not recognize the role of the state is the height of intellectual dishonesty given that this is literally the core disagreement between Engels and the anarchists.
Capitalism is not only the exploitation of the working class by individual capitalists. As Marx and Engels explained, as as Engels argued, ācapitalistā is a social role, not an individual one. Youāre engaging in circular reasoning if youāre trying to say āit wasnāt capital accumulation because the state was not capitalist by definitionā.
The drive towards industrialization in the USSR represented a state-led capital accumulation. Wages were quite low during this time. The fact that wages were set by state planners and not the market does not make them ānot wagesā, and the fact that their labor value was appropriated by the state instead of privately does not make them ānot wagesā either.
Iām aware that the USSR set prices and produced things according to production targets rather than market demand. This does not make it ānot commodity productionā. Even if we concede that people are happy with the wages they are paid or are okay with their exploitation at the moment does not make it ānot wage laborā, ānot exploitationā and thus "not capital accumulation - itās the fact that wage labor exists at all.
While the USSR may have been different from Western capitalist countries in significant ways, it did not represent the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of communism/ socialism, or marked a āpath towardsā communism/ socialism. Other than that, their investment into other countries was not entirely free of self-interest either. By helping to develop the industries of these countries the USSR was creating trading partners that could supply raw materials and purchase Soviet goods, increase its influence and serve as a buffer between itself and the West.
More circular reasoning. Youāre saying that thereās a dictatorship of the proletariat because thereās a dictatorship of the proletariat. Moreover, you keep conflating terms- you realize that the DoTP and socialism/ communism are not the same right?
The way this is framed is entirely wrong. The goal of socialism is not to build a workerās nation-state. The proletarian stateās role, led by the vanguard party, is to directly suppress the bourgeoisie during the transition to communism globally. The dictatorship of the proletarian is not equivalent to communism/ socialism and the proletarian state does not take over the role of āmanagingā the state capital, as capital cannot be ātamedā like Stalinists think it can. This does not take place within the context of a nation-state. It happens internationally as the proletariat are at global war with the bourgeoisie. This is Stalinās distortion of āsocialism in one countryā, where Stalin makes the argument that communism can peacefully co-exist alongside capitalism and that communism can exist standalone in the borders of a nation. Itās a complete departure from Marx and a gross misunderstanding of the role of the proletarian state.
Now who is putting words in whoās mouth? Nowhere did say that Engels was an anarchist or argued against the need for a proletarian state. My argument is that Stalinās theories are a gross departure from Marxās theory and Leninās application it. The point of the Engels quote is to show you that your argument is entirely semantic and superficial, you donāt have socialism by re-naming things ie. The Peopleās Bank (you canāt even make this up), The Peopleās Republic, waving red flags around, and calling yourself socialist but continuing the capitalist relations of production and exploitation of wage labor as usual. Stalinists today make the same mistake as Eugen DĆ¼hring as it is not the behavior of individual capitalists, or the entity that takes on the role of the capitalist, but the relations of production themselves.
Iām not engaging in any circular thinking here. Iām simply stating that capital accumulation is the core aspect of capitalism, thatās why itās called capitalism. Once again, the state does not accumulate capital. Thatās just something you made up and keep using as a straw man. The state directs the productive power towards producing material things people of the country use.
It did not, it produced infrastructure, housing, food, energy, and weapons that the people of USSR needed to live and defend themselves from the capitalist threat. Meanwhile, your argument regarding the wages is intellectually dishonest because it ignores all the things people got they didnāt need to pay money for, and the fact that prices for things like food were fixed.
People working to produce things that they all use collectively is not exploitation. Your whole argument here is fallacious. Nobody in USSR was exploiting the labour of the workers for personal benefit the way actual capitalism works. Labour was done in the collective interest.
You could make a coherent argument that organization of labour could have been better, or that there was lack of genuine workplace democracy. These could be sound and credible arguments drawing parallels between capitalist company structure and state owned enterprise in USSR. However, thatās not the argument youāre making.
