File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9801, message 251


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.



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