People Before Profit blog

Dude, Where's My Job?

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 06:34:00 +0000

Economists are calling the US economic 'turnaround' a 'jobless recovery' – a term that makes sense only to economists. Shouldn't people's ability to find work be central to any economy? Isn't the point of an economy all about fulfilling human needs, one of which is meaningful work? Not according to today's monetarist economists who only three years ago were warning of the dangers of the unemployment rate dropping below four percent. Then the business community and their economists were fearful that lower unemployment rates would increase labor's bargaining position, which would drive up wages and inflation. Unfortunately full employment was never reached.

Alan Greenspan, with the backing of the other monetarists who dominate today's economic discourse, increased interest rates to deflate the economy. It worked. Unemployment rates began to climb. Officially it's now at 6.1 percent but that number masks the huge number of people whoíve simply given up looking. In August, 93,000 jobs were lost and there are 2.1 percent fewer workers on payrolls in the US than there were two years ago, which doesn't even take into account the needed job growth to keep up with population increases.

Yet as GDP rises again, at a rate of five percent this quarter, the economists are talking about a 'jobless recovery' - the meaning of which was explained in a recent Financial Post article. 'The total net worth of Americaís richest people rose by ten percent to US $995 billion this year from 2002, according to Forbes magazines annual ranking of the countries 400 wealthiest individuals.' Over the two years prior to 2002 the 400 wealthiest people saw a slight decline in their wealth (as was the case for most of the population). And now the rich - if you're talking to economists, the essential part of the economy – are recovering.

No matter that the dole lines and the number without medical insurance are increasing. This combination of GDP growth and increasing unemployment is no longer out of the ordinary in the context of the de-industrialized US economy. According to Patrick Barkey in the East Central Indiana Star Press, 'jobless recoveries have become normal recoveries, at least for the US economy. There is no 'bounce-back' in hiring in the aftermath of recession because employers have made adjustments to permanently eliminate the need for the lost jobs. At least that is what the data for the last two recessions, in 1991 and 2001, tell us.' And, the past 20 years of neo-liberal attacks against social entitlements such as welfare (the non-corporate kind), unemployment benefits and social housing has made this unemployment crisis that much more painful. Homelessness and hunger are increasing.

Still, the recent cutbacks to social entitlements have benefited the capitalist class. Reductions in social spending make it easier to cut corporate and high income taxes. A reduced safety net also weakens the bargaining position of labor. Times have seldom been better for the richest capitalists - the four hundred richest US residents now own nearly a trillion dollars in assets (about the size of Canada's economy, the eighth largest in the world).

While in practice this increasing amount of wealth (capital) in the hands of the super rich translates into broader control over society from their (and corporate) funding of universities, politicians, think tanks, the media and almost every other aspect of society, in theory capitalist power is nothing more than a well orchestrated illusion. Bill Gates, the WalMart Waltons and the rest of the capitalist class serve no useful function (outside of any managerial role they may perform). Sure, within a system of capitalist property relations one usually needs some capital to generate productive capacities. Likewise, the ownership of capital usually generates a return on investment. Nevertheless, in principle capital has no productive function. In Economic Democracy: The Alternative to Capitalism Allan Engler explains that 'capital has never been able to expand on its own. No share, no bond, no dollar has ever been observed to spontaneously reproduce. The real value of capital only increases when the surpluses produced by social labor increase.'

Since human labor and ingenuity, not capital, is the basis of productive value we should start to talk and act like that's the case. And if post-World War II history is any indication, once a sufficient number of people begin to believe capitalists have very little, if any, utility there will be a whole slew of changes, mostly for the better, in the economic realm. At a minimum this scares the capitalists into allowing working people some more rights. Suddenly mainstream economists will once again create graphs that show how full employment policies benefit the economy. A little inflation won't throw the economic departments into despair. The economists may even notice the absurdity of a term like 'jobless recovery.'

However, to put the necessary scare into capitalism, there must be a mass organized, and always organizing, working class (this includes most of those US citizens who identify themselves as middle class). This movement will combat race, gender and other hierarchies but will also move forward with a sense of its commonality and righteousness. It will be a movement that is internationalist both out of a fundamental moral conviction and for its own self-interest.

