[Marxism] Reply to Tom on the meaning of capitalism and state capitalism

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

Personally I prefer, as a guide, the theoretical framework sketched by Marx
in the introduction to his Grundrisse manuscript. Thus, the social economy
involves:

- relations of production
- relations of circulation
- relations of distribution
- relations of consumption

We could add to that list relations of communication, which are of course
indispensable for social labour.

Marx's own analysis focused mainly on relations of production, and only
summarily discussed the other spheres. Especially consumption was an aspect
which he discussed very little at all. As Louis Althusser quite correctly
noted, Marx's analysis is "radically unfinished". In addition, the first two
volumes of Capital aimed to analyse the production and reproduction of
capital in the theoretical "pure case", assuming for the most part equal
exchange (or price=value, or supply=demand). Only in the third volume does
Marx begin to consider cases of unequal exchange, the financial circuits,
and the effects of different supply and demand conditions. This is still far
away from an analysis of the functioning of a real economy, it's more an
analysis of the "deep structure" of capitalism, and the basic developmental
dynamics which it creates. We only have some clues about how he would have
pursued the analysis, from his articles on various specific economic and
political topics.

The more stultified Marxisms try to turn Marx's unfinished work into a
finished doctrine or system (at worst, a theology) which must not be altered
or developed, but that is obviously not what Marx himself had in mind; he
encouraged people do do their own thinking and welcomed genuine scientific
criticism. He himself had constantly studied the most advanced economic and
political thought of his time, as well as the available facts, and sought to
integrate the important insights into his own analysis. If "Marxism"
prevents this process from continuing, we are left with a 19th century
theory to understand 21st century capitalism. That can obviously only result
in deformed theory and a deformed political practice.

Marx himself was admittedly far ahead of his time. For example, towards the
end of his life, he wanted to analyse the ups and downs of the business
cycle mathematically, but this project could not go ahead, since the
economic statistics to do it were only created about 50 years later. Up to
the 1930s, the vast majority of people who called themselves Marxists had
not actually read Capital Vol. 2 and 3 or the manuscripts on Theories of
Surplus-Value, and many other economic manuscripts Marx wrote did not become
available until much later. Substantive free scientific discussions aiming
to develop Marx's theory further only really began in the late 1960s and
1970s.

I don't think the concept of surplus-value (as distinct from
surplus-product) can be validly applied to the economy of the Soviet Union,
simply because in large part the surplus-product was not even monetised, and
insofar as it was monetised in non-convertible roubles, it did not
constitute tradeable capital. There simply existed no genuine capital
markets worth mentioning in the Soviet Union.

If theories of state capitalism are scrutinised, it becomes very evident
that they often lack even the most elementary insights of economic science,
Marxian or otherwise. In their moral urge to prove that exploitation existed
in the USSR (which undoubtedly it did) the theorists invented superficial
analogies between concepts used by Marx in his economic writings, and the
economic realities in the USSR. The main reason why this happened is that
the authors did not really know how to analyse the Soviet economy and mostly
knew little about it (most of them were not trained economists either, did
not speak Russian, had little contact with Soviet people, and did not travel
in the USSR).

Paul Mattick provides a good illustration of all this. While Cliff still
attempted to make it plausible that the USSR was governed by all the laws of
motion of capitalism formulated by Marx (the tendency of the rate of profit
to fall, profit maximization, and so on), Mattick in his theory of state
capitalism no longer believed this was necessary. Consequently, he had no
qualms about asserting that the surplus-product in Russian "state
capitalism" did not have to be realized as profit. So in his theory, profit
is not even a necessary feature of state capitalism. You have here a
capitalism which lacks all the characteristics of capitalism.


On balance, none of the main critical theories which Western Marxists
developed since the 1930s (state capitalism, bureaucratised workers' state,
bureaucratic collectivism) are satisfactory or really credible, although all
contain useful and important critical insights. None of them enabled the
theorists to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. In part, that is also
due to a deficient analysis of world capitalism and the real strategic
objectives of the haute bourgeoisie.

As a consequence, there is still only a very small literature about feasible
forms of socialist economy or intelligent discussion about what is required,
economically and politically, for a real transition to socialism. Sometimes
it is argued that socialism is something which has yet to be invented. But
that is of course not true; the experience of post-capitalist economies does
provide a lot of insight into what happens, practically, when capitalist
markets are abolished, and what problems arise. Unfortunately, however, if
superficial moral theories about "state capitalism" are adhered to, nothing
can really be learnt from the experience of attempts at non-capitalist
economic development, and the real social progress that was achieved there,
despite many setbacks and suffering. We are left with a moral critique of
capitalism, but without socialist alternatives - an endless repetition of
old arguments which increasingly fall on deaf ears.

Jurriaan



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