From: gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand)
Subject: Re: Socialism, again
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 20:54:22 GMT

rk> Ronald Kunenborg
gs> Gary Strand
sj> Stephen Jascourt

sj> Real socialists were saying all along, for many decades now, that those
sj> countries [the communist ones] were *not* socialist.

gs> Actually, a good many American and European socialists had a lot of good
gs> things to say about the USSR during the '20s, '30s, '40s, and into the
gs> '50s. Only in the last 25-30 years have European democratic socialists
gs> greatly distanced themselves from Soviet-style totalitarian socialism.

rk> True - but there were many good things to say of the USSR in the 20's.

  Like what?

rk> Not any more in the 30's and 40's but in the 40's I remember even lots
rk> of right-wing commentators being slightly "forgetful" of what Stalin had 
rk> done to the population.

  Mainly because it was so hard to believe that one man had caused the deaths
  of tens of millions of Soviet citizens. Besides, between 1945 and 1949, with
  Naziism and fascism gone, people tended to believe it was possible that the
  USSR and the West could live together amicably. That attitude was quickly
  changed.

rk> Stalinists, Maoists, Titoists, democratic socialists all took it for
rk> granted that socialism was being built in the USSR - despite everything
rk> Lenin, Trostky and Marx had written about the impossibilities of such a
rk> venture.

  It was obvious that what was happening in the SU was not Marxist socialism.
  For one, the proletariat was tiny compared to the sea of near-feudal peas-
  ants. Also, industrialization had barely begun, what progress there was
  having been stopped by the Bolshevik coup d'etat against the provisional
  government of Kerensky in October 1917.

rk> The fourth international, hounded as it was by "Democratic" governments on
rk> one side, "Socialist" governments on the other, took the position that,
rk> even though those states were worker's states, they were no longer under
rk> control of the workers.  This lead them to be the main critics of the USSR
rk> on the left during the Cold War.

  The USSR was never a "worker's state".

sj> The term socialism is filled with mythologies created by both the western
sj> capitalist states and the Soviet-block state capitalists.

gs> Did you happen to get this "state capitalism" stuff from Gordon Fitch? In
gs> any case, since there were no capitalists in the Soviet bloc (the commu-
gs> nists killed most of them) I don't see how you can call that system any
gs> kind of "capitalist" system. Kind of like a socialist system with no
gs> socialists in it. The people have to be there.

rk> It's definitely not neccessary to have individual capitalists for a
rk> state-capitalist state to exist.

  Can a democratic-socialist state exist without democratic socialists? Sys-
  tems don't operate on their own, they need real live human beings. A "cap-
  italist" system without individual capitalists is a logical contradiction.

rk> Capitalism means that some class exploits another class to reinvest in
rk> means of production (put very simple) and compete with other capitalists
rk> in order to survive.

  This is the hopelessly biased and incorrect Marxist view of capitalism. I
  prefer defining capitalism as individuals trading their private value with
  each other without the use of force. "Exploitation" is too subjective a
  term to be useful, and I have yet to see anything besides "competition"
  work as well.

rk> A state can do this just as easily as an individual - many capitalist
rk> states have at one time or another been partly or wholly state-capitalist
rk> states.

  States in general have exploited and competed with each other, totally aside
  from their specific economic systems. 

rk> South-Korea, for instance. Or Japan after WW2. Or Italy, Sweden, Greece, 
rk> etc. Are these states not capitalist states?

  Semi-capitalist, semi-socialist. Since all states control the economic ac-
  tivity of their citizenry via taxes, all exhibit signs of both socialism
  and capitalism, and all exhibit the symptoms of trying to reconcile these
  two vastly different theories.

sj> [The USSR's] policies were not one of socialism.

gs> *Democratic* socialism, no, totalitarian socialism, yes.

rk> Socialism means control of the workers over their own state and in the 
rk> last analysis a withering away of the state. 

