The newly elected members of the National Assembly will assume office on April 19, and the same day, will elect the new President and Vice President of Cuba
That comment shows such an infantile understanding of democracy. Having a single party simply means that Cuba decided on the approach how to do things, which is communism. There are lots of different approaches you can take towards achieving the goals within that scope.
Elections with one party have exact same purpose as elections with multiple parties. The citizens select candidates based on their ideas and proposals. The main difference in a multiparty system is that people still haven’t figured out what the right way to run the economy is, and each time a different party gets elected they pull things in a different direction. This is why it’s practically impossible to do any large scale projects in the west.
The main difference in a multiparty system is that people still haven’t figured out what the right way to run the economy is, and each time a different party gets elected they pull things in a different direction
If the party dictates “the right way to run the economy” as you say, then doesn’t that blunt people’s ability to reform the direction of their leader’s policies because of the framework enforced by the party?
I’m not arguing that Western democracy provides superior remedies to public disatisfaction or that socialism is not the correct path for prosperity but, if the argument is about allowing people to meaningfully oppose the policies of their elected representatives, then, in a one party system, changing those policies also requires reforming the ideology of the party, which is an additional barrier. Multi-party systems are by no means perfect but at least they provide some alternative path where an outside party can be formed with radically different ideas that can challenge the larger parties and try to pick off support.
And, yes, there is always the threat of smaller parties being squashed using political/financial power, but that, to me, seems like more a product of corruption than an inherent aspect of a democratic system. Not to mention, the same could be done to factions within a party trying to facilitate similar reforms, no?
You seem to be on the right track, but your comment is idealist (in the sense that it’s not materialist) and you may be missing a class analysis.
Are there any examples of where a multiparty system has led to a change in ideology away from capitalism?
The two major parties in every liberal democracy that I can think of are capitalist parties. While fringe parties could theoretically win power and change the state’s ideology it could only do so by becoming major parties. Otherwise they could not win power or, if they formed a coalition, they would have to share power (with capitalist parties).
The crushing of small parties is an inherent feature of liberal democracies as a matter of fact. Whether it’s a corruption of the ideal of liberal democracy seems to be beside the point.
Even if the argument is accepted that small parties get crushed in liberal democracies because of corruption, the fact remains that these states are therefore corrupted (I don’t think they are corrupt, but I’ll ignore this semantic issue for now). The ‘corrupt’ rulers will never not be corrupt because they will not willingly rescind power. To not crush socialist parties is to invite socialism, which means the current ruling class must agree to having it’s own power abolished. Why would it ever do that? Capitalists will never let the people vote away their power.
Even major political parties have been kept away from power for the mere suggestion of curbing (not even abolishing) capitalism: Sanders was not allowed to lead the Dems; Corbyn was not allowed to lead a majority Labour party government; Syriza was not allowed to enact it’s promised reforms when it won power. It doesn’t matter how many parties there are in a bourgeois state, the only acceptable option is capitalism (otherwise it wouldn’t be a bourgeois state).
Liberal democracies are not meaningfully democratic. The working class(es) have no real say over policies, laws, or the economy. Whether they could do so by forming a party (it would have to become a big party before it could achieve anything, so any talk about small parties is a red herring), the fact remains that they have never been allowed to (unless you can give me an example).
The only principle is that the economy should be publicly owned and work in the interests of the majority. I think that’s a pretty reasonable framework to start with.
I really don’t see what multiple parties actually add in practice. You can handle all the disagreements and arguments within a single party. The argument that a single party approach somehow restricts development isn’t really supported by any real world evidence I’m aware of.
The only principle is that the economy should be publicly owned and work in the interests of the majority.
I think it’s reasonable to argue that the almost every democratic party has this principle. Even those that argue for unfettered capitalism can see that as working in the interest of the majority and the only way the economy can be truly “publicly owned”. You can argue that they are wrong but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe they are following those principles just as faithfully.
If the single party’s ideology is so broad that it basically encompasses “don’t be evil” then I’m not sure I even understand the distinction between having one party and having a “partiless” state (which would effectively make factions within the party defacto parties in and of themselves).
This is quite misrepresentative of what was said. ‘Publicly owned’ refers to some flavour of common ownership of the means of production. It’s dishonest to pretend that public ownership only requires that (some) members of the public are ‘owners’. It could mean that, but it doesn’t.
