What's wrong with State Capitalism as an intermediary step to achieving Communism?

My opinion is that we should invent a system that makes sure the planned economy is democratic and transparent, Cockshott writes about this.

To say that the USSR was "state capitalism" should be labeled a mental illness.

Leftcoms explicitly reject democracy. If you bothered to read their autistic posts you'd know that.

I always pictured the transitional phase versus the real thing to work like FDR's first hundred days versus the rest of his presidency; the same formal political structure throughout but much more activity (probably coupled with violence to defend against autistic bourgeoisie unable to grasp the situation they're in and thinking more material wealth actually brings them happiness, but if we're lucky not) earlier on to dissolve the old institutions and create the new ones. No need for there to be a formal transition stage with different political structures than the finale.

I thought endgame was that there would be no institutions.

Why are you taking away free speech?

What about a system in which corporations in certain sectors are owned by the state, either completely or with a majority stakeholding, that operate on for-profit but are tasked with fulfilling socialist objectives. Example sectors would include electricity, healthcare, housing.

I'm not a ML I don't know what I am.

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No institutions is no organisations and no collectivism. The goal is not chaos, buddy.

According to the replies to (I actually made the thread) apparently it isn't.

How exactly are institutions ran be a democracy supposed to be profitable? That would mean they're charging their consumers, who are part of the democracy, more than it takes to produce; the consumers would realize that this means they're being cheated and vote to remove the profit.

Government-owned monopolies should not be profitable; if they are, it's a sign the government running them is corrupt.

But then how can we remove the old institutions (capitalism) while using the new institutions if they are so decentralized?

Their goal is to be profitable (i.e. self-sustaining) not neccesarily accumulate profit.
If there's further possible investment to improve operations then the profit would go towards that. If there's no more sensible investments, then yes, prices should be cut to be more balanced.

Socialism is inherently undemocratic. The way towards it may be either democratic or despotic.

marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm
>[…] socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.
Within all bounds the USSR has reached this seems to be what it was, also congruent with the ML notion of socialism as state between capitalism and communism (queue Stalin saying his society was one of value production, with roubles, production for exchange, the principle of private property embeded into universal proprietor of the State i.e. the State's monopoly on capital's creation, accumulation and allocation, etc.).

We reject that socialism/communism will have anything to do with democracy or that it could meaningfully be described as such (not that much of an unorthodox view among Marxists or even a great many anarchists). Democracy may or may not have its place in the revolutionary activity of the dictatorship of the proletariat's transforming of society, though this is entirely decided by whether or not this is desirable or even practical. There is only one thing that communism tranhistorically requires and that's the abolition of private property and proletarian self-negation, the means for which depend on a great many circumstantional things.

Oh, I see. That's actually a system called corporatism that I personally like, but it must be noted that that isn't really a mainstream Marxist thing; the people who embrace it are typically socdems or even fascists. I'm not really sure why mainstream Marxists hate the idea so much; I think they think people who are part of the corporations would use them to seize power for themselves and result in a decidedly non-socialist system, but I think that part could be avoided given democracy and transparency, personally.

that's because he's following Lenin's definition of socialism, not classical marxist. Cockshott is still chad-tier, and if he'd make better distinction between state and economy he'd immediately became God-tier.

government control is not worker control

>properly separate economic planning from state power, so the state could just regulate, not directly control economy like in countries of Warsaw pact.

Stalin thought it was good idea because USSR was at war and had to counter massive amounts of counterrevolutionaries. Then USSR had great idea to replicate their system, based on massive country full of illiterate peasants to the european countries, and by not allowing free speech, they could simply force on workers anything they wanted to, thanks to what transition towards communism was successfully halted and state bureaucrats had anything they wanted.

I'm not talking about the USSR, especially post-Stalin. Leaning more towards NEP USSR.

the goal is to abolish work, not to make it universal

Ok.

What if porky invades tho and delegated economic planning is inefficient at producing the required war materials? Or will war material production be controlled by the state,thereby making it powerful enough to consume all other aspects of life as well?
Also,how long have we been waiting for revolution?

Weird ideas you got there mate. Full employment + reduction of work is the goal. Abolishion of work is impossible.

That's utopian. First thing you need to abolish is unemployment, then immediately commodity production which drastically reduce required number of work hours needed. Then add some taxation for further research into automatization and viola, you have people working 4 hours a week in one decade.

I'm pretty sure automating all the mundane crap required to maintain people's lives is possible; the stuff that can't be automated is either education or creative work, either of which I wouldn't classify as "work" under a communist system, since there are people that enjoy doing those things.

If you're so into worker control over collective control, why and how are you depriving the workers of the fruits of their labor?

Well, of course state will take over economy in that scenario, every state ever has done that. The point is that it should be only temporary.

revolution can not be forced. I do not agree that socialism can not come to some countries sooner than to others, but "spreading" revolution usually meant just being warmonger installing puppet regimes.
I know that.

Market socialismis easier to sell and doesn't have any of that authoritarian mumbo jumbo attatched to it.

Now this is utopian.

The Iron Law of Institutions says that a few handful of people will ultimately (in all institutions) rig the system to keep themselves in power for perpetuity. Same happened in USSR.

