Charles Bettelheim

The Transition to
Socialist Economy

[ Part 1 -- Preface, Forward, Chs.1 and 2 ]

Translated from the French by
Brian Pearce

 
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      Preface to the English Edition

I have already mentioned, in the preface to the French edition of this book, that the reader will find in it formulations which reflect stages in the evolution of my ideas about the problems dealt with in the following pages. I referred at the same time to my intention to carry through a critical analysis of some of the concepts employed here.

    The reader of this English version of my book should be informed that during the last few years I have tried to fulfil this plan, but that the results have not taken the form I originally intended to give them.

    In fact I sought, on the one hand, to define more precisely the nature of economic calculation, so as to bring out more clearly the point that what is usually meant by this term is in reality only a monetary calculation, of limited significance; and, on the other, to elucidate the nature of the social relations which make possible a monetary calculation of this sort.[1] At the same time, in a discussion with Paul Sweezy, I gave greater precision to my thinking about the problems of the transition to socialism and about the existence of a struggle between a socialist tendency and a capitalist tendency within the social formations in transition.[2]

    Subsequently, I have undertaken a fresh critical evaluation of the economic, social and political changes that the U.S.S.R. has experienced since the revolution of 1917,[3] with a view to defining the limitations of these changes and the nature of the modifications undergone by the changes themselves in the course of time, as a result of class struggles. Thereby I have sought to identify more exactly the social foundations of present-day Soviet policy and its increasing subordination to the interests of a privileged minority which has de facto control of the means of production. Furthermore, the experience of the Chinese Revolution, and especially the lessons of the Cultural Revolution has led me to give greater emphasis to changes in the superstructure of society as a condition for progress towards socialism, and to stress that only a certain type of development of the productive forces can ensure genuinely socialist planning.[4] These different concrete analyses have consequently caused me to define more precisely and correct a number of my theoretical concepts. In view of all this, the following pages need to be read today not without taking account of the critical developments that I have mentioned.

CHARLES BETTELHEIM 
Paris, February, 1974. 

 
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NOTES TO PREFACE
1  Cf. Charles Bettelheim, Calcul économique et formes de propriété, Paris, Maspero, 1970. To be published in U.K. by Routledge and Kegan Paul and in the U.S.A. by Monthly Review Press.  [Transcriber's Note: See Economic Calculation and Forms of Property. -- DJR]
2  Cf. Paul Sweezy and Charles Bettelheim, On the Transition to Socialism, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1971 (122 pp.).
3  This investigation has resulted in the publication of a work entitled Les Luttes de Classes en URSS. The first volume, covering the period 1917-23, was published jointly, in 1974, by Maspero and Editions du Seuil.  [Transcriber's Note: See Class Struggles in the USSR, First Period: 1917-1923 and then Class Struggles in the USSR, Second Period: 1923-1930. -- DJR]
4  Cf. Charles Bettelheim, Révolution culturelle et organisation industrielle en Chine, Paris, Maspero, I973.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Since this book was translated and set in type ready for press, some books which are referred to in the original French editions have appeared in English. These are:
Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organisation in China, London, 1974.
L. Althusser, E. Balibar, R. Establet, Reading 'Capital ', London, 1970.
N. I. Bukharin, The Economy of the Transition Period, New York, 1971.
K. Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, London, 1971.
L. Althusser, For Marx, London, 1970.
K. Marx, Grundrisse, London, I973.

 
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      Foreword

This work is devoted to a group of theoretical and practical questions the importance of which increases from year to year but studies of which are nevertheless extremely rare. What is published here is, in essentials, a synthesis of lectures given at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne), a number of articles, and thoughts formulated in the course of the seminar for which I am responsible at the École Normale Supérieure.

    The problems examined are among those which are at the heart of the most topical concerns of the day in economic, social and political matters. The theoretical analyses to which these problems can give rise must therefore necessarily be enriched and diversified as a result of the real developments on the basis of which these analyses can be worked out. This explains the evolution in certain formulations which the reader will be able to observe in these papers, the writing of which has been spread over a period of about four years.

    What gives unity to the chapters that follow is that they form the beginning of a fresh critical consideration of the problems which are currently spoken of as those of "the transition to socialism". It will be seen that this expression is far from adequate as a description of the reality it is supposed to describe. It suggests a "forward march" at the end of which there is in some sense guaranteed to be socialism. However, what in fact is so described is an historical period that can more properly be called that of "transition between capitalism and socialism". Such a period does not lead in single-line fashion to socialism; it may lead to that, but it may also lead to renewed forms of capitalism, in particular to state capitalism.

    That this possibility is a real one emerges with increasing clarity in the course of the following chapters, though it is not explicitly formulated until Chapter 6 (see especially page 223), so that the terminology I have used still reflects only to a limited extent the conclusion that I eventually reach.

    The comment I have just made has a general bearing. It relates also to other expressions which suggest a certain "single-line development of history". To admit this is, of course, as I have already said, to become drawn into a fresh critical consideration (which is barely outlined in these pages) that must focus upon a number of notions in current use such as "socialist economy", "socialist planning", "socialist property", and so on. Some results of such an analysis will be presented in another work, now being

 
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prepared, dealing with "the structures of transitional economies" (this tide is probably not definitive).[1]

    It is worth stressing at the outset that the critical analyses demanded by the realities described below, and the concepts by means of which I have endeavoured to grasp these realities, cannot be restricted merely to the economic plane of the various social formations, but must also deal with the political and ideological planes and with the relations between these two and between them both and the economy. A way of proceeding such as this must, moreover, lead to critical analysis of certain generalisations that have been made at certain moments, on the basis of some aspect or other of Soviet economic reality or Soviet economic policy; for instance, some generalisations of the arguments put forward by Lenin in favour of the New Economic Policy.

    What will be found here is thus merely the beginning of such an approach. Except in Chapter 6, the reader will find here no analyses dealing with economic calculation, and more especially with economic calculation on the scale of society. These analyses will not be made public until after critical consideration of the structures of economies in transition between capitalism and socialism. Nor will any analyses dealing with the People's Republic of China be found here; such an analysis has already been offered in another work -- a book containing contributions by other economists who also take part in the work of the Centre d'Études de Planification Socialiste (Centre for Study of Socialist Planning) and which appeared in the Economie et Socialisme series.[2]

    These papers thus constitute only a first collection of thoughts aroused by the progress and difficulties of planning, and the political and ideological developments experienced by the socialist countries. These thoughts are put forward for discussion, which is indispensable if research and analysis are to be usefully carried on, so that, by an examination of the current phases of development, theoretical lessons and practical results may be drawn from them.

CHARLES BETTELHEIM  
(August 1967)           

 
NOTES TO FOREWORD
1  Now published as Les Luttes de Classes en URSS, Vol. I, 1917-23, Paris, Senil/Maspero, 1974.
2  Ch. Bettelheim, J. Charrière, H. Marchisio, La Construction du socialisme en Chine (Building Socialism in China), series Economie et Socialisme, Paris, Maspero, 1965. Reissued in the Petite Collection Maspero, March 1968.

 
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I:  The problematic of the
   economy of transition

The basic purpose of this chapter is to study the economies of transition, and thereby the problems posed by their structure and evolution.

    My aim is to arrive, if possible, at the scientific establishment of a certain number of concepts essential to knowledge of the economies of transition and of the laws of development to which they are subject. It is clearly impossible to say whether this aim can be realised, since, for the moment, we possess, in this field, mainly descriptions and "practical concepts". By "practical concepts" I mean, like Louis Althusser, concepts which still derive, in the way they are formulated, from a previous way of seeing the problems, a way that it is our very task to replace, because it is still uncertain of itself, being uncertain what its scientific object actually consists of.

    Such practical concepts point out to us where the problems are that we have to solve, within the old ways of seeing the problems and on the plane of theoretical practice. If we do not take care, these practical concepts can seem to be solutions of problems which in fact they merely describe.

    The objects described by the term "economy of transition" are obviously among those a scientific awareness of which is essential to the understanding of our epoch, since this appears to us precisely as an age of transition.

    Empirically, this transition, or rather these transitions, appear to us in two forms.

