This Socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.
– Karl Marx, The Class Struggle in France1
First, I would like to thank R. Ashlar for engaging with my letter. I welcome their appreciation for the subject of socialist planning and taking on such a complex question. Now to his arguments:
Ashlar seems to be making an underconsumptionist argument: that capitalists are motivated by selling. And that we communists are motivated by increasing our consumption. And this political economy often situates crisis as a phenomena of selling (of markets) — rather than the Marxist view of situating the crisis in the realm of production. That enables trade unionists to say that the solution to capitalism’s
problems is to allow the people to consume more. This means, of course, higher wages etc., which, in fact, neither solve the crisis, nor the problems of capitalism.
Planning is crucial for establishing socialist relations of production. However, this is not true JUST because a plan can serve (ideologically) to mobilize the people. It is ALSO a way of establishing HOW social surplus gets deployed so that it serves the people and the communist road — and not mainly the expansion of capital.
I think key problems with Ashlar’s argument are contained the following passage:
Economic planning–that is, socialism–restores the inverse relationship discussed above. The degree of centralization is a red herring–it is the fundamental dynamic of planning at hand here. We return to a society where we consume only that which we can produce. This means beginning from the foundations of an economy and moving progressively upwards to greater consumption.
He implies that there is an argument being made against central planning. But, in fact, Maoist planning does promote a central plan. It just also takes into account the fact that many details of its realization require local analysis, adaption to distinctive conditions, mass line, etc. So there is a dynamic between centralization and decentralization — not the total negation of centralism.
Ashlar seems to equate planning with socialism. Does that mean that social democratic planning and nationalization are degrees of “socialism” in a mixed economy? Also, again for Ashlar, it all revolves around consumption (not socialist revolution). And that, to me, is perhaps the key question. If the goal of everything in the economic sphere, including the goals that frame our planning, is a way to maximize consumption… what does that mean? What is wrong with that? What about goals like creating a military capable of defending a new socialist system? Or dispersing industry from easily occupied border and coastal areas? What about dispersing industry in rural areas (to promote the proletarianization of rural people, and the influence of proletarians within rural societies)?
The problem with capitalist anarchy, which is about rival centers of appropriation and decision, is not that, as some people think, it makes a “mess” of things in an anarchic way. It is that there is an inherent manyness of capital — where each capitalist center does what is in their own best interest (as capitalists) and, therefore, the overall deployment and development of SOCIAL production is done in ways that proceed from aggregated individual interest, rather larger social concerns.
And with a dictatorship of the proletariat and with a corollary growth of socialist industry, a plan is a way that the proletariat as a new ruling class and cause sets new and different priorities — enabling the people (for the first time) to ensure that their labor serves THEIR interests, not the blind, crisis-ridden anti-social accumulation of capital.
-Nat Winn
