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Paul Mattick Sr. (March 13, 1904 – February 7, 1981) was a Marxist political writer and social revolutionary, whose thought can be placed within the council communist and left communist traditions. Throughout his life, Mattick continually criticized Bolshevism, Vladimir Lenin and Leninist organizational methods, describing their political legacy as "serving as a mere ideology to justify the rise of modified capitalist (state-capitalist) systems, which were [...] controlled by way of an authoritarian state". (From: Wikipedia.org.)
Chapter 21
Although often proclaimed as an established fact, the conjunction of free enterprise and government planning does not really produce a “mixed” economy. The combination of automatic market relations and conscious determination of production cannot be more than a side-by-side affair. In the course of development, one must come to dominate the other; this means the maintenance of either a competitive or a planned economy. But to avoid the transformation of the mixed economy into state-capitalism, as we have seen, it is not enough to curtail its domestic development, for it is no longer possible to consider the national in isolation from the world economy. The general trend toward state-capitalism must be halted because the continuous expansion of the one system implies the contraction of the other. And in fact the cold war which agitates the world relates not to an evolving struggle between capitalism and socialism, but to a divergence of interests between partly and completely state-organized systems of capital production. Capitalism is no longer what it used to be; and “socialism” is not the anticipated classless society of Marxian theory. The current political and economic competition is rather between the mixed economy and state-capitalism, and merely finds expression in the traditional ideologies that once separated capitalism from socialism.
The identification of state-capitalism with socialism was preceded by the identification of socialism with state-capitalism. Revolutionary Marxism was the product of a period of development in which capital accumulation indeed meant increasing misery for the laboring population. Around the turn of the century, however, it became clear that in its decisive aspect the Marxian prognosis deviated from the real development; i.e., capitalism did not imply the continuous impoverishment of the industrial working class, and the workers themselves, far from becoming more class-conscious, were increasingly more satisfied with the improvement of their conditions within the capitalist system. This process reached its climactic expression in the First World War in which nationalist ideology triumphed over class interest. Some socialists even regarded the war-time “nationalization” of capital and labor as the beginning of the end of class conflict as the dialectic synthesis, containing and negating both labor and capital in a higher social entity.
To others, however, this was merely the betrayal of Marxism by a corrupt labor bureaucracy. With the slogan “Back to Marx” the labor movement was split into radical and reformist wings. This division had been foreshadowed in earlier discussions centering around proposals to describe the social-democratic practice honestly in bourgeois-democratic terms instead of in an outdated Marxian phraseology. Social-democratic “revisionism” had its basis in the relatively prosperous conditions that preceded World War I. Since this very prosperity was in the Marxian view only the harbinger of a new crisis, more consistent socialists pointed to the imperialist tensions at the turn of the century rather than to the growing class harmony which, at any rate, affected only a few advanced nations. The debate between “reform” and “revolution,” revisionism and orthodoxy, retained an academic character until war and revolution provided it with practical meaning. Marxian “orthodoxy” became identified with Lenin’s Bolshevism; and the adjustments that the right-wing movement made in theory and practice turned it into an anti-Marxian movement, though its Marxian past was not denied. From then on any discussion about Marxian problems was a discussion about the theory and practice of Bolshevism and its relation to the Marxian creed. The success of the Russian Revolution made possible an almost complete identification of a specific Russian version of “Marxism” with Marxism in general. The more the Russians stressed their Marxian “orthodoxy,” the more urgent it seemed to Western socialists first to oppose this “orthodoxy” and then to widen their distance from Marxism itself.
Lenin’s ‘orthodoxy” had its source in the adaptation of Western socialism to Russian conditions. It has often been pointed out that the Russian situation at the beginning of the twentieth century was in many respects similar to the revolutionary state of Western Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century. Like Lenin at a later time, Marx had faced a belated bourgeois-democratic revolution unable, or unwilling, to realize its own demands because of, first, the existing revolutionary potentialities of the working class, and second, the immediate need to fight the competitive advantages of earlier-developed capitalist nations with national protectionism. This fight required close collaboration of the democratic bourgeoisie with their still largely reactionary governments. Marx’s positive attitude towards bourgeois revolutions was based on the hope that the proletarian element in these revolutions might push them beyond the restricted goals of the bourgeoisie. The undeveloped character of Western capitalism in 1848 gave Marx’s political theory a certain ambiguity with respect to the bourgeois and the proletarian revolutions. He could not help being greatly interested in the former, if only because it was a precondition of the latter. This ambiguity paved the way for the class-collaborationist and social-reformist Marxism of the Second International and, finally, for the theories of Bolshevism. In Lenin’s view, the Russian bourgeoisie was even less able to carry through its own bourgeois-democratic revolution than the Western European bourgeoisie had been; and thus the working class was destined to bring about both the “bourgeois” and the “proletarian” are in a series of social changes that would constitute a “revolution in permanence.”