    One is a form of radical transition: transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production, that is, a country's passage from one period of the history of mankind to another, through an upheaval in production-relations and class relations and the replacement of one state machine by another with a different class nature. There is another, more limited, form of transition, with a much more uncertain content, namely, that of the economies and societies that were formerly under colonial domination and have now entered a post-colonial period. This second type of transition itself throws up the problems described by those other practical concepts, the terms "neo-imperialism", "neo-colonialism" and "specific form of socialism". The last-mentioned expression is commonly used both for certain social realities and for the ideological concepts that describe them, such as, for instance, "Islamic socialism" or "Buddhist" socialism", etc. Where this form of transition is concerned it is essential to undertake an analysis

 
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which is not confined to the ideological sphere but which reveals the nature of the transformations that are actually taking place in class relations and production-relations. This also brings up the question of the class nature of the state.

I  Present state of theory

    Our joint task will be, first, to set to work the practical concepts we possess in order to question with their aid a certain number of the realities of today, with the aim of getting to know these realities better and thereby transforming these concepts of ours into scientific concepts. By this I mean concepts which connect together into a theory which enables us to grasp the interconnexions of the social realities on which our researches are focused. Our first duty is thus to ascertain what the theoretical situation is that we are at present in, as regards the problems I have just referred to.

    In order to do this we must examine the state of the Marxist problematic. In my view, it is thanks to Marx's theory that the transition can be the object of a scientific analysis. It is by applying the conceptual tools and scientific methods that Marx worked out that the problems of transition can be formulated and can be solved correctly.

    At this point I must, of course, reply directly to the objection that says that Marx did not merely formulate the problems of transition and provide the conceptual tools by means of which the transition can be thought about, but that he also solved theoretically all this group of problems and thus has already supplied us with the scientific theory of the transition.

    The best way of determining the scientific state of our problems will be to try to answer this objection.

    In doing this, I shall start from a text which relates directly to our problems, namely, Louis Althusser's Sur la "moyenne idéale " et les formes de transition (On the "ideal average" and the forms of transition).[1] Here Althusser formulates some propositions which are of the greatest importance for our subject. I will set them out in the order that seems to me to be significant from the point of view of the problem with which we are concerned, an order which is a little different from that in which Althusser presents them:

First proposition

    Althusser recalls that, in Capital, Marx sets himself the task of studying the "concept of the specific difference of the capitalist mode of production" and that he is able to do this only "on condition that he studies at the same time the other modes of production, as types of specific unity of Verbindung (i.e. of combination, C.B.) between the factors of production, and also the relations between the different modes of production in the process of constituting modes of production."[2]

Second proposition

    Althusser further stresses that Marx's passages on primitive accumulation of capital form at least the materials, if not already the outline, of the theory of the process whereby the capitalist mode of production is consti-

 
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tuted, that is to say, of the forms of transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist mode of production. This proposition evidently means, among other things, that these passages in Marx (together with those dealing with pre-capitalist modes of production) give us the outline of a theory (of transition ), but not yet -- since this was not the main purpose of Marx's scientific work -- the theory itself.

    This situation of the theory is illuminated by Etienne Balibar's contribution to the same volume.[3]

Third proposition

    This third proposition is closely linked with the first two.

    Marx's theoretical object is the capitalist mode of production in its Kerngestalt (i.e., in its "nuclear structure" or "inner structure", C.B.) and the determinations of this Kerngestalt. This means that what Marx is studying is not, for example, capitalist England, which he often takes as an illustration, but an ideal object, defined in terms of cognition, in the abstraction of a concept. This is what Marx is saying when he writes that the "specific character" of the capitalist system "is revealed in all its inner essence".[4]

    It is this specific difference that is Marx's theoretical object. This is why the capitalist mode of production he studies is a mode of production with two classes, differing from what we see in the English "illustration", or any other such "illustration" we might find, in which there are actually a much larger number of classes. The specific difference studied by Marx is thus not an empirical average but the concept of the capitalist mode of production, which constitutes that which is essential to it.

Fourth proposition

    There is thus a "gap" between the capitalist mode of production in the reality of its concept and the actual economic system of British capitalism, for example. This "gap" constitutes what Althusser calls a "real residue",[5] an "impurity"[6] or, as he also says, what one may "provisionally call a survival" in the midst of the capitalist mode of production which is dominant in Great Britain.[6]

Fifth proposition

    This fifth proposition is very directly concerned with our subject of study.

    "This alleged 'impurity' is an object belonging to the sphere of the theory of modes of production: in particular, the theory of the transition from one mode of production to another, which merges with the theory of the process whereby a certain mode of production is formed. . . ."[6]

    I should now like to offer some observations concerning the content of the fourth and fifth of these propositions:

    (1) While it seems to me correct to say that the alleged "impurities", "survivals", etc., form an object belonging to the sphere of the theory of modes of production, I do not think that they can be the specific object of the theory of the transition from one mode of production to another. In fact, these "impurities" are always present in reality. They therefore cannot be considered as the peculiarity of a stage of transition, or otherwise we should have to say that the real economic world is always made up of economies in

 
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transition, and consequently the concept of "economy of transition" would be deprived of any specific meaning.

    If we wish to give the term "economy of transition" a specific meaning -- and this seems to me to be essential -- we must ask ourselves what these "residues" are that we find so difficult to describe, since we refer to them by means of all sorts of metaphors, like "impurities", "survivals", and so on, which is a sign that there is as yet no scientific concept with which to think these objects. Above all, we must, in particular, ask ourselves the following question: is it not rather a specific form of coexistence, or simultaneous presence and interaction of several modes of production, that characterises an economy of transition? And this leads to another question: do not these specific forms of coexistence and interaction of several modes of production constitute specific modes of production?

    It is not necessary to work out forthwith the scientific concepts demanded by this way of seeing the problem, but only to offer some considerations which may perhaps help us to find a road that will lead to the establishment of these concepts. This leads me to make a second observation.

    (2) What we will for the moment call "survivals" (an expression which makes one think of some legacy from a past which history has not had the time to wipe out) represent, in fact, the products of the structures in which these alleged "impurities" are not "survivals", because they are not alien to the real structures in which they exist. On the contrary, they are the result of the totality of the relations which make up these structures, that is to say, of the particular level of development of the productive forces, of the unevennesses of development which characterise these forces, and of, the relations of production linked with these unevennesses of development. If we think of these "impurities" as being "survivals" this is because we have not grasped thoroughly enough the interconnexions of the structures that produce them.

    When, indeed, we set about studying an actual economy -- independently of the very idea of transition -- we have to think of this economy as a complex structure which is "structured in dominance ". We mentally grasp a structure like this as a specific combination of several modes of production of which one is dominant. It is this dominant mode of production that permeates the entire system and modifies the conditions in which the subordinate modes of production function and develop.

    In other words, by virtue of their very subordination, these "modes of production" are different from what they are in their "purity". Marx speaks in this connexion of the "etiolation" of these modes of production.

    What is true, however, of the subordinate modes of production is reciprocally true of the dominant mode of production, the features of which are also to some extent modified by the mere fact of its "dominant" role.

    Finally, each of these complex structures constitutes not a simple juxtaposition of modes of production, but a complex structure which is unique, endowed with its own structural causality; At the same time, this unique

 
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structure is subject, in general, to the dominance of a specific structure which corresponds to that of a given mode of production; for example, the capitalist mode of production. This is why it is that while, in a complex structure of this type, like nineteenth-century France, say, we find numerous structural elements belonging to modes of production other than the dominant mode, we are nevertheless justified in saying that this structure corresponds to that of a capitalist economy.

    If the simultaneous presence and interaction of several modes of production is a feature of any actual economic structure whatsoever, then it is, of course, a feature of an economy in transition; but an additional element enters in here, namely, the mode of dominance and the methods of eliminating the non-dominant structures. This is one of the problems we shall have to examine.

    I should like to illustrate the observation I have just put forward by taking the example of the situation in the Soviet Union in 1918 and in 1921.

    In his report on the tax in kind, dated 9 April, 1921, Lenin said:

"Take a close look at the actual economic relations in Russia. We find at least five different economic systems, or structures, which, from bottom to top, are: first, the patriarchal economy, when the peasant farms produce only for their own needs, or are in a nomadic or semi-nomadic state, and we happen to have any number of these; second, small commodity production, when goods are sold on the market; third, capitalist production, the emergence of capitalists, small private capital; fourth, state capitalism; and fifth, socialism."[7]

    Under these conditions, even a certain development of capitalism, whether in the form of concessions to foreign capital, limited in scope and strictly regulated, or in that of a certain growth of internal capitalism, is incapable of changing the predominant orientation, owing to the working-class nature of the state and of the latter's grasp of what Lenin calls the "commanding heights of the economy".

