midwesterncommunism

[midwesterncommunism]

Rent-Based Neo-Feudalism

One thing is for certain about modern capitalism: it is moving away from the classical exploitation-based economy we have seen in the past, and moving towards a rent-based, almost neo-feudal, barbarism.

Today, productive labor is becoming more and more redundant with the introduction of machines, and we are seeing a very particular phenomenon in capitalism emerge. The rise of information technology has given birth to new forms of rent, completely undermining the logic of traditional capitalism and birthing a new aristocracy. This aristocracy rules increasingly by direct violence (private police, military) and the re-introduction of new castes (the excluded, by walls, and the included, within those walls, etc.). This is because the productive capacities of society are no longer even directly congruent with the raw pursuit of profit. Increased automation means information; general intellect is increasingly the only necessary basis for production.

This would otherwise liberate us from all social positions and from work, but instead they are being monopolized by a growing aristocracy. These technologies are simply just 'owned' and rented out to society as a whole. This new and likely final trend of capitalism is akin to a sort of neo-feudalism. It  is taking form because, while money remains its own ends, the means by which money is acquired no longer has its basis in production (or even what is classically defined as exploitation, i.e., the appropriation of surplus value). Its basis lies increasingly in the form of rent with close to zero marginal costs, and all that sustains profit-making is directly violent monopolies.

What this inevitably leads to is the rise of mass-demographics of disposable life. These “disposable” people are excluded from the process of 'production' as such, are consigned to slums - to peripheries. Their labor is no longer productive or even useful for processes of capital accumulation and profiteering. It is almost a privilege to have a “productive” job where you are normally exploited as it was before. Now, people work several jobs, longer hours, and in a more chaotic and precarious fashion because their labor is either unnecessary or will become so soon. There is no steady work-life. The proletarian and those acquainted with them are aware of this: people must chaotically work from job to job for low pay at each, and so on. This is creating a new caste of disposable, slum-dwelling people who struggle to find ways of paying different kinds of rent, from housing rent to access to communicative technologies (internet, software) or to tangible goods produced with zero marginal costs.

This future of capitalism is quite dark. Note well — capitalism is extraordinarily dynamic, as we have seen more historical change and progress in the last 200 years of capitalism than in the last 200,000 years. This, however, is the last vestige of capitalism, the 'final frontier' where we will find ourselves at a crossroads: forward towards Communism, or a retraction into Barbarism. Congruent with this neo-feudal reanimation of capitalism has been the rise of technocratic, “elitist” trends of political thought that reject enlightenment ideals altogether. "Why have all this democratic nonsense; why not just get things done?" and so on. This so-called "dark enlightenment" will be discussed further in a later post. It should be noted that it grows directly in congruence with our emerging neo-feudal, rent-based economy (dominated by the likes of Silicon Valley, which is at odds with the capital of Wall Street and so on).

I am not one for apocalyptic "The times are near!" jargon, but we are truly approaching very dark times indeed. Communism must reemerge as a relevant movement to fight against this darkness, to fight for and revitalize the decaying democratic standards of 1789 and to push them to their highest conclusion. We must supersede them to constitute capitalism's aufhebung. This marriage of capitalism and democracy is quickly coming to an end. This is why as Communists, the fight in the 21st Century necessitates a fight for bourgeois democracy against this emerging reactionism, to revitalize democracy and ultimately supersede it in the process.

Capitalism is the word for the last epoch of wherein there exists the final social antagonism. This is only because, for the first time, the process of capital accumulation and the social relations which constitute it have laid the groundwork for a society that is socially self-conscious. The universality of that society is now embodied in its particular individual constituents as a Communist society.

Zizek also goes into great detail about this of this emerging rentier-capitalism and the political implications it brings with it.

Let us be realists; demand the impossible!

[midwesterncommunism]

THE RED TERROR

The Red Terror, and its infamous Cheka, was a period of intense revolutionary repression by the Bolsheviks in the beginning of 1918 (although this period of revolutionary terror can be de facto extended up until 1922, albeit its peak in intensity was long before). The terror was justified for the Bolsheviks in the name of fighting reaction, and all was in sake of the security of the proletarian dictatorship. Trotsky wrote in his book Terrorism and Communism,

“The severity of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, let us point out here, was conditioned by no less difficult circumstances [i.e. than the French Revolution]. There was one continuous front, on the north and south, in the east and west. Besides the Russian White Guard armies of Kolchak, Denikin and others, there are those attacking Soviet Russia, simultaneously or in turn: Germans, Austrians, Czecho-Slovaks, Serbs, Poles, Ukrainians, Roumanians, French, British, Americans, Japanese, Finns, Esthonians, Lithuanians In a country throttled by a blockade and strangled by hunger, there are conspiracies, risings, terrorist acts, and destruction of roads and bridges […] The first conquest of power by the Soviets at the beginning of November 1917 (new style) was actually accomplished with insignificant sacrifices. The Russian bourgeoisie found itself to such a degree estranged from the masses of the people, so internally helpless, so compromised by the course and the result of the war, so demoralized by the regime of Kerensky, that it scarcely dared show any resistance. A revolutionary class which has conquered power with arms in its hands is bound to, and will, suppress, rifle in hand, all attempts to tear the power out of its hands. Where it has against it a hostile army, it will oppose with its own army. Where it is confronted with armed conspiracy, attempt at murder, or rising, it will hurl at the heads of its enemies an unsparing penalty.” To to put the counter-revolution to the sword — this was the rationale behind the Red Terror, behind the shutting down of the reactionary press and the shooting of White Army officers (something which has been a feature of every Civil War — ours included). To overcome the enemies of the Revolution, [the Bolsheviks had] to have their own Socialist Militarism.”

This novel is incredibly helpful for achieving a greater understanding of the Red Terror as well as Revolutionary Terror, and I highly recommend it.

One must understand this about the Terror: it was a grassroots phenomena spearheaded by the industrial proletariat themselves, and insofar as it became more centralized and organized, excesses were CURTAILED (which was the basis of institutionalizing it in the first place - controlling it). Though this may come as a shock, the increase of state control over the revolution did not increase the brutality and barbarity of the violence, it in fact greatly reduced it. The organization that assumed Bolshevik revolutionary violence was INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to unjust and arbitrary localized killings. The Bolsheviks made sure this terror was conducted with the highest consideration for the holistic well-being of the revolution in mind. Keep in mind the fact that the Red Terror began at a grassroots level. The more centralized and the more disciplined the Terror was to the Party directly, the less room there was for unjust excesses. This is due the Bolsheviks’ unreadiness to exercise revolutionary terror until faced with a revolutionary situation; they simply were not prepared.

At the onset, the Bolsheviks were OPPOSED to the death penalty. They did not re-introduce the death penalty for cynical reasons; they re-introduced it out of sustaining the proletarian dictatorship. They would not have put political enemies to death had it not been absolutely essential to sustain and protect their movement. Any excesses on their part were ultimately owed to their initial attitude on matters of death. A revolution is a situation of emergency, and the prolonging of remnants of this emergency into a repressive state apparatus after the October revolution WAS justified, because the threat of counter-revolution, remained — as the state was immersed into a global context that was, ‘spontaneously’, hostile to its existence. Revolution is not an event wherein there are third positions — it is polarizing. Certain acts that would otherwise be harmless or meaningless, take on a different, contextual and conditional character. This is why comparing beating the shit out of those distributing anti-Semitic propaganda to beating the shit out of someone for “expressing his opinion” in any other circumstance is TOTALLY GROUNDLESS - different contexts and historical conditions necessarily bestow different meaning to certain acts. Of course, for an idealist who ossifies moral categories (bestowed by none other than god himself) into eternal, timeless truths, this is simply impossible to wrap one’s head around. Marxists, conversely, are travelers of history. We are by nature as materialists trans-historical in that we can ‘sustain’ a change from this epoch to the next.

Even in Russia, the Terror was a democratic grassroots affair, the only problem was that the basis of the terror, the revolutionary proletariat, were demographically a minority. Because this minority was decimated, and because the Soviet state was unable to build real institutions of a proletarian dictatorship, older institutions, or ones made in emergency triumphed. But even then, abuses were not easy to go unnoticed.

