Scientific socialism neither set itself, nor could it have set itself, the task of presenting a full and complete picture of the future socialist society. The most that scientific socialism could offer was to draw certain very general conclusions based on the development of the contradictions of capitalist society and the emergence, within the depths of capitalism itself, of the means for resolving these contradictions.
Such was the state of affairs until the moment a revolution occurred that took up socialist slogans, and an attempt was made to turn socialist society into reality. From that moment on, it became impossible to disregard the practice of the struggle to build a socialist society. And immediately a problem arose: what should be done if this revolutionary practice diverges from the existing theoretical predictions (however abstract) regarding the conditions for the formation and character of socialism?
Anyone who tries to apply the well-known formula "practice is the criterion of truth" here in a straightforward way risks making a fool of themselves. The fact is that here we are not really dealing with a comparison of practice and theory, but with a comparison of theoretical conclusions drawn on the basis of two different practices.
Scientific socialism seeks to base its theoretical conclusions on the historical practice of the entire preceding development of humanity, and in particular on the practice of the unfolding contradictions of capitalist society. The generalizations and conclusions that can be drawn from the experience of the USSR and the "world socialist system" are based mainly on the practice of attempts to form socialist society in countries where the necessary material preconditions for this had not yet matured. If this is indeed a social experiment, then it is one set up to test not those sections of scientific socialism that directly concern the formation of communist society.
However, it would be equally foolish to brush aside this historical experience. However insufficient the preconditions for movement toward socialism may have been, they nevertheless existed, and it was a historical reality that numerous social forms took shape that went far beyond what is possible and permissible under capitalism. Therefore, the experience of the formation and functioning of the society of "real socialism" must certainly be taken into account, but always bearing in mind that this is not the socialism that is the product of the highest point of development and tension of the contradictions of capitalist society.
So what, from the experience of "real socialism" of the twentieth century, can we draw upon in constructing a more well-grounded theoretical picture of socialist society? And what should we discard as alien, not organic to socialism? Here the most fundamental propositions of the Marxist method and the theory of scientific socialism come to the fore. They give us criteria that allow us to try to single out, from the chaos of facts, that which relates to the lawful manifestations of precisely the communist tendency of development — not excluding new phenomena and patterns previously unknown.
The communist tendencies, their foundations in the development of the productive forces of human society, and the material and socio-economic preconditions of socialism forming within the framework of capitalist society — all this was examined in the preceding chapters, and there is no need to repeat it here. Now we must use this knowledge to reconstruct the socio-economic structure of socialist society.
This reconstruction distinguishes three special historical periods: the transitional period — the period of revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism, the first phase of communism ("socialism," incomplete communism), and the higher phase of communism (communism proper). Such a periodization is not firmly established by science, nor, even less, of a normative character; it is put forward merely as a hypothesis based on the observation of certain general patterns of historical development. So far, the historical experience of the twentieth century provides material confirming this theoretical forecast only with respect to the transitional period, and also indicates that beyond the transitional period a different, more stable socio-economic structure may take shape.
In examining the steps in the formation of communist society, it must be kept in mind that this is a transition not only from capitalism, but from the entire economic social formation, and even more broadly, from the whole of what is called human prehistory. Therefore, the relations of production of communism are no longer fully economic relations even in its first historical phase, and the producing system of society may be called a "household economy" [khoziaistvo] but cannot, in the strict sense of the word, be called an "economy."
Moreover, one must never forget that communist society, from the Marxist point of view, is by no means a historical stage equivalent to any pre-communist mode of production. The mode of production after the communist revolution certainly changes, since the productive forces change, along with the corresponding system of relations of production. However, historical development after the communist revolution, in communist society, is not reducible solely to this change. The very mode of humanity's historical development changes — and this is a far more important change than changes in the mode of production. The communist revolution thereby opens up not simply a path to a new historical rung with a new mode of production, but a path to a new historical epoch, in which the very mode
of human historical existence changes. Communism does not culminate in the formation and consolidation of a new mode of production — on the contrary, only then does the door open to authentic human historical existence.
