File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-07.045, message 35


Date: Mon, 6 Jan 97 4:49:31 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: Cooperatives?





		Well, "fools rush in" I guess...



		Justin,


	In terms of adapting models to conditions on the ground, I put it
to you that you miss one of the arguments for market socialism here: our
present conception of the divide between "public" and "private" sectors.
Now, I know that Marxists tend to take a dim view of the importance of
legal distinctions (preferring, sensibly perhaps, a "power is as power
does" view), but they do exist, especially in the minds of
libertarian-bent workers. In this regard, worker ownership has the vast
advantage over state control that one does not have to invite the
government into areas where it is currently not thought to belong.  No
one, in America at least, seems likely to invite government planning into
their lives any time soon.  On the other hand, worker ownership has vast
acceptance as a concept.  Yet, workers have really never been given the
same rights and role as corporate shareholders in any if the previous
"market socialist"  experiments.


	As for the validity of markets, there is really no need to argue
that.  Distribution is not the issue, and it's not the important question
that markets solve.  Markets solve the question of what people WANT and makes
the best compromise between what producers are willing to make and what
consumers are willing to buy.  Computers can't even handle the most
computerized market there is - the stock market - despite billions invested
and billions more at stake in trying to make accurate assessments of demand.


	The power to exploit comes from legal, illegal, and social
protections for wealth.  There is nothing about the market qua market which
fosters exploitation.  



	As for Louis P., he reminds me of a chap (a man who made some
excellent points, although not as many as Louis P. does) who is a leader
in the machinists union at United Airlines.  He rails on and on against
ESOP's.  If Mr. Henwood is listening, he makes the point that the more
radical Machinists union is extremely frustrated with the situation at
United because they feel that the capitalists have simply ducked behind
the machinists' fellow workers.  By this I mean that the machinists feel
hamstrung in the pursuit of better wages and benefits because management
(who answer principally to creditors, in the machinists' view) can raise
the white flag of "worker ownership" and avoid substantive negotiation on
wages (and pit union against union to boot).  Basically, this guy loved
the fight and hates the model building that has now replaced it.  He
actually yearns for the days of a management that worked for greedy
stockholders, because it seems, to him, the natural order of things.  (One
should note here that the United Airlines ESOP does not, by a long shot,
give workers the same rights as proper shareholders.  It is also vastly in
debt and must answer to creditors who will not accept a henouse run by
chickens no matter how profitable it is or even how much more profitable
it might be.) 


	Mr. Proyect obviously believes that a socialist's place is at the
head of the picket line or the head of the planning table, not at a marketing
conference call.  Unfortunately, the post-picket-line reality is that
government bureaucracy will be no more welcome under socialism than it is
today (at least for the foreseeable future) and the business of socialism will
be, well, business.  



	Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.



	peace


		boddhisatva





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