Workers' Councils and the Market

Economics Economics Questions
1

I’m a first-time poster on this site, so it’s possible that someone has asked this question before, but if that’s the case, I’m unaware. Anyway, I’ve been considering the various merits of capitalism and socialism as economic systems for a while now, and have read a fair amount of stuff from both sides of the question. Admittedly, I’m a socialist; I figure there’s no use in keeping that a secret. However, I’m neither of the anarchistic/libertarian strain (like Kropotkin, though I respect a lot of his ideas), nor am I of the strain that’s a fan of “planning,” be it totalitarian (e.g., the USSR) or democratic (e.g., a large segment of today’s Socialist Party USA). Further, I reject social democracy as a noble-minded but inadequate alternative to both capitalism and socialism. Instead, I favor an economic system which combines workers’ self-management in the form of democratically-organized and -administered workers’ councils with a more or less free market. That is, I don’t like the idea of a central pricing index or anything like that (which, I think, is basically what Langian market socialism entails); instead, I would prefer to see worker-self-managed enterprises compete with one another on the market. The only sort of “planning” that I could agree to would be the establishment of government-INITIATED but worker-RUN public works projects, which, as I see it, would solve two problems: 1. The provision of at least living-wage jobs for those who’ve been thrown out of work elsewhere (thus helping to lower unemployment and reduce the number of those living in poverty) and 2. The provision of public goods and services (like street-cleaning, the building of city parks, etc.), which help to provide “small comforts” for everybody.

Now, I promise this is going somewhere. Basically, I’ve got two questions:

  1. Is there anyone who advocates an economic model combining workers’ councils with the market, while rejecting government planning? I’ve read a bit about market socialism, but haven’t come across anything that sounds like this; almost all market socialists seem to prefer holding on to at least SOME sort of planning. But, of course, I could be wrong about that…

  2. What objections, shortcomings, foreseeable problems, etc., come to your mind in relation to this proposed economic model? I want to open up my ideas to a fair critique (i.e., friendly and respectful dialogue, so if you plan to get hostile, just don’t bother responding).

Anyway, I’m interested in hearing what you all think.

–Chris

2

It seems to me you are confused about even what you think

3

So you are a syndicalist like Chomsky?

Noam Chomsky.

Well starting off with a premise, how do you presume that property ownership comes about?

4

…Like Noam Chomsky. [:P]

5

Like Nirmingham, I’m confused too. But if there is any government whatsoever in your political framework, it has to go.

You have probably dismissed anarchy without thinking much about it. You and I probably both agree that there has to be some third party to resolve disputes that arise between agents. While natural anarchy is not a solution to this problem, government cannot ever be a solution either. The author of this article calls government a “hobbesian state anarchy”. You should read it even if you do not plan to become an anarchist. It is a very well written piece of work that has changed the way I think about political philosophy.

Note, that once you endorse free and voluntary association, you can still have whatever socialist/communist/theocratic paradise you want. The Amish and other groups that have separated from society are good examples of forming an ideal society peacefully. Why can socialists not do the same?

6

Thank you all for your (very quick!) responses. I honestly wasn’t sure whether anyone would consider discussing this. Anyway, I’ll just reply to each of you in order…

NirgrahamUK: With all due respect, I’m not quite sure in what way you believe that I’m confused in my thinking. Only if you presuppose that “socialism” is a monolithic ideology does what I believe appear to be confusing, or what’s worse, self-contradictory in some way. But the truth of the matter is that socialism encompasses a very wide array of ideas, ranging all the way from anarcho-communism to the “authoritarian” communism of people like Stalin (though I have my doubts as to whether the latter is “true” socialism). Anyway, I personally define socialism as an economic system which rejects the private ownership of capital in favor of the collective ownership of capital (however that arrangement is worked out). So, that’s why I believe it’s possible to hold on to the free market and still call myself a socialist.

