[UltraWright]

I am starting to learn about Socialism and Capitalism and I think I find myself more attracted to the Socialist ideology. However, I like enjoying life's beauties and having/making money to buy stuff, does that contradict Socialism?

[nucklepunche]

It depends on the type of socialism, if you accept social democracy you can be rich.

[daft punk]

Hmm, socialism means different things to different people, but the main version of socialism is Marxism. So If I use the word socialism it is from a Marxist viewpoint.

So, what do Marxists think? Well, first off we would take the biggest industries into public ownership, under democratic workers control. We would not pay compensation to the rich who owned the companies, only to people who could prove need. A transitional period would take place before socialism, until there was no threat from the capitalist class. Small businesses would not be taken over.

The end goal though, over several generations, is for the whole economy to be publicly owned, and for everyone to be on the same wage, in which case you would not need money.

This can only be achieved when you can produce everything everyone wants, within reason. Obviously everyone cannot have huge luxury yacht with a crew of 40 like some billionaire do now.

So basically, everybody would be rich, but nobody would be mega-rich.

Of course rather than just producing more and more stuff, we would probably choose to have a shorter working week. Plus we have to cut the over-use of the planet's resources. We already use more than is sustainable, and for everyone on the planet to live like an American, in a capitalist system, you would need at least 5 planet earths.

[ralfy]

To answer the question, yes, as seen in China, and because of state capitalism coupled with export processing and duty-free zones.

[daft punk]

China is not, and never has been, socialist/communist.

Mao did not even intend it to be. His aim was simply to carry out the bourgeois revolution, as per standard Stalinist theory. Class collaboration did not work out so he ended up collectivising. It was not socialism, socialism is democratic, far more democratic than in a capitalist society, with the masses all playing a role in decision making, not a dictatorship by a bureaucracy.

China was Stalinist, a grotesque distortion of Marxism, and now it is half Stalinist half capitalist, or capitalist with a one party state and a lot of state ownership/intervention.

[ingliz]

a grotesque distortion of Marxism

Rubbish!

No national revolution has ever introduced socialism nor abolished capitalism. Nor does such a possibility exist.

... the political annulment of private property [which seemingly abolishes inequality] not only does not abolish it but even presupposes it.

[daft punk]

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say, or the point of the quote. Stalinism was a distortion of Marxism, and it was grotesque. Stalin tried to sabotage every revolution in the world after 1928, and he wrecked the first Chinese one sort of by accident. Stalin's policy was NO SOCIALISM, his policy for China, Vietnam, Yugoslavia etc was CAPITALISM. He simply failed to stop the revolutions. Mao was the same, Mao did not want socialism in China.

[ingliz]

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say

I am saying you are talking crap.

His aim was simply to carry out the bourgeois revolution

It was not, and it is very unMarxist of you to berate Stalin for carrying out the bourgeois revolution when he had no choice but to complete it.

Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie, but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion.

According to Marx, completing the bourgeois revolution is essential and the first step in a 'process' leading to socialism.

But,

... mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed".

Hence the quote:

In the abstract, the revolution abolishes inequality;

Is not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has become the legislator for the property owner [the revolutionary-democratic state]?

In reality;

the political annulment of private property" which seemingly abolishes inequality "not only does not abolish it but even presupposes it."

To criticise Stalin because the bourgeois revolution was successful - It did what bourgeois revolutions are supposed to do - is very silly.

The bourgeois revolutions are bourgeois not because they are led by the bourgeoisie, but because they make possible the development of bourgeois society on the basis of the capitalist mode of production.

Wage inequality in the Soviet Union was approximately at the level of its European capitalist neighbours (Atkinson and Micklewright, 1992),

[daft punk]

I am saying you are talking crap.

You are wrong

"His aim was simply to carry out the bourgeois revolution"
It was not, and it is very unMarxist of you to berate Stalin for carrying out the bourgeois revolution when he had no choice but to complete it.

No, it is you who are unMarxist, as was Stalin.

Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. III wrote:
Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie, but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion.

