[Vera Politica]

What makes him degenerate?

Every 20th and 21st century Marxist is working within a degenerative research programme. Such a program makes use of auxiliary theories and hypothesis to explain away the facts rather than predict novel ones. 19th century Marxist theory was a progressive research programme that would have been refuted had it not been for the auxiliary theories and additions appended to it in the 20th century.

[Conscript]

Such a program makes use of auxiliary theories and hypothesis to explain away the facts rather than predict novel ones.

Can you go into detail? Examples maybe?

[Vera Politica]

some incorrect predictions:

declining wages; impoverishment of the working class; dissolution of the capitalist mode of production in the advanced, industrialized nations (either through revolution or collapse).

some correct predictions:

globalization; proletarianization or expansion of the working class

Marxist analysis must be incorrect, somewhere. Attempts to supplement the theory, however, have not turned it into a progressive programme. Rather, we tend to observe society and what happens and then tweak Marxism in retrospect to explain away what happened. There is no real attempt to make Marxism a progressive social science. Many elements of Marxist social science have been absorbed into contemporary social science and research methods and other elements of cultural Marxism have been absorbed into post-Marxism and post-modernism. Marxian social science, as a distinctive programme, has been largely abandoned, however.

[daft punk]

Because a central prediction of classical Marxian economics was that the revolution would take place within advanced, industrialized nations (where there was a significant prolateriat present and where the dominant mode of production was capitalist).

Trotsky is among one of the degenerative Marxian theorists or, a theorist working within a degenerative research programme. Unfortunately Trotsky did nothing to turn Marxism back into a progressive social science. A failed attempt at this was also made by Analytical Marxists (mostly British) in the 1970s and 80s.

The quote has nothing to do with this discussion and, more to the point, the quote hints that the common ownership of land in Russia would signal a proletarian revolution in the west. More context is needed to see what is being said there and it adds little to this discussion.

Why are you ignoring my quote? Marx is basically giving a hint of what Trotsky developed - permanent revolution. To call Trotsky a degenerative Marxist is very odd, seeing as it has he who predicted socialist revolution in Russia and converted Lenin to the idea. There was a revolution in Germany, a general strike in Britain, its just that they were defeated. After WW2 there could have been socialism around the world, but Stalinism worked vigorously against that.

Trotsky never 'predicted' socialism in Russia. Rather, he and Lenin developed a way to tie the completing of the tasks of the bourgeois revolution in semi-feudal Russia with socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries. Their solution was contrary of Stalin's stagist, pro-provisional gov't line as general secretary pre-april 1917, which Stalin never really retreated from. Also that Marx quote isn't really related to Trotsky's permanent revolution, it's an example of Marx's later delvings into the question of revolution in backwards conditions.

I agree that Stalin was stagist. I agree that they were trying to complete the tasks of the bourgeois revolution and tie them to socialist revolution in advanced countries. I agree they were not stagist. I'm not sure why you think it's wrong to say Trotsky predicted socialism in Russia, if they werent stagist they were carrying out a socialist revolution, surely? I dont think they saw the bourgeois revolution as a separate thing as that would be stagism. I'm also not sure why you think Marx's quote is not relevant, it sounds like the same basic idea as permanent revolution. Basically what Trotsky predicted was that the capitalist class were never gonna carry out the bourgeois revolution, so the workers would have to organise it, and that they would have to go straight on through to socialism, ie not stagist as we agree, with the help of advanced countries.

The rest of your post I agree with.

A good article on this for anyone interested is this

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/11/oct.htm

[Vera Politica]

Why are you ignoring my quote?

I did not ignore it. Read the last segment of my post which you quoted. You are reading more into the quote than is stated, and that is on you.

You are also paying too much attention to the ideological side of Marxism and forgetting that it is, first and foremost, a social science -- but this has been the tendency of post-Marxism in any case. Rather than correcting for the errors in Marxian analysis, we now try to manipulate data to make it fit with the Marxian predictive heuristic. Early 20th century Marxism, at least, added on auxiliary hypothesis to try and make sense of what was happening in the world, especially the West, where the working class was commanding higher wages and more bargaining power through collective unions (and so began the rift between Marxists and social democrats).

