me:
> To the extent that these folks see themselves as socialist, they
> equate socialism with state ownership and/or control of the means of
> production, missing or minimizing the need for popular-democratic
> control of the state.
CB:
> Marx, who saw himself as a socialist, emphasized abolishing
> private property and replacing private appropriation with social
> appropriation, and to each according to work, as characteristics of
> socialism.
As scientists say, that's necessary but not sufficient. In any event,
I wasn't talking about Marx, a champion of socialist democracy, but
people like Paul Baran.
> Marx and Engels succinctly define democracy as the working class as
> the ruling class.
In other words, the old USSR did not have democracy. Nor has China had
democracy. In neither case have the working classes (proletarians and
peasants) been the ruling class.
> With modern mass societies, only republican or representative
> democratic control of the state, and through that ownership of the
> basic means of production and planning the giant economy, is feasible
> and viable. It is not feasible to have direct democratic control by
> tens of millions of workers.
I didn't say anything about "direct democracy." That's a red herring.
In any event, democracy (i.e., "popular-democratic control of the
state") does not involve a monopoly political party that controls
state power (the means of coercion), along with the media, to maintain
rule without significant control by the people they rule. So the old
USSR was not and the "People's Republic" of China has not been
democratic. You can call those places "socialist" if you want, but
it's a bureaucratic/authoritarian socialism, not a democratic sort.
It's the kind where the rulers can accumulate power over the ruled.
One example of the absence of democracy in the old USSR is that the
ruling class's main organization (the CP, merged with the state) was
able to abolish the old "socialist" system without any kind of consent
from the workers.
me:
> (Sometimes they seem to assume that workers'
> control of the state prevails -- despite the clear lack of democracy
> -- perhaps due to the alleged ability of the CP to know and act on
> workers' long-term interests while ignoring its own collective
> interests and its members' individual interests.).
CB:
> Isn't most of the population in China peasants ? Democracy as
> majority rule in that circumstance would be peasants' control of the
> state.
This is a quibble. After all, peasants are workers (direct producers)
too. Often, they're not proletarians (wage-earners).
--
Jim Devine
"Those who take the most from the table
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary folk." – Bertolt Brecht.
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