Capitalism, Marxism and Related Matters

[droid]

heh.

 

[josef k.]

Forget about the corpses

This thread seems to have moved on. I'd just like to add a few quick points.

I might be going off on a tangent here but I don't see how any "debunking" of the Labour Theory of Value is supposed to affect the validity or otherwise of being for or against Capitalism, by which I mean the dominant social system that exists today however you'd like to call it.

Capitalism is a flawed system. Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that one of the concerns of Marxism: exposing its flaws and internal contradictions etc? As dHarry quotes above, it thrives as it lurches from one self-generated crisis to the next.

For me, the question of the labour theory of value is to do with the issue of whether Marxism is really equipped to provide a serious analysis of the economy, society, history and so on. The world in which we live clearly is "flawed" - but what is the source of those flaws? Marxism says, on the basis of the labour theory of value (which states that to work under capitalism, in any capacity, is to be exploited and robbed from) that the problem is capitalism, the capitalist system. To be more specific - for Marxists, the problem with capitalism is not simply that it is a flawed system (arch-conservative non-Marxists, such as Winston Churchill, are fully capable of admitting this too) but that it is itself, in some sense, the source of all of the flaws that exist in society. The body rots from the head, and these flaws won't be corrected - can't be corrected - until a revolution ends capitalism. Therefore, the destruction of capitalism is the main and ultimate goal of any truly Marxist politics.

How valid is this view? Clearly, that the world has many problems. And saying Marxism is a bad way of explaining those problems doesn't alter that fact in the slightest. On the other hand, it might the case that the problems are not where Marxist theory supposes them to be.

What I mean more specifically is; how real a concept is capitalism, actually? Incredible differences maintain between all the various actually existing systems of capitalism, both historically and contemporaenously. Belle epoque France and modern Dubai are both, in theory, capitalist countries - but is the capitalist paradigm really all that helpful in understanding how these countries function? I feel not, and further suggest, that it might in fact be a barrier towards doing so.

There is no point in "promoting" the prevailing order. It's like doing an advertising campaign for gravity.

There are in fact plently of people who do this, as stupid as it may be. Thomas Friedman is one of them - his idea is (or at least, was): capitalist enterprise leads inexorably to human rights and democracy. This is, in fact, it is demonstrably false. But I think the central point here is that you don't need to swing into supporting capitalism just because you don't believe in Marxism. Actually, I think the main problem would be the thought that this need be so; the idea that Marxism is the only position outside of capitalism, that no other kind of stance is really possible, that anything which is not Marxist, but not wholly capitalist, is somehow "liberal." Marxists promote this idea vigorously. But it's an absolute blackmail. Instead, it seems to me that both of these concepts - capitalism and Marxism - when used in real world situation are in fact highly suspect as concepts.

This is especially true of the kind of game which runs: "What system has done more evil in the world, capitalism or communism?" It seems to me that this approach can never get anywhere. The problems of Marxism aren't to do with what people who call themselves Marxists have done (and indeed, Marxists will always respond to these kinds of points by saying "They we're not really Marxists") but in the fact that the theory itself is, in the end, bullshit. Though, admittedly, seductive and fascinating.


Sorry to be a witless pedant and go on so long.

 

[crackerjack]

Reaching for the dictionary is something my old man used to do around the family dinner table. Constant appeals to a higher authority. It happens here a lot too.

I assume you're fucking around, but i'm not sure what the joke is.

Slothrop has explained it, but the serious point stands. Thatcher's downfall might not have been quiet, but it was a lot more peaceful than Zinoviev or Beria's.

 

[3 Body No Problem]

Are you saying that Vietnam and Cambodia were invaded by the Soviet union?

If so, that's a demented cold war fantasy. Even hardline pro Western historians have acknowledged that the Soviet role in Vietnam was extremely limited.

Viet Nam is an interesting case. The definite history on that conflict, and on the soviet involvement has not been written, so what I say is speculative (the same holds for you). What is know is that the Soviet Union was involved: for example the first american plane that was shot down in Viet Nam was shot down by the soviets. They Soviet Union and China also delivered a continuous stream of arms. In fact, after the Sino-Soviet Split, just about the only thing that Bejing helped Moscow with is to deliver arms to North Viet Nam via China. However, what is also true is that the Soviet Union did not seem to get involved as heavily as it could have, and would like to have done. And the reason for this reluctance? The fear of the US (and the fact that Ho Chi Minh and his people were doing a good job anyway). So Khrustchev's behaviour in the Viet Nam war is a good example of succeful containment. It is quite clear that the fear of the US was the motivation for the limited Soviet involvement, not soviet pacifism.