That Trotsky is a degenerative Marxist is not a disparaging remark against Trotsky -- all 20th century Marxism was degenerative Marxism; Marxists were working within a theory that had been largely disconfirmed. Since Marx was no longer around, lesser talents took up the helm, tacking on additional auxiliary theories, assumptions, etc., with some success. The post-Soviet move, in the developing world, toward capitalism was another blunder to Marxism and it was at this point that Marxism was no longer being taught as a social science. Marxist economic professors in the West were let go or, if tenured, forced to teach the history of economics (as Marxist courses were no longer being accepted by the departments, and Marxist research was no longer fashionable in the research community at large). Marxism survives, largely for historical interest, in political science and philosophy (the latter less so). It still exerts a strong influence in history and sociology, however.

[daft punk]

What disconfirmed Marxism?

[ralfy]

Unfortunately, it requires increasing production and consumption of goods to ensure continuous economic growth, and that's not possible given a world with limited resources. And yet most human beings favor it because they want to become part of the middle class, i.e., receive basic needs like intermediate health care or better, proper shelter, food security, etc., as well as several amenities.

[daft punk]

Unfortunately, it requires increasing production and consumption of goods to ensure continuous economic growth, and that's not possible given a world with limited resources. And yet most human beings favor it because they want to become part of the middle class, i.e., receive basic needs like intermediate health care or better, proper shelter, food security, etc., as well as several amenities.

this is the biggest problem mankind faces, and it's not gonna go away. We already use 50% more than is sustainable and billions of people want to get on the bandwaggon. We would need at least 5 planet earths for everyone to live like an American.

So we have to go green, in a big way. Only socialism could do that. Capitalism cant and wont. Instead of building weapons we would build wind turbines and solar power stations. Instead of encouraging fashion, disposable products, the latest thing, we would concentrate on quality and durability. Instead of the car, public transport. Homes would be built to last and to use little electricity or gas. Water would be conserved and agriculture would be changed over to sustainable methods.

[Fraqtive42]

So we have to go green, in a big way. Only socialism could do that. Capitalism cant and wont.

Would it be possible for a highly regulated version of capitalism? Many socialists, seeing the problem with extreme capitalism or neoliberalism, simply abandon capitalism altogether. This could possibly be erroneous. The main problem that I see with capitalist systems such as social democracy is that they possess a tendency to drift rightwards if the rest of the world is becoming more neoliberal. The civil rights and liberties of a social democracy can erode, given a high amount of right-wingers in the state.

However, is there anything left of a social democracy, but right of pure socialism? Has such a system ever been attempted? Such a system might be able to keep civil rights in place, while avoiding the economic problems inherent in socialism.

[Godstud]

ANYTHING taken to an extreme, is bad. Capitalism is, in America, at that extreme now, and the people benefiting from it, are loathe to make changes.

[daft punk]

Would it be possible for a highly regulated version of capitalism? Many socialists, seeing the problem with extreme capitalism or neoliberalism, simply abandon capitalism altogether. This could possibly be erroneous. The main problem that I see with capitalist systems such as social democracy is that they possess a tendency to drift rightwards if the rest of the world is becoming more neoliberal. The civil rights and liberties of a social democracy can erode, given a high amount of right-wingers in the state.

However, is there anything left of a social democracy, but right of pure socialism? Has such a system ever been attempted? Such a system might be able to keep civil rights in place, while avoiding the economic problems inherent in socialism.

No it wouldnt. We already tried, it gets nowhere. I have it on authority form someone in Greenpeace that all the carbon trading does more harm than good, confirming an analysis I read in a socialist website. Copenhagen achieved nothing. No country has made significant changes.

Yes social democracies drift right, competition causes that.

A left social democracy, well to me that sounds like the transition stage towards socialism, the first stages of a socialist government. I think it would only happen if you were aiming clearly for socialism. Otherwise it all ends up going rightward.

Take for example Britain after WW2. A Labour landslide, and technically labour was a socialist party. But they tried to reform capitalism, not scrap it. They set up the NHS (free healthcare) and nationalised a lot of stuff, but it was still basically a capitalist country, the closest thing to what you describe (plus a few similar countries in Europe). Things were't too bad in the 50s and 60s, but then in the 70s there was a global capitalist recession. The public blamed the left and hey presto, Thatcher and Reagan. Nice.

A left government trying to manage capitalism ends up doing capitalism's dirty work, and that just gives the left a bad name. Better to present a clear alternative.

Why do you think socialism has economic problems and why do you think it cant keep civil rights?

[Fraqtive42]

Why do you think socialism has economic problems and why do you think it cant keep civil rights?

