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.
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