Therefore, what we will be able to say below about the socio-economic system of communist society constitutes only a part of the true meaning of communism as a historical movement.
of a less developed, but by no means the most highly developed (for that historical period) capitalist society.
A significant problem in the formation of socialist relations of production in the USSR in the 1920s-1930s was the fact that the use of methods of bureaucratic centralization of the economy to carry out catch-up modernization had a dual influence on the "building of socialism." On the one hand, there was a forced advance toward the material prerequisites of socialism (although the distance to them was never fully covered). On the other hand, there simultaneously occurred the destruction or hollowing-out of already existing, albeit quite limited, socio-economic prerequisites of socialism (joint-stock companies, cooperatives, free trade unions...). These were not transformed into more progressive socialist institutions, but were replaced by institutions based on bureaucratic centralism and coercive collectivism.
By the end of the transitional period, non-socialist modes of production should die out (fully or almost fully), and the largely transitional relations of production should be transformed into an integral system of socialist relations of production. In the USSR this process was never completed, although formally all relations of production came to appear in a socialist guise in the second half of the 1930s.
Alongside the overcoming of the multi-structure character of the economy in the transitional period, profound shifts occur in the social structure of society. The exploiting classes disappear, and the working classes acquire significantly greater homogeneity. Small proprietors and wage workers merge into a single social group of workers who are co-owners of socialized means of production. However, class differences do not disappear entirely, since workers remain subordinate to the division of labor (horizontal — between mental and physical labor, agrarian and industrial labor, skilled and unskilled labor; and vertical — between those who manage and those who are managed).
In the USSR, over the 1920s-1930s of the twentieth century, the classes of capitalists and landowners were completely eliminated, the petty bourgeoisie was almost completely eliminated, and all varieties of small proprietors (from petty bourgeois to the patriarchal peasantry) either turned into cooperative producers or moved into the category of wage workers. The factory working class grew considerably, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the population. At the same time, the layer of state bureaucracy grew considerably as well. However, the elimination of the economic conditions for the existence of hostile classes by no means meant the physical elimination of the bearers of the former class relations. Millions of people in many respects retained the traditions, skills, habits, and social psychology of the social classes within which they had been formed as individuals.
18.3. The Socio-Economic System of Incomplete Communism
18.3.1. The Productive Forces of Socialism.
Formal and Real Emancipation of Labor
"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it has emerged"1 — wrote K. Marx about the first phase of communist society.
Socialism differs from the transitional period in having a significantly more homogeneous socio-economic structure and a less rapid pace of shifts within that structure, but it remains a society that is in many respects still transitional in nature.
This transitional character is determined not only by the persistence of elements of the relations of production that are alien to the organic nature of communism, but also by the fact that the productive forces in the first phase of communism have by no means fully crossed the threshold beyond which they constitute a specific foundation for communist production. It is ultimately this latter circumstance that determines the incomplete maturity of the relations of production of the first phase.
For this reason it becomes necessary to draw a distinction between the formal and the real emancipation of labor in socialist society.
The formal emancipation of labor appears as the establishment of freedom in people's social relations in labor, in production — but only in terms of socio-economic form, that is, only from the side of the new relations of production.
The real emancipation of labor
will be achieved when the freedom provided by the formal emancipation of labor is also secured on the side of the productive forces, on the side of the content of the process of human activity itself.
If we look at this distinction from the standpoint of the character and content of labor under socialism, we shall see that from the standpoint of socio-economic form, labor ceases to be wage labor, and "wage slavery" to capital is abolished. Inequality with regard to the means of production disappears, and everyone becomes a worker no longer bearing the yoke of capital. However, from the standpoint of the content of the labor process, this labor remains predominantly factory labor, and thus "factory slavery" largely persists, along with the negative consequences that flow from it — the subordination of the human being to the factory division of labor. Likewise, the subordination of the human being to the social division of labor persists (all the more so since, as will be shown below, economic compulsion to labor also largely persists).
