> Message: 2
> From: "boddhisatva" <boddhisatva at netzero.net>
> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 15:30:32 -0700
> Subject: [lbo-talk] parecon
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>
>
>
> Doug wrote:
>
> "Speaking of which, Michael Albert is standing by to join the list for
> a discussion of parecon. I'd like to do that but I thought I'd ask -
> how much interest is there here?"
>
> Very much interest as long as somebody defines parecon for me.
>
> On the article itself, I almost feel I can dismiss it out of hand. This
> theory of a techno-managerial "class" is just wrong. Any worker can (and
> many workers do) serve the owning class above and beyond making them
> profits. Any worker can serve the cultural and social aims of the bosses.
> The significance of the techno-managerial group is that they have skills
> which capitalists need for their own work (such as finance and law) or
that
> they are "keystone" workers, meaning they are a small number of workers
with
> crucial technical skills, thus forcing capitalists not to push them too
> hard. Furthermore, culturally, the capitalist cult of "meritocracy"
demands
> that capitalists associate themselves with those whom the society admires.
>
> I think the premise of the article is completely unsupported by the
> evidence. Communist countries produced plenty of highly skilled people
> relative to countries at a comparable level of development and spreading
> those skills around did absolutely nothing to make the Soviet Union et al
> more democratic. The reason is quite simply control of the means of
> production/capital. The Party had it and nobody else did. That made them
> the ruling class. The question for parecon is what will justify someone's
> sitting at the table when it comes time to make decisions about the means
of
> production. In capitalism it's money. In Soviet-style statism it's rank
in
> the military-industrial elite. In socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, parecon
> or whatever you want to call it, it has to be something different.
>
>
> peace,
>
> boddi
But I think your ignoring the evidence that exists within capitalism. Your
view of capital/ownership of production as being the only currency of power
in capitalism is very one dementional. You ignore that fact that those with
a high level of skill in a profession can wield more power than those who
don't. I think your mistaken if you think that someone with an MBA, an
accounting degree, or a skill in computor science doesn't have more power
within business than front line workers in manufacturing or those doing
janitorial work. But I would concede that those who weild the most power do
so through the control of capital and the ownership of production. But I
think its possible to work out problems in advance logically without having
to be tied to impirical evidence. Which brings me to the question I think
Albert and Hanel asked when they came up with parecon, if your working
towards a true democratic model of self-management, what is going to keep
those with higher expertise and knowlege from dominating the decision
process and in the end becoming a an elite group or class with more
privileges and power?