/lit/ - Literature

>>5706952
But socialism hasn't failed. If you want books about the failure of particular socialistic institutions then we might be able to help? Are you interested in the abandoning of the labour movement by labour parties, the decline in union density and militance in the anglophone countries, the failure of small or large cooperatives, the dismantling of the bourgeois welfare state?

>>5706952
>why socialism failed?
it hasn't. Socialism means that the workers are in control of the means of production. Whenever that happened, they were only destroyed through outside military power. USSR wasn't socialism, it was a one party state.

>>5706972
>Socialism hasn't failed.
>Socialism has failed because of outside military power

Look up Raymond Aron

>>5706988
exogenous and endogenous factors chap.

>>5707000
So? Failure to gather sufficient strength to survive external pressures is still failure.

The black book of communism.

>>5707014
The book is focused on the bodycount. It gives little explanation on how socialism (and the specific brand of Marxism socialism at that) inherently had to result in mass murder.

>>5706952
animal farm

>>5707014
Not this ever. Read Conquest or Pipes' monographs by themselves.

>>5707012
>So? Failure to gather sufficient strength to survive external pressures is still failure.

OP's post is phrased as if final. Momentary military failures aren't finality, any more than the military destruction of Venetian proto-capitalism was a failure of capitalism.

Is there a book that explains what are the inherent flaws with socialism in theory or in the way that it was present in the east european countries

>>5707036
>literally written by a socialist
lel

Enjoy your neoliberal mental gymnastics, OP.

>>5707051
>Is there a book that explains what are the inherent flaws with socialism in theory or in the way that it was present in the east european countries
Read Kołakowski's Main Currents

>witness the ever madder howling of the libertarian dogs who are baring their fangs more and more obviously and roam through the alleys of western culture. They seem opposites of the peacefully industrious democrats and ideologists of redistribution, and even more so of the doltish philosophasters and brotherhood enthusiasts who call themselves socialists and want a “free society;” but in fact they are at one with the lot in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every other form of society except that of the autonomous herd (even to the point of repudiating the very concepts of “master” and “servant”—ni dieu ni maître runs a socialist formula). They are at one in their tough resistance to every special claim, every special right and privilege (which means in the last analysis, every right: for once all are equal nobody needs “rights” any more). They are at one in their mistrust of punitive justice (as if it were a violation of those who are weaker, a wrong against the necessary consequence of all previous society). But they are also at one in the religion of pity, in feeling with all who feel, live, and suffer (down to the animal, up to “God”—the excess of a “pity with God” belongs in a democratic age). They are at one, the lot of them, in the cry and the impatience of pity, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost feminine inability to remain spectators, to let someone suffer. They are at one in their involuntary plunge into gloom and unmanly tenderness under whose spell the west seems threatened by a new Buddhism. They are at one in their faith in the morality of shared pity, as if that were morality in itself, being the height, the attained height of man, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of present man, the great absolution from all former guilt. They are at one, the lot of them, in their faith in the community as the savior, in short, in the herd, in “themselves”—

>>5707048
One might argue that socialism (at least the non-stalinist versions) inherently results in military weakness among groups that practice it.

>>5706952
>why socialism failed?

socialism can work if the society is homogenous, hard-working, civilized, and healthy. And if the state manages it's budget well.

socialism doesn't work when you import massive amounts of 3rd world farmers who bring in tribalism, religious tension, and other 3rd world problems...And on top of that the state spends frivolously and isn't in control of it's money supply.

>>5707062
>I can use big words, that somehow makes me something other than a sophist
All arguments for the libertarian right are nothing but, as Stirner would put it, spooks. "Muh natural law!", "Muh rights of property!", "Muh voluntary transactions!", and so on. Rand is what rich kids read when they want to feel superior without putting effort into anything. Bitch was barely even a philosopher, I bet Sartre would blow her the fuck out if she tried arguing with leftists who weren't imaginary people in her books.

>>5707085
Do you mean social democracies (which are still capitalist) like the nordic countries, or pure socialism?

Real socialism is a pipe dream. It can never work.

>>5706952
Socialism hasn't failed, just look at Europe today.
>inb4 some snarky asshole posting that 'communism has never been tried' pic

>>5707089
Try reading the quote dumbass. Or try reading the subject at all (pro-tip: Rand did not like the libertarian movement)! Also Sartre was a terrible person. At least Rand didn't deny the USA equivalent of gulags (which are not even equal to begin with).

>>5707077
>One might argue that socialism (at least the non-stalinist versions) inherently results in military weakness among groups that practice it.

Such an argument would need to refute the Hungarian's capacity to withstand eight weeks of first and second echelon Soviet tank fronts, supplied with fulsome air support and front artillery assets using nothing more than light arms and terrain.

>>5707095
>Europe today
value form, value form as the dominant condition of relations between people everywhere.

Socialism works just swell in Nordic countries - it hasn't really failed, it's just not as widespread as it used to be. If you wanna know why Communism failed, that's quite another matter. I, personally, would give the short answer as the fact that it was a political system based on a deterministic view of history. Any system dependent on such an absurd concept is bound to fail. "Human history" is just the sum total of the things people have done. Until we have an explanatorily complete and detailed psychology, we won't have a comprehensive account of history. Any attempt to develop a theory of history - like Hegel's or Marx's - is bound to be mere sophistry, and any political systems developed from such a sorely mistaken intellectual discipline is bound to end in failure so long as its adherents remain true (China is set to surpass the USA as the dominant world power within the next 100 years, but as we all know this is due in no part to Communism).

>>5707095
socialism is the idea that the workers should own the means of production

europe is liberal capitalist, not socialist

>>5707166
This fucking yank socialist fallacy again. The Nordic countries are not socialist. Why must you destroy the definition of all political terms? Is it easy to keep a population down if they have no clue what anything means?

