Economic Problems of Socialism

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:20 14/02/00 -0800, Brad wrote:

[Re: [PEN-L:16444] The Wayback machine]


>So I started rereading Baran and Sweezy's _Monopoly Capital_ and
>could not stop...


>And then continued down my bookshelf and ran across these great
>contributions to analysis from _The Theory of Capitalist Development_
>and _The Present as History_:
>
>"The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of
>production.? Centralization of the means of production and
>socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become
>incompatible with their capitalist integument.?The knell of private
>property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." This is,
>however, not so much a prediction as a vivid description of a
>tendency...
>
>We must conclude that, because of the differences in their underlying
>economies, the socialist sector of the world would [after World War
>II] quickly stabilize itself and push forward to higher standards of
>living, while the imperialist sector would flounder in difficulties...
>
>>From the standpoint of economic science, the political leadership in
>the Soviet Union is acting as the agent of the working class. No
>relation of exploitation exists between controllers and workers.?The
>real issue is one of general interests and objectives, which are
>prescribed by the structure and form of social relations as a whole.
>In this sense the objective of those who direct the Soviet economy
>can only be production of use values which corresponds in every way
>to the interests of the working class. We might, therefore, say that
>the working class is the ruling class in the Soviet Union...
>
>
>
>And worst of all:
>
>The publication in 1952 of Stalin's _Economic Problems of Socialism
>in the USSR_ would make possible today a more satisfactory reply.?In
>the light of [Stalin's] explanation?I would like to amend the
>statement which Mr. Kazahaya criticizes.?[The amended statement]
>conveys my meaning more accurately than the original wording and is,
>I think entirely in accord with Stalin's view...



I presume this last quote comes from "The Present as History" which
unfortunately I do not have.

Could Brad please give the date of the book and more of the context of the
quote?

>From what is quoted here it is not possible to see their formulation, or
Stalin's. What little is quoted here is not necessarily dogmatic or
slavish. Nor was Stalin's late work among his most dogmatic.

It would be interesting to know what the formulae were, even if many of us
on this list might believe that the centralised model of state socialism
that developed after the Bolshevik Revolution was a blind alley.

Chris Burford

London