 Welcome back to the Agora cafe for more coffee and philosophy. This time the background behind me is the island of either where, as I mentioned before I spent a couple days where I took this picture, where Leonard Cohen wrote bird on the wire, like a bird on the wire, like a drunken a midnight choir. I have tried in my way to be free to go to wire there but I don't see a bird. So Leonard has deceived us again. Anyway, back in episode two. I mentioned Alexander Berkman's 1929 book, the ABC of communist anarchism, which incidentally is also published under the title ABC of anarchism and what is communist anarchism and what is anarchism and now and after but they're all the same book. And I mentioned that it shouldn't be confused with the Soviet textbook from 10 years earlier, the ABC of communism by Nikolai Bukharin and Evgeny Priyaprazhensky. But it's also said back then that that the ABC of communism is also an interesting work and I wanted to say something about it in the later episode. Well, later episode is now. And so here we are. So Bukharin and Priyaprazhensky were both top officials in the Soviet Union under Lenin and later under Stalin ABC of communism was the official Soviet textbook on communism for a long time. And after, you know, after writing this Bukharin and Priyaprazhensky ended up diverging somewhat in their ideological outlook. Bukharin wanted to, you know, Bukharin was the architect of the new economic policy that wanted more of a market economy wanted to slow down the process of collectivization. And if Priyaprazhensky, if anything, wanted to speed it up, it's a dispute that Stalin resolved by killing them both. Anyway, I want to talk about how Bukharin and Priyaprazhensky define capitalism and how the distinction they draw between capitalism and capitalism is what we might think of as the kind of free market that left-wing market anarchists or free market anti-capitalist favor. So in Bukharin and Priyaprazhensky, if we study how economic life is carried on under the capitalist regime, we see that its primary characteristic is the production of commodities. A commodity is not simply a product, but something produced for the market. A product made for the producer himself, made for his own use, is not a commodity. It only becomes a commodity when it is bought and sold, when that is to say it is produced for a buyer for the market. We see therefore that the primary characteristic of the capitalist system is a commodity economy, that is an economy which produces for the market. But they do not treat production for a market as sufficient to define capitalism. And so they do not treat a market economy and a capitalist economy as equivalent. Because they go on to say the mere existence of a commodity economy does not alone suffice to constitute capitalism. A commodity economy can exist although there are no capitalists. For instance, the economy in which the only producers are independent artisans. They produce for the market, they sell their products, thus these products are undoubtedly commodities and the whole production is commodity production. Nevertheless, this is not capitalist production. It is nothing more than simple commodity production. In order that a simple commodity economy should be transformed into capitalist production, it is necessary on the one hand that the means of production, tools, machinery, buildings, land, etc. Should become the private property of a comparatively limited class of wealthy capitalists. And on the other that there should ensue the ruin of most of the independent artisans and peasants and their conversion into wage workers. The small group of the wealthy owns everything, the huge masses of the poor own nothing but the hands with which they work. This monopoly of the means of production by the capitalist class is the second leading characteristic of the capitalist system. So, as Bukharin and Preo Brzezinski are presenting it, what distinguishes capitalism from a simple commodity economy is both the markets. Both involved production for the market, not just for personal consumption, but the simple commodity economy is distinguished from capitalism because under capitalism. There's a concentration of ownership of the means of production in the hands of a few, such that everyone else is forced to work as wage laborers for that field. So notice it's not just some crazy left libertarian idea that there's a distinction between markets and capitalism. This is the standard Soviet line as well. Henceworth keeping in mind, you know, the sort of the historical context here. In the Middle Ages, wage labor was the exception rather than the rule. On the one hand, you know, there was, you know, serfdom, which wasn't really wage labor. On the other hand, there were the, you know, the new independent towns where someone would be a wage labor temporarily as a, you know, as a as an apprentice to a journeyman to a master craftsman. But that was only supposed to be a temporary period. There was a, you know, in the, in the cities, the, you know, the cities that the bourgeoisie draws its name from originally the bourgeois city was a city that was not characterized by wage labor except as a temporary period of training. And the point was for people to become independent craftsman. All right, so Bukorin and Pryor Brzezinski's objection is to capitalism. It's capitalism they regard as oppressive. They do not seem to regard the simple commodity economy as oppressive. And although they describe the simple commodity economy as one in which there are no capitalists in which everyone's independent producer doesn't seem as though that's essential to their definition. And if not everyone were an independent producer, if some people were, you know, a part of workers co option so forth, they would have no objection to that. And even if there's some capitalists, even if there's some people performing wage labor for those capitalists, that doesn't seem to be enough to make for the kind of objectionable capitalism. They might because what they mind about capitalism is not that there are some capitalists and that there's some wage labor. It's the concentration of ownership in the in the hands of a few capitalists in such a way that closes off most alternatives to wage labor and the forces people to become wage laborers. If people, you know, if you had a system where wage labor was one option among many, it seems as though they wouldn't have an objection to that. Now they may think that that's not, you know, that's not likely or possible. And I think that, you know, no one would ever choose wage labor unless they were forced into it. You know, we could, you know, we could doubt that. I think there are many cases where you might prefer wage labor. If, you know, for some reason or other to either being an independent producer or to being a member of a workers