Human social structures don't have to concentrate power, though. At its best, that's the goal of the socialist project. Noam Chomsky makes the spicy take of calling the USSR "state capitalism" for precisly the reason that it is a concentration of power. He argues that the USSR largely just replaced capitalists with the state, but the power imbalance was not significantly changed.
It's not spicy, just silly. Using citizens buying things as the way to flow demand and value through companies that anyone can set up is about as far from power concentration as you can get.
Economics is not separate from politics. Capital compoubds exponentially and extremely unequally as a natural consequence of the free market, and that capital then has power over all of society.
Capital does not compound exponentially. It goes down as well as up, sometimes catastrophically. And what power does it have over society? It's just a way of measuring value. What is the actual power? Purchasing power?
Capital has to compound exponentially on aggregate, because if there is no return on capital, there is no reason to make new capital, and production grinds to a halt. So if it has to grow on aggregate, the fact it sometimes go down merely increases concentration of wealth, as it's then at a discount for those who have greater means.
Capital has power over society because society is reliant on material production. Being able to grant someone enough money that they no longer ever need to work (or merely enough for them to have a decent livelihood) is significant power over them and motivates them to do what you want. You can then use this kind of power over the media, politicians, etc..., and you can struggle to have the rules be to your benefit.
> Capital has to compound exponentially on aggregate, because if there is no return on capital, there is no reason to make new capital, and production grinds to a halt
There is no making new capital, except when governments do it. What you're citing isn't an iron law that forces capital to compound. Investment portfolios compound on average, because smart people pick companies that are doing really useful things (i.e. things people want to pay for) to invest in. But production doesn't stop when that doesn't happen for a company. It also doesn't happen for every investor.
> Capital has power over society because society is reliant on material production. Being able to grant someone enough money that they no longer ever need to work (or merely enough for them to have a decent livelihood) is significant power over them and motivates them to do what you want. You can then use this kind of power over the media, politicians, etc..., and you can struggle to have the rules be to your benefit.
There are far more direct and bad ways to have power and grant people easy lives. Being a noble in a 14th century court, or being in the PolitBuro living the easy life while millions starve in a socialist country are far worse outcomes. Yes, politicians are bribeable (that's why putting less power into government is a good idea) and media is bribeable (that's why working hard on instilling critical thinking into their children is one of the most important duties of a parent), and it all will be far from perfect.
But - as is often the case with such discussions - comparing a system like capitalism with a perfect world that magically has no power and infinite progress is just a fantasy. In reality, rewarding people who do things we want them to do is a good idea. If Netflix has stuff I don't want to watch any more, or breaks for a month, I unsubscribe. If my local government does a terrible job for a year, I keep paying or go to prison. Which of these involves more power, and which involves continued excellent service in exchange for a reward?
No. Because the power just concentrates in the Corporation. And when they become big enough with enough power, then they become the state. If they need roads or towns the build them and run them.
It's a sweeping take to say that everything Chomsky has said is wrong or immoral.
Fwiw, for anyone reading along, Chomsky didn't coin the term "state capitalism" and he was not the first to apply it to the USSR. Lenin himself actually uses the term to describe the USSR, seeing it as a necessary transitional step from (normal) capitalism to a socialist system:
"Reality tells us that state capitalism would be a step forward. If in a small space of time we could achieve state capitalism, that would be a victory."
And I'm of the opinion that the beginnings of the USSR, led by Lenin, were much more idealistic than what it would quickly become. Generally, it's the anarchists and libertarian sociliasts who are using the term disparagingly against a USSR that does not live up to their ideals. And, of course, Noam Chomksy is using the term "state capitalism" to describe a USSR that is much later in its history, or a USSR that is a thing of the past.
70+ years later and I don't believe it's possible to transition from (normal) capitalism to a socialist system without falling into "state capitalism" precisely because human social structures <generally> concentrate power. I guess I'll believe it when I see it.
