U.S. Labor Party?

[Axl Van Sixx]

Well, it has served China's interest...to move towards capitalism, and still hold on to communism within their governmental structure, but that doesn't mean it is right, or what is best for the people of China. It is simply a means of growing their industries quickly, since the government doesn't have to "ask" the people so to speak what they can and cannot do...again, doesn't make it right.

I agree with all of this.

And honestly, cut and paste posts, give me a headache...

Yeah, sorry about that. But there's a lot of really useful information in there that I thought answered your guys' biggest questions about socialism, communism, etc. I hope you'll try to read at least some of it. Anyway, I felt we needed to clear that issue up before getting back to the topic of an American Labor Party.

 

[hippie_hunter]

The best reply to this comes from a Marxist FAQ I often find useful:

"Where is the incentive under Socialism?" is a commonly asked question."If everyone is paid the same wage than where is the incentive for the worker to produce more than he has to or even the quota amount?"

As Lenin explains in The State and Revolution, and Marx explains in Critique of the Gotha Program, it is impossible to jump straight from capitalism to the most advanced stage of human society - a classless society based on the democratic administration of things in the interests of all. Communism is based on being able to provide more than needed for everyone - and though in the US we could reach that level fairly quickly, it is still not there right now. This is why a transitional period, which we often refer to as socialism is necessary.

During this time there will still be elements of the old society (some market economy, some armed forces until the whole world is in the democratic hands of the workers, etc.) But already things will be moving rapidly towards the complete dissolution of the state, of the market economy and so on. Once the workers begin to democratically plan the BIG industries - the ones which dominate our lives - energy, banking, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, etc., then we will be putting the surplus produced by the workers towards improving our lives.

New technology and greater productivity of labor will lead to a decrease in the working day, to more time for study, travel, exploration, research,music, art, culture, etc. Nowadays the incentive to work harder is "work so you can pay your rent, your mortgage, your interest on credit card and school loans, your over-priced food, health care, transportation, and entertainment, and so on or STARVE". THAT is the only incentive capitalism offers us! Why work more efficiently at work if you know you have to be there for 8 hours no matter what?


Under socialism, the incentive to come up with more efficient ways to do things is that we'd have to work less time to do the same amount of work! The amount of necessary labor needed to produce the things we need like food, housing, etc. would gradually decrease so that eventually we may only need to "work" for 2 hours a week or less! Of course as humans we would not be lazy and sit around - humans are curious, exploratory, and want to learn, invent, etc. Our "free" time would be spent creating ever better works of art, scientific research, cures for diseases, etc. After a period of time, the new generations will not even know what it was like under capitalism, and the productivity of labor will be tremendously high. The barrier between "work" and raw human exploration and mastery over its environment (in harmony with the environment!) will disappear also - no more coercive state, police, etc. No more chaos in the markets - the workers will plan what we need and then reinvest a portion to continually make even better things. Everyone will be "rich" so to speak - able to travel, to live comfortably, to eat what they wish, to continue their education throughout life.

Except that is not how humanity works. You're going to have the slackers and the unmotivated that will throw wrenches in the system.

Obviously, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. were some of the most horrific tyrants of the 20th century. That's why I'm a Trotskyist - because we denounce all those so-called "communist" regimes, one-party dictatorships in which a parasitical bureaucracy held the population in its control through brutal secret police and a bloated military (personality cult optional). Stalinism and social democracy (capitalism with the rough edges filed down) are both antithetical to proper, Marxian socialism. You offer examples of regimes that I hate as just as much as you do, because you believe they are essentially Marxist. This begs the question, does Marxism-Leninism inevitably lead to Stalinism?

So far, yes it has. Because even though that those that had pure intentions, their successors always find a way to screw things up through dictatorial means.

I honestly don't think so. The shape of world "Communism" for 70 years, and thereby our perceptions of it today, are largely due to what happened in the Soviet Union - the bureaucratic degeneration that resulted from its isolation after the First World War. People don't think much about the German Revolution anymore, but its failure was one of the biggest tragedies of the 20th Century. Because the USSR was left alone in a hostile world, the bureaucrats could consolidate their power and the world communist movement became a mere appendage of Stalin's foreign policy. This had its worst consequences in the 1930s, when the insane "social fascism" policy saw the Social Democrats as the German Communists' biggest threat and allowed the Nazis to come to power, leading to World War II and the Holocaust. The subsequent boost to Stalinism and Maoism at the end of the war prevented Trotskyist views from gaining much currency among the working class.

I blame World War II more on the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles that angered the German public into voting for the nationalistic Nazis.

