Capital & Class. - 1977. - Issue 1

EDITORIAL

This is the first issue of Capital and Class, the new Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists . The new format means that we can more than halve its price, and so increase circulation by making it available on public sale as well as on subscription . The new title reflects the widening interests of theCSE . When it began in 1970, the CSE was envisaged (quite correctly) as a forum for developing the Marxist critique of bourgeois economics then under way . Now, f irve years later, the internal debate among economists has given way to a wider discussion - the beginnings of the materialist analysis of capitalism as a whole . Through Capital and Class we want to develop our understanding of capital, not just by giving a wider circulation to papers we think are interesting, but by stimulating the production of collective, international work, as part of an ongoing debate . There is already a basis for this in the established work of the CSE : the annual conferencannual conference, the network of regional groups and groups working on specific topics, origanising day-schools and circulating papers . We have a large number of overseas members, and links have been set up with friendly organisations and journals abroad . Building on this basis, we have invited representatives of CSE groups here and of groups with similar aims both here and abroad, to join the Editorial Board . As well as realaying ideas and guidelines to the smaller Editorial Committee which does the day to day work on Capital and Class, we hope that this Board will itself enable us to generate the collective and international production of theory that is now our aim . We believe that theory cannot be short-circuited in the socialist movement . And and again it is found that struggles around concrete issues, - housing, underdevelopment, housework, state expenditure cuts - have deep implications at the

1

most abstract level. Differences at this level are reflected in differences in concrete analysis and political line . But this does not mean that we can find the 'correct' position on value, say, and then simply read off solutions to concrete political problems . What it does mean is that abstract understanding must be confronted with everyday events, and a concrete analysis developed from this confrontation . Our commitment to theory, then, includes the analysis of particular concrete situations and issues, as well as abstract theory . It is the collective production of this kind of analysis that should enable us in future to make our work of much more immediate relevance to the labour movement, and to the struggles against sexism and racism . This issue begins with three papers produced for the (SE conference on the Labour Process in July 1976 . All are concerned, in different ways, with questions of capitalist control over workers in the process of commodity production . The article by the Brighton CSE Labour Process Group considers, at an abstract leve, how the production of use-values is transformed into an adequate material basis for the self-expansion of capital through the development of a specifically capitalist labour process . Friedman, disagreeing on several points with the Brighton group, discusses the effect of worker resistance on capitalist management strategies . Summerfield, in a historical analysis, examines sexism in the labour process and the relation between discipline in the labour process family responsibilities outside . We also publish three contributions from abroad . Rakowski's inconoclastic survey, from the inside, of Soviet and Eastern European societies merits a wider audience in the English-speaking countries . It contends that, while radical opposition within these societies can only be sustained from marxist perspective, the traditional categories of marxist analysis are of no use . The article by the Dutch marxist, Anton Pannekoek, was first published in 1934, yet its political and theoretical relevance remains undiminished in the current crisis . In limpid style, Pannekoek presents a powerful critique of the influential theories of capitalist breakdown of Luxemburg and Grosstnann . Te third, by Tortajada, attempts to recast the terms of the dabate on the reduction of compelx to simple labour, begun in the CSE Bulletin by Bob Rowthorn and Alessandrio Roncaglia . This debate has wide implications, both for the use of Sraffa-type models to analyse the capitalist mode of production, and for the concept of value .

Brighton Labour Process Group (1)

THE CAPITALIST LABOUR PROCESS 'Just as commodities are, at the same time, use values and values, so the process of producing them must be a labour process, and at the same time, a process o/ creating value". (Marx, Capital . I, p . 181) .

INTRODUCTION The ultimate material basis of politics in the capitalist mode of production is in the dual dominance of capital over labour : in the form of ownership of the means of production on the one hand, and the form of real control over the process of production on the other . Or, as it is sometimes put, in the appropriation by capital of the product and of nature . This dominance is never definitively established once and for all . The very movement of capital accumulation, (which changes labour markets, labour processes, geographical distribution of production, products new conditions of ideological and political class struggle, and so on),ensures that this dual dominance is always having to be re-established in new conditions . Its reproduction is a process which is conducted by class struggle, and to each form of dominance there corresponds a specific terrain of class struggle . Until recently Marxist analysis of the dominance of capital has been remarkably one-sided. It has concentrated on capital's appropriation of the product, analysing the contradictions of capitalism at the level of value, while neglecting capital's appropriation of nature, the level of use values . The recent interest in the labour process, (e .g . Braverman, Gorz) is clearly a major step forward, but in our view further progress depends on the development of an adequate theory of the capitalist labour process, through which capital appropriates nature . In order to develop such a theory we believe that it is essential to go back to basic theoretical concepts and to elaborate their content as clearly and as rigorously as possible . The present paper is clearly no more than a small step in 3

