If I understand your question... I think there are genuinely useful tasks which managers monopolize... like planning, recruitment, keeping the big picture in mind, mediating arguments between workers, and being a representative so that communication doesn't have to involve a dozen people all the time.
(If we're all de facto equally empowered, sharing the skills and confidence to be leaders, then I have no problem following and leading at different times.)
Funnily enough, many tech middle-managers actually have a class analysis... they see that capitalists — or even anyone not knee-deep in the work — don't understand the work, so they explicitly shield workers from upper management's crap like umbrellas. Once I was taken aside by such a manager, who whispered asking me if I needed the CTO off my back. (He was whispering because the CTO was lurking about nearby. For reasons like this, I often use a 3-class analysis, with a kind of professional-managerial or "coordinator" class in the middle.)
All the best,
Tj
On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 4:20 PM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> Wrt open source, I hate to say it but I'm currently working in a
> windows shop. All microsoft, all the time. After working for years
> with the patched up hodge podge of open source toolery + MS word /
> excel + whatever was cheap 'n' easy for email ... all I can say is:
> Microsoft's office productivity and project management tools kick the
> ass of anything else I've ever used.
>
> I'm not clear on the use of "manager" and "mini-manager" here. and i'm
> especially confused by "inner mini-manager". Is the role of manager a
> bad thing, to be gotten rid of?
>
>
>
> Tayssir wrote:
> <> I agree. Right when you posted this, I simultaneously just posted a
> <> more pessimistic response (to one of your posts, in fact); and I hope
> <> you find much in it to agree with?
> <>
> <> I'm simultaneously excited about Doug's teasers about Yanis's upcoming
> <> story, and cynical about the hyperindividualist tech company-men who
> <> subordinate themselves so utterly to their boss's interests.
> <> ("Anarchism for the privileged" isn't any decent kind of anarchism.)
> <>
> <> I'm also excited over reading about highly participatory schools. More
> <> is naturally better. But to the extent that it's mainly privileged
> <> children who attend them and proceed to more effectively dominate
> <> other former children, there's also something horrific and terrible
> <> about their existence. I had such conflicting feelings of wonder and
> <> revulsion, the last time I stood in one of these schools and saw the
> <> happy/privileged children running around those benevolent/smug
> <> teachers.
> <>
> <>
> <> All the best,
> <> Tj
> <>
> <>
> <> On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 1:27 PM, lasko <lascaux at riseup.net> wrote:
> <>> On 6/25/12 6:31 AM, Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
> <>>>
> <>>> Some resources to momentarily sate those impatient to hear more
> <>>> about
> <>>> Valve's workplace...
> <>>
> <>>
> <>> I'm not sure what this shows except that capitalist enterprises can
> <>> function
> <>> without managers or by making everyone into a manager - that's what
> <>> the
> <>> Github experience is, apparently:
> <>>
> <>> "It's often cited that GitHub doesn't have managers. In my opinion,
> <>> a better
> <>> way to describe the phenomenon would be to say that everyone at
> <>> GitHub is a
> <>> manager. Instead of assigning 100% management duties to individuals,
> <>> the
> <>> basic role of management is spread between 1.) every single
> <>> employee, and
> <>> 2.) a set of custom in-house tools that serve to keep everyone in
> <>> the know
> <>> with regards to other projects."
> <>>
> <>> http://tomayko.com/writings/management-style
> <>>
> <>> It is possible to frame the cultivation of your inner mini-manager
> <>> combined
> <>> with technologies of surveillance in a less positive fashion.
> <>>
> <>> Furthermore, the essential capitalist relation of production -
> <>> private
> <>> property - is still intact. The broader relations of production
> <>> beyond a
> <>> group of elite programmers at a single company is unaddressed.
> <>>
> <>> With Valve, a producer of "first-person shooter" games, you have not
> <>> just
> <>> "the perfect place to test things like virtual currencies, real-time
> <>> econometric modeling, and democratic, egalitarian, long-term public
> <>> planning," but also the reproduction and intensification of less
> <>> desirable
> <>> activities. Refer to Valve's scholarly publication "Rendering Wounds
> <>> in Left
> <>> 4 Dead 2."
> <>>
> <>> Yannis' second blog post, in describing the gamer economy within
> <>> Valve's
> <>> Steam platform, repeats what someone following Graeber might call
> <>> the barter
> <>> fallacy. On examination, Steam's barter economy would seem to
> <>> confirm
> <>> Graeber: it arose in a currency-less virtual world populated by
> <>> people
> <>> already accustomed to real-world currencies. The upcoming
> <>> development of
> <>> their "virtual currency" is taking place in a virtual world where
> <>> the entire
> <>> population has the role of soldier.