How to make a Capitalist state Socialist?

[Rene]

I've been following the discussions in this board with great interest over the past few weeks. Especially the Capitalism-vs-Socialism thread are very interesting, I've seen loads of very well argumented posts.

However for me one big question remains about Socialism, and I guess its best to ask Edric O:

How would a capitalist state change to a socialist one? I mean like: how would the socialists gain power? Through numbers sounds quite unrealistic to me as most people in a Capitalist country don't believe in Socialism, but by some kind of revolution by a minority wouldn't be democratic at all.

And then, once the socialists are 'in control', by whatever means, how to proceed? You have this capitalist state, what needs to be changed and in what order to avoid complete chaos?

I've been thinking about this for a few days now, but I really can't imagine how this could be achieved.

[Sneakgab]

A socialist transformation presupposes a majority (in today's situation); any socialist coup would immediately be deposed by foreign capitalist countries. (EDIT: In any case, since socialism is after all a system where things are decided via direct democracy, the majority could change the system at will. If they supported capitalism then presumably they could bring it back at any time EDIT) While most capitalist countries may seem not to have much support for socialism, it is obvious that a few in Latin America at least have majority or at least a lot of support for it. In addition, there are many poor countries where there would probably be a great deal of support for socialism if the masses were not constantly distracted and divided by nonsense like ethnic and tribal conflict and they had proper socialist movements and parties. People can be distracted with racial, ethnic, tribal, e.t.c conflict, by foreign affairs (like the Falklands war) and a whole myriad of things and they can be deceived and kept waiting with promised reforms that never come or have fine print that renders them negligible or they can be delayed by election rigging, repression and systems that are unfavourable to their wishes (eg: elections by number of constituencies won, where it is possible for a majority vote to lose). There eventually comes a point where the masses have learned from the past. They learn that ethnic conflict is barbaric and pointless. They learn that they can't trust their politicians. As for repression and election rigging, the people eventually get sick of that. In other words, eventually, the people in the poor nations will no longer be able to be tricked and diverted and will eventually overthrow their unpopular leaders. So currently, a socialist majority in a number of countries is not out of the question. Also, some Marxists would have it that the economic upswing and situation since WW2 (or something like that) has been an exception fueled by the advanced countries making use of international markets and that the masses can now expect that things they enjoyed in that period, like pensions, health care, decent minimum wages, e.t.c are likely to be erased or decreased. If the situation gets bad enough for the masses in these countries, they too will begin thinking about alternatives to capitalism, creating a possibility for a socialist majority and transformation.

(EDIT: In summary: When things get bad enough people tire of the current situation and try to improve it. They can be tricked and distracted, but eventually they learn, especially when things remain glaringly the same after the govt has oppressed some scape group or after they promised this or that. EDIT)

''And then, once the socialists are 'in control', by whatever means, how to proceed? You have this capitalist state, what needs to be changed and in what order to avoid complete chaos?''

Big change typically involves chaos. It can be mitigated by good planning and organization. Past that, some chaos must be tolerated.

Basically, power, the means of production, and wealth needs to be transferred to the masses. While this is done, government will be maintained for a while (I may have heard mention of maintaining bosses and the market for some time. I suppose that until worker's control is set up and production and distribution are being controlled this might make some sense?). Eventually, there would be direct democracy and the governance of the masses by themselves, with the right to recall elected officials at any time (who would only represent, administer, govern, e.t.c with the masses being the ultimate deciders). Workers would have more influence where they live and work (I think that's the idea), with their councils, and the masses would be in control of production (and pretty much everything I guess). I'm not sure about the details to  be honest, but that seems to be about the jist of it.

[nemafakei]

It is a big question, and the left is sharply divided over the answers.

[Edric O]

Well, as Nema said, it's a very big question. You could probably fill an entire library with all the books that socialists have written on the subject. Some of the most intense arguments and divisions between socialists were caused by precisely this issue.

In fact, as you suggested in your post, we are really talking about two separate questions here:

1. How can socialists come to power?

2. Once socialists are in power, how do they go about turning a capitalist society into a socialist one?

The short answer to the first question is: Socialists can only come to power with working class support.

But we must not imagine that the population of a country (or of the world) can be entirely divided into people who strongly support socialism and people who strongly oppose socialism. In reality, most people are in the middle. They may slightly support socialism, or slightly oppose it, or they may be undecided, or they may not care at all.

In order for socialism to be possible, it must have some degree of support from the majority of the population. This does not mean that it's necessary for most people to become committed socialists. That's impossible, because most people are always apolitical, in any system. The only thing that is necessary is to have a majority of people that are willing to give socialism a shot, or who are at least not opposed to socialism. This kind of majority opinion does exist today in many capitalist countries.

