Organisation of work and free access

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Much more worrying, though, about [Sotionov’s] proposition is the thinking behind it, identified by LBird as a reflection of the bourgeois ideology as to what "human nature" is. It's that that's really unacceptable.

[edited quote]Yeah, ‘free access’ Communism can really only be even begun to be grasped from the ideological perspective of the Communist proletarian.Whilst any comrades try to retain elements of bourgeois thinking in their understanding [Workers? Loads of them are bone idle bastards, it’s human nature! And they’re too thick to be able to comprehend ‘free access’! Anyway, who’d freely share with the lazy? I wouldn’t: if I do ‘my bit’, so should others], the arguments for free access will seem ‘utopian’.That said, I think further discussion on ‘safety net’ social mechanisms, asked for by Sotionov, is worth doing, if only to illustrate their probable superfluousness. I should say that I think these ‘mechanisms’, in any case, would be ideological rather than compulsory. There are examples to be drawn from pre-capitalist societies that show how recalcitrant members were ‘persuaded’ to adhere to norms. These may satisfy Sotionov’s curiosity. Then again, perhaps they’ll strengthen some readers’ objections to the very notion of ‘feeding freeloaders’!

[alanjjohnstone]

LBird wrote:

 I think further discussion on ‘safety net’ social mechanisms, asked for by Sotionov, is worth doing

I have always had a partiality to democracy by lottery as a means of administration and decision making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I have always had a partiality to democracy by lottery as a means of administration and decision making.

Isn't sortition a dastardly plot by any ruling class to prevent the exploited class from choosing its 'best' candidates for the job? A negation of democracy?

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Yeah, ‘free access’ Communism can really only be even begun to be grasped from the ideological perspective of the Communist proletarian.

I wouldn't go that far. It can be understood by anyone with an elementary knowledge of the scientifc findings of social anthropology. It's not  "ideological" in the strict sense of the term. It's a pretty simple concept really. You don't need to be a great intellectual or a grand theoretician to grasp it !

LBird wrote:

I think further discussion on ‘safety net’ social mechanisms, asked for by Sotionov, is worth doing, if only to illustrate their probable superfluousness.

Agreed. That's what this forum is for.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Yeah, ‘free access’ Communism can really only be even begun to be grasped from the ideological perspective of the Communist proletarian.

I wouldn't go that far. It can be understood by anyone with an elementary knowledge of the scientifc findings of social anthropology. It's not  "ideological" in the strict sense of the term. It's a pretty simple concept really. You don't need to be a great intellectual or a grand theoretician to grasp it !

Could you briefly outline the 'scientific findings of social anthropology', which demonstrate the (presumable) 'naturalness' of 'free access Communism', ALB? A few bullet points will do.I'm inclined to view the concept as an ideological concept, rather than a 'scientific' one.PS. We can leave the discussion about 'what is science?' well alone, please!

[ALB]

Ok, later but the findings don't demonstrate the 'naturalness' of socialism but merely that it is not 'unnatural' (not against an imagined 'human nature') as critics claim.

[Ed]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

LBird wrote:

 I think further discussion on ‘safety net’ social mechanisms, asked for by Sotionov, is worth doing

I have always had a partiality to democracy by lottery as a means of administration and decision making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Yeah me too although I've always known it as demarchy, first time I've heard it called sortition.

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I have always had a partiality to democracy by lottery as a means of administration and decision making.

Isn't sortition a dastardly plot by any ruling class to prevent the exploited class from choosing its 'best' candidates for the job? A negation of democracy?

I think it could work very well in a socialist society for making small decisions about things that people are not particularly interested in. The main benefit though is to stop any one group with special interests from monopolizing power.

