State owned resturants - A bad idea?

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Looking at Cuba, it is quite obvious which one is the best in quality and service. The paladares (the independent, state sanctioned, family run restaurants of Cuba) are much better than the state owned resturants (despite limitations set by the state).

Before paladares became widespread, the quality at the state owned resturants were even worse, but since paladares have become popular, state owned resturants have to compete with private resturants. So the state owned resturants have improved thanks to the paladares. But paladares are still considered to be much better.

So why are the state owned resturants so ineffective?

Are state owned resturants in general ineffective and low in quality?

How can the govt change this?

Discuss.

[elmo sez]

They are ineffective because theyre state owned , they should be owned collectivly by all the workers in the restuarant , they dont work hard because they dont see it as theirs - they dont work hard or do a bad job and still get paid . so whats the point ?

The family owned ones are better run because the workers are their own bosses

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

Restaurants should completely disappear under communism. They are a quintessentially capitalist institution. In privately owned restaurants, in state run restaurants (as well as in collectively owned worker-run restaurants) you have workers trading their time for a wage, and producing commodities for exchange. You have capitalism. Where food (and everything else) is not a commodity, there can be no restaurants.

[TheGreatOne]

What the fuck? I shouldn't be able to go somewhere to get food that has been prepared better than I can prepare it myself? What a horrible idea.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Could you elaborate on that, TheGreatOne? I don't understand your message.

[TheGreatOne]

I was replying to what I'd rather be drinking said.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

I'm not saying there won't be some kind of collective kitchens feeding people. But that is not what a restaurant is. Restaurants are essentially capitalist.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I was replying to what I'd rather be drinking said.

Ah, my bad, I did not see his post. It all makes sense now.

[TheGreatOne]

Nah, my fault. I should have quoted it.


I'm not saying there won't be some kind of collective kitchens feeding people. But that is not what a restaurant is. Restaurants are essentially capitalist.

In the same way that a capitalist factory would become a collective factory, a capitalist kitchen will become a collective kitchen.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

That depends what you mean by a factory. I think that the factory system would be pretty much non-existent under communism. Not because people won't make things any more, even high-tech things, but because there won't be workplaces in the same way anymore. I'm not against all division of labor, but the kind of extreme division of labor you have in the factory system is incompatible with communism. Communism is not about increasing and rationalizing production, it is about destroying the productive process and the economy as something separate and alien to us. I have no desire to spend mylife doing the same pointless repetive tasks for the state instead of for my boss, or even for a council of recallable worker's delegates.

[jolaurelin]

The PEOPLE should own the restaurants as a collective.

Why should restaurant owners get rich at the expense of the people?

[violencia.Proletariat]

NWOG I thought you hated the "evil leninist state" so why are you even asking this question? This thread is stupid.

[TheGreatOne]

Originally posted by I'd Rather Be [email protected] 19 2006, 08:46 PM
That depends what you mean by a factory. I think that the factory system would be pretty much non-existent under communism. Not because people won't make things any more, even high-tech things, but because there won't be workplaces in the same way anymore. I'm not against all division of labor, but the kind of extreme division of labor you have in the factory system is incompatible with communism. Communism is not about increasing and rationalizing production, it is about destroying the productive process and the economy as something separate and alien to us. I have no desire to spend mylife doing the same pointless repetive tasks for the state instead of for my boss, or even for a council of recallable worker's delegates.
You honestly think that destroying the most efficient way of production that we have and then only making people work as long as they want is going to be sufficient to support an entire society? Are you insane? Before division of labor as we have it now, people had to work on products for hours upon hours at a time and everything took many times longer to produce things than when everyone just does one small job over and over again. The reason capitalists use division of labor is that it is much faster and easier to create a massive amount of products. You will absolutely NEED this efficiency if you ever expect a society to run when people only work as long as they want. No one wants to build cardboard boxes or make zippers all day long regardless of how much of the process they control, but they are things that need to be created and many more can be created per man hour when division of labor is implemented.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

I think we have two very different concepts about what communism means GreatOne. I don't think that communism is about managing a capitalist economy. You seem to. The problem with capitalism is not that it is poorly managed, or that it isn't democratically managed. These may be true, but that isn't the point. Capitalism finds means to manage itself that suit its needs--i.e. maximizing profits. Attempts by workers (or worse yet a state claiming to represent the workers) to manage the capitalist economy either end up with a new managerial elite that look a lot like the old capitalists, or they fail very quickly.

Communism is about transforming our everyday activity and our relationship to other peoples activity. Under communism the concept of "work" as separate from "play" would disappear. "The economy" would also cease to have any meaning as a separate sphere of human action. There would be no wage-labor. Productive activity would be freely chosen, coming from each according to their ability. You may think this is insane. It certainly is very different from what we have today. I call it communism.