Laughing Man: No, I don’t think my views align with Chomsky’s very closely, for a variety of reasons. First, Chomsky is technically an anarcho-syndicalist; I’m not an anarchist, so I don’t share that view with him. Second, I’m not a syndicalist, because syndicalism focuses almost exclusively on the unions as the vehicle for revolutionary change, and syndicalists further believe that the unions will serve as the nucleus around which socialism is built. I disagree, seeing workers’ councils as the basis for true socialism (so I’m more in agreement with Pannekoek). What’s the difference? I don’t necessarily necessarily reject the idea that the unions can be used for revolutionary purposes, but I don’t see them as the exclusive means of that sort of change. Rather, I think that a socialist revolution is most likely to be successful, not when it’s being pushed by a small segment of the workers organized in unions, but whenever the workers–unionized or not–take over the means of production and distribution and subsequently establish councils by which they can manage themselves (i.e., workers’ self-management). So, again, I’m not a syndicalist; I’m closer to council communism than the former.

Snowflake: I didn’t reject anarchism without serious thought; in fact, I used to consider myself a libertarian socialist (more specifically, an anarcho-communist in the vein of Peter Kropotkin). I’m inclined–as you apparently are–to see the state as a problem which must eventually be eliminated; I just don’t think that that can feasibly be done yet. Basically, I was an anarchist until I read three important works in the Marxist tradition: “The Critique of the Gotha Programme” (Marx), “The Civil War in France” (also Marx), and “The State and Revolution” (Lenin). Those works convinced me that socialism will never be established overnight, but will come about as a gradual process (punctuated, of course, by revolutions and upheavals which will mark significant shifts toward pure communism), beginning first with “the lower stage of communism,” i.e., the establishment of a classless society, and eventually followed by “the higher stage of communism,” i.e., the establishment not only of a classless society, but of a stateless society, as well. So, in that regard, my views are “Marxian,” though certainly not “Marxist.”

Again, thanks for your responses.

–Chris

7

Ok, so you want workers councils that plan economies, who own the means of production, but you don’t want them to be a government…nor do you want them to be anarchistic.

How did that work convince you of not establishing socialism overnight? That work was a critique of social democrats who thought exactly what you are saying. Marx was saying that revolution is the only means of bringing about communist societies, not being reformists or working with the bourgeois.

Perhaps you say this without realizing that a classless society is impossible to bring about and the state itself establishes a class therefore you cannot use the state to create classeless-ness, so you will never get past crude communism.

8

Good. This is usually the position I try to force my opponents into. After i do this, I win because all I want is free and voluntary association.

So you think stateless society is the ultimate goal but maybe you have a place for the state on your way to stateless society… I think people on this forum will come back at you and say: How can the state ever be held accountable? Don’t the incentive structures of the state always lead to abuse?

Aren’t voluntarist communes preferable? A socialist revolution doesn’t have to include the whole world. Would you consider it a success if you got 100 people to choose to live under your ideal plan? Conversely, would you consider your socialist revolution a success even if it included people who would rather practice capitalism apart from your society? Shouldn’t people be free to choose what kind of society they are to be a part of?

Btw the article I linked is a good article. You should really at least give the first 5-10 pages a glance. It reads very quickly.

9

Sorry, I forgot to respond to your question, Laughing Man:

I’m not really sure how to answer, because I’m not sure precisely what we’re talking about here. What exactly do you mean by the “coming about” of property ownership? Are we talking history or theory? I’m not trying to be facetious; just trying to be clear about this. If we go the history route, my assumption is that we’d be talking about how capitalism developed out of feudalism, and whether that development occurred through legitimate or illegitimate means; if we go the theory route, my assumption is that we’d be getting into stuff like property rights, as well as a whole lot of other things.

–Chris

10

What is your theoretical paradigm for how property is acquired? Myself, I believe in non-provisio Lockean homesteading which means that we take from a state of nature [ which has no owner ] and when we mix our labor with such an institution it then infers upon us the title of property. Here is an example. I move out to the North-west into the forest. When I am there I cut down a few trees and build a shelter. That shelter is now my property.