>>5707166
>Nordic countries
>socialism

Get the fuck out

>>5707166
The only time we actually tried socialism (reform until marxist tenets are fulfilled, i.e. real social democracy) we had a banking crisis.

>>5707178
>>5707179

I had a feeling folks would focus on the first 7 words and ignore everything else. I look at it this way: whatever the common usage of a term is, that is what the term is, disregarding technical use. Since this is not a technical discussion per se, I reserve my right to call the Nordic countries socialist, even if this gives political scientists explosive diarrhea.

>>5707182

Who is this "we", and when did "we" try it?

>>5706952
The New York Times

>>5707192
I reserve my right to call a spoon a fork, in a debate about the best knife to use. Doesn't mean I'm a) right or b) relevant

>>5707192
also
>political science

politics isn't a science, america

>>5707192
You used them as an example of "successful socialism" in a thread about socialism in the technical sense. Just admit that you're were a gaylord.

The funny thing is that the only socialist thing about them is their fixed conception of "progress" which you cited as a reason for its failure.

>>5707207

But in common usage, "spoon" and "knife" are two very, very different things. The same does not go for "the type of economy Nordic countries partake in" and "socialism". But nice job responding to the main point I was making.

>>5707197
Sweden in the 20th century probably

>>5707225
I was ridiculing your attempt to justify distorting phrases. What matter is it if plebs refer to Nordic countries as socialist? They're as wrong as someone calls A B. Comprende?

>>5707235
I notice how the Ikea fascisti were hanged with their own entrails while the bureaucrats were pushed into the sea by bulldozers.

Oh wait, Sweden retained wage labour, bourgeois democracy, and the value form.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

This is all you need to know why Capitalism and the corporate machine has always/and will always win

>>5707237

OK, fine. I apologize and repent. From this day forward, I shall not only definitively distance myself from "socialism" in relation to the Noridc countries, but I shall also deliver a 2-hour lecture explaining just exactly how and why the Nordic countries are NOT AND NEVER WILL BE socialist NOT EVER GODDAMMIT! Should I hear, even across great distances, those two utterances of "the Nordic countries" and "socialism" together, in that vile concatenation, you can count on me now and forever to follow the perpetrator(s) to the end of the Earth, in order to deliver the proper Gospel upon them.

With all that out of the way: would you agree with me that historical determinism is at least a major reason for Communism's fall?

>>5707166
>socialism
>nordic countries
>where the workers don't own the means of production
>socialism

Congratulations, you've been convinced by centrist parties that pursue welfare state policies that the existence of a high minimum wage, legality of trade unions and universal healthcare equate to socialism.

>>5707263
>would you agree with me that historical determinism is at least a major reason for Communism's fall?

Historical determinism didn't seem to affect factory motivation in the Soviet Union, capital accumulation in China before 1989, or worker resistance in Central Europe.

You might try reading actual history before spouting universalist and deterministic nonsense yourself. I'd suggest Ðilas's New Class, followed by Haraszti's Worker in a Workers' state.

>>5706952
>socialism has failed
>he doesnt work in steam or mondragon

>>5707269

You're right, it didn't seem to. And yet here we are, with the sole purely Communistic state remaining being North Korea. I will say, however, that the unreasonably low quality of life across the vast majority of Communist states (a notable exclusion being Yugoslavia) can be seen as a direct result of historical determinism, and the view that it must get worse before it gets better - except, in every applied instance, it never got to the "better" stage.

>>5707263
Thanks for that. Words are important, political words are even more important. Obfuscation is a deliberate tactic used to blur political terms into meaningless "HURR LEFT SOCIALIST FAG" and "DURR RIGHT FASCIST FAG" dichotomy.

>>5707263
and to the last point: sort of, but Marx himself said that his students were misappropriating determinism to their own ends. That is, they could just lounge around smoking and drinking wine rather than getting to grips with the French peasant economy of the 1270s, or something. But yeah Marxists misuse it and continue to, and it is detrimental but not fatal.

>>5707280
>You're right, it didn't seem to. And yet here we are, with the sole purely Communistic state remaining being North Korea. I will say, however, that the unreasonably low quality of life across the vast majority of Communist states (a notable exclusion being Yugoslavia) can be seen as a direct result of historical determinism, and the view that it must get worse before it gets better - except, in every applied instance, it never got to the "better" stage.
East Germany, Czechoslovakia, post-1963 Hungary, etc etc etc.

Nepal, Chinese unions, Indian guerrilla, Free Athens, the indignati, Chiapas, PI Maoists, and unionists like you.

"Worse is better" is a Maoist only phrase by the way. Stalinism emphasised constant progression. And with the exception of period recessions in Soviet-style capitalism, they had better stability of growth rates in the West until they came up against the limits of Fordist growth.

>>5707274
>CNT anarchist
>Speak Spanish not Catalan.

Murikan education...

Central planning.

>>5707093
Why not?

>>5707093
Depends what you mean by "real socialism".

I could imagine a market economy comprised of worker owned firms. That would satisfy the "common ownership of the means of production" criteria.

Unfortunately all previous attempts at socialism have involved bureaucratic authoritarian governments trying to plan economies. Which has never, and will never work.

>>5706952
Because the only thing Socialism shares is poverty

One of the only good pieces to come out of Aufheben
http://libcom.org/library/what-was-ussr-aufheben

>>5706952
>Hey /lit/ can you recommend a book that explains why socialism failed? Tnx

Has history ended or what?
In fact, socialism will probably the economic form of the future in a post-scarcity world. It's already happening with software piracy.

Shamelessly promoting the leftist board on (6+2)chan I created because leftypol is going to shit and the board owner is a limp faggot: /leftistpol/.

>>5707722

Are you pretending there aren't billions of people in poverty in the capitalist world.

>>5707761
Im sure if there are Aliens out there, they are probably running socialism.

>>5707771
You would rather have everyone live in a commie block? Just go to Russia if you want to experience Socialism at work and all its beauty

>>5707782
jesus man, stop it

National socialism was one of the best things that ever happened to Germany. Before the war even the US praised Hitler's success.

