Comments by "Harry Stoddard" (@HarryS77) on "Neoclassical And Marxian Economics Don't Mix" video.
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The point you bring up is discussed quite a lot in the Marxist literature. First, America isn't like European countries in that it is a former colony, so it doesn't have the same kind of infrastructure and history. Second, what is most important is a sufficient level of economic development. Marx assumed that capitalism was needed to create the kind of development needed for a socialist society, and while it's conceivable that that could be the case, it's not a law of nature. The economy could be developed through other means. Third, even if it were the case that some period of capitalist accumulation is required before the transition to socialism, it is not required that every country recapitulate this process, certainly not on the same time scale or by the same means. Once one country has transitioned into the next stage, it becomes easier for other countries to do so as well. It's even possible for a country to skip a stage, as outlined in the theory of uneven development.
Trotsky writes, "The privilege of historic backwardness—and such a privilege exists—permits, or rather compels, the adoption of whatever is ready in advance of any specified date, skipping a whole series of intermediate stages."
This is especially true for global capitalism. Rudolf Hilferding writes, "Just as a newly established industry today does not develop from handicraft beginnings and techniques into a modern giant concern, but is established from the outset as an advanced capitalist enterprise, so capitalism is now imported into a new country in its most advanced form and exerts its revolutionary effects far more strongly and in a much shorter time than was the case, for instance, in the capitalist development of Holland and England."
And Gramsci argued against the stage theory because Russia had "already passed through these experiences in thought."
Turning to the Soviet Union, it was certainly not communist, not even socialist. By Lenin's own admission, the USSR was a "worker's state," that is, a state in which the proletariat had seized state power through a revolutionary vanguard, creating a dictatorship of the proletariat that would steer the country through a period of capital accumulation rather than subjecting the population to the control of individuals owners. Contrary to what you asserted, pre-revolutionary Russia was economically very backward; most of the population was still living as peasants. Put simply, the USSR did not, as Gramsci had hoped, skip capitalism. It also never transcended it.
Getting back to America, Neil Davidson writes, "It is true that capitalism was uneven in the colonies. In some parts of North America, beginning in Massachusetts where the English Puritans first settled after 1630, it was from the beginning very far advanced indeed—perhaps in advance of England itself, since the structures of feudal absolutist power were far weaker. In others, such as the royal colony of Virginia after 1624 and particularly after 1642, the Cavaliers who ran it were intent on re-creating precisely the form s of social organization that was being destroyed across the Atlantic, first with white indentured servants, then black African slaves." Davidson goes on to relate other attempts at feudalism in the colonies: "Feudal projects collapsed in the seventeenth century, not because America was too progressive to endure them, but because it was too primitive to sustain them." So while feudalism may not have been the dominant mode in early America, neither was it absent. Again, I want to stress that America was a colony of England. Many colonists did not merely consider themselves to be English subjects, but English in their own way. America shares the feudal history of its parent country, England.
The stages theory (which derives from earlier Enlightenment thought) is a useful abstraction to begin thinking about how and why one form of society on a global or historical level gives way to another, but it isn't a law of nature and the future won't die because—oh no—we skipped a stage on accident. n lieu of feudalism, America had slavery, which was the basis of a large part of its economy. After the Civil War, it would seem that the South transitioned directly from slavery to capitalism, skipping feudalism once again. Your complaint about the stages theory doesn't imply that socialism is impossible; but that capitalism is impossible because there was no feudalism to transition from, which is patently absurd because we obviously do have a capitalist economy of some kind. (Your unique and anachronistic classification of "Mussolinian capitalism" at best puts the cart before the horse, but is also both historically and ideologically inaccurate.)
Most importantly, if the stages theory turns out to be wrong in some regard, if it does not match up with observations, then change the theory. We don't have to throw up our hands and abandon socialism when the real world doesn't align perfectly with a description made several hundred years ago.
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