The twentieth-century Western labor movement, however, faced the choice between two different goals: it could seek a purely proletarian revolution or it could follow the program of Marxian revisionism, and work for a slow transformation from capitalism to socialism by way of reforms. While the Marxism of 1848 no longer had meaning for the West, for Lenin it was a call to participate actively in the Russian Revolution and to engage in world wide movements against backward as well as advanced capitalist nations. The new situation seemed to repeat the revolutionary situation of 1848 on a more grandiose scale, affecting not merely the European scene but the world at large. Instead of the earlier temporary alliances of proletarian internationalism with bourgeois-democratic movements, there now existed a world-wide amalgam of revolutionary forces of a social and nationalist character. These forces might be led beyond their restricted goals to pursue socialistic ends.
With regard to the Russian Revolution, however, Lenin’s confidence in the validity of Marx’s theory of revolution found only partial justification. True, the Russian democratic revolution yielded quickly to the Bolshevik dictatorship; but the “revolution in permanence” turned out to mean only the slow process of the consolidation and centralization of power in the hands of Lenin’s party. The Bolsheviks were dedicated to maintaining their power position against dangers within and without, rather than to carrying out a world revolution determined to end all forms of backwardness and oppression. The focus of this dedication determined the character of the changes in the economic and political structure of Russian society.
The critique of Bolshevism rests on the “bourgeois,” or capitalist, aspects of the Russian Revolution. For the social reformists, the Bolshevik dictatorship was an outrage: it was unnecessary, because democratic liberalism alone could bring progressive social changes, and, more than that, it was dangerous, because the type of social control it created threatened the even course of progress in the West. Lenin’s dogmatism envisioned and enacted a program that went far beyond the need for democratic reforms; and, by doing so, it destroyed the very basis for a successful evolution from bourgeois to socialist society.
A more interesting but less popular criticism of Bolshevism came from the left. The anti-Bolshevik, left-wing labor movement opposed the Leninists because they did not go far enough in exploiting the Russian upheavals for strictly proletarian ends. They became prisoners of their environment and used the international radical movement to satisfy specifically Russian needs, which soon became synonymous with the needs of the Bolshevik Party-State. The “bourgeois” aspects of the Russian Revolution were now discovered in Bolshevism itself: Leninism was adjudged a part of international social-democracy, differing from the latter only on tactical issues.
This evaluation of Bolshevism found support in the Leninist conceptions of socialism and of the role of the party in social actions. State-capitalism, that is, the nationalization of the productive resources, was for Lenin the first and most necessary step in the social transformation process. Marx also spoke of the nationalization of the means of production, but for him this was only a revolutionary act undertaken as a prelude to the institution of socialism. For Marx, capitalism was private-property capitalism, and where it seemed to lose its strictly private-enterprise nature, as in state-industries and even in the joint stock companies, he saw this as a partial abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production, a sign of that system’s decay. He did not contemplate systems of state-capitalism such as prevail in the so-called socialist part of the world.
For Lenin, however, “socialism is nothing but the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly or, in other words, socialism is nothing but state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.”[1] Monopoly-capitalism itself tended to turn into state-capitalism; so that, in Lenin’s view, the function of social revolutions consisted mainly in completing those developments already occurring. The reformists too thought that the development of capitalism would lead to some form of state-capitalism which could then be transformed into socialism via existing democratic institutions. The situation in Western Europe gave even more credence to this idea than the rather backward conditions in Russia, which was largely agricultural. Precisely for this reason, Lenin believed in the Bolshevik dictatorship more firmly, assuming that the centralistic determination of economic development might be instrumental in bringing Russia nearer the advanced economies of the West.