[ALB]

As promised, LBird, here's the "scientific findings of social anthropology" you were asking about, taken from our pamphlet Are We Prisoners of Our Genes?:

Quote:

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 biological determinism became a state ideology. This was to be its undoing, at least temporarily, as with the defeat of Germany more accurate views on human biology and behaviour came to the fore. Racism and eugenics were repudiated and it came to be recognised that human behaviour was socially and culturally, not biologically, determined. This was based on solid scientific research and was well expressed (apart from the then prevailing confusion of “human” and “man”) by Kenneth Boulding in 1966:“It is the great peculiarity of man, however, differentiating him from all the other animals, that what his genes endow him with is an enormous nervous system of some 10 billion components, the informational content of which is derived almost wholly from the environment, that is, from inputs into the organism from outside. The genetic contribution to man’s nervous system is virtually complete at birth. Almost everything that happens thereafter is learned. It is this consideration which inspires the modern anthropologist to declare that man has virtually no instincts and that virtually everything he knows has to be learned from his environment, which consists both of the physical world in which he lives and moves and the social world into which he is born” (in Man and Aggression, edited by MF Ashley Montagu, OUP, 1968, pp 86-87).And by the anthropologist Alexander Allard in 1972:"Anthropologists realized long ago that purely biological explanations of human behavior are inadequate. Our behavior is based on customs which develop in the context of specific social and environmental conditions. While they do reflect the fact that man like all other animals must adjust to the environment to survive, attempts to link human behavioral systems to simple geographic or genetic factors have always failed. This is because man's major behavioral adaptation is culture."Culture is learned and shared. It is rooted in biology. But although this is true (the capacity for culture is part of a normal human's brain structure), culture frees man to an unprecedented degree from strictly biological controls over the development and maintenance of behavioral systems. Culture is biologically adaptive. That is, human populations imbedded, like all animal populations, in specific environments adjust to these environments largely through culture."Man is born with a capacity to learn culture, not with culture. This does not mean that all human behavior is freed of biological programming. Individuals are born different. The outcome of heredity and experience will lead to differences in temperament and ability which make it possible for the human group to function as a social entity."The human being has been shaped by evolution. His size, the fact that he walks on two feet, his relative lack of body hair, and the fact that he can and does talk are all products of the evolutionary process. What man does and also what he believes are also products of evolution. But those elements which depend upon culture are not inherited biologically. In part, man adapts biologically to his environment in a non-biological way—through culture."Since man is one of the most widely distributed of species occupying a vast array of environments ranging from deserts to swampland, from plains to mountains, from inland to the sea, and because his social and technological environment varies as widely, we should not be surprised to find a range of behavioral variation adjusted to specific environments" (The Human Imperative, Columbia University Press, 1972, pp. 21-22).This finding was never popular with those who supported class rule and capitalist privilege. It had implications which were too democratic, let alone too socialist, for them. In fact, it confirmed that the so-called “human nature objection” to socialism was completely unfounded: people could adapt to living in socialism, just as they had adapted to living in primitive tribal communism, ancient slave society, feudalism and capitalism.

and

Quote:

Socialists defend the finding that human behaviour is acquired and not innate, because this is what the accumulated evidence shows. Human behaviour throughout the ages has been so diverse that it is not possible to conclude that, to continue with our examples, aggression, acquisitiveness and male domination, are universal; and not just throughout the ages, such behaviour is not even exhibited by all people today. What this suggests is that humans as a species possess the capacity to engage in a great variety of behaviours and that it is this behavoural flexibility and versatility that is “human nature”.This is confirmed by the study of the genetic make-up of humans. Our brains are adapted for acquiring new behaviours and for thinking abstractly and communicating by means of a structured language based on abstract symbols, and we have a biologically-governed prolonged period of growing up during which we learn the most intensively, in particular language and social skills. Neuroscience is making advances in our understanding of how the brain works but it is not uncovering anything to suggest that complex behaviour patterns such as aggression or possessiveness are, or even could be, innate. Quite the contrary, what neuroscientists are trying to discover is what it is in the make-up and functioning of our brains that allows humans to have a repertoire of many more behaviours than any other animal.

