Capitalism of State - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The capitalism of State indicates a Economic system in which the State control an essential share of the Capital, Industrie, Entreprise S.

It is thus a system interventionist where whole or part of the average of production are legally speaking the Propriété of the State, or subjected to his directives. The means of production appear in the facts held, deprived or controlled by a privileged class of the population: that which monopolizes the political Pouvoir.

This expression appeared at the end of the 19th century, within the movement anti-capitalist, being presented like a harmful prospect. Its use extended during the 20th century.

There exist divergences, in particular according to political affinities, as for the modes being or having been capitalists of State. Among the modes often analyzed like such, one can quote: the Germany under the First World War, the Soviet Union, and currently the China and Cuba.

The concept can indicate economic systems where capitalism is completely official, or other systems where private capitalism has a strong dependence with respect to the State. In the second case, the expression can merge with more precise concepts and theories like the Mercantilisme, the Protectionnisme or the Interventionnisme. This last use, more frequent in English that in French, is used then to support the opposition with the capitalism of market and indicates economic policies such as the New Deal, the policy of Vladimir Poutine, or the government aid at France Telecom.

One also speaks about “Capital of State”, as for the capital accumulated by the State.

History of the concept

According to certain anarchists, Michel Bakounine will develop first steps of the concept on the theoretical level, during these writings and of its criticisms with respect to the theories of Karl Marx qualified “authoritative Communism”. Michel Bakounine will proclaim that if it arrived so that these theories (Marxiste S) are applied, that would become simply “the application of the capital to the production by the only banker, the State” (Cit). In other words, the State would behave same manner as a capitalist manager (a such banker or an owner). 50 years later, certain anarchists see a confirmation of the predictions of Bakounine in the economic reality of the Soviet Union (even if the economic policy followed in the USSR does not correspond to the economic thinking of Karl Marx).

In April 1918 in Russia, NR. Osinskij and Nikolaï Boukharine in the review the Communist , took again and developed this topic, by criticizing the appropriation by the State of the means of production (the program of Lénine). They saw there an operation with the detriment of the whole of the Prolétariat, this last which would become paid then State Patron.

Lénine (directing faction Bolshevik of the Left working social democrat Russia) and other Leninists claimed capitalism of State (Cit), considering that the passage of the capitalism of market to the capitalism of State was a first stage towards socialism. Lénine used the expression “capitalism of State” (which it had earlier, in 1917, stated like inspiration of the “monopolistic capitalism of State” of Germany), considering that it was a phase necessary in order to arrive at a phase Socialiste, then theoretically with the Communisme. These theories will be denounced by various movements of which anarchists and Communists “of left” (called later “communist of council”), as being social democracy (or State socialism).

In 1921, for example, Rudolf Rocker will denounce the capitalism of State applied in the USSR, in its book the Soviets betrayed by the Bolsheviks . The Marxist Anton Pannekoek will make in the same way, but by refusing the designation of Marxisme to the Bolchevik S.

A minority within the party Bolshevik, the working Opposition (Alexandra Kollontaï, Alexandre Chliapnikov, etc), denounces in 1920-1921 a turning procapitalist of Lénine.

The groups belonging to the current bordiguist consider since the Twenties that the Revolution not having been able to develop with the international level, the structure economic and social of the USSR could not give rise to new social, human and economic reports/ratios. In Russia, after the revolution of October there according to them would have been a beginning of modification of the reports/ratios of production which would quickly have turned short.

From the years 1940, certain trotskists also consider that the USSR and the countries known as “socialist” are capitalisms of State: for example Grandizo Provided, Benjamin Péret, Natalia Sedova (the widow of Leon Trotski), or Tony Cliff. This last develops a theory of the capitalism of State which is in dissension with the preceding ones. According to him, the Stalinist mode positioned back the logic of capitalism by keeping the official structures of the economy. In the time of internationalization of the economy, a capitalist leading class could, according to him, to nationalize all the production of its country, while remaining capitalist insofar as the economy is based on the exploitation of the workers. The slogan of its current was for a long time: “Neither Washington, nor Moscow, but international Socialism”.

The analysis of the reports/ratios of production in the USSR lead Socialisme or cruelty or Maximilien Rubel to denounce the capitalism of State, while pushing further in the analysis of the Stalinist bureaucratic domination.

Analysis, and criticism, of the capitalism of State in the USSR east taken again by philosophers like Simone Weil or Guy Overflow (and with its continuation the movement Situationniste), like by historians like Charles Bettelheim.

More recently certain authors speak about capitalism of State to express the policy of a country practitioner the Dirigisme.