According to Marx, completing the bourgeois revolution is essential and the first step in a 'process' leading to socialism.

Well, I haven't read the context, but he wrote that in 1905 when he believed socialism could not start in a backward country. He changed his mind in the spring of 1917 in Russia, coming round to Trotsky's view that the socialist revolution could start in Russia, but that it would only achieve socialism if it spread to advanced countries. The Permanent Revolution theory of Trotsky was the basis for the Russian revolution.

But,

Lenin, The State and Revolution wrote:
... mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed".

Hence the quote:

In the abstract, the revolution abolishes inequality;

Inequality is not eliminated as soon as the economy is nationalised. So? We know that. What is your point?

To criticise Stalin because the bourgeois revolution was successful - It did what bourgeois revolutions are supposed to do - is very silly.

Who are you replying to? Are you saying Russia was capitalist? Or talking about another country? What bourgeois revolution? The aim of Marxists is not to carry out a bourgeois revolution, and Stalin did not carry out ANY bourgeois revolutions, he tried to and failed.

[ingliz]

What is your point?

You wrote:

The end goal though, over several generations, is for the whole economy to be publicly owned, and for everyone to be on the same wage.

My point was this statement is wrong and silly.

Who are you replying to?

You, a rather confused Trotskyite, in reply to your statement:

a grotesque distortion of Marxism

Read "Address to the Communist League"

Are you saying Russia was capitalist?

State-Capitalist:

"Nationalisation is not socialisation. Through nationalisation you can arrive at state capitalism, which may exhibit various advantages as against private capitalism, only it is still capitalism...

Socialism can only be the outcome of an organic development which has capitalism developed to the limits of its maturity as its indispensable presupposition...

The Russian Revolution was thus a bourgeois revolution, no more and no less: the strong socialist admixture changes nothing in this essence." *

Or talking about another country?

No

"Within that period, Russia could be correctly described in several ways. It was a military-feudal imperialist power, especially in relation to the many nationalities that it oppressed and exploited. It had a few industrial enclaves, surrounded by an ocean of feudalism and medievalism. It could produce industrial fuel and basic metals and chemicals but not machine tools and was therefore a weak capitalist country. It was a semicolony of British, French and Belgian imperialism which provided the finance capital and capital equipment for the exploitation of the proletariat and the people.

The industrial proletariat was a minority of the population and could not make revolution of any kind without the alliance with the small peasantry and other semiproletarian masses who composed the overwhelming majority of the people. It could not aim for the socialist revolution without passing through the bourgeois-democratic revolution and without seizing the initiative and leadership of the revolution from the liberal bourgeoisie who acted as the agents of the big bourgeoisie and who courted the support of the peasantry. The wisdom of Lenin was to declare forthrightly that the proletariat was to seize the leadership of the bourgeois-democratic revolution so that this could pass on to the socialist revolution." **

What bourgeois revolution?

"Clearing away the institutional obstacles to industrialisation, the creation of a proletariat [Transforming the peasantry into a rural proletariat], is essentially the creation of capitalist relations." ***

The aim of Marxists is not to carry out a bourgeois revolution

"The democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution and thereby becomes a permanent revolution." ****

Stalin did not carry out ANY bourgeois revolutions

Stalin completed the revolution and was steering a society in transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to socialism.


* Otto Rühle

** Jose Maria Sison

*** Duncan Hallas

**** Leon Trotsky

[Eauz]

This would assume the concept of rich would be equal to that of our present day society, in which case, the answer would certainly be no. However, restructuring the society, in order to ensure social ownership over the means of production, would help to improve the quality of life for a vast number of people in society, as opposed to a select few.

[daft punk]

"The end goal though, over several generations, is for the whole economy to be publicly owned, and for everyone to be on the same wage."

My point was this statement is wrong and silly.

Support. What do you think communism is, if it's not for everyone to me on the same wage?

"To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability."
Karl Marx
Critique of the Gotha Program
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... a/ch04.htm

Obviously not exactly the same wage, but in essence.

