Coordinator Class

[Viva Fidel]

Pareconists believe in not just the proletariat and bourgeoisie class structure but a "coordinator class" as well. Coordinatorism can be traced back to Bakunin's theory of the "new class," "the intellectuals and administrators forming the bureaucratic apparatus of the state." Is this a valid point? Should class structure be looked at like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinatorism

[La Comédie Noire]

Likewise under a socialist setting, the theory of coordinatorism supposes that a small group of powerful individuals controls the means of production and the allocation of resources, while the vast majority of the population (the workers) is not involved in the economic decision-making process.

Thats Capitalism!!! :angry:

I hate Wikipedia.
'
But anyways..


Pareconists believe in not just the proletariat and bourgeoisie class structure but a "coordinator class" as well. Coordinatorism can be traced back to Bakunin's theory of the "new class," "the intellectuals and administrators forming the bureaucratic apparatus of the state." Is this a valid point? Should class structure be looked at like this?

Yes, In Soviet Russia the Bureaucracy became the new rulling class. I think it's important for there to be a vanguard party but it should be made largely of actual working class people and noit deter from the individual wills of the workers.

I'm also a big fan of workers councils and workers' self management.

[IronColumn]

Coordinatorism is a fictitious concept, which adds nothing to our understanding of workers and capitalists. It belongs to the slew of vaguely formed "bureaucratic class" analyses which are the detritus of ideological confusion caused by the seizure of power and establishment of state-capitalism by an allegedly Marxist party. Ironically enough (ironic due to its professed anarcho-liberal principles), the coordinator class pseudo-analysis is stuck in the Leninist mode of thinking which assumes that something really special happened in Russia, China, Cuba, etc. this is in place of a sensible analysis, which would conclude that a coup d'etat carried out by a Jacobin party would obviously lead to the creation of capitalism. As these remarks hopefully make clear, the only thing that keeps the ramshackle ship of coordinatorism from sinking into the sea of history is the shameless self-promotion given to it by its creators, along with its attachment to a vague, feel good "anarchism" which is currently en vogue.

[Red Scare]

Originally posted by Comrade [email protected] 02, 2007 05:23 pm
I hate Wikipedia.

well, most of the time wikipedia has bad articles, but the one on trotskyism is not half bad

[Red Scare]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 06:20 pm
Coordinatorism is a fictitious concept, which adds nothing to our understanding of workers and capitalists. It belongs to the slew of vaguely formed "bureaucratic class" analyses which are the detritus of ideological confusion caused by the seizure of power and establishment of state-capitalism by an allegedly Marxist party. Ironically enough (ironic due to its professed anarcho-liberal principles), the coordinator class pseudo-analysis is stuck in the Leninist mode of thinking which assumes that something really special happened in Russia, China, Cuba, etc. this is in place of a sensible analysis, which would conclude that a coup d'etat carried out by a Jacobin party would obviously lead to the creation of capitalism. As these remarks hopefully make clear, the only thing that keeps the ramshackle ship of coordinatorism from sinking into the sea of history is the shameless self-promotion given to it by its creators, along with its attachment to a vague, feel good "anarchism" which is currently en vogue.
the coordinator class is basically like the inner party in 1984

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 12:45 am
the coordinator class is basically like the inner party in 1984

Yeah, but it's more like CPSU 1984, 1964, 1944, 1924... :lol:

Except, we don't call it "coordinator class", since we're talking about state-capitalism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=70098), so we just call it 'bureaucracy'.

"Coordinatorism" is just a vague concept that belongs in the trash with all other "Non-Mode" modes (such as Ticktin's), because they don't, as Iron said, add nothing to actual understanding of the system, except ideological self praise that basically says "Bakunin guessed it - in your face!"

[Leo]

I think the concept of a "coordinator class" is quite inaccurate. It vulgarly bases it's analysis on what a certain class does, controlling the means of production without formally, or legally "owning" the means of production, where in reality, the change brought were merely on the juridical understanding of private property, and property was not only controlled individually but also owned by the bureaucratic bourgeoisie collectively, so fundamentally it wasn't different.

All this talk about a "coordinator class" implies, whether consciously or not, a different mode of production other than capitalism, where what was happening in the supposedly "socialist" countries was nothing but capitalism. In the end, the analysis of a "coordinator class" leads to a regarding the "democratic West" and the "totalitarian East" differently, as if they had two different modes of production. This perspective explains why certain people, for example, end up regarding the West as the "lesser of two evils" - more "progressive" then the "mode of production" in the East. This is what fundamentally leads to the "Shachtmanite" road.

[syndicat]

most of the attacks on the theory of the coordinator class by "left communists" above are really no more than calling it names. Sort of the political equivalent of yelling "Your mama wears combat boots!" Since Iron Column and DJ-TC provide no rational argument against the theory there is thus no reason for me to respond to them. I will respond to the following comment by Leo:


All this talk about a "coordinator class" implies, whether consciously or not, a different mode of production other than capitalism, where what was happening in the supposedly "socialist" countries was nothing but capitalism. In the end, the analysis of a "coordinator class" leads to a regarding the "democratic West" and the "totalitarian East" differently, as if they had two different modes of production. This perspective explains why certain people, for example, end up regarding the West as the "lesser of two evils" - more "progressive" then the "mode of production" in the East. This is what fundamentally leads to the "Shachtmanite" road.

The reason that "left communists" don't want to acknowledge that the USSR wasn't capitalist is because of their religious adherance to Marx's bipolar labor/capital analysis. for Marx a "major class" is a class that can be the basis of a mode of production, that is, it can be the dominant group in that mode of production. To regard labor and capital as the only "main" classes thus implies that only two modes of production are historically available now, either the mode of production where labor controls production and appropriates the surplus ("communism") or the capitalist mode of production. thus the "left communists" insist on trying to fit square pegs in round holes, forcing the USSR into the capitalist category. as I pointed out in reply to DJ-TC in another thread, his definition of capitalism is so broad and abstract that a communist society could actually satisfy the definition.

capitalism requires certain features:

1. there is a large class of people doing the work of immediate production who don't own means of production and can thus be forced to sell their working abilities to employers in labor markets.

