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I think Tom's post is very good even where I disagree with it, but before we go too far down this road, I want to reiterate the original point-- that the analysis of permanent revolution Trotsky developed, and articulated pretty clearly I think in Results and Prospects is not a theory of development where "communists" can out-accumulate the bourgeoisie in countries enmeshed in capital's network through uneven and combined development. Mark's not the only one confused-- I have been trying to sort this out for more than 20 years-- ever since Poland 1981, in attempt to derive something a bit more dynamic than either "state capitalism" or "deformed workers' state." I don't buy [nice choice of words, that] "state capitalism," for the simple reason that you can't have capitalism without a capitalist class; and a class, by definition, has a specific, and necessary social relation of production that it brings with it to power, and that brings it to power. So where is that social relation of production unique, specific, and necessary to the "state capitalists" in the USSR, or China, or Cuba, etc.? The transformation of China has little to do with men or women, old or young, passing resolutions. It has everything to do with the enduring agricultural limitations that the revolution did not, could not, overcome; the inferior productivity of China's state industry; and the massive inflows of direct foreign investment. If the CCP has not lost total control of the process, we might caution-- wait awhile, the revolution only took place in 1949, this process started in 1979. I don't think China is going to escape an economic upheaval of immense proportions, and I expect that, if there a successful workers revolution as a result, the impact on living standards will make Russian post 1991, Russia of 1998, look good in comparison. What China was, in its social organization, was certainly an extension of Stalin's Russia. Returning to our criteria of class and the relations of production for determing the character of the economy, is it correct to say that the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, in and of itself, is sufficient to the change of those relations esssential to a worker's state being a worker's state? IMO, no. The "nationalized" "collectivized" whatever property relation as it exists in these areas is itself "deformed," a product of the inadequacies of capitalism, inadequacies determined by the international development of capital, inadequacies which the revolution absorbs into itself when taking power. I realize this is more metaphor than detailed analysis, and this does not mean we don't defend such areas from the assaults of the advanced capitalism; it does mean that any notion of development that does not include 1) international success of revolutionary struggle 2) actual functioning organs of workers power separate and apart from those of any party, is not a "worker's state," and will decompose into capitalism, and that decomposition can and will appear as economic development. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom O'Lincoln" <suar...@alphalink.com.au> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
