At 12:46 PM 3/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
> Mr. Sokolowski's post illustrates the misconception that socialism
>and a command economy are anything like the same animal. If socialism was a
>command economy, then it would be true that the difference between socialism
>and capitalism was a matter of degree. Therefore, Marxists can happily
>conclude that socialism is *not* characterized by the presence of a command
>economy. Instead, it is a question of ownership. When ownership is
>constituted in a capitalist way, we have capitalism. If ownership was ever
>to be constituted in a socialist way, we would have socialism. Fortunately
>for young socialists, ownership has never been constituted this way, and thus
>the putative "socialist" regimes of the past need not be a millstone around
>their necks.
>
>
>
> There, that ought to finish *that* debate. :)
>
I reply (WS:) That is not what I arued for, but what I argued against --
the tendency of the bourgeois punditry to equate the Soviet economic regime
with "marxism" or socialism. Since I alredy replied to a similar criticism
elsewhere, I will simply attach that posting here.
Regards,
WS
enclosure:
>It seems to me that Wojtek's assessment of socialism vs capitalism is
quite wide
>of the mark. First, Marx's theory (like any) is meant to explain
phenomena, not
>describe empirical reality (a notoriously slippery customer).
My reply (WS): I was not talking about differences in the content of
abstract concepts or theoretical models using those concepts. I am well
aware of the fact that human mind is capable of making really fine
conceptual distinctions.
>From my standpoint, a theretical model can explain a chunk of reality only
when it fits that reality, that is, describes it accurately. That does not
mean positivistic fetishism of 'emprical statements' which is closer to
cult thann empirical science (on that see, for example, my earlier postings
in opinion polls to this list). It simply means that a theoretical model
must be relevant to empirical reality it purports to explain.
To illustrate that with a simple example, the rat-choice model underlying
the neo-classical economics explains the behaviour or rational economic
actors in nearly 100%. The only problem is that the "rational human actor"
exists only in that particular theory, and the rat-choice model's power to
explain real-life behaviour approaches zero. So what we are having here is
a classical example of 'explanation' in a psychological sense only, an
'explanation' that gives us a feeling that we 'know what's going on'
without any empirical testing of that knowledge-- which is the same as
mythology or religion.
It is one thing to say that Marxist theory explains some important aspects
of capitalist relations of production (which I think it does), quite a
differnt thing to determine to what degree those capitalist relations of
production ar implemented in actual societies and to what extent they are
mitigated by historical contingencies, and still a different thing (that
has little to do with Marxist theory itself) to see the empirical world as
the battle ground between 'marxist' or 'socialist' and 'free market' or
'capitalist' regimes.
My initial comments pertained mainly to the third 'thing' mentioned above.
It questioned the validity of the bulk of (mostly) American social science
that uses the dichotomy.
Second, the test
>of between and within groups variance is a fine (theory) for statistical
analysis
>as a privileged criterion of validity.
I reply (WS): The concept of partinioning variance, although the wroking
horse of statistical methods of data analysis, is hardly the exclusive
domain of statistics. Statistics only adds a numerical 'spin' to it that
allows us to calculate the probability of random error (due to sampling),
but you can partition variance without the theory of probability. For
example, if you assume that the cases in your data set represent the total
population rather than a sample drawn from the population, you can still
calculate the means and variances for different groups of cases and
calculate the ratio of the 'explained' variance to either the 'unexplained'
or the 'total' variance. What you will not do in such a case is
calculating the significance test, i.e. you would take your F ratio for its
face value rather than calculate the probability that its deviation from 1
is due to sampling error (since no such error exists for populations).
The concept of partitioning of variance is directly related to the most
fundamental human cognitive faculty of making concpetuial distinctions and
categories -- grouping what is similar and separating what is dissimilar
(or the proverbial apples and oranges). Statisticians did not invent it,
they merely proposed a different method of doing it.
In my original posting, I did not specifically call for calculating means
and variances from the means, although that is one of many possible methods
of approaching the subject. I just asked for creating empricially
meaningful categories that contain similar cases (regardless of how that
similarity is measured), rather than a hodge podge of the proverbial
'apples and organges,' Sweden and the US, that make little empirical sense,
but fit ideological narratives of spin doctors and media pundits.
Third, Marx's theory of capitalism was
>based on the theory of the nature social relations, in which there are
chronic
>relations of domination and subordination. This meant that capital was in
>struggle between modes of production as well as shifting power relations
within
>capitalist social relations (shown clearly in the world class analysis
project).
> Thus within capitalism variation is predicted by the theory.
I reply (WS): Perhaps, but the theory does not predict *HOW* it will vary.
An that is an important distinction. Suppose an architect saying "I know
that the variance in the properties of actual steel girders used in the
construction will affect the structural properties of the building, but I
cannot tell exactly how," and another architect saying "using the steel
girders with the properties xyz rather than uvx will change the structural
properties of the building by pqs." Now, which architect would you hire to
design your home?
>Fourth, nowhere did Marx specify that socialism was defined primarily as
central
>planning. The GOSPLAN was not the specific difference of socialism.
I reply (WS:) I fully agree. But as I already stated, I was not arguing
against the Marxist critique of capitalist relations of production. I was
arguing against the dichotomy of capitalism-socialism (equating Marxism
with the Soviet economic regime) manufactured by the US spin doctors to
explain various real life phenomena ranging from economic development to
international relations.
>Indeed, as
>the years have shown the logic of the world systems approach (and the state
>capitalist interpretation) was closer to the mark than the good and evil.
I reply (WS:) Although I am not hostile to the world-system approach, I am
generally very suspicious of the grand schemes of that sort. To be true,
those schemes usually must be very abstract - and thus miss to many
historically specific aspects to be really interesting. I tend to be
philosophical nominalist; by necessity, to be sure: today's intellectual
environment is too much polluted with mass produced abstractions. My own
preference is for a historical contingency approach' limited both in the
temporal and geographical scope. That, I think, was reflected in the types
of questions I posited in my original posting.
