How do we concieve of Bureaucracy?

[Jimmie Higgins]

How do people here think of Bureaucracy in capitalist society? What are the links or differneces between government beureaucracies and ones in business? What causes this developen in both or in each?

I've been reading Harry Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital" and he makes an argument that "beureacratization" in business is largely a misnomer and that it's actually a result of Taylorism rationalizing not only the physical work, but the mental work of production. In other words, beureacracy in work is not the result of increased "complexity" or scale of industry but because of the de-skilling and de-crafting of work which seperates planning from doing in the labor process. Thoughts?

[tuwix]

I think that present growth of bureaucracy is effect of Keynesian economics. Certainly, bureaucracy is as old as state and maybe even older. Taylorism undoubtedly has been producing an unemployment and to prevent revolutionary behaviors Keynes proposed employment a people by state that in practice meant a growth of bureaucracy. Nonetheless, if Taylorism didn't exist, there would be other systems of cost minimization. Then Keynes used to say that one person employed by state causes a few in private economy. He wasn't right, but really an employment of state bureaucracy causes a corporate employment. How? Simply a state bureaucracy invents a regulations that demand a greater employment by private economy.

However, IMHO bureaucracy is pretty detrimental. They block economic growth by their regulations. Usually they are corrupted by bourgeoisie to make regulations good for some part of them and bad for competing part. Nevertheless, it's impossible to organize society without bureaucracy. So I think that elimination of unemployment by growth of bureaucracy is detrimental to economy. But an alternative isn't acceptable for bourgeois dogmas and mythology. An alternative are forms of unlimited in time unemployment benefit. But if you pay for nothing, then the capitalist dogma that only hard work make you successful in society is becoming irrelevant. Certainly this dogma is a myth because an economic success is usually obtained by forms of advanced theft.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How do people here think of Bureaucracy in capitalist society? What are the links or differneces between government beureaucracies and ones in business? What causes this developen in both or in each?

I've been reading Harry Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital" and he makes an argument that "beureacratization" in business is largely a misnomer and that it's actually a result of Taylorism rationalizing not only the physical work, but the mental work of production. In other words, beureacracy in work is not the result of increased "complexity" or scale of industry but because of the de-skilling and de-crafting of work which seperates planning from doing in the labor process. Thoughts?

That might be the case - but surely Taylorism itself is the result of the increasing complexity of capitalism? I don't think a modern large-scale capitalist enterprise can be run on the basis of highly-skilled workers. But if anything, this is a good thing - the simplifying of administrative tasks makes communism possible, after all.

[Thirsty Crow]

That might be the case - but surely Taylorism itself is the result of the increasing complexity of capitalism? I don't think a modern large-scale capitalist enterprise can be run on the basis of highly-skilled workers. But if anything, this is a good thing - the simplifying of administrative tasks makes communism possible, after all.
Modern, large scale, mechanized industrial production historically preceded scientific management which was nothing more than class struggle waged by the ruling class, and far from it that it only represents deskilling.
Also, and I can't help myself really, I wonder whether this view of scientific management could have something to do with the historical assessments of it by people like Lenin and Trotsky.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Modern, large scale, mechanized industrial production historically preceded scientific management which was nothing more than class struggle waged by the ruling class, and far from it that it only represents deskilling.

First of all, while it is true that large-scale mechanised production precedes scientific management and similar methods, I'm not sure if such production could be called "modern" in any way. That, however, is neither here nor there. I think we are basically in agreement that Taylorism allows the bourgeoisie to squeeze a bit more out of the workers for a bit less in wages, money spent on education etc. That is why you call Taylorism class struggle waged by the ruling class - correctly, in my view.

This struggle was, however, necessitated by the historic tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which is due to, in part, the increasing complexity of the processes of production, leading to changes in the organic composition of capital etc. etc. In the modern period, an enterprise that doesn't employ some sort of scientific management will be ejected from the market due to its inefficiency.


Also, and I can't help myself really, I wonder whether this view of scientific management could have something to do with the historical assessments of it by people like Lenin and Trotsky.

