The USSR lasted several generations, generations are measured by the few decades and not by centuries. It lasted as long as it did because it worked remarkably well.
One thing that is important is that they didn’t “marry the power of the state to capital.” They had a publicly owned and driven economy, central planning is completely different from private ownership and production for profits.
But what I meant by they married the power of the state to capital is that as an agent of the state, you had the authority over capital.
In capitalism if you want a factory, you need money (and/or investors). In the USSR, you needed an agent of the state to make it happen.
In theory, that works. In practice, the agent of the state often becomes an investor - they profit off the factory, either through bribes up front or skimming off the top to sell the products on the black market
It’s a system that invites corruption at all levels. No amount of policing can regulate a system when the individuals are incentived to skim off the top… This works at a smaller scale, but when you scale it up to county size ideology and policing will never tamp down the temptation. And the more people do it, the more normalized it becomes
You will always have people trying to exploit any system, the system has to have an answer that doesn’t assume the individuals will act in good faith
You have to align incentives between actors and the system as a whole. I don’t think you can do that top down, but you could do it bottom up. No individual should be allowed to have much power, and centralized planning concentrates power
You’ll never approach communism top down. You can only do it by empowering the workers, from the bottom up
This is a pretty big misunderstanding of both what capital even is, and how socialist economies, the USSR included, function.
First, capital. Capital isn’t a synonym for “means of production.” Capital is a social function. Money, commodities, means of production, etc can all function as capital. What makes something capital is its use to generate more wealth in the form of profits. A worker that owns their own hammer is not an owner of capital, but an owner of a tool.
Secondly, socialism. Socialist economies, where production is generally planned for use rather than profits (depending on the stage), does not have the system of “skimming” like you imagine. In the USSR, the difference between the top and the bottom of society was about ten times, as compared to thousands to billions in capitalism.
Communism, in the Marxist sense, can only come about through full collectivization of production and distribution, it can’t happen from the bottom-up. I just posted an updated Marxist-Leninist reading list, maybe give it a try!
Capital is what allows you to obtain the means of production. Before capitalism, capital required a title of nobility. It is not the same as money… Capitalism is the system where capital is just money. Just money can buy the mine, can buy the land, can buy the tools for the factory, can employ the workers.
These are things that require authority under both feudalism and a Marxist-Leninist system
Socialism does not require skimming off the top. That’s obviously the opposite of what it aims to do
But going all in on central planning basically guarantees a system of skimming off the top.
There are other, better models for socialism. What if all companies became worker controlled, direct democracy style? What if the state controlled everything considered utilities, from food to healthcare to power and electricity to education, and you let capitalism compete in the background?
Communism is where the state withers away, because it’s not needed. Where we grow beyond needing rulers.
You’ll never get there by concentrating all the power and capital in the state. You could get there by using the state only as a check to make sure everything remains bottom up
The USSR lasted several generations, generations are measured by the few decades and not by centuries. It lasted as long as it did because it worked remarkably well.
One thing that is important is that they didn’t “marry the power of the state to capital.” They had a publicly owned and driven economy, central planning is completely different from private ownership and production for profits.
You’re right, I meant lifetime.
But what I meant by they married the power of the state to capital is that as an agent of the state, you had the authority over capital.
In capitalism if you want a factory, you need money (and/or investors). In the USSR, you needed an agent of the state to make it happen.
In theory, that works. In practice, the agent of the state often becomes an investor - they profit off the factory, either through bribes up front or skimming off the top to sell the products on the black market
It’s a system that invites corruption at all levels. No amount of policing can regulate a system when the individuals are incentived to skim off the top… This works at a smaller scale, but when you scale it up to county size ideology and policing will never tamp down the temptation. And the more people do it, the more normalized it becomes
You will always have people trying to exploit any system, the system has to have an answer that doesn’t assume the individuals will act in good faith
You have to align incentives between actors and the system as a whole. I don’t think you can do that top down, but you could do it bottom up. No individual should be allowed to have much power, and centralized planning concentrates power
You’ll never approach communism top down. You can only do it by empowering the workers, from the bottom up
This is a pretty big misunderstanding of both what capital even is, and how socialist economies, the USSR included, function.
First, capital. Capital isn’t a synonym for “means of production.” Capital is a social function. Money, commodities, means of production, etc can all function as capital. What makes something capital is its use to generate more wealth in the form of profits. A worker that owns their own hammer is not an owner of capital, but an owner of a tool.
Secondly, socialism. Socialist economies, where production is generally planned for use rather than profits (depending on the stage), does not have the system of “skimming” like you imagine. In the USSR, the difference between the top and the bottom of society was about ten times, as compared to thousands to billions in capitalism.
Communism, in the Marxist sense, can only come about through full collectivization of production and distribution, it can’t happen from the bottom-up. I just posted an updated Marxist-Leninist reading list, maybe give it a try!
Capital is what allows you to obtain the means of production. Before capitalism, capital required a title of nobility. It is not the same as money… Capitalism is the system where capital is just money. Just money can buy the mine, can buy the land, can buy the tools for the factory, can employ the workers.
These are things that require authority under both feudalism and a Marxist-Leninist system
Socialism does not require skimming off the top. That’s obviously the opposite of what it aims to do
But going all in on central planning basically guarantees a system of skimming off the top.
There are other, better models for socialism. What if all companies became worker controlled, direct democracy style? What if the state controlled everything considered utilities, from food to healthcare to power and electricity to education, and you let capitalism compete in the background?
Communism is where the state withers away, because it’s not needed. Where we grow beyond needing rulers.
You’ll never get there by concentrating all the power and capital in the state. You could get there by using the state only as a check to make sure everything remains bottom up