Broadly speaking, there are three strategies that socialists have used or proposed for gaining power:

A. Build a socialist political party, compete in regular elections, and win.

B. Build a political party or organization focused on winning support in the streets and operating outside the framework of the existing state. When there is a wave of discontent against the existing capitalist system, organize marches and protests. If you can gather enough support for your cause to ignite widespread protests around the country, lead your comrades to break into government buildings, arrest the current leaders, and take over the state.

C. Build a trade union-like organization and, once you have enough members, organize a general strike and take over the factories and other workplaces.

Strategies A and B have been used successfully at various points in the past. Strategy C has never worked in the past, perhaps because it requires the most active involvement and carries the greatest risk for the people involved. Notice that although strategy A requires the greatest number of people to sympathise with the socialist cause, the only thing they need to do is vote - and that's a very easy, risk-free one-time deal. Strategies B and C actually require smaller numbers of sympathisers, but those sympathisers need to be a lot more actively involved - and take more risks - than in strategy A.

Of course, it's possible for the same organization to try to pursue two or three different strategies at once, and see which one seems to work best at the moment. That's the approach I support.

However, gaining power is only half of the problem. The other half is what to do once you have power. Many different socialist groups have won power in many different countries in the past, but none of them have succeeded in creating a stable socialist economic system. There have been two types of failure (again, broadly speaking):

-- Some socialist groups didn't actually fail; they never tried to build socialism in the first place. This is the sad history of social democracy. Social democrats - using strategy A - have been the most successful at gaining power. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, they either governed or exerted a major influence on every democratic country in the world. But once they found themselves in power, the social democrats adopted a policy of reformism: Making small left-wing reforms to the capitalist system in the hope that, after some time, these reforms added together would lead to socialism. That did not happen. In the Scandinavian countries, some social democratic parties have been in power almost without interruption for 60 years, and still they did not reach socialism. Instead of them changing the system, the system changed them. Instead of their countries becoming more socialist, the social democratic parties became more capitalist and eventually abandoned even the idea of socialism. Today, no social democratic parties advocate socialism any more, although a lot of them still use the word "socialist" in their names (it's left over from the time when they really advocated socialism).

-- The other major branch of the socialist movement that succeeded in coming to power was Marxism-Leninism (or just "Leninism" for short). Leninists are not just socialists, but also communists (explaining the distinction would require a separate post), and they founded the Soviet Union. Their strategy for gaining power was revolution, not election, and, unlike the social democrats, they maintained their commitment to changing society after they found themselves in government. However, they put far too much emphasis on vanguardism and democratic centralism - the idea that a single political party (and one with a highly centralized structure) was uniquely capable of playing a "leading role" in society after the revolution and carry out the transition to socialism (and, later, communism). On the bright side, the Leninist approach did lead to the creation of a new kind of society, different from capitalism. Unfortunately, the new system was not socialism. The single party was too powerful and too centralized, and, alongside a number of historical circumstances, this led to the creation of an economic system that somewhat resembled socialism but lacked its democratic element. That was the Soviet system. Without democracy, the political leadership grew rigid and corrupt, and the planned economy was mismanaged because the planners could not accurately judge consumer satisfaction (if people are not allowed to complain in public, they cannot tell you when you've made a mistake, so you will persist in your mistakes). These factors, together with a heavy dose of stupidity in high places (*cough* Gorbachev *cough*) eventually brought down the Soviet system.

So, we know two different ways that WON'T lead to socialism: (1) trying to make small, gradual changes to capitalism, and (2) putting a single, powerful party with centralized leadership in charge of the whole period of transition. You can look at these two errors as two extremes. In the first case, the socialists are too weak-willed and too eager to compromise with capitalism; in the second case, they are too intolerant of opposition and too eager to silence dissent. What we need is something in between. A socialist party that will fight to gain power and make sweeping changes to society in a short period of time, like the Leninists did, while also being committed to a multi-party democracy and freedom of speech and criticism, like the social democrats were. Of the two groups, I think the Leninists were closer to the winning formula. In the years following the Russian Revolution, their Bolshevik Party was under great internal pressure, and a lot of efforts were made to keep it together. I think those efforts were misguided. If the party had been allowed to fracture and split, the Soviet Union may have ended up with a genuine multi-party democracy.

[Edric O]

But you're probably also asking about more specific, concrete measures, not general statements about the need to combine a commitment to democracy with rapid changes. Assuming we have a socialist party that got into power one way or another, what should it actually do? How should it proceed?