    I now return to the problems set by the analysis of any complex economic structure. In order to analyse such a structure, and especially in order to foresee how it will develop, we can apply the knowledge available to us concerning the way each of these "elementary structures" functions and develops. We must appreciate, however, that this method is only approximative. Its weakness is that it treats as independent modes of production elementary structures which possess no "autonomous" existence except in the idea that we form of them as distinct modes of production, that is, as modes of production which, in their very concepts, are pure structures. This is why the conclusions we can draw from such proceedings are still only approximate. Recognition of the divergences between these conclusions and reality must in the end lead to the conceptual construction of a

 
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complex structure, structured in dominance, the structural causality of which correspond better to that of the actual economic system.

    To this I should like to add that the "mixed" character of the actual structures and systems is not merely an "internal" feature of the various national economies but is also, and to an even greater extent, a feature characteristic of the world economy. For the development of the productive forces in every country is to some extent conditioned by world production-relations. This can be seen especially in the countries dominated by imperialism but it is also true in the dominating countries. This therefore means that the world economy itself is a complex structure of complex structures. Now, the world economy is the ultimate economic reality. It is in the world economy that are "combined" (in several dimensions) the most diverse modes and systems of production and the various national economies which form parts of this complex totality.

    Thus, when we study the working of a particular national economy in which a certain mode of production seems to be "dominant" -- for example, the economy of some country in Latin America in which large-scale landownership is dominant on the spot -- we ought not, if we want to arrive at meaningful conclusions, consider this economy otherwise than in its mode of relations with the modes of production which are dominant on the world scale ; because we cannot understand this national economy if we do not grasp that it is a part of world production-relations. It is thus as an integrated structure, for example, as a structure dominated by the American economy, that the specificity of development of this economy can be understood.

    Similarly, the transformations of structures and the different stages of transition that a national economy can undergo cannot be analysed in a valid way except by putting these transformations back into the world structural totality. In this way we can understand how it is that the stages of transition of each economy that carries out its socialist revolution can be qualitatively different from the "apparently analogous" stages passed through by the countries which have preceded it on the same road. This is so not merely for reasons internal to each economy, that is, because of the particular level of development of its productive forces and the unevennesses of this level of development, the class characteristics peculiar to this economy, and so on, but also because the world totality has itself been transformed. From this standpoint, the October Revolution marks the beginning of a new age, not only for the Russian economy but also for the world economy, the structure of which was profoundly transformed.

    This leads me to formulate the following proposition: with the dividing up of the world by imperialism, a world economic system was established. The break-up of the unity of this system began with the October Revolution. Since then, world economy has entered a period of transition. The characteristics of this transition, its specific phases, need to be studied as an objective phenomenon with both national and international aspects. Such a study requires the elaboration of specific concepts. For the moment, we possess only practical concepts, and very poor ones at that, such as "co-

 
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existence on the world scale" or "the world struggle between the two systems". Such concepts merely point to the existence of a problem, namely, that of the forms and phases of transition on the world scale; they do not as yet enable us to set this problem on the scientific plane. What constitutes the difficulty of the problem is not merely its size or its novelty, it is also the specificity of this world transition which implies political and ideological transformations at the level of the different states, for these are the transformations that, within each state, alter the dominance of a mode of production. These, for example, are what have brought it about that, in the course of a few months, the economy of Cuba ceased to be dominated by American capital and became integrated into the world socialist economy and has taken the road towards the building of socialism. The immediately national character of such transformations often makes us lose sight of the international nature of the process of transition.

    After making these general observations, I should like to dwell upon some points of terminology, for through an effort to clarify terminology we may be able to make our way to a more rigorous formulation of the concepts.

II  Proposals on terminology

    When we speak of the problems of transition, this expression calls up the ideas of passing from one mode of production to another, of the constitution of a mode of production, of the transformation of an economic system, and so on. Each of these expressions in turn may describe different problems. It is therefore necessary to link these concepts together in order to find the road to a theoretical elaboration of the theme. To this end I propose the following terminology:

    First of all, I propose that we speak of the theory of the "constitution " of a particular mode of production, in order to designate the theory of the formation of certain of the conditions for a new mode of production, and so the theory of the origins of this mode of production. It is such a theory that Marx sets forth when, in his analysis of the primitive accumulation of capital, he shows how, within the womb of the feudal mode of production, the conditions for the capitalist mode of production were formed, and this through the specific working not only of the economic structures but also through that of the political structures, as, for example, the intervention of the political authority to promulgate and put into effect the enclosure acts in England. The same theoretical necessity demands today that we discover the conditions for the socialist mode of production which are in process of formation within the womb of the capitalist mode of production (in the sense in which Lenin said, for example, that "socialism looks out of all the windows of present-day capitalism").

    The theory of the constitution, within one mode of production, of some of the conditions of another mode of production, is thus also that of the transformation and dissolution of the existing production-relations. This dissolution affects the whole social structure, and not merely the structure

 
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of production. It is marked by specific forms of intervention in the infrastructure by the superstructure.

    In contrast to the theory of the constitution of the conditions for a new mode of production, it must be said that the theory of the passage from one to the other is on a different level of abstraction, because it is specifically concerned with the ideal passage from one production-structure to another, and therefore not with an historical passage.

    This brings us back to the actual theoretical nature of the mode of production, as a varied combination of the constituent elements of every possible mode (the working people, the means of production), a combination which takes place in accordance with the two relationships (of property and of real appropriation) which are features of the structure of every mode of production.

    The ideal nature of the modes of production conceived at this level of abstraction has as its consequence that their succession in the realm of ideas may be different from the real transition from one economic system to another. This transition is, indeed, never the succession of one mode of production to another, but always a transition from one complex mode of production, structured in dominance, to another complex mode of production, structured in dominance.

    This kind of succession is not subject to any single-line development because here the different levels of the entire social structure react on each other and may create the conditions for a direct transition from one dominant mode of production to another, where as, in the ideal series, these modes of production do not succeed one another. We see that the very complexity of the social structures rules out any unilinear development.

    As I recalled just now, this complexity extends to the world scale, since each national economy, which is itself a complex of structures, constitutes a link, either dominated or dominating, within world economy, and the contradictions that develop in a given country are not merely "internal" contradictions, but result also from the mode of insertion of the country in question into the world economic and political complex (hence the concept of "the weakest link").

    Accordingly, while we can conceive of abstract laws of passage from one mode of production to another, we cannot state that any law of linear succession is historically necessary, as between the dominant modes of production of the complex social systems. We know, furthermore, that the dissolution of a mode of production creates merely the conditions for the appearance of another determinate mode of production. It does not establish the necessity of this mode, for this necessity is determined by the conditions of transformation of a structure that is much more complex than the economic structure alone, namely, the conditions of transformation of the totality of the social structure and the political and ideological superstructures.

    Thus, the dissolution of the capitalist mode of production does not create all the conditions for its succession by the socialist mode of production

 
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unless the political and ideological conditions for this succession are present as well. This may therefore take place either sooner or later, depending on the structure of conjunctures through which every historical social formation passes. So, in the world totality of today, countries which have not developed internally the capitalist mode of production, or have hardly developed it, are able, owing to internal and international contradictions, to experience a conjuncture which enables them to do without the development of this mode of production so far as they are concerned, and to pass directly to the building of socialism; the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is an example of such a process.

    Here we see that, in addition to a theory of the origins of a given mode of production, we need not merely a theory of (ideal ) passage but also a theory of the structure of conjuncture that opens the way to a transition. This conjuncture is usually one marked by the collision of a number of contradictions, which gives a certain moment of history a revolutionary quality and provokes the re-structuring of a social formation, that is, the replacement of one social formation by another. It is then that there opens a period of transition which can itself be the object of the theory of transition.

    If we look at these matters on the plane of the national economies, we can say that the current period shows us two main types of transition:

    (1) That from an economy previously dominated by capitalism (even if internal capitalism was weak or practically non-existent there) to an economy evolving towards socialism; this transition-in-the-strict-sense implies a preliminary condition -- the passing of state power to the working class, or to a coalition of formerly-exploited classes within which the working class plays the dominant role.