This movement may decide, like it did in the 1950s, to stop once it has won a policy of full employment and some other social gains. Or perhaps it will continue on and demand the replacement of capitalist entitlements with social entitlements and social ownership; insist upon democracy in the workplace and an end to production for private profit. Finally, we could remake the world to one based upon human cooperation and equality.

--Yves Engler is a Montreal-based writer and activist.

Unfinished Business: Socialist Market Economy

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 05:06:00 +0000

In Marxism-Leninism the question of state and economy, plan and market has been often intertwined with the transition period between capitalism (sometimes pre-capitalism) and socialism, and between capitalism and communism. Marx and Engels developed the concept of the transition period and dealt chiefly with its political aspects. They gave comparatively little analysis of the economic tasks of the proletariat after it seized political power.

Lenin, on the other hand, devoted much attention to both political and economic aspects of the transition period, discussing this issue in some detail. From even before the October Revolution until his death, the issue is analyzed in such works as 'The April Theses,' 'The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It,' 'The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution,' and ''Left-Wing' Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality.'

He concluded that in a predominantly peasant country, with a multi-sectoral economy and low levels of productive forces and education, there could be no 'leap to socialism' (unless, of course, there was a revolution in a developed capitalist country which could then aid them). Instead there had to be a series of transitional steps with appropriate economic and political tasks for each one. These measures constructed the material-technical and democratic foundations for socialism that had, in other cases, been developed by capitalism in advanced industrial societies. As such, they could include state capitalism, the law of value, money-commodity relations and other market mechanisms. However, there were two political conditions under which this must occur: (1) a workers state to promote a trajectory towards socialism and (2) a worker-peasant alliance to assure that the majority petty-bourgeois population could be won to the socialist goal.

Reflecting on this situation Lenin formulated a series of propositions and practices leading to a socialist market economy in embryonic form, most explicitly exemplified in the New Economic Policy (NEP). For example, state capitalism was realized in the following forms: (1) foreign joint ventures and even foreign ownership of enterprises ('concessions'); (2) cooperatives based on market principles; (3) the use of capitalist merchants, as well as economic administrators and technical specialists trained in capitalist methods of management and organization; (4) the leasing of state-owned enterprises and natural resources to both foreign and domestic capitalists. State owned enterprises, which controlled the 'commanding heights,' were self-sufficient and operated on profit-and-loss principles, supplying themselves out of their own circulating assets. The law of value was recognized in the state economic sphere as an objective category and extended to cover the economy as a whole; market links existed not only between the socialist and non-socialist sectors but within the socialist sector itself.

Economic competition was to be the norm both within and between sectors. State plans were materialized through market, not primarily administrative, mechanisms. If competition was conducted properly the socialist sector would demonstrate its superiority thereby ousting or marginalizing the capitalist sector. Lenin referred numerous times to this process as 'paying our (capitalist) tuition for an undeveloped capitalism,' 'learning to trade like European businessmen,' 'advancing towards socialism...by capitalist management methods' and 'test(ing) through competition between state and capitalist enterprises.'

Among the rural and urban petty-bourgeois majority - against which state capitalism was to counter their spontaneous development into capitalism - individual farms and shops were allowed, but the goal was to have them voluntarily join cooperatives of various types and levels of socialization as pathways of transition to socialism.

This history indicates that the socialist market economy has its roots in the Marxist-Leninist experience, specifically in the early attempts to create socialism in multi-sectoral Soviet Russia. These origins are one of the sources drawn upon for contemporary China, Vietnam, Laos and, most recently, Cuba, as well as for the current concept of the socialist market economy.

It's important to note that the idea of socialist market economy is somewhat different from market socialism, although in practice itís sometimes difficult to distinguish. The socialist market economy presumes a multi-sectoral socioeconomic formation that has a transitional character. The immediate goal is economic and social development, and the long-range goal is achieving entry into the first rung of socialism proper; the means is to use the advantages of all sectors to develop the productive forces, while attempting to minimize their disadvantages.

This leads to a second presumption: that the level of economic, social and political development is inadequate to the task of entering socialism immediately, or after a brief transition period. In other words, the socialist market economy is designed for transition from an early capitalist or even pre-capitalist society, and the focus is to create the prerequisites for socialism that were put in place in the societies of developed industrial capitalism. Chinese and Vietnamese theorists of socialist market economy see underdeveloped forces of production leading to an underdeveloped form of socialism, and as the former become more robust, so does the latter.

