Return-Path: Delivered-To: andy@mira.net From: JulioHuato Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 14:15:32 EST To: miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU Cc: andy@mira.net (Andy Blunden), Cemal@magnet.com.tr (Mustafa Cemal), miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mike Ballard), ysw@mail2.quiknet.com (Yale Wishnik), ktlau127@netvigator.com (lau kam to), annette.schlemm@t-online.de, mclemee@igc.apc.org (Scott McLemee), h.weslaty@lancaster.ac.uk (Hager Westaly), hmeng@athena.valpo.edu (Hao Yu Meng), universe@palmera.colimanet.com (Rafael Francisco), steve@kiwi.gen.nz (Steven Taylor), ozgurn@netas.com.tr (Ozgur Narin), regionx@netconnect.com.au, TSIAMBAS@aol.com (Nectarios), defteri@superonline.com (Iskender Savasir), Hipsterdoofus1@juno.com (Kenneth Ferris), JulioHuato@aol.com (Julio), pashton@alphalink.com.au (Paul), hipsterdoofus1@juno.com (Kenneth Ferris), dwest@yorku.ca (David Westbrook), DennisNFD@aol.com (Dennis Dixon), mryder@carbon.cudenver.edu (Martin Ryder) Subject: Re: economic theory (2) Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) In the prior note, I typed "I can't see any riskless path to socialism," while I also believe that, I meant "path to communism." I'll continue here my reasoning. I don't think that a wage-system is necessarily the same as wage-slavery. It is still not full communism. There's something yet to be desired. Now, in my view, socialism would exclude commodity production. But, isn't a wage here the "price" of the labor power sold by individual producers to their own association? That's one way to put it. I see no point in trying to sugar-coat reality, even if that's some kind of socialist reality. Yet, I think, this way to describe things would do no justice to the fact that the association of individual producers does not appear before them as a State or alien force. It is their own association, fully under their control. What they give up as individuals (the surplus product), they collect it as members of the association -- and they allot it according to their own priorities. I see the wage system here as a legal/moral standard to regulate distribution instead of as an economic (commodity-mediated) relation. I may be wrong. In my view, the problem of the USSR was not mainly a problem of commodity production that gets out of control. Of course, things are connected, but essentially, it seems to me it was the problem of a State that escaped the control of those who constituted it. As to why such thing happened in Russia, I'm currently reading "The Revolution Betrayed" (Trotsky), where good leads to understanding this very problem are laid out in as early as 1936. Here's the link: 1936: Revolution Betrayed. Brief classical notes on this theme that I find very helpful are at: Critique of the Gotha Programme. Julio (past note): "during the transition, that kind of planning and commodity production will have to mix and coexist -- ie, compete. I don't think that commodity production (and even capitalist production) could and should be abolished during the transition. I think they would have to exhaust their necessity." Mike: "I would say that in the USA, they have exhausted their necessity as long ago as the turn of the Century. If the workers were to make a socialist revolutionary change here, it would fail if commodity prodution and capitalist relations were allowed to continue IMO." Julio: I'm not so sure about that with respect to the US. Honestly, I doubt that we can say that. Capitalist development is, by definition, uneven. That includes the territory of the US. For instance, capitalism in the US has developed a very peculiar (to put it mildly) kind of infra-structure. It seems to me that the current road and transportation system, as well as the suburban landscape (horrendously impacting the urban setting), were entirely designed on the drawing boards of the car, oil, and real estate industries. There are broad areas of the US where the public transportation system is virtually nonexistent. That would need a total refurbishing if it were to serve the needs of the producers (including the concern for the environment). Would this refurbishing be feasible without using commodity production? A revolution cannot always be careful, but innecessary turmoil and disruption are to be avoided reasonably. You don't want to spend the moral and political capital of the workers' state in petty stuff. The South and extensive portions of the Midwest may not be ready for things that in the West and the Norteast may be an overkill. The educational level of the producers in the US is not only extremely heterogeneous, but there is an insidious anti- intellectual bent among broad sectors of the population (that the media exacerbates) that makes everything difficult. And the racial distrust among producers fed by decades of slavery, discrimination, etc.? Would the workers' state led by some mixture of Whites, Blacks, Yellows, and Browns be suddenly acceptable and trustworthy to workers sick and tired of the old system but not ready yet to give up their racial biases? What about Indian reservations and migrant ghettos? In any case, I can only speak in general here. Again, the reasons for commodity production to subsist under socialism would be (1) technical and (2) social. (In a sense, they are mutually conditioned.) Technical reasons because the productive forces may not be adequate yet for social ownership. Social because producers may not be ready yet to fully exploit (potentially adequate) means of production under common ownership. I don't think that, in general, social ownership is superior to private ownership. Do we need evidence of this? As a general rule, the more socialized a process or industry, the more it lends itself to social ownership. Trying to introduce social ownership into processes and areas where the socialization of labor is thin is unwise. Now, I suspect that in retooling the productive apparatus to meet broader needs of millions, what now seems sufficient will turn out to be very limited. Honestly, I don't see a way around this practical problem. This question needs a casuistic solution. I'd dare to say that it requires experimentation and careful observation of results. My whole point is that, if there are technical and/or social reasons to keep commodity production alive (including capitalist production), despite its potentially damaging dynamics (that Mike correctly emphasizes), it would be a serious political mistake to try to rush things ahead on this regard. In fact, I think that a workers' state would be forced to retreat with a vengeance any time that it tried to rush things ahead. Now, a workers' state might be politically (tactically) obliged to rush things ahead, but then as soon as political conditions improved, it would have to correct its course rapidly or risk further and more serious problems. Finally, if it turned out that -- during the transition -- productivity, resources, political conditions, and morality were sufficient to entirely avoid commodity production and go straight to direct allocation of social labor time to production for needs, I cannot see why any reasonable and informed person would oppose it. Julio