2. there are factor markets, including the labor market, where owners of capital can purchase the factors needed in production, labor power and non-human means of production, and the things produced are sold on consumer markets as commodities, so that the revenue from sale is greater than what was expended on purchasing factors of production, thus allowing the enlargement of capital.

3. Thus a capitalist economy must be a market-based, commodity-producing economy where prices are shaped by bargaining power of relatively autonomous agents acting in a largely uncoordinated way in markets.

4. Capitalism is a system of private accumulation of wealth. Capital itself is a power relation to labor and other factors of production mediated by markets, as stated under 2 above.

5. the capitalists must have a system of control over the work of the proletarians if they are to make a profit. there has thus been a constant struggle and evolution of capitalism in elaborating systems to control the efforts of workers in production to ensure that capital can make a profit, thus enlarging individual capitals and ensuring their better prospects of survival in competition with other capitals.

"State capitalism" is a bogus concept first suggested by Engels in the late 19th century. One of Engels' predictions was that capitalism would tend to merge all the firms into one big state trust, and that this was for him a reason for saying that capitalism was naturally leading towards socialism. That's because he conceived of socialism, as did Lenin, as a system of state management of production. This was a mistaken extrapolation from the emergence of the big "trusts" at the end of the 19th century. In reality there is no such tendency. We've seen over the past 30 years how capital has moved to privatize large parts of the state or public sector around the world, to re-inforce the private power of capital.

Now, in the Russian revolution the capitalists were expropriated. A system of central planning was established. The elite planners, working under politically determined criteria, tried to obtain information about demand for products and production capacity of facilities and workforces, and then devised an agenda for production and sent out marching orders to the managers and workers.

Resources were allocated in production prior to the setting of prices. Prices did not determine the allocational decisions. The Soviet economy was thus not market-governed.

The coordinator class emerged as a product of capitalism, but within capitalism it remains an intermediate class, between capital and labor. Marx had predicted -- correctly -- that the petit bourgeoisie would decline in numbers -- this class is now only about 6% of the population in the USA. but what Marx didn't understand was that there would be a different kind of intermediate class that would emerge to play an important role in mature capitalism. this derives from the logic of capitalist development of the labor process, of the need to control labor in order to ensure the basis of private accumulation. historically capital has moved systematically towards ever greater levels of control of the intricacies of the labor process. the putting out system was the earliest organization of capitalist production but because the artisans worked on their own in their cottages or workshops, and controlled the technology of production, the capitalists couldn't ensure how long or hard they worked, they couldn't keep close watch on the materials and workers would expand their incomes by saving excess materials to make their own product to sell via other channels, etc.

by splitting up the artisan's set of tasks into routine labor and conceptual labor and control or discretion, they could create separate groups of people to do these different things, and you have the elaboration of hierarchies of professionals and managers who monopolized the conceptual and decision-making work. Taking these tasks away from the workers reduces the workers' power, and thus shifts the power balance to the advantage of the employer. but in the process the capitalists also had to cede a realm of power to the new coordinator class who manage labor. this is a class of hired labor, they have their own interests.

and in extreme circumstances they have been able to become the ruling class, and that is what happened in the USSR. their class position isn't based on private accumulation of wealth, of ownership of capital, it is based on relative monopolization of the power-giving tasks and authority in social production.

in the Soviet Union the ruling class included the elite planners at Gosplan, the political appartchiks, the managers of the big industrial combines, the head officers in the military. this class could not pass on their class position to their children thru inheritance of property. things like access to higher education and systems of networking are a more characteristic process for maintaining the coordinator class position.

Finally, from the fact that coordinatorism is a different mode of production from capitalism, it doesn't follow that it is either better or worse than capitalism. That is a red herring.

[Leo]

The reason that "left communists" don't want to acknowledge that the USSR wasn't capitalist is because of their religious adherance


most of the attacks on the theory of the coordinator class by "left communists" above are really no more than calling it names. Sort of the political equivalent of yelling "Your mama wears combat boots!"

There has been no name calling but serious comments on the topic until now. The only one here who is name calling is yourself.

I will answer your political points seriously. I ask you not to descend into name calling or personal abuse.


The reason that "left communists" don't want to acknowledge that the USSR wasn't capitalist is because of their religious adherance to Marx's bipolar labor/capital analysis

The left communist analysis of the supposedly "socialist" states has got nothing to do with any adherence to any individual theorist.


thus the "left communists" insist on trying to fit square pegs in round holes, forcing the USSR into the capitalist category.

This has got nothing to do with the actual reasoning behind the left communist analysis. I'm going to advice you to keep your opinions about why someone makes an analysis to yourself.


as I pointed out in reply to DJ-TC in another thread, his definition of capitalism is so broad and abstract that a communist society could actually satisfy the definition.


where labor controls production and appropriates the surplus ("communism")

According to your definition of "communism", which is merely a definition of self management it would yes. You describe a factory in which workers control production and have equal share among the products. If the mode of production remains the same, meaning if it remains capitalist, yes of course it will be a capitalist society and it will develop a thin layer of bosses among the workers.


capitalism requires certain features:

Ah, I didn't knew they decided which certain features capitalism requires, I must have missed the memo :rolleyes:


1. there is a large class of people doing the work of immediate production who don't own means of production and can thus be forced to sell their working abilities to employers in labor markets.

There has been a large class of people doing the work of immediate production who don't own means of production and can thus be forced to sell their working abilities to employers in labor markets since the existence of classes. Of course, what they got in exchange when they were forced to sell their working abilities varied from time to time from money to food but as logic suggests you buy food with your money when you are starving, the only argument to be made from here can be a semantic one.


