State Capitalism versus Communism: What Happened in the USSR and the PRC?

Abstract

Since 1917 analysts have debated what kind of economic system existed in the USSR and the PRC. They mostly juxtaposed `socialism' there to `capitalism' in Western Europe and the USA. The two sides were defined chiefly in terms of private versus state property and markets versus planning. We challenge this debate by means of Marx's focus on the organization of surplus labor. That is, we distinguish capitalism, socialism, and communism according to how these systems differently organize the surplus. They exhibit different ways of producing, appropriating, and distributing the surpluses generated in production. Not only does this approach yield a new and different analysis of the similarities between capitalism and socialism, it also conceives communism as more radically different from both of them than other approaches do. Finally, we indicate some current political implications of our approach and its conclusions.