Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 19:56:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Handelman <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist cuba?


Do you think it's really good idea to call it
"state-capitalist"? State Capitalism sounds to me,
like the highest phase of capitalism. However, with
the collapse of the Soviet Union, it does seem more
likely that the economy in Soviet Union was in
transition to capitalism (as theorized by Bordiga)
rather than being the highest point of capitalism.


--- Peter Jovanovic <peterzoran-AT-hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> >(Posted to Marxmail by Mohammad Alam, an
> undergraduate in the Boston area 
> > >whose father contributes occasionally to
> Counterpunch)
> 
> Louis, is posting this crap from some icepickhead
> mate of yours an admission 
> that you're losing this debate and need to call up
> reinforcements? And what 
> the fuck does it matter if this guy's dad writes for
> Counterpunch? Is being 
> related to someone who sometimes writes for an OK if
> liberalish zine a great 
> achievement?
> 
> >The fundamental flaw behind the idea that Cuba is a
> capitalist state is 
> > >that it smacks of crude formalism. Instead of
> starting out from
> >actually-existing reality, the material conditions,
> historical  roots, and 
> > >political processes of Cuba, these autonomists
> take their blueprint 
> > >model, >hold it up next to the Cuban model, and
> declare the latter to be 
> > >antithetical to socialism.
> 
> It's a pretty loose blueprint; communism = the
> proletariat's positive 
> negation of capital. Now if you think replacing one
> set of politicians, 
> bosses, cops and jailers with another is that
> positive negation fine but 
> please forgive those of us who think it means
> getting rid of money, states 
> etc.
> 
> >If capitalism prevails in Cuba as it does in the
> rest of Latin America, 
> > >then why are there such huge discrepancies in the
> social relations, 
> > >living >standards, and security levels between
> the island and the 
> >mainland?
> 
> This has been pretty well dealt with by Harald among
> others but who here has 
> claimed that capitalism implies equally bad living
> conditions everywhere?
> 
> >The easiest way to check the completeness of an
> idea is to check if an 
> > >alternative is offered. In the case of the
> autonomists, who are quick to 
> > >condemn the party, the vanguard, Lenin, and every
> other 
> >socialist>development of the last 100 years out of
> hand,
> 
> Don't forget the gulag, the Cheka and the boring
> sacrificial nature of 
> Leninoid politics.
> 
> Something Leninists never understand and/or
> acknowledge is that we don't 
> think you are on the same side as us. You think of
> us as mistaken and 
> sectarian but more or less comrades whereas we think
> of you as advocates of 
> an alternative form of capitalist rule and dangerous
> because you have some 
> (thankfully diminishing) appeal to parts of the
> proletariat. Given these 
> wildly different mutual perceptions you can't grasp
> why we dislike you lot 
> so much.
> 
> >Moreover, it is an insult to the struggles of the
> past
> >half-century, and an insult to the dedication of
> revolutionaries who fought 
> > >under the banner of Marxism, to claim that they
> were really just 
> > >capitalists of some sort without knowing it.
> 
> I'm sorry that millions of peasants and proles
> fought under the banner of 
> satate capitalist Marxism but that doesn't mean I'm
> going to stop 
> criticising state capitalist Marxism.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
>
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