From: John Holloway (johnholloway@PRODIGY.NET.MX)
Date: Thu May 26 2005 - 14:39:32 EDT
> Paul, > > Thanks for your intervention and sorry for not replying sooner. Thanks too > for the mention of John Collier, of whom I have not heard in many years. > > I agree with you that the relation between the political and the economic > is modified in the USSR. What is clear is that the two practices (the > political and the economic) remain distinct, and that the exclusion of social > control is probably just as pronounced as under mainstream capitalism. You say > that >The key issue is how the mass of the working population can exercise > effective control over the political level< but that, I would argue, involves > the dissolution of a distinct political level. But probably, this is a point > which I have now repeated too often. > > Best wishes, > > John > > > John Writes: > It is fundamental to the argument of the book that the expression ła state of > the Paris Commune-type˛ makes no sense at all. The state is a particular form > of social relations grounded in the separation of the political from the > economic ... > > Paul C > > I think this eternalises the capitalist form of state and acts as if the 20th > century never happened. > > The distinguishing feature of socialist states was the close enmeshing of the > political > and economic levels. In the CSSR or USSR there was no economy distinct from > the state, > this I would argue, is a necessary consequence of planned economy. > > In the socialist mode of production the extraction of the surplus product is > inherently > political, whereas in the capitalist mode it is primarily economic. It occurs > through the > planned allocation in material terms of part of the social product to non-wage > goods. > As such you can not separate out the planning process from the economy, and > the > planning process is inherently political. > > It is from this fundamental relationship that the dominance of the > political/ideological > level under socialism stems from. In this sense, as John Collier remarked, > socialism > is more similar to feudalism than capitalism in some ways. > > The key issue is how the mass of the working population can exercise effective > control over the political level - what forms of mass democracy will allow > that. > >
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