In short, the findings of social anthropology show there is nothing in the biological make-up of human beings that would prevent them living in a socialist society (what you call 'free access communism').

[alanjjohnstone]

You said "Yeah me too although I've always known it as demarchy, first time I've heard it called sortition." Me too but when i went to wiki for a link i came up with that definition and term you say "I think it could work very well in a socialist society for making small decisions about things that people are not particularly interested in."  Lottery is valid enough method of decision making for things as important as whether a man or woman should live or die, whether a man or woman should spend their lives locked up behind bars or go free . I think justice  and punishment is something most people are intersted in and we entrust the decision to (in Scotland) 15 randomly picked members of the public, not quite picked off the street but close enough. As you say it helps to ensure no rise of a bureaucracy in committees. Capitalism seems to have adopted the idea in the sense that they now all use focus groups to determine marketing and such like. There is also consumer research, mostly by telephone but also by visits has grown into an industry and if it didn't have some accuracy i doubt it would exist as much. I certain can conceive of these being used in socialism as mechanisms for feedback on what we actually make and how much of it we should produce.  The idea of opinion polls has turned into quite an accurate science in determining attitudes and predicting outcomes and those are based on not quite random selection by lottery but by adding parameters to create a representative sample. I am sure those involved in this profession will devise a whole variety of even more new practical applications for a socialist society that they have not yet begun studying because still having the capitalist society blinkers on. Epidemiologal statistical research and returns is not a head count but a survey (hence the dispute over the UN sanctuion child death rate and the Lancet Iraq war death numbers figures) are used by health workers and host of others. I am not qualified to fully demonstrate how these will be adapted in socialism but when workers in these fields have become  socialists and they have built workers councils and neighbourhood communes and whatever,  there will be a surge in innovation and implementation.  So what i am saying is that democracy and decisions in socialism need not be constant meetings and continual voting on every issue. Certainly we will be involved more in our polis but i am sure it will be combined with festivals and celebrations like the medieval fairs which usually had some economic purpose such as alloting access in the commons or choosing work placements for farm labourers. There has been some use of the word assumption on this thread and it is usually in a negative sense. An assumption can be very reliable (as also can an educated guess). A doctor assumes a certain treatment will have a particular effect. He cannot guarantee it every time but from his knowledge (sometimes second-hand) he assumes it.Socialists do make assumptions but a phrase out of favour and unpopular these days is that our political ideas is based upon "scientific socialism", we are scientific socialists. We use certain thinking processes …inductive reasoning, matrialistic conception of history…we simply do not come up with our ideas independent or outside society . We assume things but it is from precedence. 

[Ed]

A lot of possible new subjects stemming from this post.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 Lottery is valid enough method of decision making for things as important as whether a man or woman should live or die, whether a man or woman should spend their lives locked up behind bars or go free . I think justice  and punishment is something most people are interested in and we entrust the decision to (in Scotland) 15 randomly picked members of the public, not quite picked off the street but close enough. As you say it helps to ensure no rise of a bureaucracy in committees.

Personally I would call that a very small decision if we're talking about a world-wide decision making process. It's a single localized issue perfectly designed for a sortition/demarchic system. However, my only interest in punishment is in how to expose it for the biblical age nonsense it is and to hopefully one day see it's abolition.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

The idea of opinion polls has turned into quite an accurate science in determining attitudes and predicting outcomes and those are based on not quite random selection by lottery but by adding parameters to create a representative sample. I am sure those involved in this profession will devise a whole variety of even more new practical applications for a socialist society that they have not yet begun studying because still having the capitalist society blinkers on.Epidemiologal statistical research and returns is not a head count but a survey (hence the dispute over the UN sanctuion child death rate and the Lancet Iraq war death numbers figures) are used by health workers and host of others.

