- 19 Jan 2014 03:36
#14354932
But you are still thinking in the mindset of competition. In a socialist system where the economies have reached the level where there is no need for national competition or hoarding of resources, why should the Russian workers give a shit about the Chinese workers outvoting them? Post scarcity means we no longer compete for resources, things are simply sent where they are needed. What benefits the Russians in a cooperative global economy benefits the Chinese and visa-versa.
Stalin never viewed his goal in say, Eastern Europe as one of setting up proper communist states, his goal was to create a buffer for Russia against the West and to exploit them for the benefit of Russia. Stalin, Mao, and Castro, they were/are all nationalists. Stalin fought tooth and nail against Lenin's ideas on national self-determination. Mao was more than willing to bounce around on communist theory, his goal was to benefit China, not the world communist cause. When Castro came to power he wasn't even a declared Marxist, he just aligned with the USSR because the US was trying to kill/depose him. I hold with none of these men as great examples of communist leadership, and I say the same about the systems they created.
Well firstly, I would not copy what existing socialist nations did. Most of them collapsed under the weight of their own Stalinist bureaucracies, not something I would like to see rise again. Secondly, the goal of a communist party is not to rule indefinitely. Its purpose is to provide sound leadership for the people during the revolution and immediately after, but the most important purpose is to prepare the people to lead themselves. The Bolsheviks were doing this, but while fighting a civil war and trying to modernize an incredibly backwards economy they invested a little too much power in themselves, Lenin died at the worst possible time and then Stalin took control and entrenched what was supposed to be a temporary system in so deep the entire country fell apart when they tried to change it. This would not necessarily happen in a first world country, as the populace would be better educated, the economy in a better position, and the precedent of democracy already laid out, none of which Russia or most (if any) communist nations had.
You ask, why would the party cede power? Because we're communists, the goal is not power for us, it's power for the people. The question is not whether we can get people who don't want personal power but whether we can keep the people who do (Stalin, Mao) from getting too much. Historically, we failed, but as the saying goes the only real mistake is the one you don't learn from. Taking into account the death toll, I would say Stalin was still a mistake, but he had to happen, because now we now that totalitarian communism does not work.
Technology wrote:Nationalism is just an extension of tribalism, which is not new at all. The only new thing is that people were identifying with the nation state rather than smaller units, and even then that's only if you believe the Marxist view of history is at all accurate on that issue. The claim that historical nations and empires pre-capitalism didn't have any strong sense of belonging to communities distinct from outsiders is dubious.
Historically, patriotism has been used to bolster the socialist nations just the same as any other. This caused tendency fall outs within the socialist world during the Cold War. You imagine that if capitalism wasn't there, they would all unite completely somehow (Who would give up rulership? Would Russian workers be prepared to be out-voted by Chinese workers?). I don't know, but if people can't unite to fight their enemies, why would they be able to unite when their enemies are defeated? It sounds more likely that they would start fighting over new socialist mode divisions.
There are biases which transcend our relationships with the means of production, and there are biases which incorporate our collective relationship in relation to some other groups' relationship.
But you are still thinking in the mindset of competition. In a socialist system where the economies have reached the level where there is no need for national competition or hoarding of resources, why should the Russian workers give a shit about the Chinese workers outvoting them? Post scarcity means we no longer compete for resources, things are simply sent where they are needed. What benefits the Russians in a cooperative global economy benefits the Chinese and visa-versa.
Technology wrote:The problem is that there are different socialisms distinct to the conditions of different nations. Stalin recognized this. An extension of that is recognizing that this creates a point of conflicting interests when it comes to "merging the world".
The other (perhaps more fundamental problem) is that it isn't purely a dichotomy between self-interest and group-interest. There can be competing group-interests (evidentially, there are) even if people aren't purely thinking of themselves. Each person or groups vision for others must win over other the visions of others. Since history shows us that not all Marxisms are the same thing (other Marxists on this forum have criticized you for rejecting Stalin, for example), it is a given there will be competition, and where some parties lose big, history indicates again that the conflict has a tendency to converge on violence.
Would Mao, Stalin, Castro, and Tito's administrations (to name a few) all amiably melt into a pool of homogenous communism post-capitalism? I think not. Not with relative ease. I think there might have just been a fair few wars over whose socialism was more amenable to communism first.
Stalin never viewed his goal in say, Eastern Europe as one of setting up proper communist states, his goal was to create a buffer for Russia against the West and to exploit them for the benefit of Russia. Stalin, Mao, and Castro, they were/are all nationalists. Stalin fought tooth and nail against Lenin's ideas on national self-determination. Mao was more than willing to bounce around on communist theory, his goal was to benefit China, not the world communist cause. When Castro came to power he wasn't even a declared Marxist, he just aligned with the USSR because the US was trying to kill/depose him. I hold with none of these men as great examples of communist leadership, and I say the same about the systems they created.
Technology wrote:Well then, you would hope not to copy what actually existing socialist nations did. Representatives are needed to cut through competing ideas and create one vision for the administrative area in question, so it is intrinsic to a representative system that there is a distinct interest by those ruling. One way to tackle this would be to draw leaders at random from the most intelligent and competent workers (but who decides what that is?), however the crazy risk inherent in this means people would be wary of a leadership system that lacks momentum, and moreover the vanguard who brought in the revolution would have a vested interest not to transition to such a system.
With representatives, the people are not making policy; they are choosing a package deal of policies attached to the party they vote in. The people who want to run will be people who want to see their vision dominant, either for personal gain, or out of altruism. Either way, they will want to ensure their vision is maintained, and if they have a party, they will want to gather power to it, so the more of a party based system you have, the more there is a distinct group interest that develops (you could almost say a class interest...) even if the members of the party are workers. You see, they are workers who believe in a distinct set of managerial policies which will differ from the thousands upon thousands of different sets of policies other groups of workers or individuals might come up with. This is a problem inherent to republics, socialist or not.
Well firstly, I would not copy what existing socialist nations did. Most of them collapsed under the weight of their own Stalinist bureaucracies, not something I would like to see rise again. Secondly, the goal of a communist party is not to rule indefinitely. Its purpose is to provide sound leadership for the people during the revolution and immediately after, but the most important purpose is to prepare the people to lead themselves. The Bolsheviks were doing this, but while fighting a civil war and trying to modernize an incredibly backwards economy they invested a little too much power in themselves, Lenin died at the worst possible time and then Stalin took control and entrenched what was supposed to be a temporary system in so deep the entire country fell apart when they tried to change it. This would not necessarily happen in a first world country, as the populace would be better educated, the economy in a better position, and the precedent of democracy already laid out, none of which Russia or most (if any) communist nations had.
You ask, why would the party cede power? Because we're communists, the goal is not power for us, it's power for the people. The question is not whether we can get people who don't want personal power but whether we can keep the people who do (Stalin, Mao) from getting too much. Historically, we failed, but as the saying goes the only real mistake is the one you don't learn from. Taking into account the death toll, I would say Stalin was still a mistake, but he had to happen, because now we now that totalitarian communism does not work.