Well, this subject is also hotly debated, but there is broad agreement that the absolute top priority will be to prevent capital flight. In our globalized economy, it is very easy for capitalists to move money from one place to another. As soon as a genuine socialist government takes power, the financial markets will descend into panic as capitalist firms start trying to sell their assets, take as much money as they can get, and run to another country. This would be a disaster for the economy. So the very first thing that a socialist government needs to do is close the stock market, suspend all banking activities, and freeze the assets of foreign firms. Basically, it will have to take very quick measures to ensure there is no massive flow of capital away from the country. Once that is done, if banks and foreign trade are frozen anyway, might as well go ahead and nationalize them. After all, you can't keep them frozen for very long; the economy needs them in order to function. So, in the first stage, the socialist government should nationalize the financial sector and establish a state monopoly on foreign trade. This might also be a good time to nationalize the local branches of multinational corporations, since the state monopoly on foreign trade will have cut them off from their parent companies anyway.

All of that needs to happen within weeks, or a couple of months at most. And then, what comes next?

Well, different socialists have completely different ideas on how to proceed after that, so I can only give you my own personal proposal, inspired by a book called Towards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell (you should read that if you're interested in how socialism would work, by the way - it's free to download).

After closing off the possible routes of capital flight, you can relax for a bit. The immediate danger has passed. The economy is still mostly capitalist, but the capitalists are no longer able to take their money and run. Some of them may choose to run anyway - I mean leave the country, physically - but that is actually a good thing. The government can pass a law to automatically nationalize the property of any capitalist who emigrates. This will allow for a string of simple, quiet nationalizations without much fuss or controversy.

By this point the country starts having a rather large state sector. It is time to establish institutions that will coordinate the activities of all those newly nationalized industries. Without such economic planning, you can only have state capitalism (a system where state-owned companies compete in a market as if they were privately owned). It is probably a good idea to take people, capital and knowledge from the old financial sector into the new economic planning agency. After all, the purpose of financial markets in capitalism is to allocate resources in the economy. The socialist planning agency has precisely the same purpose. It will perform that purpose in a different way, but still, knowledge about allocation in the old system is useful. We will need to equip the planning agency with state-of-the-art computers, because efficient economic planning requires processing power a lot more than it requires people sitting in offices. The new socialist economy-in-the-making will be technologically advanced. Also, since we're dismantling the financial markets, it's time to nationalize the last of the old corporations and close the stock exchange for good.

The time is now about two years after the revolution (or election, or whatever event put the socialists in power). The economy is still not fully socialist yet, but it's getting there. The corporations and the banks are gone. In their place, there is a large, state-owned, planned sector of the economy - the "socialist sector". This should include some institutions that provide credit to individual citizens like the old banks did; but unlike the old banks, such institutions would deal only with individual citizens, not with other firms.

At this point, we may pause for a while and take some time to make sure the socialist sector of the economy is efficient and democratic before we finish the transition. It must not be too bureaucratic, and it must not be organized just like the old corporations except with a new boss. Workers must be given a strong voice in the running of their own workplaces. It may be good to have them elect their own managers, at least at some levels in some industries. The emphasis of management must be shifted away from making profits at any cost, and towards ensuring a balance between productivity and job satisfaction. After all, every consumer is also a worker, and, ideally, socialism aims to make work as enjoyable as possible. And, of course, we need to get all the bugs out of the new economic planning software - there are always bound to be some bugs. ;)

In the realm of politics, new elections should be approaching. If the capitalists put up a serious fight after the revolution (including armed combat, perhaps), then capitalist parties may be under a temporary ban for the moment. It may be acceptable to go into the first post-revolutionary election with a single, massive socialist party. But it's a dangerous path. It would be better if there was more than one socialist party by this time. If there isn't, then one of our goals for the second term will be to help in the creation of such a socialist opposition by encouraging dissenting factions within our own party to split off (there are always some dissenting factions).

We are taking a pause before incorporating all remaining private businesses into the socialist sector, but the pause cannot be too long. Oskar Lange pointed out that capitalists who know their businesses will be nationalized sooner or later are likely to run those businesses very badly, without regard for the long term, and without making any new investments. The longer we wait, the more the remaining private sector will deteriorate (buildings will not be given regular maintenance, machinery will be allowed to rust, and so on).

So, maybe four or five years after the revolution, a constitutional law will be passed to abolish private ownership of the means of production entirely. All former private businesses will be integrated into the planned socialist economy. Their former owners will become workers. If they were owners of small businesses, and if their employees liked them, they may even stay in the same place and do roughly the same thing as before - except they would no longer have the power to hire and fire workers, or to order them around.