this direction, with the limited aim of defining the inherent structural relations between labour and capital with the capitalist labour process (CLP) . It is a necessary first step towards other aims, aims which we do not pursue here . We do not deal with labour processes which are not directly tinder the ; and we do not determination of the law of value (e .g . in education, in medicine) deal with labour processes which do not directly rest on wage-labour (e .g . domestic labour processes of reproduction of labour power) . It is also important to note that our analyses are not concrete . We do not deal with the concrete development of labour processes historically in different branches of industry, but only with the underlying limits, tendencies and forces within which these developments take place . And our analyses are not conjunctural . But we do claim that the concepts developed here are essential to any such concrete analyses, whether our interests and purposes be primarily historical or political or both . This abstract theoretical work matters . It matters because it adds to our power to grasp the concrete - concrete developments in the CLP, concrete conjunctures . It thereby adds to our power to understand and to invervene in class struggles .

1 . THE LABOUR PROCESS AND THE RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION Capitalist production is both a labour process, "human action with a view to the production o/ use-values", (Marx, Capital, l, p . 179) and a process of the production of self-expanding value, of valorisation . In every society there have to be labour processes, but valorisation is a process specific to capitalism . It means that capitalism is a social system in which a given quantity of abstract socially necessary labour time (value) has the property of being able to activate and socialise yet more labour time, and thus create additional, surplus, value . The production process of capital in its fully developed form takes place within two sets of capitalist relations of production . One the one hand there are the relations of production in the sphere of exchange (Marx sometimes calls them "economic relations") . Capital in the form of money can buy the commodities that it needs to assemble in order to initiate the production process ; this implies there are available on the market means of production and labour power as commodities . The relations of production involved here ("free labour", wages, exchange value etc .) were historically developed long before the appearance of the capitalist relations of production in the sphere of production itself . These exchange relations are themselves reproduced by the production process in that the product takes the form of commodities which must be exchanged for money (e .g . by the "free labour" which has no other access to means of subsistence) in order for the circuit to recommence . However, for the generalisation of these "economic" relations of production and for their expansive reproduction there must also have been developed the relations of production within production . The latter are the various aspects of the control of the labour process by capital . In order that the capitalist mode of production be hegemonic, capital must establish its own specific form of control over labour within production ; i .e . it must develop specific forms of coercion .

4

Whereas the existence of labour power as a commodity implies the

reparation of labour from the means of production, the labour process brings them back together again .

. (in the labour process) labour re-establishes its union with the objective conditions which are the matter and organs of its creative activity . The hide tanned by the worker is treated by him simply as the object of his productive activity and not as capital. It is not the capitalist's hide he tans" . (Marx, Un chapitre snedit du Capital, p . 171, cf . Capital 1, Penguin, p . 1007) .'

But now they are together on terms that are set by capital and in order to pursue the objectives of capital . Capital assembles means of production and labour power and sets them to work, but it does so in a way that is determined by the objective of valorisation, of maximising surplus-value production and as far as possible eliminates all other potentially conflicting objectives . Capital needs real control of the labour process precisely because the formal separation of labour from the means of production is cancelled in reality by the material form of labour process in which labour and materials and instruments combine . Capital needs to have control over the form of this combination, because whatever the instruments and materials (e .g . whatever the technology) there is always more than one way of effecting the combination and there is always the possibility of the process being informed by some objective other than that of valorisation and potentially in conflict with it, (e .g . the objective of healthy and safe working conditions,orof a socially useful product) . The unity of the process of valorisation and the labour process in capitalist production is not simply to be grasped in terms of exploitation. Exploitation requires sufficient control over the amount of work done, and the length of the working day, to ensure that the workers produce a value greater than the value of their labour power . But unless there is a specific historical development of an adequate objective and subjective basis in the labour process itself, in the material, technical and social organisation of the labour process, there will be a non-correspondence between the relations of production at the level of value and the relations of production at the level of use values. There will be a non-identity between formal, judicial economic subjects and material economic subjects . Marx talks about there being a conflict between economic relations and relations within the labour process ; and about the material and social form of the labour process not allowing the "capitalist relation to be realised in an adequate manner, (Marx, Un Chapitre inedit du Capital . p . 222 . Capital 1, Penguin p . 1.037) . A development of the labour process is necessary so that

