The idea that the American HR/management parasites "appropriated" Stakhanovism and adapted it here is, one suspects, nothing more than an ingenious and amusing --but IMO fictitious--lede. The idea of the bighearted worker-hero who prodigiously outworks other men and even machines has a long history in this country--for example, some historians trace the origins of the John Henry meme back to the 1870s. It far predates Stakhanovism, as does the ludicrously socialistic notion currently embodied in the asshole's truism that "there is no 'i' in 'team."
(We know John Henry as a sort of ambiguous left workers' martyr, but the figure of the "giant of a man" who outworks everybody and holds the world up like Atlas is a much broader meme, as witness the Jimmy Dean's proto-Trumpist anthem "Big John," which is an individualist theodicy for the oppression inherent in overwork, manly tyranny, and bad working conditions--and expresses a theme AFAIK much older than the 1961 song itself.) I'd wager that, like the Taylor method, Stakhanovism was an import from the USA, not the other way around. I also greatly doubt that Stakhanov--for most of his life a high-ranking apparatchik--actually did unaided what he is supposed to have done as a worker--drill or no drill-- any more than Lysenko had a solid experimental foundation for his allegedly Marxist rehabilitation of Lamarckian genetics. It's probably all a mass of Stalinist lies. See the Wikipedia article on Stakhanov for observations citing sources on this. AFAIK, this piece doesn't produce any sort of factual or purportedly factual basis apart from showing S. on the cover of Time and the inclusion in US corporate propaganda of the phrase "the possibilities are endless." its assertion that the latest frigged-up cynical Human Resources gospel in the US is in any way a literal borrowing from the Stalinist "literature" on Stakhanovism or shows any actual genetic connection from Russia to the US on this is in essence completely unsupported. The piece seems to be mostly a stick-bending exercise aimed at shaking up the smug US apologists for our current version of necessary cruelty. Is Jack Welch really still the demigod of this? US mgmt. "visionaries" come up with a new and ever-more tumescent hot gospel every fifteen minutes. Surely Welch is last century's news to most of them. Despite reservations about the seriousness of the journalism here, I did get a kick out of this.--I imagine that wattles will be quaking not only on the right but in the Bidenite center over this bit of blasphemy. Fucker Snarlson's head may explode--there will be tut-tutting in the Cosmos Club and the Harvard Faculty Club. Even if there isn't the ghost of a case that S. was the actual progenitor of contemporary capitalist cruelism, there are all sorts of inconvenient analogies. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#9563): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/9563 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83893136/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