These theorists view market socialism, on the other hand, as a mechanism for negotiating all the steps of socialism through to the communist phase of development. Market socialism is not employed to 'get to' socialism, but to ìget throughî socialism. While many similar economic and political tools may be used by both the socialist market economy and market socialism, the types of social formations and their final objectives differ.

So, briefly, what does a contemporary socialist market economy look like? Economically, it is a mixed economy with a public sector of state, cooperative and mass organization-owned enterprises; a private sector of petty bourgeois, domestic capitalist and foreign capitalist owned enterprises; an intermediate state capitalist sector with various combinations of the public-private sectors (e.g., joint private-public stock enterprises). The public sector controls the 'commanding heights' with the state macro-managing the overall economy, mostly through economic but also administrative means. State functions include the accumulation and protection of state assets, ownership of infra-structural and other strategic industries, maintaining sectoral proportions and overall balance, regulating income distribution, coordinating regional economic and social development and providing human services and public commodities, among others. Enterprises within each socioeconomic sector operate on the basis of market regulation. It may be summed up by saying that the state macro-manages the market and the market regulates the enterprises.

Politically, the state is the instrument of working class rule. Hence, one of its main functions is to keep society on the path to socialism and maintain the dominance of the working class. While the state must accommodate the interests of all classes and strata represented by each socioeconomic sector, it must gear those interests to the goal of proletarian socialism. Although the working-class party has its economic base primarily among state enterprises in the public sector - since that sector is the foundation for socialism - it represents workers in every sector. Petty bourgeois, capitalist and other non-working-class people voice their interests in associations, parties and legislative bodies. The task of the working class is to prevent the capitalist class shifting from a class-in-itself to becoming a class-for-itself.

These economic and political aspects raise certain questions that need to be addressed. A few of the crucial ones are:

(1) How does the public sector remain strong enough to be competitive with the capitalist sector in the market?

(2) While state enterprises control the 'commanding heights' do these 'heights' vary in accordance with historical conditions?

(3) How does the state deal with the negative phenomena produced by the market economy?

(4) How does the working class maintain the path towards socialism over several generations of transition?

(5) Does the scope of the state and market alter as the socialist market economy reaches the threshold of socialism proper and what role, if any, does the market play after this plateau has been reached?

Issues of this sort are not only grist for theoretical analysis, but urgent problems facing the concrete test of political practice in the countries currently constructing socialism via a socialist market economy.

It's a Family Affair: Bush's War for Rockefeller Oil

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 04:33:00 +0000

US imperialism does not use AK-47s. It does not need them. It has B-1s, F-16s, helicopter gunships, “smart” bombs and cluster bombs. It has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

But imperialism is increasingly desperate. The profits of the Fortune Global 500, the world’s 500 largest corporations, dropped 54 percent in 2001. In 2002, they fell another 56 percent. Their profit margins on sales dived between 2000 and 2002, from 4.7 percent to 0.97 percent. Bad debts and corporate bankruptcies broke records in Japan and Germany. Even business journals admit that “overproduction” is slamming profits. There can be famine, but the capitalists will only see “overproduction” if there is not enough paying demand for their productive capacity.

With profits tanking in late 2000, it was no surprise that the Supreme Court selected George W. Bush, and that he started beating the drums of war so loudly. There is a history. It was not long after the crisis of 1893 that a young US imperialism went to war over Cuba, the Philippines and China. It was not long after the crisis of 1907 that imperialist powers took the path to World War I. It was not long after the crash of 1929 that a desperate Japanese imperialism began its brutal invasions of China and Korea, setting the stage for World War II.

Had 9/11 not happened, Bush would have had to invent it. Within weeks, the US moved into former Soviet republics. NATO spread into former Warsaw Pact states. Unions came under attack. And after threatening war for a year, Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, using specious evidence.

Now there are signs of a rebound for US (and some Japanese) monopolies. Not a recovery for workers, not a recovery for the unemployed, not even for smaller capitalists.

But first quarter 2003 profits rose 33 percent from a year-earlier for the Business Week 900, which include the largest US monopolies. Second quarter profits rose 31 percent. And many of Japan’s largest industrial corporations are showing gains, or smaller losses.

