Socialist Utopia/What and How?

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

JoanOfArc wrote:

 please if you will Vin, can you give me an example of state owned profit making enterprise competing against big business.thanks if you can, very much appreciated mate. cheers.

A state owned profit making enterprise is big business.I was a miner when the mines were owned by the state. If we went on strike for safer working conditions, the state starved us back to work and its uniformed bully boys beat us with trungeons.State owned enterprises are owned collectively by the ruling class and run in its interests"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."Marx

Someone wrote that,  within state capitalism, the state becomes the largest corporation of the whole society, it control all the means of productions,  and all the wage slaves, the banking system, the education, the army, the production, the extraction of surplus value, its own financing,  etc, etc.  it is the perfect single  bourgeois class

[Anonymous]

JoanOfArc wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

JoanOfArc wrote:

Friedrich Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, argued that state ownership does not do away with capitalism by itself, but rather would be the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the bourgeois state. He argued that the tools for ending capitalism are found in state capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

  well i think it's clear from this paragraph that no he did not think that state capitalism on its own would end capitalism.  he did though, think it would provide the tools.Norway, Singapore and China have a strand of state capitalism and it seems pretty successful.but no it's not the be all and end all, for sure. it's more a means to an end.[/quoteI do not think you can provide any evidence that Engels said that, you are a Wikipedian. There is not such thing mentioned in Engels book either, the Communist Manifesto might contain certain state capitalist measures, and despite that,   Marx and Engels did not support state capitalism eitherState capitalism has failed in all the countries where it has been tried and applied, one of the biggest example is the soviet union. Capitalism can. not contain itself within its own border, it must expand itself. State capitalism is one of the most inefficient variety of capitalismState capitalism has been beneficial in China, or others countries for the ruling elites of those countries, but it has not been  beneficial for the working class, even more, state capitalism in certain historical period was a world phenomenon and it failed completely. Capitalism is a failure in all its forms and varieties ]

[jondwhite]

Here's Engels in that great pamphlet

Quote:

since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism. If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.

[robbo203]

mcolome1 wrote:

 It was Lenin, and he borrowed the idea or the concept from Nikolai Bukharin,  and he also absurdly indicated  that it  was for the benefits of the working class. Since when capitalism has been beneficial for the working class ? . The first intent and realization of state capitalism was the Soviet Union

 Hmmm,  I would say it was Germany under the anti socialist, Bismarck.00 Lenin admired German state capitalism.  Here's what he said To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany”.Moreover “While the revolution in Germany is still slow in “coming forth”, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorialmethods to hasten the copying of it.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

 It was Lenin, and he borrowed the idea or the concept from Nikolai Bukharin,  and he also absurdly indicated  that it  was for the benefits of the working class. Since when capitalism has been beneficial for the working class ? . The first intent and realization of state capitalism was the Soviet Union

 Hmmm,  I would say it was Germany under the anti socialist, Bismarck.00 Lenin admired German state capitalism.  Here's what he said To make things even clearer, let us first of all take the most concrete example of state capitalism. Everybody knows what this example is. It is Germany”.Moreover “While the revolution in Germany is still slow in “coming forth”, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorialmethods to hasten the copying of it.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm

I know that Lenin admired Germany state capitalism, like Roosevelt admired the German Nazis, but the first Bolshevik who exposed the conception was Bukharin

[robbo203]

mcolome1 wrote:

I know that Lenin admired Germany state capitalism, like Roosevelt admired the German Nazis, but the first Bolshevik who exposed the conception was Bukharin

 Do you possibly have a link to Bukharin's work on this? I know he mentioned somewhere that state capitalism was comparable to "white slavery" I think it was  Wilhelm Leibknecht, one of the founders of the German SDP who first coined the expression "state capitalism", In 1896 he remarked:  “Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism"  https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1896/08/our-congress.htm

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

Let the state compete with big business, let the people vote with the money in their pockets. Spend your money on state produced goods and/or services and see the profits be churned back into the peoples pockets via free further education, improve

The problem is entirely political: if the state were actively harming the profits of the capitalist class, they would start organising to remove that obstacle: unless we're consciously moving to abolish buying and selling, and determined to carry out common ownership, they'll just reverse the state ownership.  If we are aimed at the abolition of buying and selling, then why bother competing at that very game?  The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

I know that Lenin admired Germany state capitalism, like Roosevelt admired the German Nazis, but the first Bolshevik who exposed the conception was Bukharin

