At 05:36 AM 3/19/98 -0500, David Fasenfest wrote:
>It is certainly true that existing applied models of socialism has not
>successfully competed with capitalism even as we argue over whether it was
>a failure of socialism or its defeat by capitalism which explains that end.
> However, the discussion of Late Capitalism was not a wishful exposition of
>its waning years but an attempt to understand transformations taking place
>at that time in a heretofore nationally based system (Lenin's _Age of
>Imperialism_ is another example of such an examination).
My comment (WS): The issue of competition between capitalism and socialism
rests on a false assumption, namely that 'socialism' and 'capitalism' are
emprical entities rather than just mere labels without a clear empirical
meaning.
A standard approach to determine whether abstract concepts are empirically
meaningful categories or mere labels without much empirical content is the
comparison of the "between group variance" to the "within group variance."
The main idea here is that if elements grouped under one label vary among
each other to the same or greater degree that elements grouped under
different labels do - the labels do not represent an empirically
meaningful distinction.
It is my belief that differences among countries within the group labeled
as "socialist" are at least as great as the differences among countries in
the 'socialist' and the 'capitalist' camps. Take for example Sweden,
Japan, and the US. In the respect of social welfare programs, the
difference between Sweden and the US (both under the capitalist label) is
much greater than, say, between Sweden and her southern neighbour Poland
(under the socialist label). In the respect of government involvement in
economic strategic planning, Japan (nominally a 'capitalist' country) falls
much closer to centrally planned economies ('socialist' label) than to the
more laissez faire US.
Therefore, the distinction between capitalism and socialism is not very
useful empirically, because it fails to goup countries with similar
empirical features under one label, or to cenceptually distinguish among
counnries having different empirical features. The only usefulness of such
lables is purely mythological (or ideological): it organizes the world into
simple to grasp mental categories that are then used as actors in a grossly
simplified narrative of interantional relations. It is like ancient myths
of the struggle between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil -- captivating
story telling, but without much empirical reference. Yet another example
of the scribbling class' motto: "don't believe what you see, believe what
we say."
A more useful approach would be to ask how particular institutional
solutions to governance and the organization of production perform under
different historical conditions. Thus we may ask questions like that:
1. Did the central planning that relies on high centralization of
administrative authority accomplished the expected goal of building the
industrial infrastructure in the initial phase of modernization of the
country X in Eastern Europe. If not, why?
2. Did the same central planning regime accomplished the expected goal of
sustained econimic growth in later stages of mdernization of country X in
Eastern Europe. If not, why?
3. What is the vertical (historical) variation in the central planning
regimes? What is the cause of that variation? What is the impact of that
variation on economy and society?
4. What is the lateral (cross-national) variation in the central planning
regimes? What factors explain that variation? What is the impact of that
variation on economy and society?
To my knowledge few economists, sociologists or policy analysts ask these
types of question, as far as the great 'mental gap' of socialism vs
capitalism is concerned. It seems that the minds of the supposedly
empirical scientists are captivated by the mythology of the struggle
between Good and Evil.
As far as the rest of your post is concerned (I attach it because I post
this missive to another list), I agree. The mainstream social scientists
discussing Marxism are like Catholic priests discussing Judaism, or rabbis
discussing Catholicism -- it is unlikely that you will get anything even
remotely resembling an impartial evaluation. I think it was Marx (albeit I
cannot recall where exactly) who compared 'political economy' (or economics
and political science in today's lingo) to religion: everyone else's is
man-made, our own is god-given.
Regards,
Wojtek Sokolowski
>There are many (some among this list) who have equated the end of the
>socialist systems (whatever faults they may have had) with the failure of a
>Marxist analysis of capitalism. Whatever was or was not done in its name,
>Marx's analysis of the capitalist system is still the most insightful
>examination of how the system works, and we must apply those principals of
>investigation as we try to understand the era of so-called post-Fordist
>accord (and there is a very good book by Ruigrok and van Tulder called _The
>Logic of International Restructuring_ which argues that in fact there are
>three global processes under way based around US [Fordist], European
>[Volvo/Phillps] and Japanese [Toyota] economic transformation),
>globalization (which Australian political economists have called
>globalony), and flexibilization (and work by many are showing that this is
>heralding a new Taylorism at work).
>
>We are faced with many important problems at both micro and macro levels
>which either can be ignored under the rubric of "capitalism won so lets get
>on with things" or can be more critically examined using the only
>consistently insightful tools available. Ruth Milkman's recent book is a
>good example of how such an examination in one plant exposes some of the
>assumptions about the transformation of work as more rhetoric than fact.
>Others are trying to make sense of the apparently international agenda of
>unraveling social safety nets in the name of global competitiveness by
>looking at the forms of resistance and opposition (and lest we get too
>nationally chauvinistic, the US is one of the few countries for which this
>agenda seems to move forward with little opposition). And the list goes on.
>
>The tendency to try and name an era is misguided if its purpose is to claim
>one singular and essentialist explanation or definition of the economies of
>the world, however they are all informed by capitalist social relations.
>Rather, our task is to understand the common roots of these systems based
>on capitalism, and how the social and historical specificity define and
>shape the particular repertoires and ranges of social action, reaction, and
>formation. To date, only Marx has provided us with the means by which such
>an examination can be undertaken.
>
>
>
>David Fasenfest
>Research Associate Professor
>Great Cities Institute, Univ of Illinois at Chicago
>
>
>