2. there are factor markets, including the labor market, where owners of capital can purchase the factors needed in production, labor power and non-human means of production, and the things produced are sold on consumer markets as commodities, so that the revenue from sale is greater than what was expended on purchasing factors of production, thus allowing the enlargement of capital.

There has been labor markets where rich folks could purchase the factors needed in production, labor power and non-human means of production, and the things produced were sold on consumer markets as products, so that the revenue from sale is greater than what was expended on purchasing factors of production since the existence of classes again. In a slavery based society, for example, a slave who had more rare qualities would live in better conditions, get more foot, live in a more comfortable bed, even be respected more. Things were exchanged since the beginning of classes and so forth. Of course you used the term "owners of capital" instead of "rich folks" and you used "commodity" instead of "product" however just throwing those words out won't explain their difference. What is necessary is to understand the capitalist mode of production to explain the difference.


Capitalism is a system of private accumulation of wealth. Capital itself is a power relation to labor and other factors of production mediated by markets

Wealth had been accumulated on individuals since the existence of classes. Ruling classes themselves were in a power relation to the producing class and other factors of production. Again, what is lacking here is the understanding of the capitalist mode of production.


5. the capitalists must have a system of control over the work of the proletarians if they are to make a profit.

Rich folk had a system of control over the work of producers since the existence of classes.


thus enlarging individual capitals and ensuring their better prospects of survival in competition with other capitals.

Now this is a very mistaken take on the American business world, basically. It is obviously not something to generalize, but it is also wrong. If you haven't heard yet, individuals do not run or even own the big corporations anymore: a good majority of big corporations are owned and ruled collectively by a board owning stocks. This basically means "coordinators" are running big corporations as well - however the individual capitalist, the rich guy of the town who owned a company which is small in country standards but big for the workers in the factory is history - that individual capitalist has been bought of by the big corporation. So basically while a few corporations enlarge and collectivize, so that the old capitalist from the small town doesn't even have a significant power anymore, and the majority are simply eaten by bigger sharks. Of course "individual capitalists" still exist, as they have always existed under capitalism, they have also existed in Soviet Russia and Maoist China, they are members of the bourgeoisie, they are individuals, they are competing with each other, yet on paper they all run it collectively.

Now, all of those you listed are things that have been in almost all class societies (if we, of course, ignore the Marxist terminology you borrowed to explain them). Obviously they also exist in the supposedly socialist societies. However that is not even the main point with the argument: the entire argument is based on the concepts of "market" and "individual" capitalist.

The concept of "market" here is exclusively formal and thus juridical, as it has to be if you want to argue that there wasn't a market in supposedly socialist countries. You have to focus on whether there officially was a "market", whether it was said that there was a market or not rather than focusing on what a market actually is. Market is not a mystical institution, it is basically where things are exchanged. It is not the appearance of a bazaar or the formal process of exchanging that is significant, it is the exchange itself that is significant, that creates profit. The economy of supposedly "socialist" countries was absolutely exchange based: the working class sold it's labor power in exchange for basic needs, as in every capitalist country, and the ruling class made profit from it.

As for the argument about "individual" capitalists, all capitalists, whether they are a minister in a state, a member of the board of directors of the company, a general in the army or a the boss and owner of a small firm, are individuals and are individuals, have individual interests and although allied in many cases, are in competition with each other. The accurate term to describe the idea of an "individual" capitalist in this argument is "independent capitalist", meaning a capitalist who is and who can act completely independently from his class and his class interests. Such thing can not exist and has never existed. Capitalism is a society of class rule.


"State capitalism" is a bogus concept first suggested by Engels in the late 19th century. One of Engels' predictions was that capitalism would tend to merge all the firms into one big state trust, and that this was for him a reason for saying that capitalism was naturally leading towards socialism.

That is simply a misinterpretation, and a bad one, of a specific quote. Even Ted Grant's misinterpretation of the same quote was much more succesful.

Engels is not the subject of the topic however.


That's because he conceived of socialism, as did Lenin, as a system of state management of production.

Neither is Lenin.


This was a mistaken extrapolation from the emergence of the big "trusts" at the end of the 19th century.

Nor is any "deep psychological analysis" you put forward as an explanation of any understanding of any phenomenon.


We've seen over the past 30 years how capital has moved to privatize large parts of the state or public sector around the world, to re-inforce the private power of capital.

Exactly: of course the "private power" of capital and the "state power" of capital are not fundamentally different in their interior structures, this is something which demonstrates the existence of the tendency towards state capitalism perfectly. "Privatizations" and "nationalizations" are a part of the life of capitalism in the 20th century; in fact they are two sides of the same coin, a cycle which capital needs to survive. Privatization and nationalization are not opposed, in fact they complete each other. They are not about changing anything about the actual property relations, they instead regulate competition. When enterprises are not making profit due to the competition, the state buys them, makes them profitable again, and then sells them again.


Now, in the Russian revolution the capitalists were expropriated. A system of central planning was established.

Initially, independently from what you think about the Bolsheviks and Lenin and others, the workers have established a system of council power. This doesn't mean that Russia was socialist, as conditions for the existence of socialism are not present in one part of the world alone, this however means that the proletariat has the political power in one country. As the revolution couldn't spread, the Russian bourgeoisie managed to recover and the best place for it's existence under such conditions was the Bolshevik Party and the Russian state.


The elite planners, working under politically determined criteria, tried to obtain information about demand for products and production capacity of facilities and workforces, and then devised an agenda for production and sent out marching orders to the managers and workers. Resources were allocated in production prior to the setting of prices. Prices did not determine the allocational decisions. The Soviet economy was thus not market-governed.

I would have gotten the exact same answer if I asked Milton Friedman whether Russia was capitalist. I don't know whether you are aware of what sort of an argument you are making but it comes down to the basic neo-classical economics analysis of "communism": the state regulated everything in Russia, there was no equilibrium, thus it was not a free market, thus it was not capitalist.

