The term “State capitalism” (sometimes misleadingly designated as State Socialism) is an economic form in which the state performs the role of the capitalist employer, for instance the Post Office(at least for the moment). Under State ownership or State control of industry, the exploitation of wage workers continues. Surplus-values are appropriated by the capitalist class just the same. The government now functions as the exploiting agent of the capitalists who receive their incomes in the form of interest on government bonds or on loans to the government. Although the exploitation may be less direct, the profits go to the capitalists as formerly. The workers are not any better off. That is what Engels meant when he said, “State ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces.” Millions of employees are now in the State sector and the capitalist class are just as rich while the working class are just as insecure and just as poor, as before. But state property is not socialism for the workers are still not the masters of their labour conditions and remain separated from the production process.
“State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution... [in Marx and Engels’ view, for] neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital... The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme.” (Anti-Dühring)
The fact is that the state is the owner of the conditions of production – ‘the general capitalist’ – and the direct producers are wage-earners, that therefore the relations between them according to Marx are still the relations between capital and labour, between employer and proletarians.
It is not for the socialists to specifically declaim against State capitalism as such, but against all capitalism. It is no worse to be exploited indirectly through the government than it is to be exploited directly by “free enterprise”. Socialists should organise the struggle against State capitalism as the expression of the whole capitalist regime.
Nor should workers allow themselves to be fooled into believing that State as employer is in their interest, that it will “save” them. It is not they who are saved but capitalists whose banks and industries hit problems and receive the bail-outs. The government steps in and runs business for them as in the case of Northern Rock. State capitalism, accordingly, is not an abandonment of capitalism: it is a strengthening of capitalism.The fact that large sections of the capitalist class join in demanding the intervention of the State is a sure sign that they, at least, have lost the overweening belief in the all-sufficiency of private enterprise which previously characterised their class.
Complete nationalisation, government ownership of all property, as advocated by many on the Left, will not necessarily improve the lot of the workers one iota. They will still be wage slaves, producing surplus-values which will be appropriated by the government and passed on to the capitalists. There are certain left-wingers who never tire of hailing all such demands for state activity as a sign of the growth of the socialist spirit, and therefore worthy of all the support the working-class democracy can give. Whenever the state nationalised an industry, whenever the state imposed its control over industry, the Labourites naively accepted this as an abandonment of capitalism, as a symptom of the growing importance of socialism and the transformation of capitalism into socialism.What came was not socialism nor a prelude to socialism. The “radical” Left seek to offer the workers a platform to “democratise” State capitalism, transforming it State Capitalism by placing it in the hands of “the people.” This policy is equally fated to fail. It strengthens the state and weakens the working class with a policy of trying to maintain industrial peace by coercion and cajolery, alternately with the lie that the enterprise is owned by the people. The purpose is to disempower the militant spirit of the workers on the ground, and to disrupt and disorganise their independent action. All proposals for a sham industrial democracy are useless and dangerous; they are schemes directed at the independence and action of the workers aiming to subordinate the proletarian to the ruling class.
Even when a government takes over industries and runs them for the capitalists, there is no guarantee of permanent security for the profit system. Its inherent contradictions still pursue it. Social production and individual appropriation, the anarchy of the market and world competition, still results in recessions. State capitalism cannot, by any conceivable scheme, adjust these inherent contradictions.
The socialisation of the industries can only be brought about by the conscious action of the proletariat itself, by the political overthrow of the capitalist class and the substitution of working class political power as the means of expropriating the expropriators and ushering in a classless society – the co-operative commonwealth. Socialism is not state ownership or management of industry, but the opposite. When socialism is established one of its first acts conquers, is to abolish the state. Industry is not transformed into the state, but state and industry, as now constituted, are transformed into the free associations of the producers, functioning industrially and socially through new democratic administrative structures, and not through the state. Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only State capitalism. State-capitalism does not mean the liberation of the working class but greater servitude. What the working class strives for in its struggle, liberty and security, to be master of its own life, is only possible through control of the means of production. State socialism is not control of the means of production by the workers, but control by the organs of the state. If it is democratic at the same time, this means that workers themselves may select their masters. By contrast direct control of production by workers means that the employees direct the enterprises and construct the higher and central organisations from below. Capitalism cannot be annihilated by a change in the commanding persons; but only by the abolition of commanding.
It is not all about putting a cross against the right name on a ballot paper but also a deeper inner revolution must take place in the working class to provide clear insight and solidarity, to show the fighting spirit needed to vanquish the immense power of capitalism. The Communist Party and the Labour Party at one time aspired to the same aim, albeit in different tones and degrees: state ownership of the means of production and the dominance of the officials and civil servants leaders over the workers. Nationalisation or public ownership, where the workers are wage-earners in service of the State, is entirely different from common ownership, where the workers are direct masters of the enterprises and regulate their work themselves. The insertion in the Labour Party’s constitution of Clause Four and that phrase about common ownership of the means of production was undertaken in order to convince the workers they were more radical than in truth they were.
The State is only the agent of the possessing class. The organised democratic society contemplated by socialists is a very different thing. When society is organised for the control of its own business, and has acquired the possession of its own means of production, its administration will not be the agents of a class, and production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few. What we mean by socialism the establishment of a political and economic system power – in place of the present class society – which shall have for its conscious and definite aim the common ownership and control of the whole of the world’s industry. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied class to make a profit and private /State ownership which now divides society into two classes is thus swept away and classes themselves will disappear, ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. Common ownership of the means of production makes it unnecessary for exploiting and exploited classes to exist and, therefore, the ultimate result is the classless, socialist society.