Iām beginning to think that you donāt understand what the term circular reasoning means. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat because the proletariat ran a communist revolution that was led by the communist party and took power. Thatās why there was a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Once somebody demonstrates a better way to do thing weāll talk. The reality is that the approach that USSR followed actually created a better state of things than a capitalist society as imperfect as it was. This was a socialist state that was moving in the direction of communism. The goal of socialism is to create a transitional state that moves society from capitalist relations towards communist ones. This does not happen overnight.
This argument would make sense if there was a global socialist movement which does not actually exist. In absence of such a movement, creating a socialist state is obviously the next best option. If Europeans didnāt shit the bed at the start of the 20th century and joined the communist movement, then what youāre talking about may have been possible.
Unfortunately, your argument is not dialectical because it ignores the material realities that drove these departures. If USSR failed to rapidly industrialize under Stalin, the most likely outcome wouldāve been that nazis Germany wouldāve taken it apart and ushered in global fascism before US finally managed to do it.
Youāre presenting a position that ignores the material realities in favor of idealism. Lenin directly addresses this style of argument in āLeft-Wingā Communism: an Infantile Disorder
What we see in China today is not fundamentally different from NEP which Lenin realized was necessary for largely the same reasons. Itās very easy to argue and criticize things in the abstract, itās much harder to actually implement these things while under duress from global capitalism.
Wage labor existed in the USSR. People paid for things in rubles. People purchased things on the market. The state bought and paid for things. The law of value was in operation (Stalin himself did not even contest this fact). Yes, they had some social programs, just like many social democracies do. It doesnāt become ānot wage laborā because you decided to call it āsocialist wage laborā and slap a happy face sticker on it. When wage-labor exists, capital accumulation exists by definition because the value paid in wages in only part of the total value produced. Yes, value, as in the Law of Value. Price-fixing is a thing that happens in capitalist economies as well - the existence of price-fixing does not imply non-capitalism. The fact that social programs exist does not imply that either.
That would be like pointing to a rotting ship at the bottom of the sea covered in barnacles and complaining that one of the planks is loose. What is āgenuine workplace democracyā anyway? Thatās not a Marxist term Iāve ever heard. I only ever hear Bernie/ Wolff enjoyers talk like that.
There was not a dictatorship of the proletariat because something that called itself the communist party took over. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat for a brief time under Lenin because the bourgeoisie and the capitalist mode of production were suppressed by the vanguard party of the proletariat. However this did not last past Leninās death as the failures of the revolutions globally ultimately led to the failure of the revolution in Russia. A DotP sustaining itself in Russia alone would have been impossible. The path Russia took and where it is currently sitting at today proves that correct.
What youāre calling ācreating a socialist stateā is not possible in that manner. Attempting to create a better society is certainly possible, but that society will still be capitalist in essence no matter if the people running the country want it or not. Capitalism is not something some functionary can sign away on some decree.
I wasnāt suggesting they had another choice. What I do criticize them for is for hurting future revolutions by not just admitting that socialism was not possible at that time. They didnāt have to distort Marx, Engels, and Lenin with their abomination of āMarxism-Leninismā. Iām not saying they shouldnāt have defended themselves.
Now you are just throwing random quotes at me. Lenin is correct here but it he is talking about his disagreement about tactics with some other communists as he viewed as inflexible in their strategy. Nothing he says here applies to my argument or supports what youāre saying. Lenin never argued for the continuation of commodity production and would have never suggested it as a strategy for any reason, any more than he would argue for throwing up their hands and immediately surrendering to the bourgeoisie. He did acknowledge that socialist relations would co-exist alongside commodity production for a time, but he acknowledged that the parts of society where commodity production prevails are still capitalist.
Since weāre quoting Lenin:
āThe Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautskyā (1918). Lenin knew that the success in revolution in Russia depended on the successes of the revolutions in Europe. When he talks about final victory heās not talking about some far-off future of gay space communism in 500 years. He was talking about the present period. Lenin signed the NEP and died before it was really apparent that there wasnāt any possibility left for a world revolution. Signing the NEP was a strategic action they took and they could not really have done anything else. āSocialism in one countryā is not a ātheoryā he would ever have advanced though.
Youāre either missing or intentionally ignoring my point which is the purpose of labour. The purpose of labour under capitalism is to create wealth for the capital owning class. The purpose of labour in a socialist system such as USSR is to create value for society. What youāre talking about is the organization of labour, which I completely agree can be done better than what USSR did. However, thatās an entirely separate point of discussion.
