Originally posted by
[email protected] 10 2003, 12:41 AM
im not talking about straightline communism here, but isnt it possible for a corporation to be government run
ok, example, if the United States were to become a leftist country, instead of dissolving corporations like Apple and Sony, wouldnt it be possible for the government to help run them
like you will have a large committee who helps to run the company, but gets paid as a normal working person because thats all they are, and are equal to everyone else, so that would root out people like Bill Gates, and the consumers and employees would be free to submit their input
yes, large sums of money would be run through the corporations to make these goods, but it would be closely monitored, and no large sum of this money would fall into any greedy hands
i hope im being clear
but would that be at all possible?
Of course it would be possible. It is in essence exactly what every socialist or communist with any grasp of the problems of organisation, production planning, and distribution suggest.
Those who say 'NO, all government involvement is bad' (Anarchists and 'Anarcho-communists') really never suceed in answering even the simplest questions about how their proposed system of economic relations would succeed in matching supply to demand.
'Government' may not be the best word to use for the form of central administration that I would advocate as it carries connutations of decisions being made by an 'elite'; but interpreted with a bit of intelligence to convey the gist of what you are saying it's fine.
If you would 'just ask the commune making the article' then you :
1. Have to first find out who it is that actually makes the thing (would you know who actuall Makes an X-box?).
2. You have to find a way to communicate with them (who is going to provide this service?)
3. You have to be sure that what they mean by an 'X-Box' is what you mean by it. In other words that there isn't another commune making X-Boxes that are what you really want'. This sounds a lot easier to resolve than it is.
4. You have to hope that they either make an infinite number of X-boxes or that somebody else who perhaps wanted an X-Box (labour cost probably 10 hours or so), but only so he could try it out for 10 mins did not get in and take the last one. In other words the scheme provides no way for people to express their valuation of things.
5. You have to find a way to get it delivered (who does this?)
There are , of course many many more problems with this 'decentralised, value free' nonsense, but it is fairly complex (because we are talking about analysing a complete system, it's how it hangs together that it is in question) and I've gone into it elsewhere recently (market socialism and 'how would anarchists deliever value) without ever recieving any answers to even the most basic practical questions from anarchists.*
And BTW the problems of providing consumer goods in a remotely efficient way under the anarchist scheme is as nothing to the problems when you start to talk about production goods.
IF you want an economy that gradually becomes more and more inefficient at producing less and less of what people want and giving what is produced to those who may want it hardly at all rather than those who want it a lot; anarchism is the way to go. Its like running an economy based on sheer chance and wishful thinking.
In summary, You are basically correct. They are talking about a magical mystery land in which cause and effect and co-ordination are not required for anything. Or more succinctly they describe how to run a stone age society.
* A very brief illustration of this problem :
To make an X-Box you need (among 100's, possibly 1000's of other things) memory chips. Not all memory chips are equally as good, or equally as expensive to make. So what you do is weigh up the relative advantages of each balanced against their cost and the resulting difference in value to the end consumer. Then you attempt to purchase that chip. You dont purchase 'the highest quality/ specification chip' neccessarily, because it could be overkill. And overkill means in effect wasted production effort. Social effort if its a socialist society.
But now in the Anarchist economy you dont have any expression of relative value from the consumer to work on. Everything is merely 'I want it', or 'I dont'.
So how do you know what chip is appropriate ? Answer you dont; so (nothing having an expressed use value or related purchase price) you will have to either just guess or (far more likely) simply demand the best available (why not, after all its free to you).
The end result is not an X-Box, but a super X box. Fine you probably say. But it isnt fine at all; because this means that far far more production effort has gone into the X-Box; which means (obviously) that eother fewer people can have them, or that something else people want is in short supply.
In short you have not balanced need/ desire against production.
You end up with a society in which 1 person in 100 has a Rolls Royce but everyone else has nothing; And the person with the Roller may not even especially want it.
You end up with Farmers using top of the range Combine Harvesters to do the work of a tiny tractor (but most Farmers dont even have a tractor).
You end up with a mickey mouse chip producer having the latest, best, most labour saving automated assembly tool; while a successful one is using antiquated equipment.
And this means, of course, that fewer chips het produced.
Which means that (because chips get used in the manufacture of assembly tools) fewer assembly tools get produced.
Which means that it becomes even less likely that the successful (now not so successful) chip manufacturer can get the great tool.
And so on, and so on.
Its an endless downward spiral which only stops descending at the level of pre-industrialised cottage industries.