Chapter 21 : 
Marxism and Socialism
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Author : Paul Mattick

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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

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     Chapter 21 -- Added : March 03, 2021

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