Well, I've got news for you: there is no real, natural equilibrium. Bourgeois economics is flawed, it doesn't work. The competition in the market, "invisible hand" never sets a perfect price for you so that you know exactly how much you should produce and how much you will get rid of. In fact prices are mostly determined by how much resources were allocated in production.


in the Soviet Union the ruling class included the elite planners at Gosplan, the political appartchiks, the managers of the big industrial combines, the head officers in the military.

Yeah, it does in the West as well.


this class could not pass on their class position to their children thru inheritance of property.

Of course they could pass on the class position. Privileges stay. Having a father who is loyal to the state and who has been rewarded by it always passes on the the child.
And in such society, even inheriting the name was significant. An extreme example of that today is North Korea.


their class position isn't based on private accumulation of wealth, of ownership of capital, it is based on relative monopolization of the power-giving tasks and authority in social production.

Their class position is based on collective accumulation of wealth in which every one of them privately takes their share and collective ownership of capital in which every one of them privately exercises control over different portions of it. As far as the workers were concerned, it was still their surplus value being exploited by the private capitalist. In that sense, it is not fundamentally different from Western "democracies".


historically capital has moved systematically towards ever greater levels of control of the intricacies of the labor process. the putting out system was the earliest organization of capitalist production but because the artisans worked on their own in their cottages or workshops, and controlled the technology of production, the capitalists couldn't ensure how long or hard they worked, they couldn't keep close watch on the materials and workers would expand their incomes by saving excess materials to make their own product to sell via other channels, etc.

by splitting up the artisan's set of tasks into routine labor and conceptual labor and control or discretion, they could create separate groups of people to do these different things, and you have the elaboration of hierarchies of professionals and managers who monopolized the conceptual and decision-making work. Taking these tasks away from the workers reduces the workers' power, and thus shifts the power balance to the advantage of the employer.

What self-management and especially parecon is calling for is not fundamentally different from Artisan production so I'd say this nostalgia is quite natural.


Finally, from the fact that coordinatorism is a different mode of production from capitalism, it doesn't follow that it is either better or worse than capitalism.

Based on the slogans of the pareconists such as ""Economic Justice and Democracy", "Consumers' Council", "Equity, Solidarity, Diversity, and Self-management" which are slogans every social democratic party would embrace if the Stalinist (or Trotskyist) left is doing well in the country, it is not really a hard assumption to make. Correct me if you wouldn't prefer the "Democratic" West to the old "Totalitarian" East.

[syndicat]

[/QUOTE]leo:
There has been no name calling but serious comments on the topic until now. The only one here who is name calling is yourself.

You apparently have a hard time reading English. I said the theory of the coordinator class was being called names. I didn't say I was being called names. And I have not engaged in name-calling. And I would have to regard this as name-calling, not directed at me personally, but at my viewpoint:


No one needs to take the time to present a cogent response to your gibberish.

No one wants your weak Parecon swindicalist tripe.


The left communist analysis of the supposedly "socialist" states has got nothing to do with any adherence to any individual theorist.

I didn't speak of a religious adherence to a theorist but to a theory.

me: "thus the "left communists" insist on trying to fit square pegs in round holes, forcing the USSR into the capitalist category."



This has got nothing to do with the actual reasoning behind the left communist analysis. I'm going to advice you to keep your opinions about why someone makes an analysis to yourself.

and you will then of course direct the same comment to the left-communist here who characterizes the theory of the coordinator class as "detritus of the new left" etc. But in reality i think that if a theory is mistaken, it is relevant to offer a hypothesis as to why someone may fall into that mistake.


According to your definition of "communism", which is merely a definition of self management it would yes. You describe a factory in which workers control production and have equal share among the products. If the mode of production remains the same, meaning if it remains capitalist, yes of course it will be a capitalist society and it will develop a thin layer of bosses among the workers.

What definition of communism? in the other thread i offered a definition not from me but from Reznick and Wolff, "Class Theory and History." According to them a mode of production where the immediate producers appropriate the surplus is a communist mode of production. i modifed this to make it more in keeping with a libertarian view: the immediate producers directly control production and appropriate the surplus. the surplus can't continue to be appropriated by the producers if they don't control the surplus collectively. if they were to be divided into competing firms in a market, as under "market socialism," class differentiation would inevitably occur.

so, the definition of "communist mode of production", from Reznick and Wolff, as interpreted by me, is that the individual producers are not separately and unilaterially appropriating the surplus but are doing so as an entire population.
but, again, i'm not talking about what I advocate. i'm talking about Reznick and Wolff's Marxist definition of "communist mode of production."

me: "capitalism requires certain features:"


Ah, I didn't knew they decided which certain features capitalism requires, I must have missed the memo

You can be a smart ass if you like, but a theory is a set of hypotheses. but, hey, you know that.


There has been a large class of people doing the work of immediate production who don't own means of production and can thus be forced to sell their working abilities to employers in labor markets since the existence of classes.

Nope. because market dominance of society is of recent origin. As Karl Polanyi points out in "The Great Transformation," markets prior to capitalism existed only in a restricted way, subordinate to other aspects of society. the idea that society could be governed by the market wasn't even articulated in the history of ideas til the 18th century.

feudal peasants did not sell their labor power on labor markets. under European feudalism the land was not a commodity. so the main non-human means of production was not bought and sold on factor markets. and it was thru a systematic effort that the British gentry created a significant class of propertyless wage-workers. this was thru systematically rooting out alternative ways to get by. taking away their traditional access to common lands, forests, streams, demolishing the cottages they lived in, making begging illegal, etc. a rural proletariat was created thru these means.


There has been labor markets where rich folks could purchase the factors needed in production, labor power and non-human means of production, and the things produced were sold on consumer markets as products, so that the revenue from sale is greater than what was expended on purchasing factors of production since the existence of classes again.

