Re: Roy Medvedev interview (on Putin)

[Waistline2]

In a message dated 5/13/2004 2:22:54 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Che Guevara had some of the most interesting insights into the problems of socialist construction since the days of Lenin. He is better known as a guerrilla fighter, but his essays on planning and other economic matters deserve to be better known. The main importance of Guevara is that he provides an alternative to the false dichotomy set up between Stalinist "planning" and the implicitly capitalist logic of "market socialism". During our fierce debate over "market socialism" on the Marxism list, any number of Guevara's statements could have been brought to bear on the discussion.   Comment   I apparently misunderstood what was stated. Your reply spoke of the need for a class analysis and the question of bureaucracy. I am of course familiar with Che's as well as Lenin's "Urgent Task." Lenin of course died before the period of 1930 and 1940 you indicate.    I would of course appreciate any information of Che's writing concerning the law of value and the reproduction cycles of the industrial system under different property relations, that creates distinct needs peculiar to the different forms of property relations.     The question of planning means very different things to different people. By planning - a term I never use, most seem to mean the counting of widgets. By property relations what is meant is the specific cycle of reproduction and not money accumulation or accounting. In this context the question of class analysis - in respect to Mr. Putin, as a guardian of bourgeois property was mentioned.   I have no opinion about how control and accountability is established in a small Island and a continent. If I were to compare Cuba with the former Soviet Union I would begin with a concrete comparison of its industrial infrastructure. Even this would produce a distortion because the period of history identified were 1930s and the 1940, which manifest a different quantitative stage in the industrial system than say 1960.   This was mentioned by pointing out that the death of Mr. Stalin happened to coincide (more or less) with the invention of the transistor and later the first semiconductors. This is stated because we are talking about economic laws, commodity production and how the law of value operates and is altered.     I of course acknowledge my superficial understanding of commodity production, the reproduction process as cycles at each distinct quantitative stage of the development of the industrial system. It seems to me - with my superficial understanding, that accountability and accuracy depends upon a combination of human being and the technological state of development of tools and instruments that govern the flow of information. Political organization is secondary in my opinion.   This is not what a "planned economy means" from the standpoint of class and property.   You state:   >The unplanned character of the Soviet economy forced continuous compensations and administrative controls. If a construction crew would not work twelve hours a day to complete a road, then additional foremen and cops were necessary to control them. As more and more bottlenecks appeared, more and more "interventions" were required to keep the whole ungainly machine going. Thus a command economy built on a centralized pyramid model grew up in the 1930s. This had nothing to do with Lenin's original intent.<   The amount of cops need to complete a task has nothing to do with the economic logic of reproduction as it creates its cycles of reproduction on the basis of a property relations. At best this pads the offices of the bureaucracy, that emerge to insure and safe guard reproduction. The bureaucracy does not arise in human history from poor planning but from the division of labor.   Let us assume that an addition 10 million police are need in society to ensure that a job is completed (road work which is what took place in America in the form of the "chain gangs) - your example. This does not explain the origin of bureaucracy. What it explains is bad accounting and beefing up a preexisting structure.   I am of course not sensitive to ideological proclamations about democracy when in fact 20% of the people incarcerated on earth are in America and I await my jail term. Further, such proclamations offer very little insight into class, property and reproduction . . . much less Marx standpoint concerning economics.   The word "Planned economy" in respect to the class and property factor means the circuit that govern reproduction. Soviet economy was not "unplanned" and no industrial economy is "unplanned" as an abstraction. Everyone draws up plans whether "good or bad."   More fundamental that that - according to Marx, is how a specific property relations creates its own unique set of needs that appear as commodities on the basis of a given state of development in the material power of production and serve as its basier, such proclamations offer very little insight into class, property and reproduction . . . much less Marx standpoint concerning economics.   The word "Planned economy" in respect to the class and property factor means the circuit that govern reproduction. Soviet economy was not "unplanned" and no industrial economy is "unplanned" as an abstraction. Everyone draws up plans whether "good or bad."   More fundamental that that - according to Marx, is how a specific property relations creates its own unique set of needs that appear as commodities on the basis of a given state of development in the material power of production and serve as its basis of reproduction.   The problem is that I radically disagree with the economic logic of the argument above because it is devoid of any concept of the law of value (or elementary concepts of political economy) and the economic consequence of commodity production on an industrial basis.   Let us examine the issue - superficially. Planning is confused with accounting and further confused with the concept of a "command economy." Reproduction as it is driven on the basis of the bourgeois property relations is not planned in the sense that what determines the reproduction (cycle) of commodities is profits motive and its realization. Without question the bourgeoisie makes plans. Planning and accounting takes place but this does not examine the class and property relations you requested. Nor is it the meaning of a planned economy in the economic sense.   Planning, accounting and property are very different concepts in political economy. Everyone plans and accounts even if this planning is done poorly. Planning is not accounting and accounting is not the meaning of accountability. I seek to avoid ideological formulation on an economic list.   Under Soviet Socialism its cycles of reproduction as the growth of the industrial system was not driven by profit motive in the period of history (1930s and 1940s) you indicated. This is the only meaning of "planned economy" in the economic - not ideological, sense of the word. The accounting and planning in the Soviet system you speak of is not my understanding of the class analysis or property form you requested or the law of commodity prodcution. Rather the accounting and planning takes place within a very different cycle of reproduction.   The best way to compare this familiar to every one was to use the automobile and the automobile industry which in history evolved as the center piece of industrial capitalism. The extensive development of industrial socialism - with its backwards accounting system merits examination.   Part of the problem is that ideological concepts parade as economic logic. Socialism is not an economic system in the first place but rather a property relations upon which sits cycles of reproduction. Socialism is not a "planned economy" or "command economy" because socialism is not an economic formation. The industrial system is the economic formation and this needs to be looked at because we are talking about a distinct stage of the development of the material power of production that can be qualified and quantified.   Manufacture is a definable stage of development of the economic production of commodities . . . socialism is not . . . because it is a property relations. Within the manufacturing process is a specific combination of human labor, machinery and enrgy source and planning.   Tiny Cuba of can cannot really be compared with the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940, unless we are talking about its need to effect exchange in the world market.   This question of "Market socialism" remains a purely ideological concept until one define the law of value as it operates on the basis of a distinct property relations that govern its circuit of reproduction.   Socialism is not an economic system but a property relations that emerge as a political force or rule of a class - according to Marx. Marx did not call this the dictatorship of the proletariat but stated the rule of the proletariat could be nothing more of less than its dictatorship over "something."   The dictatorship of the proletariat is a political form of rule over the cycle of reproduction. This reproduction is not abstract but takes place on the basis of an economic formation identified as the industrial system. The industrial system is a historically specific stage of the development of commodity production.   You state:   >The popular notion we have of Stalin surrounded by technocrats planning out every last detail of each five year plan to the last turbine in the last electrical generating plant is nothing but a myth. Stalin was opposed to planning, accounting and controls.<   I cannot say what Mr. Stalin liked or disliked . . .but it was probably the system of accounting. Until one understands the meaning of "planned" from the standpoint of the cycle of reproduction created and altered on the basis of a specfic property relations, we leave the realm of economics.   Who for Christ sake cares what Mr. Stalin liked or disliked?   The industrial production of commodities is its own distinct sytem of production and our challenge is to leave the comfortable womb of ideological formulation and dig into the economic logic of society from the standpoint of Marx.   This is of course a superficial view focused on cycles of reproduction, class as a material category at a definable stage of development of the material power of production.     Melvin P.