>>> Jim Devine
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
^^^^^^^
CB: At gun point: This anti-Soviet stereotype may be exaggerated. It is
quite likely that the vast majority of Soviet workers worked as hard or
harder, had higher productivity in several periods than workers subject
to unemployment threat. Much of Soviet work was based on moral
incentive, fellow workers' peer pressure, sense of duty to themselves
and others, and knowing that the imperialist armies were mounting again.
The terror that pushed them to work was more from imperialism than from
the red repressive apparatus.
>
> 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").