11

free market and socialism could only be compatible in the weakest possible sense, with the free market dominant, and tiny community groups getting by with their little old socialist thing; completely reliant on the capitalist outsiders to sustain them in levels approaching modern comfort. any increase in the scope of the socialism beyond the bounds of willing participants gives the lie to the ‘free’ of the market, besides which, very quickly as the means of production becomes socialised on a larger and larger scale the rational process of economic calculation grinds to a halt, and in come poverty, the destruction of civilization, and death.

on the topic of ‘democracy’

you oppose one flavour of democracy but support another. its like ice-cream flavour for you? vanilla yes, chocolate no; its just how it strikes you?

12

Roderick T Long, who I always reference, seems like he’s always very careful to say that the homesteading of resources gives one a better argument to ownership, rather than an actual absolute claim to ownership. My problem with property rights and homesteading/first use theories is that they seem not to be grounded very well philosophically, though I do think Long’s observation that “we have a better argument than someone else who hasn’t homesteaded” is sound. At least on the surface.

13

Well I’m a fan of Roderick Long too so perhaps you can give me a link to this article. From what I know about Long’s lectures right now, I think perhaps he does not think that homesteading has really been addressed by a lot of theorists which is a very true statement. Also that we should build upon homesteading principles with more in depth analysis [ which I agree with ].

14

Well, what i’m referring to is not any particular article by Long, its just that whenever he references the homesteading principle he is careful with his words. He never says “by the homsteading principle you own X”. He just says you have a “better” claim or argument to it than someone else.

I personally think Long sees a lot of problems with libertarian theories but doesn’t want to let go of them completely, since liberty really is a very good idea. Imo his weaker use of homsteading theories shows that even if libertarianism is compromised, it doesn’t lose its fangs.

15

What makes you say that?

16

Link to article here

In the children’s rights section.

"One possible reply is that these exceptions are beneficial. Consider the toddler who starts to wander into traffic, until the parent swoops down and pulls the child back to safety. Hasn’t the parent coerced the child, preventing it from doing what it wanted to do? It seems so. But if the parent hadn’t intervened, the child might have been injured or killed; so it is in the interest of the toddler to be coerced.

No doubt it is; but can this be what justifies parental authority? After all, libertarians generally reject the paternalistic notion of coercing people in order to benefit them, and argue instead that people have the right to make their own mistakes. Why doesn’t this apply to children? If we allow adults to engage in risky behavior like bungee jumping or mountain climbing or engaging in unprotected sex, why not allow toddlers to engage in risky behavior like walking into traffic or drinking Clorox?

[…]

I don’t think so. In my view, what justifies paternalistic treatment of children is not simply that such treatment benefits children (it might benefit foolish adults as well), but rather that children lack the capacity to make rational decisions about their lives (whereas foolish adults may have that capacity even if they don’t use it much). Consider the analogy of a person in a coma; we make medical decisions for such persons without their consent, because we assume they would consent if they were able to do so. If a person in a coma has left instructions not to use certain kinds of treatment, then most libertarians will agree that we should refrain from using them. So this is not a case of paternalistically overriding someone’s will, but rather of acting as an agent for someone currently unable to exercise his will. We can also extend the analysis to cases where the capacity for rational decision-making is not completely blocked (as in the case of an unconscious person), but simply diminished, as with persons who are drugged or delirious or mentally impaired. I suggest that children may be considered as instances of diminished capacity; guardians act as agents for children, treating the children as they judge the children would consent to be treated if their faculties were fully developed. The standard that justifies paternalism is not benefit but counterfactual consent; the two are different because a person with fully developed faculties can still fail to use them and so make dumb decisions.

[…] These come as a unit because it is only when the decisions we make are those that the impaired person would consent to if unimpaired (as far as we can determine) that we are justified in acting as an agent and substituting our judgment for his.

