materially, socialist states tend to be much better to workers. straight up, it isn’t even a contest.
as a communist i agree that in an ideal world the state should not exist. as a third worlder, i doubt we can defend ourselves against the burgeoise and imperialism without it in the real world. history shows it pretty clearly over here. maybe westerners can have straight up communism, we don’t have that luxury.
that said, i understand why countries like china are overzealous with censorship because when you give too much leeway to them, they will worm their way into people’s heads out of the sheer amount of resources dedicated to pushing anticommunism.
also when i look into most anarchists i meet here, it’s usually just ancaps or libs.
Once the proletarian state possesses political power and controls the means of production, it will “wither away” over time as it suppresses the bourgeoisie and moves toward a classless society. While the state must exist while class distinctions remain, it becomes superfluous in a classless society. The use of force is no longer necessary to suppress class antagonisms, because there are no classes. Lenin includes a long quote from Engels to explain this phenomenon, a portion of which is sampled below:
As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection, as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon the present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from this struggle, are removed, nothing more remains to be held in subjection — nothing necessitating a special coercive force, a state. The first act by which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — is also its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies down of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It withers away. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase ‘a free people’s state’, both as to its justifiable use for a long time from an agitational point of view, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the so-called anarchists’ demand that the state be abolished overnight.” (From Anti-Düring)
If you agree with the premises behind this argument, the conclusion must follow. If the state arises from class antagonisms in society and exists for the purpose of class suppression, it must therefore exist while there are classes (even during a proletarian revolution!) and start to die off once class is abolished. Engels’ description, “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production,” explains the change in the nature of the State very well. Lenin points out that under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the State is no longer “the State” proper, but a different kind of institution altogether.
The basis of the state is class struggle, so to eliminate it you eliminate class. The basis of class is differences in relation to the means of production, so the answer is to collectivize all production. Until we get there, classes will remain, thus elements like police are necessary to keep the proletariat in control and capitalists oppressed, and as production and distribution collectivizes then so too will the basis of the state itself become unnecessary as class struggle fades alongside class itself.
It isn’t by magic, it’s based in sound analysis of socialism and the economic basis of class and the state itself.
In a communist non-state area, who enforces environmental protections? Who punishes rapists and murderers without being he said she said? Who prevents workplaces from unsafe working habits? Who assures buildings are up to code? Those are realistic issues, that don’t stop magically when you do away with a class system. Doing away with a class system will improve them, but not eliminate them.
Administration and other protections that don’t involve things like oppressive police forces. Marxists don’t lump all administration into the state when we talk about statelessness.
The basis of the state is class struggle, so to eliminate it you eliminate class.
thus elements like police are necessary to keep the proletariat in control and capitalists oppressed
That is the main basis, but it is not the only one, and police are a good example of it. More often than not police enjoy the power that their position gives them. The job itself attracts people who enjoy having power over others, and that’s not strictly a mechanism of classes existing.
The state backs up their power, and so they are influenced to protect the existence of the state. Anybody who commands the police will see the police as an extension of their power and will be similarly influenced.
Power corrupts and makes people want to retain power.
This is more idealist than materialist. “Power” isn’t a real substance, it has no ability to “corrupt” people or turn them “evil.” Police exist to protect the ruling class, the state itself is not a class but an extension of the ruling class in society. The state does not exist to prop itself up, it’s a tool by the ruling class of society to entrench itself, prop up ruling class ideology, and suppress any resistance from the working class.
People act in their own interests, and in capitalism profit is the driving factor. The capitalists at the top are the ones that best get the most profits by any means necessary, so the ones at the top are typically more morally bankrupt. It wasn’t that power corrupted them, but capitalism as a system selected for them.
In socialism, this isn’t the case, and when we measure it up to how socialism exists in practice we don’t see this kind of “power corruption.” That isn’t to say corruption doesn’t exist in socialism, it absolutely does, but that isn’t because of metaphysical powers of corruption. The closest is that people’s existing material conditions and the way they interact with production does change their thought-process (called class consciousness), but that isn’t the same as saying anyone with any degree of authority is being mentally poisoned by it into becoming evil.
Further, as Dessalines said, socialist planning and administration is more collectivized, both by intention and by necessity. You physically couldn’t have a single person, or elite few, making all of the decisions in socialist society.
This is more idealist than materialist. “Power” isn’t a real substance, it has no ability to “corrupt” people or turn them “evil.”
But you are suggesting we create organization structures with authority over others. Immeasurable or not, it has an effect on human behavior which cannot just be ignored.
People act in their own interests, and in capitalism profit is the driving factor. The capitalists at the top are the ones that best get the most profits by any means necessary, so the ones at the top are typically more morally bankrupt. It wasn’t that power corrupted them, but capitalism as a system selected for them.
