Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 14:39:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: State capitalism


On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Lew wrote:

> Your first sentence is truly astonishing, coming from somebody who has
> put so much effort into stopping discussion of Marx's theory of value
> ("abstractions"). Or rather, one particular interpretation of it. I am
> under no illusion that what really upsets you is the theory of state
> capitalism and how it strikes at some deeply held personal beliefs. But
> that, as they say, is your problem. My defence of the theory of state
> capitalism is based on a working class perspective on how such changes
> would affect me and my fellow workers around the world. Criticism of the
> theory of state capitalism, it seems to me, is based on a defence of the
> regime with the working class coming a poor second.
> 

Louis P:
Why should it astonish you that there is no disagreement on the basic
theoretical breakthroughs of Marx? I defended these against the Analytical
Marxists a few months ago. I defended the labor theory of value against
its detractors like Jon Elster.

When you say that I am a defender of the *regime* of the former Soviet
Union, you are inviting the sort of anger that is the cause of much of my
sarcasm. Mr. Lew, you are a fucking liar. I am not a defender of the
Stalin regime, the Krushchev regime or the Brezhnev regime. This type of
brazen lie is the reason that you will clash with people on this list and
why people will either confront you like an enemy or ignore you as Carroll
Cox does. 

I have been denouncing Stalinism since I have been in left politics. What
gives you the moral high ground to turn me into an apologist for Stalin
and you into a legitimate socialist. Name a single Marxist thinker in the
world who disagrees with your "state capitalism" theory who you do not
consider a defender of the regime in the former Soviet Union. Get it,
comrades, everybody on the left is either an apologist for Stalin or a
true socialist, like Mr. Lew.

You and every state capitalist who has visited this list inevitably drives
a wedge between your own position and everybody else's who doesn't buy the
notion that these countries were "capitalist". Adam Rose, who used to be
on this list, was a member of the British SWP and had the good sense to
understand that there wasn't a need to drive this wedge relentlessly as
you do. He wrote about GATT, Malcolm X, outlaws in the 19th century, etc.

If he were as monomanical as you, he would have alienated everybody. This
obviously doesn't matter to you, because like all sectarians you are more
interested in reminding everybody else how wrong they are instead of
finding common points of agreement. 

> 
> If you recall my article on Cuba I did say that the standard of living
> of the Cuban working class has improved, particularly in the fields of
> health and education. On the other hand, I said nothing about the very
> real downsides to the working class of the Cuban regime. But good
> intentions do not make a socialist society, nor can one be established
> via an index of working class living standards. Other openly capitalist
> countries have undergone improved working class living standards, not as
> impressive as Cuba perhaps, but it shows you cannot rely on raw data.
> 

Louis P:
This is what Mr. Lew wrote about Cuba at the conclusion of a very brief
post (the notion that this was an "article" is laughable):

"Far from the basis of Socialism having been constructed in Cuba, what
has been achieved is merely that the means of production have been
concentrated in the hands of the state. The workers continue to work for
wages, commodity production, capital accumulation and other
"abstractions" dominate, as in any other capitalist country."

This is just worthless as a Marxist analysis. There are wages in Cuba and
there are wages in Jamaica. There is commodity production in the Dominican
Republic and there is commodity production in Cuba. Yes, and then what...

The point is that there is no *class analysis*. If I ask Mr. Lew what the
difference between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia was, he would come up
with the same sort of answer: none that matters. This "state capitalism" 
theory evidentally gives you an excuse to not use your brain. It isolates
a few categories out of Marxist economics and expects them to serve as a
method for understanding different types of states. 

Mr. Lew doesn't really understand what an *analysis* is. An analysis is an
attempt to uncover class relations. For example, a Marxist analysis of
China today would reveal clashes between peasants, workers, private owners
of capital and state managers. This would be reflected in political
infighting in the Communist Party and other institutions. A class analysis
of China would borrow methodologically from the 18th Brumaire. 

Someone like Mr. Lew would not ever be able to explain China today. He
would be capable of making one rather obvious observation: there is
commodity production and there is capitalism there. Case closed.

Think of all the sharp reversals in Chinese history over the past 100
years. The rise of an industrial working-class, its defeat at Shanghai in
1927, the emergence of a peasant-based Communist party, its victory over
Chiang Kai-Shek, the development of a Great Leap Forward, the Cultural
Revolution, the rise of Deng Xiaopeng, the growth of western investment, 
etc.

So what would Mr. Lew have to say about all this? "Commodity production
existed in China in the past and still does; that's all you need to know." 
No, Mr. Lew, that's not all you need to know. I wrote about a class
struggle in Cuba, one which pitted the Cuban bourgeoisie and its allies in
the US against a worker and peasant alliance led by a nationalist party
which evolved in a Marxist direction. I gave instance after instance of
confrontations in which the Cubans resolved not to back down before the
power of international capital. 

This is the goal of a Marxist analysis, to make sense of the class
struggle. It is rooted in history and it is rooted in society. You on the
other hand have analyzed nothing. You have simply established a sine qua
non for COMMUNISM: the absence of commodity production. The trouble is
that this search for a sine qua non is virtually useless. We are faced by
class struggles which take a variety of forms, and very rarely in their
pure form. These imperfect class struggles demand our attention even if
they leave you with a feeling of ennui.








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