[net.politics.theory] requests for carnes

tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson) (02/25/85)

>From: vassos@utcsri.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos)
>The auto manufacturer pays wages and gets cars. The cars he
>[the (floating) rich] gets are worth more than the wages
>he pays (otherwise he would have long ceased to be an auto manufacturer).
>Therfore [sic], not only does he not "redistribute wealth" but in fact
>appropriates the wealth created by the labour power he hires.

1) I could have sworn someone claimed that socialism had progressed
   beyond this stupidity (even overlooking who really owns the auto
   manufacturers).  Didn't you?

2) What I have heard called "democratic socialism" here sounds an
   awful lot either like guild socialism or like syndicalism.  The
   former is where the "workers" in an industry vote somehow to
   control their organization.  The latter is where the "workers"
   own their organization, sort of a guild socialism without the
   socialism.  Both of these were covered in von Mises' *Socialism*.
   Would you care to differentiate the one from the others?

carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (03/05/85)

Dave Hudson asks me two questions.  Second question first:  How do I
distinguish democratic socialism, syndicalism, and guild socialism.

I don't know much of anything about guild socialism.  Syndicalism is,
or was, a militant trade union movement in Europe (like the Wobblies
in the US).  Democratic socialism, or social democracy as it is known
in Europe, is a broad and heterogeneous political trend which
emphasizes democratic values in contrast to the Leninist conception
of a centralized vanguard party which will take power and then rule
as the unique representative of the working class.  The boundaries of
social democracy are vague, but the term can be applied both to
reformist, mixed-economy parties such as the German SD's and to the
Eurocommunist movement.  It is not, as Dave seems to imply, a
blueprint for a future organization of society.  A bit of the history
of social democracy:  In 1891, Engels wrote: "If one thing is certain
it is that our Party and the working class can only come to power
under the form of the democratic republic.  This is even the specific
form for the dictatorship of the proletariat."  The Second
International and such contemporary Marxists as Luxemburg and Kautsky
emphasized democracy as the substance of a socialist society as well
as the way the working class would come to power.  The Austro-Marxist
Hilferding defended Weimar democracy when various Communists were
saying that fascism was not essentially different from bourgeois
democracy.  

Richard Carnes