Even if you’re referring to something like stakeholder capitalism, where workers own shares, it’s packaged as private ownership, not public.
Bourgeois parties themselves try to distance themselves from any hint of public ownership. Any politician within the party who supports anything that looks like public ownership will be disciplined or kicked out. All the major and most of the minor political parties in almost all liberal democracies vigorously argue that if they get elected they will not move towards public ownership of anything. They don’t want to spook the bourgeoisie.
The mere whisper of nationalisation makes bourgeois politicians come out in hives. If they mention it at all, it’s to promise to privatise any remaining nationalised industries. This is the essence of neoliberalism; everything moved to the realm of the private market.
If the single party’s ideology is so broad that it basically encompasses “don’t be evil” then …
It’s only this broad if you change the accepted meaning of public ownership to something that nobody would seriously accept.
I think it’s reasonable to argue that the almost every democratic party has this principle.
Then the question is why multiple parties are necessary?
You can argue that they are wrong but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe they are following those principles just as faithfully.
We have concrete real world evidence backed by theory that this is in fact a fallacious idea.
If the single party’s ideology is so broad that it basically encompasses “don’t be evil” then I’m not sure I even understand the distinction between having one party and having a “partiless” state (which would effectively make factions within the party defacto parties in and of themselves).
The ideology, once again, is that the means of production should be publicly owned. This is not nearly as broad as what you wrote here.
If we in the west want a different approach, how would voting express that? It’s impossible to change our neoliberal and social democratic system via voting.
Get people to agree with you. Petition your representatives. Protest. There are plenty of options, but you don’t get change just because you believe you are right, and sometimes you have to compromise.
You forgot the final step: have your movement destroyed and/or silenced if it inconveniences the ruling class in the slightest. As history has shown us time and time again.
You’re free to vote for change within a social democratic framework (which makes very little difference anyways), but you can’t change that framework.
Go read up on Deng reforms in China which introduced aspects of capitalism into the system. It’s worth noting that nothing equivalent would be possible in a western style democracy. It’s absolutely unthinkable for any western country to integrate aspects of Marxism into the system.
Bob’s Red Mill is owned by its employees. Providing shares as part of compensation is fairly common. Does that not qualify as integrating aspects of Marxism (workers owning the means of production), albeit implemented in a different way?
No more than when people become self employed or ‘entrepreneurs’ (without employees, as that would make them petite bourgeois).
Co-ops don’t change any of the fundamental social relations. The co-op must still compete within a framework of capitalist logic. It cannot challenge private property, the system of wage labour, the broader capitalist power over resource extraction, rent, logistics, etc.
Marxism is revolutionary. It’s not possible to do just a little bit of Marxism without diluting Marxism and making it meaningless.
A class analysis-based distinction must be made before giving the long answer.
A country is not a homogenous bloc. Bourgeois theory accepts that views will differ within a country. This is a given. It’s not what Marxists mean when they challenge the view that a state is a homogenous bloc.
Marxists go further. A country is a combination of classes, whose material interests are fundamentally opposed. The ruling class (the bourgeoisie) wants one thing. The ruled class(es) (mainly the proletariat in most modern states) wants another thing. So when Marxists refer to a state, they tend to mean the ruling class within that state. They don’t mean everyone who lives in the state.
Yogthos wrote:
It’s absolutely unthinkable for any western country to integrate aspects of Marxism into the system.
I believe Yogthos was referring to decisions and policies of the ruling class. If this class doesn’t like something, it can legislate against it and enforce that legislation through what Althusser calls repressive and ideological state apparatuses. The ruling class is not all powerful and it does require some buy-in from the workers.
The ruled class clearly has some room to maneuver, as you rightly pointed out. Similarly, these workers can establish, join, and organise in trade unions. Co-ops, though, as with trade unions, can only be lawful if they operate within the rules of and created by the bourgeois state, which are created to achieve what the ruling, bourgeois class wants, and have a dialectical relationship to there logic of capital. (Incidentally, this is why Marxists don’t care much whether the red or blue party is in power – they’re both still capitalist.)
Co-ops, again as with trade unions, may even be set up by or otherwise involve Marxists. They may well be an improvement on the ordinary way of working for private companies. But two problems arise.
