Pillars of Socialism

1. The old state/government was smashed by the workers/peasants.
2. Public ownership of the means of production.
3. Centralized economic planning (i.e. people before profit).
4. Government administered monopoly on foriegn trade.

Are these a good basic criteria of whether or not a state is socialist? If not was should be added/removed?

Red Rebel wrote:

1. The old state/government was smashed by the workers/peasants.

Can't a socialist government be elected like Salvador Allende's government in Chile or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?

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3. Centralized economic planning (i.e. people before profit).

Yugoslavia didn't have as much of a centralised economy, but it was socialist.

Something about democracy? The freedom of the working class to choose their representatives?

Representative democracy doesn't work for every country, and even socialists disagree on the administration of democracy

proletarian wrote:

Representative democracy doesn't work for every country, and even socialists disagree on the administration of democracy

Nonetheless, for a developed country making the transition to Socialism, some form of the CPUSA's so-called "Bill of Rights Socialism" would certainly be desirable. I'd like to know that our new republic has some defense mechanisms in place to prevent feud-purges from ushering successively more secretive inner Party cliques into power every decade or so.

Red Brigade wrote:

Can't a socialist government be elected like Salvador Allende's government in Chile or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?

It can be. But, I think it's to difficult for this era, and risky.

Misuzu wrote:

Yugoslavia didn't have as much of a centralised economy, but it was socialist.

Jose Goricar said that Yugoslavia used economical system named "self-management".

Red Rebel wrote:

3. Centralized economic planning (i.e. people before profit).

Agree.

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Jose Goricar said that Yugoslavia used economical system named "self-management".

Yes, they used Worker's Self-Management (I.E., a form of Socialism).

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It can be. But, I think it's to difficult for this era, and risky.

I believe it should be persued unless absolutely impossible. Otherwise, one risks the intervention of one or more imperialist powers.

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Yes, they used Worker's Self-Management (I.E., a form of Socialism).

Which was practically negated by the Market,as the Chinese Comparty explained here already in 1963:
http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/IYS63.html

Companies "interacted",competed with each other in the market sphere and investments flowed where profits were the greatest.
Yugoslavia was also probably the only socialist country with a huge unemployment problem:in the 60s it rose to more than 15%,and then the Party decided to open the borders and send more than half a million workers abroad-mostly to W.Germany.

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Representative democracy doesn't work for every country, and even socialists disagree on the administration of democracy

I don't disagree. But there has to be something about the democratic demands of socialists included in any compendium of what socialists want.

Well I would choose an election of local Soviets rather than the typical bicameral legislation representative system.

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Which was practically negated by the Market,as the Chinese Comparty explained here already in 1963:
http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/IYS63.html

Companies "interacted",competed with each other in the market sphere and investments flowed where profits were the greatest.
Yugoslavia was also probably the only socialist country with a huge unemployment problem:in the 60s it rose to more than 15%,and then the Party decided to open the borders and send more than half a million workers abroad-mostly to W.Germany.

That there is competition among the workers does not negate socialism
- just like that there is competition among the bourgeoisie, does not negate capitalism.

And just like fascism (or state monopoly capitalism) - where there is no competition (really, contradictions) among the bourgeoisie - is a higher form of capitalism
- a planned economy, where there is no competition among the workers, is a higher form of socialism.

But just like fascism and a free market democracy are both capitalist, a planned economy and self-management are both socialist.

Wanted to state that this is more/less the PSL's criteria on whether or not a country is socialist or not. I was to lazy to copy word for word everything, so I'll try and clarify it in the following posts.

Red Brigade wrote:

Can't a socialist government be elected like Salvador Allende's government in Chile or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?

Neither government completely smashed the old state; however, Venezuela is making attempts, i.e. communal councils and adding a Citizens branch.

Indigo wrote:

Need the economic planning be totally centralized? Would parecon or something of that nature be an acceptable method of managing the economy?

Centralized in the sense that market mechanisms (i.e. the anarchy of capitalism) don't control the state. i.e. the abundance of shoes amist a multitute of shoeless in capitalist society.

Sholokhov wrote:

Something about democracy? The freedom of the working class to choose their representatives?

From a Marxist point of view, the state is owned by a class. Reguardless of what type of politics it practices. Making it extremely simple, Hitler's Nazism is the same capitalism as Ron Paul's libertarianism. Both are governments of the bourgeoisie. Furthermore:

Sholokhov wrote:

I don't disagree. But there has to be something about the democratic demands of socialists included in any compendium of what socialists want.

Workers (under capitalism) are exploited the same in the work place under a political dictatorship or a political democracy. Look at the USA, we have "political rights;" however, once you clock in at work all of them are void.

Again, those are fine critiques of capitalism. But what must we as socialists do, to extend democracy?

In short, how do we make sure, that a free working class controls society in its own interests?

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That there is competition among the workers does not negate socialism

Well,i tend to see it as primarily a competition among companies,that is,the managers.
Tito actually started some kind of campaign against the rising "managerocracy" in the 60s,but it didn't bring any significant results.

Anyway,it's imo unfair that Kosovo (2 million people) didn't have a single home-appliance factory because it couldn't successful compete against the Slovenian and Croatian companies that dominated the market.Furthermore,the fact that companies actually spent money on real advertising in order to attract the customers to buy their,and not the other company's products,also doesn't seem very socialistic to me.

I found an awesome passage in Anti-Duhring that completely endorses centralized planning over worlers' self management that I will post when I'm home