Nope. Not according to Karl Polanyi. in feudalism the land was not a commodity and that was the main non-human means of production. peasants were bound to the land. they couldn't enter into a wage bargain with some (other) employer paying them a wage.


Things were exchanged since the beginning of classes and so forth.

things would be exchanged in any political economy feasible today. if X produces something that is consumed by Y and Y produces something that is consumed by X, then an exchange has taken place. Not all exchange is market exchange. even in classless society there will be exchange since individuals are not going to find it feasible to produce everything they consume themselves.

me: "thus enlarging individual capitals and ensuring their better prospects of survival in competition with other capitals."



Now this is a very mistaken take on the American business world, basically. It is obviously not something to generalize, but it is also wrong. If you haven't heard yet, individuals do not run or even own the big corporations anymore: a good majority of big corporations are owned and ruled collectively by a board owning stocks. This basically means "coordinators" are running big corporations as well - however the individual capitalist, the rich guy of the town who owned a company which is small in country standards but big for the workers in the factory is history - that individual capitalist has been bought of by the big corporation.

You've not pointed out anything inconsistent with what I said. I was talking about "indivdual capitals", not "individual capitalists." A gigantic firm is an individual capital. I'd advise paying more attention before responding.


the entire argument is based on the concepts of "market" and "individual" capitalist.

Again, confusion of "individual capital" with "individual capitalist".



The concept of "market" here is exclusively formal and thus juridical, as it has to be if you want to argue that there wasn't a market in supposedly socialist countries. You have to focus on whether there officially was a "market", whether it was said that there was a market or not rather than focusing on what a market actually is.

I didn't define "market" so how do you know that the concept is "exclusively formal and thus juridical?" Looking at tea leaves? Mental telepathy?

I would regard a market system as one where allocation of resources in social production is by bargaining power, due to a relatively unilateral control over resources which can thus be used as leverage to extract portions of the social product, in a social context of relatively autonomous agents acting in a largely uncoordinated way.

It is simply false that any system of exchange is a system of market exchange. I've argued this above.


As for the argument about "individual" capitalists, all capitalists, whether they are a minister in a state, a member of the board of directors of the company, a general in the army or a the boss and owner of a small firm, are individuals and are individuals, have individual interests and although allied in many cases, are in competition with each other.

Competition with respect to what?

the individual capitalists have the power through their ownership of capital to command labor power and other means of production through factor markets. in mature capitalism, the dominant capitalists are organized together through pooling this economic power -- capital -- in firms. firms are individual capitals in that they act as unified agents within the maket. a general is not as such a capitalist unless he also happens to have private ownership of assets.


of course the "private power" of capital and the "state power" of capital are not fundamentally different in their interior structures, this is something which demonstrates the existence of the tendency towards state capitalism perfectly. "Privatizations" and "nationalizations" are a part of the life of capitalism in the 20th century; in fact they are two sides of the same coin, a cycle which capital needs to survive. Privatization and nationalization are not opposed, in fact they complete each other. They are not about changing anything about the actual property relations, they instead regulate competition. When enterprises are not making profit due to the competition, the state buys them, makes them profitable again, and then sells them again.

doesn't show there is any tendency for the state and private capitalist firms to merge into a single unified institution, which was the projection that Engels made.

the state is an essential part of capitalism, as a social order. and in terms of how they are structured internally, in mature capitalism the state tends towards the same division of labor to the control of the work process as in private firms, the same internal articulation into hierarchies controlled by professionals and managers. this is a reason the state is inherently a class institution. moreover, the relative position of the coordinator class also varies within different capitalisms and at different times. none of this shows that the USSR was "state capitalist" or that this concept makes sense, as a term for a mode of production.


Initially, independently from what you think about the Bolsheviks and Lenin and others, the workers have established a system of council power. This doesn't mean that Russia was socialist, as conditions for the existence of socialism are not present in one part of the world alone, this however means that the proletariat has the political power in one country.

the workers did not have political power in the soviet union. the local soviets in big cities were structured in a top down way that concentrated power into the hands of party leaders, mainly from the intelligentsia. the worker delegates were treated as a rubber stamp. workers had no control over Sovnarkom when it was set up.

I never said that Russia was "socialist" (whatever that might mean). If you mean a political economy controlled by the working class, that didn't exist in Russia. Your claim that this could not happen in even a large country, in any territory less than the world as a whole, is completely arbitrary. Moreover, it makes socialism an extremely unlikely since it is unlikely there will be a simultaneous world wide revolution.


Well, I've got news for you: there is no real, natural equilibrium. Bourgeois economics is flawed, it doesn't work. The competition in the market, "invisible hand" never sets a perfect price for you so that you know exactly how much you should produce and how much you will get rid of. In fact prices are mostly determined by how much resources were allocated in production.


another of your strawman fallacies. i never said or implied that the capitalist market generates a "natural equilibrium" or sets "perfect prices." And what determines how much resources are allocated in production? This has nothing to do with factor prices? markets are almost always in disequilibrium in a capitalist economy, and this is especially so of the labor market. capitalism requires a reserve army of the unemployd and thus disequilibrium. capitalism can't generate efficiency prices for a variety of reasons including (1) wants of different individuals are not treated equally but only in accord with their money power, and (2) external effects generate persistent inefficiencies.


What self-management and especially parecon is calling for is not fundamentally different from Artisan production so I'd say this nostalgia is quite natural.

no argument of course. so this amounts to calling parecipatory economics names ("nostalgia").


Correct me if you wouldn't prefer the "Democratic" West to the old "Totalitarian" East.

first, your references to other advocates of participatory economics is not a response to me. you don't know whether i agree with them or not on various topics. More mind-reading on your part? getting advice on reading my mind from Madame Gazonga?

and in reality both Hahnel and Albert have defended the soviet economy's performance, as an economy, against those who claim that capitalist economies were better. for example, pointing out that if you look at soviet growth in the first several decades after the revolution and make a comparable comparison, such as to Brazil, you find that the soviet economy often did better. moreover, capitalism is also quite capable of generating totalitarian political systems to defend it.

