State Capitalism vs. Orthodox Trotskyist

[Nigel]

Nigel - If a planned economy were the definition of a workers' state, then ancient Egypt was one, surely? If the working class doesn't control a state, it isn't socialist, surely? If it isn't socialist, what are we to call it? It certainly wasn't feudal, was it? So, ok, it was not classically capitalist - but nor was nazi Germany, and that was no deformed workers' state. State Capitalism seems as near as any other term I've heard of to describe the USSR for most of its existence.

Classical societies as far as I am aware accumulated large quantities of wealth through slave economy and were based on a colonial imperialist expansion for the expropriation of wealth for their Empire. If the Pharoahs were not a social class, then as a cast their privilige was far more extensive than the beaurocratic caste of the party machine tand acted in God like status of a ruling elite. I should imagine that the basic economy of the people in that part of the world was some kind of mercatile trading between merchants and bedowin tribes all trying to make some form of profit from their trade, travelling with goods and selling. Commodity-Money-Commodity rather than modern Captitalist Money-Commodity-Money. (See Das Capital)

The planned economy as you put it as you put it would only be for the engrandisemeant of the Pharoah. Does'nt Cliff talk about middle eastern mercatile trading in his excuse for an ecomonic analysis of the soviet union somewhere. If you are referring to this you'll have to be more explicit, i'm not reading through that trite again.

Nazi Germany in my opinion was not the corporate state that The Furhrer made it out to be, it was done for the interest and to 'save' German Finance Captial. I know there have been recent criticisms of this theory but i'll use it as a basis. It was a Keynesian economic policy designed towards a war economy with elements of free market economics.Designed (but not always succesfully) in the interest of German Business. Even the most staunch Labourite or left social democrat would not argue that the economics of John Maynard Keynes one their own(if at all) are Socialist. Thus the Crushing of Strasserites and fascit trade unions in their own ranks.

Their are many examples of similarity between the ideolgical tools of both Stalinism and Hitlers Germany: Socialist Realism and Stakhovernism for example. However they are completely different beasts. And the USSR even under Stalin was far more proggressive and succesful, supporting progressive elements of humanity rather than the debasement of Fascism.

I think that I have answered why the USSR was not Capitalist and that you have taken me saying that these workers' states had a planned economy as a singularity out of context with everything else I stated.

If not, where can you show that these states were Capitalist.

I would say however that China is State Capitalist with a growing free market influence.
With the Ancient Egypt thing you have a good point with North Korea or if people even consider it to be 'socialist?' Burma!!!!!!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

It's possible that capitalism and socialism aren't quite as diametrically opposed as some interpretations of Marx would have it, and that neither revolutions nor workers' control are as tightly-defined and easily recognisable as these theories would have it either.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

There is, I should say, a difference between the creative use of Marx and trying to put everything in a box marked This or That.

 

[rhys gethin]

Classical societies as far as I am aware accumulated large quantities of wealth through slave economy and were based on a colonial imperialist expansion for the expropriation of wealth for their Empire. If the Pharoahs were not a social class, then as a cast their privilige was far more extensive than the beaurocratic caste of the party machine tand acted in God like status of a ruling elite. I should imagine that the basic economy of the people in that part of the world was some kind of mercatile trading between merchants and bedowin tribes all trying to make some form of profit from their trade, travelling with goods and selling. Commodity-Money-Commodity rather than modern Captitalist Money-Commodity-Money. (See Das Capital)

Egypt was an agricultural economy, its high productivity being dependent on the annual flooding of the Nile - the date of which it was extremely important to know - and the priestly caste the Pharoah stood for knew how to calculate that reasonably well. The government clearly controlled the economy - but, as You say, this was very far from being socialism. i.e. socialism is NOT about state control of the economy. You are right about N. Korea and Burma.

Nazi Germany in my opinion was not the corporate state that The Furhrer made it out to be, it was done for the interest and to 'save' German Finance Captial. I know there have been recent criticisms of this theory but i'll use it as a basis. It was a Keynesian economic policy designed towards a war economy with elements of free market economics.Designed (but not always succesfully) in the interest of German Business. Even the most staunch Labourite or left social democrat would not argue that the economics of John Maynard Keynes one their own(if at all) are Socialist. Thus the Crushing of Strasserites and fascit trade unions in their own ranks.

Quite so. Are we arguing about something here?

I think that I have answered why the USSR was not Capitalist .

Not to my mind, no. The Soviet Union was NOT a workers' state, so it wasn't socialist. It held down working class consumption and increased the rewards of its ruling class, buying and selling commodities on the world market to enable it to survive, economically and militarily. I think State capitalist is as good a description as any other - but as for China, I think it is just capitalist.

