Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 13:44:44 -0500 (EST) From: Kevin Cabral <kcabral-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us> Subject: Re: M-I: On the misnomer of "socialism" On Thu, 2 Jan 1997, Louis R Godena wrote: > Doug states categorically that China has been capitalist for the last > fifteen years. Kevin is adamant that "worker control" be an integral part > of any socialist project. Barkley stands to the right of both and > applauds the Chinese model (though with important reservations in the realm > of ecology and unemployment). Rob stands in several places at once. > All, I believe, have a tendency to overestimate the power of capital to > such an extent that the superficial appearances of the moment are mistaken > for the deeper trends at work in historical reality. And all have, in my > opinion, a somewhat myopic view of what in socialism is feasible in our > era. Louis has also somewhat mangled my own "management principle" of socialism. I insist that worker management must exist in one form or another; through a parlimentary model in which workers may elect representatives of their choice as trustees for them, through a model like that suggested by Cockshott and Cottrell in which workers may vote for one of several competing, feasible and computer-verified, economic plans, or through a model of economic democracy in which workers are able to have very direct control over the day-to-day and even long-term, if they wish, organization of their corporation. In this model communities can also exercise power through banks which control the public investment funds that can be channeled into cooperatives who they feel can benefit valuably from it (by whatever standards, probably job creation) or into new projects which are in demand from the community, but no cooperative has taken on their own; or a project which a certain socialist entrepeneur thinks is potentially profitable to the community. Regardless of what model is favored they all feature a democratic avenue by which workers can exercise control over what is produced and how. Worker control takes the 'management principle' one step further by giving workers a more direct avenue for control over the allocation of income from the sales of products that they may hold only in distant, and much more complex and bureaucratic, way under the former two models I discussed earlier which were for all-purposes centrally planned models. I am not adament that for a society to be called socialist it must meet the Schweickartian model to the nth degree, but simply that "worker management" must be present in a degree that is capable of signifigant influence upon the whole of productive forces. I favor direct, legal, worker-control, but that is NOT the core of my definition. Another clarification is due; that worker-control, in the legal sense, means that rights are vested to workers, by the community which socially owns the means of production, to make decisions, enforcable by law, about any aspect of their cooperative provided that they don't sell off the capital goods that the community owns. This does not mean that accountants, managers, and consultants will not be present in economic democracy. What it does mean is that the majority of cooperative members will have a right to decide "how production will be organized and what will be produced." Economic democracy gives worker's the legal right to self-management over their workplaces and ultimate rights to the allocation of profits from the sale of items they produce. If anything here is unclear let me know; if you want more information read Schweickart's "Against Capitalism" from Westview Press, 1996. > unchallenged in Asia. Under the circumstances, it is less important to > answer the question: "Is China socialist?" than it is to try to ascertain > where, with some degree`of exactitude, Chinese society is headed, and > what features adopted since 1949 are likely to be retained or discarded, > and with what effect, both at home and within the larger realm of the > developing countries? I have agreed with that appraisal from the beginning of this discussion, and asked tangentially "what is our definition of socialism" and if this definition does not apply to China why should we then label it 'socialist' if we know that, by our definition which we advocate the realization of politically, it does not fit our definition's key principles. I think the discussion of China is great, but I am opposed to calling it socialist because it does not fit socialism as I understand it: encompassing the management principle and the ownership principle. Barkley apparently advocates the "management principle" in his own politics, but does not think that it needs to be applied to China in his appraisal of it. So I asked: if that is the case, then why wasn't South Korea of the post-Korean War era until the mid 1980s socialist? Ditto for Nazi Germany. Aren't you in agreement with Hayek there? Does our omittance of the 'management principle' bring our definition of socialism towards an absurdity that is not applicable to our political practice. How do we explain to skeptics what our definition of socialism is when it encompasses so many economic systems, and the worst tyrannies in the world's history? Is there another principle that Barkley advocates in addition to the ownership principle that does not leave modern socialists open to checkmate from a right-wing pawn storm supported by bishops and queens alike? > And, while we are at it, perhaps it is time to re-assess our own > definitions. Does the nationalization of industries, and the placing of > workers on boards of directors (in which, incidentally, Western workers > have shown no great interest) represent a step towards socialism, a > take-over of industry by the workers, or, rather, further steps in the > integration of the workers into the capitalist system. What, precisely, > is "worker control"? Is it feasible (Lenin dismissed the concept five > years after the October revolution as a "pipe dream")? And let us not > forget the old bugaboo: what do we do with the working class, > or they with us? I suppose you might be making reference to some sort of a modern-Meidner plan? Maybe one stronger than the watered-down plan that was debated by the SD-Communist government of 1982 in Sweden? But doubtlessly you envision Arthur Coia on the Board of Directors, collecting dividends from the worker's stock holdings. If that is the case worker-control is doomed. But a couple of seats on the Board of Directors is not the extent of the worker-control I advocate. Basically, Lou, here are a couple of the appealing advantages of worker-control: 1) Ability to control one's own working hours. Worker controlled firms may produce less if they like. They may choose to trade income for extra leisure time. Some workers at a firm may choose to work a 4 hour day if they like. They will earn less when sales income comes back to the coop, but will gain leisure time. 2) The tendency of worker-controlled firms not to lay off workers, ever. Historically worker cooperatives have not layed off workers in hard-times, but instead spread the pain of hard-times equally amongst the workforce in the form of decreased incomes. But that is far better than the mass-layoffs and the forced increase in the intensity of labor that happens when hard-times hit a capitalist firm. In the capitalist firm layoffs happen, and the stragglers have to work harder to pick up the slack. That is not the case under the 'management principle.' I will not bother to list all of them, and I have hinted at several throughout this text. For a good summary and an extensive bibliography see Schweickart. For more specifics on the economics of worker control see Jaroslev Vanek and his wide body of work on the subject. > It is a commonplace that the world is changing. What is not yet common > enough, in my opinion, is the recognition that socialism -- and especially > our imaging of it -- should change with it. What is socialism then Lou? An absolute increase in standards of living, at whatever cost to people and environment as in China? Any economy in which the government controls the means of production, no matter how democratic or anti-democratic the decision making process regarding production is? Isn't that going back to what we were taught in high school about socialism? Alternatively, is socialism a Rawlsian welfare state and nothing more? Is it self-liberation from alienation and a degree of conscious control over one's social surroundings? What types of worker control are feasible in your opinion, and consequently on what basis should revolutionary socialists appeal to workers, especially the First World, on. Whither contingency? Kevin Cols, Oh --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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