The distinction between the formal and the real emancipation of labor under socialism has a direct analogy with the thesis put forward by K. Marx on the distinction between the formal and the real subordination of labor to capital (see Chapter 9). The first was based solely on the nature of capitalist relations of production, while the second was reinforced by the formation of productive forces specific to capitalism (the subordination of the worker to the factory system of machine production).
The level of the productive forces already at the first phase of communism has undeniable differences from the level of capitalist productive forces. First of all, even apart from any deep technological shifts, the productive forces under socialism, under the influence of the socialization of property, make it possible to build the branches of production infrastructure (energy, all branches of transport and communications) as unified national or even international systems (if socialist relations encompass a number of national economies). In addition, the structure of production capacity and the rate of production accumulation are built in such a way as to ensure full employment of the population. Finally, all economic activity is regulated in such a way as to gradually establish an ever higher level of equilibrium with the natural environment, and to make production and everyday life as safe as possible for the moral and physical health of the human being.
For now, less clear in practical terms is the path of deeper shifts in the character of the productive forces under socialism. From the standpoint of the development of the worker, socialism must, in any case, ensure conditions for the freest and fullest possible unfolding of his abilities, which corresponds to the universal character of broad, fundamental edu
cation and the growth of the space of free time (not only a reduction in the time of obligatory labor, but also a corresponding filling of free time).
One can understand the skepticism of Hannah Arendt, who doubted that the expansion of free time would ensure human development, since in reality a person tends to use this time only for thoughtless consumption. "This hope, fed by Marxism, that free time will eventually emancipate men from labor and toil, harbors, apart from its utopian element, another error of even more far-reaching consequences. Confusion of labor with work, the metabolism with man's world-building activity, has effects that reach far beyond the sphere of scholarly considerations and affect the very fabric of the world we live in" — she wrote*. Yes, under capitalism this is indeed the case, because capitalism, essentially, leaves a person free time only so that he may consume what he produced during working time, and then work again and consume again...
Communism (even if incomplete at first) finds a way out of this vicious circle not through an ideology of asceticism, forced rationing, or reduced consumption, nor through the propaganda of higher ideals, but through the reduction of necessary working time (the prerequisites for which are created already under capitalism) and the development of creative activity in free time. But one should not think that Hannah Arendt's doubts arose out of nothing — the transition from free time as a time of consumerism to free time as a space for the development of human culture is not a simple and quick matter. This is a problem of colossal significance, and at the first phase of communism it is capable of generating difficulties of quite serious scale and depth. Only its resolution will finally usher us into the era of communism.
From the standpoint of the development of the means of production, socialism, even while still remaining basically within the framework of machine production, is oriented toward the humanization of labor, which softens the subordination of the human being to the division of labor — both in society and within the factory system. This presupposes such measures as the fastest possible elimination of heavy, manual, unskilled labor, as well as a more even distribution of its burdens among those working; the abandonment of assembly-line methods of organizing labor in the factory, which presupposes the wide combination of occupations, and as rapid a transition as possible to the automated factory.
In the structure of the social division of labor, the growth of labor productivity in traditional material production should ensure an increase in the share of employment in creative types of activity (scientific research and development, medicine, education, art, etc.). The general tendency of these shifts is the substantial displacement of the human being from the labor process in material production and his involvement in creative self-activity. However, within socialism this tendency is only in the initial phase of its development.
18.3.2. The Relations of Production of Socialism
Since socialism appears as the first phase of communist society, that is, as communism, albeit not complete, the basis of the relations of production of socialism is formed by relations common to both the first and the higher phase of communism. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that the degree of maturity of these relations differs between the first and the higher phases of communist society, and consequently they are not fully identical at these two historical stages of communist society. In this sense, their historically transitional character has not yet been fully overcome. These relations of production themselves contain elements that are indeed common to the first and higher phases of communism; elements of relations inherited from capitalism and even from the modes of production that preceded it; as well as combinations of these two elements specific only to the first phase of communism2.
Despite the persistence of features of transitionality in the relations of production of the first phase of communism, socialism differs from the transitional period in that the general-communist elements (general-communist principles) contained in its relations of production have on the whole acquired a dominant character.