I'm not convinced about it's effectiveness over larger scales and for decisions which effect more than a localised few. I know little of "epidemiologal statistics" and I'm pretty sure I'd have a hard time pronouncing it. Have they solved the main problem of surveys and polls which is language biasing answers, sometimes unintentionally sometimes intentionally. Perhaps this is not a problem with the method but with the application? Perhaps it shows the current inefficiency of language? Until these problems are shown to be solved I think I have to take the Disraeli line and say "lies, damned lies and statistics".

alanjjohnstone wrote:

So what i am saying is that democracy and decisions in socialism need not be constant meetings and continual voting on every issue

This I agree with wholeheartedly and is the best argument for sortition/demarchy. It would be completely inefficient and wasteful to call referendums of one man one vote over every little thing. Not only that but it could actually make people complacent about voting if they feel they are constantly being asked to vote on questions that they feel are of little importance. (see the turn out for the conference votes )

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Socialists do make assumptions but a phrase out of favour and unpopular these days is that our political ideas is based upon "scientific socialism", we are scientific socialists. We use certain thinking processes …inductive reasoning, matrialistic conception of history…we simply do not come up with our ideas independent or outside society . We assume things but it is from precedence.

Absolutely the case for socialism is scientific. Something I'd like to have said to Sotinov if he checks back in on this thread. Is that socialists have not arrived at this free-access idea or as I prefer communism by chance. It is not an ideal that we have set out to achieve and then looked for evidence to back it up. It is the result of analyzing the problems and benefits of all previous societies. Looking at what has worked for us, humans, and what hasn't. By doing that we have come to our conclusions about society being classless with the produce of our labour being distributed on a needs basis. We shouldn't make predictions but we can make some assumptions or, I think I prefer theories about what happens based on evidence already observed. What we do say is that in order to have a society of free access workers must first realise that such a society is in their best interests. In this realisation the understanding is formed about what kind of behaviour is needed in order to sustain it. It's no good having a revolution without a bit of a plan of what the revolution is for. However, it is also utopian to have a blue print type of plan when we do not yet know the specific circumstances. It seems Sotinov you may have been asking for such a blue print. If we are wrong about human nature, greed and laziness then people will overcome it. If there is one outstanding characteristic of human beings that we see throughout history it is the ability to overcome problems without the complete breakdown of social relations.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

As promised, LBird, here's the "scientific findings of social anthropology" you were asking about, taken from our pamphlet Are We Prisoners of Our Genes?:

Thanks for that, ALB. The excerpt confirms what I already thought, but I’ll read the pamphlet later, anyway.But I think we might be having a bit of a misunderstanding. As you go on to say…

ALB wrote:

In short, the findings of social anthropology show there is nothing in the biological make-up of human beings that would prevent them living in a socialist society (what you call 'free access communism').

…science may confirm that ‘there is nothing in the biological make-up of human beings that would prevent them living [with]… 'free access communism'’, but that isn’t the same as science arguing that ‘humans are innately disposed to f.a.c.’, either.That was the point of my earlier post,

LBird wrote:

Yeah, ‘free access’ Communism can really only be even begun to be grasped from the ideological perspective of the Communist proletarian.

…that humans must want to choose to live in a society based on ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’. There is no ‘biological imperative’ for that type of social arrangement, either, just as there isn’t for Sotionov’s position.But your reply seemed to, at the least, soft-pedal on the need for the basics of f.a.c. to be argued for, as part of a Communist ideological framework.

ALB wrote:

I wouldn't go that far. It can be understood by anyone with an elementary knowledge of the scientific findings of social anthropology. It's not "ideological" in the strict sense of the term. It's a pretty simple concept really. You don't need to be a great intellectual or a grand theoretician to grasp it!