co op. Especially if there are alternatives to wage labor and the competition from those alternatives would presumably make wage labor less onerous than it often is in the actual system but in any case whether or not they think it'd be likely it seems like they don't have any inherent connection to a simple commodity economy understood as one where you don't have a concentration of ownership that forces the vast majority of people into wage labor. One in which wage labor if it exists is one of a number of viable options alongside independent producers, workers co ops and whatever. So in other words, thinking of simple commodity economy that way, that's more or less what left wing market anarchists or free market anti capitalists advocate. So, if their objection is to capitalism, not to the simple commodity economy, why aren't the advocates of the simple commodity economy. You know, in other words, why are they, you know, why are they Marxists instead of being, you know, one of us, the free market anti capitalists. Well, the reason is that they think that the simple commodity economy is unstable that it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It will naturally inevitably morph, and it has inevitably morphed into capitalism in the sense of the concentration of ownership of the means of production in the hands of a small and blowing class. And here's their argument. Now, wherever private ownership and commodity production exist. There is a struggle for buyers or competition among sellers. Even in the days before they were factory owners workshop owners and great capitalists. There are only independent artisans. These artists and struggled one with another for buyers. The strongest and most acquisitive among them, the one who had the best tools and was the cleverest, especially the one who put by money. That is the one who saved on who's thrifty was always the one who came to the top attracted custom and ruined his rivals. Thus the system of petty ownership and the commodity economy that was based upon it contain the germs of large scale ownership and implied the ruin of many. A simple commodity economy contains within itself the germs that will lead to the impoverishment of some and the enrichment of others. This is what has actually occurred in all countries alike. Most of the independent artisans and small masters have been ruined. The poorest were forced in the end to sell their tools from masters that became men whose soul possession was a pair of hands. Those on the other hand who were richer grew more wealthy still. They rebuilt their workshops on a more extensive scale installed new machinery began to employ employ more work people became factory owners. Little by little they're past in the hands of these wealthy persons all it was necessary for production factory buildings machinery raw materials warehouses and shops dwelling houses workshops mines railways steamships the land in the word all the means of production. All these means of production became exclusive property that capitalist class. They became as the phrase runs a monopoly of the capitalist class. So book are in and Prio Brzezinski making two claims here first are claiming that as a matter of fact, if you were to start from a pure simple commodity economy. And then just let the walls of the market run freely so no, you know, no seed intervention to promote the rise of capitalism just just the ordinary rules of economics running within a simple commodity economy. The system would automatically transform into capitalism and monopolistic sense. They would claim that this is what actually happened. Now, this is strikingly in odds with what Karl Marx himself claims in capital. So in capital, this is volume one book a chapter 26, he's talking about primitive accumulation. In other words, the, the means by which the capitalist class acquired its original means of production. He writes primitive accumulation plays in political economy about the same part as original sin and theology. In times long gone by there were two sorts of people. One the diligent intelligent and above all frugal elite. The other lazy rascals spending their substance and more and riot is living. Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth and the latter sort had at last nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority. Such insipid childishness is every day preached to us in the defense of property. In actual history it is notorious that conquest enslavement robbery murder briefly force play the great part. The freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they have been robbed of all their own means of production. And the history of this their expropriation is written in the annals of mankind and letters of blood and fire. And two chapters later in chapter 28 he writes, the agricultural people were first forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes turned into vagabonds and then whipped branded tortured by laws grotesquely terrible into the discipline necessary for the wage system during the historical genesis of capitalist production. The bourgeoisie at its rise wants and uses the power of the state to regulate wages that is to force them within the limits suitable for surplus value making to lengthen the working day and to keep the laborer himself in the normal degree of dependence. This is an essential element of the so-called primitive accumulation. So in other words, Mark said that it was essential, not just this is what happened, but it was essential that the use of force and predictor state force was needed to transform a simple commodity economy into a capitalist system. Which of course is the same claim that left wing market anarchists and pre-market anti-capitalists make today that the kind of concentration of ownership that we see under monopoly capitalism isn't possible in a purely free market without government recognition or other forms of force because competition is a leveling force that as long as people are free to imitate other people's success. No one can permanently gain a massive advantage in the market from their own success. So Mark seems to be denying both of the claims that Bukerin and Prea Brzezinski are asserting. He's denying that as a matter of fact, the capitalist concentration of ownership arose simply through frugality, Bukerin and Brzezinski call, Prea Brzezinski call putting money by and calls frugality. Basically the idea that thrift is what creates the division of glasses. He's denying that it happened that way. He's saying that as a matter of fact it happened through force, in particular the state force. And secondly, he's claiming this is essential. It's not just that it happened, that capitalism happened to arise through force, but that it was necessary that force and predictor state force be involved in order to make this happen. Which raises