Michael Lebowitz is dismayed:
> Not so much by the specifics of [my, JH's] comments but
> what it reveals about [my] trajectory.
Tempting as it would be for us to turn our attention to the always
important, vexing issue of my own intellectual degeneration, I'd
caution us strongly against doing so now. God knows, this is an issue
I feel very passionately about since, for the last 48 years plus, I've
been the most important person in my life. So much so that, without
me, I would be truly incapable of engaging in this controversy -- or
even breath.
However, despite that, I'd urge us to keep the focus on the
specifics of our comments and objections.
> 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.
Let alone the fact that I do not mention anything anywhere about
embracing Taylorism -- I do *not* exclude that "2nd product."
In fact, the point that I've been trying to make is closely related.
I've been trying to say that specific production relations are
themselves products, that the ultimate carrier of the productive
forces is the worker (the collective producer), that the productive
forces are both productive of wealth (the most prominent of which is
the human wealth personified in the workers themselves, in their
collective body and intellect) and productive of social relations.
And just like people could not have produced Linux under any
circumstance, regardless of the existing productive forces, people
cannot either produce socialist relations under arbitrary
circumstances. The conditions under which people produce socialist
production relations are space-time concrete, and, yes, the stage of
development of the production forces is "an absolutely necessary
practical premise" for such production of specific production
relations to bear fruit.
Where -- Michael asks -- is the recognition that by expanding market
relations the workers will also be reproducing themselves as atomized,
one-sided, fragmented, alienated individuals? Where is the
recognition that by building direct cooperation and managing
themselves directly the productive wealth of the country, they will be
transforming themselves, reproducing themselves as
universally-developed workers, constructing a transparent association
of producers? Where?
Well, since I haven't explicitly argued against that 2nd product,
could it be then that this recognition has been implicit all along in
what I've been saying? Obviously, if we were to state and re-state
each and every one of the premises of our arguments before laying them
out, human communication would become very difficult. So, if I may
ask, where in what I wrote did I implicitly exclude that fact?
I'll say it, if I need to. Yes, by the workers acting to take
effective, direct cooperative control over the productive wealth of
the country, they transform themselves and their social conditions for
good. Yes, by the workers relying on markets (indirect cooperation)
and *to that extent*, they reproduce themselves as atomized,
fragmented, alienated individuals, pitted against one another, and
thus erode their own long-run self-interest.
That is why I said, explicitly in my previous posting, that expanding
market relations in Cuba has a *downside*. And I alluded to Michael's
work, and to his reference to Che's views. That's also why I clearly
implied that moving to direct workers' management at the workplace and
community was desirable. I agree that truly socialist production
relations require the direct effective control of the productive
wealth by the associated producers.
Let me make it clear for the record: *To the extent* Cuban workers are
taking steps, small or large, towards direct cooperation and
self-management in their workplaces and communities, they need all our
*total* support and encouragement. I also believe it is indispensable
that we propagandize actively the principle of workers'
self-management, of direct, transparent cooperative control, of full
effective ownership and disposition of the workers, by the workers,
and for the workers of the entire productive wealth of the globe.
(God knows I've been doing a bit of that by forwarding and strongly
advertising Michael's writings on socialism and Venezuela among my
Cuban friends.) And that includes the Cuban workers. That's why I
value Michael's contribution and insistence on spelling out the
specific social structures that characterize a socialist society. So,
yes, if the Cuban workers and their class sisters and brothers in the
whole world are ready to embrace, practically, at this very moment,
the Build-It-Now program that Michael advocates, I'm one of them right
here and right now.
Since I don't observe that motion just yet, the issue now -- I insist
-- is whether it is feasible for the Cuban workers under current
circumstances to take that most direct route. Why don't *I* advocate
for the shortest path between the point where Cuba is and the point
where Cuba ought to be? That's not the role I've chosen. Even if I
had, I don't have the kind of detailed information required to defend
one or another course of action. I confess, as should be obvious,
that I'm inclined to support what -- it is clear to me -- is the very
broad set of popular of demands that I listed before. But it doesn't
matter much. As Michael suggests, it is not what a
Menshevik/Stalinist, stagist, reformist, Taylorist individual like me
may or may not want. It's what the Cubans themselves are choosing
with their actions. I am not taking part in any internal debate in
Cuba. I'm only registering what I observe from afar. My point is
that the roundabout way doesn't lack a valid rationale. The proper
course of action is not as unequivocal as Michael suggest.
