Date: Sat, 7 Jun 97 2:41:56 EDT
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: state capitalism





		Andy,


	I did not say that surplus production characterized capitalism. 
Surplus *extraction* does.  Implicit in *extraction* is that it is
coercive. The Soviet establishment extracted artificial reward through
legal coersion.  Also, the fact that Soviet bureaucrats did not accumulate
wealth is immaterial.  They accumulated power, based on their control of
the economy. They could only control the economy if they fashioned a way
for the economy to support them.  It supported them through ownership,
which was only state ownership in name.  It was, in fact, as much private
ownership as corporate ownership is today.


	It does not matter how much an exploiter makes by exploiting, it
only matters that he exploits and that the very logic of the
socio-political system puts him in a position to exploit.  Now you may say
that the Soviets were not capitalist in their exploitation but feudalist,
it makes no difference.  The point is that they were not socialists except
in sentiment. Sentiment doesn't butter anyone's bread. 


	I have made the argument before that the Soviet union was
essentially a more benevolent and complicated form of feudalism.  I still
think it is true, but I also think that there was a capitalist character
on their exploitation.  They were not socialists because they did not give
economic power to the proletariat.  In fact, they avoided it, just as the
Chinese do today. 




	peace




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