[IronColumn]

Jibes aside:

If coordinators were an identifiable class they would have clear class interests which would be expressed in a real manner: for example, the intelligentsia in the Western World would have been massively pushing for a Bolshevik revolution to give itself power instead of working within Cold War think tanks and such, or at least pushing for further nationalization and bureaucratic control of industries since this is, as I take it, a feature of coordinatorism. Where has their class consciousness gone in this neoliberal era? Why did the ruling coordinatorists committ suicide in Russia (i.e. what compelled them to liberalise other than a capitalist crisis?), why are they liquidating themselves in China by relinquishing power to private capitalists...is Venezuela now coordinatorist, or is this somehow a different phenomenon from previous regimes?

As I've pointed out earlier, the Bolsheviks themselves knew they were establishing state capitalism (no less a figure than Lenin) and were consciously striving for this (under the misguided rubric that state capitalism overseen by marxists=revolution), Western governments called the system state capitalism (for example I just leafed through a library pamphlet from U.S. State department in 1926 which was called "Soviet Russia: State Capitalism in Action"), dissident activists like Herman Gorter and Emma Goldman (anarcho-liberals take note!) knew it was State Capitalism by 1921, even many Leninists had to concede this after a time (Bordiga or some Trotskyists).

Everyone, literally everyone, seems to have gotten the memo decades before Albert and his disciples essentially recapitulated the analysis of Bruno Rizzi or some confused Trotskyite analysis of "Bureaucratic collectivism". Quite literally, I see no qualitative difference between this pitiful attempt to explain the "Soviet experiment" and those others. As I noted before, this confusion comes from confusing a specific epoch of capitalism, Fordism, and its unprecedented army of bureaucrats and managers, with something qualitatively new. The absurdity of this "new class" doctrine in the era of post-fordism, when the "coordinator class" is getting downsized according to the dictates of capitalism, is further indicative of this doctrine's inability to apply to any other epoch of capitalist production. This historical particularity of the doctrine suffices to discredit it, because it reveals both a bourgeois empiricism and an inability to comprehend the movement of capital over time and as a totality.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I don't know why this "Leninist" is in full agreement with you (maybe because I expressed my reservations toward parecon as being viable as nothing more than a "democratic" demand), but maybe this has to do with what I've said months before in regards to Lenin's differentiation between the "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" and the proper DOTP (and he did mention this explicitly in his work Economics and Politics in the Era of the DOTP), between what I call the "primitive stamocap" of his day and the "revolutionary stamocap" that is the DOTP (this separate transitory period combining features of the past state monopoly capitalism and the future socialism).

[syndicat]

IC:
If coordinators were an identifiable class they would have clear class interests which would be expressed in a real manner: for example, the intelligentsia in the Western World would have been massively pushing for a Bolshevik revolution to give itself power instead of working within Cold War think tanks and such, or at least pushing for further nationalization and bureaucratic control of industries since this is, as I take it, a feature of coordinatorism.

how do you explain the fact that the working class isn't pushing consciously for a revolution against capitalism? class struggle is episodic and a process of class formation is needed for this to develop. so workers push in practice for immediate improvements they perceive as within their power and which would be to their advantage, such as a wage increase or some other reform. class consciousness can be expected to develop in periods of conflict. in the period of emergence of this class in 1890s to 1920s there was in fact quite a bit of conflict between the "efficiency experts" and new professional managers and engineers, on the one hand, and the old style capitalist entrepreneurs. this led Thorsten Veblen to regard these strata as fundamentally at odds with capital.

a section of the coordinator class does in fact push for expansion of state control, namely, that section who work in the public sector. Social democracy is an ideology and politics that favors the coordinator class in that it tends to empower them. i view social democracy as a coordinatorist political formation.

but it's not clear that, for the coordinator class in general, pushing for replacing capitalism with state management would bring them the greatest material rewards in the immediate situation. the private sector coordinator class in the USA has been doing very well in recent years.



Where has their class consciousness gone in this neoliberal era? Why did the ruling coordinatorists committ suicide in Russia (i.e. what compelled them to liberalise other than a capitalist crisis?), why are they liquidating themselves in China by relinquishing power to private capitalists...is Venezuela now coordinatorist, or is this somehow a different phenomenon from previous regimes?

a sizeable section of the Russian and Chinese coordinator classes believed that (a) they could use their class power to convert themselves into capitalists, and (b) doing so would be to their advantage. just as a significant chunk of the feudal English gentry believed that by breaking with traditional feudal relations, they could greatly improve their power and wealth.

in regard to Venezuela, see my comment above about social-democracy.



As I've pointed out earlier, the Bolsheviks themselves knew they were establishing state capitalism (no less a figure than Lenin) and were consciously striving for this (under the misguided rubric that state capitalism overseen by marxists=revolution), Western governments called the system state capitalism (for example I just leafed through a library pamphlet from U.S. State department in 1926 which was called "Soviet Russia: State Capitalism in Action"), dissident activists like Herman Gorter and Emma Goldman (anarcho-liberals take note!) knew it was State Capitalism by 1921, even many Leninists had to concede this after a time (Bordiga or some Trotskyists).

Doesn't prove anything. It merely shows that Lenin had acquired a certain concept from Engels, a concept that I've questioned already.


Everyone, literally everyone, seems to have gotten the memo decades before Albert and his disciples essentially recapitulated the analysis of Bruno Rizzi or some confused Trotskyite analysis of "Bureaucratic collectivism". Quite literally, I see no qualitative difference between this pitiful attempt to explain the "Soviet experiment" and those others.

the theory of the coordinator class is different because it has a different theory as to what the basis of this class is. Rizzi, Schachtman, et al did not root the theory in changes in the control of the labor process that brought about the huge growth of this new class and the capitalists' ceding a realm of control to them. the coordinator class is based on its relative monopolization of tasks that give power independent of ownership through concentration of the conceptual and decision-making work in a hierarchy.