    (2) The second type of transition (transition in the broader sense) is that experienced by an economy which, having been subjected to direct colonial domination, now enters a post-colonial period.

    This second type of transition, which does not eliminate the internal forms of exploitation of man by man, implies a much less thoroughgoing breach with the past than occurs in the first type, since, at bottom, the previous domination is not abolished but merely modified. It is not abolished because a system which preserves the exploitation of man by man and in which the state is not in the hands of the working people but in those of the exploiting classes must, in the last resort, seek backing in that part of the world economic and political system which strives to uphold class privileges and is therefore in political solidarity with any and every system of exploitation.

    These are, ultimately, the internal economic, social and political conditions that determine the integration of a country either in the world capitalist system or in the world socialist system.

    Therefore, the expression "economy of transition", when it is used for the post-colonial economies, seems to be capable of two different meanings:

    (1) The expression may simply mean that the previous form of domination has been modified without the nature of this domination being altered.

 
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This is the case with a country like India, where state capitalism has been used by the Indian bourgeoisie to reinforce its own power. But the very limits which the existing economic system sets to the development of the Indian economy have in the end obliged the Indian bourgeoisie to stay under the domination of foreign capital.

    (2) The expression "economy of transition", when applied to a post-colonial economy in which power has not passed into the hands of the working people, seems capable of being used also to describe a situation of momentary equilibrium between the social classes confronting each other. Such an equilibrium, which may lead to the formation of class coalitions (whether formal or not) is eminently unstable. It cannot provide the social foundation for an economic situation with specific laws of development. Such a situation of unstable equilibrium was that which Indonesia knew down to September 1965. I consider that in cases like this one ought not to speak of an "economy of transition", but rather of a "situation of transition": a situation of this kind is, moreover, usually marked, in the economic sphere, by an almost total absence of development.

    If we accept, provisionally at any rate, the terminology which has just been suggested, we shall say that, at the level of a single country, the theoretical problem of the economy of transition concerns the theory of a complex mode of production which has just replaced another complex mode of production, following a rupture in the formerly existing structured totality.

    The economy of the transition period is thus the economy of the period directly after a break, and this is why the theory of the transition is not a theory of origins but a theory of beginnings. In the strict sense of the word it is the theory of the beginnings of a new mode of production. One of its objects consists of the initial stage, or rather of the problems of the period of initial instability, of the period preceding what Marx calls the "social stability" of the mode of production.[9]

    The initial stage is that in which the fate of the new social formation has not bet been sealed, or in which this fate is still uncertain. In both cases this stage corresponds to the "morning after" a break with a mode of production that was previously dominant, or to a serious shock to the former domination (the case of the period immediately following "de-colonisation" in a formerly colonial country). This "morning after" may, of course, extend in some cases over a number of years.

    However, the problems of the economy of transition, as I propose to deal with them here, go beyond this phase of initial instability. They concern, as I have said, not merely the initial stage, as the first stage of the transition period, but the whole of the transition period as the first phase of a period of history. For example, in the case of the Soviet Union, I shall interest myself both in the period immediately following the October Revolution and in the present period.

    What, then, constitutes the "transition phase " (in the sense of the phase of transition between capitalism and socialism, for example) is no longer the fact of instability or the absence of domination, but the fact of a still

 
page 23

relatively great lack of conformity between the essentials of the new social relations which are henceforth dominant and the productive forces, a state of affairs which also means a certain type of contradiction between the form of property and the real mode of appropriation. Under these conditions, the new social relations do not yet dominate by their own strength; in other words, the conditions for expanded reproduction of these social relations are not yet given.[10]

    When such a situation of lack of conformity between the new social relations and the productive forces exists, the dominance of the new social relations can be ensured only through mediations, for example, in the case of the economy in transition to socialism, by having recourse to those two extreme types of mediation, use of the market (as in the example of the N.E.P.), or administrative centralisation (as in the example of the first Five-Year Plans). These mediations testify to the still very great depth of the internal contradictions.

    The latter can only be resolved through a development of the productive forces which will bring about conformity between the new social relations and the productive forces themselves: in the case of the socialist economy, this development must lead to an integration and interdependence of the productive forces far-reaching enough for the mechanism of the market and the mechanism of administrative centralisation to be alike discarded and replaced by a co-ordinated management of the economy through original mechanisms, at the centre of which there will be a planning center of a new type.

    The above observations call for additional terminological definitions. It seems right to reserve the term "phase " to indicate the two great moments in the development of a social formation, namely:

    (1) that of its beginnings, i.e., the transition phase in the strict sense which is also that of a specific non-correspondence between productive forces and production-relations (this is a point to which I shall come back): and,

    (2) the phase of expanded reproduction of the production-structure, which can be subjected to a synchronic analysis and is marked by a dynamism of its own.

    Each of these phases is distinguished by a specific interconnexion between the levels of the social formation and between their contradictions, and so by a certain type of uneven development of these contradictions. In the course of one and the same phase, that which at one moment is a principal contradiction becomes a secondary one, or else a secondary aspect of this contradiction becomes a principal aspect. These shifts in contradictions show the pace of development of the different stages of a given phase; they are marked by changes in relations between classes or between the different strata of the same class. It was thus that the Kronstadt revolt and the economic crisis preceding it indicated such a shift and compelled the Bolshevik Party to change its economic policy. Lenin wrote at that time:

"Economics in the spring of 1921 was transformed into politics. 'Kronstadt.'"[11]

 
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    Having arrived at this point, we find two kinds of problem coming up:

    (1) Is there a typical way of dividing up the transition period into stages, with specific features? If so,

    (2) what are the relations between these typical stages and the historical periods through which the economies of the socialist countries have passed?

    These are the questions which we must try to answer.

III  A fundamental feature of the transition period 

    We must, however, begin by offering at least the beginning of an answer to the following theoretical question: if we are to consider the transition phase as a whole, at the level of a national economy, is there any feature common to the whole of the phase which justifies us in regarding it as one phase?

    If this question be answered in the affirmative, a further question then arises: if there is a feature common to the whole of the phase of transition from one mode of production to another (in the strict sense of the word), can different transition phases also have features in common? In other words, if there is a fundamental feature of the phase of transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist mode of production, is a similar feature to be found, in a different form, that is, with other terms, in the phase of transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production?

    The point of departure for answering this question is obviously provided by analyses relating to the transition from the feudal mode of production to the capitalist mode of production.

    As Etienne Balibar has shown, the phase of transition to capitalism was marked by a certain form of non-correspondence between the formal mode of appropriation and the real mode.

    The formal mode of appropriation in the phase of transition to capitalism was already the capitalist form of property, that is, the separation of the worker from his means of production; however, the real mode of appropriation was not yet the mode of appropriation specific to capitalism, namely, large-scale industry.

    Marx wrote on this subject:

"At first, capital subordinates labour on the bases of the technical conditions in which it historically finds it. It does not, therefore, change immediately the mode of production."[12]

    Thus, whereas social production-relations bring about a formal dissociation between the worker and his means of production, the labour-process maintains their unity. Non-correspondence between social production-relations and

 
page 25

the labour-process is thus characteristic of the period of transition to capitalism.

    This non-correspondence is abolished later on, through the industrial revolution, the development of which was made possible by the formal subjection of labour to capital. The industrial revolution, that is to say, the development of the productive forces which this change implies, breaks up the unity of the worker with his means of production. The latter cease to be individual and become collective. Thenceforth there is separation of the worker from his means of work on the plane of the work-process no less than on that of social production-relations. There thus comes about a correspondence, what Etienne Balibar calls an homology, between the two forms of appropriation. With large-scale industry, the subjection of labour to capital is no longer merely formal, it is real, as-Marx puts it.[13]

    As we know, this homology has at the same time an underlying contradiction, namely, that which counterposes the private ownership of the means of production to the social character of the productive forces.