There is also evidence that China saw things the same way (i.e. thought Moscow to be behind Hanoi). I believe (but the available evidence is slim -- the archieves in Hanoi and Bejing have not yet been scrutinised by historians) that the reason China attacked Viet Nam in 1979 (when the chinese army got totally hammered by what amounts to Vietnamese reserve units), was the fear of being surrounded by Moscow from the North and South. China believed it might be invaded by the Soviet Union (the fear of this invasion might even be the real reason for the US involvement in Viet Nam -- the though of combining soviet arms and resources with chinese man power must have sent chills down the spine of the US defense establishment ... but that's just speculation on my side).

And as for Cambodia? I cant think of any serious commentator who has even suggested soviet interference there.

Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot, was educated/got his ideological training by the french communist party, which -- as far as I'm aware -- was Moscow-run. He went on training sessions in Jugoslavia. He regularly visited Beijing before coming to power, and continued to do so. The Red Khmer were installed by the Vietnamese. It is difficult for me to believe that this happened without approval from Moscow/Bejing. Part of the reason why Pol Pot starved large parts of the Cambodian population to death is to exchange the food he gained that way for weapons from China.

When the Khmer Rouge attacked Viet Nam, he probably acted on Chinese orders.

NB: the data on Cambodia is even less solid and well-researched than that on Viet Nam. What I say above has a large speculative element.

Consider the state departments' opinion:

The state department might have been wrong. Or it might have put out misleading public statements to conceal its true insights. You don't want your enemies to know what you know. Chomsky was famously wrong on the Red Khmer.

Western acts are always defensive and benign...

I certainly do not hold this position. Western imperialism was awful.

The threat was not primarily the USSR and China, which were not aggressively expansionist.

I strongly disagree with that statement.

The threat (as seen by US planners) was from national independent movements and social revolutionaries in 3rd world countries potentially preventing access to the exploitation of 3rd world resources

There is a lot of truth to what you say, but it is interlinked with the communist threat. Access to resources is one of the most crucial military matters. In fact it is of the same importance as industrial capacity, manpower and access to nuclear weapons. It would have been very difficult to win the cold war, had the Soviet Union succeeded in taking over the oil-rich state in the middle east.

 

[crackerjack]

China believed it might be invaded by the Soviet Union (the fear of this invasion might even be the real reason for the US involvement in Viet Nam -- the though of combining soviet arms and resources with chinese man power must have sent chills down the spine of the US defense establishment ... but that's just speculation on my side).

Can you explaiin what you mean more clearly? One minute you say China feared USSR invasion, the next that America invaded (maybe) Vietnam to keep them apart.

 

[3 Body No Problem]

Can you explaiin what you mean more clearly? One minute you say China feared USSR invasion, the next that America invaded (maybe) Vietnam to keep them apart.

The SU invasion of China was feared by the US and by China. China didn't want to be invaded, naturally. The US feared what a combination of the SU and China could do after a successful invasion.

I don't know how real this danger was, it might have been speculative.

 

[crackerjack]

The SU invasion of China was feared by the US and by China. China didn't want to be invaded, naturally. The US feared what a combination of the SU and China could do after a successful invasion.

I don't know how real this danger was, it might have been speculative.

So a post-invasion China would be more obedient to the USSR. It all sounds a bit Risk, that - after all, if the Soviets feared the american reaction to their overt involvement in Vietnam what would they (USA) do if the USSR invaded China? Vote Goldwater ?

 

[droid]

I am more than happy to go toe to toe on this and debate many of the points you have made, many of which are tortuously confused distortions, but I think the evidence Ive already given already asks the crucial questions.

If the USSR and China were the 'aggressively expansionist' parties, then why were their overtly aggressive acts against other states limited to only about 10 incidents (primarily against their immediate neighbours during the early stages) during the entire course of the cold war, whilst overt acts of US and UK aggression numbered over 50 and were directed at states all over the world?