I think it is an ideological argument, which we must actively propagandise for. Further, given our present bourgeois brainwashing about ‘naturally lazy, greedy, individuals’, I don’t think it’s as ‘simple a concept to grasp’ as you appear to argue. In fact, it goes against everything we supposedly ‘know’ about humans, according to many so-called scientists. Perhaps Sotionov’s posts back up my position, and many other Communists express doubts about f.a.c., at least in the short term, post-revolution (ie. they see a need for a ‘transition period’).So, to be clear, I’m not arguing against the SPGB position, but, on the contrary, think that it needs to be argued for. I think our disagreement with Sotionov is an ideological disagreement, rather than one which will simply disappear with time. Whilst Sotionov holds to the philosophical basics that they do, they’ll disagree with f.a.c.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

…science may confirm that ‘there is nothing in the biological make-up of human beings that would prevent them living [with]… 'free access communism'’, but that isn’t the same as science arguing that ‘humans are innately disposed to f.a.c.’, either.That was the point of my earlier post,

Entirely agree. That was my point too.

LBird wrote:

…that humans must want to choose to live in a society based on ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’.

Yes, agree again.

Quote:

There is no ‘biological imperative’ for that type of social arrangement, either, just as there isn’t for Sotionov’s position.

Entirely agree yet again (this is turning into an exercise of mutual admiration). Having said that, I think somebody could make out a strong case for capitalism being "against human nature" by trying to reduce us all to isolated competing social atoms whereas we are a social species. It would be nice if this were true, but I'm not arguing this myself.

LBird wrote:

But your reply seemed to, at the least, soft-pedal on the need for the basics of f.a.c. to be argued for, as part of a Communist ideological framework. [….] I think it is an ideological argument, which we must actively propagandise for.

Of course I agree that, to get to socialism/free-access communism (the same thing) people must want and understand this. And that the main tasks of socialists today is to argue the case for socialism.  After all, this is the long-standing SPGB position!My objection was to the word "ideological" because of the association, in some interpretations of Marx, of ideology as "false consciousness". Obviously, socialist consciousness won't be ideological in this sense as it will be an accurate understanding of the situation and of what needs to be done.I assume by "ideological" you simply mean "in the field of ideas". Yes, socialists are engaged in a battle of ideas, but I think we need to find another word than "ideological" to express this.

[alanjjohnstone]