Solutions to the problem of the specificity of the relations of production of socialism proposed by Soviet economic theory:
Soviet economic theory proposed various solutions to the problem of the specificity of the relations of production of socialism. The most common approach proposed to declare all relations that exist under socialism to be specifically socialist, and thereby close the issue. Consistent application of this point of view led to the conclusion that socialism differs qualitatively from full communism. This conclusion was to some extent historically justified in the sense that Soviet society did indeed differ qualitatively from communist society. But it was deeply mistaken in the sense that it theoretically severed the first and higher phases of communism.
Another approach proceeded from the commonality of the first and higher phases of communism. The theoretical explanation of this commonality was carried out mechanistically: through singling out relations common to both phases, called general-communist relations, and relations peculiar only to the first phase — specifically socialist relations of production. However, in reality, under socialism there cannot exist pure general-communist relations and pure specifically socialist relations of production. In reality, the relations of production under socialism represent a mixture of elements of communist relations (elements that are at various stages of maturity), pre-communist elements, and elements representing complex "hybrids" of the two.
After these preliminary remarks, let us turn to characterizing the relations of production of socialism, beginning with the relations of coordination of economic activity. Commodity production, dominant under capitalism, is during the transitional period largely replaced by relations of planned production and distribution of the products of labor. The experience of the USSR, unfortunately, does not give us a complete picture of this process, and does not allow us to establish precisely what the main conditions are for the complete overcoming of commodity production and what the adequate forms of relations of planned production are1. In the USSR certain foundations for the existence of commodity production were preserved, and the emerging laws of planned development of production constantly came into conflict with the still-operating laws of commodity production (evidence of which included hidden inflation, conflict between the state plan and the profitability of production as expressed in monetary terms, the accumulation of excess inventories in trade, and so on).
We can conclude that socialism is characterized by the presence of relations of directly planned production and distribution, by relations of commodity production that still persist, and by relations representing a complex interaction of these forms.
In the reality of Soviet society, we can see the first group of relations in the sphere of planning production and distributing resources outside the value form of the products of labor (or independently of it).
1 The centralized system of state planning in the USSR was not an expression of integral relations of planned production. While ensuring a certain level of proportionality of production, it did not contain a mechanism for solving the problem of the connection between production and consumption. The question of the planned structure of final consumption was in fact resolved on the basis of bureaucratic subjectivism.
The second group of relations is represented by production for the market (for example, from a personal subsidiary plot). In a number of other countries of the Soviet type, the sphere of commodity-production relations was considerably wider, extending not only to the agrarian sector but also to part of industry and services. The third group of relations was represented by such "plan-commodity hybrids" as economic accountability (khozraschet), as the planning of trade and monetary circulation, as the state budget, and so on. However, elements of planned relations were dominant within this complex system.
As for certain fundamental outlines of future planning, it is envisioned not as a bureaucratic system of administrative commands "from above," but as a process of co-creation (planned dialogue), whose subjects are associations-networks of producers, consumers, and the actual managing subsystem of the economy. A rough prototype of this system might be seen in the contemporary model of strategic management in the creative corporation-network, provided one abstracts from the specifically capitalist features of this management*. Even more complex is the question of the non-value reduction of labor2, without which it is impossible to account for expenditures of labor (working time) under socialism.
The well-known thesis that the extent of use of relations of conscious regulation should be greater (and of market relations correspondingly smaller) the more socialized a given segment of the economy is and the closer it is to the creatosphere also appears sufficiently well grounded.
Accordingly, the genesis and unfolding of the socialist system of coordination relations may look as follows
At the starting point, in the sphere of material production — predominantly modern mechanisms of a market controlled and regulated by society; in the creatosphere — predominantly free distribution of publicly accessible resources while using certain market forms. Developed state: a contradictory combination of modern mechanisms of a socially limited and regulated market (most effective in the low-socialization sectors of material production) with mechanisms of planned dialogue (used predominantly for integrated scientific-production structures of material production) and free distribution of goods in the creatosphere.