As for attacks on counter-revolutionaries who happened to be in factories, again, one should bare in mind the fact that often times those who were working in factories during the period of the civil war were not in fact conscious, militant proletarians but those who did not want to directly aid the war effort on the front. Of course, this proletariat was not large enough to constitute the entire Red army, which was the whole point of forced conscription (vis-a—vis the peasantry).

To sum things up, at the onset of the Russian revolution, the Bolsheviks explicitly claimed they want to do everything they could to avoid repeating the Jacobin terror. They were wrong and naïve for thinking this. Their naïvety and short-sightedness caused excesses admittedly unnecessary in retrospect because they did not prepare for revolutionary terror beforehand. The ONLY reason is a retrospective one. The Terror was a grassroots and supported affair (AMONGST THE PROLETARIAT — a minority), it was a weapon to smash the counter-revolution and defend the revolution from being overturned. It was not just random, senseless killings of political dissidents — there WERE anarchists who fought alongside the Bolsheviks and were not killed. That is because in practical terms they were fighting for the proletarian dictatorship. It doesn’t matter what you want to call yourself for whatever arbitrary reason. Those anarchists who were repressed, were repressed for reasons beyond ‘disagreeing’ with the Bolsheviks. Was the White Army repressed because it 'disagreed’ with the Bolsheviks? Yes, but the PARTICULARITIES of this 'disagreement’ are what is of concern, and nothing more. The idea that terror can be exercised without the participation of the proletariat themselves is baseless. Every single act of proletarian revolutionary terror, not only entailed the participation of the proletarian class, they were the ones who initiated it in the first place. So who will the proletariat be looking upon to judge in the first place? No one but themselves. They will be self sufficient unto themselves, responsible unto themselves, under the organization of the revolutionary party that which is irreducible to any one man.

That is Communism. Communism is seizing one’s historical destiny by the throat - it is social self-consciousness. Communism is the horizon that is totally inconceivable - it is the freedom of determining the destiny of society as a society. But this is no airy-fairy affair. That entails discipline, self-sacrifice and collective responsibility. The Bolsheviks were indeed an externality, an “alien force” for the peasantry — not so for the urban working class. Today in the west, we have no demographic equivalent to the Russian peasantry — hence why we can effectively have a 'democratic’ revolution (albeit not one of peace in its entirety).

The notion that “a revolution founded on terror will accentuate terror/make it a part of society’s logic,“ is abominably idiotic.

It holds no bearings in reality. Does “killing” things, in itself, have its own autonomous dimension that is outside universal reason? Does the act of “killing”, alone have some kind of mind in and of itself that can be abstracted from the REASON behind the killing? Does it happen because it’s fun? Only for he who overly-emphasizes a moral aversion to killing, in the same way only a sexual pervert sees perversities far beyond their actual expression and context. The fact of the matter is that no, this is wrong - if there is no reason to kill when there were otherwise a reason, why would killings (which would now be for totally arbitrary reasons) be necessary? This is purely not only illogical, it is anti-logical. The logic presented goes as: “IF a new order is built on terror, then terror would be necessary to sustain it indefinitely”. This fails to actually assess the basis of any state-based terror and violence, which has its basis in the social antagonism. It assumes that the PREVIOUS social antagonism, even long after it is destroyed, would somehow re-assert itself in a Communist society, and that emanates from an unconscious superstitious belief in the inevitability of the 'human nature’ of capital, i.e. that the present conditions are owed to something that is inevitably the expression of something 'inside’ humans, or whatever you want.

Revolutionary terror is therefore negative, not affirmative- it is the result of the UNLEASHING of all previous forms of violence and terror, it does not introduce a new kind of violent coercion, it does away with violent coercion through violent coercion. A revolution is answerable to the context that which it was wrought, if it were any way otherwise, we would be living in Communism already.

[midwesterncommunism]

Apology: a Look at Ideology

When discussing the proletariat and other issues within the nations of East Asia, Africa, and South America, one often hits what I label as the apologetic wall. This is a phenomenon that occurs when one points out something absolutely horrendous, such as the coffin homes of Hong Kong - in Hong Kong, some of the poorest citizens live in “homes” no bigger than a coffin. When hearing about similar situations, it isn’t uncommon for the information to be followed by a phrase akin to “it may be bad, but…” and some excuse, rationalization, or justification. “It may be bad, but it’s better than living on the streets.” Or, “It may be bad, but it’s livable.” This is to fall back on a “big other.” This particular big other is history, and the natural progression of conditions. About Hong Kong, one could say the living conditions are better than those of subsistence farmer in imperial China (which is debatable as is). I am not saying we should discard historical analysis - quite the opposite. Injustice is not to be rationalized based on relative improvement or cultural relativism. Ideology gleefully removes your responsibility to take action because, of course, society will eventually improve, just as it always has. The justifications of atrocities not permissible in normal logic is pure ideology and necessitates its destruction.

[midwesterncommunism]

Orthodox Marxism

“Orthodox Marxism does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations. It is not the ‘belief’ in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a ‘sacred’ book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical materialism is the road to truth and that its methods can be developed, expanded and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders.” — Gyorgy Lukfics, History and Class Consciousness

I am making this short post to clear up possible misconceptions when I call myself an “Orthodox Marxist,” or say Lenin was, and so on. Orthodoxy here does not refer to religiously accepting every word Marx wrote — but it an absolute adherence to the methodology of Marxism, that of dialectical materialism. If an assessment proves wrong, it merely requires a reevaluation from a scientific standpoint — we do not ditch the science altogether. The same goes for Marxism — it IS unfalsifiable, because it introduces no new empirical facts from the outset of understanding the world. It approaches the social dimension, as the natural sciences do for the physical world around us. We are strict adherents to the methodology of Marxism, this is the ‘Orthodoxy’ of it.

[midwesterncommunism]

Economic Calculation

The calculation problem posed by Austrians does not concern the ability of a society to house, clothe or feed a population. It does not concern the allocation of resources to meet already existing needs (for an example: the bare subsistence of life: of food, water, electricity, etc.). Rather, it concerns the fluctuation of demand — of consumer goods and such. The claim is that a Socialist planned economy would not be able to react effectively to changing demands due to a lack of price signals. Mises claims, of course, that a static society would have no problem in centrally planning the production of goods — the real world is, of course, not static but incredibly dynamic.

How have the Socialists recently combated such an intimidating argument, the so-called hallmark of anti-Socialist thought (which Libertarians are apt to point out when all else fails)? This is one of the arguments you find Socialists conceding to the enemy and finding recluse in absurdities like ‘Market-Socialism’ and decentralized planning. It truly is a shame, as this is nothing but a paper tiger. Let us behead this chimera and show the falsity behind this tautology.

Let’s start from the obvious, yet very much overlooked, fact: every society, every mode of production (i.e. the totality of social relations which each individual constitutes and is constituted by, which is irreducible to any single constituent member of society) follows its own rationality, or has its own logic it abides by. Why is this important for the debate?

The want for consumer goods in Capitalism follows the need for people to cope with and live within Capitalism (materially, spiritually, etc.). Wants are not simply arbitrary. They abide by the very rationality, or logic, of a society. If we assume a Socialist society has even the possibility of existing (which — mind you — IS NOT disputed by Austrians, who only claim it can exist but would be inefficient and so on), it would necessarily follow an entirely different rationality of its own

This is not for any arbitrary reason. This is because, by merit of the same rationality that would have led to Capitalism’s actual overthrow, a society that is actually rationally planned could not possibly be planning for the same exact things that are produced through market processes. Market processes are contingent upon a society which is not rationally planned. The different standard of rationality is the ‘planning’ itself; it is the society which has a plan regarding every crevice in its structure because it is entirely self-conscious. What that means is that no aspect of life is taken for granted. No forces purported to be outside of human control are recognized: no ‘genetics’, no ‘instincts’, no god, no soul, no spirits, nothing. No “holy mysteries” can be used to excuse the responsibility for conditions of life that can only truly be constituted by living individuals. Only men and women and the life that they will.

