The House of Representatives passed an updated version of its annual resolution condemning socialism. This year it complained about the Democratic Socialists of American (DSA) in particular. DSA did not take it lying down. A prominent DSA ideologist, Ben Burgis, took to the webpages of Jacobin, DSA’s unofficial magazine, with a fierce protest: DSA is anti- communist!
Burgis begins, “The House just passed a resolution condemning the Democratic Socialists of America and socialism broadly. While it rehearses opposition to Stalinist authoritarianism, the bill’s real preoccupation is with socialists’ advocacy for expanded democracy.”
Burgis is a philosophy teacher and logician. The heart of his rebuttal is this paragraph:
“The resolution’s nominal argument is a mess. The first two ‘whereas’ clauses are claims about the crimes of Stalinist regimes. But democratic socialists have always been critical of such regimes, even then. Condemning democratic socialists with claims about the crimes of Stalinist authoritarianism makes about as much sense as an atheist bringing up the Spanish Inquisition to condemn the Southern Baptists.”
A society where all members collectively share in all ownership isn’t a Socialist society, it’s a Communist society, which is what we should be trying to move towards. Going from individualist, Capitalist ownership to a worker-owned model with direct worker democracy is Socialist. Of course ideally all workers everywhere would share equally in the fruits of the labor of the entire society, but again, that’s Communism, not Socialism.
No it undermines State Socialism and specifically, that particular State’s Socialist framework, not Socialism as a whole. The whole point of Socialism is to embody worker’s rights to both the fruits of their labor, and the governance of their labor. Restricting that is antithetical to Socialist progress.
There is a lot of material evidence for this, I just don’t feel like getting a ton a sources together and posting them in a comment section debate on Lemmy. That being said, it is easy to find studies on worker-owned cooperatives and how they outperform traditional firms on the whole. The entire open source software movement is a testament to the robustness of independent Socialist organization against Fascist and Capitalist interests.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here at all. I never said MAGA and the CCP were the same. I argued that merely incorporating workers into a national union structure, especially under an Authoritarian State apparatus, doesn’t make the society Socialist.
Authority is not the same as Authoritarian. You didn’t address my core point at all here, which was that the argument that the State must act in an Authoritarian manner in order to reduce the risk of itself being undermined by dissent, is the exact same rhetoric that the US and EU are using right now as they continue to roll out more frameworks for surveillance and control. Unless you are admitting that you have no problem with that, as long as the people you support are the ones who are doing it, which in that case, alright, fair enough. You’re in the same rhetorical spot as MAGA supporters who cheer on ICE raids. They love seeing ICE roaming their streets because ICE is, (for now), acting in accordance with their worldview. Of course the actual critique ought to be structural, which if you analyze ICE through that lens, you quickly see that those same agents who are kicking in immigrant’s doors and dragging them into vans, will eventually come for the MAGA supporters too.
I am against Authoritarianism because I understand the structural critique. I understand that when any entity, a State, a ruler, a group of workers, is granted a structural framework within their society to act with absolute power, it will always degrade and devolve into every form of abuse we see in the world today. I reject Hobbes’s central thesis, humanity is on the whole, cooperative and constructive, not individualist and destructive.
No, I understand that markets are not the same thing as Capitalism, obviously. China embraces Capitalist consumerism, Capitalist GDP growth, Capitalist sector dominance, Capitalist trade, Capitalist work ethic, Capitalist profit motives. They have managed it far better than the USA and most other western nations, but the same can be said for the Scandinavian countries, which are Capitalist. For this reason, I get frustrated watching China succeed so strongly, because it seems like a perfect counter-example to my worldview that Capitalism and Authoritarianism cannot produce long term societal happiness and prosperity. China seems to have figured out, (for now), how to make Authoritarian State Capitalism work. If that remains true in the years and decades to come, then it will be a massive blow against the viability of actual Socialism.
China is Neocolonialist for sure, look at what they are doing in Africa. The difference is that China is smart, and understands how to exploit the poorest countries in the world without having to torture and massacre people, unlike most Western countries. I am happy that China is undermining IP monopoly, US and NATO military dominance, and so forth, I am against all those things as well. It remains to be seen if China will actually free people from the evils of IP law globally, I doubt it strongly, but I can dream, same with their military.
I don’t have the energy or interest to debate the USSR being “good” whatever that might mean to you. You didn’t address my main point here either, which was that the USSR was a much better example of fighting the US and NATO on their own (The USSR’s) terms, instead of trying to just do Capitalism but better. The USSR’s leadership suffered from horrific corruption, especially at the local level, which is what makes it all the more impressive that despite that, they were able to accomplish what they did…the last true adversary to the USA. China isn’t so much beating the USA as they are just watching the USA rapidly decay after 50+ years of Neo-liberal, Capitalist cancer. Not to take too much credit away from China, they are absolutely doing things no other nation has ever done in recorded history, which is impressive from a Humanist POV.
Bingo, Anarchist here. That explains a large portion of our disagreements.
