File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9707, message 20


Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 03:09:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: state capitalism


Comrades,

If somebody would like to tell me how bourgeois social relations continue
after the bourgeoisie has been appropriated I would appreciate this
clarification. But more is needed than just this. One needs to show me how
residual relations from a previous social formation can fully characterize
the social formation which replaces it. Feudal relations, for instance,
continued well into capitalist society, but this does not make capitalism
feudalism. Neil keeps repeating the state capitalist slogan but his posts
don't explain what it is. And when he tries his hand at political economy
the results leave a lot to be desired. 

For example, his analysis of the genesis and emergence of capitalism in
Japan is confused. Indeed, he misses the significance of his own point
concerning the Meiji government taking a leading role in promoting
capitalist development in Japan--the point being that it refutes his
thesis. Ironically, what happened in Japan at this time is a great example
of state capitalism. One form of state capitalism is where the state plays
an activist role, enabling the bourgeoisie to rise to a dominant economic,
and in actuality political, position against other social classes (or, if
you subscribe to modernist teleology, the state accelerates the rate of
economic development--a course advocated by Huntington, against Rostow, in
the late 1960s and taken up by many Asian countries), in this instance to
rise to a position capable of competing with the international
bourgeoisie. The Japanese during this period were aggressively
imperialist. By the turn of the century capitalist relations where highly
developed; Japan was on a rapid path to state monopoly capitalism.

One might say that Neil has confused form with essence. He has looked at
structures of state bureaucracy and rational planning, the existence of a
ruling stratum, the existence of social class, and residual
characteristics from past developmental paths, seen some similarities, and
supposed from this that social formations as distinct as Nazi Germany and
the Soviet Union hold the same empirical content. But it would wrong to
say that Neil even understands form in this matter, since the Soviet Union
was state capitalist neither in form nor in content, for all the reasons I
have specified, reasons which have never been addressed either by Neil or
by Lew. (Note how they attack little side posts and parentheticals--part
of their endless quest for red herrings.) 

Neil can't even get what I write correct (neither can Lew). For example, I
wrote that massive state organization in the US New Deal and German Nazi
period did not make these societies socialist. Somehow, Neil got from this
unambiguous point to an understanding that I said state organization of
the economy means socialism. It is hard enough trying to carry on a
conversation with Neil without him mangling what I write. 

Anthrax has this blistering thrash number called "Caught in a Mosh." The
main hook says:

	Which one of the words don't you understand?
	Talking to you is like clapping with one hand.

Sometimes I feel like this is what's going on when I talk to Neil.

Andrew Austin



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