There are two sources for this rebound. The first is the rapid growth of China and Vietnam, states created by socialist revolutions. China’s purchases (imports) from capitalist countries have been growing at double-digit rates. These are critically important to world capitalism drowning in “overproduction.” China’s purchases from Japan were up 50 percent in January-April of this year compared to the same period in 2002, and are at the base of Japanese companies’ rebound.

Bush’s cruise missiles and gunships are the other factor. For one thing, Wall Street/Washington has learned that wars “flush” capital into the US from the rest of the world. Thus, after the US began bombing Yugoslavia in March 1999, US “net acquisition of financial assets from the rest of the world” jumped from $492 billion (at an annual rate) in the first quarter of 1999, to $1,109 billion in the second quarter. Similarly, the assault on Iraq coincided with US net acquisition of financial assets rising from $542 billion (annual rate) in the last quarter of 2002, to $866 billion the next quarter.

Washington’s war talk also brought a sharp rise in oil prices. Oil is still essential in modern societies – and monopolized in all aspects (exploration, production, etc.) by Wall Street, even when the companies have British or Dutch origins.

The owners of the oil monopolies and Wall Street banks have a profound interest in “expensive oil,” not cheap oil. “Expensive oil” cheapens labor and loots smaller capitalists worldwide. Expensive oil is a direct source of profits for the oil monopolies. But in addition, Wall Street grabs most of Mexico’s, Angola’s, etc. revenues from oil sales to service debt.

In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin identified two dominant Wall Street families: the Morgans and Rockefellers. Only one achieved dominance in both oil and banking. And only one took great care in marriage and procreation; the line of Morgan began to dissipate with J.P. Morgan, Jr.’s death in 1943.

In the pioneering 1957 book, Empire of High Finance, Victor Perlo provides the necessary material to see the present-day dominance of one group, the Rockefellers. Perlo’s 1971 column on the Rockefeller agent, Henry Kissinger (reprinted in the recently published book, People vs. Profits), refers to the Rockefeller group as “the most influential single force in the Wall Street Establishment these days.”

The Rockefellers long ago learned to drop to the background and use a stable of agents in business and politics. Fore example, George Shultz headed both Bechtel, the Rockefeller-affiliated construction company, and the State Department. As Perlo showed, every US Secretary of State in the decades after World War II was tied to the Rockefellers.

Coinciding with war-induced oil gouging, US energy monopolies’ profits jumped 296 percent in the first quarter of 2003, compared to a year earlier. ExxonMobil topped all companies with $7 billion in profits, up 237 percent. ChevronTexaco recorded $2.1 billion, up 192 percent.

Citigroup trailed only Exxon in first-quarter profits. J.P. Morgan Chase – the old Chase Manhattan that absorbed the Morgan bank three years ago – was not far behind. But even more important than the banks’ profits is that there was no significant increase in the bad debts held by the six US “money-center” banks. (So where are the huge bad debts from the massive bankruptcies of Enron, WorldCom and other stalwarts of the 1990s bubble? The indications are that Chase and co. pushed them off onto pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies and smaller banks, both in the US and abroad.)

ExxonMobil is the combination of the Rockefellers’ Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of NY Chevron is the old Standard Oil of California. Citigroup is the old First National City Bank, dominated by the Rockefellers after the Morgans fell behind. Chase is the historic flagship of Rockefeller finance.

Now the US proconsul overseeing the destruction of Iraq is Paul Bremer. Who is he? The long-time protégé of Henry Kissinger, serving first as Kissinger’s aide in the Nixon days, then heading Kissinger’s consulting business.

And who is winning the contracts in occupied Iraq? Bechtel – the Rockefeller-dominated construction company; Halliburton, the Rockefeller-dominated oil-services (and now also war-services) corporation. Most recently, Bremer awarded Chase management of the new “Trade Bank of Iraq,” which the Wall Street Journal described “as a lucrative job.”

On the night of August 14, power was out in both Baghdad and New York. Power outages in Baghdad are common and severe. But what caused the US grid failure? Many sources have pointed to Enron’s efforts to deregulate the US electricity market as a factor.

