Charles Brown: >>>... is it your position that there was very little
work done in the now-defunct Soviet Union?<<
me: > I said that the amount of effort per worker-hour was low,
compared to in the so-called "West."<
CB: > Inferring indirectly, I'm not so sure that this was true
throughout the whole history.<
As I said before, I wasn't talking about the USSR "throughout the
whole history." I was talking about the post-Stalin period, when
institutional arrangements had stabilized (for awhile).
CB:> I say inferring indirectly, because we know a lot of use-values
were produced in a very short time from , oh, 1919 to 1939. By a lot,
I mean compared with the labor productivity of the advanced capitalist
countries in the classical period of the rise of capitalism. So,
there may have be more intense work by some SU workers in that period,
more intense than workers under capitalism at some points. I believe
our whole discussion here is comparison of work under capitalism and
that under the SU.<
as I said before, during the Stalin period, the negative impact of
true full employment on work effort (when it occurred) was dealt with
using terror. Ea
>
> I am open to a sort of opposite notion , that you may not agree with,
> that the slower work pace was evidence that the workers _did_ have
> significant power in the work situation, in that people supervising
> themselves are not going to be as hard on themselves as capitalist
> supervisors would be.
>
> So, contradictory thoughts, faster pace, harder work than workers under
> capitalism when they were industrializing and recovering from WWII.
> Slower pace as they we move into the 60's , 70's.
>
> These are rough indirect inferences.
>
> ^^^^^^^
>
> Of course, there were exceptions, as when people still were willing to
> work hard for the revolution (late 1910s, early 1920s, fading) or when
> they were subject to direct coercion (later on, on and off).
>
> > If so, little work was done, how come so many use-values
> > were produced ?
>
> Repeating what I said: even if effort per worker-hour is low, it can
> be compensated for (raising the amount of use-values produced) by
> raising the number of hours actually worked by each worker. Or by
> bringing in lots of workers from the countryside.
>
> Repeating what I said: in general, the _quality_ of Soviet use-values
> was low. They produced shoddy goods.
>
> ^^^^^
>
> CB: Machines are use-values too. Subways and buses are use-values. Not
> all Soviet use-values were shoddy. I'm not quite sure that this well
> known claim is as thoroughly true as most are in the habit of thinking.
>
>
> I'm one of those anti-consumerists, who feels a bit uncomfortable with
> so many gadgets and giszmos. Of course, even more so with global warming
> and the oil problem. The level of production of socalled consumer goods
> in the SU may be closer to what the world standard will have to be.
>
> Also, compared with most countries beyond the most advanced capitalist
> countries, their goods were good quality, i.e relative to most
> production in the world.
>
> ^^^^^
>
> The fundamental reason is due to class antagonism: there was not
> enough harmony between workers and their state-appointed supervisors
> and managers to motivate workers to produce high-quality products.
> This meant that the reserve army of the unemployed was sorely missed
> -- that is, if your only goal is to produce high-quality use-values.
> --
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: "high quality" is a relative term. The goods were high quality
> compared to most places and most of history. They worked in many and
> most ways. Maybe the goods were good enough for people.
>
> They didn't have exploding Pintos ? asbestos all over the place did
> they
>
> There is a lot of problematic quality in goods here. Also, there isn't
> quite a clearcut correlation between better quality of life and socalled
> higher quality good ,in my opinion, living in the locus of production of
> "higher" quality goods. All these consumer goods, whatever quality are
> not all they are cranked up to be, a mon avis. I'd take job security ,
> free health care, free college, free rent etc. over lots of consumer
> goods, myself
>
> I'm not sure the stereotype of low quality there, high quality here is
> as clearcut true as we have been brainwashed to believe.
>
--
Jim Devine / "The radios blare muzak and newzak, diseases are cured
every day / the worst disease is to be unwanted, to be used up, and
cast away." -- Peter Case ("Poor Old Tom").