A liberal bourgeoisie, addicted to the traditional ways of capital accumulation, could not develop Russia’s economy in this way. But the functions formerly assigned to private enterprise and competition were now the functions of the Bolshevik State. Appropriating part of the social product and allocating productive resources turned the party which had fought capitalist control over production and distribution into the controller of labor and capital. If the capitalists’ “peace of mind” requires some form of general agreement on the indispensability of capital and private initiative, the new Russian situation needed a socialist ideology that could make the interests of the controllers and the controlled appear identical. Marxian ideology satisfied this need until the distinction between controllers and controlled hardened again into that of exploiters and exploited. The successful centralization of production and distribution secured by the power of the state may eliminate some of the social antagonisms of the private enterprise system, but new antagonisms of even greater magnitude arise through the polarization of society into controllers and controlled; in fact, the old antagonisms are not eliminated but only modified.
The controlled majority can imagine, and in fact is told, that the control exercised over them serves their interests too. If this were actually the case it would show up in the relationships between the authorities and the population at large, in politics, in field and workshop, and in the sphere of distribution. But nothing that would indicate a trend toward socialism is observable in Russia. There are excuses, of course, such as the Marxian proposition that socialism presupposes a high level of social production. This was in part contradicted by early Bolshevik theory, which held that central planning would improve living standards almost immediately, simply by enforcing equalization of consumption at the existing level of production. It was such arguments that induced the spokesmen of the bourgeoisie to claim that all the Bolsheviks were able to create was an “equalization of misery.” Since only the miserable are inclined to believe in an equal sharing of a miserable situation, the Bolshevik elite soon realized that income differentiations serve as incentives for greater individual effort and thus are a blessing for all. This argument, which justifies the inequalities of capitalism on behalf of capital formation on the ground that the latter satisfies a social need, became Bolshevism’s main excuse. In order to improve the life of all in the long run, it was necessary to improve that of some immediately. Capital competition was merely replaced by competition for social positions, highly remunerative either openly in money terms or in the hidden form of privileges. Presumably, these positions were allotted according to the social importance of the functions exercised by their recipients.
To hasten productive development even more, both the “positive” incentives of power and income and the “negative” incentives of forced labor and terrorism were continually advanced. And the more the interests of the controllers and the controlled diverged, the more insistently did ideology proclaim their identity. While it at first expressed a general hope for the future, this socialist ideology became more and more an instrument of control in the present. Though still considered the organization of the “transformation period,” the new social structure soon presented itself as the desired “status quo” in need of defense against further change. The controllers no longer advocate changes in the basic social relations; any promises which remain unfulfilled relate merely to the betterment of individual existence within the prevailing social structure. If the socialist state can be made secure against external foes and can develop its production, it is said, the day will come when all people will be able to consume more and work less. But differentiations in living standards will remain for a long time to come, until the final step from “socialism” to “communism” can be effected and the socialist principle, “to each according to his work,” can be changed into the communist principle, “to each according to his needs.”
Meanwhile, there exists “equality of opportunity,” which makes the individual responsible for the improvement of his lot. Of course, this principle cannot be realized in a society of widespread labor division, unequal in all respects save that of “opportunity;” but as ideology it supports the inequalities in the “socialist” countries just as it does elsewhere. It is in fact the ideological expression of the reality of fierce competition for power and privilege.
To compete is itself the privilege of a minority. The actions of the masses are controlled by a variety of organizations arrayed against them. By excluding all uncontrollable activities and expressions of social importance, the state perpetuates itself unaltered. And by giving permanence to its social relations and their ideological and terroristic bases it retains every social contradiction that gave rise to it in the first place. In this way totalitarian society reveals itself as one attempt among others to maintain the conditions of exploitation by modifying them. The unorganized control exercised by private capital is abolished in favor of the organized control of the whole of social life by the omnipotent state.
At the same time a parallel trend developed in the form of a strong tendency to idealize the new status relations associated with state control. This tendency serves to unify the privileged layers and to disorganize the exploited even more, since it raises the prestige value of advancements and opportunities which are not inconsiderable in times of social transformation and economic expansion. The direction and volume of production becomes increasingly more determined by the specific needs of the new ruling class. Scarcity will have to be maintained, whether objectively necessary or not, in order to secure a division of labor which leaves privileges intact despite all the existing “equality of opportunity.” Such a social system cannot reach that state of abundance which it supposedly desires, indeed, it must make this abundance impossible in order to safeguard itself. However, this question has become purely academic because imperialist competition removes or mitigates the need for artificial scarcities. In this situation the preservation of the conditions of exploitation appears as national defense.