To step aside from more philosophical talk, the point boils down to this: if we are able to even imagine what could motivate a Communist society to regularly change, then we solve the problem of calculation. That’s truly it. We could talk about ‘the endless pursuit of science’ and so on, but that raises the existential question, “Why would people even be motivated to do this?”

The answer may already lie within the framework of Capitalism itself. Capitalism is the predecessor to Communism precisely because it constantly revolutionizes the means of production as a result of the infinite antagonisms it creates and responds to. Communism is a society of problems, one with definite technological, constructive antagonisms that can never be perfected. The only difference is that it is able to address those problems in a conscious manner. There will always be antagonisms that concern the social order of things, but they will not be of the social itself structure, i.e. class struggle.

Is the antagonism between consciousness and the world around us not enough? In a socially self-conscious society, the absence of social antagonisms does not mean the end of history, but the beginning of a history wherein antagonisms do not concern the struggle for power. We Communists do not deny that the demands of people will be ever changing. We only claim that the foundations of production in such a society will not be reduced to regularly fulfilling the hunger of Capital, but instead the various expressions of creativity by men and women building upon themselves infinitely. Beyond their mere desire to survive and sustain themselves is the drive to master the world around them. We do not have a single idea of how this would work, but we know it is possible, for only the superstition of bourgeois theologians fosters doubt of its possibility.

This Communism is a future that is knowable only insofar as what does not characterize it. It is the ideology that sustains Marxism; the unknowable is merely ideologically designated through the struggle against the class enemy. The basis for this Communist struggle is already within the premises of Capitalist society. It requires no justification with grand Utopian narratives, for it is the ideology of the ruling class, not us sinister Marxists, that generates a standard for the masses that itself fails to abide by.

In a nutshell, the calculation problem is entirely tautological: it asks how a Socialist society would be able to effectively plan the same processes that are undertaken in a Capitalist economy. This misses the point that demands are NOT merely arbitrary things which appear ‘from nothing,’ and have no basis in the social order they are immersed in. The point is that WE are not dealing with a ‘more effectively planned’ Capitalism – a more efficient consumerism. The entire rationality behind Socialism is different, not just for the uninformative reason that it is ‘another mode of production,’ but because it is a society which is entirely self-conscious of every crevice of its existence. It represents the unending conquest of the natural world by man (unmediated by social antagonism).

It is an abjectly stupid assumption that the wants and needs of society produced by autonomous processes of the market would simply be taken over by a caste of planners who would replace the omnipotent market to fulfill that which was only generated by the market in the first place. This is simply not what socialism stands for. The God they call The Market is not simply to be replaced by a new God called The State — the Capitalist mode of production is a process, NOT A MEANS OR SOME ‘TOOL’ WE HUMANS USE to fulfill human wants and needs — it GENERATES human wants and needs JUST AS MUCH as it fulfills them. This is done through ideology; people want things in Capitalism that allow them to cope with life under Capitalism. It is a closed-circuit process. If they spontaneously wanted things which would allow them a life outside of Capitalism, then we would not be living under Capitalism. Market processes cannot conform to the prerogative to destroy market processes. This is the tautology behind the argument; this is the abject stupidity behind it. Of course a Socialist society would not effectively carry out and meet the wants generated in a Capitalist society.

Ask yourself, “Can the wants and needs of Capitalist society (i.e. that which allows for its reproduction) necessitate the overthrow of Capitalist society?” They cannot insofar as Capitalist society actually exists. If market processes had to conform to the wants and needs of a society that did not want markets, market processes could not exist.The question then becomes what will drive a Socialist society. I say it is a ceaseless conquest of nature by merit of the existing problems of society being technical ones that would only be resolved through the further manipulation of the world around us and beyond (put shortly: the infinite antagonism between nature and man). What that means is that the means of evaluating the worth of what is produced would be relative to holistic societal projects and prerogatives, such as space-travel. What would drive production in the first place, and what would be the ‘rational’ basis for producing this at the expense of self-referential prerogatives to subdue and manipulate natural processes which would be infinite. An idealist cannot wrap their head around that; for them, you consciously possess a goal, you fulfill that goal, and nothing else. Yet we irrational Socialists do not think that way; we see life not as a matter of fulfilling static goals but a process that must be actively reproduced. A Socialist society would be reproducing itself in congruence with conquering natural processes — it will literally be ‘riding’ the world externally from men and women. Society would be mobile and fluid. Society is not a house but a ship. This is what a socially self-conscious society looks like.

There is nothing complicated about this argument: all it means is that the essential, driving force of production, i.e. the rationality that drives the constituents of a Socialist society, would have to be different. The Austrians’ argument, assumes that because Socialism will not adequately reproduce Capitalism, Socialism could not exist. Whether or not you insist upon Socialism’s possibility or not is irrelevant. If you construct an argument against its possibility by saying it will not be the Capitalist mode of production, that is nothing but a tautology and derives from your uncritical assumption that the only possible mode of life is the one we are living in.

If Socialism is even by default possible, which not even Austrians dispute, then it follows that Socialism will have an entirely different rationality (and to deny this it to bury your head in the sand and refuse to understand how totality works). If it follows a different rationality, then the Calculation problem falls apart — what is essentially tautological about the Calculation Problem, is it essentially asks how Socialism would fulfill the same market processes generated BY Capitalism itself! What would drive Socialism, what would ‘move’ a society conscious of itself and for itself, would be the incessant antagonism between the natural world and man (or: between man and problems concerning the social, i.e. technical problems). If it sounds simplistic, that’s because it is — WE DON’T NEED to draw up some grandiose device for specifically how this would work in the absence of a real Communist movement TODAY (literally). We don’t need to blueprint the particularities of a socially self-conscious society at the expense of the socially self-conscious men and women who would constitute it (for this defeats the entire fucking point); we KNOW it is possible because only the bourgeois skeptic deems it an impossibility that — god forbid — man can actually TAKE CONTROL of his life, that he can take it by the horns and direct it in the way he wills.  

In summary the Calculation problem is tautological because it asks how a Socialist society would fulfill ever-changing demands without understanding that demands are GENERATED congruently by the mode of production itself. Asking how Socialism would abide by Capitalism’s particular rationality is tautological and is emphatically stupid. ‘Demands’ in Socialism are congruent with holistic societal prerogatives, because the universality of society is embodied in each constituent member of society.

[midwesterncommunism]

Tautological Apologetics

Capitalists by no means are “useless.” They do contribute to production, to the economy today — without them, the economy WOULD fall apart.

But that is precisely what we are criticizing: we don’t give a damn how long, how intensely your exalted businessman or stock broker works, we don’t care if he works 23 hours per day. Whose contribution is more important, the capitalist or the laborer? A worthless question — both play their part, certainly, in production, yet it is an abstract moral question, one that is ideological, and meaningless insofar as we conceive them and their social role. That is, contribution to WHAT, and what do we think of this, and so on. A capitalist can work 23 hours a day, it doesn’t make a difference insofar as we speak of the social relations he is immersed in.

It’s a classic tautology: capitalists contribute to the reproduction of the capitalist system, therefore ‘leftism’ is invalid. What a stupid notion, and how sad it is to see these hysterical anti communist profiles being complacent with themselves after making such an argument. It only goes to show how little they understand, how much goes over their head. While they concern themselves with apologetics concerning “who contributes more to the system,” we are concerning ourselves with a criticism of this rotten system altogether. Let me give you philistines a subtle hint: our critique in capitalism isn’t rooted in the shallow reasoning that “the proletarian works more, so he should be reimbursed more,” or “capitalists don’t do a thing so we should have participatory workplace democracy.” No, THEY DO — but what do they do things for? To what ends? Are they necessary FOR PRODUCTION in general?

Capitalists, entrepreneurs, and so on — they, like laborers and such, ARE important, ARE NECESSARY in the reproduction of our modern capitalist society. For some reason, we have idiots here who act like it’s some profound discovery, some coup de grace to communist theory when this is brought up. This isn’t controversial, and your pretensions to statistics about long hours worked by CEOs and so on don’t qualify a thing besides your inability to understand what we are criticizing.

