How to keep workers engaged in workplace governance?

[Catma]

Also, in governance in general.

An extremely important part of an effective socialist or communist government would be continuing democratic participation. Without it, some will find ways to change the rules and erode any system that is put into place.

The generally terrible voter turnout in current capitalistic countries is perhaps a bad sign for this hope. People cannot be bothered to exercise even this most cursory civil duty.

But on the other hand, maybe it's the illusory nature of the power offered by capitalist "representative" "democracy" that turns off voters. How does this process work?

1) Citizen votes.
2) The representative doesn't do what the citizen wants.
3) Citizen votes again differently.
4) The representative still doesn't do what the citizen wants.
...(similar occurrences)...
5) Disillusionment.

So what is there to stop this process from occurring in a socialist system? Better voting procedures like, perhaps, IRV, and instant-recall provisions would no doubt help. I think it's still quite likely that there will be some perpetual level of general discontent with government - gripes go up, after all.

This also brings up the issue of local vs. national politics. People are far more interested in the large, sexy issues grappled with in national politics than petty local issues. My assumption is that a socialist system will give people more power in both areas, but the average person will still not have any appreciable power in the more interesting national arena.

People will probably become more engaged with small-scale workplace issues, as they will finally have new power that they've never used before. Do you think this will lend itself to increased engagement in all segments of governance? I have a sneaking suspicion it would wear off in a few generations if it were not maintained somehow.

What institutions could be used to maintain citizen engagement and a sense of civil responsibility? Education should obviously play a part.

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to reduce the workday by a certain amount of time, and devote that time to mandatory workplace meetings once every week or two?

Sorry for the rambling post. There are lots of interconnected concerns with this issue.

[thriller]

Well I think your take on citizens not voting because of US "democracy" is somewhat correct. Obviously I don't speak for everyone, but if one is a revolutionary, what's the point of voting? I actually vote, but for certain reasons. In other countries, such as Australia (please correct me if I'm wrong Aussie's), they have mandatory voting laws, and one can be fined or even imprisoned if they refuse to cast a ballot. I think TV and commercialism has a lot to do with people not voting/being pissed off/general distaste for the status quo. Also I think representative "democracy" is a shitty idea. Instead of the candidates going around to their constituents and asking what THEY WANT, they person running for offices TELLS THEM WHAT THEY WANT. It's backwards, it doesn't work. I feel in communist society, direct democracy would replace the republic in this country.
As far as the work place goes, studies have shown (no I don't have the sources on me, was in my sociology book last year) that when one is more involved in their workplace and have a say in it's operations, they feel better about their job and are happier. This obviously leads to better production, cuz when someones depressed, they don't work as "hard" as someone who isn't. There is a grocery store in my city that is employee owned and union run. I know people who worked there. And while it wasn't the best job, they felt more important than at other places they worked.
About local vs. national, I think I'm an exception to the rule. While war and the economy affects everyone, I am more concerned about issues in Wisconsin because it's my home, the people I love are here, and I have a deep connection to it.

I hate America, but I fuckin' love Wisconsin :D

[ckaihatsu]

---





[In] this day and age of fluid digital-based communications, we may want to dispense with formalized representative personages altogether and just conceptualize a productive entity within a supply chain network as having 'external business' or 'external matters' to include in its regular routine of entity-collective co-administration among its participants.





It seems to me that if we can read newspapers, watch TV news, and participate on the net *today*, on matters of the status quo that are kept *outside* of our reach, we can certainly do the same in a post-capitalist political environment in which a liberated labor *is* empowered.





in my opinion, there needs to be significant power of workers to manage collectively the places where they work or workers liberation from class subordination won't be a reality.





In such an environment the process of politics could probably be allowed to rise to greater, more meaningful heights than what we currently experience. This would mean a general culture in which people's attentions *are* on effective politics for a much larger proportion of their professional work time. Functionality itself, even, might very well take a backseat to the more-important collective process and mass decisions that come out of such a liberated political culture.

To this end I have to re-question whether delegative democracy -- of *any* kind -- would be necessary at all, or whether mass participation could take place on a very distributed, flat-topology political terrain....

[Sixiang]

First of all, I second what the last two responses said.



1) Citizen votes.
2) The representative doesn't do what the citizen wants.
3) Citizen votes again differently.
4) The representative still doesn't do what the citizen wants.
...(similar occurrences)...
5) Disillusionment.

This is why I am generally hostile towards the idea of representative democracy as I know it in America, and I'm sure that is how it works in other western capitalist countries, too. I would propose, if not total direct democracy, then at least a lot more direct democracy on a lot more issues, with maybe some elected clerical positions to just hammer out paperwork and other things of the sort. No more of this "vote for me and I'll solve all of your problems" bullshit that Republicrats spew out every 2 years.

As far as keeping workers engaged, I think that if the workers are introduced to a fair, worker controlled work environment and to revolutionary ideas in general, then the will be interested in their work. I know that if I was to work in a place that entirely controlled by the workers themselves, I would feel pretty passionate about it. Or at least, I would be more excited than I am now about going to work, which is not very much at all. Also, I support ckaihatsu's idea about periodically recycling jobs so that no one person can become too attached to the position of being a public official and so that anyone that is in a high public position will also be forced to work in the more monotonous jobs so that they will always be up-to-date on work life and not get too attached to the bureaucratic work.

[ckaihatsu]

Also, I support ckaihatsu's idea about periodically recycling jobs so that no one person can become too attached to the position of being a public official and so that anyone that is in a high public position will also be forced to work in the more monotonous jobs so that they will always be up-to-date on work life and not get too attached to the bureaucratic work.