A society which could reduce its necessary labor to minimum would lose all objective reasons for social antagonisms. In all class societies, and this embraces all existing forms of capital-producing societies, the development of the social forces of production[2] will be stopped when it threatens to endanger the welfare and existence of the socially dominating class. Economic abundance would render the social class structure pointless. The expectation of socialism is based on the possibility of such an abundance; but it presupposes the elimination of social class relations. This condition cannot be achieved within either the mixed or the state-capitalist economy.
In distinction to the competitive Western economies, however, the centralized economies of Russia and her satellites do not seem to fear the consequences of automation. Their production and productivity are still below those of Western nations, and automation, to the degree possible under these conditions, could not lead to large-scale unemployment. Roughly half of Russia’s population, for instance, is still engaged in agriculture and – in view of the size of the country and its population – there is a general lack of means of production, not to speak of consumers’ durables or even plain consumers’ goods. To be sure, highly automated industries also exist, but there are not as yet enough to raise the social average productivity to the level prevailing in the West.
In principle, of course, the centralized nature of state-capitalism allows for a wider application of automation to social production processes than is possible in the Western economies. And this, in turn, promises a quickening of automation concurrent with the general rise of productivity. Economic planning, for example, is one of the most important areas of application of cybernetics. While in the competitive economies “planning” implies “counter-planning,” in the centralized economies planning may be unitary, nation-wide, and all-comprehensive. This is why many of the Western advocates of abundance through cybernation emphasize the need for national planning.
Although the exploitative character of state-capitalist social relations is fairly obvious, questions as to what particular social group constitutes its new ruling class are always raised anew. The answer may be found in the developmental process of capitalism itself; since state-capitalism has adopted the relationship between “capitalist” and manager, and between “ownership” and control, from the modern corporation. In Marx’s theory, the capitalist is not a creator of value but a consumer of labor-power. He is a capitalist because he is freed from the actual laboring process. And “just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labor so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production as such begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen, and groups of workers, to a special kind of wage-labor. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist.”[3] The latter retains leadership, but “it is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist.”[4]
However, capital accumulation and the structural and techno logical changes associated with it freed (or deprived) capitalists in increasing measure of their industrial leadership. The “de-privatization” of capital by way of the credit system, stock companies, pyramided stock ownership, interlocking directorates, holding companies, bureaucratized management and increasing governmental determination of production and capital expansion replaced the entrepreneurial capitalist with the managerial direction of industry. The manager’s decisions are often not directly determined by capital owners, even though they continue to be determined by the principle of profitability. “The perfectly bureaucratized giant industrial unit,” wrote Joseph Schumpeter, “not only ousts the small or medium sized firm and ‘expropriates’ its owners, but in the end it also ousts the entrepreneur and expropriates the bourgeois as a class which in the process stands to lose not only its income but also what is infinitely more important, its function.”[5]
According to Marx, capital expansion is in the main the reproduction of capitalists and wage-workers. He regarded the idea “of some socialists that we need capital but not the capitalists” quite wrong, for “the concept of capital implies that the objective conditions of labor – though the product of labor itself – face the latter as persons, or, what is the same, appear as the property of other persons than the workers. The concept of capital contains the capitalists.”[6] Although Marx recognized that “the capitalist mode of production itself has brought matters to such a point that the labor of superintendence, entirely separated from the ownership of capital, walks the streets,”[7] he saw the development of the management function as an indication that the capitalists had become as superfluous in production as they felt the money-lenders and real-estate owners to be. “A director of an orchestra,” Marx wrote, “need not be the owner of the instruments of its members, nor is it part of his function as a director, that he should have anything to do with the wages of the other musicians.”[8] However, today’s typical capitalist is no longer that of whom Marx spoke, and Marx’s manager has become something more than just a commanding officer acting on the owner’s behalf. The modern manager is not Marx’s property-less “orchestra-leader” who has no say over wages. Though he may not own the instruments of production, he is certainly a buyer of labor-power and an appropriator of surplus value. In contrast to the workers he is capital personified, and under his auspices value-expansion is still the production of capitalists and wage-workers. It is only that the former class now comprises, in addition to the clearly distinguishable private capital owners, part-owners and quasi-capitalists as well. But all of these types, nonetheless, make up a definite class interested in perpetuating the exploitative wage-system. The transfer of entrepreneurial functions to the manager and the superfluity of the capitalist alter nothing in the capitalist relations of production.
