ABSTRACT
A major thesis of this book is that social class was, and still is, a major driving force of transformation. Class analysis of social revolutions is often conducted within a Marxist framework. Unquestionably, Marx defined class in terms of the ownership of property and the extraction of surplus through exchange value: ‘The historical task of the socialist revolution is to eliminate that form of exploitation due to differential ownership of alienable assets.’ 1 Neither private property nor the production of exchange value existed under state socialism. It is the possession of privately owned physical and financial assets added to labour power, the product of which is traded for profit, that constitutes capitalist exploitation. Ownership of assets on the one hand and the sale of labour power on the other define the polarized classes of capitalism. John Roemer, following a long tradition in Marxism, suggests that due to the abolition of private possession of such assets, economic exploitation cannot exist under conditions of state socialism. 2 The other characteristic of state socialism was that production and sale of commodities was not driven by the profit motive. The logic of this traditional Marxist position is that antagonistic classes could not exist under state socialism. In this argument, the transformation is analysed in terms of elites rather than classes.
