In Part 1, I refuted the ignorant and idiotic idea that there is no such thing as objective truth, and that it is not even possible to know what is true.
In this part 2, I am going to speak to the following crucial, scientifically-based truth—and answer common, and widely-propagated, ignorance and idiocy in opposition to this: Only with revolutionary socialist state power can a truly emancipating society actually exist, be sustained, and advance toward the fundamental goal of abolishing and uprooting exploitation and oppression, everywhere, with the achievement of communism, throughout the world.
It is a widely held “article of faith” these days, among forces that consider themselves “left” or “progressive,” that all dictatorships are, by their very nature, bad, and the (only) positive alternative to this is “democracy.” More particularly, anarchists vehemently insist that state power—the exercise of institutionalized power over society by any one part of society—is, by its very nature, dictatorial, and therefore oppressive, and the goal must be to eliminate (or “smash”) the state altogether.
These arguments are false and reflect a fundamental ignorance (or deliberate ignore-ance) of crucial reality: They fail to understand scientifically (or refuse to recognize the scientifically-established truth regarding) the basic relations in society, the prospects for a truly emancipating society, and what is required in order to bring this about.
To begin to answer this, there is the fact that all states—all forms of state power, including “democratic” ones—are dictatorships. Contrary to popular prejudice—which is constantly reinforced through the continual pumping of misleading propaganda by the major media and other means of molding public opinion under this system—“democracy” in capitalist society is, and can only be, a form of the dictatorship of the capitalist class. It involves the monopoly, by the capitalist class and its political representatives, of political power—and, as a concentrated expression of this, the monopoly of “legitimate” armed force and violence. This is based on, and reinforces, the domination of the economy by the capitalist class, and in particular its ownership and control of the major means of production (including land, raw materials and other resources, technology, physical structures such as factories, and so on) and its exploitation of masses of people who do not own these means of production. (This is spoken to in a number of works of mine, including the “Preamble” to the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, the article U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters’ Vision Of Freedom; and my recent work HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness?—all available at revcom.us)
The simple and basic truth is this: Wherever, and so long as, society is marked by the existence of antagonistic divisions, there will be a dictatorship of the class which holds the dominant position in relation to how the means of life, and the wealth of society, are produced and distributed. (Antagonistic social divisions refers to a situation where the basic interests of one part of society require that the basic interests of other parts of society be fundamentally suppressed. This is the case in all systems based on exploitation, including capitalism as well as slavery—and it is the case, in a fundamentally different way, in socialist society, where attempts by part of society to exploit others are suppressed and prevented, and the corresponding exploitative outlook is criticized and struggled against.)
What is equally true, and equally important to understand, is the fact that not all dictatorships are the same—and not all dictatorships are bad.
In the “Preamble” to the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which I have written, this fundamental and essential truth is explained: There is a profound difference between capitalist state power, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (capitalist class), which enforces the rule of capitalism-imperialism with all its terrible relations of exploitation and oppression and terrible consequences for humanity—and, on the other hand, socialist state power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the exploited class under capitalism, which aims to eliminate and uproot the basis for all exploitation and oppression, and bring into being a communist world without class divisions and antagonisms, without war and the environmental devastation that capitalism requires, regardless of the fact that this poses a growing danger to the existence of human civilization. (An analysis, in depth, of why and how capitalism requires and enforces these terrible relations and consequences, is found in an article by Raymond Lotta on the driving force of anarchy in the capitalist system, in the online theoretical journal Demarcations Issue Number 3.*)
Anarchism, as a political theory, generally recognizes the oppressive nature of capitalist state power—but also generally insists that, upon the overthrow (or “smashing”) of the capitalist state, state power of any kind should be eliminated. This notion is (“at best”) extremely naive. On the more obvious level: if, after the overthrow of capitalism, no new, socialist state power is established and exercised—if there is no concentrated and centralized force capable of giving effective backing to what must be (and not be) the dominant economic and social relations, and corresponding institutions and political and legal principles and regulations—then it will be very easy for overthrown capitalists to forcibly destroy the attempt at building a new, emancipating society and re-establish the exploitative and oppressive capitalist system. After all, along with their remaining resources of various kinds, the overthrown capitalists will continue to have significant connections with other reactionary forces, some of them quite powerful, inside the country and internationally. And the reactionary ideas and “force of habit” of the overthrown capitalist system will, for some time, exert significant remaining influence in society as a whole.