>>5707782
Please leave.

I'm not even a socialist or whatever, but this board doesn't need retards like you shitting up discussions.

>>5707828
>National socialism was one of the best things that ever happened to Germany.

>massive deficit spending
>country close to bankruptcy shortly before begin of WW2
>scamming his own people with contracts where they pay into a fund for a good (like a car) to be delivered years in the future only to confiscate the funds then for the war effort

The only people who think he was successful in anything but the shortest term haven't read up.

>>5707866
So, it was like every 'socialist' state? What's wrong with making the people share their money with the state for the benefit of everyone?

>>5707773
Juan Posadas pls go

>>5707253
I wonder why you always relish in such violent fantaisies of mass execution (yeah, you've done it in many other threads, don't lie).

Frustrated violence impulse or are your working conditions that shitty ?

>>5707927
>Frustrated violence impulse or are your working conditions that shitty ?

Yes, they are that shitty.

>>5707963
You should hire Asian to do your work for you.

>>5707312

>East Germany
Compared to West Germany...
>Czechoslovakia
Not bad by Communist standards. Pretty bad by Western standards.
>post-1963 Hungary
You're right, Hungary is an instance in which the Marxist dream of statelessness was actually achieved, right? Wait, no. Hungary post-1963 was only kinda alright in comparison to the hellhole that was Hungary pre-1963. Hungary's still not a great place to live.

>"Worse is better" is a Maoist only phrase by the way
If "worse is better" is in fact a Maoist catchphrase then that's great, but that mentality is inherent in the historical determinist framework Marx himself had in mind. This was only compounded by the absolutely absurd, somewhat later concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat produced by Marx's earlier followers. The mentality of Worse is Better was started, I would contend, by Marx himself, and really cemented in Communistic though by Lenin and some other first-wave Communist revolutionaries.
>Soviet-style capitalism
Oh please, don't give me this "State Capitalism" bullshit. If every time Communist ideals are applied it turns into State Capitalism, then Communism may as well BE State Capitalism. If you mean something else, then please explain, but I've got a bad feeling when you start talking about "Soviet-style capitalism".

And they may have had more stable growth rates, but at what cost? The Soviets put up an admirable fight in the Cold War, but again at what cost? They completely neglected the actual welfare of the people, and of course you have the infamous intentional starvations put on by Stalin. If the Soviets had been less obsessed with showing the Bourgeoisie who's boss, maybe they could have had a semblance of functionality. But it is inherent Marxist-Leninism (though perhaps not Marx himself) that the Communists show Bourgeoisie who's boss. That is inseparable from Communism as it is actually implemented.

>>5707293

Well, I would contend that historical determinism even when not "misappropriated" is fundamentally mistaken, since a general theory of history just cannot be constructed without a general theory of human action, but w/e.

>>5708051
>Oh please, don't give me this "State Capitalism" bullshit. If every time Communist ideals are applied it turns into State Capitalism, then Communism may as well BE State Capitalism. If you mean something else, then please explain, but I've got a bad feeling when you start talking about "Soviet-style capitalism".

Hungary 1956. Czechoslovakia 1968. Catalonia 1936-7. and so on and so on.

>at what cost
Let's ask the Indian and Indonesian people about capitalism.

>>5708079

What's the point with these revolutions you're giving me? As for, say, Indonesia, I think you know you're misrepresenting what I'm saying when you implicitly claim I unquestioningly support Capitalism. Lasseiz-faire Capitalism is just as bad as the most oppressive forms of Communism. It appears as though the only modern economy which really works out pretty well is a heavily mixed one, where there is a game to be played, but the game is very much structured. It's not just mindless bullying and doing whatever you think you can get away with, but it's also not merely a predestined routine. It's a game, and even if you lose, well, you can still get a modest consolation prize. But you've got to follow the rules, and even if the rules are written down nice and proper, if there's nobody home to actually enforce them (i.e. if there is simply debilitating corruption), then that's still not gonna work. The games in India and Indonesia aren't properly regulated, even if the rules are there. They just haven't got the right institutions - not yet, anyways. India is a rising star, though.

Basically, the best system is just whatever works. Mixed economies seem to work the best. It's not about having a historical endgame in mind. Such endgames will be inevitably fallacious until we have a complete psychology - and my suspicion is that, even then, (if there is such a point in time) it will be discovered that human action just isn't the sort of thing that falls into an "endgame". So just goes with whatever seems to work out alright for most people.

>>5708051
>Oh please, don't give me this "State Capitalism" bullshit. If every time Communist ideals are applied it turns into State Capitalism, then Communism may as well BE State Capitalism.
Now you see why Marxism is unfalsifiable.

>>5708146
For having stable criteria like "wage labour" or "the value form" that act as tests as to whether a society is capitalist or not.

Holy shit, empirical tests designed to falsify.

>>5708146

Well, I guess that's somewhat my point, but I wouldn't put it in those terms. I'd just say that if, without fail, every fully implemented system purported to be Communist is in fact State Capitalist, this means that "true" Communism exists only in the abstract, and not as a government form. It may be some sort of theoretical representation of a purely hypothetical government form, but in that case it's sort of like the pipe in La trahison des images. We can look at it as a government form, but it can't actually operate as one. We can't fill the pipe with tobacco. Similarly, we can't be ruled over by Communism. It is, of course, this sentiment that's lead to the great American adage that "Communism only works on paper."

20th century socialism (mao,lenin,etc...) came into existence via violence and utilized censorship and repression to maintain itself instead of democratic legitimacy. They attempted to economically develop themselves with planned economies when the technological level for such a massive computational task wasn't available.

A modern democratic socialism alongside modern information technology to manage a decentralized planning scheme in developed industrialized nations is the only hope of advancement for socialism.

Read this: http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/mfs.htm

>>5708217
We're not falling for it twice, bud.