The proposition that the West acted aggressively only in response to 'reds under the bed' is a self-justifying paranoid fantasy, and if you look at internal documentation from the US and UK its clear that this was not how elites viewed the situation. Its also the case that any independent move to the left in the third world was automatically portrayed as 'intervention from Moscow', regardless of the facts.

We also now know that the USSR from the mid 60s onwards was in no position economically to project its power in the way you are asserting it did. Its interventions were primarily limited to arms shipments and espionage.

I am not (as has been suggested in this thread), a supporter of either the USSR or China. I dont believe these countries were 'pacifist' in any sense, its obvious that there were monstrous states who abused their citizens and their neighbours to a horrific extent - but they were not the rapacious expansionist states that Western propaganda portrays them as, and the first thing anyone genuinely interested in the study of history should do is to disregard the chauvinistic cultural baggage that informs these kind of stereotypes.

BTW - an earlier statement you made really makes me wonder about your knowledge of Russian history:

Anyway, Marxism is explicitly and openly an imperialist ideology with the goal of establishing a world-wide socialist state.

In the USSR, Trotsky was the figure who advocated 'permanent revolution' - the same Trotsky that was politically isolated , exiled and then eventually assassinated by Stalin, whose main desire was to consolidate his power (which was what the purges were all about), not to project it around the globe - curbing workers movements in his policy of 'peaceful coexistence' with capitalism, and this approach continued to dominate Soviet policy throughout the cold war.

 

[crackerjack]

In the USSR, Trotsky was the figure who advocated 'permanent revolution' - the same Trotsky that was politically isolated , exiled and then eventually assassinated by Stalin, whose main desire was to consolidate his power (which was what the purges were all about), not to project it around the globe - curbing workers movements in his policy of 'peaceful coexistence' with capitalism, and this approach continued to dominate Soviet policy throughout the cold war.

This much is true, 'socialism in one country' was the other phrase used at the time. Reading Tony Judt's Postwar recently, it was striking just how cautious Stalin was in projecting Soviet power beyond the buffer.

 

[3 Body No Problem]

[...] Stalin, whose main desire was to consolidate his power (which was what the purges were all about), not to project it around the globe - curbing workers movements in his policy of 'peaceful coexistence' with capitalism, and this approach continued to dominate Soviet policy throughout the cold war.

World Revolution.

Two Stage Theory.

 

[3 Body No Problem]

This much is true, 'socialism in one country' was the other phrase used at the time. Reading Tony Judt's Postwar recently, it was striking just how cautious Stalin was in projecting Soviet power beyond the buffer.

This is true, but I would argue that this is not indicative of JS's ultimative intentions, but because the rest of the world has made it very clear in various ways that it was not willing to tolerate Soviet expansion without serious fighting.

 

[josef k.]

I think that trying to figure out which one out of the USSR or the USA were more aggressively expansionist/imperialist during the cold war is a finally unsolvable question that doesn't really ultimately touch on the issues of communism and capitalism, or the communist critique of capitalism, today. But I could be wrong.

 

[crackerjack]

This is true, but I would argue that this is not indicative of JS's ultimative intentions, but because the rest of the world has made it very clear in various ways that it was not willing to tolerate Soviet expansion without serious fighting.

So it was a pragmatic adjustment to the situation, a bit of realpolitik. In this respect, are the post-Trotsky leaders of communist countries (for the most part) any different from those of capitalist countries? I take your point about the nature of the ideology outlined in the links below, but the gulf between the classical Marxism of the academic world and the application of the theory in the real world is enormous. Marxist purists imagine both a withering of the state and the eventual abolition of national boundaries (iirc, tho i could be wrong on the 2nd part). In practice communist countries built up totalitarian states and used nationalism as a vital cohesive tool.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Reading Tony Judt's Postwar recently, it was striking just how cautious Stalin was in projecting Soviet power beyond the buffer.

Which I guess supports droid's point about direct Soviet intervention being limited to the Eastern Bloc countries (and Afghanistan) - and Chinese intervention in/invasion of Tibet and other E/SE Asian states.

So what about, for example, 'Maoist' guerrillas like these Shine Path guys in Peru? Did/do they act totally independently from China (and the USSR)?

 

[3 Body No Problem]

The proposition that the West acted aggressively only in response to 'reds under the bed' is a self-justifying paranoid fantasy, and if you look at internal documentation from the US and UK its clear that this was not how elites viewed the situation. Its also the case that any independent move to the left in the third world was automatically portrayed as 'intervention from Moscow', regardless of the facts.