Capitalism isn’t some magical phenomenon, it isn’t some idea which we humans have “discovered” and decided to apply because it ‘works best.’ It isn’t a tool — it is a mode of production which is ONLY constituted by men and women like us. The question is: what position are we in to act like we ought not to destroy the existing order, because we find ‘utility’ in it, when this order of things is constituted only by actual individuals like us? Why do we have to ‘trick’ ourselves in this way? The word capitalism is being used as though it is like a separate tool we ‘use’. How is it a ‘tool’ when it is nothing but our own activity?

[midwesterncommunism]

Individualism vs Collectivism

This is simply a false dilemma. Just like the theory of  totalitarianism, the dispute between Collectivism and Individualism is only valid if it is congruent with liberal values in the first place. These silly abstractions of moral conscience act as though humans make decisions between a “system” built upon either Individualism or Collectivism as if they were conflicting, internal principles that constitute political district. To speak of Collectivism as opposed to Individualism (generally and in the most cases, at least)  requires liberal values that are the partnership which makes one favor Individualism in the first place. We are Communist; we do not care about moral justifications because we recognized the social conflict behind global disputes. There are no objectively “right” or “wrong” morals; there are only classes which entail morality. So, if you’re talking to an Anticommunist, tell them earnestly, ”Yes, we are indeed Collectivists.” We seek to destroy the framework which makes this very notion of Individualism possible and justifiable in the first place. Those who prattle and cry about Collectivism are horrified by their notion of Communism. Even if these very notions are wrong (and they most likely are), we still make no pretense of comforting them. They have no reason to be disgusted by Communism with their false notions. This is all just a projection of the bourgeoisie, who would suffer the real horrors when faced with actual revolution.

Take Aldous Huxley as an example. His novel was certainly influenced by Communist ideology, perhaps even Stalinism to a certain extent. It’s very obvious that Brave New World does not really take place in a Communist society. Huxley probably did not even make a pretense of describing one. Nevertheless, the book, or at least the message, can and should be objected by Communists. This is not because his dystopia was an example of “real Communism” which he opposed, but because his fear is genuine, and he ideologically projects what, in his mind, is most terrifying about Communism onto his fictional world

To return to the initial point regarding Collectivism, it is not our responsibility to make our positions attractive to those bourgeois ideologues who are disgusted by Collectivism and fear that they won’t be able to “fulfill themselves” in a Communist society. Though they have incorrect ideas of Communism, this does not matter; they would oppose the real ones twice as much.

In Marxist theory, however, this is, as I said, just a false dilemma. Individualism and Collectivism are not eternal principles societies are based upon; they (or, to be more precise, notions of them) are constituted by nothing other than associations between humans. The notion of Individualism implies that man is naturally “free”, born with certain skills and talents are to be equipped for social life – that society (or social pressure, ergo Collectivism) in a way limits their individuality. We, as Marxists, on the other hand, recognize that there is no such thing as individuality. It’s much like Marx’s position on the division of labor: its development was not owed to inherent skills; these skills only then became meaningful when the structures necessarily preceded them. Likewise, there is no trade and no skill that does not relate to or is not constituted by wider social order in the first place. Individualism, privacy, etc. must not be taken for granted; they are only existent because social context allow them to be existent. It necessitates them even. Every single human being relates to a whole society – no exceptions. That is, to say, there is no antagonism between Collectivism and Individualism. Communism for the Communist isn’t really either of the two. Communism is the recognition of one’s own, already-existing (inevitably existing) relation to and dependence on society as a whole. It’s not Individualism because this implies free will would be divorced from society, and it’s not Collectivism because this requires Individualism as a counterpart. Think of it this way: in Communism, it’s every individual’s genuine will to be a part of a greater collective. Solidarity is self-fulfillment

[midwesterncommunism]

On Sartre’s Free Will

Sartre himself being a Marxist, is one of the principal philosophers to read if a leftist is to be introduced to philosophy. Modern existentialism rejects a “big other” and makes man the sole agent in our world, much like how communism is the seizing of man’s full potential. We are free. This main conclusion of Sartre lends the famous phrase;

“Man is condemned to be free because once he is thrown into the world he is responsible for everything he does.”

This is where the feeling of angst arrives to the scene. There is nothing preordained,  everything is possible, and humans are just making it up as we go. It is the feeling of which you are standing at a cliff, you know nothing is keeping you from jumping yet you are still terrified of the thought of jumping. Every action could and will have a massive effect on your life. However we are not to live in this “anguish of existence” as Sartre calls it. You should do what YOU want to do, not society, not your parents, not your friends. These false beliefs is called “bad faith.” This is when you do something you yourself does not want to do. Sartre uses the example of a woman on her first date, she acts like any other person would because she’s doing “what’s expected” because of convenience. Likewise this is a paradoxical free choice to deny yourself freedom or in this case free will. This also ties into agents and objects. To Sartre saying one “must” do something is the ultimate sin. You reduce yourself to an object while the Self is an agent. Agent’s choose objects must. There is little deliberation on what you, the Self wants to do rather you lock yourself into a situation when in reality you don’t need to do if you do not want to. You are free enough to see the cage that is society but not free enough to escape it. I mean this in the sense that if you do realize you are acting in “bad faith” and you cease your actions, like told in Camus’s fantastic novel The Stranger (L’Étranger), you are cast out by society at large.

So where does free will come from? There is no purpose in life, one simply is. Existence precedes essence; and freedom is existence. That is who we are can’t be pinned down to one single factor. Sartre words it as;

“All the things we are at present not, but could possibly become”

Therefore man is inherently free. However if we dig a little deeper we see there is something far more concrete. Our existence is separated into two parts for lack of a better term. He names the fluid, dynamic self our personality or consciousness as the For-itself. The other being the self-identical self or the unconsciousness is called the in-itself. The in-itself appears to represent something that lacks meaning or reason. It is a being that just is, a being of phenomenon or things, an object of consciousness. The For-Itself negates the In-itself thus allowing us to perceive ourselves as the “other.” This allows for things such as bad faith, and as well as sub-optimal decisions, thus generating free will. This is all because as Sartre words it;

“We are always aware that we are more than what we are aware of so we are not what we are are aware of”

“Human reality is what it is not and it is not what it is”

Man is always more than his situation, thus making it impossible to be aware of his complete situation. This is what the quotes are trying to get across.  While a wolf MUST hunt, as a part of instinct, we can CHOOSE not to eat till later even though it may not be the best decision. It appears somewhat of a paradox that in order to achieve transcendence and thus absolute freedom, that a nothingness, a lack, a defective for-itself plays such an important part. However, the concept of nothingness is indispensable to existential philosophy.

So how does this relate to leftism? Sartre was disgusted by capitalism. We see that many options for someone’s life is tied to money. With the phrase “that’s if I didn’t have to worry about money,” we shut out things that we want to do such as redefine ourselves, go into a new career, live abroad, or even leave a partner. Sartre regarded capitalism as a factory that creates a false sense of necessity (again reducing us to objects) when there really isn’t a need for one. Work, buy, sleep, die is the pattern that everyone must follow in order to remain part of society. In this there is only a denial of freedom and the reluctance to live in other ways.

[midwesterncommunism]

Laws of the Capitalist Economy

(IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS ESSAY DOES REQUIRE THAT YOU KNOW AT LEAST THE BASICS OF MARX’S THEORY OF VALUE. SO IF YOU’RE NEW TO MARX THEN THIS POST MIGHT BE A LITTLE WEIRD TO YOU).

