UVU: The Great Recession and the Failure of Capitalism with Paul Mattick

[prolerat]

He wouldn't see the USSR as anything other than a state capitalist system.Socialism is a free access moneyless social system based upon, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".Russia's Leninist revolution was essentially a capitalist one.It deposed feudalism and enthroned capitalism albeit in the absence of major capitalist enterprises the state had to create those.

[yuzhimeng6]

I find it amusing that he does not mention socialism at all. The USSR despite having a corrupt bureaucracy (much less so than that of the US) was able to pull itself up from a third-world backwater into being a modern superpower by the 1970s, despite having the major capitalist powers (Britain, France, USA, West Germany) maintain unthinkable amounts of pressure on their borders.

[prolelog]

@yuzhimeng6: That's because Mattick comes from a tradition within Marxism that is highly skeptical--if not down-right hostile--to the claims of the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, et al of being "socialist".