First, co-ops must work within the logic of capital. Otherwise, within a bourgeois state, there will be two consequences: (i) they will be run out of business by capitalists who can e.g. suppress wages and use the savings to undercut the co-op; or (ii) if they threaten the logic of capital or the institution of private property, the state will crush them.
Working within this logic, the co-op can only do so much, falling far short of any revolutionary goals. Two aspects unfold. One, the co-op is likely shown to be a spontaneous movement. Two, the co-op, like trade unions, can lobby for some reforms, but these are limited to economic reforms and will rarely be political, or political economic.
This leads smoothly into the second problem. Before stating the second problem, it must be noted that co-ops, like trade unions, could provide an structure that survives the dissolution of the bourgeois state, unlike fully for-profit corporations. And I’m not saying that I dislike co-ops; I’m saying they do not (generally) introduce Marxism into a bourgeois state.
Second, then, cooperative movements, again much like trade unions, cannot develop revolutionary consciousness (because they are spontaneous, apolitical, and they must accept and work within the logic of capital from the beginning).
The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[…] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of [revolutionary] Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia.
Note that when Lenin says ‘social democracy’, etc, he’s not using it in the way that people use it today to refer to liberal democracy. The labels have changed over time. He’s talking about the revolutionary socialists.
In sum, co-ops do not introduce Marxism into a bourgeois state. Co-ops cannot take workers any closer to revolution. Indeed, they may undermine revolution, by raising those who would be in the proletariat into the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie.
Additionally, co-ops simply try to capture some of the market/capital currently held by ordinary for-profit enterprises. And as the world is already capitalist, the co-op must enter relations with the bourgeoisie to acquire resources, to distribute it’s goods and services, etc.
This is why co-ops do not represent a micro-system of workers owning the means of production. The co-op is more like a spontaneous organisation of trade unionists who simply cut out the middleman.
If you want to know more about the Marxist theory of the state, you might want to look at Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto and Lenin’s State and Revolution. The former is quite short and straightforward. Both texts explain some of what I said above in more detail.
That comment shows such an infantile understanding of democracy. Having a single party simply means that Cuba decided on the approach how to do things, which is communism. There are lots of different approaches you can take towards achieving the goals within that scope.
Elections with one party have exact same purpose as elections with multiple parties. The citizens select candidates based on their ideas and proposals. The main difference in a multiparty system is that people still haven’t figured out what the right way to run the economy is, and each time a different party gets elected they pull things in a different direction. This is why it’s practically impossible to do any large scale projects in the west.
If the party dictates “the right way to run the economy” as you say, then doesn’t that blunt people’s ability to reform the direction of their leader’s policies because of the framework enforced by the party?
I’m not arguing that Western democracy provides superior remedies to public disatisfaction or that socialism is not the correct path for prosperity but, if the argument is about allowing people to meaningfully oppose the policies of their elected representatives, then, in a one party system, changing those policies also requires reforming the ideology of the party, which is an additional barrier. Multi-party systems are by no means perfect but at least they provide some alternative path where an outside party can be formed with radically different ideas that can challenge the larger parties and try to pick off support.
And, yes, there is always the threat of smaller parties being squashed using political/financial power, but that, to me, seems like more a product of corruption than an inherent aspect of a democratic system. Not to mention, the same could be done to factions within a party trying to facilitate similar reforms, no?
You seem to be on the right track, but your comment is idealist (in the sense that it’s not materialist) and you may be missing a class analysis.
Are there any examples of where a multiparty system has led to a change in ideology away from capitalism?
The two major parties in every liberal democracy that I can think of are capitalist parties. While fringe parties could theoretically win power and change the state’s ideology it could only do so by becoming major parties. Otherwise they could not win power or, if they formed a coalition, they would have to share power (with capitalist parties).
The crushing of small parties is an inherent feature of liberal democracies as a matter of fact. Whether it’s a corruption of the ideal of liberal democracy seems to be beside the point.
Even if the argument is accepted that small parties get crushed in liberal democracies because of corruption, the fact remains that these states are therefore corrupted (I don’t think they are corrupt, but I’ll ignore this semantic issue for now). The ‘corrupt’ rulers will never not be corrupt because they will not willingly rescind power. To not crush socialist parties is to invite socialism, which means the current ruling class must agree to having it’s own power abolished. Why would it ever do that? Capitalists will never let the people vote away their power.
