this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Marxists aren't fascists, though. Fascism is insepparable from Capitalism and bourgeois interests. Further, considering Marxists to be "authoritarian" implies that the only non-authoritarian form of government is a fully horizontal, Anarchist structure. Grouping all governments together as "fascist" is just a smokescreen in front of the quantitative and qualitative differenced between forms of government, which are often extreme, as they have historically been between Marxists and fascists.
State capitalism is capitalism, even if it's pretending to be Marxist.
"koala bears are bears, even if they're pretending they're marsupials"
It's more: koala bears are marsupials, even if they're called bears.
Yes, that was my point. Socialism doesn't become capitalism just because you call them "state capitalism". Just like koala bears don't become bears just because you call them that.
And state capitalism doesn't become socialism just because you call it that.
Your only argument was essentially "it has capitalism in the name!".
Now you just have "nuh-uh"
No. I defined what's socialism for me (owning of the mean of production by the workers), and all can see that the USSR and friends weren't that. Then I gave Marx's definition of socialism, even if I'm not Marxist (a mode of production were the usefulness replaced the price as value), and all can see that the USSR and friends weren't that. Thus they're something else, and I used a term that Lenin himself used: state capitalism (which wasn't limited to the NEP). Please stop with your strawmen.
You did not give "Marx's definition of Socialism," you erased dialectics from his analysis of the transition from one mode of production to the next. Marx frequently referenced commodity production even remaining in lower-stage Communism, the goal is to abolish it but the presence of it alone does not disqualify a system from being Socialist. State Capitalism was a descriptor for the NEP by Lenin, and he still considered the USSR to be Socialist in that it was a transitional state towards Communism.
It's extremely condescending when you act like you know more about a subject while admitting to not studying it.
Where did I admitted that?
You said you aren't a Marxist, and you've claimed things about Marxism that are undeniably false. If I'm mistaken and you have studied Marxism, then I apologize for misunderstanding you, though that doesn't validate your misconceptions.
If your definition of socialism is "ownership by the workers, but they can't form any kind of representative body to administrate production (ie. a state)", then you've just defined socialism out of existence. Unless the expecting the entire population to come together and form a consensus on every decision, ("what color should we make the wall paper? Oh well time to get all eight billion humans on a group call").
If you think workers had anything to say in the USSR, you're delusional.
You can drop the ableism, and the proletariat ran the government in the USSR. The democratic structure looked like this:
Beautiful propaganda.
You can also read historical texts like Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, as well. There's also tons of information from the Soviet Archives, we know quite well that this is accurate information. Labelling everything that goes against your understanding as "propaganda" without doing the legwork to prove it is shallow.
It's factually true, but you don't like it, so time to deploy the thought terminating cliche
K. Very compelling point. "If you disagree with me you are mentally unwell."
But you've already condemned any representative representative body administrating things, so I'm not sure what your point is anyway.
Disagreements on opinions and beliefs are sane, normal and even cool. I love a good debate! Disagreements on facts aren't.
No, I never did that.
Well the fact is that you're wrong. So if you try to say you're right, it means you're insane.
Yes, you did. That's a fact, by the way, so you claiming otherwise is just you being unwell.
When the principle aspects of an economy are controlled by the public, ie large firms and key industries, it is safely considered to have moved beyond Capitalism into Socialism as the Mode of Production. As all transfers from one Mode of Production into the next are both instant and gradual, the Mode of Production overall has changed while still being stamped with remnants of the former that wither over time as the state resolves contradictions in favor of the new Mode of Production.
Labelling all Socialist societies run by Marxists as "State Capitalist" when they have clearly transitioned to a new form of society incompatible with the old order, is a gross mistake in analysis.
No. Socialism as a mode of production is the owning of the means of production by the workers, not the State. For a worker, it doesn't change anything if their overlords are politicians or industrialists.
Your definition is definitely contrary to Marxism, so if your definition of Socialism is exclusionary of Marxists, I find it a bit strange. "Worker ownership" is not sufficient for Socialism. A sole proprietor is not Socialist, but petite bourgeois. Cooperative ownership is generally considered "socialist," but not Marxist, as cooperatives retain petite bourgeois class relations excluding the rest of society from owning the Capital of the cooperative.
Therefore, abolition of private property can only be accomplished truly and fully through total public ownership of Capital. This is the Marxist stance, once the state has managed to fold all of the instruments of production into its hands, it ceases to be recognizable as a state, as class no longer exists. Engels calls this post-state the "Administration of Things."
I think the issue you have is seeing only Anarchist or Market Socialist formations as Socialist, and not Marxist. This is either from a bias towards the former and against the latter, or a lack of comprehension of the latter. This is why you see public ownership as fundamentally the same as private ownership, and is why your understanding is fundamentally flawed, seeing all hierarchies as "overlords," be they intra-class hierarchies like workers and managers, or inter-class hierarchies like proletarian and bourgeoisie. It erases the victories achieved by the working class in Socialist states throughout history.
I'm not Marxist, so that's quite normal. But even in Marxist terms, socialism is a mode of production were the usage value replaced the monetary value. That never happened in so called “communist” countries.
One can only abolish the commodity form in totality through global Socialism. Socialism's beginning is the transition from Capitalism to Communism, that existence in which there are no longer classes, the state, or money. The fact that Socialist states governed by Communist parties have not as of yet achieved that global system is not an indication of a betrayal of Marxism or an indication of not being Socialist by any measure.
Production based on use-value as the basis of economic organization can only truly exist when commodity production has been erased, and this can only be achieved through mass development of the productive forces and the lack of outside pressures like sanctions or threats of war from Capitalist nations. This means they have not yet achieved Communism, but have achieved Socialism, hence why no Socialist country has ever considered itself to have achieved Communism.
You just wrote, in other words:.“It can't be socialism before the global revolution but that doesn't mean it's not socialism”. Man, even Lenin called his system state capitalism… You're not serious behind your big words, let's stop here.
I said it cannot be Communism without global Socialism. Socialism can be had in one country, as each country can individually begin that transition towards a fully publicly owned and planned economy on its own. Socialism is not defined by the total and complete absence of all commodity production, such a definition means Socialism can never exist as by the time commodity production is totally abolished, so too would the state, class, and money. It would be a jump straight from Capitalism to Communism definitionally, despite this "Capitalism" being overwhelmingly dominated by public ownership and planning under a state run by the working class.
As for Lenin, he called the NEP specifically "State Capitalist." The economy under the NEP is qualitatively different from the later Soviet economy, but even by the NEP control of the state was in the hands of the proletariat, and large firms and key industries were under the thumb of public ownership. The NEP is quite similar to the economy of the PRC, it's a relatively early stage in Socialism, but distinctly and qualitatively different from Capitalism, when the Bourgeoisie is in control of large firms, key industries, and the State.
I think it's very clear that I am serious behind my words. I take Marxist theory fairly seriously, and have answered all of your quips in detail. More than anything, it seems like you're insulting me to give yourself a cheap out of this conversation, rather than admitting that you were simply wrong about Marxism, which isn't a sin at all. We all learn at different rates and different times, it's better to confront our own misconceptions and grow than it is to deny the necessity for furthering our own knowledge.