  Marx was not the only socialist, and his ideas are not the only ones. Even
  after 5 years on the net, I have yet to see one consistent defintion of
  socialism that those who call themselves "socialists" agree upon. It seems
  that there are as many socialisms as there are socialists.

rk> Totalitarian socialism is a contradiction in terms.

  By your own circular reasoning. You define socialism so that it can't be
  totalitarian, and then claim that socialism cannot be totalitarian by def-
  inition. Try again.

rk> The onliest socialism you can have is one with total democracy. Anything
rk> else is a farce.

  This means that there are no socialist states currently and there have never
  been any socialist states. Since countries that are called socialist (by
  Alex Bunker, for one) use represenative democracy, not true democracy, as
  a means of governance, then no state has been or is a socialist state.

sj> An centralized economy controlled by the state is not what socialism is
sj> all about.

gs> It's not what it's *all* about, however, between 1917 and 1990, it was a
gs> big part of what socialism was about.

rk> In that case, many capitalist countries were just as "socialist". Central-
rk> ized economies are no distinctive feature of either socialism of capital-
rk> ism - it can exist under any system.

  Wait -- you just said that socialism cannot be centrally-controlled, now
  you say that it's possible to have a centrally-controlled socialist state.
  Which is it?

sj> Socialism is about determining production and modes of production accord-
sj> ing to the needs of society with fair and equal input by all members of
sj> that society,

gs> Sort of like one dollar from Ross Perot is the same as one dollar from
gs> Steve Jascourt? Why not let supply and demand do the work, instead of all
gs> these tiresome little committees guessing what's best? A dollar is a kind
gs> of vote, isn't it? BTW, those who have lots of "votes" are generally "out-
gs> voted" by lots of people with fewer votes. That's why there's lots of
gs> Toyota Tercels and Ford Escorts out there, and only a few Rolls-Royces.

sk> I don't think you quite understood what he meant. "From each according to
sk> ability, to each according to need". And not decided by little committees,
sk> but by the people themselves.

  No. Your little Marxist quote doesn't say who will do the "from"-ing and the
  "to"-ing, and I've never read that these decisions will be left to the in-
  dividual. It's always been said that "The People" will decide how much gets
  taken from me, and how much is given to me. 

  What I would like to know is how other individuals, even those who know me 
  well, can make better decisions regarding my own life than I can. Marx's
  ideal sounds like we are all children, incapable of making decisions for
  ourselves. That's a pretty low view of humanity.

gs> What I wonder is how this decentralized system, bereft of any pricing sys-
gs> tem or the input from supply and demand, can generate complicated things
gs> like jet aircraft, or millions of simple things like calculators (enough
gs> so that everyone who wants one can get one.)

rk> Simple. At first production of these things would continue because people
rk> had to eat etc. and therefore had to earn wages. Socialism isn't achieved
rk> overnight.  Later on, when production of boring things would be automated,
rk> when people would no longer be forced to work but could do whatever work
rk> they liked, people would want to create things like that.

  Who decides what "boring things" are? What I consider drudgery may be what
  someone else greatly enjoys doing, and vice-versa. Also, automation still
  requires maintenance, so someone will have to work. But let's suppose that
  even the maintenance is automated. Someone will have to maintain these auto-
  mated maintainers. Sorry, but technology will not necessarily save us from
  having to work for a living.

rk> For one instance, if I'd have to possibility and training to design a
rk> better computer than the one I'm using now I'd immediately do it. 

  Why don't you? There are banks and friends who can loan you the money to
  cover your expenses. If people have to wait until socialism arrives to be
  creative and entrepreneurial, then I wonder how we've managed to do all
  these creative things so far.

rk> Assembly etc. could be automated and resources could be allocated - if 
rk> people wanted better computers they could vote for allocation of resources
rk> into building my computer.

  By buying it with their own money instead of buying something else, perhaps?
  Why create a duplicate of the market when the market does just fine? What
  happens if 50%+1 of the people don't want your computer? Capitalism doesn't
  require that a majority of consumers purchase a product for it to succeed,
  but what about socialism and all this voting?


--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
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