And police organizations select for those who enjoy (or are at a bare minimum comfortable with) having power over others. The same goes for government structures.
That isn’t to say corruption doesn’t exist in socialism, it absolutely does, but that isn’t because of metaphysical powers of corruption.
I never said anything about this being a metaphysical effect. This is an effect in relation to human behavior, organization, and economic structure.
Further, as Dessalines said, socialist planning and administration is more collectivized, both by intention and by necessity. You physically couldn’t have a single person, or elite few, making all of the decisions in socialist society.
As I told Dessalines, it doesn’t have to be one person. A council, committee, or other group of people can always be incentivized to retain and accumulate power.
You didn’t address that your analysis is idealist and not materialist. Power does not select for power. This kind of vague, metaphysical explanation for what actually goes on, class struggle, is why you’re running into opposition from Marxists. A materialist answer requires that we analyze class, and why we even form hierarchies to begin with. As I said in another comment:
That’s a bit like saying you can have battlefield success with only footsoldiers and no tacticians or strategians, or like saying a factory can run smoothly without foremen, or that a ship can sail safely without a capitain. We develop administrative positions because of their utility even within a class, not just class-based hierarchy like workers and owners. The latter, class-based distinctions are a product of unequal ownership and control, the former are a product of material necessity.
Cooperative production can work, but only for certain industries and certain scales. Agriculture is a good example, but for something more complex like smartphone production that involves global supply chains and intense safety risks for mining, shipping, silicon processing, etc, it’s just not feasible to do cooperatively and horizontally. Even then, for agriculture, as we advance to more efficient industrialized production we too develop beyond the basis for cooperative ownership to function.
Administration is not a bad thing. What’s bad is class society, which allows a small portion of society to plunder the vast majority of the spoils of social production.
In short, administration is not inherently bad. Like violence, like fire, like any tool, it can be good or bad depending on how and why it’s used. In socialist, collectivized society, the basis of class is eroding. The state is not independent of class struggle, but rather fully dependent on it and within it, while not itself being a class. As production and distribution is collectivized, class struggle erodes alongside class itself, as do the oppressive mechanisms of society we call the “state.” Administration, as far as it is legitimately useful, remains, as it should.
I’m not exactly sure what the question is, but if its that “power always corrupts”, this might be true for capitalist countries, which allow private ownership of capital, and creates a system that encourages and incentivizes accumulation of power.
But In a socialist state, where the heights of the economy are controlled not by private capitalist dictators, but by collective decision-making, and production decisions are controlled at the collective political level, then no one person can accumulate that much power, and they would be (and are) punished when they try to subvert the collective authority.
Taking the example of police, the important question is who commands them, and for whose benefit? In proletarian states, police are commanded not by capitalists who use them to protect their private property, but by the socialist state who commands them to protect the people. Socialist states are going to be receptive to accusations of abuses, because that means they’re harming the people.
That’s a key distinction between proletarian cops and capitalist ones.
I’m not exactly sure what the question is, but if its that “power always corrupts”, this might be true for capitalist countries, which allow private ownership of capital, and creates a system that encourages and incentivizes accumulation of power.
I haven’t posed a question. And what I am trying to get at is that power itself incentivizes accumulation and retention of power.
then no one person can accumulate that much power,
It doesn’t have to be one person, a council, committee, or other group of people can always be incentivized to retain and accumulate power.
but by the socialist state who commands them to protect the people. Socialist states are going to be receptive to accusations of abuses, because that means they’re harming the people.
The PRC regularly attacks citizens and journalists that criticize their government.
Reversal:
materially, socialist states tend to be much better to workers. straight up, it isn’t even a contest.
as a communist i agree that in an ideal world the state should not exist. as a third worlder, i doubt we can defend ourselves against the burgeoise and imperialism without it in the real world. history shows it pretty clearly over here. maybe westerners can have straight up communism, we don’t have that luxury.
that said, i understand why countries like china are overzealous with censorship because when you give too much leeway to them, they will worm their way into people’s heads out of the sheer amount of resources dedicated to pushing anticommunism.
also when i look into most anarchists i meet here, it’s usually just ancaps or libs.
I agree with everything you’ve said, except for the last sentence.
From here
Once the proletarian state possesses political power and controls the means of production, it will “wither away” over time as it suppresses the bourgeoisie and moves toward a classless society. While the state must exist while class distinctions remain, it becomes superfluous in a classless society. The use of force is no longer necessary to suppress class antagonisms, because there are no classes. Lenin includes a long quote from Engels to explain this phenomenon, a portion of which is sampled below:
If you agree with the premises behind this argument, the conclusion must follow. If the state arises from class antagonisms in society and exists for the purpose of class suppression, it must therefore exist while there are classes (even during a proletarian revolution!) and start to die off once class is abolished. Engels’ description, “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production,” explains the change in the nature of the State very well. Lenin points out that under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the State is no longer “the State” proper, but a different kind of institution altogether.
