Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 05:20:30 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Handelman <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: AUT: Stagism



--- Greg Schofield <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
wrote:
> 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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Stagism has always seen to me as so damn bourgeois,
that's amazing that anyone calling themselves
"anti-capitalist" can adopt such bourgeois
attitude....

The type of positivism, that is so representive of
"stagism" can easily be found in Comte (or pretty much
any bourgeois thinker eg Walter Rostow.), among
others: That history proceeds in a progressive manner.

If in fact, the stages theory might have made some
sense in the 50s, it certainly doesn't make any sense
now. If the SU was in stage 1
("socialism"/state-capitalism), it has regressed, back
to capitalism, meaning there is no way of assuming
that capitalism proceeds in a progressive fashion "up
the ladder", as stagism seems to assume.

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