war and the state

billbartlett at dodo.com.au billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Wed Aug 28 11:49:08 PDT 2002


Joe R. Golowka wrote:


>You have yet to present any proof that socialism is impossible in "underdeveloped" countries.

This isn't complicated. Societies that lack a highly developed means of production simply don't have the means to provide economic security for all. It would be asking too much of human nature to expect that a society based on universal poverty and insecurity would be acceptable to anyone except a saint. Everyone aspires to personal economic security. A society that cannot provide this will inevitably be torn by constant strife as each member attempts to make their life a little better at the expense of others. Each person will attempt to dominate others in order to get a larger share of the social product.

So the essential material basis for socialism is universal economic security.


>
>>Thus, the Russian revolution possessed the political-- but not the economic-- means of socialism.
>
>A blatantly flase claim since socialism existed in much of Russia in 1917 & 1918 (and some parts of the Empire until 1921) but was annhiliated by the bolsheviks as they implemented their state-capitalist policies.

This seems a wild and unsubstantiated assertion. Would you care to present "proof"?


> but there have been many pre-industrial socialist societies (like the Iriqois, !Kung, Igbo, etc.) that lasted for centuries.

These are not socialist. The means of production was not socialised in any meaningful sense, in fact it is characteristic of tribal society that there is little or no social means of production. Primitive communist societies are generally hunter-gatherer, the development of agriculture and a more advanced means of production inevitably leads to the development of class society. In primitive communist societies, property (such as existed) was held in common by the various clans that were the basis of the tribes, but not by society as a whole (the tribe).

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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