Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:43:37 -0500 From: curtiss_leung at ibi.com Subject: Re: Middle Class
Gar W. Lipow writes:
>> I would definitely include mass media in the control functions. And some > technical stuff definitely is a control function. Someone who designs the means of production may or may not give anyone orders (though often such engineering including software engineering is done in a hiearchal fashion) but I think Michael Perlman has made some quite brilliant posts about how much techonology is designe quite specifically to increase control rather than efficiency. And not everyone with the title of manager manages. Many may be more like formen.
>OK...it makes sense that technology is introduced into the workplace as
much (if not more) for control than efficiency. But who sets these
requirements? Not the programmers or engineers themselves -- I'd have
to
come from higher up on the corporate food chain, perhaps by upper
management whose remuneration isn't just salary but also some form of
equity in the firm...but maybe I don't quite understand who is or is
not in this "new class"...
As you say later on it gets very much to old fashioned questions of surplus value. From what I've seen of new class analysis members are identified in two ways. One is that they end up with an income exceeding the value they produce -- because of the control function they end up actually receiving some of others surplus value rather than merely getting a portion of their own back. And it is true that the new class does not have a majority of the control (at least not in a capitalist society). The most successful of the new class can end up as small capitalists, but the vast majority do not end up with significant ownership of the means of production.
The second point is work -- in that the new class ends up with a majority of the empowering and pleasant tasks. It is not that ultimate control does not rest with capitalists -- but that the new class exercise day to day control (and sometimes even year to year control) within very broad control by capitalists. It is conventional wisdom that a smart CEO does not microcmanage, and that a smart manager in general knows how to delegate. On some occasion even long term strategy is left to members of the new class -- some members of the think tanks for instance.
>> Their divergence in interest is twofold. In the short run, it is in
> > their interest to avoid having their tasks dispersed too widely to the
>> point where their functions are carried out by skilled workers
.<snip!>..
>> In the long run, this class would benefit from a collective ownership
>> of the means of production where they stayed in control and maintained
>> a monopoly or near monopoly over all the control functions but without
>> benefitting a parasticical owner class.
>So this would make the constitution of the new class dependent on the
organizational specifics of a particular industrial sector, yes?
Wouldn't rust belt industries, where production techniques are
straightforward or very well known need less of these semi-autonomous
managers than information service industries?
fewer but not none -- still need someone to design the cars, design the assembly lines, decide on production processes (including replacing assembly lines with "teams" if this seems wise). There are still managers who are paid far more than workers but who receive the vast majority of their compensation in salary rather than stock options.
Again I want to emphasize that the new class is not the dominant class in our society. (That emphasis is one important distinction between left and right new class analysis.)
>I suppose this gets into some very old-fashioned questions of whether
someone generates surplus value and if they exhibit "false
consciousness."
As I said about surplus above, yes. In terms of false consciousness -- well now that I think of it you are right there as well. To the extent that the new class is mostly not aware of itself as a separate class I suppose they do have false consciousness (assuming of course that I am not wrong about their existence).
Maybe concrete examples would be of more help. I'll give one (or extend an existing one in another post).
>Curtiss Leung
--
Gar W. Lipow
815 Dundee RD NW
Olympia, WA 98502
http://www.freetrain.org/