The nature of anarchism (Lefty Despair etc.)

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Sat Sep 28 12:51:54 PDT 2002



>But that said, going to court contradicts co-operative principles in that
>it is inherently adversarial. It is a fine way of settling disputes where
>there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest, but the principles of
>co-operation are premised on a mutuality of interests.

That settles it for me (but I knew this already): I do not believe that three human beings in any set of social relations hatsoever can ever attain the mutuality of interests that you require here. What I mean by an irreconcilable conflict of intrerest is systematic, dominator vs dominated, exploiter vs exploiter, oppressor vs. oppressed. That can, I believe, be pretty generally eliminated. My hypothetical conflict about the widgets is not of this sort. It is local and temporary. But you see a society without even local and temporary conflicts. I think you have beens moking something fairly heavy.


>Of course your example was about a conflict between supplier and customer
>in what is effectively a class society. You call it "market socialism", but
>I wouldn't call it socialism at all, a better name would be "democracy
>tempered market", if such a thing is possible.

Call it what you like, what are the classes when all able bodied people are both producers and owners, and no one is a wage worker? But my point was more general and applies to planned socialism too. The problem arises in planning pretty often, matter of fact.


>Ayhow, in the kind of society you describe, which retains class conflict
>between employers and employees,

No, not in anything I would call socialism.


>buyers and sellers,

These are not classes. What sort of Marxist are you?


>rulers and ruled,

Not classes, again.


>. But in the context of a socialist society, there would be no need for
>laws of contract and outside arbitration of contracts, because there would
>be no *irreconcilable* conflict of interest. The only disputes arising
>would be questions of priorities and strategies, which can best be settled
>democratically.

I'm lost. So, in my "contract" dispute, I go to the works' councul and ask for a vote in which, what? The contract breachers pay my damages? Make good their contract? And this is enforced how? Look, a court is, or can be, a democratic institution (most state court judgesa re elected, matter of fact, though I think appointed judiciaries make for better law); if you want to have disputes resolved by an arbitration board or even a works council, fine, but don't you sewe that as long the decisions are enforceable you have conceded everything I urged?


>
>If I may consider your example in the context of the sort of genuine
>socialist society I was discussing, if my production facility received 8000
>widgets late, I would probably whinge and moan, but put up with it. If they
>were no good, I would scrap them and get them somewhere else next time and
>tell everyone else. But either way, there is no loss in the capitalist
>sense. My plant produces goods for use, not for profit. The plant has lost
>production, society as a whole is microscopically less wealthy as a whole,
>but these things happen.

Meanwhile, my users are out what I was going to make them, and (since we are talking about a nonmarket socialism, arguendo, the plan is disrupted, and we have given the contract breachers no incentive whatsoever to behave better. Multiply thsi idae by every industry in the country,a nd you have (as Mises and Hayek predicted) no plan, nop predictability, no incentives to be efficient, you have al great balls-up, is what you have.


>
>You can see that, in this context, a legal battle is completely irrelevant.
>If someone was hurt as a result, then some kind of coronial inquest to
>determine the cause and recommend ways to avoid this happening in the
>future, would be called for. But contract law would be pointless,

That's what a contract case does: it determines what happened--was their breach? And if there was, it gives the breacher an incentive to find out what happened and to do better next time.

since all losses are socialised in a society where the means of production is socialised. The supplier of the faulty widgets suffers the same losses as the destined user.
>

??? Does the supplier of faulty parts for akidney diaylisis machine DIE?


> >>The decision can easily be enforced by the operators of a myriad of
>other production facilities. They would simply cease supplying raw
>materials etc to the rogue plant.
> >
> >That would fuck things up for everyone downstream of the plant. Do you
>want impose the costs of a local dispute on large chunks of society?
>
>Well, that *is* the point of socialising the means of production.

No it's not. The point of socialsim the means of production is to prevent concentrations of power, not to allow local disputes, possibilyt unju7stified, to bollocks up the whole economy. Also to allow society to subsidize desirable but perhaps inefficient activities and goods, not to subsidize (as here) unedesirable and inefficient acivities and goods.


> > ANd what if the boycott is unjustifiable? That is why in a contract suit
>you have procesdures for hearing both sides and submitting the decision as
>to facts and law to disinterested decisionmakers.
>
>It doesn't matter whether it is justified or not. In the end it is an issue
>that must be settled democratically. Again, that is the whole point of
>socialising the means of production.

Setrtled democratically. Again, go the works councila nd ask for a vote? Well, if you prefer taht to a court, fine, but "settled" suggest enforcement. Hwo are democratic decisions enforced?


>That's what *political* governance means. Government of the people. It
>isn't what economic government means. The latter, socialism, is about
>governing *things*, not people.

No succh thing. You can yell, LATHE, MAKE ME A WIDGET all you like, but unless you have ther human input, it won't. Government is a relation among people, not between people and things.


>But I fail to see what would be served by attempting to coerce workers at a
>plant to do something they aren't willing to do freely.
>

Getting things done in a reasonably timely and nonwasteful manner--getting working parts to the dialysis machines, for example, in time to keep people alive. That's an extreme example, but a real one.


>a socialist society does not require coercive mechanisms to force people to
>follow orders. It sounds much more attractive than a society which does.
>

If anyone could descrime for me--even abstractly--mechanism that would create incentives to behave in anything like the way you think theyw ll, I'd like to hear it.

jks

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