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Americans in a nutshell (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/comics@lemmy.ml
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[–] 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (17 children)

The reason I am telling you that classes are not simply any way we can categorize people but instead have specific relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution is because I am explicitly agreeing with Marx that the history of class society is the history of successive societies of 2 broad classes in conflict, defined by their relationship to ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Plumbers are not a class. Managers are not a class. Both are workers, and share the same relation to ownership of the means of production. Power is not the enemy, the system that divides us based on ownership is.

The rest of your comment is a ridiculous strawman of a party that is unaccountable and that dominates all. Nowhere in socialist history has this happened in practice or in theory. The working class as a whole decides who should be in the party and government. The party is a subset of the working class, with the same social relations to the means of production and distribution. You are arguing against a caricature.

As for revolution, it's the only way to change a state historically.

As for "mixed economies," all economies are "mixed" today. What separates them is their principal aspect, and the class in control of the state.

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  • [+] -7 points 3 weeks ago (16 children)

    you make the same mistake again, creating a single party where the party leaders get to decide who is in the party simply creates a new ruling class. they control all the means of production, and if the party leaders are not beholden to the workers, that is totalitarianism. this same issue exists largely in the united states but we have two parties instead of one, and the wealthy largely control who is in power, this is equally as bad as a single party.

    I dont care to what level the state controls private property, I only care that if the state begins to abuse that power, the workers can intervene and stop them.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago (15 children)

    No, this does not create "a new ruling class," nor do party leaders have sole discretion over who is in the party. Administration is labor, and creating an organization for such a task and the ideological components of socialism is not sufficient to create a ruling class. Administrators in socialism own just as much of the means of production and distribution as the rest of the working class, capitalists in capitalism directly own the means of production, even if managerial workers below them operate and control them.

    This is why your analysis falls apart, you have an idealist analysis of power that divorces itself from the material.

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  • [+] -6 points 3 weeks ago (14 children)

    it completely creates a ruling class. the administrators hold the levers of government, irrefutably. and party administrators approved their candidates for elections. thus the ruling class chooses their members. that is a ruling class, even worse it is a ruling class with unilaterally controls over who in the nation can wield the levers of government.

    your idealist analysis of power divorces itself from the will the people.

    I argue that class is inevitable under any form of administrative government. the goal is to tie ultimate power to the will of the people.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago

    I argue that class is inevitable under any form of administrative government. the goal is to tie ultimate power to the will of the people.

    Then you're disagreeing with the way all Marxists and even liberal academics define class: which is relation to production, and you're also completely wrong that power is divorced from production, or surplus value.

    The differerence between capitalist and socialist countries is the control over this surplus. US capitalists control production, the surplus, and have a puppet government enact their interests against those of its workers. Its members unilaterally decide how to use that surplus.

    The PRC has the major key industries nationalized, and in that sector surplus can only be controlled by democratic decision-making, not the whims of private capital. No member of the NPC can unilaterally decide how to use that surplus in the same way a private capitalist in the US can.

    A limited, restricted private sector of capitalists also exists, but they do not stand above political power, have no enshrined rights, and must follow the dictates of the worker state.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

    Class is not "holding levers." I have established this over and over again. Shutting your eyes and ears and erasing the central role of ownership of the means of production and distribution does not make this fact go away. Administrators share the same class interest with other workers: collectivization of the means of production and distribution.

    You have invented the idea of unilateral control, and have invented the idea that the working classes as a whole do not participate in mass democratization of society in unitary socialist democracies. You have no coherent goal, nor plan to get there, all you have done is refuse to engage with the Marxist position on class.

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  • [+] -7 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

    then capitalists holding the levers of production doesn't necessarily make capitalists a class. you're deluding your own definitions.

    "Administrators share the same class interest with other workers: collectivization of the means of production and distribution."

    • removing the ability for the people to hold the administrators accountable is divorcing the workers from ownership over the means of production.

    "You have invented the idea of unilateral control, and have invented the idea that the working classes as a whole do not participate in mass democratization of society in unitary socialist democracies."

    • you have no adequately demonstrated how the vector of power points from the workers down to the administrators in unitary socialist democracies.
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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

    Capitalists do not merely "hold the levers of production," they outright own it. My entire point is that control and ownership are different. I am not contradicting myself in any way, it is your point that any grouping of people whatsoever is a class.

    Socialist democracy does not remove the ability for people to hold administrators accountable. You invented this.

    Administrators are a type of worker, not a class. Power is held by the working class as a whole, not merely administrators. Administrators serve a specific function in large organizations of people, not a class in and of themselves. Socialist democracy begins from the people, not the party. The role of the party is in guiding the working classes as fellow workers, not as commanding the working classes from above.

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  • [–] -4 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

    "Capitalists do not merely β€œhold the levers of production,” they outright own it. My entire point is that control and ownership are different."

    "Socialist democracy does not remove the ability for people to hold administrators accountable. You invented this."

    • how to workers peacefully remove administrators they don't like at any level of the communist party strata without explicit approval from the communist party?
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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

    Managers in a McDonalds do not actually have the ability to sell or make total calls over what to do with it, the owners do. Administrators are similar, they are joint owners with the entire working class.

    As for your second question, recall elections. Read the book.

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  • [–] -4 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

    "Managers in a McDonalds do not actually have the ability to sell or make total calls over what to do with it, the owners do. Administrators are similar, they are joint owners with the entire working class."

    • why did no one recall stalin during his great purge, or Mao during the great famine?
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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    Because the people widely supported the purges and Stalin himself, and Mao did not create the famine but instead responded to one, with the people widely supporting him.

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  • [–] -5 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    I dont care if Mao didn't cause the famine, he fumbled it hard and would have been removed by his people if they had the power to do so. millions died.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    No he would not have been removed, lmao. Mao was incredibly popular until deep into the Cultural Revolution, where he began to be less influential.

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  • [–] -3 points 3 weeks ago* (3 children)

    his mismanagement killed millions.

    if the communist party apparatus gave the people the ability to do so, and had not conformed the entire culture around party loyalty by removing dissenting political views, he would have been removed.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    Your personal opinion on the man does not mean he would have been removed, he was and still is a beloved and popular figure whose tenure saw the end of famine in China and a doubling of life expectancy. Stop assuming your own views represent those of Chinese workers and peasants under Mao, this is naked chauvanism. Either provide evidence backing your claim that the people would have removed him or stop this pointless claim.

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  • [+] -6 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    "he was and still is a beloved and popular figure whose tenure saw the end of famine in China"

    • a famine he mismanaged and lead to the deaths of millions.

    any functioning democracy would have removed that man.

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