Historical applications

The term appears at least as from 1896. As regards the modes having exerted it, Lénine considered that imperial Germany was a monopolistic capitalism of State. The term will massively be employed for the USSR, and then for the other applying countries a totalitarian management Étatique of the capitalist saving (progressively in their appearance: China Maoist, Cuba castrist, the block known as " communiste" and " soviétique" , etc). These modes applied all the seizure of the bureaucracy of State to the production equipments. That corresponds to the case of an integral application.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the States having practiced this economy are directed towards a liberalization of the capitalist economy, this form of capitalism is sometimes described of mixed economy or Dirigisme, where the State acts within the framework of an market economy, with a capital intensive participation, but by seeking a political optimization and not an economic optimization of its participation within capitalism. It is the case of Russia, of China, etc

Case of an integral application

When this mode is applied in an integral way (official control of all the means of production), its cause and its result are thus a division in social class similar to that of the other capitalist companies: the Prolétaire S rent their labor force to a political middle-class, which controls the means of production.

The term is in particular applied to the countries of the “Communist bloc”. The Official owner giving of the orders of production, according to its own economic objectives, and helping themselves of propaganda by preaching devotion to work productivist (ex: the Stakhanovisme), thus allowing the State to make benefit.

Case of a partial application

Quotations

*"Nobody fought the " socialism of État" more than us them socialist German, nobody showed more distinctly than me, than the " socialism of État" in fact the capitalism of State is! "

Wilhelm Liebknecht, 1896.

*"Socialism and the socialist organization must be built by the proletariat itself, or then there will be no construction; anything else will emerge: the capitalism of État."

NR. Osinskij, O stroitel' stve sotsialisma , re-examined Kommounist , April 20th, 1918.

*"if we pay a higher tribute with the capitalism of State, that will not harm of anything to us, but will be used on the contrary to lead us to socialism by the surest way. When the working class learns how to organize the great production on the scale of the State, on the basis of capitalism of State, it has then, pass to me the expression, all the assets in hands and the consolidation of socialism will be assured. The capitalism of State is, from the economic point of view, infinitely higher than our current economy. Socialism is impossible without the technique of the great capitalism, conceived according to the last word of the most modern science, without a methodical organization of State which orders tens of million men to the most rigorous observation of a single standard in the production and the distribution of the products. our duty is to put to us at the school capitalism of State of the Germans, to apply us of all our forces to assimilate it, not to spare the dictatorial processes to establish it in Russia the reasoning of the “Communists of left” about the threat which on us the “capitalism of State would make weigh” is not that an economic error the Soviet capacity not entrusts the “direction” to the capitalists as capitalists, but as specialists technicians or organizers, realizing wages élevés."

Lénine, in '' On the infantilism " of gauche" and the ideas middle-class men '', on May 5th, 1918.

*"1 - Suppression of the capitalism of State and all pouvoir."

1st resolution of the conference of the anarchist-trade unionists at this meeting in Moscow enters the August 25th and on September 1st 1918.

*" the Russian working revolution cannot, “to preserve itself” to deviate from the international revolutionary way, by avoiding the combat continuously, while beating a retreat in front of the offensive of the international capital, by making concessions with the national capital. "

" Our allies in the camp of our adversaires" , article SR of left, in " Russia socialiste".

*" the true direction of our time is not the fight between capitalism, on the one hand, and the Bolchevism, on the other hand, but the fight between capitalism in all its forms (authoritative “socialism” or Bolchevism is one) and free socialism, antiautoritaire. The true problem of our time is not that of a choice between the white dictatorship and the red dictatorship, but that of a choice between the dictatorship and freedom. "

Voline, drawn from “red Fascism” article was published in July 1934 in the n° 2 of what it is necessary to say (published by Hem Day).

*"In a capitalism of State which emerged gradually from monopolistic capitalism, the shareholders would appear especially as consumers and the State like that which accumule."

Tony Cliff, " The capitalism of State in Russie" , 1955.

*"The economic apparatus of Russia presents the double character of pure capitalism, and the slave system without masque"

Maximilien Rubel, Growth of the capital in the USSR , re-examined " Appliquée" economy; , 1957.

*"There are naturally differences between capitalism of private companies and capitalism in State. But they relate to the dominant class, and not the dominated class, whose social position remains, it, identical in both systèmes."

Paul Mattick, 1969.

*"Presentation of the Russian mode like " socialiste" - or as having an unspecified relationship with socialism - is the greatest known mystification of the histoire."

Cornelius Castoriadis, in In front of the war , 1981.

*"The gerontocratic end of the capitalism of State is however end the one time. Unless thinking that the transition to socialism passes by Taylorism, mental control, the despotism of the Party-State, the exploitation, the nationalization of the means of production and exchange, wage-earning, the monopoly of the foreign trade, the deterministic stupidity, the democratic centralism and electricity (catalogs nonexhaustive), it should be seen that the " democracies populaires" were only domination and development companies. What is called really existing socialism, or company of transition, is only one capitalism of State with its mode of sole party and its vulgate Marxist-Leninist: a bureaucratic dominant class imposing at the company a saving in command, sacrificing the social needs to an exacerbated industrialism, destroying nature, exploiting the workers in a wild way to maintain its capacity and its privilèges."

libertarian socialist Organization/Vaud, text published in Confrontations, 1990 →.

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