>>> "rc-am" <rcollins at netlink.com.au> 08/21/99 08:45PM >>>
ok, Chaz, granted: needs and desires are socially and historically
constituted. this we already agree on. the question though i think
still stands, but perhaps in a different form: how is this 'we'
constituted which then plans our wants? planning assumes a certain
decision-making protocol, right? so, what is this instrument/vehicle of
planning? the state?
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Charles: Thanks for that , Ang. I just don't want to go down the trail that our most cherished wants spring from individual caprice and are most valuable because they surprise us and we don't think of them ahead of time. That may happen sometimes. There is individual creativity, but I don't think we want to elevate it to the pedestal that the bourgeoisie have put it on and sort of as the favored way of generating all of society's wants.
((((((( (btw, dunayevskaya does have a lot of important things to say here, as peter noted.)
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Charles: Yes, actually, because she lived here in Detroit. I have a number of her books and have even attended meetings of the Marxist-Humanist organization that she founded, also subbing to their newspaper. Are there any specific references you have in mind ?
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and in any case, the inflection of the first question, 'what does chaz want', is still there in an important sense, though writ larger. the inflection being a psychoanalytic one, implying that desires are not always (some would go further and say 'not ever') transparently known. if at the level of the psyche, which is always a social and historical term and not an individual one, there is a certain opacity, then the presumptions of planning fall down at this point, since planning assumes a transparency. ie., how do you really know what you desire and why? and, if you can't be always on top of this, why do you expect an institution to be capable of such knowledge? (we're back perhaps to the theory of the party-as-the-state-in-waiting as beyond ideology.)
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Charles: We plan what we want ,but we have to test the plan in practice.
Yes, it has taken learning about myself to understand more clearly what I want.
What occurs to me in answer to the puzzle you pose is practice. Can't we use that Marxist insight here ? Just as we test the truth by practice, can't we come to learn what we want and desire by seeking what we think we want and then if we get it, seeing if we feel satisfaction. If yes, it is something we want. If no, then maybe it isn't.
But life is a struggle, in the good sense, and this trial and error to discovery what we desire is part of that good struggle and challenge. In this, the experiences of previous generations, history, is a guide for the living generation.
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but, whether you accept the psychoanalytic claim of a certain non-transparency, the question of _what_ is constituted as the planner of wants remains. and, if it is the state, then we are truly in the realm of (at least as an aspiration toward) a state authoritarianism as an apparent alternative to the 'invisible hand' authoritarianism of capital.
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Charles: The Marxist strategy is to take control of the state in the dictatorship of the proletariat, yes, with still a republican form, so it is a representation of the proletariat. It is different than the other states of history because it represents a non-exploiting classThis state suppresses the bourgeoisie, until there are no more bourgeois states. After that the state is to whither away.
Of course, in reality, this is a trial and error process, and the really existing socialist states have had enormous shortcomings, well discussed and known to those on this and other lists. These shortcomings have included violating to some extent the very core principles I discuss here.
But my opinion is that we should continue with the same strategy and do better the next time, learning from trial and error, like all scientists and builders in human history. We want the next socialist state planning to be more democratic, more truly involving masses in determining their own wants, coordinating the wants of the many, establishing a menu of choices that is both feasible for the resources of society and can give everyone a fulfilling life even in the transition when the hangovers of capitalism remain.
So, in the transition, the socialist state ( which has and will have warts) plays a central role in planning production, including wants. In the long run, there is no state, so the central planning will be done by an institution with which we have almost no real experience, but it will not be a special repressive apparatus representing an exploiting class.
Comradely,
CB