Forgot to mention I basically totally agree with your direction as to what to do, other than thinking taxation is too indirect. I just don't think that qualifies as "worker control".

What are you talking about? I'm absolutely against giving everyone exactly what they made or even goods as valuable as that amount. I just think that that necessarily means I'm against worker control as opposed to collective/republican/government control.

How do you ensure that after the war the state goes back to normal. I know you said "all states do that" incl. USA and USSR but how do you ensure that they give up production when they gain access to it in ways they previously did not?

as long as states exist, taxation will exist. It can be also somehow voluntary, if that thought pleases your mind. If you want to get rid of taxation, you need to achieve communism, and that's impossible if there are other capitalist countries around you.

MOP is owned and controlled by workers, not by state.

Collective control is workers control you moron. The rule of the workers collectively over themselves is workers control.

in the same way all european countries did that. there is only hopebut since every worker have military training and guns, retaking power should not be problem

Do you think workers should have the power to starve or throw out on the street a disabled and uneducated (therefore unproductive and non-worker) person?

Do you think a minority of people should have the power to starve or throw out on the streets a disabled and uneducated person?
Because the alternative to democracy is oligarchy.

You're kind of leaping ahead in your argument there (the reason I think the majority should be unable to do that is because I place some concept that falls under the umbrella of "human rights" over the majority will, and that means I'm not a strict democrat) but I get what you're saying. I recognize that what human rights people have are ultimately arbitrary, but simultaneously I'd find a society that went and killed its own for the sake of some greater good pretty distasteful and would not seek to advance it. I'm probably just too liberally spooked but nevertheless, I'd really rather there be at least some check on majority will.

It seems to have ended in regular capitalism instead of communism.

If you're talking about Russia, it was Stalinism that ended up in regular capitalism.

But who will ensure they will rise up?
Will there be a propaganda wing seperate from the government? How will it ensure that the proletariat would fight for the government against porky and not for themselves? If propaganda is controlled by the government then how can we ensure that the proletariat will not just be OK with the government owning everything now?

It typically forms around the desire of capitalists to protect themselves from actually existing capitalism as well as the lower classes. Just like with Stalin, it revolved around keeping the party elite and foreign investors in power.

Why does everyone keep linking State Capitalism with Stalin?
Stalin abolished the NEP, a phase the USSR went through that was explicitly declared and promoted as "state capitalism" by Lenin. And Stalin also killed Bukharin for defending it.

Because stalin was a meany and its easier blame it on one boogyman to keep the name of lenin pure.

Any hierarchy or structure of power will try to remain in power ad infinitum, and the history of communism proves it perfectly. A State that vanishes away is a contradiction, like dry water.

what if the state is a computer program though

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So you're advocating for China? An authoritarian state that violently crushes any worker movements or trade unions?

china isnt state capitalism. The state doesnt own the corporations.

China? China, is that you?

Thinking that there should be some group of Jewish Aryan oligarchs which will ensure workers acting in their self-interest is Holla Forums-tier.
That doesn't really matter. People living under state-owned media simply know that everything they hear and read is just state propaganda, Chinese today or people who lived under bolshevik regimes in the past prove it. People are much easier to control in America where most media is owned by bunch of oligarchs.
Shit can go wrong, people will fight for anything they believe is in their self-interest. If they achieve society which will resolve capitalist contradictions, I believe they won't want to go back.
You can't force people into going forward theirs self-interest. Achieving communism is in every worker self-interest. Although this can and did happened in the past, it's impossible that this would be the case in every country where communism will spread, making contradictions of such countries much more visible.

The bureaucrats become addicted to the authority have and refuse to transition.

I'd like a China with free speech that doesn't violently crush any worker movements or trade unions, to be honest.

Hum… yes, the Chinese State does…

The State, Porky.

Cuckshott is a succdem.

Nothing, as long as it is indeed an intermediary step to achieving communism. In which case, not only isn't wrong, but there is no other way.

No it doesn't. Stop eating their propaganda.

you're right. The corporations own the state instead.
America's not as bad, but it's getting there.

Bill of rights with the individual and his family being the basic building block of the country ;)

Commie bingo GET
"Th-That's just propaganda! >:("

I mean Chinese propaganda genius.

Did I specify what nation it was from, dipfuck? Thank you for playing, better luck next time.

I sure hope you didn't realize I was talking about China, for that would mean that you called me commie (and thus ain't one yourself) while mocking my reluctance to believe… "commie" propaganda. Not very consistent.

you can't

Because that "intermediary step" will never happen.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_20_years

Is this the single most retarded idea in the history of politics?

t. antifa

No, the most retarded is the idea that anyone could have "control over a capitalist economy", ever – an idea you share with Stalin.

What's unironically wrong with social-democracy + heavy worker participation in businesses ?

Yes, it's not the real movement which seeks to abolish the state of things, but it's better than nothing and it's much easier to put into place.

because the only way to make it somehow sustainable is transition to fascism.

Not really. Be elected, do some reforms, have things improve (most of the time, it did improve), become popular, again.

You can also use your stay in power to set some things in stone. Few people, not even the most liberal, want to remove the NHS in Britain for example.

An healthy ideology shouldn't be afraid to lose elections.

Participation in what? In our own exploitation? No thanks.

The commodity form IS the authority my friend

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