Re: Soviet Marxism

[Zeynep Tufekcioglu <zeynept@xxxxxxxx>]

>William Aviles wrote:

> My conversation with this professor then proceeded to another disagreement
in > which he stated that the United States already has examples of socialist
> companies or economically democratic companies (e.g., Avis) in which the
> workers have bought the companies.  Would these companies be consistent with
> what socialists and Marxists consider to be worker controlled companies?

William, the question you pose is not "simple" actually. There were some
idealists in their own era, that set up factories as you say, out of their
wealth, as a way to achieve socialism.

As Marxists, we accept that there are some fundemantal laws operating in
each type of society. One of the basic ones is that the market is an
external force operating in the society. The workers in say Avis, have no
control how car-renting companies operate in general in the society, but to
survive they have to be as profitable as they are. So, for one, they are not
free to determine much, but must bow to market forces.

If there were mass layouts in the service as a whole, they would not be able
to say, well we don't fire anyone. Also, if all the workers' are owners, I
think it would be correct to say, they are self-employed, a category
different than capitalists. If, some own bits of the company, and some
don't, then the ones that own shares in the company would be capitalists,
albeit very small scale, and any dividend on those shares would be profits
earned on the backs of the non-owner workers. Their own wages would of
course be different.

In the first stages of capitalism, the owner of the company often also
worked in the company. Now, management and ownership are two distinct
entities. As time goes by, some similar experiments of worker owned
companies may pop up here and there, but they are not worker controlled
factories, because they swim in an island of capitalism, which denies them
control over fundemantal aspects of the company.

Socialism is not a management method, it is a different society as a whole.
A socialist company is not a valid phrase. A worker company, trying to make
more profit, whatever the cost to human beings or the environment is not
socialism. Socialism involves turning the tables upside down- no longer the
profit greed (a necessity of capitalism) rules us- the people decide what is
best for their current wishes as a society to be fulfilled, in an optimum
manner.

Capitalism can't but grow, through destruction and creation, often hand in
hand, at the cost of human misery and and a denial of equality, freedom and
justice. If it can't ever grow (a profitability crises, which we are going
through one right now) then it shows its teeth even more, because profits
must come in, by any means and methods.

>From a poem in Turkish;
"Capital is an animal,
which becomes hungries as it eats"

Regards,
Zeynep



     --- from list marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---