When I said that the civil rights of a social democracy can erode, I meant social democracy rather loosely; not necessarily a purely socialist state. A fully socialist state will probably keep social rights. By economic problems I mean problems that many critics of socialism put forth, such as the economic calculation problem.

[daft punk]

Rights could suffer in the transitional period to socialism. In Russia the other parties fought against the revolution and the peace deal with Germany, so they rendered themselves as enemy. The Left SRs walked out of government.

Suppose there was a chance that a genuine socialist party was going to be elected in the USA, on a platform of taking the top 500 companies into public ownership, with compensation only paid in cases of proven need. The capitalists would try to stop that. They would use their media, economic sabotage, blackmail, slander, maybe fascists, maybe even try to curtail democracy itself. In Russia the first democracy was brought in by the Bolsheviks, but they had to put it on hold because the capitalists started a civil war. It's hard to say exactly what can happen because the circumstances vary, but socialism itself is highly democratic by definition.

The economic calculation problem only applies to capital goods (machinery, factories) and big multinationals just assign stuff anyway, so it's vastly overrated as a problem for socialism.

[Negotiator]

Capitalism has been tried again and again to get tamed. We are currently in another phase where this obviously has failed.

Capitalism is when a financial elite forms and gains ever increasing amounts of economic power, which then can be easily converted into political power, through owning the media, through campaigns, and even through direct bribing or extortion (with the aforementioned economic power) of politicians.

For example, someone computed if the car industry in germany would reduce output by just 15%, the german administration would lose 20 billion euros taxes per year and there would be 2 million more unemployed people (for a country with 80 million people in total).

What can be done ? Of course one can try again to tame capitalism. But as long as money is power, and as long as the basic principle of capitalism is in effect (X money yields Y% profit, thus money grows exponentially, and even worse this effect even gets BIGGER for larger sums of money) its unlikely we'll ever succeed.

So what we IMHO need is a society where work, not money, produces wealth, and where economics are just as democratic as politics, and where media is owned by the consumers themselves, not by the state or by a rich elite.

[Fjallraven]

Social democracy has pretty much gone from modern day society and was killed by Thatcher in this country. Up until then in a socialist democracy we had seen the inequality gap close yet when Thatcher took charge the New Right widened the gap and that gap has even grown or stayed the same since. In a modern society -say in Britain - I don't think pure socialism would work but I believe with a socialist democracy we could keep capitalism more under control.

[Fraqtive42]

Agreed, but the social and economic rights of a social democracy can erode, given outside influences and a large amount of right-wing citizens. A social democracy will also have the same economic fluctuations as any other inherently capitalist system of government, being inherently capitalist itself.

[Fjallraven]

Agreed, but the social and economic rights of a social democracy can erode, given outside influences and a large amount of right-wing citizens. A social democracy will also have the same economic fluctuations as any other inherently capitalist system of government, being inherently capitalist itself.

I would argue that the fluctuations would be less severe than the ones currently experienced.

[Fraqtive42]

This is true, given the welfare nets and other regulations. But a social democracy can still become more right-wing because it is still inherently capitalist. I am not making an argument against social democracy; in fact I am a social democrat. However, there are problems with a social democracy that should not be overlooked.

[CounterChaos]

To enrich the select few and damn the rest - is bad. I don't care under what political or economic system you swim. With capitalism you either swim - or you drown. America is too divided and too big for a social democratic style government like that of Germany - like that of any. Multicultural with lots of cowboys, who dream of hunting Indians - blood in the streets. America is just too spread out, still lots of available land for capitalistic adventurism and a relatively small population for the landmass.

I loathe capitalism - but, I don't see it disappearing anytime soon. Even if her victims end up in cardboard shanties - feudalism cowboy style - would still protect the system.

That's my pessimism for the day.

Greetings new people............

[Negotiator]

... err, what again ?

Germany is anything but social democratic. Even the social democractic party itself here no longer wants a democratic socialism. When the social democratic and the green parties have been in power, between 1998 and 2005, they initiated a radical and aggressive rebuild of germany into the purest capitalism, including a massive destruction of worker rights with their "Agenda 2010" and a massive destruction of the social state in all variants.

Of the five parties in the parlament (Bundestag), only one opposes the Agenda 2010 and the further destruction of the social state.

In many respects, even the UK is more social than Germany now. For example, the low-wage sector of germany now rivals, if not outperforms the one of the USA.