Only socialism, in absorbing all classes in the common ownership of the means of labour, can resolve this antagonism. Socialism is not just the common ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. It means real freedom and a transformation in all human relations. Socialism wishes to extend it to all humanity that is now the monopoly of a privileged minority. Socialism includes all the feelings and thoughts of man it cannot become narrow or exclusive.
“State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution... [in Marx and Engels’ view, for] neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital... The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme.” (Anti-Dühring)
The fact is that the state is the owner of the conditions of production – ‘the general capitalist’ – and the direct producers are wage-earners, that therefore the relations between them according to Marx are still the relations between capital and labour, between employer and proletarians.
It is not for the socialists to specifically declaim against State capitalism as such, but against all capitalism. It is no worse to be exploited indirectly through the government than it is to be exploited directly by “free enterprise”. Socialists should organise the struggle against State capitalism as the expression of the whole capitalist regime.
Nor should workers allow themselves to be fooled into believing that State as employer is in their interest, that it will “save” them. It is not they who are saved but capitalists whose banks and industries hit problems and receive the bail-outs. The government steps in and runs business for them as in the case of Northern Rock. State capitalism, accordingly, is not an abandonment of capitalism: it is a strengthening of capitalism.The fact that large sections of the capitalist class join in demanding the intervention of the State is a sure sign that they, at least, have lost the overweening belief in the all-sufficiency of private enterprise which previously characterised their class.
Complete nationalisation, government ownership of all property, as advocated by many on the Left, will not necessarily improve the lot of the workers one iota. They will still be wage slaves, producing surplus-values which will be appropriated by the government and passed on to the capitalists. There are certain left-wingers who never tire of hailing all such demands for state activity as a sign of the growth of the socialist spirit, and therefore worthy of all the support the working-class democracy can give. Whenever the state nationalised an industry, whenever the state imposed its control over industry, the Labourites naively accepted this as an abandonment of capitalism, as a symptom of the growing importance of socialism and the transformation of capitalism into socialism.What came was not socialism nor a prelude to socialism. The “radical” Left seek to offer the workers a platform to “democratise” State capitalism, transforming it State Capitalism by placing it in the hands of “the people.” This policy is equally fated to fail. It strengthens the state and weakens the working class with a policy of trying to maintain industrial peace by coercion and cajolery, alternately with the lie that the enterprise is owned by the people. The purpose is to disempower the militant spirit of the workers on the ground, and to disrupt and disorganise their independent action. All proposals for a sham industrial democracy are useless and dangerous; they are schemes directed at the independence and action of the workers aiming to subordinate the proletarian to the ruling class.
Even when a government takes over industries and runs them for the capitalists, there is no guarantee of permanent security for the profit system. Its inherent contradictions still pursue it. Social production and individual appropriation, the anarchy of the market and world competition, still results in recessions. State capitalism cannot, by any conceivable scheme, adjust these inherent contradictions.
The socialisation of the industries can only be brought about by the conscious action of the proletariat itself, by the political overthrow of the capitalist class and the substitution of working class political power as the means of expropriating the expropriators and ushering in a classless society – the co-operative commonwealth. Socialism is not state ownership or management of industry, but the opposite. When socialism is established one of its first acts conquers, is to abolish the state. Industry is not transformed into the state, but state and industry, as now constituted, are transformed into the free associations of the producers, functioning industrially and socially through new democratic administrative structures, and not through the state. Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not socialism – it is only State capitalism. State-capitalism does not mean the liberation of the working class but greater servitude. What the working class strives for in its struggle, liberty and security, to be master of its own life, is only possible through control of the means of production. State socialism is not control of the means of production by the workers, but control by the organs of the state. If it is democratic at the same time, this means that workers themselves may select their masters. By contrast direct control of production by workers means that the employees direct the enterprises and construct the higher and central organisations from below. Capitalism cannot be annihilated by a change in the commanding persons; but only by the abolition of commanding.
It is not all about putting a cross against the right name on a ballot paper but also a deeper inner revolution must take place in the working class to provide clear insight and solidarity, to show the fighting spirit needed to vanquish the immense power of capitalism. The Communist Party and the Labour Party at one time aspired to the same aim, albeit in different tones and degrees: state ownership of the means of production and the dominance of the officials and civil servants leaders over the workers. Nationalisation or public ownership, where the workers are wage-earners in service of the State, is entirely different from common ownership, where the workers are direct masters of the enterprises and regulate their work themselves. The insertion in the Labour Party’s constitution of Clause Four and that phrase about common ownership of the means of production was undertaken in order to convince the workers they were more radical than in truth they were.
The State is only the agent of the possessing class. The organised democratic society contemplated by socialists is a very different thing. When society is organised for the control of its own business, and has acquired the possession of its own means of production, its administration will not be the agents of a class, and production will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few. What we mean by socialism the establishment of a political and economic system power – in place of the present class society – which shall have for its conscious and definite aim the common ownership and control of the whole of the world’s industry. The entire means of production thus being common property, there would no longer be a propertied class to make a profit and private /State ownership which now divides society into two classes is thus swept away and classes themselves will disappear, ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. Common ownership of the means of production makes it unnecessary for exploiting and exploited classes to exist and, therefore, the ultimate result is the classless, socialist society.
Only socialism, in absorbing all classes in the common ownership of the means of labour, can resolve this antagonism. Socialism is not just the common ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. It means real freedom and a transformation in all human relations. Socialism wishes to extend it to all humanity that is now the monopoly of a privileged minority. Socialism includes all the feelings and thoughts of man it cannot become narrow or exclusive.
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