But there is still one last step to take after this, and it's a very important step. We now have a fully planned economy, but we're still using the same kind of money that we used under capitalism. This doesn't make much sense any more, and it needs to be changed in order to implement the socialist principle that payment must be proportional to the amount of work done. At first, we will set a fixed ratio between the existing currency and a standard hour of work. For example, we may decide that 1 hour = $30. This will be used across the entire economy, perhaps with small variations to account for differences in effort between different jobs. Then, some time later, we will rename $30 to "1 labor credit" or "1 labor hour" or something like that, to reflect its true value.

And now, with the new currency, the transition is complete. We have a planned economy. We have a roughly egalitarian distribution of incomes, thanks to the labor-hour system. And we have maintained and expanded democracy. Thus, we have socialism.

[Rene]

Thanks for all the answers so far. However, they raise some more questions.

I'll first read the book Edric O posted, if that doesn't answer them all I'll ask them here if you don't mind ;)

[Sneakgab]

So, in summary: Prevent capital flow by nationalizing the resources backing any money that someone attempts to remove. Nationalize the major companies and set up institutions to run them, developing theory and means to do so. Then set up workers democracy after they are prepared to manage and govern themselves. Finally, change the currency type. Products and services will generally be priced according to the labor in performing them. Throughout this some pauses may be needed for ''other'' things (software development and who knows what else).

You make it sound just like baking a cake Edric O :D. Of course your plan seems sound (the first time I read through it I often thought: But why not do this? you may as well, only to find on the second read through that that is what you planned already. So yeah, pretty solid agreement here), but I just thought that I would add the obvious just in case: Those setting up this socialist state will likely need to make up some stuff as they go along without being able to follow a plan too precisely. Setting up socialism seems to be... more delicate than setting up feudalism, capitalism, and seemingly all governments of the past. It can be more easily ''messed up'' by corruption and outside interference. Sadly, this delicacy will be tested; if history is anything to go by, the capitalists will try everything in the books to prevent socialism from coming about; coups, assassinations, wars, sanctions, e.t.c. You name it, the capitalists will be doing it. Therefore it is important that the socialists are able to respond sensibly . Fortunately, the socialists have a great deal of experience to help this time around compared to when they had virtually none during the October revolution. Think there will be quite a few less madmen taking over and a few less massacres this time around   ;). Of course, we have this wonderful wealth of solid planning as well. The last few decades have not been spent completely idly.

''most people are always apolitical''.

Somehow I always seem to absent-mindedly forget to take that into account (you'd think after one or two times I would remember but apparently there are some things I always forget about or forget to do. Quite troublesome in day to day life really   ;D). Maybe it is because everyone I meet always seems be to one side or the other (so I don't get frequent reminders). Good of you to remind me of this. Now if only I had someone around to remind me to put my pants on before going out in public... Edrico, Nema, anyone? Just a quick call in the morning would do :D

Of course that is true along with the measure of support mattering. Well, at least if power is to be taken through something other than elections. Even then though, the more fervent supporters can help get new votes with their support. To win an election you have to have a party, and to have a functional party, you need funding and/or volunteer work. This can only come from fervent supporters, as a socialist party will get no help from the rich businesses who provide the funding for the bourgeois parties.

Speaking of which, thought I'd mention that lately good progress seems to be being made in this matter with large numbers of new members. Very important, it would be a huge pity if the masses were moved towards socialism only for such support to be wasted by a lack of socialist parties, organizations and leadership (well, for the Marxists that is)

One last thing on this, what do you think of the potential of those against socialism to sabotage the system to the point that this sabotage leads to it's destruction? It would seem even a small proportion, say 20% might have the power to do this.  From my experience with people, I would say that more than that are currently strongly opposed to socialism (well, opposed to what they ''think'' socialism is. It would be more accurate to say they are opposed to a Stalineqsue affair really). I think that if they see what the Marxists really have in mind though, that % would drop dramatically. Still, currently a large number of people I've met think that the Capitalism is the way to go. Of course, that's just how it is now (not to mention, I don't frequently discuss these issues over the net with poverty stricken, if you get my drift)

''Well, different socialists have completely different ideas''

Dang. Got that right. Stalinists, Maoists, Reformists, Market Socialists. Then again, amongst that bunch we don't have any that we would call Socialists with what we have in mind when we think of the term Socialism. To be honest, when it comes to the differences amongst people who want to set up a planned economy with a worker's democracy, I am a bit unschooled. Maybe because this is a select bunch indeed, so not too many differences exist.

''In the realm of politics, new elections should be approaching. If the capitalists put up a serious fight after the revolution (including armed combat, perhaps), then capitalist parties may be under a temporary ban for the moment.''

