188
PARTISAN REVIEW
or type of theory, is not at all an arbitrary speculation.
It
is based
upon what has actually been happening in the world, especially
since the beginning of the first world war. It explains, with
reasonable and reasonably systematic plausibility, what has been
happening; and through this explanation predicts, roughly, what
is going to happen.
The theory may be summarized briefly as follows:
We are now in the midst of a major social transition (revolu–
tion), during which, as in other major transitions, the chief eco·
nomic and political institutions in society, the dominant ideologies,
and the class relations, are being sharply and rapidly altered. This
transition is
from
the structure of society which we call capitalist–
that is, a structure characterized economically by "private enter–
prise," the owner-"wage worker" relation, production for indi–
vidual profit, regulation of production as a whole by "the market"
rather than by deliberate human control, and so on; characterized
politically by the existence of numerous sovereign national states,
strong in their own political sphere but
limited
as to their inter·
vention into other spheres of life, especially the economic sphere,
and by typical parliamentary institutions; characterized in terms
of class relations through the position of private capitalists as the
ruling class; and characterized ideologically by the prominence
of individualist and "natural rights" notions in widespread social
beliefs.
The transition, which it is well to emphasize is already in mid–
course, is
to
a type of society that I call "managerial." The eco–
nomic structure of managerial society is to be based upon state
ownership of the chief means of production, in contrast to the pre·
dominantly private ownership of the means of production in
capitalist society. The new economy will be an exploiting (class)
economy; but, instead of exploitation's taking place directly, as in
capitalism, through ownership vested in individuals, it takes place
indirectly, through control of the state by the new ruling class, the
state in turn owning and controlling the means of production.*
~me
of the possible mechanisms of this new mode of exploitation, as they have
l>een developed in Russia, are clearly shown in Freda Utley's very interesting recent
bt>ok,
The Dream We Lost.
Trotsky, committed to the view that Russia is a "workers'
state," was forced to hold that Russia's rulers got their heavy share of the national
income through fraud and graft, that Russia has a "fraud economy"-since, by defini·
tion, there could not be "exploitation" in a workers' (socialized) 8tate. Miss Utley's
analysis shows how superficial was this opinion to which Trotsky was driven by his
unshakable faith in the "either capitalism or socialism" assumption.