As I noted before, this confusion comes from confusing a specific epoch of capitalism, Fordism, and its unprecedented army of bureaucrats and managers, with something qualitatively new. The absurdity of this "new class" doctrine in the era of post-fordism, when the "coordinator class" is getting downsized according to the dictates of capitalism, is further indicative of this doctrine's inability to apply to any other epoch of capitalist production. This historical particularity of the doctrine suffices to discredit it, because it reveals both a bourgeois empiricism and an inability to comprehend the movement of capital over time and as a totality.

here you're buying into the latest news clippings generated by elite punditry. downsizing of the coordinator class is a myth. this is demonstrated very well in David Gordon's "Fat and Mean".

[IronColumn]

At the end of your post you say I'm buying into pundit phrases about the "dissappearing coordinators". Yet earlier on you admit that the coordinator system essentially vanished in Russia and is being whittled away in China. Even in the first world, one can see that it's not simply pundits who say that America has become as unequal as it has been since the 1920's (presumably entailing the life cycle of the coordinator class?). This income disparity has entailed a pretty big hit on the "middle class/coordinators" who are being downsized or perhaps having their work outsourced to India where I believe it becomes much clearer to see which class these people belong to. When the difference in pay between a manager and a worker becomes something so minimal as a few dollars in the third world, compared to the tens of thousands in America, it's pretty hard to pretend that this "class" has any interests other than subservience to capitalists who employ them, like any other worker.

Were the overseers on plantations not slaves, but coordinators?

[Dimentio]

If socialism is to prevail, then the proletariat must in practice be turned into a coordinator class as a whole. When I see socialism, I do not envision coal miners with raised fists standing with a red dawn and black factory chimneys as a background, but as a society where hyper-automatisation and work minimisation is prevailing.

In short, rightly implemented, socialism should raise the living standards and abolish all classes, turning humanity as a whole into a sort of labor aristocracy.

[Floyce White]

Such are the dead ends you run into if you use rhetorical devices as if they were logical semantics.

I really couldn't care less about the self-infatuation of petty bourgeois for their station in life ("a sort of aristocracy"). What's important is that poor people recognize when the little dictators are puffing and preening, and pay no mind.

[syndicat]

IC:
At the end of your post you say I'm buying into pundit phrases about the "dissappearing coordinators". Yet earlier on you admit that the coordinator system essentially vanished in Russia and is being whittled away in China. Even in the first world, one can see that it's not simply pundits who say that America has become as unequal as it has been since the 1920's (presumably entailing the life cycle of the coordinator class?). This income disparity has entailed a pretty big hit on the "middle class/coordinators" who are being downsized or perhaps having their work outsourced to India where I believe it becomes much clearer to see which class these people belong to.

You're repeating yourself. David Gordon's book "Fat and Mean" uses various empirical studies of the size of the coordinator class in a number of major capitalist countries for his results. He shows that the coordinator class did not shrink at all in the big recession of the early 1990s when all the pundits were talking about "managerial downsizing". Growth of the coordinator class slowed during the recession but then resumed afterwards.

Capitalism is a dynamic system and occupations get reorg'd and some of them shoved towards the proletarian condition. I've worked in high tech enterprises where softeware coders were doing highly taylorized work, with a narrow focus on only a piece of the total product and little participation in devising the overall design. People in that position don't have enough power to say they're in the coordinator class, more like school teachers or writers who are in the grey area between the coordinator class and the proletarian class, a "contradictory class location," in the words of Erik Olin Wright.

The coordinator class didn't vanish in China and Russia. What happened is that some of the coordinators were able to convert themselves into capitalists (just as some English feudal barons were able to convert themselves into capitalists in the 1500s and 1600s, say). Due to the Communists' hold on the state and their refusal to allow certain key state industries to be privatized in China, perhaps the Chineses coordinator class retains a certain strength viz a vis the growing capitalist elite.

But transition to capitalism doesn't eliminate the coordinator class, but makes them subordinate to a more dominant capitalist class. A coordinatorist mode of production is one where the coordinator class is the ruling class.

[VukBZ2005]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 03:08 pm
When I see socialism, I do not envision coal miners with raised fists standing with a red dawn and black factory chimneys as a background, but as a society where hyper-automatisation and work minimisation is prevailing.
Exactly my point of view in actuality, Serpent. However, if we are looking at things in a realistic fashion and if a successful working class revolution were to happen in this post fordist environment, then, it has to be said that such an environment will require that a period of re-industrialization or industrialization take place. However, this period of re-industrialization or industrialization would take place in a Communistic and sensible fashion and will occur with a built-in purpose to eventually automate and minimize the amount of time that a person spends working. When this automation and minimalization occurs during a real Socialist transition period, it will produce the overabundance levels necessary to declare it a real Communist society.

And, on the issue of the "coordinator class";

The idea that a coordinator class exists conflicts with the material reality of classes that exist in Capitalist societies. The coordinator class that syndicat speaks of is a class that has no control over the means of production, that has no control over private property and thus, does not have to ability to be apart of the accumulation of Capital in a motion that moves upwards instead of downwards. When we compare the requirements of a class to exist to that of syndicat's aforementioned coordinator class, it becomes obvious that this class is not a class at all and that it is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of the Capitalist system and how it functions on a day-to-day basis.

[syndicat]

CF:
The idea that a coordinator class exists conflicts with the material reality of classes that exist in Capitalist societies. The coordinator class that syndicat speaks of is a class that has no control over the means of production, that has no control over private property and thus, does not have to ability to be apart of the accumulation of Capital in a motion that moves upwards instead of downwards. When we compare the requirements of a class to exist to that of syndicat's aforementioned coordinator class, it becomes obvious that this class is not a class at all and that it is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of the Capitalist system and how it functions on a day-to-day basis.

you need to pay better attention. The coordinator class is defined precisely in terms of its control within social production, which means use of the means of production by humans. The coordinator class has a relative monopolization over the tasks that give power in social production where this is not based on ownership. This comes about through the division of labor where the conceptualization and decision-making power is concentrated in a hierarchy, and taken out of the hands of the workers. This class includes managers and top professionals who are directly involved in the decision-making about production such as corporate lawyers, top engineers, finance officers.

