>Dulling competitive forces may, as Michael
>Perelman argued about Keynesian policies, lead to a weaker form of
>capitalism, but, hey, we're for that, aren't we?
Not half as much as "we" are for a stronger form of socialism, where socialism means *efficiency without exploitation*. Just read what Lenin had to say about using Taylorism to get early Soviet production into trim. (More goods more quickly would mean more free time for workers to devote to running the show.) And he was ready to spend big bucks on foreign specialists to do it. The absolutely essential thing was not the technology or the management set-up but the objectives of the whole productive system and the political control of this system by the working class (and its allies) through its representative bodies.
I never cease to be amazed and impressed at the way a huge war-weary predominantly rural population in the early Soviet Union managed to turn around both production and organization and summon up an indomitable will to fight. Beating back the imperialist invasions and the fury of the expropriated bourgeoisie was a tremendous feat. Regardless of the counter-revolutionary developments that came about as a result of the toll taken by the wars, this first enormous burst of revolutionary enthusiasm for production and organization in the interests of the workers and poor people themselves was enough to lay the foundations for long-term (decades) survival of the Soviet system, a super-power threat to US hegemony and a bridgehead for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie in other countries -- all without the expected support from a revolution in an advanced imperialist country.
Just shows what a bit of efficient party politics can bring about.
And how "we" should be sharpening "our" competitive forces.
Cheers,
Hugh