Karl Marx, as an economist, is (in)famous for his analysis of Capitalism and the laws of motion that make it up. His theory of development trends – as in, developments in the process and reprocessing of capital – constitutes one of his most impressive points in analysis. While he was never alive to complete the book (Capital: Volume 3) on general capitalist motion himself, due to his death, his lifelong friend Engels was able to complete it with hefty notes and his own extensive knowledge on Marx’s economic doctrine and methods. Regardless, there exists multiple interpretations, rejections, and controversies surrounding the laws of motion. There is, actually, Marxists who disagree with some aspects of this law of motion outright (at least how it is to be interpreted), such as the importance of the rate of profit and it’s tendencies are. See David Harvey’s critique of Marx’s tendency of the rate of profit to fall, for example. I however will not waste my time trying to encompass all of those and whatever into this single text, and will simply present Marx’s theory in the order. Under capitalist production there is, mainly due to the forces of competition, an inexcusable compulsion to accumulate capital. Capital appears in it’s usual instance in the form of money which is then invested into circulation as to reap more value, namely profit. Money that will likely in some part of its composition a greater sum of value to re-cycle into the process of accumulation; multiplication. Capital is value set into motion as to multiple itself. The holders of capital will engage in this insofar as they gain more than initially invested. Capitalist production is thereby marked by the conquest for greater sums of profit, forming the basis of economic operation on behalf of the holders of capital -whether individual, corporate, or even in the hands of the state. We must also quickly remind the reader that, in capitalist production, profit (surplus-value) originates in wage-labor. The appropriation of value is the emblem stamp of the relations between capital and labor. While surplus-value is produced, it is only realized through sale. Profit is only generated via the realization of surplus-value. According to Marx, ‘capital’ can only take the form of ‘many capitals’. Further implying competition between holders of capital. This competition is competition for sales on the market. For that very realization of surplus-value. The capitalist can not be so sure his or hers commodities, the newly created value, will be sold, will be realized, and given the conditions of this uncertainty the capitalist necessarily tries to get the one-up their competitors. This means operating with more capital – that a greater portion of the sum total profit made will be re-invested into capital. They’re not only working for profit but working for more and more capital accumulation. This is the fire of capitalism brought forth by competition, and with less of this competition the fire will begin to dim, without it the fire would burn out entirely. Competition is the logic of capitalism, and rightfully so. This accumulation of capital is primarily the accumulation of productive capital. Capital that is invested as to increase the rate of output in the production of commodities such as in mining or agriculture. The competition between firms is geared towards cutting production cost. On increasing the efficiency of production, i.e., the rate at which inputs become outputs. And competition does this remarkably well. Hence the private capitalist firms in the United States were able to cut the use of electricity in producing steel while in state-capitalist economies, such as the Soviet Union, excessive amounts of electricity was needed in steel production. It is because of this trend capital accumulation results in what we may call a ‘constant revolution in the technique of production’. We conclude that the accumulation of capital is the primary subject of capitalism. But now we go to the origin of capital itself, surplus-value. What is capital accumulation except for the capitalization of surplus-value? Capital accumulation is synonymous with the need to increase the production of surplus-value. It is the transformation of surplus-value into additional capital. If capital is capitalized surplus-value, and surplus-value originates in production, then additional capital can come from no other source than surplus-value as generated in production. And there is two types of ways to increase the production of surplus-value according to Marx: the production of absolute surplus-value or the production of relative surplus-value. The former essentially being an increase in the work day and the latter an increase in productivity. If a worker reproduces their equivalency in wages in 2 hours, a work day might be extended from 8 hours to 10, resulting in an increase of surplus-value production from 6 hours to 8 hours. That is an example of the production of ‘absolute surplus-value’. On the other hand, an increase in productivity within a sector of the economy is an example of ‘relative surplus-value’. For example, an decrease in the production time of commodity X from 2 hours to 1, and we assume the workday stays stable at 8 hours and that real wages are stable, the production of surplus-value goes from 6 hours to 7 hours. The production of absolute surplus-value was predominant before relative surplus-value, which rose to the predominant position after the second half of the 19th century. First spreading to nations such as France and Great Britain, it soon spread out to the United States and Germany, then to more and more societies before encompassing the world. Even the USSR and the rest of the former backwards communist states on their road to industrialization. This process is what we’ll call the `subsumption of labor under capital’. The development of the capitalist mode of production is characterized by this process. The increase of relative surplus-value production is the logic behind capitalism’s employment of machinery. Moreover from that, when productivity expands on this level real wages and profit can simultaneously expand as well! Because of things like this we get phenomenons such as former luxury goods becoming mass produced such as aluminum, sugar, coffee, and so on. Or for a more modern example computers, phones, and television. Even things like toothpaste and over-the-counter medication! All goods that used to be luxury items before the boom of relative surplus-value. This entire motion of successful firms operating with more and more capital is what Marx would call the ‘tendency towards growing concentrations of capital’. Each of these firms with tendencies to grow towards a concentration of capital, however, are in a competition. Some win some lose – the winners grow while the losers either go bankrupt or become absorbed. This process of winners and losers is what Marx would call the `centralization of capital’. It results in a relatively declining number of successful firms in key sectors of production. Productive capital, however, has a twofold life similar to a commodity, with its material category and social category; use-value and value (exchange-value). Firstly it appears as ‘constant capital’ and secondly as ‘variable capital’. The former appearing as buildings, machinery, inputs, and so on, and the latter being capital expenditure on the wages of productive workers. The part of capital used for labor-power is called ‘variable’ because only that produces any additional value whatsoever. The source of any ‘added value’. In production the value of constant capital is either transferred as a whole or in part, overall maintaining itself. It is here that Marx suggests that the historic trend of capitalist production, or more correctly, capital accumulation, is to invest in constant capital at a faster rate than in variable capital. This relationship makes-up what Marx calls ‘the organic composition of capital’. It is both a technical relation as well as a value relation – the historical trend of an increase in the organic composition of capital is better put forward as a trend towards labor-saving technical progress. Now, before we move on, we have to note the way in which this notion has been criticized. Many critics challenge this notion in a confusion between wage bills and variable capital – that is, whereas wage bills are wages in general, variable capital is wages on productive labor (a notion I will be covering in future essays by the way). Furthermore, we will now get into the farthest implication of the capitalist law of motion – what Marx would call ‘the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’, the central theme of his crisis theory. The primary relation workers concern themselves with is the rate of surplus-value. The rate of surplus-value is nothing more than the sum of ‘added value’ between wages and surplus-value. When it goes up, their level of appropriation goes up with it. On the other end, this relation is far less meaningful for the capitalist. The capitalist is primarily concerned with the relationship between surplus-value and the sum total of capital invested. This relationship is what Marx called the ‘rate of profit’, comprised of both the rate of surplus-value and the organic composition of capital. Let’s say the value of constant capital is represented by a C, the value of variable capital by a V, and surplus-value by an S. The rate of profit could then be written as S/(C+V). From this Marx suggests that while increasing the rate of surplus-value has its definite limits, increasing the organic composition of capital has none. He concludes in basic that the rate of profit has a tendency to fall. However, says Marx and his followers, this is only true on the level of a ‘secular trends’ – in the long run. In more narrow time-frames the rate of profit can fluctuate up or down due to a number forces. For example, constant capital can be devalued through a technical process of ‘capital saving’ or what-have-you, capital may flow to other sectors where the organic composition is lower by a significant portion and thereby actually raise the average rate of profit, and so on. Perhaps nations? There are many ‘countering forces’ against this in the short and even medium term. There is especially the counter force of ‘increases in the mass of surplus-value’ as Marxist call it. Usually done through an extension of wage-labor in general (increasing the total sum of wage workers), it sets off negative effects of scaled declines in the average rate of profit, etc. So in conclusion, the capitalist law of motion is capital accumulation brought on by competition.

[midwesterncommunism]

Abstract and Useful Labor

“What are we referring to by labor?” If a common useful labor is what adds utility to an object what adds exchangeability? In other words; how do we derive exchange value for labor? Is it still useful labor? No. That is the mistake David Ricardo made. While observing that value embodied labor, he failed to rationally analyze this proposition. Useful labor is not what makes a commodity under the capitalist pretext; it does not give a commodity its value. What we are looking for abstracts from the qualities of useful labor. Let’s look at money, the high and mighty representative of value: money has a lot of ‘social power’ in the capitalist mode of production. It can hire an entire workforce, take away your home, cut down a forest, get you fired, etc. Except money doesn’t do these things, it is simply a value relation. Money is still however, taken more seriously. Value relations dominate human relations. What gives money this strange social power? Money can seemingly do all that is possible. It has social power ‘in the abstract.’ This is not direct social power in the form like that of an armed military or a standing police force that is ‘concrete.’ The social power of value is ‘abstract’, and since value appears and exists in principle during exchange, an exchange-based market economy like ours circulates this value. Its social power does not come from the ruling class, the military, and the police, nothing concrete. It resides in our mode of organization, an organization of society where this value exists in the abstract. Why might this be? Is a natural question and the answer is fundamental to capitalism as understood from the Marxian and/or Marxist perspective. We are then dealing with a very important question. We are questioning the inner mechanism of value production; the inner relations of capitalism. Modern economists tend to have a very narrow and an analytically naïve view of things. They often refer to Capitalism as “free enterprise” or a “free market system” rather than “wage-labor society” for this reason. This implies a lot about exchange. From this so called (mainstream) economic standpoint, they view exchange in terms of individual relations and mutually beneficial exchange. This near universal view on exchange does not, and cannot explain value in the abstract. When two school kids trade a muffin for a brownie at lunch their exchange is not at all abstract. Their desires are very concrete and personal, but it’s something else when we have an entire society exchanging at roughly predictable ratios. In order to predict these ratios we must look very much at one source, a force that systematically replenishes these outputs; human labor. When looking at it from this point of view we no longer see a narrow exchange society but one with more abstractions, one where exchange is regulated by production.