Most stuff would be free anyway, money would be largely abolished.

daft punk wrote:
"a grotesque distortion of Marxism"

Read "Address to the Communist League"

Yes, that was written in 1850. But even Marx had though that there was a possibility that a revolution in a backward country might have to go straight to socialism. In the forward to the Russian Edition of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote:

"If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development."
Karl Marx & Frederick Engels
January 21, 1882, London
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... eface-1882

In the Address to the Communist League Max does talk about a temporary alliance with the petty bourgeois democrats, but he also says the communists must maintain their independence:

"The relationship of the revolutionary workers’ party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position."

"Although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development, this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated. But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution."

Of course this situation is a far cry from Russia in 1924. At that time, the Bolsheviks should have been bringing in democracy, not crushing it.

""From the moment all members of society, or at least the vast majority, have learned to administer the state themselves, have taken this work into their own hands, have organized control over the insignificant capitalist minority, over the gentry who wish to preserve their capitalist habits and over the workers who have been thoroughly corrupted by capitalism — from this moment the need for government of any kind begins to disappear altogether. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it becomes unnecessary. The more democratic the "state" which consists of the armed workers, and which is "no longer a state in the proper sense of the word", the more rapidly every form of state begins to wither away.

"Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society [Socialism] to its higher phase [Communism], and with it the complete withering away of the state.

Vladimir Lenin
The State and Revolution
Chpt 5. The higher phase of Communist Society
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/ ... #communism

Lenin never said he was interested in achieving a bourgeois revolution or state capitalism he was after socialism. he had become convinced by Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, which combines the bourgeois revolution into the socialist one.

Lenin had absolutely no intention of carrying out a bourgeois revolution and leaving it at that, as a distinct thing. I have no idea where you get that idea from, I have never heard it before, someone has been feeding you with nonsense.

Lenin for example clearly said that the NEP was a temporary retreat, to build up agriculture a bit and calm the peasants down.

"Nationalisation is not socialisation. Through nationalisation you can arrive at state capitalism, which may exhibit various advantages as against private capitalism, only it is still capitalism...

Socialism can only be the outcome of an organic development which has capitalism developed to the limits of its maturity as its indispensable presupposition...

The Russian Revolution was thus a bourgeois revolution, no more and no less: the strong socialist admixture changes nothing in this essence." *

well, in a way, but that was hardly the intention of Lenin and Trotsky. As I say, the NEP was seen by them as a temporary retreat, in fact Trotsky warned of the dangers. Later, Trotsky was calling for it to end, but Stalin resisted, as his power base was the petty bourgeois. In 1928 he decided they were becoming a threat, so he started the Third Period, which included exterminating all the best Bolsheviks and the rich peasants. Well, the main purges happened just after the Third Period, when Stalin abandoned sectarianism and went back to class collaboration in other countries apart from the USSR where he exterminated all opposition, about a million people were killed.

"The wisdom of Lenin was to declare forthrightly that the proletariat was to seize the leadership of the bourgeois-democratic revolution so that this could pass on to the socialist revolution

Yeah, not as separate stages, as in one combined operation, with the working class in power, not the capitalists. What do you think the civil war was all about?

Lenin December 1917:
""The workers and peasants are still "timid", they have not yet become accustomed to the idea that they are now the ruling class..""
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... dec/25.htm

"The aim of Marxists is not to carry out a bourgeois revolution"

"The democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution and thereby becomes a permanent revolution." ****

Well this is Trotsky saying what I am saying. DIRECTLY. No period of capitalism. It's all rolled into one, with the working class democratically controlling a planned economy. Trotsky wanted more democracy, and an end to the NEP. Lenin was kind of with him but died. Stalin was totally opposed to democracy, workers participation (the definition of socialism), and based himself on the petty bourgeois. These petty bourgeois took over the party and instead of resisting like Lenin would have done (and did do when he kicked thousands out of the party) Stalin went along with this degeneration, and instead kicked out or killed all the ACTUAL SOCIALISTS.

