Chapter Three: Class, Classlessness and Socialism

Marx's Expectation: Marx thought that after capitalism there would be a classless soceity urshered in by a working class revolt and marked by an absence of private productive property, the foundation of classes in capitalist societies.

Soviet Union as Classless Soceity? Soviet Union, which did not emerge out of modern capitalism, nevertheless saw itself as this kind of socialist, classless society.

Equalitarianism: Soviet Union attacked 'equalitarianism' as 'petty bourgois', and drew a sharp distinction between classlessness and equalitarianism.

Income Inequality: Inequalities in Soviet Union almost as great as in capitalist countries, especially after the incentives program for skilled technicians, scientists, etc. introduced after 1930. Other socialist countries in Eastern Europe showed same trend.

2 Explanations:
• needs of an industrializing society
• needs of post-war reconstruction.

Increasing Income Equality:-some evidence that, after 1956, income inequality in Soviet Union was decreasing in terms of a rise in minimum wages, weakening of piece-rate system, narrowing of skill differentials in wages.

Major Income Distinction between Capitalist and Socialist Countries: Income in socialist countries mainly earned income; Income in capitalist countries both earned and unearned income, since part of latter is inherited wealth of uppper class, which had no equivalent in socialist countries.

-boundary between manual and non-manual more permeable in Soviet Union than capitalism;

• 'dominant' class is intellegentsia, closely aligned with Communist Party, but even it was open to new entrants and did not have the same kind of dominance as capitalist class in west;
• more opportunities for upward mobility within manual class in Soviet Union;

-no classes summary: Classes did not exist in Soviet Union in same sense as in West (Parkin and others) (53)

-versus classes did exist:

1. Dijas: distinguished between 'juridical ownership' and 'effective possession' of means of production; that an exploitative class having 'effective ownership of means of production' did exist, consisting of senior administrative (apparatus of economic planning and manaagement) and party officials. State capitalism.
2. Konrad and Szelenyi: two main classes: redistributors (intellectuals) versus working classes (produces of social surplus wealth); intermediate strata in between.

Bottomore's position: that classes do not exist in the traditional marxist sense there there are no classic owners of the means of production; however, those who possess political power also have effective possession of the means of production; Marx never saw economic classes based on political classes (Carl). Bottomore: "the 'effective possessors of the means of production'... 'are not the dominant or ruling class as a consequence of being, in the first place, the 'owners' of the means of production".

Hilferding: saw Soviet Union as a totalitarian state economy .

Aaron: saw the Soviet Union as headed by a unified elite (combining economy, politics, culture) in contrast to the plurality of elites in the West.

Social Mobility: higher between manual and non-manual occupations in East than West, but this may have resulted from rapid industrialization and the resultant expansion of the intermediate strata of technical, professional and administrative personnel.

Mobility from manual to elite positions was higher in immediate post-revolutionary stage, but decline later on as more of the elite was drawn from white-collar positions in the consolitation of the positions of the intellegentsia closely aligned to the Party.

-no hereditary system in classes in East.

Self-Management in former Yugoslavia: more democratic than Soviet system, but nevertheless had a centralized system of political control.(57-8)

• occurred in latter 1980s
• essence was a move for more democratic participation in political decision making.
• revealed the class structure against which the revolt was directed -- ie, centralized and dictatorial political power that did not allow freedom of expression and associaton, including the forming of official opposition parties.
• thus, the system was one of a centralized elite exercising political and economic power over the entire society; Bottomore would rather characterized this as an elite system than a class system, seeing the term 'effective possessors of the means of production' as too restrictive. (59)

Remaining Sociological Question: How did a system, which began espousing the principles of human liberation, wind up as a totalitarian and repressive political dictatorship?

Possible Answers:
1. 'cult of personality' (Stalin etc.); Bottomore does not see this as an explanation.
2. Weber's charismatic leadership in content of rapid industrialization of a society only in the early stages of industrialization; plus the sudden changes brought on by revolution. All of this accompanied by the centralization of political authority in a few hands inevitably gave rise to a centralized political and economic elite.

Note: this is at variance with Marx who tended to see politics as the result of class; in state socialism, class and stratification seemed to be the product of elite political decisions as the centralized political authorities had the power to change the system of stratificaton (Ossowski).

Each will follow a somewhat different path, though market capitalism is the general trend:

a) Poland has moved furthest to total integration into capitalist system;

b) former German Democratic Republic will be dominated by West German capital;

c) Hungary will develop more of a human face to capitalism;

d) Yugoslavia may be subjected to national tensions which may slow down the move to a totally self-managed economy, if that is the direction in which some want it to head.

e) Soviet Union: central questions are the introduction of private property-holding in conjunction with collective ownership, and the decentralization of economic decision making to the republics and individual enterprises.

General Conclusion: Future of these societies will exhibit the markings of class inequalities and conflicts, similar to other capitalist countries; the extremes of wealth and poverty will grow; unemployment will increase; food lines will appear, as in Poland, etc.

© Copyright Carl Cuneo, Department of Sociology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. URL: http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc2r3/botom03.htm