I believe that the real answer lies in small socialistic mutual aid organizations, similar to the kinds of ethnic immigrant organizations that were formed in the US in the first half of the 20th century.
The radical Russian philosopher-aristocrat Kripotkin advocated for a wholesale government-social system based on the mutual aid or cooperative concept after spending time in poor, remote Russian villages as a young man. His takeaway: despite their rough situations, these people were happy and hopeful because they supported each other.
In the US, ethnic mutual aid organizations operated as clubs similar to a labor union or church by having regular gatherings, fundraisers, and social events. They remained viable by charging dues (on top of fundraising through events) to support the meeting facility and administration, and by operating a separate “insurance” payment to cover the membership if they ran into hard times, e.g. death of wage earner.
In short: For social support systems to be successful, I think it’s best to think small, local and shared culture and/or values. It has worked before.
You may like Marta Harnecker's "A World to Build: New Paths Toward Twenty-first Century Socialism." She outlines a vision that I resonated with a lot, but it is a little hard to put a neat label on. She comes from a Marxist background and usually frames her vision in such terms, but she frequently emphasizes the importance of decentralizing systems, and the importance of pushing power down towards the local levels as much as possible ("cities" are not local enough, for example, and she outlines a systems of communes that organize at something more like the neighborhood level). So there's still some level of national organization, but the goal is for ordinary people to have as much influence over that process as possible and to move decisions away from national levels down to more local levels.
> It's a sweeping take to say that everything Chomsky has said is wrong or immoral.
A statement can be both sweeping and largely true. We need to stop giving academics undeserved moral authority. Chomsky is a prime example of someone who speaks far beyond the boundaries of what he understands and advocates for immoral, destructive, and harmful policies and ideas.
> Fwiw, for anyone reading along, Chomsky didn't coin the term "state capitalism" and he was not the first to apply it to the USSR. Lenin himself actually uses the term to describe the USSR, seeing it as a necessary transitional step from (normal) capitalism to a socialist system:
This isn't surprising. as Marx defined it himself, socialism is communism as enforced by the government, meaning, the government seizes control of everything and runs everything. So "state capitalism" just means the existing businesses are now repossessed by the state.
> And I'm of the opinion that the beginnings of the USSR, led by Lenin, were much more idealistic than what it would quickly become.
Idealism is irrelevant. Marxism is a tool for causing people to be discontent and eventually revolt in a bloody revolution, and, so The USSR got exactly this, and so did China. In fact, Mao specifically used the "idealists", his Red Guard, to further his agenda, and, once he took power, he simply killed or imprisoned them all.
Marxism is an entirely failed ideology, as is socialism. All it can do is destroy; it has no vision for building anything of value. That we have to relearn this lesson is a damning indictment to our inability to transmit true knowledge and morality effectively to the rising generations.
> Chomsky is a prime example of someone who speaks far beyond the boundaries of what he understands and advocates for immoral, destructive, and harmful policies and ideas.
Quite a statement, care to elaborate? I’d be very interested in hearing of his “immoral” policies. With a bit of squinting this just reads as something “a corporation would say”
He praised Hugo Chávez, was a Cambodian genocide denialist, dismissed the eyewitness testimony of its refugees as "distortions", and praised Mao's moronic policies shortly after they caused the deadliest famine in human history.
> Lenin himself actually uses the term to describe the USSR, seeing it as a necessary transitional step from (normal) capitalism to a socialist system:
More accurately, from the actual existing system in the territories which became the Soviet Union, which were not a developed capitalist system (the prinary point of departure in Leninism from Marxism is bypassing market capitalist development as a prerequisite).
> Noam Chomksy is using the term "state capitalism" to describe a USSR that is much later in its history, or a USSR that is a thing of the past.
Its a fairly standard critique, which Chomsky did not originate, among non-Leninist socialists that Leninism and similar systems get stuck in state capitalism, even if the intent might notionally be to be transitional, in practice it never is (except in things like the Chinese example, where the transition is to not-exclusively-state capitalism, rather than something more like socialism.)