[…]

This is a difficult case. On the one hand, libertarians generally want to say that the parent is in a better position than anyone else to decide, e.g., which religion a child should be raised in, and this is a matter in which outsiders representing the child’s interests should not interfere, even if we think being raised in one religion is objectively better for the child than being raised in another. On the other hand, when it comes to abusive procedures like female genital mutilation (popularly known by the euphemism “female circumcision,” falsely conveying the impression of being comparable in seriousness to male circumcision), we generally think parents do not have the right to do this, even though women who have had this procedure done when young will usually endorse it in retrospect when they are grown, because they have been inculcated with the relevant cultural attitudes and values. (Cases like Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses denying their children medical care seem to come somewhere in between.)4 Neither the benefit standard nor the counterfactual-consent standard gives precisely the answers we want in such cases, which suggests that I may need to do more tinkering with my theory and somehow incorporate aspects of the benefit standard into the counterfactual-consent standard, without doing so in such a way as to justify a like paternalism toward adults. I haven’t fully figured out how to do this, but perhaps something along the following lines would work: when we consider the child’s likely future preferences, those preferences include both a generic preference for being benefited, and a (possibly mistaken) specific preference for particular treatment regarded as beneficial. Since these preferences are non-actual, we cannot treat one as more expressive of the child’s will than another (whereas once the child is grown and acts on the latter preference, that does give it priority over the former one). So the guardian is obligated to balance the generic desire to be benefited (which requires the guardian to provide what is actually beneficial) with the specific desire for whatever the child is likely to regard, in the future, as having been beneficial. So the more harmful a particular treatment actually is, the more weight the case for abstaining from that treatment has against the contrary weight that the child will end up endorsing it when grown."

Right, so, Long seems to have this idea he wants to save, which is that parents should be able to coerce their children because there are good reasons for doing so. So he has to make exceptions to make it fit inside the libertarian framework while at the same time excluding other beneficial types of coercion like forcing a 30 year old to eat fruits and veggies for their own good.

This approach does not treat libertarianism as the highest moral standard, but rather he seeks to correct libertarian theory using our moral intuitions about what we already know is right. This is why I say that Long sees or at least reveals problems with libertarian theory. Its not that libertarianism is necessarily unworkable, its just that we always qualify and adjust it by checking it against our other moral intuitions, like the parenthood scenario.

So why not just use our moral intuitions if libertarianism will always have to make way for them? Is what I learned from this piece by Long.

17

Maybe you guys think it’s nuts for a socialist to come onto a board like this, but I’m actually enjoying this. You’re definitely giving me some stuff to think about.

Laughing Man: I never said that the workers’ councils would do any sort of economic planning; you’re pulling that in out of left field. All I said is that worker self-managed enterprises should compete with each on the free market. Imagine it like this: You’ve got Wal-Mart, Costco, and Dollar General all run–individually–by workers’ councils, but at the same time, they still compete for business, just like under free-market capitalism. They offer different products, or different variations of products, at different prices, and the public can simply choose between the three. Under capitalism, if I don’t like the price of milk at one store, I can buy it from another; the same would apply here. Really, the only major difference would be in internal workings of these businesses: Wal-Mart’s workers (for example) would be allowed to discuss and debate policy proposals (e.g., prices, shift times, what to do about tardy or absent workers, etc.), then vote on what they would like to see done in each case. This could be done directly, if the business is small enough, or indirectly, through democratically-elected, recallable delegates/represenatives of the workers, if the business is too big for the direct approach. But would that carry over into any sort of “planning” of the economy? No. It’s not like you’d have the government saying, “OK, we need to see 100,000 more car tires produced this year than last year, and 200,000 more by next year,” or saying, “We’re setting the price of car tires as $70.00 per tire, regardless of market forces.” Those sorts of decisions would be left to the workers of each individual enterprise, not the government.