Lenin: "I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are not directing, they are being directed." Eleventh Congress of the CP, 1922
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... mar/27.htm

[Social_Critic]

You can be rich in a socialist system. There are several ways to achieve this. One, you can become a powerful member of the elite, say a general, or a secret police senior officer, or a senior communist party member. In the real world, these guys live like kings. Two, you could become a favored movie star, or a sports figure, or a musician. Your freedom of movement and speech will be limited, but you can live quite well. Three, you can endure communism, and wait until it inevitably moves towards fascist kleptocracy.

The trick is to move fast to become a kleptocrat. For example, when the Soviet Union fell, kleptocrats known as the Oligarchs moved to steal property, murdering people if they had to, and many of them became filthy rich. Today, in China, we see people who are properly connected to the communist party apparatus getting super rich - but they have to be careful to kowtow to the party nomenklatura. Cuba is also moving now towards fascist kleptocracy, and the winners appear to be military officers loyal to Raul Castro - they get all the important posts in the newly emerging joint ventures the state allows to emerge in alliance with foreign multinationals.

One thing you could do, if you want to enjoy the benefits of socialism and get rich, is move to Venezuela, make a deal there by paying off corrupt officials for the right permits, and open a business. But this can be extremely dangerous, because Venezuela is ruled by Chavez, and he is well known to be surrounded by very greedy people, who may think you are doing to well, and take your property. but if you do luck out, and they let you stay in business, and you pay off the right people, then you can make a lot of money very fast.

[ingliz]

someone has been feeding you with nonsense

Yes, that somebody is Lenin.

"... of course it will be a democratic, not a socialist dictatorship. It will be unable (without a series of intermediary stages of revolutionary development) to affect the foundations of capitalism."

Works, Vol.IX

this is Trotsky saying what I am saying

Trotsky was a fool.

[Conscript]

The trotskyists would have made little difference with the development of socialism in the USSR, except for maybe foreign policy, but that I think would be limited to different tactics and decisions of the comintern. Stalin led the USSR through a period of socialist pragmatism, as per Lenin's revolutionary-democratic government, which laid the groundwork for socialism and removed all vestiges of feudalism (in other words, carried out a bourgeois revolution). This path was absolutely necessary to take for anyone that wanted socialism. The trotskyists are just being opportunists by criticizing its ugly necessities, like the bureaucracy, and stupid by claiming the USSR started socialist and turned into a bureaucratic mess a la their degenerated (specifically worded) workers state theory.

My opinion anyway.

[Social_Critic]

Conscript, you forgot the ugly necessities such as the Gulag, where my friend VN's father was taken to mine coal for 15 years, in the Komi Republic (no pun intended). Or the ugly necessities such as not being able to move across the border and travel abroad without a state permit, or the ugly necessities such as having no rights whatsoever, and having to smile as communist party aparatchiks mouthed off their non-sense. Or having to march on May 1 and applaud as the honchos read off the statistics of communist accomplishment, such as the manufacturing of xx tons of steel, or the production of yy tons of oil. Best of all, the ugly necessity of never, ever, let your face show any disgust or disagreement at the wrong time, because it would mark you as a reactionary counter revolutionary blah blah, and mark you for the work camps or just get you shot in the head and dropped down a mine shaft.

[PlateauPliant]

The sacrifices laid down by the appratchiks of the old Soviet Union and Cuba have been living proof that there might be some of them with privileges including dachas, but try to analyze them. They can provide themselves with more like gold bars, diamond earrings and the like but did not. Mental labour in the Old Soviet Union was amply rewarded because the masses were uneducated. Despite his invention of the Kalanishkov rifle, the man preferred to live in the rural area with a decent pension which can only buy necessities. He should had asked for more from Joseph Stalin. I had a dacha too in the old Soviet Union in Alma Ata but I use it for lecture purposes in that way the extra income derived from being an apprachik is shared through morning or afternoon snacks at my expense..

[Conscript]

You'll have to forgive me when I don't take anecdotal evidence at face value, especially the latter stories which sounds like complete cold war fiction. I have heard many, comparitively balanced stories of average lives which sounds much more reasonable than what you describe. After all, we can see the amount of nostalgia for communism in the former eastern bloc, and can see with the march referendum that socialism couldn't be that bad. Regardless, socialism made the average person live better then they did before, especially in the USSR. That cannot be denied.

[PlateauPliant]

Social critic, why would I aspire to migrate to other capitalist countries. I am economically secure in the Old Soviet Union. Besides language barriers would turn me into a mere factory worker who cannot afford to buy a house like other immigrants from Russia here in USA. Because of lack American experience in the workplace, they easily get laid off. Some of them end up in strip bars like those Hungarian immigrants I met doing lap dances in those places. I just love living in the Soviet Union. I feel important despite having had been tied down to manual labour. You can see our images drawn in posters all over the city of Moscow thereby not alienating us from our masters who are the most generous employers in the history of mankind..

[daft punk]

In the real world, these guys live like kings.

In the real world there has never been a socialist or communist country. And in Russia before Stalinism took over, the leaders lived the same as everyone else.

BTW Venezuela is not socialist, and some of the greedy people around Chavez are actually wealth capitalists who have gone along with the regime.

Yes, that somebody is Lenin.

Well, this was in 1905 when Lenin did not believe the socialist revolution could start in Russia. In 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power, Lenin agreed with Trotsky, this was gonna go straight through the bourgeois revolution and on to socialism, as long as it could be spread to other countries, in particular advanced ones eg Germany. He had no intention of establishing capitalism. He said that the workers would carry out the bourgeois revolution, as the capitalists were incapable, and that they would spread the revolution to Europe, and then Europe would help them establish socialism.

1905:
"The basic idea here is the one that the Vperyod has repeatedly formulated, stating that we must not be afraid (as is Martynov) of a complete victory for Social-Democracy in a democratic revolution, i.e., of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, for such a victory will enable us to rouse Europe, and the socialist proletariat of Europe, after throwing off the yoke of the bourgeoisie, will in its turn help us to accomplish the socialist revolution. "Lenin
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... s/ch10.htm

He was a lot clearer in 1917 when it was reality and not just theory.

1917:
"The workers and peasants are still "timid", they have not yet become accustomed to the idea that they are now the ruling class.." Lenin

1922:
"We have created a Soviet type of state and by that we have ushered in a new era in world history, the era of the political rule of the proletariat, which is to supersede the era of bourgeois rule. Nobody can deprive us of this, either, although the Soviet type of state will have the finishing touches put to it only with the aid of the practical experience of the working class of several countries.

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism—that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism."

socialism had to be international.

The trotskyists would have made little difference with the development of socialism in the USSR, except for maybe foreign policy, but that I think would be limited to different tactics and decisions of the comintern. Stalin led the USSR through a period of socialist pragmatism, as per Lenin's revolutionary-democratic government, which laid the groundwork for socialism and removed all vestiges of feudalism (in other words, carried out a bourgeois revolution). This path was absolutely necessary to take for anyone that wanted socialism. The trotskyists are just being opportunists by criticizing its ugly necessities, like the bureaucracy, and stupid by claiming the USSR started socialist and turned into a bureaucratic mess a la their degenerated (specifically worded) workers state theory.

My opinion anyway.

all wrong Im afraid. See above. Lenin had no intention of carrying out a bourgeois revolution and leaving it at that. He implemented the NEP, but he made it clear that it was a strategic retreat, a temporary thing.

Stalin did not lay the ground for socialism, he snuffed out the small chance it had. He killed it, literally. He killed the socialists, and embarked on a policy of collaboration with the capitalists until his death. The policy continued after he died. The only capitalists he decided not to collaborate with were the ones in Russia. He collaborated with them up to 1928 but then he saw them as a threat and killed them off, partyly because of the fiasco his policies led to in China, the massacre of communists by the capitalist KMT, who Stalin had said the communists should collaborate with.