Why is this necessary? Clearly we can't allow violence but their participation in the elections is another question. Do you mean to say that, if they have a chance of winning and bringing the socialist transformation to an end, they should be banned? I doubt that that's what you mean, because that generally seems silly.

''So, maybe four or five years after the revolution, a constitutional law will be passed to abolish private ownership of the means of production entirely''

I think that the time for most of these things depends on how long it takes to set up the structure, prepare the workers for their self governance and managing and establish the theories and means of planning the economy.

''And, of course, we need to get all the bugs out of the new economic planning software - there are always bound to be some bugs.  ;)''

Nice that you'd mention this. I've long been wanting to mention that advances will make any planning much easier. Even if we had something like the SU bureaucracy, it would likely do WORLDS better than the SU. A big and complex economy would be much less a problem.

A new thing to mention of my own is that the socialists in power must make sure they are seen to be serious. If they don't appear to be doing anything initially then can we blame their supporters for dropping their support for them and disowning them, perhaps even contributing to remove them from power? Maybe we should even be praising these people (depending on various things. If they make it clear that their problem is that they do not trust the government to complete a socialist transformation and if their are alternative socialist parties available). So the socialists in power must immediately start moving towards the goal of socialism, showcasing significant plans and carrying out significant moves. Otherwise, they may be confused with the likes of the Social Democrats.

Speaking of which, I never knew the Social Democrats were largely previously serious socialist parties. I knew in many cases they had been changed by concessions and the like from a serious socialist party to mere reformers, but I didn't know that was the origin of most of the parties. I thought that implementing some reforms while maintaining capitalism was the original and main policyplan and goal of most of these parties.

''Broadly speaking, there are three strategies that socialists have used or proposed for gaining power:

A. Build a socialist political party, compete in regular elections, and win.

B. Build a political party or organization focused on winning support in the streets and operating outside the framework of the existing state. When there is a wave of discontent against the existing capitalist system, organize marches and protests. If you can gather enough support for your cause to ignite widespread protests around the country, lead your comrades to break into government buildings, arrest the current leaders, and take over the state.

C. Build a trade union-like organization and, once you have enough members, organize a general strike and take over the factories and other workplaces.

Strategies A and B have been used successfully at various points in the past. Strategy C has never worked in the past, perhaps because it requires the most active involvement and carries the greatest risk for the people involved. Notice that although strategy A requires the greatest number of people to sympathise with the socialist cause, the only thing they need to do is vote - and that's a very easy, risk-free one-time deal. Strategies B and C actually require smaller numbers of sympathisers, but those sympathisers need to be a lot more actively involved - and take more risks - than in strategy A.

Of course, it's possible for the same organization to try to pursue two or three different strategies at once, and see which one seems to work best at the moment. That's the approach I support.''

I guess you should be happy then, since I'm sure you know that this seems to be the route that most Marxist organizations seem to be taking (from what I hear about the IMT and CMR and the like)

Certainly the workers could do with new trade union organizations. The leadership of most existing trade unions has become corrupt and/or too willing to ''co-operate'' with the bosses and bend to their will. Mostly they just sabotage the workers movements with them trying to delay and avoid protests, strikes and other ''strong'' action. Until a socialist government takes power, workers will be taking it in the @$$ hard till they've got real trade unions with which to pressure their bosses and the government.

Certainly, this leadership is not interested in socialism. Normally it is possible that trade unions could contribute significantly towards socialism via the building of a labor party (which could get workers ''thinking'' eventually leading some of them to revolutionary conclusions. In any case, though this is perhaps besides the point, a labor party would help the workers, and though this might not directly contribute to socialism, it should please the socialists) but like this these trade parties aren't likely to do anything of the sort. The only way these trade unions are likely to contribute towards socialism is via the radicalization of workers due to their dissatisfaction with unionism (not sure if that will be a big effect).

About a political party (option A, power via election).... Well, the media is mostly owned by the rich so you can imagine the press a socialist party could get. As I said near the beginning it obviously would not have any funding from big business. It would be entirely dependent on support from... supporters. It's supporters would be from the working class and poor, who would not be able to contribute much money. Things would be difficult. It is very well possible that it would not be able to inform most people about it's Marxist policies. Of course, the fact that most people know very little about Marxism is another big problem.

Maybe the best option would be to recruit from the poor, unemployed, very badly paid, e.t.c. These people would be much more open to Marxism and more likely to become passionate about it than the rest of the population. If the Marxists can only reach a small number of people, it seems there is no reason it shouldn't focus on these (except maybe that these groups can offer only very little funding. On the other hand, the poor and unemployed would have a lot of free time on their hands)

I suppose the most effective strategy depends on the situation.