See my response to Cowbee
The basis of the state is class struggle, so to eliminate it you eliminate class. The basis of class is differences in relation to the means of production, so the answer is to collectivize all production. Until we get there, classes will remain, thus elements like police are necessary to keep the proletariat in control and capitalists oppressed, and as production and distribution collectivizes then so too will the basis of the state itself become unnecessary as class struggle fades alongside class itself.
It isn’t by magic, it’s based in sound analysis of socialism and the economic basis of class and the state itself.
In a communist non-state area, who enforces environmental protections? Who punishes rapists and murderers without being he said she said? Who prevents workplaces from unsafe working habits? Who assures buildings are up to code? Those are realistic issues, that don’t stop magically when you do away with a class system. Doing away with a class system will improve them, but not eliminate them.
Administration and other protections that don’t involve things like oppressive police forces. Marxists don’t lump all administration into the state when we talk about statelessness.
That is the main basis, but it is not the only one, and police are a good example of it. More often than not police enjoy the power that their position gives them. The job itself attracts people who enjoy having power over others, and that’s not strictly a mechanism of classes existing.
The state backs up their power, and so they are influenced to protect the existence of the state. Anybody who commands the police will see the police as an extension of their power and will be similarly influenced.
Power corrupts and makes people want to retain power.
This is more idealist than materialist. “Power” isn’t a real substance, it has no ability to “corrupt” people or turn them “evil.” Police exist to protect the ruling class, the state itself is not a class but an extension of the ruling class in society. The state does not exist to prop itself up, it’s a tool by the ruling class of society to entrench itself, prop up ruling class ideology, and suppress any resistance from the working class.
People act in their own interests, and in capitalism profit is the driving factor. The capitalists at the top are the ones that best get the most profits by any means necessary, so the ones at the top are typically more morally bankrupt. It wasn’t that power corrupted them, but capitalism as a system selected for them.
In socialism, this isn’t the case, and when we measure it up to how socialism exists in practice we don’t see this kind of “power corruption.” That isn’t to say corruption doesn’t exist in socialism, it absolutely does, but that isn’t because of metaphysical powers of corruption. The closest is that people’s existing material conditions and the way they interact with production does change their thought-process (called class consciousness), but that isn’t the same as saying anyone with any degree of authority is being mentally poisoned by it into becoming evil.
Further, as Dessalines said, socialist planning and administration is more collectivized, both by intention and by necessity. You physically couldn’t have a single person, or elite few, making all of the decisions in socialist society.
But you are suggesting we create organization structures with authority over others. Immeasurable or not, it has an effect on human behavior which cannot just be ignored.
And police organizations select for those who enjoy (or are at a bare minimum comfortable with) having power over others. The same goes for government structures.
I never said anything about this being a metaphysical effect. This is an effect in relation to human behavior, organization, and economic structure.
As I told Dessalines, it doesn’t have to be one person. A council, committee, or other group of people can always be incentivized to retain and accumulate power.
You didn’t address that your analysis is idealist and not materialist. Power does not select for power. This kind of vague, metaphysical explanation for what actually goes on, class struggle, is why you’re running into opposition from Marxists. A materialist answer requires that we analyze class, and why we even form hierarchies to begin with. As I said in another comment:
In short, administration is not inherently bad. Like violence, like fire, like any tool, it can be good or bad depending on how and why it’s used. In socialist, collectivized society, the basis of class is eroding. The state is not independent of class struggle, but rather fully dependent on it and within it, while not itself being a class. As production and distribution is collectivized, class struggle erodes alongside class itself, as do the oppressive mechanisms of society we call the “state.” Administration, as far as it is legitimately useful, remains, as it should.
I’m not exactly sure what the question is, but if its that “power always corrupts”, this might be true for capitalist countries, which allow private ownership of capital, and creates a system that encourages and incentivizes accumulation of power.
But In a socialist state, where the heights of the economy are controlled not by private capitalist dictators, but by collective decision-making, and production decisions are controlled at the collective political level, then no one person can accumulate that much power, and they would be (and are) punished when they try to subvert the collective authority.
Taking the example of police, the important question is who commands them, and for whose benefit? In proletarian states, police are commanded not by capitalists who use them to protect their private property, but by the socialist state who commands them to protect the people. Socialist states are going to be receptive to accusations of abuses, because that means they’re harming the people.
That’s a key distinction between proletarian cops and capitalist ones.
I haven’t posed a question. And what I am trying to get at is that power itself incentivizes accumulation and retention of power.
It doesn’t have to be one person, a council, committee, or other group of people can always be incentivized to retain and accumulate power.
The PRC regularly attacks citizens and journalists that criticize their government.
anarchist:
socialist state: