I would say that we should make sure to carefully make a distinction between saying capital existed in a continuous form in the Soviet Union as the black market vs observing that it was the exchange of illegal commodities smuggled in. I do suppose that does unto itself form a sort of capitalist market as its the importation of commodities from capital states in pursuit of profit, yet the existence of a illegal commodity market doesn’t mean capital existed within the Soviet Union. The illegal commodity markets did not form a distinctive expropriating class that could influence the governance of the State as you mentioned in your second paragraph. The distinction also holds fairly true for China as well due to the fact that capitalists may exist within the state’s economic system they are kept on an extremely tight lease by the party to ensure they do not collaborate amongst themselves and with international finance capital to organize themselves into their own class. Key difference for me stands on the fact that they still exist and are allowed to exert their influence on the decision processes of the state. This may be limited to the individual level instead of a class level, yet it demarcated a clear difference for the Soviet Union during the transition from the NEP to a planned economy and I would argue that key point aught be considered the one of the sections in the line in the ground that demarcates a socialist economy from a mixed economy. Of course all in all this is more of an academic discussion at the end of the day because we’re not the ones that planned the Soviet economy nor the ones planning the Chinese economy thus I think there’s plenty of holes in my understanding of how they would draw concrete and definite delineations among the stages of socialist construction.
I agree, this is purely academic. I don’t think you’re wrong, per se, this is largely a semantical argument. Beyond the mercantilist commodity markets, there was also cooperative ownership in the agricultural sector. No socialist economy has ever been “pure,” even the DPRK has private ownership in special economic zones like Rason. That’s why I put an emphasis on looking at which aspect of the economy is principle, and which class is dominant.
China’s Socialist Market Economy is quite different from the soviet model. In some ways, it’s lagging behind even the Maoist era when it comes to societal guarantees. At the same time, I do believe that we have to understand that the path they’ve chosen has largely worked out heavily in favor of the PRC, and allowed them to surpass the USSR in other areas.
I believe when we try to identify socialism as what the soviets did, we are making an error (not saying you do that). We need to apply dialectical materialism consistently towards how we view socialist states and their progress.
I would say that we should make sure to carefully make a distinction between saying capital existed in a continuous form in the Soviet Union as the black market vs observing that it was the exchange of illegal commodities smuggled in. I do suppose that does unto itself form a sort of capitalist market as its the importation of commodities from capital states in pursuit of profit, yet the existence of a illegal commodity market doesn’t mean capital existed within the Soviet Union. The illegal commodity markets did not form a distinctive expropriating class that could influence the governance of the State as you mentioned in your second paragraph. The distinction also holds fairly true for China as well due to the fact that capitalists may exist within the state’s economic system they are kept on an extremely tight lease by the party to ensure they do not collaborate amongst themselves and with international finance capital to organize themselves into their own class. Key difference for me stands on the fact that they still exist and are allowed to exert their influence on the decision processes of the state. This may be limited to the individual level instead of a class level, yet it demarcated a clear difference for the Soviet Union during the transition from the NEP to a planned economy and I would argue that key point aught be considered the one of the sections in the line in the ground that demarcates a socialist economy from a mixed economy. Of course all in all this is more of an academic discussion at the end of the day because we’re not the ones that planned the Soviet economy nor the ones planning the Chinese economy thus I think there’s plenty of holes in my understanding of how they would draw concrete and definite delineations among the stages of socialist construction.
I agree, this is purely academic. I don’t think you’re wrong, per se, this is largely a semantical argument. Beyond the mercantilist commodity markets, there was also cooperative ownership in the agricultural sector. No socialist economy has ever been “pure,” even the DPRK has private ownership in special economic zones like Rason. That’s why I put an emphasis on looking at which aspect of the economy is principle, and which class is dominant.
China’s Socialist Market Economy is quite different from the soviet model. In some ways, it’s lagging behind even the Maoist era when it comes to societal guarantees. At the same time, I do believe that we have to understand that the path they’ve chosen has largely worked out heavily in favor of the PRC, and allowed them to surpass the USSR in other areas.
I believe when we try to identify socialism as what the soviets did, we are making an error (not saying you do that). We need to apply dialectical materialism consistently towards how we view socialist states and their progress.
I lost two replies to screen refreshes in two days. I’m sad
I hate when that happens, comrade. Sorry to hear that.