[chatfsh]

Well, this subject is also hotly debated, but there is broad agreement that the absolute top priority will be to prevent capital flight. In our globalized economy, it is very easy for capitalists to move money from one place to another. As soon as a genuine socialist government takes power, the financial markets will descend into panic as capitalist firms start trying to sell their assets, take as much money as they can get, and run to another country. This would be a disaster for the economy. So the very first thing that a socialist government needs to do is close the stock market, suspend all banking activities, and freeze the assets of foreign firms. Basically, it will have to take very quick measures to ensure there is no massive flow of capital away from the country. Once that is done, if banks and foreign trade are frozen anyway, might as well go ahead and nationalize them. After all, you can't keep them frozen for very long; the economy needs them in order to function. So, in the first stage, the socialist government should nationalize the financial sector and establish a state monopoly on foreign trade. This might also be a good time to nationalize the local branches of multinational corporations, since the state monopoly on foreign trade will have cut them off from their parent companies anyway.

I

[Edric O]

Hacking? Who said anything about hacking into the system? I was thinking of something a little more like pulling the plug. Something like cutting off the electrical power supply to the various office buildings that make up the financial sector, or physically cutting off their internet access, or other such measures. I'm betting that you don't carry all your confidential business data around in your laptops, so if you can't access your main computers for whatever reason, then you can't trade. Do you have emergency generators and satellite uplinks? :P

But let's assume that does not work, for example because you crafty bankers got all your intangible financial assets out of the country the moment it looked like socialists might gain power (even though that would be risky on your part because the socialists might not succeed in taking power and then all your effort would have been in vain).

Very well then. All the traders get into a selling frenzy, and the value of shares in all corporations headquartered in the soon-to-be socialist country drops like a stone. That will just mean that the socialist government has to move directly to step 2 and nationalize the now-bankrupt corporations immediately after taking power. A severe financial crash will force the hand of the socialists, and leave them no choice but sweeping, immediate nationalization across the board. I'm not terribly opposed to this scenario. It would ensure that there is no longer any option to move to a half-socialist mixed economy.

You know much more about financial markets than I do, I am sure. After all, you work in them and I don't. You know that their role is to allocate resources in the capitalist economy. We can produce things just as easily without them. We only need them to decide what shall be produced, how it shall be produced and by whom. Thus, we can easily get by without them, but only if we set up some different allocation mechanism to take their place. That would be the economic planning board in a socialist system. If a new socialist government finds itself faced with the financial equivalent of armageddon, it will have no choice but to set up an economic planning board as soon as possible. That's perfectly fine with me. :)

The United States is a special case. If socialists came to power there, that would be the end of capitalism for the whole world. Whether they shut down the US financial markets or just let them crash, the shockwaves would cause disaster for financial markets everywhere. Other countries would have no choice but to drastically reform their economic systems, at least, if not follow the American path and go socialist. Realistically, I expect the transition to socialism to start somewhere else, and advance across the world at an unknown pace until it reaches the US. The end of capitalism in America will probably be the last, not the first, chapter in the history of capitalism.

(That is, unless some other country becomes the core of the global capitalist system in the mean time. If I were writing this 100 years ago, I would be talking about Britain instead of America. If capitalism survives another 100 years, a different country will probably take over America's current role.)

[chatfsh]

Obviously, I can not reveal the details of our contingency/ business continuity plans, but I can assure you that none of the tactics you mentioned would work to undermine the system.  I can think of a much more pragmatic approach, but I happen to enjoy being employed so I

[Edric O]

Obviously, I can not reveal the details of our contingency/ business continuity plans, but I can assure you that none of the tactics you mentioned would work to undermine the system. I can think of a much more pragmatic approach, but I happen to enjoy being employed so I

[Edric O]

Thanks for all the answers so far. However, they raise some more questions.

I'll first read the book Edric O posted, if that doesn't answer them all I'll ask them here if you don't mind ;)

The website with that book seems to be having technical difficulties at the moment - I've tried to get to it several times in the last few days and it did not work. If you want, I can just email it to you.

And, of course, I'm always happy to explain things about socialism (and communism, for that matter). In fact, as I'm sure you noticed, I have a tendency to talk on and on and on when it comes to these subjects. ;) So, by all means, ask any question.

[chatfsh]

Note to self: While the revolution is ongoing, bribe some bankers to reveal the details of their business continuity plans. ;D

:D

Come on, Hwi, are you seriously implying you believe in some kind of conspiracy theory?