    To return to the period of transition to capitalism, we see, then, that this is marked by a certain form of non-correspondence. The latter also finds expression as a chronological gap, between the formation of the different elements in the structure: capital as a "social relation" exists previous to and independent of the "real" subjection of the worker, that is, of the specific form of real appropriation which corresponds to the capitalist mode of production.[14]

    The question we now have to answer is the following: is the period of transition to socialism also marked by non-correspondence and a "chronological gap", this gap being itself destined to be closed by the triumph of a new type of industrial revolution, that is, by the predominance of productive forces with characteristics corresponding to the new social-production relations?; and this predominance itself being made possible as a result of the prerequisite appearance of socialist production-relations, that is, as a result of a certain type of "chronological gap"?

    I think this question can be answered, in the affirmative, by putting forward the following propositions, which, of course, need to be elaborated. It seems that the form of "non-correspondence" specific to the phase of transition to socialism is the following: the mode of property is formally -- so far as the chief means of production are concerned -- that of ownership by society as a whole, whereas the real mode of appropriation is still by limited groups of working people, since it is only at the level of these groups that real appropriation of nature takes place.[15]

    The chronological gap peculiar to the mode of production of transition to socialism would thus also mean the constitution of a mode of formal appropriation "preceding" the corresponding mode of real appropriation.

    The material basis of this non-correspondence thenceforth appears as being constituted by the nature of the productive forces that are set to work

 
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within the framework of what is still called the socialist "enterprise", or "firm", that is, of "enterprises" or "firms" which have to be allowed a certain degree of autonomy precisely because they form the framework in which the real appropriation of nature takes place.

    From now on, however, the development of the productive forces in certain branches, e.g., in the production of electricity and in the large-scale chemical industry (in the form of big combines) reveals the appearance of a mode of real appropriation which can still be dominated at the level of society as a whole. When this evolution is complete in essentials, that is, when these productive forces of a new type are the dominant productive forces, there will be a state of homology between the mode of appropriation and the mode of property, there will be coincidence between juridical power and effective capacity, and the transition phase will be over. It would seem that it can be said straightaway that this presupposes a very far-reaching development of automation, technical integration and remote control methods of management.

    On the basis of the foregoing, we see that what marks the transition phase as a whole is not mainly the instability of the new social order, nor is it the absence of domination by the new production-relations, it is the fact that there is still a relatively large degree of non-correspondence between the new production-relations, henceforth dominant, and the nature of the essential productive forces.

    The lower the local level of development of the productive forces in a given country, the higher the degree of non-concordance of which we speak. It was in this sense that Lenin wrote in 1921 that:

    "The economic basis of socialism is not yet there ."[16]

    A gap like this has important consequences as regards the articulation of the different levels of the social structure. This non-correspondence implies, in fact, a specific efficacity of the political level. So long as there is non-concordance between the new production-relations and the nature of the productive forces, the functioning of the economic system can be ensured only by specific mediations. For example, in the case of the economy in transition to socialism, recourse has to be had to such mediations as state capitalism, use of the market (as with the N.E.P.) and strong administrative centralisation (as in the first Five-Year Plans).

    This seems to me very important in relation to the study of the political superstructures of the transition period, in particular the forms of democracy and the role of the administrative apparatus. This is precisely why Lenin insisted on the idea of the "economic foundations" for the "withering away of bureaucracy" and the problems of what he called "combating the evils of bureaucracy".[16]

    I think that it is by starting from the idea of non-correspondence between the formal and the real modes of appropriation, and by taking into account the extent and the specific forms of this non-correspondence, that we have to proceed in tackling the problems that arise at the different stages of the economy in transition to socialism, and that we can try to construct a theory

 
page 27

of these stages. That will enable us to see that, depending on the countries concerned, that is, on the initial extent of the non-correspondence and the specific forms of this non-correspondence, this transition period can be longer or shorter, and, above all, can be marked by the playing of a radically different role, as between one country and another, by the bureaucratic apparatus, and so by different forms of socialist democracy.

    On the economic plane, it is the extent and the specific forms of non-correspondence that must be taken into account in correctly setting the problems of the role played by the market and by money, of the role (now being so much discussed in the Soviet Union) of direct relations between socialist enterprises, of organisational forms in agriculture, of changes to be made in the actual mechanism of planning, and so on.

    All these problems are both economic and political. Solving them calls into question the relations between classes or the relations between the different strata of one and the same class, the relations between the "top section" and the "lower ranks", and so on. . . .[17] In other words, it is a matter of bringing to light the contradictions engendered by a certain type of non-correspondence. Such contradictions, if not properly dealt with, may take on an antagonistic character, or from contradictions of the secondary order become principal contradictions. For example, if the problem of small-scale peasant production is not handled correctly, this may lead either to a setback in the productive forces of agriculture (which had occurred before the introduction of N.E.P.) or to such an increased role being played by the market that the development of socialist production relations may be seriously compromised (as has happened in Yugoslavia).

    In concluding these observations regarding the period of transition to socialism, a point needs to be made about the dimensions and the nature of the break separating the phase of transition to socialism from the phase of socialism's further development. It is obvious that this break will be even greater than that separating the transition phase from the last phase of capitalism. We can see already that this break will mean the end of the separation between manual and mental work and between operative work and management, that is to say, the end of subdivisions which are still important within the working class itself.

    After these observations regarding the transition to socialism, I should like to go quickly over some problems relating to economies which have emerged from the colonial period. Here it is important to raise the question of the specific nature of these economies in transition.

    One of the specific features of this transition is that the principal aspect of their present situation is not a result of the internal development of their past economic structure, that is, of an internal evolution of their productive forces which caused them to evolve from one stage to another. On the contrary, the productive forces of these countries were generally in a stagnant condition. Further, their post-colonial situation is dominated by the breakdown of a political dependence. This breakdown opens the way to

 
page 28

new possibilities, through specific interventions from the political plane into the plane of production-structures.

    Just as the encounter between these colonial societies and the Western capitalist societies belonged, according to Balibar's analysis, to the diachrony of these societies, because it brought about a transformation in their mode of production,[18] so the breakdown of their dependence tends to bring about (quickly or slowly) a transformation in their mode of production. As with any transition of this kind, we see a specific mode of intervention by the state, law and political force in the mode of production. The rapid development of state intervention, the promulgation of development plans, the nationalisation of productive enterprises and foreign trade, are examples of these numerous irruptions from above at the level of the economic structures. What marks off these interventions from the transition to socialism is that they do not emanate from a state machine that belongs to the working class, or to an alliance of classes led by the working class, but from a state machine that upholds and defends the privileges of the economically dominant classes; here, what plays the decisive role is the contradiction between the making of certain investments and certain outside interests, and not, directly, the contradictions within the given society.

    I would further add that, where economies that have emerged from the colonial period are concerned we shall have to study essentially something that, though it looks to us like an initial stage, is perhaps only the last stage of the old mode of production, that is, a dissolution that should then lead on to a real transition; where the socialist economies are concerned, on the other hand, we shall have to study several stages of the transition period. This will be the case, in particular, with the Soviet economy, of which the on-going transition phase can already be subdivided into a certain number of specific stages, each with its own distinct social and economic, and therefore political, features.

    Accordingly, what I propose to examine are essentially the problems of these two types of economy of transition which are characteristic of the world today:

    (1) The problems of the economies which have carried through a socialist revolution, that is, in which the problems of building socialism are on the order of the day.

    It is not, of course, my aim to examine all these problems. It would certainly be more fruitful to give priority to those among them regarding which there is reason to believe that they present us with the most fundamental questions of theory. Among these there is, in particular, the place of simple commodity production, and even of petty capitalist production, in the first stages of an economy evolving towards socialism. This is one of the questions that were raised very sharply at the time when the N.E.P. was formulated.

    Another question is that of the forms of transition from simple commodity production to co-operation. Here we find, notably, the case of the

 
page 29

collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union, but it is necessary also to examine other procedures for transforming agriculture, such as those that have been employed in China.

    A further question is that of the forms of mediation needed in order to dominate effectively the contradictions that may arise from the non-correspondence between the modes of formal and real appropriation. We must investigate, especially, the progressive role that these contradictions may be capable of playing, that is, the way they can drive the productive forces forward, and the conditions that have to be fulfilled in order that this may actually occur.

    The questions raised by the linkage of problems of planning and problems of managing the economy will also have to be looked into, particularly through the experience of Cuba and the discussions that have taken place there.

    When these questions are gone into thoroughly, it becomes apparent that they are fundamentally theoretical in character, and it is this content that we must endeavour to bring out, by analysing recent historical processes and the theoretical reflexions already formulated regarding these processes.

