[lbo-talk] How would democratic ownership and control move us towards serving human needs?

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] Well, when I take a train or a flight, or have a surgery, I do
not expect democratic governance.  In fact, I would avoid a railroad,
an airline or a hospital in which every decision must be vetted by so
collective ritual of democratic governance. In such circumstances the
abdication of responsibility to some technical authority is not only
seen as a problem but it seems as a natural thing.   In organizational
theory these are called "tightly coupled systems" - where well defined
responsibilities and well defined chain of command is a requirement of
effective performance.

I think that the problem of democratic governance is over-theorized to
death by the anarchist types. I am reading Graeber's book on the
anarchist movement, and in my view those guys seem to go waaay into
the left field with their obsessive preoccupation with a "democratic
process."  In real life, most people have no problems abdicating their
responsibility to others if situation warrants it, and - I may add, if
that abdication is reciprocal.  That is, today I abdicate my
responsibility to you because I defer to your judgment on X, but I
expect you to abdicate your responsibility to me when it comes to
deciding Y, which is my forte.

I think this pre-occupation with the process comes from two sources.
First is the influence of bourgeois concept of democracy as a formal
process rather than substantive guarantees.  Second is the lack of
reciprocity in most current

 institutional arrangements.  That is, some classes of people have
little or no voice and resent it by demanding a process that gives an
absolute guarantee or no hierarchy whatsoever.

I think that in reality the problem can be easily solved by employing
principles of reciprocity.  Workers' councils making strategic
decisions or deciding salaries and tenure of management would be an
example.  This is not that difficult to implement in an institution.
And this micro-institutional level is what that matters the most -
democracy at a national level is an abstraction and empty word most of
time.

In short, the problem is not as insolvable as it seems.  We do not
need extraordinary measures to achieve a workable solution.  In any
case I need to run to catch my evening train, but I would be glad to
continue this conversation.

Wojtek