[lbo-talk] Request for comments on the new intro for my book

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sun Mar 8 14:40:41 PDT 2009


This is a collection of random thoughts and notes. Hope it helps.

I agree other posts about `unique'. Pick a different word. It sounds more like a sales pitch to a publisher, rather than a presentation to the reader.

``As this book shows, he [Adam Smith] had to go to great lengths in presenting the economy as a voluntaristic system by carefully excluding dramatic economic changes that were already underway literally in his own neighborhood.''

You might consider a brief example. Just looking around on the web, one history claims the vast increase in economic wealth in 18thC England was due to road building and `turnpikes', i.e toll roads. I dimmly remember mention of US northeastern canals, the Erie Canal as a similar infrastructure system.

``This book will explore the causes and consequences of the inability of economics to put aside the utopian vision of Adam Smith's metaphor of a harmonious economy.''

I don't know if you do this, but some brief social history might help develop the point. Here's how I would background it. Smith (1723-1790) lived and worked smack in the middle of the neoclassical revival in architecture as a reaction to the excess of the French court under Louis IV with Versailles as the counter-example. Here's a quick architectural history:

http://www.geocities.com/rr17bb/neoarch.html

What's occurring in the culture of the bourgeois and intellectual elite was the identification of antiquity as an ideal for building a secular society that would undercut the hereditary privilage of the large estate holding aristocracy, the church with its theological, moral and social doctrines, and the divine right of kings to rule, i.e. feudalism. The evolving view of society was to idealize the individual as a blank slate (the self), the rural independent farmer, the urban shop owner and tradesman, as if these were all that constituted society. First Locke (1632-1704) then Hume(1711-1776) and Smith (1723-1790) all shared this view that constituted the enlightenment ideal of Man and Society. It was this ideal (via Voltaire and Rousseau) that drove the take over of Louis XVI's Estates General, assembled to enact monetary reforms. In other words, Locke, Hume, and Smith represent the bourgeois, the Third Estate. While they no doubt approved of declaring themselves the National Assembly, they were certainly not ready to admit the indentured masses, landless peasant and urban masses into the national body. These latter were deemed irrational, brutish, of limited intellectual capacity, and therefore unsuited to the business of running the nation.---nevermind these bruts actually build the place.

In other words, the social history of that time became embodied in the ideas of the time, to become our `liberal' ideology of free markets and democracy. While Smith et al opposed slavery, none the less slaves and a whole variety of indentured classes built the modern state (because they did the actual work), along with what developed into the industrial revolution, where again the actual work, the production was performed by nameless masses. These university types valued their own scribbling more than the tradecraft that build their towers, desks, pens, books, and coffee houses. I haven't read Smith and should, but do these jerks ever wonder where their coffee and tea came from, and how these got to the citadels of reason?

I think a quick overview of the social history of Adam Smith would go a long way toward understanding his lack of attention to production.

``In the process, The Invisible Handcuffs will explore the nature of the real production process, in which employers attempt to impose their will on recalcitrant workers. In the real world, in place of Smith's voluntarism, business and public agencies routinely take strong measures to control labor, belying Smith's theory of the mutual interests of business and labor.''

All good points.

``The Invisible Handcuffs turns Adam Smith upside down. In contrast to the vision of a harmonious economy as imagined by Smith, this book accepts that the interests of employers and workers are largely at odds. The basic problem regarding this conflict is not so much that rebellious workers will stage some sort of uprising in the workplace, although such events do happen at times. Instead, this book addresses a more corrosive result: the effort to control labor creates an atmosphere that destroys respect as well as the free flow of information, both of which are essential in an efficient modern economy.''

I would put this in stronger terms, sneaking Marx through the back door. Maybe a graphic with Smith's Invisible Hand as a fat clinched fist splattering workers like cockroaches on the dinner table.

I know, too strident. But consider a more forceful description. I mean, as a worker, I chose power over respect, and know bloody well, respect will follow power.

``In contrast, a rational economy would offer workers a helping hand, visible or not -- not just in terms of providing a higher standard of living, but even far more important, helping workers to develop their potential. This neglect of workers' potential both at the workplace and in society at large represents an enormous loss -- both social and economic.''

There is an intimately related problem. In corporate culture what has evolved is the dominance of marketing departments. The upper management sets goals and plans production based on what the marketing dept says will sell or might sell better. Everybody from the highest technical people down to the production line are cut out of the equation. The job of the engineering labs is to make what marketing says it wants. The real killer of innovation is marketing departments.

The main job of production engineering is to come up with the cheapest thing that looks like what marketing says it wants. The reason I got into reading about Mikhail Kalashinikov was because his basic inventions came from the bottom of the army ranks. Here's the history link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Kalashnikov

``I like to think that many economists are like the Bearded Slave, deep down struggling to emerge from the self-censorship that engulfs the discipline...''

The Slave series is indeed a great metaphor. But I identify them with the common man or woman, hewn from the earth itself. They link up in my mind with the struggling workers of the world, etc. So, then the metaphor applied to the technocratic elite like the economist doesn't work for me. Although I sympathize with the good intention to depict them as struggling to free their minds, I am afraid I doubt they will succeed. Where is the motivation? Talking trash about the virtues of the free market doesn't sound like a promising career path.

Over all, I think the introduction really gets going after this sentence:

``Ever since the time of Adam Smith, economists' efforts to justify this dysfunctional system of control have led them to develop a theory that emphasizes commercial transactions (buying and selling) to the exclusion of production.''

The description of what workers can offer is a little weak. I am a big believer that skilled labor working itself up the ranks of production really can transform a company. That idea used to be more common in my father's generation. I mean that was the promise of being a smart and efficient worker. I was a smart and efficient worker and got nowhere. There has definitely been a dump down on skilled labor and any promise of moving up.

One time I met a big VP for C.R.Bard, come out from New Jersey to see what we were doing with his new aquisition. He had big hands and a slightly rough manner. I ask him where he stated. He started as a line forman. He took one look at my shop and said, it looks labor intensive to me. In other words, he knew what he was looking at: a highly skilled workplace. For him that translated into, costs too much.

You know, you're going to have to satisfy a bunch of picky bastards (like Doug) who will want to know how you propose to `measure' things like skill and work.

I asked my foreman on a commerical construction job, how come electricans get better pay than carpenters. He thought for a moment and said, well the company needs more carpenters. The skill issue in question was the comprehensive knowledge of architecture and building principles, v. the special and limited knowledge of electrical systems.

The point is that in addition to economists ignoring production, there is a whole culture of labor custom to also overcome.

I'll be very interested in reading the book.

CG



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