Itās kind of amusing that you canāt even acknowledge that Marxist theory continues to evolve over time and new terminology is added. Workplace democracy typically refers to cooperative ownership of the enterprise where the workers have a democratic say over administrative functions of the business, get to elect leaders in the workplace, and have power of recall. USSR practised aspects of this, but still suffered from worker alienation.
Thatās a rather superficial and frankly ahistorical interpretation of events. USSR certainly was not destined to collapse, and many alternative paths were clearly possible. Claiming that USSR was not a dictatorship of the proletariat is also demonstrably absurd.
Thatās a completely baseless assertion Iām afraid. A state such as USSR can absolutely transition past capitalist relations, and it was very much happening in USSR until the counterrevolution was allowed to happen under Gorbachev.
Again, I fundamentally disagree with your assertion that USSR wasnāt socialist, or that there was no path towards communism in USSR. While other interpretations of Marx, Engels, and Lenin are certainly valid, the interpretation USSR had was sound given the conditions USSR existed under.
I mean Lenin literally created the NEP, and he was clearly pragmatic enough to realize what compromises needed to be made. So far, the only tangible critique of USSR I can discern in your argument is that your disagree with the use of state owned enterprise as the mode of organizing labour. Perhaps you can articulate your critique more clearly.
This is the point I made earlier, since the conditions for a world revolution did not exist, the next best thing that could be done was to build a socialist state in form of USSR. This is what Parenti referred to as Siege Socialism. The fact of the matter is that Lenin and Marx turned out to be overly optimistic. It turns out that capitalism is much more resilient than people expected, and overthrowing it globally is a very difficult task. Creating bulwarks against capitalism is an important step towards that.
Reminds me of my city, when the internet provider was a government company. The internet was down 30% of the day, latency of 1s, nobody answered the support lines, whole portions of the city could be out for daysā¦ It was extremely expensive and the speeds were so low I remember it could take 2h to download a 5m song.
Then private companies (with wealth accumulation) were allowed to provide internet for users. Everyone started jumping on the private networks as soon as their area had coverage. It was like 1/3 of the cost of the public company and like 20 times the speed. Latencies were like 100ms.
The public company saw its reign over people crumbling and did something INSANE, totally unexpected. They actually became competitive and started giving a good service.
Thatās a lesson for yāall. If thereās no wealth large enough to compete against the state, the state becomes an inefficient monopoly.
I have no idea what country youāre in, but itās literally the opposite situation in Canada where publicly owned SaskTel provides the best service in the country while private sector managed to create some of the most expensive and slowest infrastructure out of any G7 countries.
A common pattern thatās observed is that initially there is a stage after privatization where there is competition between companies. However, eventually a few companies end up dominating the market and at that point you have all the same problems that the parent comment moans about being present under public ownership while having no actual control over the situation because the infrastructure is privately owned.
Thatās the real lesson for yāall.
Your scenario isnāt against my point, public and private sectors should compete. It just sounds like thereās a lack of competition in your area, which is something that the government should fix, not private companies. So you want to give more power to an entity that canāt even fix a competition issue in the market? This is literally the responsibility of the government. As far as I know, Canada isnāt like the US, private companies donāt own the government, so whatās happening there?
Iām just saying, wealth accumulation isnāt necessarily an evil thing. As I showed, it can also be positive. Itās just a matter of balance. Iām much more inclined to the left than the right, but I donāt see everything that happens in the right as evil.
My scenario is actually against your point because youāre not considering the full capitalist lifecycle in your argument. Capitalist competition necessarily leads to capital consolidation and monopolies by its very nature. Meanwhile, capital owning class is very much in charge in every capitalist state. Capitalists own the media, pay for political campaigns, lobbying, and so on. Working class has no real representation in politics, and no holds no actual power. All people get to do is to once every few years decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
I think that just because capitalism can go wrong it doesnāt mean that capitalism is a failure. Sure, right now weāre living in a pretty dystopian capitalism, but this can happen to any system, no system is invulnerable to exploitation. This is just the same argument the far-right uses to say socialism and communism are failure because ālook at North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and the Soviet Unionā.
