Authority = State = an Absolute Evil! (was Re: what to do)

[Dace]

>Do-it-yourself entrepreneurism (Ted's Plan B) may be fun for some
>(worker-ownership -- even of producer cooperatives -- under capitalism is
>basically self-exploitation in niche markets, though; well, no matter,
>anarchism is a wet dream of the petty producers anyhow); meanwhile, capital
>is happy to take advantage of anarchist abstention and continues to rule
>undemocratically on behalf of the minority.
>
>Yoshie
>
If producer co-ops had any revolutionary potential, there'd be socialism by
now in Spain and Italy, where networks of co-ops have thrived for decades.
What I advocate is a commons, not worker-owned co-ops.  Ownership of
profitable enterprises should be shared among everyone who chooses to be a
member of the commons.  For one thing, co-ops have no incentive to grow.
Whatever added profits an expanded firm derives must be shared among more
workers, so what's the point?  It's the commons as a whole that benefits
from growth, not any individual firm, so ownership must be collective.
Beyond that, there's the question of skilled production.

The Dutch sociologist Hans Pruijt has surveyed the results of numerous
European experiments in re-skilling the industrial workplace.  There's no
question that efficiency rises when workers are no longer appendages to
machines.  Volvo, for instance, put up a factory in Uddevalla, Sweden based
around "neo-craft" principles, in which teams of eight-to-ten workers
simultaneously built four cars by hand.  This method quickly surpassed the
efficiency of standard assembly plants (though it failed to outperform "lean
production" plants.)  All the experiments Pruijt studied were cancelled by
capitalists and managers fearful of the loss of workplace control.  Clearly,
this is not something that need concern an economic commons.  Since the few
experiments we've seen in Europe have never been carried very far, the gains
in efficiency are potentially much greater than anyone realizes,
particularly if we were to create production machinery which *enhanced*
human skill rather than replacing it.  As Braverman notes in *Labor and
Monopoly Capital*, throughout this century engineers have intentionally
designed machinery that extends labor power not by augmenting skill but by
mechanizing production.  We have no idea what kind of a workplace could be
created with a skill-centered approach to technological development.

But such a program is never going to help fuel a socialist uprising unless
it's part of a communal environment based on intelligence in consumption as
much as work.  Skilled work costs more money per hour of labor, making it
problematic for both capitalist-owned and worker-owned firms.  This is no
longer a problem when the workers belong to a community in which consumption
is not stupendously wasteful, and high living standards are maintained on
far less money.  In that case, there's no need to shift cost from
labor-intensive to capital-intensive production.  No need for complex
machinery with its breakdowns and bottlenecks and semi-annual upgrades.  No
more undertrained and stressed out workers with their slow-downs, sabotage,
injuries, absenteeism and continual turnover.  This is a model of
productivity that can never be seized by the capitalists and used against
us.  In short, the perfect weapon.

Btw, Yoshie-- thanks for the comment.  Even a negative one is better than
nothing.

Ted