From: Reg-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: RE: M-INTRO: Communism and Marx
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 21:14:44 -0000


I am not sure if, in the USA, you have come across the concept of 'State
Capitalism'. It is not at all new. Tony Cliff wrote about it many years ago,
and he was a part of a long tradition of socialists who opposed the regimes
in the old USSR.

There have been lots of disputes in the Trotskyist tradition about the
nature of the USSR.
The actual day to day experience in the USSR was of workers who worked for
the State: not really for themselves.

Cliff suggested that, therefore, the State was the one big Capitalist, and
that the USSR was in competition with other Capitalists, including the West.
It might be said that the USSR was a company that went bust.


Regards
Reg

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	owner-marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
[mailto:owner-marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]  On Behalf Of
LZJAMJ-AT-pseud.pseud
Sent:	07 November 2001 16:51
To:	marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject:	M-INTRO: Communism and Marx

I think it would be fair to say that through the many failed communist
states
in recent history the definition of communism has changed from the time of
Marx.  We now have the fundamental definitional difference between Communism
and Socialism, mainly that the factors of production in Communism are State
owned, and the factors of production in Socialism are commonly owned by all.
However I think this strict definition is somewhat new and in the past terms
such as Marxism, Socialism and Communism were used much more
interchangeably.


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