As K. Marx noted, "the collective character of production would from the outset make the product into a communal, general product. The exchange which originally takes place in production... would not be an exchange of exchange values but of activities, determined by communal needs and communal purposes"3. As a result, "economy of time, along with the planned distribution of labour time among the various branches of production, remains the first economic law on the basis of communal production"4.
It should be emphasized from the outset that, in contrast to capitalism, this economizing is aimed not at increasing surplus working time to secure the growth of material wealth. "...It is not a case of diminishing the necessary labour time in order to posit surplus labour time, but of generally reducing the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them"5.
Thus, the economizing of working time appears under socialism as a necessary (even extremely necessary) condition for development, but not as its end in itself and its highest criterion. The purpose of economizing time under socialism is no longer properly economic. The most important feature of the socialism of the future consists in the fact that the economy in this society plays a subordinate, secondary role in relation to the socio-cultural sphere. It is precisely the latter that forms the "social order" for economic development (goals) and determines the limits that the course of economic processes cannot cross (the boundaries of the space of possible means).
What, then, determines the goal of production under socialism? The basic law of production under socialism is its orientation toward the free, all-round development of the human personality, which, in turn, affects the growth of production. "The saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts back upon the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive power"1. Such an orientation toward the development of the productive forces of the human being by no means implies that socialism is based on a disregard for consumption. The Nechaevist principle of "producing for society as much as possible and consuming as little as possible" is entirely alien to socialism. On the contrary, what is characteristic of it is "not at all a renunciation of consumption, but rather the development of productive power, of the capacities of production, and hence both of the capacities as well as the means of consumption"1 2.
Nevertheless, the consumption-oriented and activity-oriented components of the goal of production in the first phase of communist society may come into contradiction with one another. Especially serious contradictions between these components of the goal may arise where the level of development of the productive forces is not high enough to secure socialist relations of production. In that case, the material needs of members of society may remain quite far from the level of satiation, while the possibilities for developing people's abilities remain quite limited. In such a case, a one-sided orientation toward satisfying material needs inevitably arises ("thing-ism" [veshchizm], which developed in Soviet society and was aggravated by the phenomenon of shortages), which, once entrenched, may over time become a brake on the development of the human being in creative activity.
Thus, the economy of socialism is envisioned as a system in which no more than 30-40% of workers will be employed in material production (as is the case now in countries at a middle level of development), while the rest will strive to become not financiers, brokers, lawyers, managers, officials, racketeers, models, and pop divas, but educators, doctors, teachers, and gardeners.
On the modification of the stance "If you're so smart, why are you so poor?" in the economy of socialism:
No one will forbid you from engaging in speculation, but society will regard this activity as foolish and shameful, just as today the study of the theory of socialism is naively regarded as unprestigious... If today the typical saying is "If you're so smart, why are you so poor?", then for the society of the future the typical aphorism will be the exact opposite: "If you're so talented, why are you wasting your energy making money?" For socialism, that goal will be just as old-fashioned as the desire to acquire serfs and a count's title is today. In a certain sense we can say that socialism is a society of people who are ashamed to spend money on increasing their own utilitarian consumption. Let us stress: this is not a society of poverty and asceticism — a rational (and gradually, qualitatively progressing) level of utilitarian consumption will be guaranteed, the possibility of exceeding it five- to tenfold will be open, but society will consider this of little interest... This is a society of people who like to live aesthetically and with talent, and for that one has absolutely no need of a mass of fashionably standard or even fashionably "exclusive" clothes, cars, and mansions.
The most important component of the goal-orientation of the new socialism must be a social cultural policy that ensures the orientation of the means of disseminating information toward the strategic needs of society (the development of genuine culture), rather than toward the purchasing demand of the philistine, subordinated to the expansion of mass culture.
The relations between the owner of the means of production and the direct producer are decisive for the economic order of society. Within the economic social formation, the character of these relations was determined by the fact of the exploitation of the direct producer by the owner of the means of production, and therefore led to class antagonism. Under socialism, the social figures of the owner of the means of production and of the direct producer, apparently, coincide. However, in such an abstract form this assertion is not entirely accurate.