To put simply what should be obvious to anyone seriously thinking about this: Without socialist state power, including a powerful revolutionary armed force, any attempt at building a new society, aiming to overcome exploitation and oppression, will very quickly be drowned in blood.
Beyond that more immediate, and terrible, reality, there is the fact that, in terms of the very foundation of society—the economic system—without centralized socialist ownership of the basic means of production, and on that basis comprehensive planning for the development of the economy, commodity relations that characterize capitalist society will quickly re-emerge and propel society back toward capitalism as the dominant, ruling system.
(A commodity is something that is produced to be exchanged, not to be used by the producer of that commodity. To cite an example I have used before: if you make chocolate chip cookies in order to eat them, those cookies are not commodities; but if you make those cookies in order to sell them, they are commodities. Under capitalism, commodity production and exchange is generalized—this is the means through which goods and services are produced and distributed in capitalist society. The exchange value of commodities is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor that goes into their production. Also, very importantly, with the system of capitalist ownership of the means of production, labor power itself, the ability to work, is reduced to a commodity, and the exploitation of labor power is the source of capitalist profit.**)
In the world as it is bound to exist for some time as socialist societies are brought into being, through revolution, even as these socialist societies will need to continue advancing toward the eventual elimination of commodity relations, for some time it will not be possible to entirely eliminate these relations (and the corresponding role of money, in some form) and these remaining commodity relations will have significant influence. In such a situation, without a centralized approach—without state ownership of the means of production and society-wide planning on that basis, without the ability to centrally regulate the relations among different sectors and units of the economy, including the basis to restrict the influence of commodity relations—different sectors and units of the economy, each having their own needs and costs, would come into significant conflict with each other, and would be compelled to fall back on the regulating role of commodity relations. This, as part of the resurgent anarchy of economic relations in society overall, would undermine the basis for socialism and establish a powerful impetus for the restoration of capitalism.
Input and initiative from the masses of people, on every level and in every part of society, is an important part of the planning and development of a genuine socialist economy (and socialist society overall); and in a fundamental sense the course of development of this society must be decided in common by the masses of people in society overall. But, at the same time, there is this essential analysis in my article Putting An End To Exploitation, And All Oppression:
Where it is said that the goals “have been decided upon in common,” this refers to an overall process which involves, on the one hand, mass forms for people to directly discuss and debate these goals, and how to achieve them, and elections at various levels of society, up to the central government level, through which people have input into the big questions regarding the development of the economy and the society overall. While some of this will take place at the level of the basic economic units and institutions of society (for example, schools as well as places of work), it will all feed into the different levels of government, up to the central government for the society as a whole. It is through this overall process—and not at the level of particular factories or other workplaces or institutions—that the ultimate decisions will be made concerning the goals, and the means for achieving the goals, with regard to the development of the economy and the society as whole. While input from the basic levels of society is a necessary and crucial part of this process, if decision making is left at the level of particular economic units or other particular parts of society—rather than being ultimately determined by the institutions of government for the society as a whole, drawing on input from throughout society—then the result will be that the needs and interests of the different particular parts of society will come into conflict with each other, the larger common interests of people will be undermined, and society will be drawn back in the direction of reverting to a system based on exploitation.