[midwesterncommunism]

Determination of Commodity Exchange-Values

We know how price is set before the commodity hit’s the market. The price fluctuates in the competition between buyers and sellers; and by the relation of supply and demand. Various distributors sell commodities of similar utility and whoever can provide the highest quality at the cheapest price is sure to drive the others out; the sellers compete among themselves for sales. This force of competition drives a motivation for quality and the price down. However there is also a competition among its buyers, causing the preferred commodities price to fluctuate upwards, and finally there is competition between buyers AND sellers. The buyer wants more bang for their buck while the seller wants for buck for their bang

“…this competition between buyers and sellers will depend upon the relations between the two above-mentioned camps of competitors… Industry leads two great armies into the field against each other, and each of these again is engaged in a battle among its own troops in its own ranks. The army among whose troops there is less fighting, carries off the victory over the opposing host… if the supply of a commodity is less than the demand for it, competition among the sellers is very slight or there may be none at all among them. In the same proportion in which this competition decreases, the competition among buyers increases. Result: a more or less considerable rise in the price of commodities.” [Karl Marx, Wage-Labor and Capital, Chapter 3].”

However, as mentioned earlier price is merely an EXPRESSION of value. If value is expressed in exchange then we must look closer there, at the exchange of commodities, as analyzed in the above section. To do this we must consider something that many modern economist refuse to address. We must consider the possibility that exchange embodies an inherent principle of equality. Imagine two commodities; a chair and table, and two owners who are both equally skilled furniture makers. Suppose it takes 7 hours making a table but 1 making a chair. At this point you wouldn’t suspect that if these furniture makers were reasonable they wouldn’t exchange a chair for a table with one another since one takes seven hours to make and the other takes one. This would rip off the table maker. Now this exchange is possible since nobody can prevent it. Any producer is free to make a bad exchange, however this all changes when we talk about systematic value production (capitalism). As a material possession all commodities are dissimilar to each individual, but as a value they all have one common denominator; they all require human effort for their production or appropriation. This provides a basis for exchange. By this logic seven chairs equals one table. Each embodies an equal quantity of given necessary labor—time. But what does this mean? It means that only so much labor goes into a product. In production, material objects existing before production changes. The body of the object changes with the labor expended upon it. This labor thus has ‘bodily’ results, it is embodied in a material thing. Before this object has a natural state of its own. Labor adds and/or transforms this. “Labor and labor-time” is objectified into the object.

[midwesterncommunism]

Quick Note on Ideology

Ideology was originally (by Marx) described as the way contradictions between essence of society and its appearance is not shown. Ideology hides the antagonisms between the appearance and “reality” (Both the ruling class and working class are also influenced by and subject to the appearances of society, and this  encourages the capitalist mode of production) When the working class is “conscious” it doesn’t put forward an ideology rather it puts forward arguments against the perseverance of social antagonisms. In a classless society, there won’t be ideology because appearance will always be the same as the essence or reality of that society.

[midwesterncommunism]

The United Left

What is the Left? What is the key problem with the modern movement?

The left refers to the left side of the political spectrum. The left is home to ideologies that view to liberate all peoples within the world. To liberate all, the left views it necessary to be done through revolution, and the overall abolition of Capitalism. The left does not include Liberalism to any extent what so ever. (they killed Rosa Luxemburg) Leftism is inherently pro-gun, anti-capitalist, and pro-revolution, which liberalism strongly opposes, which makes it non-leftist. The left is split up into sectarian groups, which often times bickers with each other, around basic topics, which in the grand scheme of things does not matter till post-revolution.This is one of the key problems with the Modern-left. Although a large percentage of leftists are anti-sectarian, a large minority is still unaware of the destruction that they are creating within their own ideology. This is why sectarianism needs to be battled to any extent it can with the left

Why should the Left unite?

Counter-revolutionary powers are strong, and reactionary thought is commonplace in today’s society. However the left is strong enough but not in a divided manner. Leftists must unite. It’s essential to the survival of Marxism that the Left does. If small sectarian revolutions in this or that region, and they all have different interpretations of the left, then ultimately the left would be severally divided, turning leftist against leftist. Small forces do not have the power to create a socialist world, only through a UNITED left would we be able to gather up the power; the power to have revolutions, and carry out global liberation. Would a table stand without 3 of its legs? Would a cake bake successfully without 3/4ths of its ingredients? Can revolution in every nation (may it be nation by nation or permanent revolution) be carried on while it’s missing a large minority of its participants? No it can’t; not in the least. Being a sectarian Leftist not only hurts the power of your “specific” interpretation of Marxism but it also hurts marxism as a whole. You must be willing to join any revolutionary power that gains ground, even if it has a different interpretation of Marxism than yourself. However we must guard against revisionism.

How can the Left unite?

The answer to that is actually quite simple. Advocate, organize, and educate. We must go out into our communities either alone if need be or with others. Spread awareness of Marxist theory and analysis. Knowledge precedes action. READ! Read Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Il-Sung, Che,Bakunin. Bookchin, Luxemburg, Goldman, Tucker the list goes on and on. If you have questions ask! I can’t stress how vital this concept is.

[midwesterncommunism]

Titoism

As yesterday was Tito’s birthday, I found it fitting to give a brief introduction to one of the most successful socialist experiments of the 20th century

The former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was, without a doubt, as close to a socialist country as it gets (at least in our history so far). Maybe not from a strict Marxist textbook point of view, but from a point of view which matters the most – the working class. Titoism is such an utterly unique and vital contribution to socialist theory in that it challenged the soviet model and presented the world with a new way of achieving of a socialist state that differed from it’s practically capitalist, soviet counterparts. In fact, Tito was one of the only powerful communist world leaders to truly acknowledge the disgrace that had come from the Stalin regime which practically destroyed the socialist revolution in Russia. And while Titoism is quite critical of the soviet model of Marxism-Leninism, it is very important to note that Tito himself was a Marxist-Leninist (ML). Titoism does not reflect ML theory, but rather, it is a variant, a tweaked method, if I may. Therefore, the remainder of this essay will mainly discuss the differences between Titoism and traditional Marxist-Leninist theory (and Soviet model) as Tito took that original theory and improved upon it to fit the circumstances of Yugoslavia and of course, his own personal beliefs.

First and foremost, in order to more fully comprehend as to why Titoism differs from traditional Marxism-Leninism in the category of its very own ideology, it is important to understand the roots of how this originally came about, which was, the break off of Tito and Yugoslavia from the soviet bloc. So what caused this occur? Before the initial split, Tito was regarded as one of the most important and influential communist leaders, besides Stalin of course. But throughout WWII, unlike other eastern-European countries, Yugoslavia had managed to liberate itself from its occupiers without any support from the allies, or even the Soviet Union for the matter. Because of this, Yugoslavia began to see itself capable of a more independent state, rather than relying on the USSR as so many new socialist-friendly states had. Thus, tensions slowly began to rise between the two powers and while Yugoslavia simply considered themselves to be allies of Moscow, Stalin liked to consider it as satellite state to the USSR despite its very little support of the Yugoslav Partisans throughout WW2. As Tito began to seek out the major flaws in the Soviet Union, he began to wish more and more for Yugoslavia to be completely independent and not considered another satellite state, and in the end it worked out as such, as Yugoslavia stood up and refused to simply be a pawn in the Soviet game and was then kicked from the Cominform. So, without any support from the USSR and any other communist states (although Khrushchev improved relations after Stalin’s death as he criticized Stalin’s actions against Yugoslavia), Yugoslavia had to rely on it’s own form of socialism, thus creating the Titoist philosophy.