Two weeks before the grid failure, Chase and Citi agreed to pay nearly $300 million to settle government charges they helped Enron manipulate its financial statements and mislead investors. Chase and Citi “weren’t just at the edge of the Enron deception but central to it,” Fortune reported. And in a remarkable review of the findings of the Enron bankruptcy examiner, the Wall Street Journal pronounced the two banks “Guilty!” of being the real force behind Enron’s machinations. (The author, Susan Lee, condemned the US government as “enablers” in the Chase-Citi debacle.) Enron of course was a player in California’s rolling blackouts, and the looting of its treasury. It is evident that the Rockefeller group is seeking to monopolize the US electricity market.

Profits of US energy monopolies rose 296 percent in the first quarter. Profits of US monopolies as a group rose “just” 33 percent in the same quarter. And all US corporate profits rose only 4 percent in the same quarter, according to the Commerce Department. That indicates that corporations other than those most dominated by the Rockefellers are stagnating, or suffering setbacks. George W. Bush has served one family well with the destruction of Iraq.

But the looting of the rest of the world economy, and the growing “overproduction,” debt loads and speculation worldwide, increase the likelihood of an economic heart attack. The Rockefellers’ gains are setting the stage for greater wars and crises.

On the night of August 14, power was out in both Baghdad and New York. The immediate reasons for the two failures differ. But behind both we can see the hands of one desperate family, and the decay, the poverty, the bankruptcy of their entire social system. It will take the work of the international working class to make sure the lights go on and stay on worldwide.

Democracy Matters: An Interview with Sam Webb

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 08:25:00 +0000

Editor's note: Interview with Sam Webb, Chair of the Communist Party USA on the subjects of the struggle for democracy and socialism conducted by Joe Sims.

PA: A discussion of socialism seems a little remote from the struggle to defeat Bush. Isn’t it a diversion?

Webb: We see the struggle to defeat Bush and his ultra-right counterparts as the main task in the coming period. It’s going to occupy our attention as well as the attention of tens of millions from now until Election Day. Nothing will set the stage for a broader struggle for people’s needs in the post-election period than defeating Bush and his right wing counterparts in Congress. At the same time, we don’t see any reason to warehouse the subject of socialism. Whether we like it or not, world developments are bringing socialism back into the political discourse in our country and worldwide. Why? Because it’s becoming apparent that problems such as environmental degradation, the health care and unemployment crises, inequality and racism, the issue of war and peace, can’t be resolved under capitalism. Keep in mind, capitalism is a global system, and rather than solving these problems, it greatly aggravates them. In some ways, capitalism at its present stage of development threatens the future of humankind. Whole regions of the globe are being ravaged. Given these circumstances, it is necessary to take a fresh look at socialism, while understanding that it is not on the people’s action agenda.

PA: Many countries that have a socialist orientation are in the developing world: China, Vietnam, Cuba. Several have adopted a concept of socialism called market socialism. I know we have said there are no models, but is the socialist market economy the new model?

Webb: These countries are in the early stages of socialism – they are developing countries and the productive forces are at a low level – so they are employing market mechanisms to assist in their economic development. This doesn’t contradict the thinking of Marx, Engels or Lenin. Even if we were dealing with more advanced countries – take our country for example - if this were the day after, the week after, the year after, the decade after the socialist revolution, we would employ market mechanisms in the construction of the socialist economy. There was a tendency in the communist movement to expect that market relations would disappear almost overnight, in the early stages of socialism. I’m not convinced that was an accurate reading of the classical literature or a lesson that we should draw from the experience of socialist construction in the 20th century. Some socialist countries tried to make too quick a leap from one stage of socialist development, in which market relations were employed, to a more advanced stage, in which commodity-money relations were marginal, and, as a result, experienced very negative consequences.

The example that comes most readily to mind is China. At the core of Mao’s economic policies was not simply the acceleration of the pace of development, but rather leaping over whole stages. Unfortunately, China pursued that policy at a very dear price. There’s a lot of controversy now about the current economic policies of the Communist Party of China. Many people are critical, but in my short stay there (I visited about a year and a half ago), it was apparent that the opening up of the country and the employment of market mechanisms has led to the acceleration of growth. Some say there is greater inequality, and that’s true, but at the same time they are lifting tens of millions out of poverty. Simply because the Chinese are utilizing market mechanisms and inserting themselves into the global economy is not reason enough to conclude that China is moving away from socialism.

