> One of the problems here is the use of the term
> "revisionism." I have noticed that this term is used within
> the Communist movement the way the term "commie" is used
> outside the movement; an almost always ad hominem attack
> discrediting the actor and not the action. For example,
> China, after and leading up to the Sino-Soviet Split,
> regularly called the Soviet Union "revisionist."
>
> The fact is, Marxism is a system for analyzing the world
> and developing in accordance. As the world changes, our
> methods must change. China and Viet Nam, for example, I do
> not believe are "revisionist" because of their institution
> of a mixed market economy. These things are necessary, at
> present, to exist in the world.
>
i agree with your argument for poor socialiist countries like cuba and vietnam. these countries have no capital to reform with. however, i disagree with your idea that there is no third way.
the state companies of 20th century socialiist bloc was not as efficient as capitalism because it wasn't supposed to be. its main concern was quanitative output, which it was fairly successful with. This sole criteria for an economy is obviously inadequate. I wont even go into the other problems, fallible pricing, no way for efficient investing, lack of consumer input, lack of freedom of info, no democratic planning etc.
needless to say this system was just as much a SOP for a poor nation and control for a dictator, then for socialism. Because the USSR was the first and most powerful socialist country, it served as a template, unfortunetly, for the rest of the 20th.
There were experiments, like the Lieberman, hungarian collectivization, prague spring, hungarian revolt etc., that showed promise as self-reforming economic and political transformation, but were constrained by the soviet center. Gorbachev, though well meaning, didn't have a plan and was more worried about a party's inertia than subterfuge from below. What i am saying is, there are many state companies that are profitable in the world, which says a lot because state companies are usually only started where the market isn't profitable. and if not a state company some kind of equity sharing workers' control etc.
If done differently, the soviet could have been reformed. I think china is definetly going to go capitalist even more and turn into a kind of corporatist society, like fascist italy. A country, whose party speaks for all strata of society and has a lot of national pride. you cant have a capitalist economy and semi-capitalist party. socialism wont last long there. my chinese friends say the state companies there, aren't really reforming. people get laid off etc., but there mostly there to keep people employed.
I dont think the chinese are market socialist. the only country was yugoslav and they were constrained by a stalinist party, which had ways of making itself known in the process. because of the situations were socialist rev has triumphed, it has either been destroyed or deformed.
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