The first and probably one of the most important element of Titoism that makes it so recognizably different than the Soviet model is that it follows the belief that socialism and the ultimate end goal of communism must be achieved based on the already existing circumstances that exist in a given country, rather than following a particular revolutionary model of another state. Related to this, Tito was a strong advocate for cooperation between nations, which he displayed through the means of the Non-Aligned Movement, and promoting that all these countries pursue socialism in the whichever way best suits their situation, thus, Titoism emphasizes on the importance of both independence AND cooperation between socialist states: in order to successfully implement socialism around the world, which is a basic principle that Marx brought up when discussing the revolution; the revolution doesn’t end until the whole world embraces socialism. Another profound distinction between Titoism and Marxism-Leninism is the state’s role over the economy. Traditional Marxism-Leninism calls for state dominance over the economy and means of production (which is obviously supposed to wither away as the state moves towards its end goal). While the Soviets had embraced this, Tito saw the flaws; in that this takes the state and moves it into the direction of state capitalism (which is what became of the USSR) rather than communism. After seeing this, Tito took up the idea that in order to successfully begin the path to communism, the proletariat must be given self management. Thus, Tito, along with Milovan Djilas, began to implement industries throughout Yugoslavia that were worker owned. Within these industries existed worker’s councils in order to successfully make decisions and run the industries along with the theory of associated labor and profit sharing policies in order to ensure the most equal pay possible among the workers While doing all of this, Yugoslavia still kept a market based economy. Major improvements were soon seen in the quality of life. The work force had become much more educated, quality of healthcare as well as life expectancy had both increased to basically match their western counterparts and unemployment had also been lowered. Titoist Yugoslavia is often highly referred to as a form of a market socialist economy, and it is fair to call it such.

Let us elaborate on the basic theory of a market socialist economy, and compare with Tito’s Yugoslavia. Market socialism calls for the social ownership over the means of production within the structure of a market based economy. But, the market mechanism is used for the allocation of capital and capital goods (rather than private ownership and sale of capital goods in a capitalist market economy). Tito had successfully implemented all of this along with socially owned cooperatives into the Yugoslav economy and thrived as it exported and traded with the west and later with the east as diplomatic relations improved. And with all this being said, I must emphasize that the social market Tito created was NOT the end goal. One must keep in mind that Tito was a communist, and he viewed the Yugoslav example of market socialism as a transitional period, it simply differed from the Soviet model in that the economy was much more decentralized. By no means was he “pro-market”. With this, some argue that due to the fall of Yugoslavia, Titoism and the implementation of a market based socialist economy as a transitional period, is a failure. But, this simply is not the case as there are some outside factors that must be accounted for in the fall of Yugoslavia. The main factor; there were extreme tensions between the republics; Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia for the most part. Tito was the one holding the country together; uniting them (so it can be seen why the people held such admiration for him). A growing sense of nationalism and religious fanaticism came about, and Tito himself acknowledged and feared this in his late years. Tito’s death was, of course, inevitable, but there really wasn’t a strong plan for what the party would do post-Tito. And following his death, the country practically imploded. Mainly because problems among the leaders of the Communist party. Perhaps the best analysis summing up the issues the party created comes from Harold Lydall, who was possibly the biggest critic of post-Tito Yugoslavia. And while Lydall is in fact a capitalist, he did acknowledge how Yugoslavia thrived from the 50s-70s. So, things after Tito changed drastically and Lydall truly captured the main factor as to why. To quote him,

“It is evident that the principal cause of failure was the unwillingness of the Yugoslav Party and government to implement a policy of macroscopic restriction–especially restriction of the money supply—in combination with a microeconomic policy designed to expand opportunities and incentives for enterprise and efficient work. What was needed was more freedom for independent decision-making by genuinely self-managed enterprises within a free market, combined with tight controls on the supply of domestic currency.”

Therefore, the fall of Yugoslavia was not because of Titoism itself, but because of the ethnic tensions that arose along with the blunders that the government had made. It can be drawn that the formation of Yugoslavia along with the creation of Titoist theory, is perhaps one of the most complex and important part of the 20th century in terms of contribution to communist philosophy. As Tito was capable of introducing a new way to create a communist world through the unification and cooperation of all, and most importantly; through the rights of the proletariat.

[midwesterncommunism]

The Core of Marxist Philosophy

I can’t stress how important this information is if you wish to understand anything about socialism

“Communism, for us, is not a state of affairs to be established.”

I seek to elaborate on what this Marx quote truly means by explaining Marx’s concept of socialism. His concept of socialism follows his concept of man.Socialism is titled such because it is rooted in that which is social, that which is human. It is a process designed and tailored to man himself, and it is for this reason we must begin with man. The potential of Man to identify the concept of man, we look to human nature. Marx identifies two distinct types of human nature: one that is fixed, that cannot be done away with, only molded to different ends (hunger, pain), and one that is relative according to the historical epoch that molds the individual (need for money, etc). To separate these types, we look to history, to the structures that mold each human. When we do, we see structures created by man. Societies, in this time empires, that wielded influence nearly beyond understanding on the people that lived in the same epoch. But these societies, and empires were themselves created by man. It is through this that we come to the conclusion that history itself is the process of man’s self creation. Society molds man, but it is man that molds society. This means that it is within man’s potential to mold this world, to create, shape, and alter how man exists.

It is through this we conclude that socialism is possible, because man is capable of creation, of overcoming, of anything.

Alienation

The man who understands himself to be the creator of his world also understands himself to be a part of this world, embracing it. This is the achievement of self realization, of liberation. While history is the process of self creation, it has also been the process of alienation: of man creating that which negates his self realization. Alienation occurs when instead of realizing himself as the creator of his conditions, as one with them, man sees the world and its objects as alien to him. At the core of alienation is idolatry. Man looks to the idols that he himself has built with his own hands, and worships them, worships that which he has constructed. By doing so the world becomes alien to him. Instead of experiencing himself as the creator, he becomes in touch with himself only through worship of the idols, through submission to the artificial, slavery to his constructed conditions. The idols men worship are dead as Nietzsche famously proclaimed. They are brought to life only by sucking the energy from their dutiful worshipers. Idols take many forms: the state, the church, relations, possessions.

“Idolatry is the worship of something into which man has put into his own creative powers, and to which he now submits, instead of experiencing himself in his own creative act,”

as Erich Fromm put it. THIS is the contradictions Marx spoke of: submission to creation. As we understand man as creator of condition, we also observe man’s slavery to condition in the form of alienation.

The Concept of Socialism

Socialism is the active abolition of alienation in all its forms. The reason it can not be referred to as a state of affairs is that its purpose is not the establishment of any specific system besides that which liberates man and achieves his self realization.

We work for common ownership of production not because we favor any certain system but because we wish to SOCIALIZE it, humanize it!

Instead of submitting to labor as an idol, as an abstract entity to which we must bend our knee, we realize it as our own creative expression and bring it under our own control! This is why socialism is not embodied in state control of production, or regimented bureaucracy. It is only embodied in the creation of the conditions for self realization. Socialism is that which man creates and which he dominates. It is the destruction of idols; the smashing of the state, the market, the church, not because of spite for politician, businessman, or God, but to allow man to liberate himself from his creations. As Fromm stated:

“Quite clearly the aim of socialism is man. It is to create a form of production and an organization of society in which man can overcome alienation from his product, from his work, from his fellow man, from himself and from nature; in which he can return to himself and grasp the world with his own powers, thus becoming one with the world.”

Socialism for Marx was, as Paul Tillich put it,

“a resistance movement against the destruction of love in social reality.”