Why do I say this? First of all, no country can develop apart from the global economy? While it is no simple task for the socialist and developing countries to insert themselves into a world economy that is dominated by and structured in the interests of the most powerful capitalist countries, do these countries have any other feasible option? Secondly, market mechanisms are not by definition at war with socialist construction. Whether they are utilized and how they contribute to socialist construction of one or another country can’t be solved abstractly in the realm of high theory. It has to be answered by examining the concrete political and economic circumstances in any given country.

Finally, we should study the experience of socialism in the 20th century as well as revisit both the early literature and more recent discussions on the socialist economy before we draw hard and fast conclusions with respect to the use of market criteria and tools in a socialist society. Lenin once said (and I’m paraphrasing him here) that the economic policies of the post-civil war Soviet state had to be adjusted to the mentality of the peasants, which led to the adoption of the New Economic Policy in the early 1920s. Not only was this necessary to revive an economy that was in shambles after the civil war, but it was the glue that maintained the strategic alliance between a tiny working class and huge peasantry. This alliance, Lenin argued time and again, was the essential political requirement for the forward movement of socialism in a very backward country.

PA: How do you distinguish or emphasize what is unique about the US experience that it different from not only China but also a similar country like Great Britain or France? How do you determine what is general and what is particular or unique to our own experience?

Webb: There is a tendency to think that the Bolshevik experience constituted a model of socialist revolution. On a very general level some of the experiences of revolutionary Russia do have some application to other countries. But if we are seriously interested in finding a path to socialism in our country, we have to give more attention to its unique historical features. Marx, Engels and Lenin on many occasions stressed the need to seek out what is peculiar in the national development of a given country. That has not been deeply appreciated enough.

To put it another way, if we were to write a book on our path to socialism, a section on what is peculiar and unique in our nation’s experience should not be an addendum or an appendix to the main text, but rather it should be a main thread woven into that text. We have, for example, a long democratic tradition, as do other countries. Although many on the left say our democracy is partial and incomplete, the fact is that democratic notions and sentiments are deeply ingrained in our thinking and have drawn millions into struggle at various turning points in our nation’s history. Therefore, our vision of socialism has to have democracy at its core. Indeed, even the slightest devaluing of this concept and practice will condemn socialists and the socialist struggle to the periphery of our nation’s political life.

PA: You emphasize the importance of democratic struggles, suggesting that the path to socialism is paved with the struggle for democracy.

Webb: Yes, we can say that with complete certainty. In the past, we did not always see things like this. There was a competing notion of the transition to socialism, which held an economic collapse would be followed by the seizure of power by the working class and then a relatively short transitional period to socialism. This was very simplistic. We could have a major economic downturn tomorrow, and it wouldn’t automatically result in a sudden turn of millions to socialism. We had a depression 80 years ago. The working class did step on the stage and the class struggle intensified, but even then socialism wasn’t the main item of the working class and people’s agenda.

Conditions have to be created for socialism – both objective and subjective – and that takes place over time. It’s only in the course of the struggle for democracy – understood in the broadest sense – that people come to see the necessity of a new society that puts people before profits. And this is a more protracted and complex process, stretching out over time and going through different phases and stages leading up to a socialist transition and continuing in the transition itself. In other words, the approach to socialism is not direct and straightforward struggle.

On a related matter, at one time we believed that as we approached socialism, its support base would narrow and some forces would peel away. Perhaps there is an element of truth in this notion, but if taken too far could gravely weaken the revolutionary process to socialism. In fact, I would argue that as we approach socialism in our country the task of the left forces is to win more millions to the socialist struggle. Socialism has to be a mass social upheaval in which all the discontented in society participates, including those who hold backward notions. Socialism is not just a project of the left; it has to be a mass project of millions and of diverse social forces. Without such a concept and practice, there’s no possibility of bringing about a transition to a new society. Lenin argued with great passion and insistence to the early communist movement that ts task was to win the absolute majority of the working class and oppressed peoples to socialism. This advice is still timely and even more necessary today.

PA: How do you involve millions given the form of government we have now? Or to put it differently, when you close your eyes what’s your dream of new society look like?