 Do you possibly have a link to Bukharin's work on this? I know he mentioned somewhere that state capitalism was comparable to "white slavery" I think it was  Wilhelm Leibknecht, one of the founders of the German SDP who first coined the expression "state capitalism", In 1896 he remarked:  “Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism"  https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1896/08/our-congress.htm

There are too many works of Bukharin that have not been published yet. I did read from second hand, and I heard it from the person that wrote about it,  and it was Raya Dunayekaya on her book on Hegel. She was able to read in the Russian language.  I heard it from one of her secretary which was an intimate friend of mine which died several years ago. Dunayeskaya and CLR James made an extensive research on Russian state capitalismhttps://books.google.com/books?id=twndVCVCPZ4C&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=bujarin+y+capitalismo+de+estado&source=bl&ots=N6XtKL8U-4&sig=_q_VCAtAgLRJec0PAgO3JlMdyRc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF-5e0tNrRAhVL42MKHYWoAD0Q6AEIUzAH#v=onepage&q=bujarin%20y%20capitalismo%20de%20estado&f=false There is also a research made by the University of Bolivia in regard to the polemic between Bukharin and Lenin on state capitalism. All those research conduct to conclude that it was Bukharin who brought the concept first, and then, Lenin started to use later onhttp://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/44153.pdfOn page number 32 the author said that Bukharin was the first one of the Bolshevik that forumulated the concept of state capitalism ( CE) before the October revolution

[Anonymous]

JoanOfArc wrote:

p.s. pleased and proud to bump into an ex miner here…………that might sound daft………. but i just am…. (pleased to meet you Vin, not daft haha)

Pleased to meet you! and welcome to the forum. How did you find out about the forum? 

[Anonymous]

I understand the SP’s stand on state capitalism – and you only need to consider the situation in the countries where it has been tried (the USSR, China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, etc) – to make you shudder at the suggestion that these are examples to uphold.I have a question for you, though.  At the moment the dominant flavour of capitalist ideology is the neo-con one; obsessively trying to shrink the state as much as possible.This is undoubtedly having detrimental effects on workers; the disabled are having benefits cut and some have committed suicide due to the stress of their situation, others in difficult situations face the same stresses.  Within the NHS, hospital queues are getting longer; serious mistakes are being made due to understaffing. Head teachers in schools are tearing their hair out trying to get shrinking budgets to stretch to basics like text books and enough teachers on their books to do a reasonable job.During a conversation over dinner recently, I spoke to a woman who heads up educational special needs in an area of the Cornwall; she said that before the cuts started biting, she was able to say to schools “and what else do you need”?  No more. Friends of mine who work in education or the health service are mostly voting Labour.  Not out of any hope that they will get to “socialism”, but out of a pragmatic expectation that they will get back to pre-cut days, when workers were at least a little shielded from the worst effects of capitalism.What would you say to them to convince them that voting Labour is not in their interest?

[JoanOfArc]

mcolome1 wrote:

JoanOfArc wrote:

Engels saw state capitalism as providing the tools for socialism. state capitalism in a capitalist society has never been tried before where it is purely for profits that are churned directly back into the system for the common good. i do not mean forced takeovers…… please if you will Vin, can you give me an example of state owned profit making enterprise competing against big business.thanks if you can, very much appreciated mate. cheers.

It was Lenin, and he borrowed the idea or the concept from Nikolai Bukharin,  and he also absurdly indicated  that it  was for the benefits of the working class. Since when capitalism has been beneficial for the working class ? . The first intent and realization of state capitalism was the Soviet Union[/quotein russia the capitalst owned corps were taken under government control. i do not agree with taking over one culture with another. it has to be done gradually and purely at the will of the people, many people. not just a few so called socialist dictators.  as Engels pointed out that state capitalism would provide tools for socialism. it would make the state richer that's for sure. and that then can be used to bring about socialism. i see different models of ownership being piloted and time for experimentation. but you need financial resources within this capitalist system to do this.]

[JoanOfArc]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

Let the state compete with big business, let the people vote with the money in their pockets. Spend your money on state produced goods and/or services and see the profits be churned back into the peoples pockets via free further education, improve

The problem is entirely political: if the state were actively harming the profits of the capitalist class, they would start organising to remove that obstacle: unless we're consciously moving to abolish buying and selling, and determined to carry out common ownership, they'll just reverse the state ownership.  If we are aimed at the abolition of buying and selling, then why bother competing at that very game?  The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

 some ideas become universally popular and have to be adhered to by parties if they wish to get the majority vote.eg. the welfare state and the NHSit was only in 1948 that these were introduced, and since then any party that planned to do away with the welfare state would be buggered.  but it is and should be in the hands of the people.  which is good. if they wanted it to work they would be buying their services and and products from the state the profits of which would be used for the common good and ultimately used to bring about socialism, were the people to be in agreement of course.but if you've got any better ideas Young Master Smeat please do fire away! perhaps you see a way out of this mess that i havent noticed? what do you think would be a good plan?