the question, all right, then why wasn't Marx a free market anti capitalist, you know, and he come over to our side. Now, Friedrich Engels in his work anti during, which is written as an attack on the King's view which places, which places force at the basis of the possibility of state exploitation, or capital exploitation. Engels replying to this seems to depart. And this comes, you know, this is after Marx but after Marx's capital but before Bukerin and Prea Brzezinski so we're seeing a sort of evolution within Marxism here. Engels writes, every socialist worker no matter of what nationality knows quite well that force only protects exploitation but does not cause it. The connection between capital and wage labor is the basis of his exploitation, and that this was brought about by purely economic causes and not at all by means of force. Even if we exclude all possibility of robbery force and fraud, even if we assume that all private property was originally based on the owner's own labor, and that throughout the whole subsequent process there was only exchange of equal values for equal values. In terms of development of production and exchange, nevertheless brings us a necessity to the present capitalist mode of production to the monopolization of the means of production and the means of subsistence in the hands of the one numerically small class to the degradation into property list proletarians of the other class constituting the immense majority. This process can be explained but purely economic causes at no point whatever our robbery force the state or political interference of any kind necessary. So, here, Engels is saying the same thing that Bukerin and Prea Brzezinski will say later that in fact it came about through economic causes not at all by means of force, and in any case, whether there had actually been force or not, the force would not have been necessary, that it was inevitable when you start with the simple commodity economy that you end up with capitalist concentration. Is this Engels departing from Marx here? Well, it's departing from what Marx wrote in Capital, but Marx himself may have moved toward this field as well. This is what Kevin Carson says in Studies in Mutualist Political Economy. Engels to render the Marxian theory consistent and to deflect the strategic threat from the market socialists was forced to retreat on the role of force and primitive accumulation. And if we take his word on the importance of Marx's input and approval during his writing of Ante-During, Marx himself was guilty of similar back peddling. The role of the state in exploitation were a strategic threat to Marxism. As a leading continental proponent of such a force theory, During presented a threat which could not be ignored. And ironically, even though Marx's own treatment of primitive accumulation was among the most eloquent and incisive ever written, Marx was forced to make a strategic retreat from this treatment in order to maintain a defensible position against the state-centered exploitation theories of During and other thinkers. Indeed, he was forced to deny that the history of primitive accumulation, written in letters of blood and fire, played any necessary role in the rise of capitalism at all. Engels resurrected the very same bourgeois nursery tale that Marx had put so much effort into killing off. And so now when we come to the ABC of communism, this is now becoming the official Soviet doctrine that not only were the letters of blood and fire not necessary for the rise of capitalism, contrary to Marx's heaven claim that they were, but they didn't even happen. Bucher and Lempry of Brzezinski say, well look, the simple commodity economy will necessarily through the fact of competition and some people being more thrifty and frugal than other people will necessarily lead to this concentration of wealth. And this is what happened. That's how simple the simple commodity economy developed. And so all of Marx's discussion of the, you know, of the brutal laws by which workers were forced off their land and forced to the factories and so forth. All of that just sort of fades away. And this remains kind of the end. This remains sort of Janus faced on this issue to this day. Whenever a capitalist tries to roll out the old Bush one nursery table and say, you know, look, the reason for the division between between capital labor and the concentration of wealth and in the hands of an class. The reason for that is that some people are just thrifty here that others and they save and the others don't and so the others end up being saved by the thrifty. You know, whenever they say that the Marxists make fun of them and say, you know, that's not what happened. Look at actual history and there's this violent brutal exploitation and expropriation. And that when instead of replying to capitalists are applying to us folks. Then the Marxists say no no simple commodity economy would never work. And that is, it would regardless of how things actually went historically, even if there have been no no use of force no state involvement competition wouldn't necessarily have led to the concentration of monopoly capitalism, which of course is not what Marx originally said. So, that was where I found interesting in the in the ABC of communist anarchism and makes a very clear distinction between the simple commodity economy which you could call a non capitalist free market. And there's between that which they seem to see nothing wrong with considered in itself and capitalism which they see as problematic. So thus far very much on the same page with us. But then they will follow angles and relate marks rather than the early marks in treating the transition. From one to the other as essential and as necessary, contrary to Marx is saying the opposite and of course we think that when Marx said the opposite when Marx said that you need force and state intervention to form a simple commodity economy into into monopoly capitalism. We think that Marx was right about that because he didn't draw the moral we think he should have drawn which is. Okay, well then you forget all this communist stuff and let's be free market anti capitalist. You know, what I like about the ABC of communism at least it does very clearly distinctively draw the difference dividing line between an anti capitalist version free markets that is not problematic in itself, and a capitalism, which is, but if you were to combine that with Marx's original account of how capitalism arose as opposed to the retreat. If you get later on, then I think you'd get the the upshot would be free market and the capitalism and not any kind of Marxism. So, that's all I've got for today. If you want to see more of this stuff. Keep watching me drinking coffee. Like, share, subscribe, you know, consider supporting me on PayPal or Patreon and see you next time.