What does state capitalism mean? What are examples of state capitalism? Was USSR state capitalistic or maybe it was during some period (like in NEP)? If it wasn’t then why do some people say that USSR wasn’t really socialist country but state capitalistic?
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They way I have understood this (a very simplified way probably) is that state capitalism is when the means of production are mostly owned or controlled by the state, but the market/economy is operated in a capitalist way (competition, growth, for profit etc.). The country can still be socialist and for example in China this shows up with the heavy regulation of things like cost of housing where the capitalist way can never outdo the peoples right to housing.
In a way capitalism with socialistic features (keynesian) and this aka socialism with capitalist features are two ends of an opposite spectrum.
In a world that is mostly capitalist, doing state capitalism also sounds like the only workable option for a socialist country.
Lenin proposed state capitalism as a way to accelerate the capitalist mode of production because it was believed at the time that shifting to a capitalist mode of production was a prerequisite for a socialist one, but in this case it would have the state in command instead of leaving development to the whims of the bourgeoisie.
After Lenin passed Stalin proceeded with the communization efforts in an effort to build a socialist mode of production but WW2 stifled that to a degree and then the post Stalin revisionist shift in the party reverted the economy back to being state capitalist where it sat until the USSR was destroyed.
You can see the similar form of development in Dengist China where the economy shifted towards courting international capital to “build the productive forces” breaking from Mao’s conception of socialist development.
It’s when Tony Hawk makes commercials for brain pills for old people. Oh wait that’s Skate Capitalism.
To the last question: workers didnt own means of production, they nominally controlled the state which controled means of production. (this is trot argument->). Because the control of the state was sliding toward the party, which slowly became class in itself, the ownership of means of production was not in the hands of the workers. Here lies one of the trot/pro-stalin thingies - trotsky thought it was obvious it would happen and even that it already did under stalin, pro-stalin viewpoint is that it didnt under stalin, but happened during kruschev.
I personally think trotsky suffered from far-sightedness, could see clearly where it was going, but couldn’t get over his hatred of stalin (some deserved some not so)