>>5706972
>USSR wasnt socialist
>Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
>Means of Production publicly owned
into the trash this board goes

>>5708215
>Communism exists only in the abstract, and not as a government form.

Communism isn't a form of government. Have you actually read any texts? Fucksake you dumb illiterate cunt.

>Means of Production publicly owned
Means of Production exist? That means that its fucking capitalism. productive forces only take on the relationship of being means of production within capital. read your fucking Marx.

And for a concrete demonstration, the first thing that Bolshevik controlled geographic soviets did was to impose wage labour on free worker controlled factory soviets. In 1917.

>>5708284
I agree with you, but using the name of the state is a terrible argument.

>Democratic People's Republic of Korea
>People's Republic of China
>Republic of the Union of Myanmar

>>5706952
if you want stuff about why the soviet union failed, read the rise and fall of the soviet union
on Jugoslavia or eastern europe i dunno

>>5708328

The name of the state is usually a pretty good indication.
If it has "People's" in the name it's an authoritarian Communist state.

>>5708335
Just like the Civil Warred Federal Government of a third of North America.

Left wing socialism advocates and Communism apologists have likely never cracked open a book about 20th century history.

As flawed or inherently disastrous as many right wing policies are in both practice and theory at least they're not usually Fascism apologists.

>>5708349
I've not seen any apologetics for state capitalism in this thread.

>>5708335
what about the people's republic of Bangladesh (that's the full official name of Bangladesh)?
or the donetsk peoples republic

>>5706952
It was never tried.

>>5708349
very few socialists, even the radically left ones, are Stalin apologists, there are some mao apologists but they're still few compared to social democrats and democratic socialists

>>5707055
its Orwell's fault for thinking it could have gone differently.

>>5707214

Political decisions can be and are studied scientifically, you realize?

>>5707262

Perkins is a huge socialism apologist, going so far as to paint a rosy picture of disastrous socialist regimes and then crying over the fact that he helped bring those countries a greater degree of economic opportunity.

>>5708297

>Communism isn't a form of government
So you agree with my (tentative) assertion?

>>5708420
>So you agree with my (tentative) assertion?
No, your assertion is wrong in terminology. Communism has a clear definition as a stateless society without property (ie: differential control over productive relations).

"Socialism" has not been tried, because it cannot happen in a large scale.

Worker ownership of the entirety of the means of production can only happen through violence against the former owners, and its that violence that will ultimately bring its failure, and the installment of dictatorships.

>>5708446
>Worker ownership of the entirety of the means of production can only happen through violence against the former owners, and its that violence that will ultimately bring its failure, and the installment of dictatorships.

This is the first new and interesting advance in this discussion, a high quality post, and one that deserves consideration. Congratulations >>5708446

>>5708439

Well, OK, you're right, the endgame of Communism is statelessness, but I think you still get what I mean. Statelessness just ain't gonna happen - or at least not as Marx proposes that it should. And I say this both out of a theoretical objection to historical determinism, and an inductive observation that Marx's Communism was never even approximated by the nominally Communist governments.

>>5708297
>productive forces only take on the relationship of being means of production within capital.
They are capital. Any asset used in the production process is capital.

>>5708468
>Statelessness just ain't gonna happen - or at least not as Marx proposes that it should.

This is a discussable assertion.

>And I say this both out of a theoretical objection to historical determinism,

Some marxisms are determinate, some aren't. The practice by proletarian marxists have tended to be goal oriented and non-determinate. There are two strands within Marx's own work: he wears the flaws of 19th century science as a rosette.

>and an inductive observation that Marx's Communism was never even approximated by the nominally Communist governments.

Socialism was approximated in Catalonia, Hungary (1956) and was developed towards in Czechoslovakia (1968). These three cases clearly failed due to military inferiority. Given that the first attempts at capitalism failed in identical ways before the bastard success of the Dutch revolution, it is reasonable to forebear on this point. Especially as it took hundreds of years for capitalism to develop the capacity to support military practices superior to feudalism.

Secondly, the states that you are relying upon for this claim began by reintroducing wage labour against workers' revolutionary activity OR by directly upholding the continuity of wage labour from the previous state: none of them enacted the least socialism, and none of them were governed by the known and acknowledged institutions of workers' self government: work place soviets. It is a poor and tendentious example that sees ideology drive material relations, rather than the inverse.

>>5708472
>They are capital. Any asset used in the production process is capital.

Capital is a transhistorical category existing as the standard form of production in antiquity, in feudalism, in tributary states, in archaic state societies? An unsustainable category.

>>5708446
>Worker ownership of the entirety of the means of production can only happen through violence against the former owners,

I concur.

>and its that violence that will ultimately bring its failure, and the installment of dictatorships.

I disagree. Proletarian governance tends to a higher democracy than previously seen, permanent universal sessions, instant delegate recall, consensus decision making, etc.

We could start interrogating historical cases from revolutions where workers did seize control. Hungary's councils are an excellent case, as is the sudden democratisation of Czechoslovak factories and the party.

>>5708516
No, capital is a term for assets used in production. Company cars, for example, are capital.

>>5708549
>No, capital is a term for assets used in production. Company cars, for example, are capital.

I'm sorry that you're a methodological cretin. You are in a thread discussing Marxism, where the Marxist term capital has been repeatedly used, and you are playing fuckwit terminology games by attempting to conflate terms across categories.

You are a cad of the lowest order and obstinately ignorant.

>>5708505

>This is a discussible assertion.
Yes, of course it is. That's why it's tentative.

As for Marx's own work, there may be two strains, but one of them is nonetheless determinist. And it would appear to be this one that's been emphasized in actual implementation. Perhaps it cannot be de-emphasized.

>Dutch Revolt
Nigga are you high? This happened, like, 200 years before capitalism was even a concept. Before Smith, neither modern capitalism nor modern socialism existed. Indeed, part of what Smith was reacting against was, as well as feudalism, mercantilism, which was what was implemented, as far as I know, in the early Dutch Republic.

