>>> Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/27/00 01:26PM >>>
At 04:40 PM 4/26/00 -0400, you wrote:
>... Galbraith endorsed technocracy, no ? The private corporations have
>technocrats/bureaucrats too, yet they claim liberal capitalism means some
>kind of anti-bureaucratic democracy.
it's a "democracy" that follows the one dollar/one vote principle.
John Kenneth Galbraith emphasized the role of a specific kind of
technocracy (the "technostructure"). As I understand it, he saw
corporations as largely insulated from market competition (an assumption
that seems to be valid during the period of "Baran & Sweezy's Monopoly
Capitalism" in the U.S, which stretched from roughly the publication date
of Baran's POLITICAL ECONOMY OF GROWTH to that of B&S's MONOPOLY CAPITAL).
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CB: Do you mean "big" corporations here ? Many corporations are small businesses.
But even big corporations face some competition, don't they ? Do B & S have a
different theory of monopoly than Lenin ?
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Given this insulation, the corporate bureaucracy could be "soulful" and
could take on other interests besides crude and crass profit maximization,
such things as aesthetics. JKG hoped that the technostructure would heed
his call and turn to such interests. But I don't think he saw the
technostructure as always and everywhere a good thing.
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CB: From what I have learned about monopoly corporations, JKG view seems a bit
unrealistic. Is he saying they "could" or they "did" take on othere interests besides
crude and crass profit maximization ? It just doesn't sound like GM, Ford, or Chrysler
at any time.
JKG view of capitalism seems a bit Utopian for any time period. The standard U.S.
propaganda implication that capitalist enterprises are less bureaucratic than
governments, that capitalist enterprises are not dominated by bureaucracies with
dictators at the top, that capitalism's private sector is democratic is quite a big
lie.
CB
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Nowadays, JKG's vision seems quite dated, with corporations continually
dogged by market competition and pressure from stock-holders and creditors.
Instead of aesthetics, the main concern seems to be stock options. The
corporate bureaucracies seem to have lost their relative autonomy and
mostly reflect the untrammeled market, with all the negative consequences
that implies (though there are all sorts of government regulations and PR
concerns that moderate this result).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