Stalinism failed because of the bureaucracy. The solution is not a return to capitalism, but a move to true workers' control. That's something that hasn't been tried since the early days of the Russian Revolution, although we've been seeing some interesting things in Venezuela in recent years.

Venezuela has been on the decline due to bureaucratic incompetence and no one wanting to invest in Venezuela is leading to higher food prices and basic freedoms being trampled over.

By the way, nobody ever tries to catalogue the number of deaths in the 20th century that were due to capitalism. Let's see, World War I, World War II, and a staggering number of colonial and neo-colonial occupations and dirty wars in some countries people have heard of and many they haven't. And even if "most people", as a concept, shouldn't be in charge, that still doesn't explain why the current American system, which has put such lousy people in charge, is so good.

The kneejerk conservative response to this would be "less government!" But some form of social organization is necessary and the "no to big government" slogan has been used by Big Business and a wealthy oligarchy as a mask for their own selfish interests, which really mean fewer of the regulations that protect the working class (environmental and labour standards, etc.) and interfere with unfettered profiteering. The real solution, in the end, can only be for the working masses to take power away from the oligarchs and govern themselves.

Capitalism has its flaws for sure, but it's a system that has proven to work as opposed to communism which has proven to have failed by the end of the Cold War Era.

Self-interest for the bureaucracy. They were the ones who took state-owned enterprises into their own private hands and became the grotesque new Russian oligarchs of the 1990s. Stalinist politicians were just as full of **** as capitalist ones; they didn't really believe any of the stuff they said about socialism, the working class, Marx and so on.

Exactly, human nature. Human nature will always turn the most pure of intentions on paper and mess it up. That is why Communism is always doomed to failure.

They'll never see that enough is enough because under capitalism, enough is NEVER enough. If a company can't make a profit, it goes out of business. I agree that corporate greed has reached a new low. But that attitude is built into the system.

There are those who see that enough is enough. Take Bill Gates for example who is using the vast majority of his wealth towards charitable causes around the world to help those who are less fortunate.

And those who continue on with their greed eventually get taken down like Bernard Madoff.

Are you telling me that all those great works of art you just mentioned were created, in the end, because the artist wanted to make MONEY? Orson Welles made Citizen Kane purely for money? Come on, dude, I know you have more faith in artists and the creative mind than that. Sure they make money, but that's a side benefit from the creative process - ask any struggling musician, because 99% of them never become rock stars. Dark Knight you might actually have a stronger argument - is Christopher Nolan the type to take a big budget superhero movie because it'll make him some big bucks? Maybe, but that's not the whole story. Ultimately, he wanted to make it because he liked Batman. Lots of people like Batman because they've grown up with the character, he's a cultural icon, and therefore lots of people will want to see movies about him.

Even I forget this sometimes because we're all so used to the commercial film industry as it exists today, with mass marketed summer event blockbusters that provide the lion's share of profits for the five or six corporations that control the major film studios. But the fact is, people will always want to be entertained, and even if we were living under socialism, movies about Batman would get made because the people want to see them. What's more, they wouldn't be tied merely to crass considerations of box office grosses. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, all the great superheroes are now cultural icons and as subject to respectful film treatment at this point as any literary masterpiece. I think that would be the case regardless of whether we lived in a socialist or capitalist society (there's a lot of great Soviet movies out there). A proper socialist society wouldn't be totally alien from what we have now; it would develop on from that.

Yes because in the end, you need money to fund the arts and those who fund the arts are the ones who want to make money off of them.

The "arts" funded by the Soviet Union were pretty much propaganda and were restricted in what they could present.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Well, it has served China's interest...to move towards capitalism, and still hold on to communism within their governmental structure, but that doesn't mean it is right, or what is best for the people of China. It is simply a means of growing their industries quickly, since the government doesn't have to "ask" the people so to speak what they can and cannot do...again, doesn't make it right.


And honestly, cut and paste posts, give me a headache...

The problem is, that's a great system to have when everything is growing, like China is now. China will eventually have a slowdown, then a recession. In democracries, people can vent their frustrations by voting out presidents and governments, whereas people in dictatorships don't have that option.

When the only method of government change is insurrection, that's not a great situation. How China will deal with its eventual recession and all its other social problems will define it.

 

[Kelly]

The problem is, that's a great system to have when everything is growing, like China is now. China will eventually have a slowdown, then a recession. In democracries, people can vent their frustrations by voting out presidents and governments, whereas people in dictatorships don't have that option.

When the only method of government change is insurrection, that's not a great situation. How China will deal with its eventual recession and all its other social problems will define it.

You are correct.....