And note that the states I am relying on are virtually all the states that have ever lasted as (nominally) Communist. Once again, I think this can tell you something.

>>5708566
>And note that the states I am relying on are virtually all the states that have ever lasted as (nominally) Communist. Once again, I think this can tell you something.
You're calling a fork a spoon, and no evidence to the contrary will convince you.

>Nigga are you high? This happened, like, 200 years before capitalism was even a concept.

Idealist trolling at this level, I am frankly out. You take forms for substance at every level.

>>5708592

If every single time someone tried to actually make a fork it turned our a spoon, I think that's good reason to say forks are in some sense spoons. This is, of course, a massively oversimplified treatment of Communism and "State Capitalism", but I think that means your objection is also massively oversimplified.

>Idealist trolling at this level, I am frankly out. You take forms for substance at every level.
I have no idea what this even means. I suppose I should expect nothing better from a Continental.

>>5708564
Maybe Marx shouldn't have misused economic terms. Whatever the case, Marxism and materialism are both dogmatic and unfalsifiable.

Reality doesn't consist of 'explanations' or 'mechanisms'. All there is is action and possibility. To know all of the actions which occurred during those various periods wherein the possibility of 'socialism' was actualized and wherein contrary possibilities were likewise actualized thereby negating prior actions is to have moved beyond 'explanations'. This is how the Ideas may be grasped.

>>5708620
I have repeatedly referred to forks that look more like forks than spoons. And you constantly return the conversations to spoons, made by spoon makers, and intended to be spoons sold to people as forks.

>Idealism.

Concepts do not precede the social relations they refer to. Dutch people behaved in mercantilism as if the value form existed, and in some cases (such as factor-ies in colonies) introduced capital as the modern wage relation. This precisely meets significant and core elements of Marx's definition of capitalism and can readily be seen as a prefigurative form of semi-capitalism.

Smith did not invent capitalism, capitalism was produced as a relationship between people that was later described. Smith's grappling with the frustrating mercantilist attempts to describe capitalism is what irritated him to produce his own account: he was describing a pre-existing external reality.

>>5708649
>this is what process metaphysicists actually believe

Pig Disgusting for 400, Alex.

>>5708633
like the rest of economics schools

>>5708665
Marxism isn't an economic school, it is the application of historical materialism. Marxian economics is a heterodox school.

>>5708657

Hey now, instead of just hand-waving and making vague and meaningless accusations about form and substance, now we've actually got a substantial rebuttal. In any case, while it may be the case that Marx himself was reacting more against the mercantile way of doing things (though I kinda don't think he was, personally), as it so happens, every Communist government ever created has been reacting against, roughly, modern Capitalism. Who knows, maybe a Communist state based more on fighting mercantilism would be better, but I'm not sure what that'd look like.

>>5708710
Mercantilism doesn't exist in the actual relations of international capitalism any more, so finding a group of displaced intelligentsia running an anti-worker party but using propaganda derived from Marxism that wants to attack mercantilism is rare. Maoist concepts of "comprador" come close, but that's still more imperialism (per Lenin/Kautsky) than mercantilism.

The real and distinguishing factor between bourgeois propagandists who desire in fact state capitalism, and communist movements is the presence of self-articulating bodies of collective organised democratic workers.

And the key historical evidence of the presence of these bodies of workers is the workplace soviet as the form of revolutionary self-governance by workers.

Do these soviets, these councils, of workers tend towards dictatorship? No. They rely on horizontalism within the class, negotiate freely with opponents, and tend to defend with force what has been seized by social rather than military action. Does this actual "dictatorship of the proletariat" tend to form bourgeois style dictatorial governments? No, no it does not. Ought we be particularly concerned that their capacity to mobilise self-defence has been limited. By historical comparison to the early days of bourgeois attempts to defend capital as a social relation from feudal states: no. Previous revolutions have failed over and over again, as with the repeated redevelopment of Chinese proto-capitalism, or the collapse of Islamic banking.

Moreover, the violence used by proletarian organs, by workplace councils, has lessened over time; a generally positive sign.

>>5708734

Hmm. But the thing is, I'm not sure what "repeated failures" you're talking about in regards to MODERN, post-Smith Capitalism. After all, the dichotomy is, as you say, today between modern capitalism and socialism. And yet socialism continues to stumble, while modern Capitalism has had smooth sailing more or less throughout its history. I dunno.

itt

>>5708784
>Capitalism has had smooth sailing

You're comparing modern capitalism, with 800 years of development, to nascent communism with 200 years of development.

The correct thing to do would be to start comparing European capitalism 200 years after the development of the European bourgeois (the 1300s are widely considered to be the development of a new "mentality" of Europe, after the 13th century collapse).

So we'd want to compare contemporary attempts at communism by workers with, say, the bourgeois attempts at Free Towns during the start of the reformation.

Which also means that we'd want to compare earlier attempts at communism with medieval heresy with urban bases, like the Cathars.

Remembering that all the while nascent and early capitalist relations got militarily curb-stomped until the Dutch Republic, and that republic was only bastard capitalism.

>>5708135
Look where our current mixed system is leading us.
Sure, it's working "in the now", but it has no answers for the future. How does it solve the accumulation of more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people (families)? How does it prevent such a global neo-feudalism to arise? How does it effectively deal with the excesses of the financial system, that which made the 2008 crisis possible, but the systems which enabled it were never dealt with? How does it deal with a malicious form of globalization?
How does it deal with climate change and other environmental catastrophes that are happening right beneath our eyes?

>>5708789
what a deep analysis, thanks for the contribution

>>5708816
you know it's right

>>5708824
It's similar to the argument in >>5708328 >>5708328. I think it's pretty obvious that an argument that's basically "it's in the name, no taksies backsies" is retarded. Since communism is a concept that precedes those regimes the name itself is irrelevant, what's relevant is if the concept applies. Considering that communism is stateless, it's pretty obvious that it doesn't. So no, i don't "know it's right".