 

[fanciful]

But unfortunately the reason that state capitalism isn't as good a description as any other - in fact its almost the worst description - is that if the USSR/Eastern Europe, China etc before 1990/91 are regarded as capitalist before capitalist restoration, then blatantly capitalist restoration is impossible. In fact its absurd.
And if capitalist restoration is impossible then its also impossible to properly appreciate the change in the world situation with capitalist restoration i.e. production for profit according to the law of value, which was critical to enabling capitalism to escape its stagnation of the 1970s/80s.
The USSR may have held down workers consumption - so did the Bolsheviks to win the civil war, so did the Eygptians to build their pyramids, so did the feudal lords to build that castles. That alone cannot be an explanation of whether a state is capitalist or not. The planned economies sold a very low proportion of their output on the world market to enable them to survive. But commodity production was not the basis of the economy. The money earnt by foreign trade, sustained the planned economy not the market one. The reason Trotsky called these states workers states (which he conceded was an awkward use of the category - see in defence of Marxism) was because the state has to have a class character and capitalism remained over thrown. This isn't the main point today in my view.
What is key to understanding the nature of current globalised capitalism is that with the destruction of these non-capitalist economies, what the IMF/World Bank call the "centrally planned economies" of the Stalinist states, and the restoration of capitalism within them the world market expandedly massively, through a one off political victory and with the integration of these economies through the 1990s, capitalism has been able to escape the cycle of stagnation which characterised it in the 1970s/80s.

 

[rhys gethin]

But unfortunately the reason that state capitalism isn't as good a description as any other - in fact its almost the worst description - is that if the USSR/Eastern Europe, China etc before 1990/91 are regarded as capitalist before capitalist restoration, then blatantly capitalist restoration is impossible. In fact its absurd.

Only if you regard state capitalism as the same as monopoly capitalism. I don't.

And if capitalist restoration is impossible then its also impossible to properly appreciate the change in the world situation with capitalist restoration i.e. production for profit according to the law of value, which was critical to enabling capitalism to escape its stagnation of the 1970s/80s...

Can't see it. I agree with your general point. Call them 'centrally planned economies' if you prefer - but it seems to me that there are various kinds of (very badly) centrally planned economies. Perhaps 'State Capitalism' was a way of attacking Stalinist pieties, but it did make an important distinction between them and 'workers states', deformed or otherwise, which were a fantasy. 'Centrally planned economies' is sort of passive voice. Who did what to whom?

All previous states, clearly, have existed to organize class exploitation, and it seems to me that there was very evidently an exploiting class in the USSR from very early on, whatever its ideological basis might have been.

What is key to understanding the nature of current globalised capitalism is that with the destruction of these non-capitalist economies, what the IMF/World Bank call the "centrally planned economies" of the Stalinist states, and the restoration of capitalism within them the world market expandedly massively, through a one off political victory and with the integration of these economies through the 1990s, capitalism has been able to escape the cycle of stagnation which characterised it in the 1970s/80s.

Put in the word 'private' (or perhaps 'gangster') before 'capitalism' there and we don't disagree. My only interest in this question is to insist that 'socialism in one country' is an impossible nonsense.

 

[fanciful]

True enough socialism in one country is impossible nonsense, but that was after all the basis for Trotsky's position of DWS.
I don't think unfortunately private or gangster capitalism are adequate to describe all of the transition economies i.e. in transition from planning to capitalism. In China for example, the state retains ownership of the top 1,000 largest firms, that account for around 40% of GDP, they retain monopoly ownership of the banks, this explains why the Chinese boom is so strong as the profits of these firms are used to develop the national economy. In contrast to Russia where these massive firms were privatised and handed over to the oligarchs, who spend the profits on yachts and Chelsea football club...
The reason Trotsky referred to these states as workers states, was because the law of value i.e. production for profit was overthrown, as it would be in any "worker's state". The Central Plan allocated resources according to the whims of bureaucrats not via the profit motive, therefore they weren't capitalist.
Of course this may be presented as a semantic or historical difference now, given that these states no longer exist (barring Cuba and N.Korea), but the reason it is important is because of the impact of capitalist restoration (what else can you call it?) in creating globalisation and giving capitalism a new lease of life. The SWP deny this, because of their state capitalist theory, and insist that the capitalist crisis deepened in the 1990s, as a result of the expansion of the world market by around a third, with the integration of these Stalinist states into the world capitalist economy. Bizarre indeed that the enormous expansion of the world market, should be taken as a sign of deepening crisis, but read Rees' new book Imperialism and Resistance, if you don't believe me.

 

[Nigel]

Dance Kruschaev!!!!!@#~ Daance Dance Dance!!!!!

Anything about the influence of Kruschaev on USSR politics, economy, social reform etc.

 

[voiceofreason]

The question was still hotly discussed on the far left in the mid 80s when I joined the SWP. It wasn't a purely academic question. Your understanding of the nature of the Soviet Union informed your attitude to current questions in international politics. For SWPers it was obvious that there was nothing progressive about the decaying Soviet Union. It was an empire built to serve a totalitarian ruling elite, based on the economic exploitation of its own people, and the national exploitation of the unwilling nations harnessed under its yoke. Its influence on the many countries forced to collaborate with it politically was malign : it encouraged them to adopt an undemocratic Stalinist model, sold them arms, and encouraged the suppression of any free expression of workers democracy.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the orthodox Trots still trotting out the line that the Soviet Union was some kind of workers state have become an irrelevant joke. The economic fortunes of the post Soviet countries may have fluctuated, but the remarkably smooth political transition has shown just how narrow the gap was between Soviet "communism" and western democracy. Workers have certainly not lost any political power or representation worth having, and indeed were scarcely involved in most of the transition process.