What is needed is an overall plan for the goals, and the means of achieving the goals, for the society as whole, with all the different parts of society having a significant degree of input, and taking significant initiative, within this overall framework and plan. And the standard for this plan to embody and promote relations that are not exploitative, but emancipating, is that they contribute to continually expanding human beings’ freedom from the mere struggle for survival, as well as from oppressive relations.***
All this speaks to why it is crucial that socialist state power be established and maintained, in order not only to prevent the destruction of the new, emancipating socialist society, but also and most fundamentally, to carry forward the advance toward the establishment of the conditions (economically, socially, politically, culturally—and internationally) which will mark, and make possible, the achievement of communism, worldwide.
Only with the achievement of communism, worldwide—with the ending of all economic relations of exploitation, all social and political relations of oppression, and the transformation of culture, including the prevailing morality, in line with these fundamental transformations, throughout the world—only then will there no longer be a need, or a basis, for a state, as the expression of antagonistic class and other social divisions among human beings and the exercise of dictatorship by the class which occupies the superior position fundamentally as a result of its domination of the economy..
The establishment and the ongoing exercise of socialist state power is a crucial and indispensable means for bringing into being the conditions that will make it possible for that state power, and a state (a dictatorship) in any form, to be finally abolished.
At the same time, there is this reality (which has been acutely demonstrated with the restoration of capitalism in the formerly socialist China, and what was the Soviet Union): Throughout the transition to the final goal of communism, worldwide, the remnants of capitalist exploitation and social inequality, and the corresponding ways of thinking, will continue to exist and exert significant influence within socialist society itself—and this, along with the continuing existence of imperialist and other reactionary states, will pose the possibility of the reversal of socialism, and the restoration of capitalism, within (what were) socialist countries.
For all these reasons, there is the need for the continuing revolutionary transformation of socialist society itself, in the context of the overall, internationalist struggle for the final goal of communism, worldwide.
On the basis of a scientific summation of the mainly positive—but also, in some significant ways, negative—experience of socialist society, in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1956, and China from 1949 to 1976, and drawing from a broad range of human endeavor, I have brought forward a new synthesis of communism (popularly referred to as the new communism) which finds a concentrated expression in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. Summaries of important parts of this Constitution are contained in the statement: We Need And We Demand: A Whole New Way To Live, A Fundamentally Different System (available at revcom.us). And there is this basic truth:
It is a fact that, nowhere else, in any actual or proposed founding or guiding document of any government, is there anything like not only the protection but the provision for dissent and intellectual and cultural ferment that is embodied in this Constitution [for the New Socialist Republic in North America], while this has, as its solid core, a grounding in the socialist transformation of the economy, with the goal of abolishing all exploitation, and the corresponding transformation of the social relations and political institutions, to uproot all oppression, and the promotion, through the educational system and in society as a whole, of an approach that will [quoting the Constitution] “enable people to pursue the truth wherever it leads, with a spirit of critical thinking and scientific curiosity, and in this way to continually learn about the world and be better able to contribute to changing it in accordance with the fundamental interests of humanity.” [end of quote from the Constitution] All this will unchain and unleash a tremendous productive and social force of human beings enabled and inspired to work and struggle together to meet the fundamental needs of the people—transforming society in a fundamental way and supporting and aiding revolutionary struggle throughout the world—aiming for the final goal of a communist world, free from all exploitation and oppression, while at the same time addressing the truly existential environmental and ecological crisis, in a meaningful and comprehensive way, which is impossible under the system of capitalism-imperialism.****
COMING SOON: A series on The Declaration of Independence (and related questions): Inventions and Distortions of Reality and History—in the Service of Real and Repeated Atrocity.
After That: Why Black People Flooded into the Union Army in the Civil War...And What That Has to do with Now.
