PEN-L message, Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)

In a message dated 5/14/2004 9:23:36 AM Central Standard Time, nomorebounces@xxxxxxx writes:

I think that the defining event of the past 4-5 years in Russia, in terms of domestic politics, has been the struggle between the bureaucracy and big business, the so-called "oligarchy." Not that the bureaucracy wants to destroy big business, as it exists as rent-seeker on it; rather, it wants to harness it for its own ends (Russian bureaucrats aren't exactly just proletarians, unless you are talking about people very low on the totem pole). That was behind Yeltsin's resignation and the main story behind the Putin presidency. They seem to be winning.

Actually Russia appears to be swinging back, after a brief interval, to the model of top-down state-sponsored development and politics that it has been repeating in different forms since at least Ivan the Terrible.

Putin is the CEO of a corporation called Russia. This corporation went out of business and was defeated in the world market. There are many complex and interactive reasons for the defeat of this corporation. Much of this has to do with the products that could be sent into play in the world market. Oil, furs and agricultural products will do good in the 1920s, 1930s and even the 1940s, but you are going to run into the law of value.

The law of value in this sense simply means that if you want to buy my advanced machinery you must give me my money (not your money which may or may not be exchangeable in the world market) or gold or something that is the equivalent of what I am charging for my machinery. This why I can convert your product into a recognizable form of capital in the world market.

It gets tricky.

"Sorry your one million pounds of wheat is not worth what it was two years ago because improvements in technology - Argentina, pays me twice as much as what you are asking and we cannot make a deal . . . . unless you reduce you request my half."

This economic transaction produced a political crisis within the political structure of Soviet society and heads began to roll. This change in exchange rates would produce a crisis in any country that had not revolutionized its productive forces to stay in harmony with the leader in technology.

If the law of value speaks to the amount of human labor in socially necessary means of production, - the socially necessary amount of human labor that goes into the production of a commodity, then . . . when the "Next man" reduces the human labor cost of his commodities, exchange is going to be impacted in a way that is not in your favor.

This is what happened at the meeting.

"Comrade Economic Adviser ain't shit and has wrong theory and is soft on the imperialists. Yesterday we paid one million pounds of wealth for our equipment and today we must pay two million for the same thing. Are you taking bribes Comrades."

Comrade Economic Adviser rises to explain things.

"Dear Comrades, we can make better sense of our task of socialist construction if we read a couple of fucking books and what Marx said about the law of value. Pardon.

"Did not Comrade Lenin say, that the bourgeoisie was going to sell us the rope we use to hang him with?"

Everyone in the audience leap from their seats in wild applause. Comrade Economic advisor get a standing ovation. The meeting is disrupted and the vodka is taken from under the seats of the delegates. Endless toasts are given proclaiming the death of bourgeois property and the personal jailing of the bourgeoisie.

"Long live Lenin and the Great Stalin."

The sound of clanking glasses can be heard for miles and the voices of the delegates inspire another 100,000 citizens into the task of selfless communist labor. Ivan average has not thought out that the product of his labor is to be exchanged for a set of products that will be used to expand the industrial basis of the Proletarian Motherland (without quotes) extensively and intensively.

Comrade Economic Advisor stands before the audience and with hands raised bring the cheers to an end. It is quieter in the auditorium than a church mouse.

"Comrades we have to think things out. Comrade Lenin did not say how much we would have to pay for the rope the bourgeoisie sells us, we willing him with."

The proletarian insurgency is stunned. In the background someone says "what the fuck is price? Ain't that some bourgeois economic bullshit?"

(The bureaucratic order is on everyone ass day and night - 24/7, because it is infinitely more than the police and ensures the process of reproduction, . . . by definition. If we surrender the economic categories used as exposition, then we can all go home and turn out the lights on Pen-L).

Comrade Economic Advisor brings silence to the great hall of Lenin. He states:

"Comrades . . . the price of the rope has gone up and if we are to purchase rope , , , and carry out the behest of Lenin . . . then we have to pay the cost in the world market.

"Just because our currency inside Mother Russia is used for exchange and cannot be used to purchase and own means of production does not mean we can dictate the rate of exchange with the capitalist world and the price of rope we seek to purchase."

From here it gets ugly and Comrade Economic Advisor ended up in the Gulag.

Personally, I would take a factory job over that of an economic advisor during this period of industrial development.

There is an economic moral to the story.

Putin is going to do what is in front of him . . . reorganize his corporation.

"Think he won't when he will."

Putin faces the bureaucratic order and the law of value. It is not like he has a lot of products to field in the world market. Putin has oil, certain natural resources and military goods, when the worlds people are buying CD and DVD players. Oil and military is big . . . don't get things twisted.

Everyone in every position of society or elected to anything in society - the bingo club, faces the bureaucracy.

Putin is CEO of the corporation that is Russia. From his economic point of view, if you have to go to jail to establish control over your economic infrastructure . . . then you are going to jail.

However, political fiat does not explain economic logic and the law of value.

Lets unfold the facts and leave the ideology to the ideologues and children.

We are playing chess not checkers.

Change is going to be top down or rather the bottom up means changes in the means of production, that compels the top to change. Economic logic asserts itself.

Melvin P.