> 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?
I don't emphasize this, because it's clearly implicit in the argument
we're having. Do I need to show that Michael implicitly admits this
much by calling my argument "stagist"?
> Why the assumption that moves in this direction are
> contrary to finding 'immediate solutions'?
Because if moves in that direction were perfectly compatible with
immediate solutions, we would not be having this argument. Michael
writes below that there are "moments when the barriers to introducing
change are significantly reduced." So, isn't he then admitting that
there are real *barriers* to moving linearly in *that* direction? If
there are barriers, what's the nature of those barriers? Merely
ideological? A mere misunderstanding of Marx's work?
> Why this 'stagism'
> in which productive relations in which workers manage are a
> superior good, rational only when the productive forces have
> developed sufficiently?
I wish Michael could answer directly these questions: Aren't the
production relations themselves a product? Doesn't the production and
reproduction of specific production relations require people who have
evolved both the need and ability to produce and reproduce those
specific production relations?
Marx cannot settle these matters for us, but Michael recently referred
us to Grundrisse and Capital: Didn't Marx write somewhere in the
Grundrisse and in Capital that the productive forces are both (1)
producers of wealth (including the human wealth embodied in the
workers themselves) and (2) producers of "the specific social form,"
"the mode" in which wealth is produced, producers of specific
production relations?
Didn't Marx write somewhere in the Grundrisse and Capital that a
certain stage in the development of the productive forces (the
development of people as "industrious" producers, the development of
science ("the most solid form of wealth") is a presupposition to
dissolving existing forms of consciousness and legal, political, and
economic conditions?
Didn't Marx write somewhere in Grundrisse and Capital that, with the
expansion of the productive forces, the necessary labor time can be
reduced, thus creating conditions for workers to elevate and
radicalize their demands, thus making socialism itself -- both as a
doctrine and as a social force -- possible and necessary?
I am not in a position to fetch exact quotations now, but -- if my
memory has not been completely distorted by my exposure to the
"neoclassical" paradigm -- Marx wrote something along those lines
somewhere.
> 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.
I don't buy Michael's interpretation. I think he exaggerates the
influence of the Soviet ideology on Cuba. I'm under the impression
that, if the Soviet economic ideology has taken any hold in Cuba, it's
been only to the extent that the needs and possibilities of Cubans, as
they've emerged under their very specific conditions (conditions they
have not chosen), have found expression in one element or another of
the Soviet ideology. We can argue more about this, but I truly think
it's -- mostly -- a shot in the dark.
> 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.
Here, again, Michael attributes to me an assumption that I don't need
nor hold. I do not claim that, if the Cubans expanded markets and
private capitalism, they would then be able to transition to socialism
in a smooth or linear path, without social conflict. I don't even
claim that future social conflict is necessarily going to be less
brutal than the social conflict we've observed in our lifetimes. I'll
say it explicitly: If markets and private capitalism expand in Cuba,
uprooting them is going to take another *stage* of the revolution, or
another revolution altogether, or -- more likely -- a whole series of
new revolutions. The detour will not be costless. But neither would
the straight line approach.
No specific approach is guaranteed to succeed, but it seems to me --
in spite of Michael's path dependency argument -- that the radical
revolutionary potential of the modern working class, is more robust
(and increasing) than Michael's argument suggest. Again, if my radar
is right, the actual and more specific concerns of the Cubans now are
how to preserve their national unity and self-determination in the
face of a transition in the revolutionary leadership, how to preserve
and improve on their public sector, how to improve their standard of
living, and how to progress towards more directly democratic forms of
management of their public resources and government. I do not
anticipate a smooth path to socialism in Cuba (or anywhere).
> 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:
Obviously, I don't think it is reactionary to focus on trade gains in
Cuba today, like I don't think it was reactionary for the Russians
under the leadership of that Menshevik, Vladimir I. Lenin, to launch
the NEP in the spring of 1921 in Russia. Good thing is that
conditions now are very different from those facing the Russians back
then.
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