_______________
FOOTNOTES:
*The full title of this article by Raymond Lotta, in Demarcations Issue number 3, is “On the ‘Driving Force of Anarchy’ and the Dynamics of Change, A Sharp Debate and Urgent Polemic: The Struggle for a Radically Different World and the Struggle for a Scientific Approach to Reality.” [back]
**The nature of commodities and the consequences of capitalist commodity production and exchange—including, very importantly, the exploitation of labor power as a commodity—is also examined in my article Commodities & Capitalism—And The Terrible Consequences Of This System, A Basic Explanation, which is available at revcom.us. [back]
***What is is quoted above, from Putting An End To Exploitation, And All Oppression, is from footnotes 4 & 5 in that article (which is available at revcom.us). The following, also from that article, is relevant and important:
To end exploitation, it is necessary to end the conditions on which exploitation rests. And this requires the radical, thorough transformation of society, and ultimately the world, as a whole. It requires, as the first great leap, overthrowing the economic and political system of capitalism, and bringing about its replacement by a socialist system, which will move to abolish the basis for exploitation. In the fundamental realm of the economy (the mode of production), this requires expropriating the capitalist exploiters: ending the capitalists’ ownership and control of the means of production (land, raw materials, factories, machinery and other technology used in production), converting these means of production into the common property of society, utilized by the socialist government, in a planned way, in the interests of the masses of people who have created these means of production, through their collective labor (even as that labor had been carried out under conditions of exploitation by capitalists).
But, as much as this is a crucial—and, in a real sense, historic—step, it is just the beginning. It is still the case that, for society to function, and to meet the needs of the people (basic material needs, but also political, social, intellectual and cultural needs) on a continually expanding basis, it is necessary for productive labor to be carried out, as the foundation for all this. To eliminate exploitation, it is necessary to transform the character of that labor. It must become labor that is not exploitative and not alienating for those who carry it out.
There is a profound, fundamental difference between being driven to work hard by a force standing above you—in a real sense dictating to you—and on the other hand working hard together with loved ones, friends, and comrades to accomplish goals that you have arrived at and agreed upon in common. Many people have experienced this difference in their everyday lives. Expanded to the level of a country, and ultimately the whole world, this is the profound, fundamental difference between living under a system based on exploitation, such as capitalism, and living in a system whose goal is to eliminate exploitation, and all the oppressive relations that go along with exploitation.
To achieve this historic transformation, the character of labor and the relations in which that labor is carried out (the relations of production) must be transformed, along with (and as the foundation for) transforming the character of the society as a whole. For any society to continue functioning, a surplus must be produced—beyond what people need to fulfill the essential requirements of life. A fundamental difference between an exploitative and non-exploitative system is in how that surplus is created, how it is utilized, and how decisions about this are made.
In socialist society, people are guaranteed employment, and in that sense the individual struggle for survival has become a thing of the past—is no longer something that people have to be concerned with or worry about. But, beyond that, the surplus created in this socialist society must be utilized to continually expand the basis to fulfill the all-around needs of the people, including in the realms of education, culture, and so on; to deal with natural disasters and act as caretakers of the environment; to defend the socialist country from attack—and, crucially, to provide an expanding material foundation for the struggle to eliminate and uproot relations of oppression within the country and to support revolutionary struggle in the world overall—while also providing for future generations. So, once again, the decisive question is: how, under what conditions, is that surplus produced, and for what purposes is it utilized?
To move beyond a system based on exploitation, not only must private ownership of the means of production by competing capitalists be eliminated, and replaced by socialized ownership by society as a whole, but oppressive divisions characteristic of the old, exploitative society must be overcome. This includes the division between mental and manual labor—the unequal relations between those whose labor is essentially intellectual (mental labor) and those who carry out labor that is essentially physical (manual labor). It also includes oppressive racial, sexual and gender relations, and other divisions which contain the basis for oppression and antagonism between different parts of society. All this is built into capitalism, and other systems based on exploitation. And all this must be transformed, in order for exploitation to be ended. At the same time, the masses of people must take part, in an increasingly conscious way, in determining the goals, and in the planning to meet the goals, in the development of the economy and the society overall, not only with the particular country in mind but with the fundamental orientation of contributing to the transformation of the world as a whole, toward the ultimate goal of a communism, with the abolition of all exploitation and oppression everywhere. [back]
****This statement regarding the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America can be found in (among other works) HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness? [back]