It's not like a recession is some brand new thing that never happened before, you know. Capitalism has had dozens of crises, for the past 200 years or so. Unless there is some kind of ancient, shadowy cabal manipulating human history behind the scenes, I think we can safely say that crises and recessions are an unavoidable systemic feature of capitalism.

Yeah, that

[nemafakei]

"Do you have emergency generators and satellite uplinks?"

Nah, just computer programmes, which may be situated elsewhere, that trade for you.

[Rene]

The website with that book seems to be having technical difficulties at the moment - I've tried to get to it several times in the last few days and it did not work. If you want, I can just email it to you.

And, of course, I'm always happy to explain things about socialism (and communism, for that matter). In fact, as I'm sure you noticed, I have a tendency to talk on and on and on when it comes to these subjects. ;) So, by all means, ask any question.

Thanks, but I didn't have any problem downloading the book. I'll need some more time to read it though, it's quite a big read and as always, time is scarce ;).

[Tehpevis]

Traditionally, there have been only two options to bring about a form of Socialism in a Capitalist society - Revolution and Reform.

For an armed Working Class revolution to succeed, it needs two things: Support of the Military, and Central Leadership. Historically, this has been a success in all but the society produced post-revolution; a Quasi-Totalitarian Military Dictatorship under a red banner, rather than a truly Socialist society. In this respect, I differ from many of my Anarchist comrades by being largely against Revolution on a large scale. There is often a time for a Revolution, but almost never on the scale of a massive empire such as that of Russia or America.

Then, there's Reform. For one thing, 50 years of governmental and economic reform lasts a damn long time, and the results aren't very different than before, and can almost never succeed thanks to our good friend, "Corporate Interests". Most of the time, Socialist reform in the government ends up with an odd compromise between Capitalism and Socialism, Sweden being an obvious example. I'm also against this, for the most part.

Instead, I prefer a lesser known method: Syndicalism. Work within a Capitalist economy peacefully, with Worker's self management and independent companies run democratically by the whole of its workers. Provide the people with an alternative to capitalism, and manage to out-compete the old Capitalist institutions. I recognize that this has some serious faults, but I think it's a better alternative than the other two. For one thing, it's peaceful, and doesn't need the leadership of a Bolshevist "Vanguard party", or reliance in the Government.

[Sneakgab]

About military support in the case of a revolution:

If the revolution has behind it fairly wide and strong support and sustained for long enough the military typically supports the revolution since the soldiers are working class people as well with working class families. I think that realistically, not many rank and file soldiers will choose to mow down people (a crowd they could just as easily have been amongst) protesting against (or overthrowing) an unpopular government. Also to consider is that these soldier's own interests lie with the working class.

The officers are a different story of course. They don't really matter much though.

As for your ''syndicalism'' (in inverted commas because it do you seem to be speaking about a system as opposed to a means of getting a system in place (so referring to it as an alternative doesn't make sense since we are speaking about means of putting systems in power and not systems)

Are you suggesting that the unions and workers attempt to create businesses which out compete those of the rich owners?

I haven't really given it much thought to be honest and might change my mind even by tomorrow, but my initial exploration of the issue suggests:

This seems unlikely.

Firstly: the workers have no means of acquiring means of production at all. They only make enough to survive so they cannot buy land, factories, e.t.c. The owners take away the surplus of the workers that the workers could otherwise use to build their own factories and buy their own land. The only time I have heard of workers having the means of production is when they claimed it themselves through means other than purchasing it.

Secondly: The most important thing in business is probably capital. For how many years has it been that the big corporations (for the most part) have just been getting bigger and bigger? The top 10% of the pop (in America) control 50% of the wealth.

Considering that, how likely do you think it is for workers businesses to win against these? More likely, the smaller businesses will be destroyed while the bigger ones grow larger, as it has typically always been.

It should also be considered the rich have great ability to change the rules anyway (so if it seems like that the workers in this system with this set of rules are going to win, the rich can still modify it). To run in an election (seriously at least), you must have a lot of money. For that, either you must be backed by the rich (the poor and working class don't have much to spare I imagine) or you must be rich yourself (typically). There is the whole issue of lobbying too (Don't know much about that thought to be honest). And of course, there is always the option of dropping a huge lump of cash on a law makers desk.

I don't know about the extent of the rich to do this, but it seems a safe guess that rich people who collectively control entire economies have some significant power.

So for example, if these ''worker businesses'' require unions, then the rich can exercise their influence and power in an attempt to outlaw unions.