You’re confusing the distinction between socialism and communism, and it’s because you view the world through an individualist frame, not a socialist one. You see socialism only through the eyes of an individual worker and an individual capitalist, you do not see classes. As such, you believe the distinction between socialism and communism as the difference between, essentially, elements of communism and the whole society being communistic. This is wrong.
Socialism is a transition between capitalism and communism, where the working class dominates the state and the economy. It isn’t about individual relationships between workers and capitalists or lack thereof, but the entire class with relation to the entire class. Communism is the point by which all class distinctions have been eradicated and property collectivized, which discounts anarchism which seeks many cooperative-style cells, which leads to class distinctions between cells.
Restricting the ability of class traitors to go against the working class is not a bad thing. Independent unions that seek greater autonomy for a small subset of a class in a way that goes against the rest of the class is the problem with individualist framing. China has the largest federation of unions on the planet, they do a fantastic job of protecting worker rights. The reason independent unions are not allowed is because these cracks in the system become highly exploitable by a capitalist class that very much would love to overthrow the working classes as the ruling class.
I never made the point that workers unions being state recognized made society socialist. I argued that MAGA incorporating workers into a capitalist state is not at all the same as the CPC integrating unions into the socialist state of China. You made the false comparison there.
You double-down on this dishonest framing that workers and capitalists are the same when you talk about authoritarianism. The state is not outside of class struggle, it is within it, and thus can only be the representative of the ruling class. I support the working classes having state authority to protect against capitalists, and this is not at all the same as supporting capitalists having state authority against workers. This is the same problem you keep bumping into, treating tools as abstractions without looking at what class is wielding the tools. You erase class struggle from society.
Your next paragraph just has you add “Capitalist” to the beginning of words, without justifying what makes any of it capitalist. GDP is not capitalist, it’s just a metric used for measuring production. The reason why China is successful is because it’s a socialist country, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the CPC is a proletarian party, which controls the state. It isn’t “capitalism and authoritarianism,” it’s a socialist market economy run democratically. If China was capitalist, it would fall into the same trappings as other capitalist economies, and would be well on its way down. Instead, it is increasing socialization of the economy:
As for China being neocolonial, I look at Africa to know that they aren’t. China forgives debt, develops infrastructure, and facilitates south-south trade. It isn’t neocolonial because it has no reason to be, it isn’t dominated by private finance capital, and as a result Africa is rapidly developing, rather than remaining entrapped like it has been by the west.
As for the PRC vs. the USSR, both are socialist, the USSR just took a more direct confrontational approach. It does not make the PRC capitalist.
Overall, I think you should start studying Marxism-Leninism. Not even to become one, but to understand why China’s socialist road looks the way it does. Everything about China matches up with how Marxist-Leninists would understand it to, but it clearly is thwarting how you are understanding it as an anarchist. To me, as a former anarchist, seeing socialist countries dramatically rise was one of the big problems that caused me to study Marxism and gradually abandon anarchism.
I don’t subscribe to an Individualist worldview, so no.
That’s only true of some kinds of Anarchist thought. Anarchism is a broad category of viewpoints, so you just painting it with a broad brush comes off as ignorance to Anarchist theory. Second, even if you were right and Anarchism universally advocated for a network of “cooperative-style cells” as you put it, you offered nothing to prove that it would lead to class distinctions in cells, you just asserted that blindly.
You pack this section with a ton of loaded assumptions, it’s sloppy reasoning. Assuming that any desire to deviate from the State-approved union structure in any way represents class betrayal is ridiculous. It falls into the identical category as religious fundamentalists who assume that even the slightest disagreement or challenge to the existing structure represents an existential threat to the whole, and must be crushed.
As a Statist, of course you wouldn’t view absolute State power as structurally problematic. The same way a religious fundamentalist doesn’t have a problem with the church having absolute power, as long as it is their religious sect that controls it. I disagree, because I am interested in structural critiques of power. I seek to increase the power of workers vs Capitalists, and also to reduce the power and influence of the State. These are not mutually exclusive goals, although they are complex and interconnected.
I didn’t say GDP was Capitalist, I said “Capitalist GDP growth”, or in other words, pursuing rapid and consistent GDP growth at the expense of other factors in an economy. You then just go on to assert the same Statist assumptions as before.
This one I found quite ironic, because first off, I literally listed multiple Capitalist trappings right above your response, which you just before, “…you add “Capitalist” to the beginning of words, without justifying what makes any of it capitalist.”
You then post a chart, I don’t know what it is from, but it assumes a statist framing, so my previous anti-statist critiques apply to that as well.
The USA forgives debt, the EU forgives debt, the damn IMF forgives debt…so what, they’re not evil and corrupt institutions now? The US Army Corps of Engineers builds infrastructure, does that mean the US military isn’t an evil, Neo-colonial institution? You also said, “It [China] isn’t neocolonial because it has no reason to be, it isn’t dominated by private finance capital…” As if private finance capital is the only reason anybody would be interested in Colonizing anything.
All of the benefits you claim come from China’s involvement in Africa can also be, and have been, claimed by Western Imperialist entities about their colonization projects. That’s why it’s Neo-Colonialism, I already said it is miles better than anything the West did, obviously. But better doesn’t make it good, if I bake a cake with 1 cup of feces mixed in the batter, reducing it to 1/4 cup of feces is better, but it’s still a shit cake.
