tpaine posted:WAS WHEN I WAS BANGIN!!
this is also related to planning in a more technical sense. planning ideology involved a sort of tiered view of socialism. one idea was "the economic mechanism". pretty quickly party leadership had to admit that planning was not a straightforward process of coordination, but they had to keep the basic idea of coordination in place. so they pointed to the political hegemony of the working class through its communist party as a socialist system. but then that economic system itself could be seen in a sort of secondary register where the muck of the actual system took place - such as limited market elements. this secondary register was the "economic mechanism". so there was no real debate about changing the political system, there was much more debate about fine-tuning the economic mechanism, although again within limits.
the problem is more that this "economic mechanism" register views the economy as a machine. and the problem with that machine then becomes the obvious ones - shortages, labour discipline, slack planning, etc.. there are only two ways really to fix that - through mass mobilization (which never worked very well over long periods of time) or through reintroducing market elements. every government that tried economic planning in one way or another tried mobilization and then ended up reverting to markets. the only way to avoid this, i think, is through enthusiastic participation of the masses in their own lives, and the only way to get enthusiastic participation over long periods of time is to give them incentives to do so. and egalitarians can't give strong differential material incentives, so only radical democratic incentives such as direct control over neighbourhoods, workplaces, etc. can work.
Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:jools posted:Rosa_Lichtenstein posted:jools posted:im sorry rosa. i have to say it. im sorry.
but this all comes from an extremely undialectical reading of history, wherein you can somehow junk all of the stuff that (from your first world, labour aristocratic perspective) provokes a negative moral response (the purges, the great leap forward, the cultural revolution, the lack of - bourgeois - democracy, and so on) and think that there is somehow a "pure", unsullied "marxism" at the core that has none of bad, and all of the good, and that this Eternal Flame was carried through the 20th century by such successful revolutionaries as hal draper and john molyneux. this is just bad history! it betrays an atomised, methodologically individualist reading of events that is essentially unscientific.Well, since dialectics makes no sense (certainly you have yet to explain it), I am glad my reading is 'undialectical'.
I also note that you use this word -- 'dialectical' -- as a sort of talisman to justify anti-Marxist, and counter-rovolutionary policies inflicted on the people of the USSR and China.
And yet, Orthodox Trotskyists (with whom I disagree) also appeal to a 'dialectical' view of history to condemn the Stalinist and Maoist regimes.
As I have pointed out several times, because dialectics glories in contradiction, it can be used to 'justify' anything you like and its opposite.
the point is the things you like and their apparent opposites are inherent in the same unified historical process!!!!
But we already know that this approach to theory would mean that change is impossible.
Proof supplied on request.
ah, here we are, the timecube at the heart of the argument
getfiscal posted:i do think that most socialist states were honest attempts to build a sort of socialism, and the rulers and bureaucracy did want to find ways to integrate the population into that. the problem was more that mobilizations were always within a narrow limit. that is, they wanted people to be more enthusiastic about the society they had, rather than real debates between alternatives. even when the language of radical opposition was used, like in the chinese cultural revolution, the great bulk of the party leadership leaned towards using it to reinforce the basic structures of rule rather than challenging them. i don't think you can always blame them for doing so, since they saw the alternative as allowing horrible things to happen. but i do think it speaks to the need for consent based on participation and structured debate.
this is also related to planning in a more technical sense. planning ideology involved a sort of tiered view of socialism. one idea was "the economic mechanism". pretty quickly party leadership had to admit that planning was not a straightforward process of coordination, but they had to keep the basic idea of coordination in place. so they pointed to the political hegemony of the working class through its communist party as a socialist system. but then that economic system itself could be seen in a sort of secondary register where the muck of the actual system took place - such as limited market elements. this secondary register was the "economic mechanism". so there was no real debate about changing the political system, there was much more debate about fine-tuning the economic mechanism, although again within limits.
the problem is more that this "economic mechanism" register views the economy as a machine. and the problem with that machine then becomes the obvious ones - shortages, labour discipline, slack planning, etc.. there are only two ways really to fix that - through mass mobilization (which never worked very well over long periods of time) or through reintroducing market elements. every government that tried economic planning in one way or another tried mobilization and then ended up reverting to markets. the only way to avoid this, i think, is through enthusiastic participation of the masses in their own lives, and the only way to get enthusiastic participation over long periods of time is to give them incentives to do so. and egalitarians can't give strong differential material incentives, so only radical democratic incentives such as direct control over neighbourhoods, workplaces, etc. can work.
can you clarify and/or expound the bolded portion?
AmericanNazbro posted:can you clarify and/or expound the bolded portion?
well i should be clear that i don't know if there is a simple institutional solution. i don't think so. like it probably helps to have 'rules of the game' and 'subsidiarity' - like, if you want local participation then you want democratic forms at those levels (neighbourhood councils, factory committees, etc.). but the two can have problems when it comes to actual implementation. because, as the whole idea of "economic mechanism" shows, you have the same basic problem when it comes to democracy. the "mechanism" (a worker's council) has a sort of autonomy which can distort things and can cause alienation. that is, just because a disagreement has a process involved that is close to the individual doesn't mean that this process always works or always produces enthusiasm.
in latin america they call this basic issue "protagonism" - socialists should promote an attitude and associated processes which are protagonistic. protagonistic in the sense that they emphasize self-creation and self-control within a socialist (or at least human development oriented) framework. this is more than civic-mindedness because it includes self-directed concern and the private. so maybe communities can create local councils to help engage people in the planning of their own neighbourhoods, workplaces, etc. - the point is less the institution, though, but rather the lives lived.
for something i was thinking about today, though, i don't mean that this attitude of protagonism is either foundational or irrational. foundational because i don't think you can say, okay, we have this idea of subjectivity, therefore everyone should act this way, it has always been right to do so, and you can't logically disagree with it (like maybe early rawls). i don't think it is irrational though, in that you can debate about it and produce useful insights.
-J
Edited by jeffery ()