Unfortunately, they figured out how to exploit capitalism by buying politicians. This is bad because they get to do whatever the fuck they want with no consequences, but it doesnāt mean that wealth accumulation is bad.
Imagine a company that didnāt exploit workers, didnāt buy politicians, cared about the environment and payed fair taxes. These companies do exist. They exist under capitalism. The same way you imagine a government that takes care of everyone, gives free education, free healthcare, takes care of workersā¦ I could imagine a government that has too much power, destroys private companies and ignores the needs of the working class, as it has happened under socialism/communism.
It isnāt a matter of abolishing the systems we have but finding a balance between them. Plus, politicians should be subjected to extremely harsh audits to make sure they arenāt corrupt. Lobbying shouldnāt be legal, thatās insane, but it isnāt an inherente part of capitalism.
Idk, I think capitalism isnāt evil, humans are. Any system can go south with us.
I mean itās been tried for over a century, and it always goes wrong the same way everywhere itās tried because of how the system inherently functions. Meanwhile, if the problem genuinely was with the human nature thatās an argument for designing systems that inhibit negative qualities while promoting positive ones. Capitalism does the exact opposite.
Western capitalism is responsible for horrors far worse than anything that USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, or DPRK have ever done. It has enslaved majority of the human population through pure brutality and exploits it to this day to subsidize the lifestyle of the golden billion. Yet, even with this level of exploitation, the conditions in the west are now deteriorating for the majority of the people.
Imagining a company that didnāt exploit workers, didnāt buy politicians, cared about the environment and payed fair taxes is like imagining unicorns. Such companies if they ever get created will simply be outcompeted by companies that are willing to do all those things, because making profit is the sole fitness function for a capitalist business.
Except, communists managed to achieve things such as ensuring everyone has their basic needs met, which still eludes capitalist societies to this day despite far more wealth being available.
Itās not possible to have a neutral government in a society where there is mass wealth inequality. People who have wealth will always use it for political purposes. They buy media, pay bribes, groom politicians, and so on. This happens every single time capitalism is tried in a society. The only way to avoid the problem is to eliminate the ability for people to accumulate capital.
First, to clarify, Iām a social democrat, so I do believe workers shouldnāt be exploited but I also think private property has a valuable purpose. Iām not far-right or a billionaire supporter.
Everything positive youāre saying about communism is just about the idea of communism. Everything negative youāre saying about capitalism is about its implementation in the real world. I donāt think Venezuelans are escaping the country because they are happy, their human rights are being violated.
Again, I donāt like talking about the problems of implementing these systems because it is just a reflection of human corruption, not the system itself.
I think the problem in any system is the government being corrupted. Right now capitalism is going wrong because the government can be bought by private interest. In an authoritarian system, corruption is an internal problem because they already have centralized power. In both cases, the worker class suffers.
If in capitalism the governments werenāt corrupted, companies wouldnāt become that large mostly because they are monopolies. Also, the government would severily punish them for exploiting their workers. None of these things are ānormalā or accepted in capitalism, the same way a corrupted government denying people their basic needs is not normal or accepted in communism. But it can happen.
I donāt know what the solution is. Human corruption fucks everything, I donāt think changing systems will actually help at all. But thatās not the point. To be honest, I think weāre already fucked, corruption is too widespread. Anyone in power, left or right, just wants their cut. And if they actually try to do anything positive, theyāll be sabotaged by the corruption forces that remain.
We have a real problem. I donāt think capitalism is the root of the problem, and I donāt think socialism or communism are the cure.
I think there needs to be a mix of cooperative ownership and state owned industry. State owned industry does a good job providing basic services everyone needs that have to be done without a profit motive. Private industry under cooperative ownership can provide nice to have things on top of that.
The capitalist model has no place in decent society, and itās not necessary for anything. While corruption exists in all human societies, itās at absolutely stratospheric levels under capitalism. There was inequality, but there simply werenāt people like Musk or Bezos running around USSR.
Changing systems demonstrably does have a huge effect on society. You can just look at what happened to post Soviet republics after introduction of capitalism. The same people who behaved decently under the communist system turned into oligarchs overnight. Itās pretty clear that capitalism is in fact the problem. Communism might not be the ideal system, but itās certainly a step in the right direction.