No, the USSR actually was a legit State Socialist project. They actually largely eliminated private property, largely eliminated markets in favor of a centrally planned economy, and largely did not fall into Capitalist trappings like consumerism, vapid entertainment culture, or ultra-luxury goods. It was a disaster in many ways, horribly corrupt and terribly managed, and a lot of innocent people died needlessly. However they still managed to raise living standards for the vast majority of their population, develop interesting and impressive technologies; like a ternary logic-based computer, the first artificial satellite, the second most powerful military in the world for a while, and a rough but functional space program that saw several other “firsts.” Some Soviet technology is still used by modern cosmonauts, like their electro-mechanical orbital computers, which are considered very impressive by modern engineers, Westoids included.
This will be my last response in this thread because I think you and I have hit ideological bedrock. I’ve made all the primary points I wanted to make, and I think I have responded adequately to your statements. I oppose your worldview very strongly, but I do appreciate your civility in this exchange. In a weird way, I am rooting for China, everything they succeed at makes the US look even worse, and hopefully will help inspire a labor resurgence in the USA in the coming years. Right now we need all the help we can get.
I read through your comment and know you won’t respond to this, but I’ll respond nevertheless for anyone lurking or on the off-chance you read this.
First, when I described your individualist worldview, I did not mean this as a negative description, but instead an explanatory one. The primary issue with your analysis is seeing socialism as a relationship between two people, rather than two classes. This is why, for you, cooperatives are automatically socialist, but an economy run and controlled by the working class as a whole is not. I understand that you may see yourself as largely a communal, cooperative person, but this isn’t the same as how you actually frame systems and their components.
Next, since this is a Lemmy comment, I did have to oversimplify anarchism. I do understand that it’s incredibly broad (and this is part of the problem I have with it, but that’s a topic for another day). I did actually justify the cells -> class distinctions bit earlier, but I’ll be more direct. When different localized cells have different access to land, labor, and capital, this ownership within the local cell creates a disparity between other cells, leveraging into advantages that turn into class. This is why Marxists advocate collectivizing into one unified system, rather than splitting up everything into semi-autonymous cells.
Regarding unions that wish to be separate from a federation of unions within a socialist context, we have to understand what they are trying to be independent from and why. What does a Union have to gain by lowering its bargaining power through shrinking itself? Nothing. The only thing it gains is the ability to go against the broader system. That system is a socialist system, so we have to understand here that this is a fulcrum by which capitalists can destabilize the rest of the system. Independence isn’t the problem, it’s independence from what. Again, the structures are not independent from their context.
As for wanting to reduce the power of states and capitalists, unfortunately this in practice turns into opposition to the working class whenever they successfully establish state power. The state is not a body above the class struggle, but within it. By assuming that the state is inherently wrong, you run into ideological crisis when you see a socialist state, and then begin assuming incorrectly claims of neocolonialism, capitalism, etc, with no actual materialist basis. The numbers do not side with you here.
As for saying China is pursuing “capitalist GDP growth” simply because they actually are seeking an expansion to productive forces, which just so happens to coincide with increased profits, this again doesn’t help your case. You work backwards from “socialist states are bad,” then assume negativity from every advancing metric. Improving productive capacity is essential for establishing socialism, and has not come at the expense of the working classes:
Again, though, you never justified how any of the metrics you listed were inherently capitalist. “Work ethic” is not capitalist, for example. As I said, you just added “capitalist” to various things and never justified any of it. As for the chart, it’s from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explaining the process of developing into communism. It’s of course a Marxist POV, so it inherently is supportive of socialist states, but this does not make it incorrect.
As for China and your baseless claims of neocolonialism, the west is actively neocolonial. The west uses financial domination of the global south, including dollar hegemony, IP monopoly, unequal exchange, and more to extract as much surplus from the global south as possible. China does not, and the reason it does not is because it isn’t dominated by private finance capital. Private finance capital is the main driver of imperialism as a stage in capitalism, and because you have not looked into the causes of imperialism and neocolonialism and have not looked at the numbers, you assume that the socialists must be guilty as well:
Five Imperialist Myths About China’s Role in Africa
China debt trap? PH an ‘expert in bad loans,’ Locsin says
Deborah Brautigam Debunks the Chinese Debt Trap Theory in New Research Paper
China’s Debt Relief for Africa: Emerging Deliberations
As for all of your claims of the positives of the Soviet Union, they are true for the People’s Republic of China as well, with the exception that the PRC uses private property in secondary and developing industries. Life expectancy doubled in China and the USSR, literacy went from the low 30s to 99.9%, homelessness has largely been eradicated. You are again taking a religious stance, seeing any instance of private property as a “sin,” instead of looking at how socialism actually develops. You dismissed the chart I provided earlier, as well as the explanations I gave for private property in China, all because you work backwards from an assumed conclusion.
All in all, if you are rooting for China, why not look into how and why it works? Why not listen to the Chinese themselves explain how their system works and why they chose it?
Last link is incorrect
Oops, thanks!
Well this was a nice conversation to read.