- 25 Aug 2018 19:03
#14942264
My thinking is that any new economic orientation must evolve organically out of the existing order, if it is to have any hope of survival. Capitalism (as an -ism) essentially doesn't exist, except as an ex post facto justification. The secret of capitalism's longevity is its viral mutability - once it becomes captured by ideological constraints (as has happened in the US), it ossifies and declines fairly rapidly.
Ideological ossification played a central role in the failure of the Soviet experiment as well. I trace its downfall to Krondstadt and the rejection of actual socialism as counter-revolution/snobbery, etc.
ckaihatsu wrote:While all of this is nominally unobjectionable, I often wonder -- when I see this kind of line -- why certain comrades are content to retain the status quo economics of abstract valuations, and even market-exchanges, as the material-economic system for a transitional-to-post-capitalist society.
I do understand that this whole treatment is most likely meant for the 'socialism'-phase / workers-state transitional period out of capitalist social relations, and so would resemble a workers regime of 'radical reformism' / nationalization / socialization of all economic activity, but I'd like to impress the point that the necessarily-'hands-off' market mechanism should be transcended and laid to rest as quickly as is practically possible, due to its 'realm' of exchange values. This realm of exchange values, if retained, would directly compete alongside the *socialist*-minded politics and sentiment of a societal operation based on *use* values, to supply to all human need.
In other words, even a *workers* state shouldn't be *dependent* on supplies of capital, because the collective -- by definition -- is already in a dominant political position to *de-legitimize* the *use* of capital, and money in general, in favor of discrete 'hands-on' decisions / judgments over any given social matter.
I'm really not convinced that holding onto conventional / traditional economic practices from capitalism would be advantageous to the workers state in any sort of way, at any point in time. It would be better to collectively adopt 'best practices' types of policies to cover most realistic scenarios / situations, so that a commonly understood social norm takes hold, with most decisions then being socio-politically uncontroversial and doable by just about anyone, based on prevailing revolutionary sentiments and mass-supported guidelines.
My thinking is that any new economic orientation must evolve organically out of the existing order, if it is to have any hope of survival. Capitalism (as an -ism) essentially doesn't exist, except as an ex post facto justification. The secret of capitalism's longevity is its viral mutability - once it becomes captured by ideological constraints (as has happened in the US), it ossifies and declines fairly rapidly.
Ideological ossification played a central role in the failure of the Soviet experiment as well. I trace its downfall to Krondstadt and the rejection of actual socialism as counter-revolution/snobbery, etc.
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters. -Antonio Gramsci