I am not saying that the West acted aggressively only in response to the communist thread, but that the communist threat was a major determinant in western action. The west had a terrible colonian baggage, and serious parts of the western power elite were intent on keeping the colonies for exploitation. But, and this is an important point, the decolonisation conflicts, e.g. in Malaysia for the British, or in Viet Nam and Cambodia for the French were inextribably linked with fear of communist takeover. For example the geographic shape of South Viet Nam (which got a large bit of Khmer territory -- one of the sources of anti-vietnames ressentment in Cambodia until today) is what it is mostly because the French wanted to strengthen the South against the north.

We also now know that the USSR from the mid 60s onwards was in no position economically to project its power in the way you are asserting it did.

I disagree with that statement. The SU had lots of nukes, subs & rockets for worldwide delivery, a gigantic and capable military-economic complex (the Sputnik shock was a very real shock to the west), vast natural resources and could easily put millions of men under arms. China managed to kill millions of citizens, so surely they could have done a lot of damage abroad. While engaging NATO directly would have been suicidal for the SU or China, it would have caused enourmous damage.

Its interventions were primarily limited to arms shipments and espionage.

As I said repeatedly, I believe that the reason for this is because they were contained.

 

[crackerjack]

Which I guess supports droid's point about direct Soviet intervention being limited to the Eastern Bloc countries (and Afghanistan) - and Chinese intervention in/invasion of Tibet and other E/SE Asian states.

So what about, for example, 'Maoist' guerrillas like these Shine Path guys in Peru? Did/do they act totally independently from China (and the USSR)?

Couldn't tell you about the Shining Path - they imported their ideology from Mao. Maybe they got funding, i don't know, but I think Droid's point was that Communist countries rarely intervened directly beyond their immediate neighbours. cuba in Angola would be one obvious exception, though that was gesture politics, a bit half-arsed.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think that trying to figure out which one out of the USSR or the USA were more aggressively expansionist/imperialist during the cold war is a finally unsolvable question that doesn't really ultimately touch on the issues of communism and capitalism, or the communist critique of capitalism, today. But I could be wrong.

No, I think you were quite right the other day when you said the "who was worse?" game was basically pointless. It certainly doesn't seem to have brought us any closer to answering the questions you asked at the start of this thread.

 

[3 Body No Problem]

So it was a pragmatic adjustment to the situation, a bit of realpolitik. In this respect, are the post-Trotsky leaders of communist countries (for the most part) any different from those of capitalist countries? I take your point about the nature of the ideology outlined in the links below, but the gulf between the classical Marxism of the academic world and the application of the theory in the real world is enormous.

I agree. I'm not saying that the west's actions were optimal -- in hindsight, an unconditional decolonialisation that would accept some communist takeovers in some countries might have been a better strategy. Or maybe not, I don't know. The south vietnamese mostly didn't want to go communist, but they also didn't want to be colonised by the French. What can you do in such a situation?

Marxist purists imagine both a withering of the state and the eventual abolition of national boundaries (iirc, tho i could be wrong on the 2nd part).

Marxism without world-revolution doesn't make much sense. Any temporary deviation from this ideal is merely political strategy.

 

[droid]

I think that trying to figure out which one out of the USSR or the USA were more aggressively expansionist/imperialist during the cold war is a finally unsolvable question that doesn't really ultimately touch on the issues of communism and capitalism, or the communist critique of capitalism, today. But I could be wrong.

No, it doesnt really have any bearing, and I dont claim it does - how could it? My responses in this thread have simple been to address some of the glib, counter-factual and frankly fantastical assertions that have been made here. Apologies for the derail.

And no - its not an 'unsolvable question', there is a rich and complex documentary record of this period, and internal documents and archives from both sides which can give a pretty good indication of what actually happened.

 

[droid]

So what about, for example, 'Maoist' guerrillas like these Shine Path guys in Peru? Did/do they act totally independently from China (and the USSR)?

'Maoist' is just a label, a declaration of belief. Would you automatically assume that a 'capitalist' movement in a socialist country indicated that the US had to be behind it?

There have been revolutionary nationalist movements all over the world of many stripes, and believe it or not, many of them developed independently in response to local conditions.