    (2) The problems of the post-colonial economies. Among the questions raised by the evolution of these countries I will mention that of the role and significance of state capitalism. There is reason, for instance, to analyse the specific differences between this state capitalism from that which is developing, on the basis of monopoly capitalism, in the big imperialist countries. There is reason, too, to consider the specific differences between the state capitalism of countries which, like India, are dominated by a powerful industrial bourgeoisie, and the state capitalism established in countries with productive forces that are very little developed or where only a very small-scale bourgeoisie, essentially peasant and mercantile in character, is to be found, as, for instance, in Mali or Cambodia.

    Finally, it is essential to study the new structures of capitalism, for the twofold reason that the study of these structures is undoubtedly very instructive for our understanding of certain problems that confront the socialist economies themselves and that on the other hand, the recent evolution of capitalism entails far-reaching repercussions on the potential evolution of the post-colonial economies. Here there arises, especially, the problem referred to by the practical concept of "neo-colonialism".

    These are, for the moment, the main themes I propose to deal with. I have others in mind, too, but I think it is better to begin working together on themes that have already been defined, before trying to define more precisely the themes which we shall tackle later, or the order in which these will be tackled.

 
page 30

 
NOTES TO CHAPTER I
1  L. Althusser, E. Balibar, R. Establet: Lire le Capital, Paris (Maspero), 1965, Vol.2, pp. 179-85. (Eng. edn: Reading Capital, New Left Books, 1970.)    [p. 14]
2  Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 182-3.    [p. 14]
3  E. Balibar: Sur les concepts fondamentaux du matérialisme historique (On the basic concepts of historical materialism), in ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 187-332.    [p. 15]
4  Marx, Le Capital, Tome VI, p. 257. (Eng. version from Capital, III, F.L.P.H. edn., p. 239.)    [p. 15]
5  Althusser et al., op. cit., p. 182.    [p. 15]
6  Ibid., p. 183.    [p. 15]
7  V. I. Lenin, Oeuvres completes, 4th edn., Moscow, 1962, Vol. 32, p. 313 (Eng. version from Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 295-6.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Report on the Tax in Kind". -- DJR]).    [p. 17]
8  Ibid., p. 314 (Eng. version, p. 296).    [p. 17]
9  Marx, op. cit., Tome VIII, p. 174 (Eng. version from Capital, III, F.L.P.H. edition, p. 774).    [p. 22]
10  It is necessary to consider also an opposite situation, in which the old social relations can no longer dominate by their own strength, because henceforth the productive forces overflow, in a sense, the production-relations within which they are supposed to be confined. This situation is that of imperialism in its last stage, compelled to have recourse either to violent measures of coercion or to rapid increase of unproductive expenditure (mainly war expenditure, but also any other form of expenditure aimed at diverting part of the accumulation fund from productive use). This point will have to be examined separately.    [p. 23]
11  Lenin, op. cit., Vol. 32, p. 347 (Eng. version, p. 327  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Plan of the Pamphlet The Tax in Kind ". -- DJR]).    [p. 23]
12  Marx, op. cit., Tome I, p. 303 (Capital, I, Eng. edn. of 1938, p. 297).    [p. 24]
13  Marx, op. cit., Tome I, p. 535 (Capital, I, Eng. edn. of 1938, p. 518).    [p. 25]
14  E. Balibar, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 228-9.    [p. 25]
15  These are points which I have endeavoured to analyse below, in Chapter 2, "The socio-economic framework and the organisation of social planning", and in Chapter 3, "Forms and methods of socialist planning and the level of development of the productive forces".    [p. 25]
16  Lenin, op. cit., Vol. 32, p. 346 (Eng. version, p. 325).    [p. 26]
17  Lenin, ibid.    [p. 27]
18  Balibar, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 314.    [p. 28]

 
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2:  The socio-economic frame-
   work and the organisation of
   social planning^[1]

I  A general survey of the mode of organisation of
  present-day planned economies

The reality of socialist planned economy is more complex than any picture it was possible to try and form before there had been actual experience of it.

    This kind of economy does not merely entail a central authority, the exclusive centre where social decisions are made, and which draws up a plan so highly detailed that the units of production or distribution are reduced to a merely technical function that consists in strictly carrying out the orders received from the central authority, which has foreseen everything and calculated everything.

    In fact, the plan worked out at the centre, however detailed it may be, lays upon the production units only a limited number of tasks of an obligatory nature (what are often called the obligatory "indices" or "indicators"). A more or less extensive margin of initiative is thus left to the production- and distribution-units.

    Consequently, these units are not mere technical subdivisions of what might have been conceived as a "single state trust". This expression, "a single state trust", was, we know, used by Bukharin in his book The Economy of the Transition Period, in which he maintained that, in an 'organised social economy", there was no place for economic science, but only for direct administration of things. We know, too, that this view was not accepted by the other Soviet leaders: Lenin, in particular, regarded it as utopian and as expressing an "ultra-Left" attitude.[2]

    In the practice of present-day planned economy, the units of production are not mere technical units, but economic subjects, which as such take decisions, and which have had to be accorded a margin of initiative and responsibility that makes of them also juridical subjects. These juridical subjects are, as such, sources of rights and obligations. They are subject not only to the obligations imposed on them by the plan but also to the obligations which they themselves undertake.

    The products that pass from one economic unit to another are, in general,

 
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not shared out by way of administrative orders, but mostly circulate by way of purchases and sales, which give rise to payments.

    There is thus, in most cases, not a sharing-out of products but a circulation of commodities ; there is money and there are prices, that is to say (at least in appearance), there are commodity categories, which in turn mean a system of accounting in terms of prices, a system of calculation in money, and differentiated wages, together with a financial system and a system of credit, with a state banking network which can make fairly long-term loans.

    This is the description one can give of all the planned economies at present in being, whether those in which the productive forces are most highly developed, as in the Soviet Union or in Czechoslovakia, or those in which agriculture still plays a big part, and where the productive forces are comparatively undeveloped, as in China or in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

    This complex reality, this combination of socialist state property and social planning, on the one hand, with commodity categories (or at least the appearance of them), on the other, may seem to contradict some of the descriptions of socialist society given in advance by Marx or Engels.

II  Some passages from Marx and Engels

    I do not intend to speak here about the earliest writings of Marx and Engels, such as Engels's speech on 15th February 1845, at Elberfeld, when he declared:

"In communist society it will be easy to know what is being produced and what is being consumed. As we know what each individual needs, on the average, it will be easy to calculate what a definite number of individuals need, and since production will no longer be in the hands of any private producers but in those of the Commune and its administration, it will not be at all difficult to regulate production according to needs." (MEGA, Erste Abteilung, Band 4, p. 372.)

    I shall recall, in particular, that in the Critique of the Gotha Programme (written in 1875), Marx wrote, among other things:

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour." (Quoted from the Editions Sociales, Paris, 1950 edn., p. 23: Eng. trans., F.L.P.H. edn., p. 20.)

 
page 33

just emerged from capitalist society. It is for this society, that is, for this economy of transition, that he foresees each worker receiving, instead of wages in money, "a certificate from society that he has furnished such and such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common funds), and with this certificate he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour." (Ibid., p. 23; Eng. trans., p. 20.)

    According to this passage, there will be in socialist society, even at its beginning, neither commodities, nor value, nor money, nor, consequently, prices and wages. This is the same idea which Marx had already formulated in Capital and which about a year later Engels took up again in Anti-Dühring, especially when he wrote:

"The seizure of the means of production by society puts an end to commodity production. . . ." (Quoted from Costes edn., Vol. III, Paris, 1933, p. 51: Eng. trans., 1934 London edn., p. 311.)

III  The nature of the problems to be studied

    If we accept that the present-day socialist economies, as they really are, correspond to objective demands imposed by the working and development of these social formations[4] and not to "distortions" of an "ideal model" (which Marx and Engels always refused to provide), we have to ask ourselves how to explain the contradiction which there at least seems to be between this reality and some of the analyses made by Marx and Engels.

    It is all the more essential to do this because the good or bad working of the planned economy is obviously affected, in a decisive way, by the forms given to the organisation of this economy, and so by the role assigned to the production units, to exchange between these units, to money, prices, and so on.

