JD:>>If (1) the bureaucrat belongs to a social stratum that controls the state in a despotic way - enough to kill or imprison those who oppose their rule - and (2) the state owns the most important means of production, then doesn't that bureaucrat have a social power akin to other ruling classes?<<
LP:>Yes, they had lots of power over people. What they lacked was the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc. Looking at China today, with 18 year olds committing suicide because they can't afford college, we can certainly say that a return to the status quo ante--with all the bureaucratic deformations--would be progress.< If you think about "the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc.," you're thinking about a specifically capitalist form of class power. (Did the Pharaoh have the ability to "the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc."?) There have been many other kinds of class power in the history of the world. In any event, Kim il Sung seems to have bequeathed North Korea to his son. Also, there's nothing in my original message in this thread about the issue of "progress." A shift from a non-capitalist mode of production to a capitalist one usually involves primitive accumulation, which is extremely bloody (or only corrupt and violent). Maybe there have been some "progressive" shifts from the USSR-type mode of production to capitalism (Czechoslovakia?), but I doubt it. Jim Devine
