[WS:] I think I did propose something to democratize "state bureaucracies" no? In my book, the problem is not with state bureaucracies, by which I mean career civil servants, but with political parties guarding public access to- and working of- these bureaucracies. I think it is political parties that pimp public administration to the highest bidder, not "state bureaucrats." The old George Washington already warned about the scourge of political parties in the US. I do not think you can do away with political parties in a democracy, but the more you weaken their discretionary power over public administration and subject it to popular control, the better. For that reason, I suggested that the main strategic demand of the OWS or a movement that emerges from it should be reform of our electoral system to open space for more political representation of minority interests. That may not be your idea of democratizing the state, but it certainly is a proposal to do so. As you said, I am an institutionalist and I simply do not see how a modern society can possibly function without the state and formal organizations.
As to the democratization of the production process - I do not think much can be done here before you have a legal system and a government in place that is ready to back up organized labor. Without legislation that puts organized labor on equal footing with the management, workplace is either pipe a dream or a ruse of the "new economy" charlatans. It is really a no brainer, just compare Sweden or Norway to the US or the UK and you will see it in plain view. Again, my idea of workplace democratization is collective bargaining, union representation on the board, legal protection from abuses on the job, legally guaranteed living wage and a generous welfare state. In other words, I believe that things should go in certain order - first let's establish social democracy, and then let's think how to democratize the workplace. Some may laugh at this concept of democracy, but then I laugh at their artisan-anarchistic utopias.
Finally, as I said elsewhere - the success of the Old left was its grand vision, not its recipes for the process. In fact, their grand vision saved them for quite a while from the rather horrible aspects of their process. So when I see preoccupation with the process but no grand vision, I lose interest rather quickly.
Wojtek
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Woj, what Max said. So my question remains.
>
> I read reviews of Lange's stuff years ago and so had a sense of what you
> were pointing to, thanks for again assuming folks here don't know what we're
> talking about AND for, as has often been the case, not answering the
> question.
>
> You have a future dream image of state-based experts using sophisticated
> statistical measures to assess the utility of socialist market price points
> as a means of allocating resources for the production and distribution of
> various goods, and presumably services. This is in line with your
> commitments to left Progressivism, a hopeful left Weberian
> technocratophilia. Not only is there nothing about the process by which the
> world might move from here to there but there is nothing but silent glosses
> over Old Left demands for democratizing production or New Left demands for
> democratizing state bureaucracies... to my mind, at least, socialism's not
> socialism unless production, representation and administration are
> democratized. But, heck, its probably easier not to have to risk doing
> anything, you know like working with people to make change, and be able to
> carp from the sidelines while holding on to a post-processual/post-struggle
> dream of benevolent scientific management...
>
> A
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Max Sawicky <sawicky at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Been there, read that, liked it, but there's nothing about the politics of
>> getting there.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 7:12 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > . . .
>> > [WS:] I made a specific reference to what I believe might work (Oskar
>> > Lange, his Economic Theory of Socialism to be more specific,) so read
>> > the fucking book before you start criticizing, man.
>> >
>> >
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