[midwesterncommunism]

Absurdity of Property

“Within these parameters I drew on the ground, erected fences around made walls surrounding, is my property”

“These molecules between A,B and C are owned by me”

You can claim all you want that said lines on the ground the items in which you think you possess are your “property.” However, it does not logically substantiate its existence. Objects and materials exist independent of our conception of ownership. Ownership, or that of an assumption of inherent control, possession, owning, or right of holding something is an intangible construction. There are no intrinsic divisions among the land, and environment as it is rather it is self-constructed. You can enforce said conceptions with might, with power, brutality and so on. This does not change that you can own nothing, and that property claims are ultimately agent based fabrications

Take a glass ball for example. I can hold a glass ball in my hands and utter

“this is mine, and I own it because I can hold it”

however this doesn’t change the fact that there are no ties between me and this ball as I perceive it. There is nothing linking me to said ball. It exists with or without my conceptions of ownership. Therefore, I cannot own it, more of believe that I own it

Not to mention the issue with property claims. If I create a four sided fence in the middle of a plain or a grassy field said measurements and confines of the fences are only assumed to exist I because have constructed them.

“My property. I won a chunk of matter and organic substance upon my declaration”

it is just as pointless as assuming ownership upon single items, let alone the ownership of boundless and uncontainable matter. No matter how intensively I defend said land claims they ultimately do not exist

[midwesterncommunism]

“Communism has Failed”

The question of why communism has seemed to have failed is every time is an easy one to answer, but it requires you to think critically. Because the Soviet Union controlled the Comintern, and their influence (being the first Communists in power, anywhere, since the Commune) meant that their Party line was the Communist International’s line. When Party bureaucratization happened in the Bolshevik Party, it happened in Germany’s KDP. When the purges occurred in Russia, purges happened in the Italian PCI. When Socialism in One Country was adopted by the Soviets, it was adopted by the communist parties of the world — their model was sought after, because they

(1) controlled the communist movement

(2) simply looked good to backwards and oppressed nations, everywhere.

China, Vietnam, whatever — these were extensions of the degeneration of the Russian revolution. But even if, say, they happened independently of the Russians, the same thing would have happened. The situation the Communists in Russia was in, with their backwards peasant country, was infinitely worse in China and other ‘real existing socialist states.’

In Russia, the revolution overturned the provisional government and the communists seized power. Every Bolshevik — from Lenin to Zinoviev, Trotsky to Stalin —understood full and well that the success of the Russian revolution was contingent on the success of a broader European one — or, at least, a communist victory in Germany. This did not materialize. For reasons of a lack of party leadership mixed with social democratic betrayal, the provisional Soviets established in Germany, Hungary, France and Britain were drowned in blood. The Bolsheviks, alone in a country where the vast majority of the population were ignorant peasant farmers, were then under siege on all fronts (21 countries invaded, and 2.5 million white army soldiers were at their doorsteps).

Nevertheless they did win out, but at a tremendous cost. The economy was ruined, producing about a seventh of what it had in 1914. The nucleus of the Bolshevik party’s support, the urban, revolutionary and thoroughly communist proletariat declined by 60% by 1921, from 3 million to only around 1.2 million. The agricultural proletariat declined even more sharply, from 2.1 million to mere tens of thousands. The entire country was in shambles, and the Bolsheviks stood alone in a sea of hostile capitalism. Not only was the country brought to its knees materially, but it was shaken to its foundations spiritually. The failure of the revolution to materialize outside backwards Russia’s borders, a necessity for the survival of the proletarian dictatorship there, brought about a whole new series of attitudes towards the course Russia should take — hence, ‘Socialism in One Country’ was born in 1924. The country was in a very precarious state, you must understand this: after the Civil War concluded, a lot of peasants who used to be ardent Bolsheviks were, frankly, pissed off at the harsh measures of War Communism years prior (involving grain requisitioning to feed the army and the cities). Because of this, the Bolsheviks took “two steps backwards before they could take one step forward” — the NEP was thus born. The market was brought back, limited, and the economy began to function again as trade resumed in the countryside. But this proved absolutely incapable to modernize the country — by the end of the NEP, the only result the policies had was the fattening of richer peasants (kulaks) at the expense of the cities (in a nutshell: kulaks hoarded grain to inflate state prices).

Russia was exceptional because, unlike Germany, Britain and America, it featured combined and uneven development The vast geographical space of Russia, and the massive variation between town and country, implied the coexistence of many elements of old feudal bonds (e.g. the small commodity economy in the country) and capitalist ones (the urban proletariat and industrial factories). The existence of scattered plots of farmland in the countryside, each really only producing for their own tillers’ subsistence, meant the country could not develop. So what could they do? The State had to fulfill the same role the bourgeoisie had done centuries prior: modernize the countryside, thereby proletarianizing the cities and giving the country a basis for development. Under the state aegis, agriculture was collectivized and modernized to meet the needs of the backwards country.

The Soviet Union was a country being built on the backdrop of a capitalist revolution in agriculture, and the character of the state changed. Up until then, there really was nothing left of the proletarian dictatorship other than its functionaries, but the last vestiges were compromised to modernize the country. To make along story short: the Soviets had to focus on modernizing the country and catching up with the west, rather than construct a socialist society (which they had no prerequisites for). The development of the country predisposed it to modern, market relations, hence the need for the “hothouse forces” conjured up by the state to be put outside the state domain (hence stagnation and collapse, 1980s-1991). The state was ultimately unable to reproduce itself. “Okay, so you admit the Russian revolution failed and degenerated, but why’d China fail? Vietnam? Why did all these countries too follow suit and adopt modem capitalist relations?”

So its not that “communism failed everywhere it’s been tried.” The Communist movement did degenerate in Russia for reasons stated, but its not the case that “communism was tried and didn’t work because communism is inherently X or Y.” From the International Communist Press:*

“What was then the USSR? For us Internationalist Communists, the answer was always very clear. Under Stalin and his successors what passed for communism was in large measure a centrally controlled state capitalism, although in some sectors, largely agricultural, there remained forms of small production, even of a pre-capitalist kind. Thus in the USSR there occurred what happens in every budding bourgeois regime: under state aegis, a state-coerced primitive accumulation lay the basis for the subsequent formation of a large-scale capitalist development. To Lenin and us communists, all this was very clear: after the revolution of 1917, the politically victorious proletariat had to undertake the gigantic historical task of raising the country out of economic backwardness to set the basis for communism. This necessarily entailed a fully developed capitalist economy: growth of large industry, a sufficient network of railroads, large-scale cooperative agriculture, electrification, and so on, while awaiting the outburst of the victorious revolution in the economically developed West (Germany in prime). Those were the conditions for a victorious communism on an international basis. But revolution never came in the West because the parties there – and from a certain point in time, the very Third International itself – proved unable to align themselves on a verily revolutionary front, and the October Revolution crushed between the absence of Western support and the necessary re-emergence of economic capitalism in Russia turned in on itself. The Stalinist counterrevolution, appropriate expression of the young Russian capitalism, destroyed the compelling initial strategic vision, liquidated Lenin’s party both physically and theoretically, proclaimed as “socialism” what was no more than the “capitalist accumulation” referred to above, and theorized the possibility of “socialism in one country.” Such was the enormous and tragic deception which cost the blood of millions of victims, and up to their necks in this deception one could find (still finds!) convinced Stalinists, democrats, and fascists who extended Stalinism their benediction by calling it communism. Then, what happened from 1989 to today?” It happened that the form of capitalism that reigned in the USSR and its satellites reached the point in its development when it could not continue in its old form. State ownership had become an obstacle, particularly under the impetus of the crisis that developed in the 70s and reached into the USSR by the end of that decade. It was necessary to give vent to the new forces and energies developed in the “hot house” atmosphere of state protection and free it up to autonomous development outside centralized restraints and shackles. Hence the break with the earlier phases-a “break” common to all bourgeois nations at some point in their history: from centralized state controls to the so-called free market, only to return again to state reliance when the socioeconomic situation deteriorates. To recall this process in action one need only think of the Keynesian policies of the New Deal and the state controls behind European fascism.”

*note that this entry is mediocre at best — yes, Stalin did liquidate Lenin’s party physically and theoretically, but this was the only way the Soviet State could have survived. The proletarian dictatorship and the survival of the Soviet state was inversely proportional. The minute the revolution failed in industrialized Germany, was the minute it failed in backwards Russia.