First, the functions of direct labor and the functions of ownership are not identical. They require different activity, are carried out at different times, and lead to the formation of different interests. To use dialectical jargon, the human being as a worker differs from himself as an owner. Contradictions may arise, connected, for example, with different levels of ability to carry out these differing functions, with the need to allocate time between these functions, and so on.
Second, the specificity of socialism lies in the fact that within its framework the vertical division of labor is not fully overcome, whereby part of the members of society act predominantly as workers, while another part specializes in the functions of managing property. This distinction is one of the prerequisites for the persistence of elements of class differences under socialism.
Such a state of affairs carries within it a potential threat of the formation of class antagonism, if specialization in managerial functions turns into a monopoly on the performance of management functions held by a particular, stably reproducing social group, and this monopoly, in turn, becomes a basis for acquiring material privileges.
Preventing such an undesirable development of events is possible only if the majority of workers of socialist society are involved on a permanent basis in performing the functions of an owner at least at the simplest level (the level of the workplace, the brigade, the shop, the small enterprise), and a considerable part of them at a higher level as well. Of course, one can arrive at such a state of affairs only given the necessary prerequisites, formed in the content of labor (the presence of a certain minimum of creative functions), in the level of education and culture, in historically formed skills and traditions. On the contrary, if these prerequisites are insufficient, the social splitting of society (as the experience of the USSR shows) becomes inevitable.
Socialism is a process of transforming the "realm of necessity" into the "realm of freedom," and hence a process of the withering away of relations of alienation of the worker from labor, from the means of production, from the results of productive activity, and the birth of mechanisms of free association of workers who appropriate both the means and the results of that activity. Accordingly, as the real foundations of this transformation develop in the creatosphere and in material production, different relations of appropriation will be formed.
What, then, do the relations of property look like in the economy of the socialism of the future?
In the creatosphere (in the sphere of education, science, culture, art, etc.), in the sphere of interaction between humanity and nature as a cultural value (for example, in solving problems of nature conservation, developing national reserves, restoring biogeocenoses, etc.), the dominant relations, apparently, will be relations of universal accessibility (in particular, free provision) of cultural goods and the means of mastering them (education, etc.). Accordingly, relations of universal property will develop here — the property of everyone in everything, that is, in any resources that an individual or an association of individuals can appropriate for use in their activity.
Let us emphasize: not simply state (public) property, but universal property, in which the basic resources necessary for the development of the creatosphere (and these are, above all, knowledge, cultural and natural values) will be accessible to every individual, and this access will be on an equal footing. Already under socialism, this universal, equal access of everyone to such universal resources can be regulated by free voluntary associations created in this sphere — associations of teachers and scholars, artists and ecologists. Undoubtedly, considerable contradictions will arise here, the regulation of which will apparently have to be taken on by the state as the supreme representative of the various associations of working people and citizens. It would be premature to devise the specific mechanisms of such regulation now. One can only outline this tendency.
As for material production, in this "old" sphere of the economy solutions to the problem will tend toward the traditional conclusions of the "old" socialists. For this sphere, universal accessibility of any means of production to everyone is in principle impossible owing to the limited nature of these means. Consequently, only transitional relations can develop here. Among the well-known ones are relations of full employment, universal accessibility of education and retraining, and democratic regulation of the structure of material production. As a result, every citizen receives the following rights as an owner of the material resources of the whole people (a member of the association of citizen-owners):
- • participation on an equal footing with all other citizens1 in deciding questions of the production and use of objects of property;
- • inclusion in the work of any labor collective, or in individual activity using the resources of the whole people, on an equal footing with all other citizens (in the event of an excess of applicants — on the basis of a competition of professional and other personal qualities);
- • obtaining, on the basis of universally accessible education, qualifications that allow one to actually use any material resources in one's work (in accordance with one's chosen specialty);
- • a guarantee of employment in one's specialty and/or retraining at public expense;
- • guaranteed free receipt of an equal basic "package" of material social benefits (housing and other components of the socially guaranteed minimum; universal accessibility of education, healthcare, sport, culture). 1
1 Mechanisms for the participation of citizens in governance at the nationwide level could be built on the basis of the model of "civil-society socialism," which presupposes the use of already known and practically tested (in particular, in a number of Latin American countries) mechanisms of "participatory democracy" and "grassroots democracy." Herein lies the key difference from contemporary forms of parliamentary or presidential democracy, where decisions are made first and foremost by those who control financial and administrative resources.