"this foundation of the material form constitutes the basis for the development of capitalist relations, which require therefore a definite level of development of the

5

productive forces in order to take on their adequate form . . . Use-value : here capital must conform to the nature of the labour process . But it is precisely here that labour does not merely belong to and become incorporated with materials and means of labour, but, also social combtnationi of labour and the corresponding development of theineans of labour" . (Marx, On chapitre medit du Capital, pp . 222-252, Capital I, Penguin pp. 11137, 10561 .

It is important to note here that when Marx talks of the development of the productive forces he explicitly does not refer solely to the development of the technical basis of production . The development of the productive forces that is

the basis for the real subordination of labour to capital is a development of both the objective conditions of labour, and of the social combinations of labour . The capitalist labour process cannot be specified on the basis of its technological components . But also note that it cannot be specified on the basis of the relation established within it between the individual w(,rker and the instruments of production . It can only be specified as a particular form of social or,kanr_ration of labour, a form which is a specific form of coercion and the realisation on an

adequate basis of the objective of valorisation . Thus it is not simply a matter of capital specifying the length of the working day, and the amount of work to be done . The real labour process' itself must be transformed into a specifically capitalist labour process, the inner structure of which expresses the objective of valorisation without mediation .

"The process of production is the immediate unity of the labour process and the process of valorisation, just as its immediate result - the commodity is the immediate unity of use-value and exchange-value" . (Marx, fin chapitre inedit du Capital. p. 145, Capital 1, Penguin p . 991)

So the capitalist labour process is the unity of the processes of valorisatum and the real labour process on the adequate basis of a specific form of social organisation of labour.

We shall now discuss just what this involves and how it is realised in concrete labour processes .

2 . FORMAL SUBORDINATION When the labour process is only formally subordinated to capital there is production of surplus value and its appropriation, but the objective and subjective conditions of labour are such as to provide a material basis for continual resistance to the imposition of valorisation as the unique objective of the production process . Real control of production is not yet firmly in the hands of capital . There is still a relationship between labour and the conditions of

6

labour within production which provide labour with a degree of control and hence with a lever with which to enforce its class objectives which may, of course, be different from those of the fully developed proletarian labour of the mature capitalist mode of production . They may be objectives of artisanal labour, craft prerogatives over recruitment into the trades and over the content and performance of work, and so on . This kind of non-correspondence was general in the historical period in which simple cooperation was still the dominant form of the social organisation of the labour process ; but it survives to some extent in social formations in which the mature capitalist mode of production is dominant (for example in parts of the construction industry) . It can even reappear within brand new spheres of production in the fully developed CAP . Consider for example Michael Chanan's analysis of the labour process in the production of film : he identifies as the principle contradiction of film production for capital precisely this non-correspondence between the objective of valorisation and the basis of production in specific skills which tend to be beyond the reach of the rigours of capitalist control (Chanan, 1976) . The forms which constitute the basis of formal subordination are : wage-labour (labour with no access to the means of subsistence except via sale of labour-power) ; means of production in the form of commodities ; means of subsistence in the form of commodities ; the p roduct . i n the form of commodities . Note that although this subordination is formal it nonetheless if a form of

subordination, of compulsion . The forms of coercion in precapitalist modes of production were directly political and social . In the transitional phase (and the existence of formal without real subordination is a definition of a phase as transitional - cf. Bettelheim on transition to socialism,(Bettelheim, 1975)) compulsion takes for the first time an economic form - the compulsion to sell labour-power in order to I ive . This economic power of capital over labour allows capital, even on the basis of unchanged technical means and methods of production, to coerce f rom .labour a degree of intensity, duration and continuity of production quite unlike that to be found in the previous forms of production (independent artisan, peasant farming), i .e. it allows capital to extract absolute surplus value. It also allows, in fact even necessitates, an increased scale of production . This increased scale is, says Marx, the real basis on which the specifically capitalist mode of production develops as soon as the historical conditions are favourable . The importance of this analysis of formal subordination, its power to clarify and organise historical investigation can be very well illustrated by reference to the widely read paper by Stephen Marglin, "What do bosses do? : The origins and functions of hierarchy in capitalist production" . It isa very good example of the unnecessary confusion that can be produced by the absence of Marx's theoretical concepts . Marglin very usefully documents the development of factory discipline and supervision under capital prior to the development of machine-based production . It shows how the class struggle waged by capital to impose its dominance on labour constituted the development of capitalist