[vyborg]

lets' go back to the point.
capitalism is destroying the small capitalist in any sector, restaurant included.
look at macdonald: it has more than 30 thousands restaurants worldwide...talk about differences or small is beautiful...

so the question is not if a big organization can manage restaurants, it can. the problem is how and to what ends,

the second point is the socialization of domestic labour. domestic labour (for example washing, preparing food etc.) is higly inefficient. for example in a ordinary family 1 people is needed to do the job for 2 or 3. completely absurd. a worker in a big restaurant can preapre food for tens of people in the same amount of time.

socialism will have as a general duty and tendency to socialize the work made privately so to free time for everyone

[FascismRules]

Originally posted by elmo [email protected] 19 2006, 03:04 PM
They are ineffective because theyre state owned , they should be owned collectivly by all the workers in the restuarant , they dont work hard because they dont see it as theirs - they dont work hard or do a bad job and still get paid . so whats the point ?

The family owned ones are better run because the workers are their own bosses
Under your communist theory is not the 'state-owned' restaurant in effect already owned by the workers for do they not make up the State? Someone needs to brush up on communist theory I see.

I would like to remind you that family-owned restaurants would fall under the heading of capitalism and not communism. By your argument corporations are in fact communist simply because they are 'collectively-owned' by shareholders.

It is my suggestion you people need to re-read all of your communist theory as you are all clearly out to lunch.

[which doctor]

Under your communist theory is not the 'state-owned' restaurant in effect already owned by the workers for do they not make up the State? Someone needs to brush up on communist theory I see.
No. In Cuba they are owned by the state bureaucracy, not the workers.


By your argument corporations are in fact communist simply because they are 'collectively-owned' by shareholders.
Corporations are not collectively owned by their share holders, often times one person will own more than 50% of the stock so that one person practically runs the company.

[Xiao Banfa]

This is a good topic to be discussing. It shows up the differences in mindset between anarchists and marxist-leninists.
Anarchists with their petty-bourgeois artisan mindset don't mind groups of workers controlling individual workplaces. This creates a kind dictatorship of the petty bourgeoisie where you have workers competing against each other.

Marxist-leninists, on the other hand, believe that the state-the tool of the masses, subject to mass democracy- must control the means of production, distribution and exchange. This means that all industry is public property.
However the running of the workplace is managed democratically.

[encephalon]

The family operated restaurants are typically "better" in Cuba (I'll accept that as an article of faith) for the same reason that family operated restaurants are usually "better" than corporate megarestaurants anywhere else: the workers in the family operated restaurant are less alienated from their labor than the workers of a corporate or state owned restaurant.

The workers of a family operated business consider it part of their being in many ways, and take honest pride in what they do. Compare that to, say, your average McSlave and it's understandable that the quality of the food will probably have higher standards.. although they won't be able to compete in terms of efficiency and cost, which will eventually drive most of them to the proletariat and the rest of them will start corporate chains.

Is it petite bourgeoisie? Very obviously so. But most marxists are quite aware that the self-employed petite-bourgeoisie, just like artisans in the middle ages, are significantly less alienated from their labor than a typical proletarian. In this particular case, where human consumption on a level more base than consumption in an economic sense takes place, this lighter burden of alienation does increase the quality of the product. There's no romanticism, it's merely a fact. Actually, I hope that the lack of alienation in a communist society would equally raise the standard of any given commodity a person produces.

Think about it.. if you work in a restaurant, are you going to make that cake with the same care that you would if you made it at home for people you're regularly acquainted with? Of course not, you're going to add water to the powder, shake the can a little, dump it in an industrial oven and slop pudding on top five minutes later.

Part of the reason people go to family restaurants is that it provides a semblance of somewhere in which "everybody knows your name"--in short, they feel less alienated. This will also give people the sense that the "quality of food" is better. But really, restaurants are rarely about food, and more about communion in a familiar setting. The same goes for bars: it isn't about the beer, it's about the people (though the beer is quite good in many cases, too). Most people will swear on their lives that the beer in one particular pub is better than another simply because they know the people that frequent the pub.

Cuba has failed to reduce alienation in its industrial efforts.. in fact, they've probably created more alienation in the process of nationalization. And that's probably why the state-run restaurant food sucks ass: the workers, by and large, simply don't care about something that alienates them. A lot of us probably won't want to admit it, but nationalization has often led to this problem. There's something missing from the equation.

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 08:53 PM
What the fuck? I shouldn't be able to go somewhere to get food that has been prepared better than I can prepare it myself? What a horrible idea.
We'll all be cordon bleu chefs under communism, comrade.

Like the State, the restaurant will wither away.

;)

[red team]

What's wrong with restaurants?

http://www.slawcio.com/dinner7.jpg