I have trouble with this theory.
Not only does it more or less discredit itself-- being based on a Post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy-- but rarely is there any actual economic reasoning presented to back it up.
I do not have the citations handy, though I suppose many can be found in the 1970's publication "Worker's Control" which has contributions from the likes of David Ellerman, Daniel Bell and Andre Gorz.
The theory that a future socialism can only follow the supposed productive bonanza of Capitalism is refuted by facts such as:
- Shop floor studies often conclude that worker's are more productive when they have more control over their work environment.
- Studies of early Kibutzim and other co-operative enterprises have often shown far greater labour productivity and more efficient use of Capital.
- The commons-based "Cottage Industries" of the early industrial era produced more innovation and more product and in greater variety than their private factory counterparts.
- Issues such as management information asynchronousity and the principal-agent problem seem to make the likelyhood of a top-down hierarchical system based on property ownership being productive unlikely.
Etc, etc...
The fact is that Capitalism did not achieve dominance by any great suitability to productivity, but rather by using force and terror to monopolize the means of production by way of poor laws, enclosure laws, anti-combination laws, anti-socialist laws, and other acts of barbarism.
Economics 101 tells us that in a free market capital can never capture more than it's replacement cost. How then can a Capitalist class exist? Only by preventing independent access to the means of production by terrorizing the population.
As we know that the addition of capital greater increases the productivity of labour, in what way is limiting the availability of capital to labour in the interests of a parasitic class productive?
In what way is the often brutal, forceful destruction of commons-based production and subjugation of the proletariat in order to provide for the parasitic accumulation of the bourgeoisie not barbarism?
[WS:] First, it is so refreshing to hear structural-economic arguments from the European left - a nice counterbalance to the counterculturalist kvetching, identity politics, and the laundry list of grievances that tend to dominate the discourse on this side of the pond.
Now to the substance of your argument. While your argument is essentially on the right track, it fails to address the organization of economic activities, which is to a large extent determined by the nature of the tasks themselves. To illustrate, you can make clothing in a factory or you can make them in cottage industry - and then compare which type of organization is more effective under what sets of conditions. However, to run, say, a railroad, you need a large fairly hierarchical structure - cottage industry simply will not do.
The alternatives to vertical integration have been extensively addressed in various organizational theories. Various institutionalist approaches are far more advanced in this respect than classical economics, which includes Marxism. The latest school of thought in neo-institutionalism, AFIK, is the replacement of vertical hierarchies with well integrated networks of smaller (and thus relatively non-hierarchical) producers. Examples may include franchising, producer cooperatives, retailers, some airlines, or even railroads in the spate of privatization in Europe. And of course services are particularly conducive to this organizational form.
The bottom line of this argument is that the network provides for the deficiencies that small producers cannot effectively address themselves: access to capital-intensive technologies, access to distribution networks, and reduction of transaction costs. Once the network takes care of these concerns, smaller producers have a chance to capitalize on their natural advantages: flexibility, innovation, and no need for hierarchy (which carries considerable cost in large organizations).
However, I still remain skeptical as to whether networks can maintain and regulate themselves, or whether they need a still larger regulatory environment, such as the state or the banking system. I am inclined toward the latter, since there are important national and global considerations that affect economic activities of producers, yet cannot be effectively addressed by networks alone. But I am willing to entertain arguments to the contrary.
Wojtek