State Socialism - Criticisms

Criticisms

Many libertarian socialists, Syndicalists, Mutualists and anarchists go further in their critique, deriding even Marxism as state socialism for its support of a temporary, proletarian state instead of abolishing the state apparatus outright. They use the term in contrast with their own form of socialism, which involves either collective ownership (in the form of worker cooperatives) or common ownership of the means of production without state economic planning. Libertarian socialists and anarchists believe there is no need for a state in a socialist system because there would be no class to suppress and no need for an institution based on coercion, and thus regard the state being a remnant of capitalism. Most also hold that statism is itself antithetical to true socialism, the goal of which is the eyes of libertarian socialists such as William Morris; "to destroy the state and put free society in its place".

State socialism is often referred to by detractors simply as "socialism". Austrian economists such as Ludwig Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek for example continually used the word "socialism" as a synonym for state socialism and central planning. The attributive "state" is usually added by socialists with a non-state based method for achieving socialism to criticize state socialism. Some socialists may deny that it even is socialism, calling it instead "state capitalism". Those socialists who oppose any system of state control whatsoever believe in a more decentralized approach which puts the means of production directly into the hands of the workers rather than indirectly through state bureaucracies—which they claim represent a new elite.

Trotskyists believe that central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, operate without the input and participation of the millions of people who participate in the economy who understand/respond to local conditions and changes in the economy, and because of this criticize central state planning as being unable to effectively coordinate all economic activity.

Orthodox Marxists view state socialism as an oxymoron; while an association for managing production and economic affairs would exist in socialism, it would no longer be a state in the Marxist definition (which is based on domination by one class). This leads some socialists to consider "state socialism" a form of state capitalism (an economy based on wage labor and capital accumulation but with the state owning the means of production) - which Fredrick Engels states would be the final form of capitalism.