The socially guaranteed minimum —
a mandatory component of the income of the working population, as well as of those unable to work, ensuring the inclusion of the human being in social life (socialization). The socially guaranteed minimum should also be provided (under special conditions) to persons avoiding work, in order to prevent the criminalization of this social stratum and not to close off
the possibility of their readaptation to work.
Every citizen receives all these rights as an owner of material goods held in the property of the whole people. Such goods may include, above all, natural resources and all other objects of property that have nationwide (national-economic) significance.
Following these, we may distinguish a number of spheres with differing levels of real (technological) socialization of the means of production.
First, spheres dominated by large integrated technological structures on which the economy as a whole depends (energy and transport systems; the largest enterprises in the sphere of high technology and in branches connected with the extraction and use of natural resources; the very use of natural resources under conditions of the development of noospheric technologies becomes an extremely important sphere on which the whole of society depends). In these spheres, it is anticipated that such relations of the combination of workers with the means of production (property) will develop as will ensure the use of these means for the benefit of society as a whole.
It appears that here relations involving the state form of property, combined with broad powers (self-management) for labor collectives, will prove most appropriate (the model of the people's enterprise, in which the state determines only the main directions of its activity, while the basic questions of internal life and the choice of the most effective ways of implementing the program-based nationwide directives are carried out by the self-managing labor collective).
Second, in the traditional industrial sector (machine-building and transport enterprises, mechanized agricultural enterprises, etc.), the structure of property relations may be far more complex. In this "old" sector, in all likelihood collective enterprises and cooperatives will predominate, but joint-stock enterprises may also persist, in which a significant proportion of the shareholders will be private individuals. The state and mass democratic organizations of working people may have the right to control the activity of joint-stock companies, gradually acquiring a substantial share of the stock or a decisive, controlling stake. However, it is not worth fantasizing now. What is important is the principle: the preservation, in the sector of industrial mass production, of mixed forms of property, transitional from private joint-stock property to social property (the property of collectives, the state, and public organizations).
If, third, we speak of the sector dominated by manual labor, as well as of a substantial part of the service sector (where direct contact with the small-scale, fragmented, individual consumer is required, and where concentrated specialized production has no advantages of its own), then here the development of small-scale labor-based property and small cooperatives is possible and expedient. At the same time, small private labor-based property can perfectly well be combined (as shown by the experience of the NEP in our country, and the experience of many other countries that began socialist transformations) with the purely voluntary cooperation of these small private owners in the sphere of marketing, servicing, purchasing means of production, and so on. For small private owners and small cooperatives, too, the normative restrictions that "operate" throughout the entire economy will also be mandatory.
The picture outlined here may become typical of a sufficiently mature socialist society. At the starting point, private property will apparently play a large role. On the whole, in the course of the development of socialism the following tendency will operate: the further the new society advances along the path toward the formal and, later, real emancipation of labor (the development of relations of social creativity, the displacement of material production by the creatosphere), the more expedient and necessary the displacement of private property will become.
In any case, however, the key problem here is not so much the distribution of shares as the control over real property rights, over the channels of economic power. And these channels may include not only shares held by one or another owner (the state, the labor collective, private individuals). Such channels may, in particular, also include the mandatory norms that every enterprise in socialist society must observe. These norms may require the effective application of capital, and may stipulate certain (program-mandated) directions for its use, and so on.
