Arguments For Socialism Paul Cockshott and David Zachariah 2012 Thistextis©theauthors. Youarefree: toShare—tocopy,distributeandtransmitthework toRemix—toadapttheworkUnderthefollowingconditions: Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by theauthororlicensor(butnotinanywaythatsuggeststhattheyendorse youoryouruseofthework). Noncommercial—Youmaynotusethisworkforcommercialpurposes. Withtheunderstandingthat: Waiver—Anyoftheaboveconditionscanbewaivedifyougetpermis- sionfromthecopyrightholder. PublicDomain—Wheretheworkoranyofitselementsisinthepub- lic domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license. OtherRights—Innowayareanyofthefollowingrightsaffectedbythe license: Yourfairdealingorfairuserights, orotherapplicablecopyright exceptionsandlimitations;Theauthor’smoralrights;Rightsotherpersons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicityorprivacyrights. Notice—Foranyreuseordistribution, youmustmakecleartoothers thelicensetermsofthiswork. Thebestwaytodothisiswithalinktothis webpage. 2 Contents I. Foundations 10 1. Thesocialistprojectandtheworkingclass 11 2. 21stCenturyMarxism 19 3. HowphysicsisvalidatingtheLabourTheoryofValue 25 4. HistoricalMaterialismorSubjectivism 29 5. Competingtheorieswrongornotevenwrong 40 II. Agitation 54 6. AgainstNationalism 55 7. Beyondanti-imperialism 61 8. AgainstRepublicanism 71 9. DemocracywithoutPoliticians 76 III. Strategic paths 80 10.Limitsofsocial-democraticpolitics 81 11.Sixthesesontheproblemsofthecommunistmovement 93 12.ReformandrevolutioninLeninistPolitics 109 3 13.ReviewofMikeMacnair’sRevolutionaryStrategy 121 14.IdeasofLeadershipandDemocracy 133 IV. Economics of Socialism 156 15.VenezuelaandSocialistEconomicPolicy 157 16.EconomicFactorsinthefailureofSovietSocialism 170 17.Review: RedPlenty byFrancisSpufford 177 18.AgainstMises 181 19.Acriticallookatmarketsocialism 196 20.TowardsaNewSocialism 216 4 Preface 5 Thisbookismadeupofacollectionofpolemicalarticleswrittenbyus overtheperiodsincethefallof‘dieMauer’andthecrisisoftheEuropean socialistmovementbroughtoninitswake.Theyrecordanattempttoargue throughthetheoreticalchallengesthatthisperiodhasposed: (cid:63) Why did both Leninist communism and social democracy come to crisis? (cid:63) What were the economic weaknesses of both and what economic policyshouldafuturesocialistmovementadopttoovercomethese? (cid:63) How can the struggle for popular democracy be integrated into the goalsofanewmovement? The articles were written for a variety of publications or occasions. Rather than presenting them in chronological order we have organised them into topics. The first section, Foundations, deals with the funda- mentaltheoreticalresourcesthatthesocialistmovementhasavailabletoit infacingitscurrentproblems. Thesocialistprojectandtheworkingclassprovidessomefoundational argumentsforsocialismandthecapacitiesrequiredtoadvancethesocial- istproject. Itargueswhytheworkingclassnecessarilyremainsacentral componentintheclasscompositionofsocialistpoliticalforces. 21stCenturyMarxismisanarticlepublishedinJungeWeltthattriesto draw up the theoretical problems and methods of investigation available now, trying to distinguish these from those in past periods. A theme of this, and subsequent articles in the Foundations section, is a re-emphasis ontheimportanceofscientificsocialism, asocialismthatisnotafraidto restontheresultsoftoday’sscientificknowledge. HowphysicsisvalidatingtheLabourTheoryofValuealsopublishedin Junge Welt argues that the methods of physics are now being applied to the economy, the socalled ’econophysics’and arein the main validating theresultsofthelabourtheoryofvalue. Historical Materialism or Subjectivism published in Open Polemic ar- gues against certain readings of Marx that are associated with the ‘Neue Marx-Lekture’ or value-form school. It argues that these assumptions handicap the re-establishment of Marxian political economy as a science thatwecanusetochangetheworld. CompetingtheorieswrongornotevenwrongpublishedinVlaamsMarx- istisch Tijdshrift continues the argument that the labour theory of value 6 producesstrongempiricallyverifiableresultswhereasthecompetingsub- jectivetheoryofvalueisunfalsifiableandyieldsnousefulmacroeconomic predictions. Thesecondsectionofthebookincludesaseriesofshortermorepopular polemics. AgainstNationalismattemptstoexplainwhynationalismhastobethe enemyofsocialistideology,andwhysocialistshouldbeconsistentinterna- tionalist.Beyondanti-imperialismarguesthattheprofoundchangesofim- perialism during the 20th century require reconsidering anti-imperialism as a distinct strategy. Against Republicanism argues against the