>Of course you did, and from what Kelley wrote I think she agrees with you.
>I believe she is saying, however, that anything that starts with the
>"pre-defined rules" that you prescribed will inevitably run up against
>authority, though it may be in some unimagined form rather than the
>traditional bureaucracy or the typical workplace hierarchy (or worse, like
>fascism). Unfortunately, I think she is correct. It seems to me that in
>your right-minded desire to get rid of authority--which, to my mind, is the
>only way true social change can last--you take the easy route: getting rid
>of the "the human factor." Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, to use
>the cliche. It's true that the human factor is the hardest to control and
>the one that can have the most destructive effects, but to my mind it is
>also the one element that can makes the system. What happens if the preset
>rules aren't working and need to be overhauled, or even slightly modified?
>We need humans to change those rules, which gets us back to where we
>started. Or worse, it makes people feel frustrated with those crappy,
>irrelevant rules. After all, if we don't feel like we control the "system,"
>then that destroys morale and interest, and creates apathy. This is where
>we are now.
As I said in my response to Kelley, I see your point, and the bottom line is, as long as these important decisions are reached democratically, the rest is relatively unimportant.
>So how to involve the human factor without its imperfections wrecking the
>system and at the same time manage to obliterate authority? Well, that's
>the question, huh? To me this means that everyone, or nearly everyone, has
>to be involved, which unforunately probably means Doug's much-hated
>meetings. I don't see this as as much of a problem as Doug does. I think
>the Wal-Mart shoppers actually might like meetings, especially if that
>means they can get out of doing their meaningless, oppressive jobs while
>the meetings last. I know I would, and I don't hate the work I do so much.
>(I will touch on this more in a minute.) Right now, I don't see any other
>way.
Nicely put.
>Finally, I think that, in planning, we should give our lowest priority to
>"efficiency." This, of course, is going to be one of the biggest sticks in
>the eye that the capitalist will poke us with: your system is inefficient,
>it can never provide for everyone's needs. Of course this is crap--if
>anything we have too much of everything--but it is a good propoganda device
>to scare people with. I think that we could point out to food as the
>perfect example of how the inefficiency argument is bunk: the world has no
>problem producing enough food to feed all the world's people; the problem
>is the distribution of it. Hell, we are paying farmers *not* to plant
>crops. So if efficiency in food production does drop a little, so what? We
>have plenty of it. Eventually the sytem will catch up to meet its
>requirements. That, then, is my proposed p.r. pitch.
>
>I think the efficiency question deserves low status because we are already
>efficient, and this efficiency itself is extremely destructive: it destroys
>people minds and bodies, and has pushed the earth to its breaking point.
>(It's also that damn Protestant work ethic...but now I'm getting
>philosophical again.) And will the world really miss the Ferby doll if we
>stop producing them. Plus, if we aren't so efficient, that means, probably,
>that we are being lazy. And there ain't nothing wrong with that.
I'm glad you brought up the subject of efficiency, and I agree with you completely. I'd rather be free and inefficient than an efficient slave.
Still, I think you can make a persuasive argument in terms of the efficiency of planning compared to capitalist efficiency. First of all, the market is extremely inefficient, which is the first point to drive home. So, planning doesn't need to be a super-efficient system, it only needs to be roughly as efficient as the market, which isn't terribly efficient. It is quite conceivable, perhaps even probable, that planning could be significantly more efficient than the market. And of course you have the added benefits of an egalitarian society.
Brett