For the record I'd just like to note that I urge stronger consideration for the post-capitalist model that's at my blog entry, and attached below....





[T]here *could* be a "division of labor" in a post-commodity economic context, by which *mass demands* could be fulfilled by *mass liberated labor*, and *not* dependent on a perpetual avant garde sector of society for forward progress. In this way liberated labor would *not* be tied into being one and the same as those who politically *support* a project, and, likewise, those who *are* political and provide proposed plans for the use of society's collectivized machinery would not be constrained to their own ranks for the subsequent *implementation* of those (mass-approved) plans, as with their own liberated labor alone.


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/

[ckaihatsu]

Also, please note that *this* part of yours...





I know that if I was to work in a place that entirely controlled by the workers themselves, I would feel pretty passionate about it.


...is politically-functionally *incompatible* with *this* part:





Also, I support [...] periodically recycling jobs so that no one person can become too attached to the position of being a public official and so that anyone that is in a high public position will also be forced to work in the more monotonous jobs so that they will always be up-to-date on work life and not get too attached to the bureaucratic work.


What I mean is that if the workers entirely controlled the workplace themselves there would *be* no need for positions of public officials or solely bureaucratic work -- I'm quite sure of it.

Please reconsider what I wrote at post #3, particularly this part:





[In] this day and age of fluid digital-based communications, we may want to dispense with formalized representative personages altogether and just conceptualize a productive entity within a supply chain network as having 'external business' or 'external matters' to include in its regular routine of entity-collective co-administration among its participants.

[Sixiang]

Also, please note that *this* part of yours...





...is politically-functionally *incompatible* with *this* part:





What I mean is that if the workers entirely controlled the workplace themselves there would *be* no need for positions of public officials or solely bureaucratic work -- I'm quite sure of it.

Please reconsider what I wrote at post #3, particularly this part:
You make a good point. I did not notice that at first. I suppose that makes sense. So then, would representation be pretty much done with? Would everything be directly decided by everyone en mass?

[ckaihatsu]

You make a good point. I did not notice that at first. I suppose that makes sense. So then, would representation be pretty much done with? Would everything be directly decided by everyone en mass?


We might look to the way things are being done *now* -- albeit in the interests of an elite pinprick portion of the population.... From the emergent, extant politics of ownership the nation-state responds as if by telepathy, carrying out the practice of power and enforcement to represent these private interests.

The grandstanding we may see is the political *cultural* expression of these practices, put on public display merely for the sake of formalism and officialdom.

So we might *learn* from this display of official formalism, in the sense of looking *behind* such political representation to discover how matters are *decided* among those of ownership. Obviously the matters of greatest importance aren't going to be hashed out nakedly in the public view, because that would just encourage outside attempts at participation, leading to complications.

By this we know that matters of ownership and control are taken care of some *other* way, so that the political order overall is maintained and potential disputes are rendered non-existent -- I'll suggest that this is what the system of economics does. It formalizes ownership through the abstraction of value, so that as long as the overall valuation system can be said to be stable then all of the component matters *based* on that system of values are likewise valid.

That's why I encourage the consideration of the model I developed (at post #5), since it would likewise regularize a system of *labor* accounting, in a consistent way across-the-board, while displacing all claims to private ownership, and exploitation, of that labor.

[Sixiang]

That's why I encourage the consideration of the model I developed (at post #5), since it would likewise regularize a system of *labor* accounting, in a consistent way across-the-board, while displacing all claims to private ownership, and exploitation, of that labor.
I looked it over. It seems reasonable enough and understandable. I would be in favor of something like that.

[ckaihatsu]

I looked it over. It seems reasonable enough and understandable. I would be in favor of something like that.


Thanks! Please let other people know about it, and if you'd like to talk further about it let me know via messaging or email.

[Sixiang]

Thanks! Please let other people know about it, and if you'd like to talk further about it let me know via messaging or email.

Will do. This is the second chart from you that I've looked over that seems logical and understandable to me.

[ckaihatsu]

Will do. This is the second chart from you that I've looked over that seems logical and understandable to me.


Thanks. For the *first* chart you're probably referring to 'Rotation system of work roles', which is attached, below. The 'communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors' supersedes the rotation system alone because it provides for greater political-economic flexibility, for liberated labor, as I noted. The rotation system corresponds to the "avant garde sector" in the description at post #5, since all who participate in a work group would necessarily, by definition, have to be in political agreement with what the work group is doing.








[T]here *could* be a "division of labor" in a post-commodity economic context, by which *mass demands* could be fulfilled by *mass liberated labor*, and *not* dependent on a perpetual avant garde sector of society for forward progress. In this way liberated labor would *not* be tied into being one and the same as those who politically *support* a project, and, likewise, those who *are* political and provide proposed plans for the use of society's collectivized machinery would not be constrained to their own ranks for the subsequent *implementation* of those (mass-approved) plans, as with their own liberated labor alone.

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/


Rotation system of work roles

http://postimage.org/image/1d53k7nd0/

[Sixiang]

Thanks. For the *first* chart you're probably referring to 'Rotation system of work roles', which is attached, below. The 'communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors' supersedes the rotation system alone because it provides for greater political-economic flexibility, for liberated labor, as I noted. The rotation system corresponds to the "avant garde sector" in the description at post #5, since all who participate in a work group would necessarily, by definition, have to be in political agreement with what the work group is doing.





Rotation system of work roles

http://postimage.org/image/1d53k7nd0/
Yep, that's the one. I do have some deeper questions. I'll just friend you and send you messages.