From: "jurriaan bendien" <Jbendien-AT-globalxs.nl> Subject: Re: M-TH: Innovation, planning and the party Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 23:35:08 +0100 Justin writes: ......the worry that generalized planning will inhibit the good sort of innovation as well as the bad. (1) I don't see why that needs inevitably to be the case, provided there is a clear and easily acceptable scale of core moral values/priorities to identify "good" innovations", based on the best scientific evidence that we have. (we don't get away from social ethics even if they may be class ethics). (2) I would say rather the real problem is how to generalise "good" innovations. In the former USSR, it is clear that there was a lot of amazing technological innovation going on there, but because of bureaucratic strictures it could not be widely applied (to the point of ridiculous restrictions on access to personal computers, and as Ticktin points out, shirts without buttons on them and so on). But which country has the biggest bureaucracy these days ? Wouldn't socialism today actually mean a reduction of bureaucracy ? There are a lot of great innovations being made today that are not being generalised, because that would either conflict with market logic, monopoly positions, not be profitable, or the amounts of capital required to provide general use are too large for the inventors (I am not just talking about the Greenpeace environmentally friendly car). As to the inventions that get stolen and abused for purposes they weren't intended for... that is another story altogether. (3) As regards social planning, isn't the basic objective of this simply to make the basics of material life predictable, healthy and secure for everybody, so that we can get on with better things ? And would it not be possible for people to agree to some sort of trade-off there ? Hell I could do with some of that in my life. I'll throw this into the void (or is it the ring) and go to sleep. Cheers Jurriaan PS- the thing I was wondering about is why I could only rarely have the kind of free discussion we have on Thaxis within the proto-party groups I was involved with in New Zealand, without the discussion becoming nastily abusive or doctrinairely "programmatic". Maybe the computer is the key tool for party-building after all - everyone can keep his/her appropriate distance. Had to think of Marx again: "the traditions of the dead generations weigh like nightmares on the brains of the living." On that note, it's off to bed. --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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