I'm just replying out of boredom

>>5708851
Sure, you can go on all you want about how Marx envisioned communism to be stateless, but none of that discounts the fact that everywhere communism sprang up it resulted in the deaths of millions. You have to ask yourself why this happened the way it did and I think you'll find the answer pretty quickly.

>>5708866
Communism didn't sprang up, that's the point. On the other hand, your sample is useless because the events aren't independent.
I'm not even communist.

>>5708893
Alright, we all know what I mean by "communism" here, the way that the vast majority of people use it, so you don't look smart. Every instance where communists took power they consolidated their rule through violence and proceeded to rule autocratically with only further deaths occurring afterwards. This isn't just a sorry set of coincidences, it's a systemic problem with communist ideology.

>>5706952
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE

>>5708972
Hungary 1956. Czechoslovakia 1968. Catalonia 1936-7. Germany 1917-1921. And so on.

>>5707055
nah it does a good job showing how politics based on equality can quickly turn into politics based on authoritarianism

>>5707055
Orwell was a reactionary.

>>5709001
Long bow given ILP, his POUM service and Lion and Unicorn.

>>5708985
>Hungary 1956
wasn't communist

>Czechoslovakia 1968
wasn't communist

>Catalonia 1936-7
Seriously? The Spanish Civil War doesn't count as an extremely violent reaction to a communist threat?

>Germany 1917-1921
See above, the Germans just had enough sense to terminate the threat before it happened

>>5709027
I refer you to the documents of the Czechoslovak workers councils, the Hungarian workers councils, the German shop stewards and workers councils, and to the documents of the CNT CGT FAI POUM and the workers councils in Spain.

You are a cad.

>>5709043
Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968 had communist elements but were in large part liberal movements. Are you averse to actually reading history not written by Noam Chomsky?

>>5708972
As i said, the events aren't independent. If you have a "communist" revolution with stalinist support and financed by a stalinist state you're going to end up being stalinist, but that doesn't prove that that's what would have naturally happened.
Not that this has anything to do with actual communism anyway.

maybe we should agree on what the terms "socialism" and "communism" mean before we go declaring that they've failed or haven't been tried.

socialism: "economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy"

communism: "a socioeconomic system structured upon common ownership of the means of production and characterized by the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state;"

i'd say that neither have been tried on a large scale, and that 20th century communist states were neither socialist or communist

>>5709068
>but were in large part liberal movements. Are you averse to actually reading history not written by Noam Chomsky?
I'm sorry, but I've spent far too long reading the primary sources to be lectured by you about liberalism when workers are seizing production.

Rather than looking for something rudimentary and polemical, your best choice would be to read books about the formation of socialist countries and find where they went wrong yourself and what the problems were.

>>5706972
The larger the state, the less feasible it is for economic and social management to be directly controlled by the citizens. It worked in Athens (slaves aside, even people who didn't own property could vote, and they were the lowest tax bracket) because the polis was small enough for every voice to be heard. But in a larger state, it becomes more and more difficult to collect democratic input for every decision. You only have two ways of doing, one, you can decentralize everything to the extent that things like factories and communities are largely autonomous and don't give input on other factories and communities, which is what is called anarchism among the left. Or you can have a decision making body that performs most functions without going through a state-wide survey.

Liberalism gets around this because there are property rights, different factories and so one are under the aegis of various owners who are subordinate to the state but still maintain a degree of autonomy. The reason this can't work in socialism is because there are no property rights, the workers of a factory do not own it, they simply use it, so they do not have a right to direct that factory as they please contrary to the state economic plan.

>>5706952
First of all, socialist theory is the reason that capitalism has survived, for the time being. Second, actually attempted socialism "failed" in the Soviet Union because the USSR suffered, second only to China and bar none after that, the most casualties and spent the most to defeat the Axis. The Allies promised aid, as well as normalized relations, to the USSR but never delivered despite the USSR honoring every agreement they ever made with America and Britain. To put it simply, the entire world conspired against the USSR's existence, save for China and a few other allies. The US and Britain, of course, killed off neutral parties and sabotaged friendly parties outside of USSRs reach. Capitalists took hold of the USSR after Stalin, which caused China to split relations. China was also co-opted by capitalists but they didn't bother trying to appease the West, so they're officially working towards socialism (this is really to appease the majority communism population into accepting why China is shitty now).

It's more correct to say that socialism was set back, but even that's probably a stretch. Since the only global power has been capitalism every single catastrophic fault we have no are its own. Given that, there is only in reality two paths for the Earth to take: global socialism or mutually assured destruction.

>>5709079
The Bolsheviks weren't Stalinist until 1924, yet they still took control in a brutally violent manner and set up an autocratic state. The Chinese communists couldn't really be called Stalinist either since Maoism was a mostly original invention.

>>5709088
Sorry, but the Hungarian revolution was based entirely on nationalism and essentially sought to create the type of state that existed in contemporary Yugoslavia, a country that also had "worker's councils" while being a mostly capitalist state in league with the West.

>>5709109
My earlier statement about no Stalinist apologetics in this thread is now incorrect.

>>5709109
>Given that, there is only in reality two paths for the Earth to take: global socialism or mutually assured destruction.

Jesus Christ, loosen your fedora a bit before you talk.

>>5709116
>Stalinist
There's no such theory.

>>5709116
>Sorry, but the Hungarian revolution was based entirely on nationalism

Which is weird, because the Petofi society weren't nationalist. The councils which were formed in 19-21 October were formed by revolutionary social democrats on the whole. The cabinet were useless and workers councils controlled everything outside of two regional geographic councils, which were dominated by social democrats. That all four legal parliamentary parties stood to uphold socialism, and that the two new legal parliamentary parties, the Youth party and the HDIM were both explicitly communist.