Even major political parties have been kept away from power for the mere suggestion of curbing (not even abolishing) capitalism: Sanders was not allowed to lead the Dems; Corbyn was not allowed to lead a majority Labour party government; Syriza was not allowed to enact it’s promised reforms when it won power. It doesn’t matter how many parties there are in a bourgeois state, the only acceptable option is capitalism (otherwise it wouldn’t be a bourgeois state).
Liberal democracies are not meaningfully democratic. The working class(es) have no real say over policies, laws, or the economy. Whether they could do so by forming a party (it would have to become a big party before it could achieve anything, so any talk about small parties is a red herring), the fact remains that they have never been allowed to (unless you can give me an example).
The only principle is that the economy should be publicly owned and work in the interests of the majority. I think that’s a pretty reasonable framework to start with.
I really don’t see what multiple parties actually add in practice. You can handle all the disagreements and arguments within a single party. The argument that a single party approach somehow restricts development isn’t really supported by any real world evidence I’m aware of.
I think it’s reasonable to argue that the almost every democratic party has this principle. Even those that argue for unfettered capitalism can see that as working in the interest of the majority and the only way the economy can be truly “publicly owned”. You can argue that they are wrong but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe they are following those principles just as faithfully.
If the single party’s ideology is so broad that it basically encompasses “don’t be evil” then I’m not sure I even understand the distinction between having one party and having a “partiless” state (which would effectively make factions within the party defacto parties in and of themselves).
This is quite misrepresentative of what was said. ‘Publicly owned’ refers to some flavour of common ownership of the means of production. It’s dishonest to pretend that public ownership only requires that (some) members of the public are ‘owners’. It could mean that, but it doesn’t.
Even if you’re referring to something like stakeholder capitalism, where workers own shares, it’s packaged as private ownership, not public.
Bourgeois parties themselves try to distance themselves from any hint of public ownership. Any politician within the party who supports anything that looks like public ownership will be disciplined or kicked out. All the major and most of the minor political parties in almost all liberal democracies vigorously argue that if they get elected they will not move towards public ownership of anything. They don’t want to spook the bourgeoisie.
The mere whisper of nationalisation makes bourgeois politicians come out in hives. If they mention it at all, it’s to promise to privatise any remaining nationalised industries. This is the essence of neoliberalism; everything moved to the realm of the private market.
It’s only this broad if you change the accepted meaning of public ownership to something that nobody would seriously accept.
Then the question is why multiple parties are necessary?
We have concrete real world evidence backed by theory that this is in fact a fallacious idea.
The ideology, once again, is that the means of production should be publicly owned. This is not nearly as broad as what you wrote here.
So if they wanted a different approach, how would voting express that?
If we in the west want a different approach, how would voting express that? It’s impossible to change our neoliberal and social democratic system via voting.
Get people to agree with you. Petition your representatives. Protest. There are plenty of options, but you don’t get change just because you believe you are right, and sometimes you have to compromise.
You forgot the final step: have your movement destroyed and/or silenced if it inconveniences the ruling class in the slightest. As history has shown us time and time again.
You’re free to vote for change within a social democratic framework (which makes very little difference anyways), but you can’t change that framework.
You might have answered your own question, there…
What incentive do government officials have to listen when dissent is suppressed, sometimes violently, and citizens have no meaningful vote?
Exactly!!
Because government officials in Cuba come from the people they represent, not from hermetic oligarchy like in US.
Go read up on Deng reforms in China which introduced aspects of capitalism into the system. It’s worth noting that nothing equivalent would be possible in a western style democracy. It’s absolutely unthinkable for any western country to integrate aspects of Marxism into the system.
Bob’s Red Mill is owned by its employees. Providing shares as part of compensation is fairly common. Does that not qualify as integrating aspects of Marxism (workers owning the means of production), albeit implemented in a different way?
No more than when people become self employed or ‘entrepreneurs’ (without employees, as that would make them petite bourgeois).