Webb: I don’t think that the political structures that currently exist will be dismantled. Nor do I think that a socialist movement will sideline the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or a system of checks and balances on concentrated political power. It may want to extend, deepen or modify them based on both experience and the needs of socialist construction. The main thing is not the institutional forms but the transformation of their class content. At the same time, I suspect that new popular institutions will emerge. Today millions of people feel alienated from the institutions and structures of government. People see government as disconnected from their day-to-day life, even an obstacle to their aspirations and to a decent life. Nearly one-half of the people don’t go to the polls on Election Day. And the ultra-right has demagogically preyed on this political alienation.

To overcome this, socialism will probably have to find new institutional forms that draw millions into political and economic life, that turn politically discontented people into active citizens. Or to put it differently, socialism has to be a liberatory and emancipatory project for tens of millions. It must empower people; it must bring them into the center of political and economic life. For socialism to fulfill its promise, the people themselves have to be its real authors and architects. For many reasons, that is not the image that the US people have of socialism. Instead, its representation in the popular mind is of a regimented, undemocratic and economically challenged society. This we have to change.

PA: The Communist Party has called its concept Bill of Rights socialism. Is that still valid?

Webb: Gus Hall, our former national chairman, introduced that phrase and it still resonates for a lot of reasons. Of course, it is of little value if we keep it to ourselves. Communists and other partisans of socialism have to engage others in this discussion, and especially in light of what happened in the socialist countries between 1989 and 1991. That was an earthshaking upheaval and moment. In examining this experience, and we should do it carefully and thoughtfully, we may find that some of the notions that we embraced over the last 50 or 60 years are no longer adequate. Some may have to be modified, refurbished and refit to new circumstances; others jettisoned. Marxism, its main theoreticians tell us, has to be developed in all directions and applied in a creative manner.

PA: What kinds of notions from the 20th century experience need to be re-examined?

Webb: To take one example that I mentioned earlier, we have to think about the path to socialism differently, given the economic and political circumstances of our country. In some ways we were prisoners of the experience of Russia in 1917. It was a world-historic event to be sure. And it will continue to reverberate for decades to come. Nevertheless, while that experience fit Russia in 1917, it doesn’t fit the US in 2003. Perhaps we can learn as much from Allende’s Chile as we can Lenin’s Russia. We have to draw lessons from the whole experience of the working class for the last 90 years – but not mechanically, but rather we have to have an eye to adapting and modifying them to what is new and peculiar to our country and to this century.

PA: What about the form of rule? Some people feel that Communists take one position before we get to power and another after we get it? How do you deal with that?

Webb: Both in the transition to socialism and in its construction, I don’t foresee Communists being the sole decision makers. We will be one political force within a much larger coalition. We are getting away from the notion that the Communists are the 'top dog' in the struggle for socialism while other political forces will either merge or come in behind us. In our view, we will be one component of a very diverse coalition, at the center of which is the working class, the racially and nationally oppressed, and women. Of course, in such a varied coalition, there will be competing views and we will forthrightly express ours, but our emphasis will be on cooperation, on finding common ground, on unity.

Our emphasis will be on deepening and extending democracy as a condition for the creation of a humane socialist society. There may be situations in the early stages of the socialist struggle where it may seem expedient to cut down and restrict democratic rights, but a political coalition leading such a transition should resist choosing that option. The fight for democracy at every stage of socialist construction, including the early stages, is imperative. If people violate laws they should be subject to whatever the legal penalties are. But the notion that democratic rights should (or worse still will automatically) be restricted rather than enlarged in the aftermath of a socialist revolution is very problematic. One of the reasons that democracy lacked a necessary vibrancy in the former socialist countries is that the ruling parties didn’t have enough confidence in creative abilities and wisdom of ordinary people. And once that mindset took over (and it was feed by the extreme and unrelenting hostility of the capitalist states over eight decades), it almost inevitably followed that the people in these countries were not entrusted with the problems and difficulties of socialist construction, nor was power and decision making devolved to them. And as a consequence, their democratic life had a formal character. The Cuban experience strikes me as being different, despite the constant threats, subversive activities, and blockade of US imperialism. The Party there seems to entrust the people and goes to great lengths to make the people active participants in socialist construction, something that the political forces that lead a socialist transition in our country must do as well.