 While reading up on co-ops i happened upon this by Bertell Ollman which some on this thread might find of interest  http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/ms_ch04.php   “…There is no overriding need to build an industry from scratch. Advice from a cooperative public, computers and other modern communication technology, and, of course, repeated trial and error and correction of error will permit quick adjustments whenever necessary. Hence, there is little likelihood of making major miscalculations or of suffering much material deprivation when errors are made. I would also expect socialist planning to occur at various levels—nation, region, city, and enterprise as well as world-wide—so that many of the decisions that were taken by central planners in the Soviet Union would be relegated to planners on levels more in keeping with the actions required for the plan to succeed.  Equally important is the nature of socialist democracy as it effects the economy of this time. For the workers to function as the new ruling class, it is not enough that the government act in their interests. They must also participate in making crucial political decisions, and none are more crucial than choosing the economic planners and establishing the main priorities of the plan. I would expect debates on these matters to be an essential part of politics under socialism, as workers overcome their political alienation by realizing their powers as social and communal beings.  At this point, many readers are probably thinking—”But workers are not like that. They wouldn’t want to get so involved, or, if they did, the result would be chaos”. Enter the revolution, a successful revolution, since we are discussing what comes after capitalism. Market socialists don’t seem to realize what an extraordinary educational and transformative experience participation in a successful revolution would be, and consequently what workers in socialism will want to do and will be capable of doing that most workers today do not and cannot. Like most people, market socialists are simply projecting the same personalities with which they are familiar from their daily lives into the future. New conditions and experiences, however, bring out new qualities in people. Perhaps no lesson from Marx’s materialism is more obvious; yet, there can be few things that are more frequently overlooked. Marx believes that taking part in a revolution is the most powerful educational experience one can have, with its greatest impact in just those areas that are crucial for the success of what comes afterwards.20  Given the enormous power of the capitalist class, for a socialist revolution to succeed, the majority of workers will have to become class conscious, which involves, among other things, understanding their common interests, developing greater mutual concern, becoming more cooperative, and acquiring a keener interest in political affairs as well as a stronger sense of personal responsibility for how they turn out. But these are the same qualities that make building socialism after the revolution, including democratic central planning, possible. Naturally, the more transparent society is at this time, a feature on which Marx insists, the easier it will be for people to carry out their socialist functions….  …..Marx stands out from virtually all other socialist thinkers, however, in insisting that capitalism not only makes socialism necessary, it also makes socialism possible. Starting out to investigate socialism from the side of capitalism, therefore, has the additional advantage in that it enables us to give due weight to the enormous achievements of capitalism as well as to its failures in influencing the shape of the future. In the area of the market, the most important of these achievements include advanced distribution and communication networks and the technology needed to make them work, established patterns of resource allocation, extensive planning mechanisms within private corporations and public agencies, the organizational skills of all the participants, and, of course, the vast amounts of wealth already in the pipeline as well as all the material factors required to produce much more. The possibility of economic planning in socialism cannot be fully understood, let alone evaluated, apart from its necessary preconditions, which—like the main problems to which such planning is addressed—are an inheritance from the capitalist society that preceeded it. All this, and more, leaps out at anyone who begins an analysis of socialism from the vantage point of its origins in capitalism….  ….In revolutions, however, people undergo dramatic changes, and, if a revolution in an advanced capitalist country is to succeed, people will have to develop, as I’ve argued, many of the same qualities that are called upon in building a socialist society. Thus, the kind of reforms that may appear sensible today, based on people remaining pretty much as they are, will appear much less so. The market socialist suit tailored on today’s measurements will no longer fit. New human beings who know how to cooperate and want to do so will make full socialism possible. The same developments will also make it infinitely preferable to any market socialist alternative, which could only strike the people of this time as an unwieldy compromise with the past. So, if today, market socialism is merely impossible, tomorrow (or the day after) it will also be unnecessary….”  http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/ms_ch04.php

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

While reading up on co-ops i happened upon this by Bertell Ollman which some on this thread might find of interest….In revolutions, however, people undergo dramatic changes, and, if a revolution in an advanced capitalist country is to succeed, people will have to develop, as I've argued, many of the same qualities that are called upon in building a socialist society. Thus, the kind of reforms that may appear sensible today, based on people remaining pretty much as they are, will appear much less so. The market socialist suit tailored on today's measurements will no longer fit. New human beings who know how to cooperate and want to do so will make full socialism possible. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/ms_ch04.php

Now it's Ollman who is talking crap. This idea that socialism requires "new human beings" lends support to Sotionov's criticism that socialists/communists are just utopians who want to change "human nature" and needs knocking on the head straighaway. Socialism is not incompatible with "people remaining pretty much as they are". As we put it in our pamphlet Are We Prisoners of Our Genes?: 

Quote:

The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, cooperation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages. Capitalism has an all-pervading culture of violence, competitiveness and acquisitiveness, and people are under pressure to adapt their behaviour to this. In socialism this culture will disappear and people’s behaviour will no longer be shaped by it.

 Let's not weaken our case by talking of a supposed need for "new human beings" for socialism to work.

[alanjjohnstone]

I too have a few reservations with Ollman such as his apparent acceptance of socialism and communism being different stages but i think you are raising just a problem of terminology here. "New human beings who know how to co-operate and want to do so will make socialism possible" .Obviously it is not the evolution of a new species he means but i took it to read people who have acquired class consciousness, which is a change in thought and ideas and outlook and something people will need  for us to achieve socialism. The old case of of the class moving  on from from a "class in itself" to "class for itself".  As Ollman wrote earlier in the article. "It may be the oldest idea in socialism: each of us our brothers keeper. For people to act upon this, however, they must really think of others as their brothers (and sisters), or, in this case, as members of the same class  whose common interests makes them brothers (and sisters). "

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