    On another plane, the role played by commodity categories in the planned economies of today is not without far-reaching influence on behaviour and attitudes, and, more generally, on the ideological superstructures. For this reason, too, one cannot omit to investigate the reasons why commodity categories have been retained, at least in appearance.

    Furthermore, the frequent changes in organisation which take place in the various socialist countries (especially, in recent years, in the Soviet Union), the hesitations and fluctuations (towards a greater or lesser degree of centralism, or of autonomy allowed to the enterprises) which these changes reflect, make it plain that the final achievement of the best form of organisation, that is, the best adapted to the level of development and the nature of the present productive forces, as also to the requirements for building socialist society, cannot be regarded as having already been fully attained (though it is through such changes that these requirements make themselves felt).

 
page 34

    The hesitations in the practical sphere themselves show that what is being gone through at present is a stage of research which involves a substantial element of trial and error. That does not mean, of course, that theoretical considerations play no part in current researches, but the hesitations in the field of practice show us that these theoretical considerations do not yet constitute a body of thought strongly structured enough to be capable of guiding with exactitude the search for the best forms of organisation.

    We must therefore also look into the theoretical considerations which are generally accepted, and see to what extent we can carry a little further the analyses which underlie them.

    This thought is closely linked with a thought about the structure of the plans and about the means of putting them into effect.

    By "structure of the plans" I have in mind the order of the dimensions in which the aims of the plan are laid down (both physical and non-physical dimensions), the degree of detail into which the planners go in laying down these aims, and the nature of the plan-indicators that are made binding on each enterprise.

    By "means of putting the plans into effect" I mean the respective parts played by administrative orders, economic calculation and the various instruments that are available for directing the economy. For the moment, of course, I shall deal with these different problems only in their most general aspect.

    To begin with, I shall say a few words about the most obvious reasons for the apparent contradiction between the present mode of organisation and functioning of the planned economies and some of the formulations made by Marx and Engels, formulations which they always put forward with the greatest caution and which they always refused to offer as anticipations.

    Among the most obvious reasons for the retention of commodity categories within the socialist economies of today we must mention the presence in these economies of several different forms of property.

IV  The diversity of forms of property in the means of
    production

    We know that, in Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin put forward a refutation of the view according to which there is a contradiction between the existence of commodity production in the USSR and the passage we have quoted from Engels, in which the latter declares that "the seizure of the means of production by society puts an end to commodity production".

    Stalin notes that, in this passage, Engels does not make clear whether what is involved is the seizure by society of all the means of production, and he rightly observes that, in another passage in Anti-Dühring, Engels speaks of society's taking possession of "all means of production". (Costes edn., Vol. III, p. 68: Eng. edn., p. 326.)

    Stalin draws the conclusion that, for Engels, the disappearance of com-

 
page 35

modity production presupposed the expropriation of all the means of production in a country (which has not taken place either in the USSR or in any other socialist country). Stalin does not seem sure, moreover, that commodity production would really disappear even if all the means of production were nationalised, at least in countries where foreign trade continues to play a big part.

    Indeed, we must take note that, after having remarked that it is only in Britain that, in his view, it would be possible, given the high degree of concentration of agricultural production, to nationalise all the means of production and so to eliminate commodity production, Stalin adds, immediately:

"I leave aside in this instance the question of the importance of foreign trade to Britain and the vast part it plays in her national economy. I think that only after an investigation of this question can it be finally decided what would be the future of commodity production in Britain after the proletariat had assumed power and all the means of production had been nationalized." (Stalin, Les Problèmes economiques du socialisme en URSS, French Communist Party edn., Paris, 1952, p. 12: Eng. edn., F.L.P.H., Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, pp. 14-15.)

    After putting this question, Stalin points out that Lenin answered it, in particular in two of his works, that on the tax in kind and that on co-operation.

    This is true, even though, in these works, Lenin did not answer the question in exactly the same terms as Stalin.

    Here I think it is necessary to insert a parenthesis.

    In the summary given by Stalin (op. cit., p. 14) of Lenin's theses on co-operation and on the introduction of the tax in kind (Lenin's report to the 10th Congress of the R.C.P. (B), entitled "Report on the substitution of a tax in kind for the surplus-grain appropriation system"*, 15th March 1921, the collective farms are indeed put in the centre of the analysis. However:

    (1) When Lenin defended the thesis of commodity exchange, he was obviously not thinking of the collective farms, which hardly existed at that time, but of the individual peasants, and in particular the middle peasants. He says so expressly when he writes: "We must try to satisfy the demands of the middle peasants", and when he adds that this satisfaction cannot be given without "a certain freedom of exchange" (Lenin, L'alliance de la classe ouvrière et de la paysannerie (The alliance between the working class

 
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and the peasantry), Moscow, 1957, pp. 742-3) (Eng. version, Collected Works, 4th edn., Vol. 32, pp. 217-18.)

    (2) When Lenin speaks of co-operation, he has in mind not only, or even mainly, producer co-operatives (i.e., collective farms) but also, and especially, trading co-operatives (for buying and selling). This emerges clearly from what he says about co-operative stores, and from his declaration that, in order to be a good co-operator one must be "a cultured trader". (Ibid., pp. 828 and 829: Eng. version, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 470.)[5]

    Though the second of these observations is not of fundamental importance for the main subject of our present discussion, I think it is necessary to make it for at least two reasons:

    a) Because, since the collectivisation of 1928-9, Lenin's idea of the development of co-operatives has been associated in a one-sided way with the idea of the development of collective farms, which was not Lenin's conception -- for him the development of co-operatives embraced all forms of co-operation -- and:

    b) Because Lenin ascribed very great importance to co-operatives in the framework of the building of socialism. We know that he wrote: "And given social ownership of the means of production, given the class victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, the system of civilised co-operators is the system of socialism." (Ibid., p. 830: Eng. version, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 471.)[5]

    After this parenthesis, we can return to the essentials of Stalin's argument: if commodity production survives under the dictatorship of the proletariat, this is:

    (1) Because not all the means of production have been nationalised (and they have not been nationalised because they are not all ripe for this), and so

    (2) Because there exists, alongside state property, collective-farm property, and the collective farms do not give up their products otherwise than by way of exchange, i.e., as commodities.

    It must be added, similarly, that the existence of private production carried on by individual craftsmen, and especially by collective-farm peasants on their individual holdings, constitutes another raison d'être for commodity production, exchange, money, etc.

    All this amounts to saying that, in the planned economies of today, the state has not taken possession of all the means of production and this is why the commodity categories survive.

    This explanation seems to me correct so far as it goes, but inadequate. It does indeed enable us to understand why there is commodity production outside the state sector, and why there is commodity circulation on the periphery of this sector, when the state sector sells its products to the other sectors or to the consumers, or when it buys products from the other producers, but this explanation does not enable us to understand the retention of commodity categories within the state sector.

    Why, within the state sector, do the enterprises make purchases and sales? Why do they dispose of their products at certain prices? Why do they carry

 
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out transactions in money? etc. It is these questions that the argument about the co-existence of several forms of property does not seem capable of answering. And this is the problem we must now examine.

V  The commodity categories within the state sector

    We will first consider the ways in which the retention of commodity categories within the state sector has been explained. Here again we shall find a particularly well-worked-out formulation of these explanations in Stalin's Economic Problems. . . . They can be summed up like this:

1  The commodity character of part of the production of the state
   sector

    The state sector actually disposes of some of its products as commodities, and so part of its production continues to be commodity production, which continues to be regulated, at least within certain limits, by the law of value.

    a) The chief and primary category of products which thus become commodities are the products intended for personal consumption. Stalin writes:

"As a matter of fact, consumer goods, which are needed to compensate the labour power expended in the process of production, are produced and realised in our country as commodities coming under the operation of the law of value. It is precisely here that the law of value exercises its influence on production." (Op. cit., p. 18: Eng. edn., p. 23.)

2  The requirements of calculation

    This second explanation is found in the section of Economic Problems . . . entitled "Reply to Comrade Aleksandr Ilyich Notkin". In this section, Stalin asks:

"Why . . . do we speak of the value of means of production, their cost of production, their price, etc.?"

