Power to the Workers?

Words take on less meaning every new day. Historically, the demand for workers’ control was a socialist demand because it was seen as a way of rationalising the production process, allowing the development of workers’ creative capacities, and creating the means for realising the socialist ideal of equality in power and wealth. Genuine worker self-management is only possible in a socialist society. Worker self-management models adopted by many co-operatives are a local and defensive tactic. These coops exist and are part of a capitalist economy that they do not control. Consequently, the workers’ self-directed activity remains fundamentally constrained by capitalist competition and the market. There have been many examples of workers’ cooperatives that went wrong, there have even been some that have ‘succeeded’ – in capitalist terms that is! All that they have succeeded in, however, has been to transform themselves into profitable capitalist enterprises, operating in the same way as other capitalist firms. There is no way in which they can pose any solutions for the working class as a whole.

It is important to realise that what happens in each self-managed enterprise is directly and closely interdependent with what happens in other economic units. To restrict self-management to single industry, let alone individual factories is to reduce it to a mere façade. We contend that it is misleading to say that it’s enough to give workers decision-making power at the level of the factory to create a real industrial democracy. What is the point of giving workers the power to make decisions when this turns out to be a mere sham and when the decisions taken at factory level are continuously overturned by the operation of market laws. The only solution is to democratically regulate industry at a social level. The more power given communities as a whole the less opportunity for sectional in-fighting and the internecine struggles of different groups of workers. From the outset factories do not have the same productivity so, if they compete with each there will be conflicts of interest. Certain decisions are inevitably taken at higher levels than the work-place, and if these decisions are not consciously made by society as a whole, then they will be made by other forces in society behind the workers’ backs. Whether it’s in terms of tools, machinery, equipment and even local situation was a matter of luck or of social factors, there is no possible justification for those who are fortunate enough to work in above-average factories to enjoy an economic advantage over those who are employed in below-average factories.

We do not support centralisation nor believe that centralisation implies the necessity of a new division of labour within the working class between a small group of managers, professional administrators and bureaucrats on the one hand, and the majority of the workers on the other, incapable of centralising its own management in a democratic way. We support delegated self-management organised around interconnected workers’ councils as broadly-based as possible to involve the maximum number in the exercise of power. It is because it is only in a complex structure where self-management takes place at all levels of economic and social life that it is possible to involve the maximum number of workers at different levels of decision-making. We have a very simple formula to apply in this context: decisions must be taken at the level where this can be done most effectively. It is unnecessary to call a general congress of workers’ councils to work out a bus timetable for London; Londoners are quite capable of working that out for themselves without the interference of any bureaucratic institutions. There’s no need to organise a general congress of workers’ councils to organise the production process in a work-place: the workers in that factory or even department are quite capable of sorting that out on their own. On the other hand, when it comes to making decisions industry-wide on production targets, or how to end industrial pollution then a general congress of workers’ councils is necessary, since this sort of decision can only be taken at a regional or world-wide level. In economic matters each decision must ideally be taken at the level at which it can be most effectively and efficiently implemented.

In our debates we have found many are wedded to the idea that a socialist economy would be a centrally planned economy - that is, one in which there would be one single society wide plan covering to the totality of inputs and outputs for the entire economy and specifying in advance the quantitative targets for each and every single conceivable good that would be produced. There are several different arguments they make against this proposal but the most important of which is the informational complexity argument, chiefly associated with FA Hayek. Hayek's argument is that the dispersed nature of knowledge in society necessitates a self-regulating market. Trying to concentrate this vast amount of information within the rigid framework of a single giant plan is totally unrealistic. Moreover, we are talking about millions upon millions of different kinds of goods, from 3-inch screws to stainless steel tumble-dryers. Trying to reach a decision about how much each of these goods ought to be produced is daunting enough in itself; trying to reach that decision democratically would be infinitely more difficult. How on earth is the global community going to decide on the global output target for, say, 3-inch screws? The whole idea is a preposterous.

So Hayek and his ilk are correct in that respect and they are also correct in deducing that if you are going to have centrally planned economy in this classic sense it almost lends itself to a form of governance that might be called a technocracy - rule by a tiny technocratic elite.  The logistics of decision making under this hypothetical arrangement virtually guarantees such a form of governance. The socialist response to such arguments present by these critics is to say this is a complete straw-man argument. Socialism will not and cannot be, a centrally planned economy but, on the contrary, will be a mainly decentralised economy  Indeed, most of the decisions that will be made in a communist system will not even need to be subjected to democratic control at all but will simply be part and parcel of an automatic self-regulating system of stock control.

For example Production Unit X123 receives an order for 200 cans of baked beans from Distribution Centre Y445.  You don't needs a democratic debate on whether to meet that order; you just do it!  Because a communist society is about meeting needs which needs are expressed as an order for 200 cans of baked beans in this case. This kind of response, of course, always floors our anarcho-capitalists since they imagine in their folly that they cornered the market in the idea of a "self-regulating system of production".  The market is such a system but there is another much more effective version of that which dispenses with the market altogether: real socialism.

So what place has democracy in this mainly decentralised communist scheme of things?  The need for democracy arises where there is a potential conflict of interests and this has somehow to be resolved.  This can happen at different levels of spatial organisation - local regional and national.  It would not make much sense, for example, for the global community to debate on whether my local community should go ahead and construct a childrens’ nursery but it would make sense for the global community to talk about action to counter global warming for example. The level of decision making should be appropriate to the kind of decision that needs to be made and vice versa. This is why self-management is impossible without real socialist industrial democracy with workers making real decisions with unfettered access to real information. If the wage system is to be abolished, decisions on allocation of resources has to be established. The people themselves have to disentangle the complexity and this can be done by means of democratic decisions, from the level of the enterprise up to the highest levels of administration.

Post-Script

The aim of nationalisation is to remove the ownership of the country’s principal means of production (banks, industries, commerce) from the hands of big capitalists and transfer them to the whole ‘nation’. This transfer of ownership is carried out by the State, which is supposed to represent the interests of the national community. The State is the expression of the collective interests of the dominant class in a particular society, and takes the form of an articulated series of institutions. Therefore, to bring something under state ownership does not mean to ‘nationalise’ it (‘nationalisation’ in the sense of ‘socialisation’, where ownership is transferred to the ‘nation’, the whole society). To bring something under state ownership, simply by having the workers get their wages from the state rather than from private bosses, is not sufficient to transform social relations in a socialist sense. The most widespread image of a so-called ‘socialist’ regime is one of the planned economy under state ownership, directed by “the Party”. This means the virtual fusion of State and the Party, with the unions reduced to the role of a transmission belt for State requirements aimed at the working people. Since the State is defined as “socialist” and the Party described as “revolutionary” the conclusion is that these institutions are the same thing as the power of the working people. Of course, this was never the conception of Marx. Nationalisation is not socialism. It is socialisation what is needed. Who runs the economy? With nationalisation it is the state and its officials. In such circumstances the position of workers haven't changed. Instead of one capitalist, who is a private owner, workers get another one, who is by Engels called "ideal capitalist". Marx knew the difference between the private character of appropriation and private character of ownership. Private character of appropriation is possible also without private ownership. Marx found the root of exploitation in the fact that those who create surplus value are not its controllers. In the liberal capitalism capitalists were controllers. In state capitalism the controllers were the state and we do not have situation that the controllers of surplus value are those who make it. Socialism is not possible in society where workers create but don't decide about products of their labour.