As for the institutional system built on the principle of a free working association, the answer to the question of how it may be organized is given by the model of "civil-society socialism." The new institutional system can and must grow, above all, out of the mass and systematic involvement of citizens in the activity of public organizations and movements, and the "habit" of living and acting according to the rules characteristic of these institutions1.
1 Let us note that as recently as 30-40 years ago, demands that the European community live by ecologically correct rules seemed utopian, and those "greens" who raised these demands were considered romantic dreamers, out of touch with reality.
Turning to a consideration of the relations of reproduction, let us first recall that the process of reproduction of human society has a dual character. This is, on the one hand, the process of reproducing the material conditions of the life of society, and on the other, the process of reproducing social relations (above all, relations of production). The specificity of reproduction under socialism is determined, first, by the communist content of its relations of production, and second, by their incomplete maturity, and, accordingly, by the historical process of increasing the maturity of these relations as we move from the first to the higher phase of communism.
If under capitalism the process of reproduction rests on the process of capital accumulation, then under socialism, where the human being himself is the main goal of production, there occurs the creation of material conditions for the expanded reproduction of human abilities, for the all-round development of the human personality. This "accumulation" of human abilities, this accumulation of knowledge and technological capacities is itself, in turn, a prerequisite for the growth of material production. Thus, as this process unfolds, prerequisites are also created for overcoming the subordination of the human being to the division of labor, for the erosion of the social differences that still persist (defined by specializations in the sphere of physical or mental labor, agrarian or industrial labor, specialization in the performance of managerial functions), for achieving such a filling of human activity with creative functions, and simultaneously for achieving such a level of consumption at which material needs recede into the background, giving way to the needs of human self-development, and so on.
Thus, the process of reproduction under socialism represents both a process of the expanded reproduction of the communist principles of socialism, and, consequently, the creation of the foundations for the movement from the first phase of communism to its higher phase.
The criterion of the efficiency of production under socialism (as under any mode of production) is determined by the ratio between the goals of production achieved and the expenditures incurred in achieving them. The communist criterion of efficiency, at the most abstract level, is the ratio between free time (as a space
for the development of the human personality, of human culture) and working time (as the time expended on creating conditions for such development). In a more concrete determination of the efficiency of socialist production, one must take into account the question of the actual filling of free time: to what extent real conditions have been created, in free time, for the development of human abilities, and how these conditions are being used.
The specificity of socialism (in relation to the higher phase of communism), in determining the efficiency of production, lies in the fact that under socialism the bounds of free time are still fairly narrow, and free time is, for the majority of members of society, a time of free development only to a very small degree. To a much greater extent, the development of the human being under socialism is determined by the character of his activity during working time, as well as by the growth of labor productivity. This growth, first, creates the prerequisites for changing the ratio between working and free time in favor of the latter; second, ensures the attainment of a rational level of consumption; and third, makes it possible to fill free time with the material and cultural prerequisites for the development of the human personality. Labor productivity can therefore be used as a particular criterion of efficiency for the phase of socialism.
The relations regulating the distribution of income under socialism, like other relations of production, likewise have a non-uniform character. From what has been said above about relations of appropriation and distribution under socialism, certain conclusions about the character of income distribution already follow. Part of the produced consumption fund is distributed on the basis of communist relations, part on the basis of relations of commodity production, but mainly on the basis of a complex combination of both kinds of relations. Among this latter group of forms of distribution, the principle of distribution according to labor plays the greatest significance.
Communist forms of distribution under socialism concern mainly what in Soviet society came to be called the social consumption funds. However, even these funds are far from always being distributed in a fully communist manner. One can speak of genuinely communist principles of distribution under socialism only where the material prerequisites for this have fully matured, that is, where the objective limitations on distribution according to need have been removed, and consumption according to need is subject only to the subjective limitations of a person's individual capacities for consumption.
This concerns, first of all, access to knowledge, information, and other cultural goods. Free or partially paid (subsidized) access to these goods is ensured. The tendency toward such a distribution of this category of goods already appears under capitalism. Socialism differs in that it carries through this tendency as consistently as possible, to whatever extent the available material resources allow.
Through the social consumption funds, part of the material goods and services is
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