You're talking utter bullshit, go read Lomax's source book.

>>5709123
>accurate history is Stalinist apologetics
I wasn't aware of this, but if you say so.

>>5709124
But Fedoras are euphoric liberals. Are you a newfag?

>>5709109

>China was co-opted

Internal reform within the CCP (thanks, Deng Xiaoping!) is not "co-opting".

>Worker ownership of the entirety of the means of production can only happen through violence against the former owners,
This isn't true though. Is it so hard to imagine a corporation owned by 100 people who run a factory and split the profits of the enterprise between them? They could elect a CEO, CFO, and a few more people for a board for a set term, who would assign the others to positions manning machinery, conducting r&d, mechanical maintenance, advertising, and whatever else needs doing. More skilled jobs could come with bonus shares but the awarding of bonuses would have to be done by a board accountable to the shareholders, i.e. all of the workers. The corporation's charter would tie ownership of shares to employment at the company, and require that new employees be issued shares and that anyone quitting relinquish their shares to be divided among the whole. If the venture saw some success they could guarantee retirees either receive pensions or retain ownership of their shares until death, whereupon those shares are returned to the collective. Such a corporate entity could arise and compete in a free market, and might even be more productive than a shareholder/wage-earner enterprise because everyone involved would have an incentive to be as productive as possible.

>all these "leftists" afraid of owning the real communist revolutions
Read The Communist Necessity.

>>5709198

"Leftist" is a hyperbolic term co-opted by left moderates simply because the mainstream right wing in most countries likes using the term as a boogeyman

>>5709175
>>5709175
Andrle's book on workers in the 1930s, Piranis in the 1920s. Socialism in the Soviet Union was set back by the Bolsheviks, particularly by their inability to adapt the demands of the third revolution.

Neither Andrle nor Pirani have a baseline hostility to bolshevism (nor do I, some of my closest comrades are Leninists). But "the rot" was there from the first white intervention, not the second. And the rot was quite deep indeed.

Lenin himself reintroduced bourgeois managers, and lauded wage labour during the civil war.

>>5709179
>Seriously implying the Gang of 4 farce wasn't a coup

>>5709217
Is isn't exactly like wages didn't exist before the Gang of Four.

>>5707062
Heh. Clever. Still going to spoil it for you though. You and I are probably the only ones in this thread who have ever read that friend.
>>5707103
>>5707089
You guys do realize that is Nietzsche right? It's from beyond good and evil. I need to leave this board. I really think being around people who so vehemently discuss what they know absolutely nothing about is starting to hold me back.

>>5709217

>Top-down purge of party hardliners who instituted and wanted to continue disastrous policies
>Coup

Coups are usually bottom up

>>5709204
It makes me sad, brovski.

>>5709187
You should look in to a chain of food stores in Florida by the name of Publix

>>5709236
>Top-down purge of party hardliners who instituted and wanted to continue disastrous policies
Capitalist roader, pls.

>>5709270
>Gang of four crush revolutionary elements of the cultural revolution
>Capitalist roaders crush Gang of Four
>Capitalist roaders crush 1989 defence of the remnants of the welfare state by workers, intelligentsia and students

Gee where did that go wrong?

>>5709091
It's shocking to me that people think such facile arguments in favor of and against concepts as broad and intricate as 'liberalism' and 'socialism' can lead one to any sort of sound conclusion.

It seems the 'Socialism' being discussed in this thread, and, indeed, the 'Socialism' many in America are now being reacquainted with, is an anti-Stalinist, and often Trotskyist perspective. A key feature of Trotskyism, along with Leninism, is a fundamental importance assigned to the concept of praxis, meaning specific solutions as to future problems can only be discussed once such future problems have arisen. This basically acknowledges the fact that revolutionary periods are extremely unpredictable, and that adaptation is crucial for any successful movement. It also means the specific terms for 'democratic input' aren't as well-defined as a system that has been allowed to flower fully, such as "liberalism" (in the sense I take you to mean it). The view you've described simply as "anarchism" is more akin to some kind of syndicalism. Anarchism encompasses a plenitude of different perspectives, many of which are very different from the picture you paint of "factories and communities largely being autonomous", "[not] giving input on other factories and communities." Also, in the form of socialism being discussed here, any "decision making body that performs most functions without going through a state-wide survey" will most likely be carefully established as a provisional measure, especially considering the crucial failures made in this area by revolutionaries in the Russian and German revolutions.
What socialism advocates is quite far from Athenian democracy. Rather, the borders between the state and the regular population should "wither away" over time. The first priority is to ensure the general public is able to articulate itself clearly in the process of fighting for its own emancipation (and, indeed, it is unlikely any struggle will be successful without this articulacy), and use the structures found to be most successful in such dire situations as a guideline for the distribution and organization of power in the hypothetical "post-revolutionary" society (which is difficult, and probably impossible, to picture accurately).

In short, the concepts you're discussing are extremely multifarious and should be treated deferentially. You are no concept's master.

>>5709296
To be fair though, friend, our other friend ΟΥΤΙΣ is quite well read in these matters and was using shorthand.

so, how do you feel about the magazine Jacobin?
:^)

>>5709314
Click here to smile My dog died today.

>>5709296
"The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a ready-made formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – not the case. Far from being a sum of ready-made prescriptions which have only to be applied, the practical realization of socialism as an economic, social and juridical system is something which lies completely hidden in the mists of the future. What we possess in our program is nothing but a few main signposts which indicate the general direction in which to look for the necessary measures, and the indications are mainly negative in character at that. Thus we know more or less what we must eliminate at the outset in order to free the road for a socialist economy. But when it comes to the nature of the thousand concrete, practical measures, large and small, necessary to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relationships, there is no key in any socialist party program or textbook. That is not a shortcoming but rather the very thing that makes scientific socialism superior to the utopian varieties."