Possibly. But as I see it, there is an argument to be made for a "socialist" Taylorism regardless of what Lenin or Trotsky thought about it (and it's not as if these two gentlemen were immune to mistakes). First of all, as we've established Taylorism allows the bourgeoisie to squeeze a bit more out of the workers for a bit less in wages, apprenticeship schemes, education funds etc. That is how things are in the capitalist mode of production, under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. But in a workers' state, Taylorism would allow the proletariat to produce more and spend less of the value produced on unnecessary education.

Furthermore, the de-skilling of administrative tasks, which is of course merely one aspect of Taylorism, is one of the prerequisites for a proletarian dictatorship, since otherwise administrative tasks would have to be carried out by a special stratum of workers, with all the problems that entails.

As for my attitude to Lenin and Trotsky, I recognise that they made mistakes - big mistakes, occasionally, such as with the VIKZheDor, certain parts of one-man management. But I have no interest in being an armchair PredSovNarKom and criticising them because "I could do better".

[Jimmie Higgins]

Braverman has a really nice phrase about this (he was and his book still is accused of romanticizing craft-labor):

To paraphrase: I don't hold nostalgia for a world of labor that has passed, but I do have nostalgia for a world of labor that has not yet come into existance.

Basically he argues that the "wholness" of craft-labor (knowlegeable skill, humane methods of working, relative autonomy and independance) could be done along with modern technical methods and divisions of labor - if the "doers" are not seperate from the "planners". That it's political, that it's because of capitalist rule.

He argues that "bureaucratization of work" is too weberian of a concept (that it's "neutral" according to pro-capitalists and necissary for complicated tasks). He argues it's much more about control creating efficient use of the worker's labor power, than about "efficient" production. In fact Taylor's first critics were capitalists who thought that planning departments were a useless expense because workers already knew how to do their stuff in the craft sense.

[Thirsty Crow]

First of all, while it is true that large-scale mechanised production precedes scientific management and similar methods, I'm not sure if such production could be called "modern" in any way. That, however, is neither here nor there.Sure, semantic quibbles (a prime example would be what constitutes something to be called "modern") are neither here nor there but the real question is why does a person engage in such petty and insignificant kind of thing in the first place. Or in other words, it's up to you to explain yourself.

I think we are basically in agreement that Taylorism allows the bourgeoisie to squeeze a bit more out of the workers for a bit less in wages, money spent on education etc. That is why you call Taylorism class struggle waged by the ruling class - correctly, in my view.


This struggle was, however, necessitated by the historic tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which is due to, in part, the increasing complexity of the processes of production, leading to changes in the organic composition of capital etc. etc. In the modern period, an enterprise that doesn't employ some sort of scientific management will be ejected from the market due to its inefficiency.Real fine and dandy. Though, we seem to have a problem:


But if anything, this is a good thing - the simplifying of administrative tasks makes communism possible, after all.
Possibly. But as I see it, there is an argument to be made for a "socialist" Taylorism regardless of what Lenin or Trotsky thought about it (and it's not as if these two gentlemen were immune to mistakes).The first aspect would be that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about when you're referencing the simplification of administrative tasks in relation to scientific management.
The second aspect, as if this wasn't atrocious enough, is that bringing this in relation to "socialist Taylorism" really cannot be taken as nothing short of a disastrous failure to recognize the potentials and tasks of the social revolution; just observe the sweet talk of managing value production under a "workers' state":


Taylorism would allow the proletariat to produce more and spend less of the value produced on unnecessary education
Couple this with the frankly completely wrong understanding of what scientific management historically entailed, both in what orto-trots would call a workers' state and a capitalist state proper:


Furthermore, the de-skilling of administrative tasks, which is of course merely one aspect of Taylorism......as scientific management did not in fact deskill administration and management, but on the contrary expanded it to an unprecedented scale (just as a side note, a subfield of psychology called the psychology of labor coincides in its chronological formation with...you guess what).

And what do you get?

At best, you get a bloody mess of factual errors and political deadweight. At worst, well I'll let others decided for themselves which words to use here.