[lbo-talk] Oppression

[Somebody Somebody]

Whether Carrol likes it or not, the issue isn't simply a myth sustained
by capitalism. Workers really do slack off, whether under the lash of
the market or in the gray confines of a state owned company. The
difference is whether they face any consequences for it. In the end, a
socialist society is going to have to break with the post-Stalin era
Soviet pattern, and provide stiffer penalties for low productivity. 

The clearest example of how low productivity under socialism matters is
in agriculture. On the one hand, you have communes or on the extreme,
state-owned farms and on the other hand you have privately operated or
owned land. After decades of experience in all the socialist states,
it's bitterly apparent that even when only a minority of land is under
private production, that it outproduces the state-owned sector. There's
a reason for this: state owned farmers "slack off", and peasants like
working for their own profit. 

Cuba is now recapitulating the process of
moving towards private agriculture already experienced in China and
Russia. If even Cuba, the best run and most humane of all
Marxist-Leninist states is moving towards private plots of land, and is
finding them more productive, then there are lessons should be drawn.
Unfortunately, some are ideologically inoculated against learning
anything or changing their minds.