-Rosa Luxemburg

>>5709325
It is possible to conduct readings of Lenin and Trotsky that result in a democratic praxical view. This often stands in conflict with New Left organisational forms. The now splintered UK SWP was a perfect example of this conflict in practice. Every time it grew to a size where it would become praxical, it started shedding members through hardening lines. Gung Ho.

>>5709296
>A key feature of Trotskyism, along with Leninism, is a fundamental importance assigned to the concept of praxis, meaning specific solutions as to future problems can only be discussed once such future problems have arisen.
In practice, Lenin was hardly flexible and pushed is catastrophic vision despite outcry until the whole country was so close to killing him that he had no choice to but to institute the NEP.

Lenin was not scientific in his approach, he had it all mapped out before he came to power in his writings.

>Rather, the borders between the state and the regular population should "wither away" over time.
Yes, but fascism says the same thing.

>>5709337
>It is possible to conduct readings of Lenin and Trotsky that result in a democratic praxical view
It's possible to conduct readings of the Bible that result in a feminist view..

>>5709355
It is, and if you wanted evidence of reader reception equivalent to the UK SWP example, I'd point to modern congregational dissenters who are often pro-feminist in their theology.

I personally don't understand finding proletarian liberation via Lenin, but I have to deal with a lot of people who read too much Lenin and need to be rescued from themselves.

>>5709364

It is, but only if you take the Bible incredibly out of context. Most passages about the role of women in the Bible explicitly condone systematic oppression through prescriptive gender norms.

You don't need a book, I will explain it right here.

>Socialism: the radical idea of sharing
Wrong!
Socialism: the radical idea of forcing people to share.

There are good things to share and bad things to share.
Good things: roads, fresh water supply, clean air, military, collective healthcare, education.
Bad things: Heating, food, toilet paper, clothes.

But their are exceptions. Things like the Ohio turnpike. Most people who use the Ohio turnpike are not native Ohio people. So their is a toll.

Why we don't share heat costs? In Soviet Russia they would crank up the heat all the way then open the windows in the winter, because they wanted fresh air. It sounds nice, but that would be really expensive.

>>5709398
You're asserting the USSR failed to raise the standard of living above capitalist countries because of heating issues?

>>5709350
...The Vesenkha was established December 15th, 1917, and if you can show me anything in Lenin's writings resembling it (or even the Sovnarkom, for that matter) from before then that isn't something as vague as general 'vanguardism', I will be surprised. Have you even heard the term 'War Communism'? The entire economic plan from the start of the revolution through '21 was basically improvised when the Bolsheviks had nothing and were on the ropes facing various different forces. The NEP wasn't a major shift in policy -- it was the culmination of a process that had begun in November 1917, and which was accelerated and exacerbated by the failures of the German, Austrian, and Hungarian Revolutions in the months and years following. All of this was anticipated in some form in polemics published during international socialist debate around the creation of the Third International.
Next, anyone familiar with the Russian Revolutions, both 1905, and the two in 1917, knows Lenin was, in fact, *extremely* flexible -- it took 12 years and countless enormous risks for the so-called "correct" (ha!) moment, but the very notion of calling someone who had an enormous hand in building a mass workers' party in such inhospitable conditions 'inflexible' is no less baffling for it.
As far as Lenin "having it all mapped out", you have simply demonstrated an ignorance of Lenin's writings from 1918 through 1921, most of which Stalinists had tried to erase any recording of due to its similarity to certain lines of Trotsky's thought (and the evidence of this is seen in the counseling given to the CCP by the Third International during the first Chinese Revolution in the 20s). These writings, as well as many by various Bolsheviks and Mensheviks before them, explicitly acknowledge a Communist Russia's inevitable dependence on a Communist Germany.
I certainly agree that Lenin was not scientific in his approach in many respects, and his tendencies toward authoritarianism, elitism, and factionalism were marked in his political activity, but I think the large part of his writings provide a source of sound reasoning, and merit especially close study, especially considering the relative effectiveness of many Bolshevik political and organizational strategies (as opposed to economic ones, which were very rarely implemented).
Remember, Lenin's the dude who wrote "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" -- despite numerous political failings and defects, he was *extremely* familiar with praxical notions, and placed them at the center of his view of materialism. Suggesting, as you do, that a praxical reading of Lenin is somehow unnatural is downright ignorance of Leninism, which is commonplace in these parts, since >>5709364 seems to be claiming the UK SWP is somehow organized like a Leninist party. This article may be of interest to those who still need to be disabused of such illusions: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=4691

mostly due to command economy and half-isolation from the world. when china got rid of those they began to (relatively) flourish

>>5709570

It is >>5709364 here. My context for the SWP was clearly, "It is possible to conduct readings of Lenin and Trotsky that result in a democratic praxical view. This often stands in conflict with New Left organisational forms. The now splintered UK SWP was a perfect example of this conflict in practice. (>>5709337)"

Compare, for example, to Operaismo's use of Leninism. Your emphasis on Lenin's organisational forms is only valid if you believe the Lenin of What is to be done? regarding the capacity for autonomous class praxis, as opposed to the Lenin of, say 1916, lambasting the Party's own class composition and its gross distance from actual class praxis.

Damn you for being interesting, I had given up on this thread.

>>5709580
I think Lenin's reaction in 1916 is simply one of an embittered revolutionary inspecting a movement that was likely doomed to failure. Lenin gave up pretty early on many of his 1902 conceptions of a vanguard, but because What is to Be Done? is so widely anthologized (and is a very articulate piece), people often take it to imply a rigidity in Lenin's position over the years, often used by Stalinists to stick Lenin with positions he later disowned. However, I don't think Lenin's later criticism of the party implies a major shift from his earlier picture of what a worker's party might be. For example, Lenin's emphasis on building a mass workers' party and collaboration with trade unions in his discussions with Paul Levi of the KPD in 1919 demonstrate some faith in class praxis, and proved soon after to be quite prescient.