This interesting discussion migrated from WSM to WiC.

24/2/06 at WiC

Hello all

I spotted this contribution form PL from the WSM Forum (extract of complete message):

“I agree that to express the case for socialism in the language of class conflict is anachronistic. It’s not that class divisions have disappeared. It is because political class consciousness is dead. Particularly since the consumer boom years of the 1950/60s during which productivity led to a wide range of new and affordable products, people have adopted the values of economic individualism in which self interest means increasing one’s standard of living through individual initiatives (higher qualifications and a better paid job, etc.,) and not through class action. This indicates that we should present the case for socialism as being as much in line with individual self interest as the interests of the whole community. We would have no difficulty in doing this.”

I think this is true. I think this needs a re-think and re-wording on a lot of traditional propaganda literature from our sector.

TB

To which I replied:

25/2/06

Hi T,

Yes, interesting, and I sought out the whole thing (29784) – with some difficulty because there are so many posts, so perhaps WSM is ipso facto this ‘umbrella’ we’ve talked about :). However, WiC is actually broader – eg we’re happy to welcome anarchists, perhaps even turning that way ourselves. Part of the reason for that particular interest at WiC may be linked to PL’s discussion. There are a lot of assumptions in WSM discussions of future socialist society that assume what in SPGB they called ‘potential abundance’ and in the message PL is replying to ‘a socialist society where there is sustainable material abundance’ – big assumption! PL’s model is generally big scale, top-down, benign statist, and I personally don’t believe in it as a possible scenario. So I wouldn’t agree about ‘present[ing] the case for socialism as being as much in line with individual self interest as the interests of the whole community’, because surely we need to be talking about ‘local community groupings’, which can get together and organise without government – ie anarchism. People do need people, more than they need material stuff necessitating industrial robots, which may not be possible post Peak Oil. (Sorry if that’s not terribly clear but I’m in a rush…) love, Chris

To which TB replied:

26/2/06

Hi Chris

Yes, I see where you are coming from and I agree.

I think we can put our case from several angles. The problem with the kind of individualistic development which PL is describing is that it has also destroyed communities and cut people more and more off from one another. Mental illness is rocketing in the Western world – and rampant individualism carries a large part of the blame for this I reckon.

Incidentally, I said to a friend of mine the other day (she is fervently anti-religion), that at least religious people have communities left! All the ‘personal Christian’ people I know are always off doing things- helping, community-supporting kind of things – with ‘the church’. A woman I worked with for a while was seconded to work with us in London from South Africa. She brought her two teenage daughters with her. The two daughters immediately found friends – and was accepted into a community – because of the church they were a member of!

Anyway, going back to the angle PL is coming from – we can also assure people that there will be plenty of opportunity for people to stretch themselves and use their abilities to the full in this new society. And they will get recognition for it.

All the best

TB

This was the message TB referred to, and the original message it was replying to:

From: PL, 24/02/06

Law in the jungle but not Socialist society?

P, Surely we can agree that in socialist production we would realise our self interests by cooperating with others. With the motivation being self interest altruism wouldn’t come into it. If you posit the “lazy man/woman” (a near relative of the “greedy man”) then I suppose we should allow for some disaffected persons who for their own reasons take from the common store without contributing to it. Even so, I cannot see that this could lead to the collapse of socialist society and in any case, it would be a very dull society that couldn’t accept eccentricity. And if for any reason they decided to join with their local community in some part of production the decision would be theirs and made in their own interests.

Relating “self interest” to production and the division of labour which allows for both productivity and diversity, then clearly, because living standards and quality of life depend on it, it would serve the interests of all involved. It’s true that division of labour got a bad name in the 19th and early 20th centuries because it broke the work process down to detailed, repetitive functions. Then we had the conveyor belt (the Ford Factories) which subjected the worker to the speed of the assembly line where he/she functioned as an “appendage of the machine.”

But manufacturing technology has come a long way since then. Now we have computer controlled/automated/ robot production which can allow for high volume, quality production round the clock with minimum attendance by the workers in charge. We have many grounds for anticipating a very high rate of productivity in socialism.

I agree that to express the case for socialism in the language of class conflict is anachronistic. It’s not that class divisions have disappeared. It is because political class consciousness is dead. Particularly since the consumer boom years of the 1950/60’s during which productivity led to a wide range of new and affordable products, people have adopted the values of economic individualism in which self interest means increasing one’s standard of living through individual initiatives (higher qualifications and a better paid job, etc.,) and not through class action. This indicates that we should present the case for socialism as being as much in line with individual self interest as the interests of the whole community. We would have no difficulty in doing this.

