me: > US production has also increased rapidly, if your time-scale is from > 1945 to the present. In addition, just because the connection between > "social" appropriation and the working class getting a big cut can be > explained by other things: the growing scarcities of labor-power bid > wages up. Scarcities of commodities occurred because working people > were spending so much time waiting in line for scarce goods and so > little time actually working. (Labor productivity didn't grow very > quickly at all.) In an effort to increase the supply of commodities, > the plant managers had to increase the amount of labor-power hired. At > the same time, the rural reserves of labor-power were spent. This put > an upward pressure on wages. > > Just as in ancient Egypt or the contemporary US, Soviet workers did > not control the fruits of their surplus-labor. A ruling class made > decisions about how that surplus would be extracted and used.
CB: > I'd say the key is that the fruits of their surplus-labor went > largely to the material benefit of the working class , that is they > appropriated it rather than some ruling class appropriating it for > themselves. This is why it is not accurate to describe the Soviet > leadership as a ruling class. They used state power to maintain their privilege as a class, suppressing strikes and dissident groups, invading countries that wandered away from their control, etc. That's what's meant by a ruling class. (I think it was Lenin who said that classes define themselves in struggle.) CB: > As to the decision as to what to do with the fruits, it is not so > important who makes the decision but that the surplus value goes to > the working masses. The republican form is representative, not > direct, democracy. Modern nations with large populations cannot > practically have tens of millions making all decisions... This is standard corporate propaganda: our corporation is so large and complex that you poor workers can't have any say in its operation. So trust us! CB: >>The Soviet leadership was not privately appropriating.< me: > so what? CB: > That's what defines an exploitative ruling class. It's everything. > If there isn't private appropriation of social product, it's not an > exploitative system. That confuses capitalist class society (which involves private appropriation) with class society in general (which involves all sorts of different kinds of appropriation). As I've said, the Pharaoh's Egypt involved _socialized_ appropriation but was exploitative. The confusion of private appropriation of the results of exploitation (under capitalism) with exploitation in general is just a symptom of the confusion of socialized production (the un-capitalism) with the absence of exploitation. By the way, Marx & Engels saw socialization of production happening within the bowels of capitalism -- i.e., the rise of joint-stock limited-liability corporation, cartels, etc. -- without abolishing exploitation. The issues of socialization and exploitation are different. The first is "horizontal," referring to relations between different parts of an economy (planned, market, mixed) and the second is vertical, referring to relations between those with power and those without. me: > they enjoyed collective wealth and power. CB: > Howabout an elite with power , but not wealth. The wealth was > distributed. I believe it's a GINI coefficient in your profession. The > Soviets would have had a low GINI coefficient. Individual wealth was likely distributed relatively equally (at least according to what I've read) in the old USSR, but that's a different matter from the distribution of state power and the like. And it was the distribution of state power that really mattered. Also, the distribution of wealth among individuals misses the distribution among collectives: for example, if a corporation has a beautiful garden of earthly delights, company cars, and free cocaine for all of its top executives, that doesn't show up in numbers about the distribution of wealth among individuals. Similarly, if the CPSU had similar facilities for its top bureaucrats (likely without the cocaine), that doesn't show up in numbers about the distribution of wealth among individuals. CB: > ... I interpret a _class_ as not individuals , but a "collective", > including under capitalism. right: a class is a group of individuals, a position in society, defined by its relationship to the means of production (ownership, etc.) Some ruling classes are organized according to loyalty and promises of obedience (as under feudalism), some according to individual holdings of property (as under capitalism), others according to positions in a bureaucratic hierarchy (as in the old USSR). me: > It's a mistake to > generalize from the nature of class society under capitalism to assume > that reversing just one or two of the elements of that society > produces socialism, democracy, a lack of class antagonism, and a lack > of exploitation of the direct producers by some elite. CB: > The key difference is social appropriation instead of private > appropriation. As Marx and Engels say the goal of Communists is to > abolish private property. Private property is private appropriation. > They could be mistaken, of course. they also opposed other kinds of systems of exploitation (feudalism, slavery, "Asiatic" (tributary) despotism, etc.) The abolition of private property and appropriation could easily turn a country into an "Asiatic" despotism or something else without ending exploitation. Of course, that didn't actually happen in the 19th century, so Marx (a student of capitalism and not of socialism) didn't report on it or analyze it. It was only with the rise of Stalinism in the 20th century that this issue became relevant. But Marx's opposition to class rule of _all sorts_ is very clear. me: > After all, the above-mentioned Egyptian ruling class didn't involve > individual property rights in the means of production or individual > appropriation of income from that ownership. CB: > If so, then _wasn't_ it a form of communism ? But I'm not sure > that that was so in Egypt at any time I guess you could call the Pharaoh's Egypt "communist." That proves my point: (1) the name isn't very important and can easily be nothing but propaganda (Hitler called himself a socialist, after all); and (2) a system without individualized appropriation can be exploitative, even if it calls itself "communist." > I guess the question is was there mass poverty and misery in Egypt, > as poverty would be defined in their time ? If the Pharoah and > retinue, priests, et al, had luxury items and pyramids to be buried in > that wouldn't necessarily require that anyone was poor. Huh? peasants built the pyramids because they couldn't survive otherwise. Even with fancy engineering, lifting large blocks of stone is total grunt work. the following article [from http://historylink101.net/egypt_1/a-pesants_slaves.htm] fits with what I've read: >>Peasants and Slaves in Ancient Egypt >> Peasants comprised as much as eighty percent of the Egyptian population >> (David 1998, pg 91). The majority of peasants worked in the fields producing >> crops, while some worked as servants in the homes of wealthy nobles. During >> the flooding season, which lasted up to three months, peasants often worked >> on large building projects for the government.. >> Slaves were most commonly prisoners of war. Although the pyramids are often >> depicted as being built by slaves, there is little historical evidences of >> this. The historical evidence suggests that farmers and other workers were >> employed during the flood season to erect the pyramids and other large >> building projects. It was not until the Middle Kingdom that large groups of >> slaves were present in Egypt. During the Old Kingdom, when the pyramids were >> built, there is no evidence that Egypt maintained a large population of >> slaves.<< This is my understanding too: the Pharaoh and his colleagues were able to extract surplus-labor (and other tribute) from peasants even though they weren't slaves. That reflects the Pharaoh's superior military power and the poverty of the peasants. >> Slaves did not hold the same status in Ancient Egypt as slaves did during >> the time of the European expansion. For example, slaves could own land, >> marry freeborn people, and even employ servants. Slavery in Egypt did not >> mean total ownership, which is associated with the later concept of slavery. >> << This last point says that Egyptian slaves weren't that different from the peasants in terms of social status (and had a different status than the chattel slaves of the antebellum South). That makes being an ancient Egyptian slave sound almost okay, but it also points to the low status of the peasants. > Private property, i.e. a tiny minority (even if a group and not an > individual) appropriating the surplus is the defining characteristic > of exploitative productive relations. that defines _capitalist_ exploitation.That's only one kind of exploitation. -- 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. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