[VukBZ2005]

you need to pay better attention. The coordinator class is defined precisely in terms of its control within social production, which means use of the means of production by humans.

The point that I have been making constantly is this, and even though it does not seem that way when I talk about the issue of this "coordinator class", it all comes down to it; in order to define classes, one must not look at how it is used by humans, but how is it controlled by humans and the relationship of that control to the amount of control that humans have over private property.

As an example, we know that the Capitalist class exists because it is they that control the most amount of important private property upon which the means of production exist and thus, they also have the most control over the absolute and non-absolute surplus-value that is produced from that amount of important private property, allowing them to valorize that surplus-value into Capital.

We know that the Small Capitalist class exists because they do not have as much control over an extraordinary amount of important private property upon which the means of production is exist and they are restricted from obtaining that much control (due to material factors). However, despite these two factors, they have enough control over absolute and non-absolute surplus-value from the amount of important private property to valorize them into Capital.

And we know that the Working class exists because they do not possess any kind of control over the amount of important private property upon which the means of production exist and thus, they are forced to sell their labor-power to survive, which is translated into surplus-value and eventually valorized as Capital by the Capitalists and Small Capitalists.

So, going on this basis, again, where is the qualifications for this "coordinator class" that you speak of?

1.) Does this class have control over important amounts of private property and means of production?
2.) Does this class possess the ability to extract surplus-value from the labor-power of the working class?
3.) And if so, are they able to valorize it into Capital?

from what I can see, these three things are not in existence at all. Go figure.


The coordinator class has a relative monopolization over the tasks that give power in social production where this is not based on ownership. This comes about through the division of labor where the conceptualization and decision-making power is concentrated in a hierarchy, and taken out of the hands of the workers.

Just because they have certain powers over ordinary workers does not mean that they are not workers. They are, because they possess no important private property and thus, they have no control over the means of production that exists upon those important private properties. This leaves them incapable of appropriating surplus-value and transforming it into Capital. The power that they possess, is a power that is not real and has no true material basis behind that power. So, even though a worker is such as a manager may have the right to fire and hire. that does not separate him from exploitation. That power only becomes real when a Small Capitalist and Capitalists enforces him or her off the job, and this is an example from which I am making my points upon.

[syndicat]

CF:
The point that I have been making constantly is this, and even though it does not seem that way when I talk about the issue of this "coordinator class", it all comes down to it; in order to define classes, one must not look at how it is used by humans, but how is it controlled by humans and the relationship of that control to the amount of control that humans have over private property.

I did define the coordinator class in terms of control. Can you read English?

And to say it has to be private property begs the question because that assumes without argument there can't be class division without private property. But there was class division in the USSR. the workers were obviously as subordinated as in capitalist countries.

The way you are proposing to define class makes it impossible to understand classes in non-capitalist societies. There were classes before there was capitalism.

[co-op]

I agree with syndicat wholeheartedly here. The managerial or 'coordinator' class as its called here, is a such an important factor in understanding why all hitherto 'proletarian' revolutions that have won the initial battle over the bourgeoise have gone on to fail and fail very quickly. Where full proletarian control of the factories/workplaces has not been achieved or been crushed by the CP, it stands to reason that the new CP dictatorship must have managers/enforcers to ensure current production levels and then increase them.

State capitalism is where the bureaucrats/coordinators take every revolution, if they are allowed to continue in their roles. Proletarians must wrestle control of the means of production from all classes who seek to protect a privaleged position. The trend also seems to be that without proletarian control, the destruction of state, class and privalege, that any revolution ultimately ends back at private capitalism.

Workers should be fooled by no 'revolutionary' who says we should 'wait' and build communism. Real libertarian socialism comes from the workers truely liberating themselves, not just from one class whom exploit them, but from all. And from all the discredited ideas that workers should act now against the bourgeoise, but wait for our dream.

At the moment the 'coordinators' work for the bourgeoise. Should the CP come to power they will work for them.

[awayish]

class is not defined by 'role' but by social structure and attitudes. merely saying a coordinator 'class' is saying practically nothing of relevance. would coordinators be helpful, absolutely. but them forming a class is not that helpful.

incidentally, you can be socialist and go into corporate management schools, i.e. business schools. they sorely need social minded people.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 12:53 pm
incidentally, you can be socialist and go into corporate management schools, i.e. business schools. they sorely need social minded people.
"Business-school" socialist checking in! :ph34r:

And no, they don't need "social-minded people" as much as workers need people with managerial know-how to manage the post-revolution economy (and Lenin himself talked about accounting, finance, and their roles in the management of the post-revolution economy).

[co-op]

class is not defined by 'role' but by social structure and attitudes. merely saying a coordinator 'class' is saying practically nothing of relevance. would coordinators be helpful, absolutely. but them forming a class is not that helpful.


The old Marxian economic explanation of class is not enough to explain the history of revolution in the 20th century. Class can be better defined by how much control a class has over the means of production. In all cases of revolution to date where the proletariat has no control/self-management of their workplaces we have seen this co-ordinator class emerge to control/manage society with the CP as their vanguard. All these past revolutions destroyed the economic relations of capitalism but kept the producing class oppressed and without control whilst managers ruled over production. From a working class point of view it is impossible to explain the failures of the past without seeing past the old dogmas and trying to properly analyse what went wrong, because it did go wrong, horribly wrong.


incidentally, you can be socialist and go into corporate management schools, i.e. business schools. they sorely need social minded people.

If you think that this is a strategy for takling capitalism or even reformism you are deluded. You clearly have your own definition of what socialism is.