romanti- cisationoftherepublicanformofgovernmentbysomeontheBritishleft. Whilstlivingastheydoinamonarchy,therepublicseemssomethingrad- ical,thearticlesaysthatthisisafalsepathtosetouton,ourgoalshould notbetheRepublic–somethingdeliberatelyborrowedfromRomebythe wealthy founding fathers of the USA but a radical democracy. Democ- racywithoutPoliticianstakesthisthemefurtherspellingouthowaradical democracyordemarchycouldoperate. A third section looks at the major strategic questions facing the left in Europe and what have been the past failings of the socialist movement. Famously the early 20th century socialist movement split after the 1917 revolutionintoSocial-democraticandLeninistwings. Welookatthefail- ingsofbothofthese. Limitsofsocial-democraticpoliticsarguesthattherelationshipbetween social democracy and the state, and in particular its reliance on the cap- italist sector of the economy for tax raising, fatally undermined its long termprogressivegoals. Thepaperwaspresentedattheannualconference organisedbyArbetarrörelsensForskarnätverk. Six theses on the problems of the communist movement published in Open Polemic shortly after the fall of the USSR argued that the crisis of worldsocialismwasdueprimarilytoeconomicfailureandthatitscollapse ofwasduetocausesinitseconomicmechanism,butwhicharenotinherent inallpossiblesocialisms. Itgoesontoarguethatthepoliticalfailuresof the Left today stem from the lack of a programmatic conception of how a socialist economy should be operated along with the lack of a viable constitutionalprogram. Reform and Revolution in Leninist Politics addresses what has been a perennial issue on the Left, but does so by introducing a number of new concepts about the nature of different periods: stable, restructuring and revolutionaryandemphasisestheneedtohaveapracticalinterventionpro- 7 grammethatisspecifictothecurrentconjuncture. ThereviewofMikeMacnair’s‘RevolutionaryStrategy’,engageswitha leadingtheoreticianoftheCommunistPartyofGreatBritain,whoistry- ing to revive classical German Social Democracy. Whilst this approach hassomestrengthswhencontrastedtomuchoftheLeft,itiscriticizedfor havingaconservativeattitudetodemocracy,limitingitsaimsashistorical SocialDemocracydid, toaparliamentaryrepublic. Since1945thisstate formhasproventobethemostperfectsuperstructureforcapitalistecon- omy. Alongwiththispoliticalconservatismgoesanunwillingnesstoset outdistinctsocialisteconomicgoals. IdeasofLeadershipandDemocracy,anaddressgiveninStockholmin 2010,continuesthecritiqueofbothhistoricalsocial-democracyandthefar Leftfortheirfailuretoputforwardagenuinelydemocraticprogramme. It argues that the constitutional policies of the far left remain an uncritical idealisationoftheSovietformofgovernment.Thetalkgoesontopropose aconcretesocialisteconomicprogrammefortheLeftinEuropetoday. Thefinalsectionofthebookaddressessocialisteconomics. VenezuelaandSocialistEconomicPolicy,publishedinJungeWelt,isthe result of a visit to Venezuela in 2007. It looked at what measures would havetobetakenbyasocialistgovernmentinVenzuelatoeffectivelytrans- formtheeconomicsystemtherefromacapitalisttoasocialisteconomy. It looksatissuesmonetarypolicy,taxationpolicyandpropertyrightsasking howasocialistgovernmentcouldsetabouttheabolitionofexploitation. Economic Factors in the failure of Soviet Socialism looks at the eco- nomicallycatastrophicpoliciespursuedbytheGorbachevgovernmentin theUSSRandhowandwhytheseledtoeconomicandpoliticalcollapse. ThereviewofSpufford’s‘RedPlenty’, looksatanovelsetintheKhr- uscheveraintheUSSR.Thenovel’sheroistheideaofcyberneticsocial- ism advocated by Kantorovich and Lebedev in the 1950s and early 60s. Spufford’s book recounts the transition from the hope and excitement of the50stothedisillusionanddemoralisationofthe70s. AgainstMises,isareplytotheargumentsoftheAustrianschoolecono- mistsaccordingtowhichsocialisteconomyisboundtocollapseintoinef- ficiencyduetotheallegedimpossibilityofsocialisteconomiccalculation. ACriticalLookatMarketSocialism, doeswhatitsaysonthelabel. It examinestheclaimsofmarketsocialismtobeaviablealternativetocap- italism, especially through a critique of the work of Yunker, a prominent UStheoristofmarketsocialism. Towards a New Socialism, is an interview with the installation artist 8 Oliver Ressler about the book of the same title, written by Cottrell and Cockshott. Itprovidesaconcisesynopsisoftheideasofsocialismadvo- catedinthatbook. DavidZachariahwroteThesocialistprojectandtheworkingclass,Democ- racywithoutPoliticiansandLimitsofsocial-democraticpolitics. Thearti- cleBeyondanti-imperialismwaswrittenjointly. PaulCockshottwrotethe otherarticles. 9 Part I. Foundations 10