Co-ops don’t change any of the fundamental social relations. The co-op must still compete within a framework of capitalist logic. It cannot challenge private property, the system of wage labour, the broader capitalist power over resource extraction, rent, logistics, etc.
Marxism is revolutionary. It’s not possible to do just a little bit of Marxism without diluting Marxism and making it meaningless.
I was responding to this:
Is it not true that that is integrating an aspect of Marxism, even if it is not integrating all of Marxism?
I know. In short, no.
A class analysis-based distinction must be made before giving the long answer.
A country is not a homogenous bloc. Bourgeois theory accepts that views will differ within a country. This is a given. It’s not what Marxists mean when they challenge the view that a state is a homogenous bloc.
Marxists go further. A country is a combination of classes, whose material interests are fundamentally opposed. The ruling class (the bourgeoisie) wants one thing. The ruled class(es) (mainly the proletariat in most modern states) wants another thing. So when Marxists refer to a state, they tend to mean the ruling class within that state. They don’t mean everyone who lives in the state.
Yogthos wrote:
I believe Yogthos was referring to decisions and policies of the ruling class. If this class doesn’t like something, it can legislate against it and enforce that legislation through what Althusser calls repressive and ideological state apparatuses. The ruling class is not all powerful and it does require some buy-in from the workers.
The ruled class clearly has some room to maneuver, as you rightly pointed out. Similarly, these workers can establish, join, and organise in trade unions. Co-ops, though, as with trade unions, can only be lawful if they operate within the rules of and created by the bourgeois state, which are created to achieve what the ruling, bourgeois class wants, and have a dialectical relationship to there logic of capital. (Incidentally, this is why Marxists don’t care much whether the red or blue party is in power – they’re both still capitalist.)
Co-ops, again as with trade unions, may even be set up by or otherwise involve Marxists. They may well be an improvement on the ordinary way of working for private companies. But two problems arise.
First, co-ops must work within the logic of capital. Otherwise, within a bourgeois state, there will be two consequences: (i) they will be run out of business by capitalists who can e.g. suppress wages and use the savings to undercut the co-op; or (ii) if they threaten the logic of capital or the institution of private property, the state will crush them.
Working within this logic, the co-op can only do so much, falling far short of any revolutionary goals. Two aspects unfold. One, the co-op is likely shown to be a spontaneous movement. Two, the co-op, like trade unions, can lobby for some reforms, but these are limited to economic reforms and will rarely be political, or political economic.
This leads smoothly into the second problem. Before stating the second problem, it must be noted that co-ops, like trade unions, could provide an structure that survives the dissolution of the bourgeois state, unlike fully for-profit corporations. And I’m not saying that I dislike co-ops; I’m saying they do not (generally) introduce Marxism into a bourgeois state.
Second, then, cooperative movements, again much like trade unions, cannot develop revolutionary consciousness (because they are spontaneous, apolitical, and they must accept and work within the logic of capital from the beginning).
Something Lenin said of trade unions seems to apply here (footnote omitted) (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm):
Note that when Lenin says ‘social democracy’, etc, he’s not using it in the way that people use it today to refer to liberal democracy. The labels have changed over time. He’s talking about the revolutionary socialists.
In sum, co-ops do not introduce Marxism into a bourgeois state. Co-ops cannot take workers any closer to revolution. Indeed, they may undermine revolution, by raising those who would be in the proletariat into the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie.
Additionally, co-ops simply try to capture some of the market/capital currently held by ordinary for-profit enterprises. And as the world is already capitalist, the co-op must enter relations with the bourgeoisie to acquire resources, to distribute it’s goods and services, etc.
This is why co-ops do not represent a micro-system of workers owning the means of production. The co-op is more like a spontaneous organisation of trade unionists who simply cut out the middleman.
If you want to know more about the Marxist theory of the state, you might want to look at Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto and Lenin’s State and Revolution. The former is quite short and straightforward. Both texts explain some of what I said above in more detail.
Edit: here’s a good article that responds to your point about workers being granted shares (which does the opposite of integrating some Marxism into the bourgeois system): https://en.rnp-f.org/2018/09/29/exploitation-of-workers-by-the-workers/#top.
Co-ops predate marxism, they aren’t integral part, you can have marxism without coops and coops without marxism. What you wrote is the second case.
It would really help for you to actually learn the basics of what Marxism is.