Re: [Marxism] RE: USSR, Democracy, and the Environment

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 5/15/04 7:45:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx
writes:
Could the Soviet Union have evolved and progressed with an
industrialization model more akin to Palchinsky's? I believe so. In any
case, it is a mistake to draw an equation between Stalin's 5-year plans
and the term "planned economy". The loss of Palchinsky and the political
opposition he identified with constitute a major defeat in the
century-long struggle for socialism.
Comment

The economic content of socialism has been a subject of controversy for the
intellectual West for several decades. Interestingly, the Soviets never debated
the economic content of socialism. Rather, once the material fact of Soviet
industrial life began taking shape, they approached the issue from the
standpoint of "to what degree does the law of value retain its validity."

Size does matter. The extensive and intensive development of industrial
facilities are in my opinion separate categories of political economy. The
extensive development of the industrial infrastructure is much more than a 
question of
size of a particular factory, but embraces the scale on which "heavy
industry" is development as an integrated whole. For instance in the American 
context
Henry Ford's "Ford Rouge Industrial Complex" represented a massive extensive
development of the various components of automotive productive with steel
making facilities.

The intensive development speaks primarily to the internal evolution of
machinery and process within the industrial combines. The intensive evolution of
process and machinery under the bourgeois property relations is driven by the
unrestricted law of value. This means implementing technological innovation from
the standpoint of intensifying the labor process to extract more value from
the worker.

In concrete terms this means that machinery is configured for one function
(That pins the worker to the process, the Taylor system) because the more task
an instrument or machine performs the less effective it is from the standpoint
of capital. This is so because a machine that performs multi functions compels
the worker to perform multifunctions. The more functions a worker perform in
the industrial process, the less efficient he is from the standpoint of
capital.

In the Soviet Union an industrial facility would produce various products . .
. automobiles parts, bicycles, refrigerators, etc. Much of Soviet tools and
machinery were designed for multifunctions and consequently less efficient in
competition with capital in the world market.

How does one accord for this different between extensive and intensive
development under two different kinds of industrial system? Here is where the
meaning of "planned and unplanned economy" must be subjected to the laws of
political economy as opposed to ideological proclamation.

The industrial production of commodities requires planning period. Whether
the plan is good or bad is irrelevant because our task is to disclose the
economic law governing the processes at work.

The five year plan of the bourgeoisie and the five year plan of the Soviets
does not disclose the meaning of planning in the sense of class and property.
This is the point. The issue of planning in political economy, in respects to
the theory of socialism and Marx point of view means the law governing the
logic of reproduction and not the scale of a facility, accounting or bad or good
planning.

The planning of Soviet Industrial development means its extensive and
intensive development was not based on the competition between individual 
capitals in
the market. It is the operation of the law of value under the impact of
bourgeois property - competition between capital, that drives the extensive and
intensive development of industrial America.  and both Marx and Engels do a very
good job at explaining this. Planning in the sense of political economy has
very little to do with accounting or scale of the industrial enterprise.

Melvin P.
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