On top of all this, the rich, who will at least initially control most of the economy, can sabotage the attempts of the workers (if they consider their enterprises to be serious threats). The banks can offer money only to the rich. The owners of mills and other refineries can bar access to worker owned rice farming companies and other raw material extraction companies. The worker businesses will face severe disadvantage until they have their own banks, refineries, e.t.c. They may have to pretty much start up an entire economy separate from the existing ones from scratch.

Even if the workers some overcome all these obstacles, and it comes to be that all major business comes to be under their control, their will still be waste as the worker businesses vie against each other for maximum self benefit at the expense of the whole.

This would be similar to the capitalist system. It seems like the only main difference would be groups of workers competing instead of rich individuals. Exploitation may still be possible. It may be possible that one group of workers to exploit another. For example, if one group of workers owns all the refineries, then they for example may exploit the rice farmers, as they can still gain materials for refining from the other groups (whereas the rice farmers can only have their rice refined by the refineries)

Of course, wealth would still likely be distributed and used more reasonably.

I'll also say that while workers attempting to take over the economy face severe disadvantages they would also have some advantages. At least a worker run company does not waste huge amounts of wealth on it's top execs for example.

So in summary

The chance of success seems to be virtually nil. If workers had enough surplus to open businesses, then we would hear of vast numbers of workers constantly setting up new companies. Who wants to give some of their work to somebody else for nothing? Of course nobody does that willingly. They cannot set up businesses as they have no spare money.

Even if they could set up businesses, the large businesses with enormous capital would generally crush them.

Even after all that the worker businesses would face sabotage and perhaps law making against them.

So the workers have to gather up enough money from their scant savings to create businesses to successfully compete against those run with huge amounts of capital even with private and government sabotage (basically).

Even if it was successful, the economy would not be run as a whole but rather as self-interested blocks (this may still be much better than what we have now though).

Also, there is the issue of successful worker businesses (I imagine you mean businesses without a ''boss'' where a bunch of workers share the profits of a business they own collectively) possibly buying out other businesses and whatnot. We could eventually be left with a bunch of rich shareholders who just exploit others (I actually have not explored this possibility at all so I'm just putting it out there)

Of course, after all that, I must say I am not exactly sure what you actually meant in your post. Did you mean to suggest Market Socialism or something like that? A system of worker owned enterprises competing against each other?

[Tehpevis]

In most of the Advanced Capitalist countries of the world, the economy is based on the exchange of goods and services, and almost entirely dependent on goods brought in from third world countries exploited by Capitalists. So, in an advanced European or American country, a change should be made to a Syndicalist and/or Nonprofit bloc in the economy to provide an alternative to Services provided within that country. Ideally, this should coincide with Armed Worker's revolutions in the third world countries exploited by the Capitalists, denying them major sources of materials and workforce. In time, instead of overthrowing the entire Capitalist system in one fell swoop, this should wear away at and corrode the Capitalist system, until its ultimate destruction.

[Rene]

It's a good idea, but do you think the European/American service could compete with the prices in a third world country? Personally, I don't think that's possible.

And about the armed workers revolution in a third world country:

History shows when a resource rich country shows signs of denying those resources to some big capitalist country's, the army is send in with an excuse like: OMG Biological weapons and other WMD's! ::)

[chatfsh]

It's a good idea, but do you think the European/American service could compete with the prices in a third world country? Personally, I don't think that's possible.

We have millions of people in this country who are receiving unemployment checks or welfare payments while they do not work.  Why not put this group to work in factories that produce low cost goods?  The factory owners would not be required to pay these laborers any more than what they would pay third world laborers, while the U.S. government supplements their pay so that they are at least earning the equivalent of what they would have received through unemployment or welfare payments.

I look at it this way -- Either way, we the taxpayers are forced to provide funds to the unemployed, so why not get a return on our investment by enticing factories back to the U.S. with the offer of cheap labor?

[Tehpevis]

It's a good idea, but do you think the European/American service could compete with the prices in a third world country? Personally, I don't think that's possible.

And about the armed workers revolution in a third world country:

History shows when a resource rich country shows signs of denying those resources to some big capitalist country's, the army is send in with an excuse like: OMG Biological weapons and other WMD's! ::)

1. The invasions of these countries would stretch the military too thin for effectiveness. As an unnecessary, imperialist foreign war, it should anger the Workers of the home country.

2. With their old labor pool in the third world nations lost, Capitalists would be forced to employ the shit jobs they formerly reserved for starving foreigners in their own country. This should bring the workers to further understand the true, exploitative nature of Capitalism.

3. Different events such as these, coupled with a growing Socialist mentality from revisionist, revolutionary, and syndicalist organizations within the home country, would simply lead the Capitalists into a death trap, and even closer to their downfall.