Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 14:43:28 -0400
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Cyber-revolution (3 of 3)


They, like the publishers of cy.Rev, are cyber-optimists but welcome the
idea of state management of the economy. They make the case succinctly for
a mix of advanced automation and old-fashioned "state socialism":

"If detailed plan-balancing is way beyond the reach of the human brain, can
the calculations be performed successfully using computers? Our answer will
be `yes', but we wish to anticipate some criticisms. During the 1960s, as
mainframe computers began to become widely available, many Soviet economic
cyberneticians were very optimistic, but since that time the overall impact
of the computer on Soviet planning has disappointed those early
expectations. Of course it was not just in the USSR that the benefits of
computerisation were greatly oversold in the 60s. Computerisation is no
panacea. There are many problems with the economic mechanism in the USSR
which would have to be tackled before the application of extra
computer-power can be expected to yield much of a dividend. (One example:
the irrational and semi-fossilised pricing system, with the prices of many
goods stuck at levels which guarantee shortages and queues.)

But having said that, the computer and telecommunications technology of the
late twentieth century does present striking opportunities for the
regulation of the economy. We believe that the more real danger at present
is an over-reaction to the `failed promise of the computer'. One should
remember that the USSR is somewhat behind the West in computer technology,
and the types of computer system available to Soviet planners in the 60s
and even 70s were primitive by today's Western standards. They were also
very centralised (relatively few big mainframes), while the system we will
propose makes use of both massive fast mainframes and widely-distributed
PC-type equipment, linked by the national telecommunications system. And a
political point is relevant here. Our planning proposals absolutely require
a free flow of information and universal access to computer systems, and
this was politically impossible in the USSR under Brezhnev. Even access to
photocopying equipment was strictly controlled for fear of the
dissemination of political dissent. While we are critical of the direction
of some of the economic reforms currently underway in the Soviet Union=85,
there is no doubt that the policy of glasnost is a precondition for the
type of system we envisage."

As opposed to cy.Rev, the approach of Cockshott and Cottrell is much more
consistent with the original vision of Marx. Marx embraced the
technological advances that capitalism produced but sought to eliminate the
private ownership of capital. In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR,
there has been a tendency to reject all aspects of Soviet society. The
failure of the market to produce a higher standard of living in of the
formerly socialist societies has begun to raise questions about the promise
of capitalism itself.

The problem, however, with cy.Rev and Cockshott-Cottrell alike is that
their vision of feasible socialisms rest on utopian foundations. They view
computers as the key that can unlock the door to a more just and humane
society. What they both fail to take into account is the historical agency
that can abolish existing class relations in order to prepare the way for a
computer-based socialism.

Market socialism and the dialectical opposite put forward by
Cockshott-Cottrell view the failure of the former Soviet Union as a product
of a deficient formula. It as if architects and engineers were doing a
post-mortem on a collapsed structure. An inadequate design could cause a
bridge to collapse, if for example wind stress factors were not taken into
account. This is a bad way to understand the former Soviet Union however.

Socialist societies do not come into existence through blueprints. In every
single case they are the products of explosive clashes provoked by war,
economic dislocation, repression, and other profound shocks to the system.
Furthermore, there is usually a huge gap between the development goals of
revolutionaries once they take power and the technical and professional
infrastructure required to implement them. When you combine this with the
economic blockade or outright warfare imperialism tries to abort embryonic
forms of socialism with, it is a miracle that any socialist society can
move forward. Cuba remains the one society that seems dedicated to
socialist goals even though capitalist pressure continues to extract
compromises.

There was one other revolutionary society that for a brief period appeared
to embody the economic and social justice goals of Cuban society while
observing the need for democratic liberties. That society was Sandinista
Nicaragua. The general direction of the Sandinista revolution was dictated
by the exigencies of the class struggle nationally and internationally,
however, and not by any blueprint. If anything, the difficulties faced by
the Sandinistas dramatizes the futility of trying to build socialism on the
basis of any pre-existing schema.

What inspired the Nicaraguan people to make a revolution was not some
utopian plan but a sheer need for survival. Ravaged by the plagues of
Somoza kleptocracy, earthquake and economic backwardness of a biblical
dimension, they fought back for education, health care, jobs and end to
repression. The Russian people likewise mobilized for "Bread, Peace and
Land" without a clear idea of what would follow. So when the Sandinistas
marched into Managua in 1979, they faced a situation similar to the one
that Laurent Kabila faces today in the Congo. The masses have high
expectations but a new government lacks a detailed plan how to fulfill them.

The forms of statehood that the Sandinistas adopted could only be related
to the existing objective conditions. They nationalized all of Somoza's
properties while leaving most other large and medium sized ranches in
private hands. This "mixed economy" was a function not of an ideological
commitment to market socialism but rather the recognition that the working
class of Nicaragua was too weak to impose its will on the rest of society.

Management of state properties was a daunting task. The Nicaraguan state
lacked experienced economists, statisticians, managers and clerks to
coordinate the activities of state-owned banks, farms, mills and
transportation. They did, however, make a commitment to using computer
technology to make up for the short-fall of experienced professionals. For
example, in the Central Bank an American volunteer working with an
organization called Tecnica trained Nicaraguans to use Lotus 123 to convert
foreign currency holdings into the Nicaraguan equivalent. A department of
six college-educated Nicaraguan laboring with pencil and paper found that
it could do the same work with just one person and a computer. In another
dramatic example of the power of computer technology, an American volunteer
from the same organization created a spare-parts database on a personal
computer that major state owned and private manufacturing plants in Managua
both took advantage of. This meant that breakdowns on an assembly line were
repairable in a matter of hours rather than weeks.

American imperialism exhausted the Nicaraguan revolution and American
volunteers eventually found themselves replaced by Somocista returnees from
Miami eager to make a quick buck in "free" Nicaragua. One of the great
tragedies of the defeat of the Nicaraguan revolution is that removes a
shining example of what a feasible socialism might look like. This example
was not created on the basis of a inspired plan. Instead it issued out of
the struggle of ordinary human beings to make a better life for themselves
against overwhelming odds and with both the tools and society they
inherited. This will be true of any revolution in the future as well.


References:

The home page of cy.Rev is www.eff.org/pub/Publications/E-Journals/CyRev/

The home page of LBO is www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html/

"Towards a New Socialism" (Nottingham, Spokesman, 1993) is available
in an electronic, text-only version on the Communications for a Sustainable
Future Gopher in Colorado under Economics-Authors.


Louis Proyect




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