From: "Greg Schofield" <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
Subject: Re: AUT: Communism
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 16:36:49 +0800


A good and sensible response to a fearfully stodgy debate.

You are to be commended Patrick.

What indeed is communism? or socialism? or capitalism? for that matter.

I remain an old fashion historical materialist and stick rigidly to the old forumar that communism has two stages. By convenience they are usually rendered as socialism (first stage) communism (second stage).

For some reason which seems completely mysterious to me, people get the two mixed up together, do not understand socialism as state capitalism under the control of the working class and somehow give socialism the attributes of communism.

Of course on close examination it will always be found that much familar to capitalism exists under socialism (whether future socialsm or states which claim to be socialist). This confuses utopians who want their socialism pure and pasterized.

Ruling class under soicialism - such a big question - of course there is a ruling class under socialism Duh!! - it is part of the definition of socialism.

Under proletarian socialism that ruling class is the proletariat. Equally obvious, except of course in history which is never so cut and dried, other class exist, other classes can come into existence, other classes can slip into the ruling role - thats the struggle of socialism to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat (that is until is no longer needed sometime in far distant communism).

Socialism itself need not even be a proletarian invention, after all it only means the socialisation of the means of capitalist production, other classes may have in an interest in this, like the Prussian Junker class in WWI, or like the present international bourgeois  ;  )

The problem lies not in theory where these old questions have long been dealt with, but in the persistant utopianism of the remains of the old socialist movement.

I often feel like quoting Sidney Poitier in "Guess who's comming to dinner" - "only when your generation is dead and buried will ours be free of the wieght of it" (except this has little to do with age).


--- Message Received ---
From: Patrick Lea <led_82-AT-optusnet.com.au>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 16:05:22 +1100
Subject: AUT: Communism

Hi Everyone,

The capitalist cuba debate seems to be getting a little nasty, so I thought
I might try to shift the focus just a little.

Why question is this: What is communism?

Louis, it seems, believes that although Cuba is a society where commodity
exchange is the dominating mode of production, it is a communist society.
This means: people sell their labour-power, value is measured as objectified
labour crafted in commodities, surplus value is derived.

I can't see how Cuba (if you accept that it participates in commodity
exchange) doesn't participates in any/all of the other criteria. My reasons
for this come pretty much straight from Marx. E.g. commodity exchange
*necessarily* means sale of labour power as commodity in all modern
societies. (For the other points you can read Marx, or a heap of the posts
on this list, or many other places.)

So you'd have to accept that Cuba is a capitalist society. But does that
necessarily mean that it isn't communist? (Or at least partially.)
Personally I wouldn't know, I've read very little on Cuba and never been
there. I've found it disturbing that here in Australia there are people who
are part of the left who take every opportunity to mention Cuba, even when
the topic has absolutely nothing to do with it. I usually think: "Yes,
that's all very interesting, but we were actually talking about this..."

But to get back to the issue...

A vast bulk of people on this list seem to think that if there is capitalism
there is, ipso facto, not communism. They will accept no society as being
communist (or participating in what communism is agreed to be) unless there
is no commodity exchange.

You are treating both capitalism and communism as *things*, states of
existence, not movements, not in flux. Also you're treating them as
un-dialectical dichotomies (very, very naughty of you).

To be *so* unsatisfied by communism until it produces a society without
commodity exchange seems to be utterly dogmatic. That would mean a society
where value itself has changed completely. No longer derived from labour
solely, but nature and people united; from use-value and exchange-value
united; derived by something *new*, something I can barely even imagine.

To demand that of Cuba, or anywhere, is, I think, asking way too much.

And to do so misses the point. The point that it's here *now*, in all of us,
hiding away, suppressed and repressed, then flourishing and burning brightly
from moment to moment. Then it seeps away again.

Communism isn't just a thing, it's a movement. No-one holds a monopoly on it
(USSR/China/Cuba), it's not something to "put into place".

It's a challenge.


So long,
Patrick


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia
g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au
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