I also agree that there would be group interests in socialism as well as a general or common interest. An example I have given could be arguments over use of a piece of local land. The local Housing Committee might want it for housing; others may want it for a sports centre, whilst the ecologists may want it left alone because it’s the last nesting site of the Lesser Spotted Ouzelam bird (that’s the one that flies round in ever decreasing circles and being a contributor to this Forum I sometimes know how it feels.) It’s been suggested that one method of conflict resolution could be, with perhaps some lateral thinking, a solution that satisfies all parties. This would be a win/win/win solution. Don’t hold your breath!

Incidentally, coming back to organisation of production I cannot see that the example you have given helps your case that market signals do the work of co-ordination. I take co-ordination to mean the flow of information that enables separate units to contribute to the production of a good. You said that when panelling a room the prices of your preferred Western Red Cedar were much more than your local Radiata Pine and this led you to order the latter. There is no argument that a comparison of cost/prices may lead to one line of goods being expanded over another. That is clearly the case, but this is not co-ordination of production. :Leaving aside the pricing that led you to make the choice, once you had made it, it was your order for Radiata Pine to your local supplier that began the sequence of order and supply, eventually extending to all the units involved in producing the timber. The cost/price signal was passed from the supplier to you the consumer and this cannot be an instruction to produce. It is in a direction that is opposite to the one required to co-ordinate production. What does the job is the order and supply of finished goods and worked up materials throughout the structure of production and this would be continued into socialism. I repeat the point, the cost price signals of the market do not co-ordinate production.

It is likely that in socialism the ecologists restricting the supply of Western Red Cedar from California would stop it altogether, and more power to their elbows. However, you might get lucky and have some supplied in which case your first choice wouldn’t depend on price. On the other hand you could paint the walls white. That’s what we do!

PL

----- Original Message ----- 23/2/06

Law in the jungle but not Socialist society?

PL

I didn’t anticipate saying anything more on this issue of altruism and motivation etc, but since you mention me in your recent post (29774) to L, I feel bound to clear up some misconceptions. When I referred to altruism it was in a response to Adam in which I asked what would motivate producers of wheat in wheat-rich countries like America to produce grain for wheat-poor countries like Ethiopia. In a later but similar post I asked what would motivate wool producers in Australia to grow and supply wool to knitters in Peru. The particular context was that of a socialist society where there is sustainable material abundance, the needs/abilities principle prevails (from each according to abilities, to each etc.) and therefore all labour is voluntary, and there are no nation-states and no power to enforce decisions taken by a world body which co-ordinates production and distribution at a global level. I suggested that in these circumstances you would have to depend on “altruism” as a sole motivation for production, and in a later post I clarified this by saying that I used “altruism” as a proxy for “moral incentives”. Elsewhere I used the phrase “moral suasion”. Nowhere did I suggest that “the policy of the Socialist Party assumes that every person (in socialism) would act from altruism”. I think it plausible that “altruism” or moral suasion would be sufficient motivation for workers/producers in a socialist society where structures of production were small, decentralised, local and relatively autonomous. But this is not the context in which I first raised the issue of motivation.

I have never thought that altruism and self-interest were mutually exclusive, nor do I believe that individual self-interest is “the dominant motivation in people”, although it may be so in individual concrete situations. I another post I said that you don’t have to believe that human beings are “essentially anti-social” to recognise that they are nonetheless strongly motivated by self interest, or that they are very tribal, or that they will usually regard their particular interest as at one with the general interest. Actually, I don’t believe that human beings are “essentially” anything! I think that individual self-interest, alike altruism, are both products of society – along with religion, morality and all the rest. Saying as you do that “the life of the individual is inconceivable without the life of society” and that “we humans are social animals” is no answer at all to what I have said about motivation in socialism, because these statements are truisms, and far too general and vague to be of any use in making a realistic assessment of the economic and political feasibility of WSM type socialism.

Your remarks on class interests as group interests in opposition to the interests of an “atomised” individual are again unexceptionable. But they miss the much more important distinction: that between class interests and group interests which are not based on class. Ethnicity, religion, nationality and gender are all expressions of group interest other than class, and they have been far more significant in recent history than class as a basis on which people form themselves into “collective actors”. So while a classless society may, as you suggest, be the basis for a “true community of shared interests” (whatever that may mean), it would only be so if there were no other interests which might divide people in a socialist society. Again, I think it is unrealistic to believe this, though as I’ve said before, I dream about it. The evidence from the world around us is that the sentiments needed for a viable socialist internationalism are much more limited than what you imagine – based that is, on your premises of sustainable material abundance, voluntary labour and zero politics.

P (in Oz)

top