Management functions are productive functions. The early capitalist was also a “working capitalist;” exploitation requires labor. The “wages” (i.e. profits) which he claimed were equal to the amount of realizable surplus-value extracted from his workers and did not depend upon the degree of his own exertions. The manager’s reward, seen not as profit but as salary, is often larger than that of many capitalists. Most managers are also owners of capital stock, and thus exercise both capital and managerial functions. The manager’s income in the form of salary, bonuses and dividends, like the capitalist’s profits, has no connection with any special value-creating ability he may possess. In fact, his position more often than not rises with his distance from productive work. The typical executive calls upon subordinates to perform managerial functions and restricts himself to broader policy-making decisions. His income reflects the prestige of the firm; it may not be out of line with its profits but it is unrelated to the functions he performs. It is rather arbitrarily determined – constitutes a “political wage” so to speak – since it results from the manipulation within and between corporations and indicates, in some measure, the degree of control management has over the corporate stockholders.
The great bulk of capital is owned by individuals in the form of securities, covering one or several corporate enterprises, and bought and sold as commodities on the stock market. To a large extent “capital ownership” refers thus not to definite persons and their claims upon particular businesses and their profits, but to claims of successive persons upon a variety of businesses and their dividends. Both the capital itself and its part-owners are impersonal; generally, the part-owners know no more about their property than its market prices and the profit expectations based thereon. The corporations themselves do not know the owners as persons, save abstractly in their numbers. There still exist, however, smaller businesses whose whole capital stays in the hands of definite persons and families as well as very large businesses – in the extraction industries and in real estate in particular – where the whole assets are privately controlled. But the great mass of capital is concentrated in the larger corporations and has the form of widespread stock ownership. This type of ownership is in one way widely dispersed and in another very much concentrated – although many people own some stock, a very few people own the great bulk of it. The spread of stock ownership has had no effect upon the distribution of the national income, which has remained proportionally the same in spite of the rapid rise in the number of shareowners. Although the wide dispersal of stock ownership has been offset by its increasing concentration, the fact of the great number of stockholders gave rise to the concept noted above of “peoples’ capitalism,” which projects eventual part-ownership of the social capital for everyone. Meanwhile, however, in America (for example) only 2 per cent of all shareowners control about 58 per cent of all common stock, and one per cent of preferred stockowners control 46 per cent of all preferred stock.
Ownership in the large corporations is not identical with control. It is clear that there is no way for the 2 million stockowners of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to exercise any kind of control over the company’s transactions. The wide diffusion of stock ownership not only allows but demands minority control, and the greater the dispersal, the less stock is needed to maintain working control of a corporation. In theory, the stockholders ultimately control management through their legal right to dismiss unwanted managers. In practice, however, concentrated minority holdings, in combination with management, usurp all decision-making powers and can rarely, if ever, be challenged. Managers and directors of corporations are usually also shareholders. But their decision-making power comes not so much from their share ownership as from their possession of the managerial positions.
This new type of capitalism allegedly concerns itself with the public interest rather than with profitability. The divorce of ownership from management supposedly subordinates the profit motive to the public good. According to Keynes, “Joint Stock Institutions, when they have reached a certain age and size, approximate to the status of public corporations rather than that of individualistic private enterprise. One of the most interesting and unnoticed developments of recent decades has been the tendency of big enterprise to socialize itself. A point arrives in the growth of a big institution ... at which the owners of capital, i.e., the shareholders, are almost entirely dissociated from the management, with the result that the direct personal interest of the latter in the making of great profit becomes quite secondary. When this stage is reached, the general stability and reputation of the institution are more considered by the management than the maximum of profit for the shareholders.”[9] Actually it is the other way around: the whole of the national economy is utilized to support the profitability of the big corporations.
Although ownership and control do not coincide in the modern corporation, there is normally no divergence of interest between the passive shareholders and the active business leaders. Both are equally devoted to maximizing the corporation’s profit. As for capital generally so also for corporate capital: its operations must be directed toward profit making and the formation of capital. A lack of profitability, or losses, implies the eventual extinction of the organization. Nor can there be a difference of interests between the owners and the managers of a business, for the latter’s position and income depends on the existence and thus on the profitability of the corporation under their management. For the managers to neglect the profit motive would mean to neglect their own interests. Actually, however, the managerial class forms the largest single group within the stockholding population, so that their interest in the profitability of corporate enterprise derives at once both from the side of management and from that of ownership.
