I wasn't able to respond immediately to Julio's answer to me; and,
at the time, I thought there was so much in his comment that, in order
not to repeat myself, I would limit my answer to what he said in
relation to Cuban options. Today, I've looked over his comments and must
say that I am really dismayed. Not so much by the specifics of his
comments but what it reveals about his trajectory.
Julio has gone deeply into Marx (and Hegel) and knows that material
well. But, since then he has embarked on a project to absorb what he
sees as the best of neoclassical economics into the Marxian paradigm
(citing Marx's own knowledge of his predecessors and contemporaries).
The problem is that it appears to me that this fusion has taken the
opposite course--- that it is the neoclassical paradigm that is emerging
as the foundation. (Or, maybe it's that primacy of productive forces,
economic determinism paradigm... or maybe that's not too different.)
Take Julio's suggestions that maybe the reason that Cuban economists
place less emphasis upon direct worker management than I do is because
there are 'large upfront social costs involved in implementing and
sustaining generalized direct workers' management under current
conditions in Cuba', that the return on this huge investment will be
low, that 'the future benefits of direct cooperation' may be discounted
heavily by workers (who are 'more concerned with immediate solutions'),
that maybe 'there are hardened conditions, conditions that cannot be
abolished overnight', etc. The bottom line is maybe the focus on markets
exists because, in Cuba's situation, '"trade gains" are the easier ones
to reap. The gains from direct cooperation are much harder to come by.'
I only have the time to make a very quick points because I have
finish up a number of things here before heading later this week to
Vancouver for a month. so, let me ask, where in this calculus is the
Marxian recognition of the simultaneous changing of circumstances and
self-change, the fact that every process of production creates joint
products, Marx's recognition of the negative effects of capitalist
relations of production upon the capacities of workers? Exclude that 2nd
product, the human product, and your conclusions are inherently biased
(from Marx's perspective); productivity and efficiency become a matter
of technique, neutral technique at that--- whether it is embracing
Taylorism, markets or whatever. Where's the measure of the development
of human capacities when workers have the opportunity to make decisions
in the workplace and the division between thinking and doing is
increasingly overcome? Why doesn't Julio place emphasis upon this? Why
the assumption that moves in this direction are contrary to finding
'immediate solutions'? Why this 'stagism' in which productive relations
in which workers manage are a superior good, rational only when the
productive forces have developed sufficiently?
There's no mystery why the dominant perspective of Cuban economists
has been to solve the problem of inefficiency and lack of incentive in
the formal workplace by a focus on markets rather than on worker
management. In the paradigm from which they function, the solution to
the problem is a little more market; and when that doesn't really seem
to solve the problem or generates a new one, the solution to that....
Just look at the course of thought of brilliant reformers in Eastern
Europe like Kornai and Brus (see my 1991 Socialist Register piece on
'the socialist fetter') and, for that matter, the sequence of steps in
China. It is something that Che grasped so well-- you end up in a dead
end and you don't know exactly where you took the wrong turn.
But, then, the Marxism learned by most Cuban economists is Soviet
Marxism--- a clay vessel (as Veblen commented in another context) which
shattered easily when faced with real world problems. Julio, however,
should know better with his combination of Marx-Hegel and mainstream
economic tools. Why do the reformers place less emphasis on some things
(worker management) and then step by step find a solution which
approaches capitalism? Think 'Path Dependency'-- once you get in a
particular groove, it's always, um, the path of least resistance to keep
going that way. That's true after you have excluded
worker-decision-making through a pattern of hierarchical, top-down
decisions; making marginal changes biases you against confronting this.
I recall a conversation about 10 years ago with a bright Chinese
economist who got his doctorate in the US and was job-hunting, and we
were talking about the TVE's (what they represented). Why were they
privatised, I asked? His answer was that there was so much corruption
among cadres who were managing that it was felt to be efficient to have
a residual claimant who would have an interest in monitoring this. So, I
asked, why not have the workers monitor through worker management (today
I would add the local community, too)? He thought about it and
acknowledged, yes, it was a theoretical possibility but in fact the way
things had developed it was not a feasible option. I took that to mean
that the workers were by this point so disempowered, etc that he didn't
think it was an option..
Every revolutionary should know, though, that there are some moments
when the barriers to introducing change are significantly reduced, when
the reproduction of everyday patterns does not seem as formidable. The
intense discussions at this point in Cuba about the need to make major
changes suggest this is one such moment. People are searching for
answers and solutions. And in this context, not to be making the
question of worker management a central part of discussion but focusing
instead upon the 'trade gains' from the market is downright reactionary;
you don't have to be subjectively capitalist to take the capitalist
road. Indeed, all you have to do is quote the Preface of '59 as Julio did:
"No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces
for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior
relations of production never replace older ones before the material
conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of
the old society.
As can be demonstrated both in Cuba and Venezuela, this is the
capitalist road; elsewhere (e.g., in the US), it is rationalisation for
fatalism and reformism. Now, back to work and to begin packing!
cheers,
michael
--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
http//:centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