[JoanOfArc]

Vin wrote:

JoanOfArc wrote:

p.s. pleased and proud to bump into an ex miner here…………that might sound daft………. but i just am…. (pleased to meet you Vin, not daft haha)

Pleased to meet you! and welcome to the forum. How did you find out about the forum? 

 Thanks Vin!well, i was perusing the website to try to find out the psrties views etc., just doing a bit of research really, and then came across the forum.i've known about the SPGB for some time now. i went to one of the meetings oh years ago now. planning to go to some of the South London meetings in Clapham in the near future.so where abouts are you Vin? up North?? cheers.

[JoanOfArc]

Meel wrote:

I understand the SP’s stand on state capitalism – and you only need to consider the situation in the countries where it has been tried (the USSR, China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, etc) – to make you shudder at the suggestion that these are examples to uphold.I have a question for you, though.  At the moment the dominant flavour of capitalist ideology is the neo-con one; obsessively trying to shrink the state as much as possible.This is undoubtedly having detrimental effects on workers; the disabled are having benefits cut and some have committed suicide due to the stress of their situation, others in difficult situations face the same stresses.  Within the NHS, hospital queues are getting longer; serious mistakes are being made due to understaffing. Head teachers in schools are tearing their hair out trying to get shrinking budgets to stretch to basics like text books and enough teachers on their books to do a reasonable job.During a conversation over dinner recently, I spoke to a woman who heads up educational special needs in an area of the Cornwall; she said that before the cuts started biting, she was able to say to schools “and what else do you need”?  No more. Friends of mine who work in education or the health service are mostly voting Labour.  Not out of any hope that they will get to “socialism”, but out of a pragmatic expectation that they will get back to pre-cut days, when workers were at least a little shielded from the worst effects of capitalism.What would you say to them to convince them that voting Labour is not in their interest?

 i think actually that corbynomics isn't going to go away until it's tried. i feel this is the natural next step of the left. if it works well then who knows what the next move will be.but if it falls flat on it's face then the left will have to rethink. my own views on taxing etc. is that we become even more wholly dependent on the rich classes and the ruling elites.i feel we fall into their trap and they will still have us by the short and curlies.i feel we need to do this money generation for our poor our needy and generally a better quality of life and standard of living, ourselves.we need to do it independently as the people, and be proud.  us workers are good at grafting. we've had to be. we can put the efforts into the common good instead of making the wealthiest even more wealthy. Cheers.

[JoanOfArc]

mcolome1 wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

I know that Lenin admired Germany state capitalism, like Roosevelt admired the German Nazis, but the first Bolshevik who exposed the conception was Bukharin

 Do you possibly have a link to Bukharin's work on this? I know he mentioned somewhere that state capitalism was comparable to "white slavery" I think it was  Wilhelm Leibknecht, one of the founders of the German SDP who first coined the expression "state capitalism", In 1896 he remarked:  “Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists, nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism"  https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1896/08/our-congress.htm

There are too many works of Bukharin that have not been published yet. I did read from second hand, and I heard it from the person that wrote about it,  and it was Raya Dunayekaya on her book on Hegel. She was able to read in the Russian language.  I heard it from one of her secretary which was an intimate friend of mine which died several years ago. Dunayeskaya and CLR James made an extensive research on Russian state capitalismhttps://books.google.com/books?id=twndVCVCPZ4C&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=bujarin+y+capitalismo+de+estado&source=bl&ots=N6XtKL8U-4&sig=_q_VCAtAgLRJec0PAgO3JlMdyRc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF-5e0tNrRAhVL42MKHYWoAD0Q6AEIUzAH#v=onepage&q=bujarin%20y%20capitalismo%20de%20estado&f=false There is also a research made by the University of Bolivia in regard to the polemic between Bukharin and Lenin on state capitalism. All those research conduct to conclude that it was Bukharin who brought the concept first, and then, Lenin started to use later onhttp://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/44153.pdfOn page number 32 the author said that Bukharin was the first one of the Bolshevik that forumulated the concept of state capitalism ( CE) before the October revolution

 Singapore and Norway both exercise an example of a strain of state capitalism, doing quite nicely i believe.

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