Date: 21 Dec 96 03:05:53 EST
Subject: M-G: sect feuding --or defense of marxism?


dear friends,

RE: dave's defense of state capitalism 12/20.

Yes, Dave, we know that some commodity production existed
previous to capitalism.  But in  class  societies that were pre-capitalist,
wealth was in tha main produced for direct use and not for sale on
the market.
Under feudalism , much wealth was used by those who produced the
wealth and the rest by priviliged classes who sponged off the 
producers and took a percentage of the wealth mainly by the 
 threat of force or actual use of force.
Under capitalism, the role of production for sale and production for
use are reversed, it is now production for use which is marginal,
while production  for sale and profit that predominates. 
Under capitalism, statified and "private" , 
 Commodity production  is in command.
 Dave, I think it is kind of pulling a fast one  to try to claim 
that capitalist commodity production was anything like 
it in feudalism, etc. as you did in your previous post.

Capital and surplus value and capital accumulation exist/existed
in the state cap countries because the corollary, wage labor , exists
and the state caps wealth also means there is an immense accumulation
of commodities.
Even though the "market " mechanism  is restricted much more in the
state cap countries, the state boards still  have to  shift and allocate
capital investment to  the "plan' to gain an average rate of surplus value
measured not by industry alone, but over the whole economy.
In the state cap  bloc , even as most  capital is allocated  by the 
state plan, it uses  checks and efficiency measurements that
are the hallamrks of capitalism.
1) total physical output
2) quality as well as quantity
3) delivery obligations
4)LABOR PRODUCTIVITY
5) increase % involume of sales
6) totals #s of workers and salaried employeees
7) % can reduce the amount of hand labor
8)% reduced use of fuels and raw materials
9)PROFITABILITY
10) % cost reductions
11) ralation by % of total wage bill  and  net output
12) proportion of goods of first quality 
13) intro. of new technology.
14)payments into the state budget 
15) various targets connected to % investment.
(See A. Nove , Pg 36,  in The Soviet  IndustrialEnterprise
by I. Jeffries, Eastbourne , 1981.)

Combinations of physical and monetary accounting
are used both by state and private capitals. The 
state cap countries also  have to use monetary targets
because of the actual heterogeneous nature of
a majority of their  production. Most enterprises
produce a whole range of products with few
products being homogeneous to be measured
in physical units alone. When physically diverse
  departments in production  have to be totaled ,
this can only be done by means of a common unit,
which in both explotation by state caps and private 
caps , invariably turns out to be money.
(V. Holessovsky , Pg 206-7 , Economic Systems,
Analysis and Comparison, McGraw -Hill 1977)

So in the state cap societies, past and present, 
the purpose of the state caps production  is not
just to produce use values as Dave implies. But
to pump sufficient surplus value out of the waged
 working  class. and this is the main reason  why
economic calculation has to be cariied out by units
of value , measured by money.

As with the marketeer priv cap exploiters, the state 
 caps .must know  more than that  XXXX tones of steel  was
produced or that yyyyy million  barrels of oil was
 refined, because that will not show the state 
caps how effiecient  prodution is the the terms that
the ruling class is most interested, that is is terms
of accurate calculation as to how much surplus 
is being milked out of the working class.

With state caps too , like the ex USSR and co. their
rate of surplus value must at least be roughly equal
as that of their counterparts , other state cap. and priv.cap rivals,
otherwise the rulers will not be able to match their rivals
and maintain the necessary balance of capital accumulation.

And Dave, it was the precisely that state caps inability 
to achieve this rate of exploitation that was in tha main
responsible for the  USSR and Bloc going belly up.

When we deal with the ECONOMIC BASE of society,
let us all put our cards on the table. I say the ex-USSR
 and co. were state capitalist, a designation of ECONOMY. You
on the other hand play fast and loose with marxist 
categories,& don't define any  ECONOMY at all , but only
serve up the warmed over trotskyist stew of "DEGENERATED
WORKERS STATE" designation. Dave, this is a definition
of a POLITICAL SUPERSTRUCTURE, not an ECONOMIC
BASE!!
Where is your definition/explanation  of the  ECONOMIC BASE
of the state cap societies??
Be precise as possible please! I await your reply.

Neil






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