As for “The Critique of the Gotha Programme” (and the other works I cited, for that matter): I know what Marx and Lenin were talking about; I know that they were really targeting the bourgeois social reformers (but they also had some stuff to say about the anarchists). And I agree with their criticisms, which, therefore, separates me from the social democrats. Social democracy is, I believe, an attempt to achieve the goals of socialism without revolution, that is, through a reformist approach. I personally see social reforms as equivalent to taking tylenol to relieve the body aches caused by cancer; it’s a fix that works OK in the short run, but fails to deal with the underlying problem, and is therefore ultimately to be rejected in favor of a more “radical” approach. I don’t want to be cynical and say that it’s entirely impossible to bring about socialism through social reform, but I have a hard time believing that any politician under the present system will be willing to stick his neck out and advocate workers’ self-management; thus, I believe that a revolution of some sort will be needed. Workers’ self-management is something that the workers will have to fight for.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that the experiences of the Spanish anarchists during their Civil War, as well as the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, helped to convince me that a stateless society can’t be established yet, because the capitalism as a world system is still too strong, and socialism too weak. If the vast majority of the world’s population is in favor of the abolition of statism, I’m pretty sure that, though there might be a long and bloody battle to fight, statism will go the way of political systems like absolute monarchy. But I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point yet. Of course, maybe I’m wrong…I never said I’m a prophet or anything. :slight_smile:

Last, I can see where you’re coming from, I suppose, in your statement that “the state itself establishes a class,” though I don’t necessarily agree. If by “class” you mean “a group of individuals distinct from other groups,” then, yes, I agree, because, in that sense, the working class is divided up into multiple “classes” (retail workers, auto mechanics, fast-food workers, etc.). But if you mean “class” in the sense of “a group of individuals who are granted privileges denied to others,” then I don’t necessarily agree. This is true of a bougeois state, which basically protects the power of the capitalists, but not of a workers’ state, where the capitalist class is abolished and all are workers, even those in government. This gets into the political side of the question: I see some merits in representative democracy, but I believe that it would work better if some adjustments were made to allow for public initiative, referendum, and recall (and I extend the latter to politicians who don’t perform the functions of their offices satisfactorily).

–Chris

18

NirgrahamUK: My views on democracy aren’t “like ice-cream flavour.” (For the record, I do prefer vanilla, however…) In all seriousness, however, it’s not some sort of arbitrary decision; perhaps you don’t agree with my conclusions, but it’s something that I’ve been giving serious consideration to for a while. Yes, I do oppose some forms of “democracy” while embracing others. What, exactly? I believe that capitalist democracy has served a purpose (and may still have one to serve), most specifically as a step up from monarchical, totalitarian, or other sorts of authoritarian political systems. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that capitalist democracy is the final step in the evolution of political systems. Well, then again, maybe it is; I don’t know, because I don’t know the future. But I hope that it’s not because, democratic ideals can never be fully realized until finally coupled with a socialist economic system. (And again, at the risk of sounding redundant, I’m talking about workers’ councils and no government planning). But I think that the egalitarian ideals of democracy can never be fully realized when society is divided into classes. It requires the establishment of a classless society.

–Chris

19

Chris,

Under this system what would happen if I wanted to open up my own business, hire workers, and pay them wages in exchange for their time? Before they interviewed I let them know that I would be the boss and making all the decisions. There would be no “worker council.” Would they be allowed to work for me?

What if I myself wanted to work for such an employer? Would that be allowed?

20

MatthewF: Yes, I guess so. You have to leave that up to the individual. If someone doesn’t like living under a socialist system, they’ve got three options: 1. Try to overthrow it; 2. Accept it; 3. Go live somewhere else. But you can’t violate the democratic principle of the “consent of the governed.” It’s got to be “bottom-up” socialism.

Still, though, I think that most workers, if they see that workers’ self-management is a viable option, probably won’t choose to sell their labor power at the expense of their decision-making power. Personally, if workers’ self-management were an option in my workplace, I wouldn’t choose another option.

–Chris