3  The conditions for the disappearance of commodity categories,
   according to Stalin's "Economic Problems . . ."

    First of all, as regards the conditions for the disappearance of commodity categories, we must note that in Stalin's work the emphasis is laid on the need for the preliminary disappearance of the two main sectors of the present-day socialist economy. Stalin writes:

"Of course, when instead of the two basic production sectors, the state sector and the collective-farm sector, there will be only one all-embracing production sector, with the right to dispose of all the consumer goods produced in the country, commodity circulation, with its 'money economy', will disappear, as being an unnecessary element in the national economy." (Op. cit., p. 16: Eng. edn., p. 20.)

4  Discussion of the preceding theses

    From these quotations there emerge the following ideas concerning the conditions for and consequences of the disappearance of commodity categories:

    a) This disappearance is conditional on the disappearance of the division of production between two sectors, the state sector and the collective-farm sector, and the progressive raising of collective-farm property to the level of public property.

    b) Nevertheless, this condition, while necessary, is not in itself sufficient; in addition, a "social-economic centre" must appear which can "control the whole product of social production in the interests of society", so effectively that a system of "products exchange" will replace "commodity circulation". (Actually, it would seem preferable, in this connexion, to speak of a system of products-allotment rather than a system of products exchange.)

    These conditions having been realised, the category of value disappears, for "the amount of labour expended on the production of goods will be measured not in a roundabout way" but directly and immediately. The law of value will thus have "ceased to function", and production will be "regulated by the requirements of society".

    This leads us to raise the following questions:

    First : if the essential condition for the disappearance of commodity categories is the establishment of a "social-economic centre" capable of disposing of all the products in the interest of society, the disappearance of collective-farm production, while constituting a necessary condition for the appearance of such a centre, would not be a sufficient condition for this. One may indeed ask whether, in addition, certain conditions would not need to be realised relating to the functioning of the single public sector as a whole.

    Second : What is the root of the difficulty that prevents accounting in labour-time from being substituted for accounting in terms of value? Is it a technical difficulty? Or is it a social one?

    In the latter case, is this difficulty bound up only with the existence of two sectors of production, or is it also, and more profoundly, bound up with the fact that, though the cognition or verification of needs is carried out to a very great extent a priori, nevertheless a large proportion of needs is not known except a posteriori, and then still very inadequately?

    If this is so, it will be appreciated that it is not possible at present to determine a priori, in an accurate way, the labour-time socially-necessary for the production of various goods.

 
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    What can be measured, though not without difficulty, is the labour-time actually expended, but this is not automatically the same as the socially necessary labour-time. The latter depends, on the one hand, on a correct estimation of needs (otherwise, part of the labour expended may not correspond to any need) and, on the other, on a correct choice of production-techniques (otherwise the labour-time expended may not be socially necessary).

    That seems to be where the real problem lies. We are all the more disposed to think so today because the techniques for measuring the labour time actually expended in various lines of production have made great progress, thanks to the use for this purpose in recent years of tables of inter-sectoral relations. Here must be mentioned, in particular, the pioneer work of the Hungarian economist Csikos-Nagy and, more recently, that of the Soviet economist Ivanov (see his article, "Problems of determining the amount of value", in Vestnik Statistiki, 1963, No. 2, and the article translated into German in Sowjetwissenschaft, 1963, No. 10).

    If one of the ultimate and essential reasons for the retention of commodity production lies not in the problems raised by measuring the amount of labour actually expended but in those raised by measuring a priori the labour-time socially-necessary, then a social decision-making centre is undoubtedly necessary for this measurement to be effected: but what makes it possible for such a centre to work effectively is that the objective conditions have been realised for a priori estimation of the needs of society and the procedures whereby these needs can best be satisfied by society's labour as a whole.

    If this is so, we can say that it is when, and because, society has become capable of consciously regulating its production by reference to its needs (that is, of expending social labour-power "consciously", as Marx puts it)[6] that the commodity categories will disappear, and not the other way round, with the disappearance of commodity categories enabling society to regulate production on the basis of needs.

    By putting the problem in this way we are therefore led to say:

    a) That the root of the retention of commodity production and commodity categories is the absence of a social-economic centre effectively capable of disposing of all the products, and strictly regulating production in relation to the needs of society;

    b) that the absence of this centre is connected, in the first instance, with the existence of several forms of property;

    c) that, beyond this diversity of forms of property (and underlying it), it is the present level of development of the productive forces, which is still inadequate, that prevents a social-economic centre from being able effectively to dispose, consciously, of all the products, and really to regulate production according to the needs of society.

    Observation of the objective conditions of the functioning of the state sector in the countries with planned economies shows that, even in this sector, a single centre does not attain to such power to dispose and regulate,

 
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and it is from this that follows the necessity for a certain autonomy of the enterprises, the need to endow these enterprises with certain powers of disposal, a certain freedom of manoeuvre, which in turn results in the rules of business accounting, the money economy within the state sector, the commodity categories, etc.

    Having arrived at this point we must, however, raise two questions:

    a) In the last formulation we have reached, are we not mistaking effect for cause? More concretely, is it not because the enterprises have been given certain powers that there is no social centre really capable of regulating production by needs?

    b) Does not the preceding analysis amount to calling into question the view taken by Marx and Engels that, when society takes possession of an the means of production, commodity production will cease ?

    These two questions are closely linked, and so the answers I am going to try and formulate will likewise be closely linked.

VI  Statisation, socialisation and taking over of the means of
    production by society

    We must begin with the most fundamental question, which is obviously this: must we cease to accept that commodity production will come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production?

    It seems to me that this question must be answered in the negative.

    Commodity production presupposes definite social conditions, namely, producers producing more or less independently of each other. When these social conditions no longer exist, that is, when society has fully taken possession of all the means of production, there can no longer be any place for commodity production.

    But in that case, it will be asked, how is this assertion to be reconciled with the foregoing analyses? Is there then no lesson to be drawn from the experience of the planned economies? Does no new conclusion emerge from this immense social praxis constituted by several decades of planning?

    Of course there are conclusions to be drawn from this experience. But these conclusions can only be drawn if the tools appropriate to the analysis of this experience are used, that is to say, correctly worked-out concepts. It is precisely the confrontation of the practical experience of planning with ideas which have not always been defined with sufficient rigour[7] that should enable us to refine our concepts more thoroughly, and thereby to understand better both the experience itself and the true significance of certain analyses made by Marx and Engels.

    In the argument which follows I shall not take the excessively long and pointlessly complicated line of presenting first an analysis of the experience of the planned economies and only then, on the basis of this analysis, formulating more rigorously the concepts enabling us to interpret this experience.

    I shall confine myself to the second procedure, that is, I shall try to reformulate certain concepts more precisely and then interpret certain

 
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passages on the basis of this reformulation: this is how I shall endeavour to take account of practical experience, i.e., through a concrete analysis which I shall not develop here.

    Let us begin then, by re-reading certain passages in the light of experience, in order to try and clarify the concepts and establish a unified interpretation of them.

1  The social implications of state ownership

    It seems to me to be necessary, first and foremost, to set in its context the passage from Engels about "the seizure by society of the means of production", and to illuminate this passage both by means of the context and by reference to practical experience.

    Before expounding the idea that with "the seizure by society of the means of production" commodity production comes to an end (op. cit., p. 51.) Engels has shown:

    a) that the social character of the modern productive forces tends in exorably to their socialisation, that is, to the appearance of social forms of ownership of these productive forces. He notes that, within capitalism itself, these social forms of ownership are represented by joint-stock companies and state ownership. Given, however, that the capitalist state, which officially represents society, in fact represents only the ruling class, Engels says, in a passage I have already quoted:

"State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict [between the social character of the productive forces and private ownership], but it contains within itself the formal means, the key to the solution." (Anti-Dühring, Vol. III, p. 44: Eng. edn., pp. 306-7.)

2  Statisation, socialisation, domination of the productive
   forces by society

    The distinction between statisation and socialisation has not always been made with sufficient strictness, and there are a number of passages where one of these words is used instead of the other. Nevertheless, a distinction is needed between, on the one hand, statisation or nationalisation (which are juridical acts ) and, on the other, socialisation, which implies a capacity on the part of society to account for and allot the means of production and their products.

    Lenin specially insisted on this distinction in a well-known work, "Left wing" childishness and petty-bourgeois ideas (see Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 27, pp. 337 et seq.). In this work Lenin launches a vigorous attack on those Communists who, in May 1918, demanded what they called "a most determined policy of socialisa