Although management and stockholders have the same interest in making profits, they may differ on the issue of their distribution. Management, which is usually composed of company directors and professional managers, may use its power position within the corporation to vote itself very large salaries, expense accounts, bonuses, stock options, and retirement pensions at the expense of the stockholders’ dividends. Stockholders and managers may also differ on the question whether to retain or to distribute profits, and on long-term policies which affect the distribution of dividends. But none of these differences affect the profit-motive of the corporation. Notwithstanding assertions to the contrary, the partial or even complete divorce of ownership from control alters nothing in the needs and necessities of corporations.
The uncompensated expropriation of private capital through nationalization constitutes a radical break with the principle of private appropriation of surplus-value. With the wage-system unaltered, the state bureaucracy now constitutes a new ruling class and its members “personify” capital. In this system the former relations between capital and management become relations between government and management. The State bureaucracy is as superfluous in production as the capitalists were formerly, but industrial managers have now less power than before. There is still some overlapping of management and control because of the inter-transferability of government and management functions. But for management to retain the degree of power it has gained within the private enterprise system, national planning must be prevented; for management relates to specific enterprises and corporations and not to a national, much less international, planning of production and distribution.
State-capitalist regimes treat the manager more like Marx’s “orchestra-leader” that is, as one “wage-worker” among others. An opposition of interest between worker and manager still exists, of course, because of the institutional hierarchy which determines inequalities in power, income and prestige. But to exploit this social division, managers would have to fight politically within the State apparatus or within the Party, from which the State apparatus emerges and on which it is based. Such struggles could hardly serve the specific interests of one or another enterprise and its management. They could only serve them indirectly by a change of policy that affected the nation as a whole. It may be thought that managers as a group can demand special privileges, but to do that they would have to be indispensable, unassailable and organized. They have none of these qualities. The decisive power in the state-capitalist system rests with the coercive force of government, in its control over the military and the police. Having this the government has absolute control over all social groups, including the managers. To affect the decisions of government means to infiltrate into and to assume control over the State apparatus or the Party. All open sectional struggles, if possible at all, thus become struggles for the control of government and, within the government, for the displacement of some persons by others.
Because the capitalization process under the wage-system demands an industrial as well as a political hierarchy, management is, in a sense, an extension of government control in production. The manager’s functions are geared to maximum production and their salaries are tied in with this goal. Control over the national capital – theoretically on behalf of society, practically on behalf of a new ruling class – places both economic and political power in the hands of the State. This close coordination of economic and political power does not exist in the “free” or even the “mixed” forms of capitalism, where political force is largely reserved for emergencies, as economic control is generally sufficient to secure the exploitation of labor. While destroying traditional capitalism the new combination of political and economic coercion strengthens the capitalist mode of production. Whatever the particular arrangements, wage-labor characterizes the state-capitalist system just as it characterizes that of private enterprise. And, as Marx points out, “no form of wage-labor, even though one may be less obnoxious than another, can do away with the misery of wage labor itself,”[10] or, for that matter, with the class determination of production and distribution.
1. Lenin, Questions of the Socialist Organization of the Economy, Moscow, p. 46.
2. By social forces of production we mean, of course, nothing other than the activities of men in their various efforts to increase social production and productivity. In capitalism, this is done through the accumulation of capital. Being activities of men, the social forces of production can be arrested or furthered. Because socialism promises to be a more productive system than capitalism, Marx considered the existence and the emancipatory efforts of the working class as the greatest of all productive forces in capitalism.
3. Capital, Vol. I., p. 364.
4. Ibid., p.365.
5. J. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, New York, 1947, P. 134.
6. K. Marx, Grundrisse, p. 412.
7. Capital, Vol. III, p. 455.
8. Ibid.
9. J. M. Keynes, Laissez-Faire and Communism, pp. 61-62.
10. Grundrisse, p. 43.
From : Marxists.org
Paul Mattick Sr. (March 13, 1904 – February 7, 1981) was a Marxist political writer and social revolutionary, whose thought can be placed within the council communist and left communist traditions. Throughout his life, Mattick continually criticized Bolshevism, Vladimir Lenin and Leninist organizational methods, describing their political legacy as "serving as a mere ideology to justify the rise of modified capitalist (state-capitalist) systems, which were [...] controlled by way of an authoritarian state". (From: Wikipedia.org.)
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