7

relations of production before the development of those forces of production associated with machinofacture . (On the importance of this argument about the link between the relations and the forces of production in the establishment of a mode of production see the comment below on the "Scientific and Technological Revolution") . Unfortunately, however, Marglin does not work with the marxist concepts which we use in this paper and which would have enabled him to grasp this historical phase theoretically (specifically the concepts of formal subordination, absolute surplus-value, labour power, labour time,forces and relationsof production) . His thesis, with which we agree, is that hierarchical organisation of work was imposed on labour not by technological innovations (as is argued by most bourgeois historians of "the industrial revolution") but by capital and its need to accumulate . But this position is based on the argument that supervision and discipline, while reducing costs, did not increase technical efficiency, as if capital could be "motivated" either by accumulation or by technical efficiency, but not both . This conceptualisation effectively prevents Marglin from being able to contribute anything to the analysis of the general tendency, in the CMP, to the continual revolutionising of the instruments and social organisation of production, a tendency in which "efficiency" in some sense clearly plays a part . The shole problem, however lies in being able to provide an adequate concept here . Marx's analysis is that formal subordination resulted, among other things, in an increased intensity of labour. Thus even though there was no decrease in the absolute amount of concrete labour required for the production of a given commodity, there was nevertheless a decrease in the amount of labour power that had to be bought in order for this commodity to be produced . The prosority of the working day was decreased ; the labour time for the production of a unit commodity decreased as a proportion of the working day ; necessary labour time decreased ; and absolute surplus-value increased . The labour process was, therefore, more efficient as a process of valorisation, and only this concept of efficiency can make sense of the aims of capital both in the period of formal subordination and in the period of revoutionised forces of production and real subordination . Formal subordination is a specifically capitalist organisation of the social forms of compuslion, and this change in the organisation of material production forms the basis on which develops the specifically capitalist mode of production (the forces of production and the capitalist relations of production) . It is worth emphasising thesg points by quoting at length from Marx's exposition of them in a chapter which he originally intended to place at the end of Vol . lof Capital, but which remained until very recently unavailable in English .

"I call formal sabordinatson of labour to capital the form which is based on absolute surplus-value, because it is distinguishable only formally from the anterior anodes sit prtxluction on the basis of which it slxmtaneously springs up our is introduced) . . .

8

The only thing that changes is the form of coercion, or the method employed to extract surplus labour . Formal subordination is essentially : I . the purely monetary relation between the appropriator and the supplier of surplus labour . Subordination is a consequence of the specific content of the sale and is not anterior to it as it is when the producer is in some relation other than the monetary one (i .e . other than a relation between possessors of commodities) to the exploiter of his labour ; for example by virtue of a relation of political coercion . The seller is only in a relation of economic dependence on the buyer because the latter owns the conditions of labour : it is no longer a fixed political and social relation which subjects labour to capital . 2 . the fact that the objective conditions of labour (means of production) and the subjective conditions of labour (means of subsistence) confront labour as capital and are monopolised by the buyer of labour-power : it is from this that the first point follows, because if it were not for this the worker would have no need to sell his labour power . . . At the beginning there is no innovation in the mode of production itself : the labour process is carried out exactly as before except that it is now subordinated to capital . Nevertheless, as we have already shown, there develops in the production process : (a) an economic relation of domination and subordination ; because the capitalist is henceforth the consumer of labour-power he is therefore the supervisor and organiser of it . (b) greatly increased continuity and intensity of labour, as well as a greater economy in the use of the conditions of labour, because everything is put to work in such a way that the product contains no more than the socially necessary labour time (and, if possible, less) ; . . . On the one hand the capitalist mode of production . . .gives a different form to material production, on the other hand this change in the material form constitutes the basis for the development of capitalist relations, which thus require a specific level of development of the productive forces in order that they (capitalist relations) can find an adequate form". (Marx, Un chapitreinedit du Capital, pp . 202, 248 . Capital, 1, Penguin pp . 1025, 1035) .

3 . REAL SUBORDINATION : VALORISATION IN COMMAND Capital must create capitalist labour process . It must have power in the very heart of production itself so that it can have a solid material basis for its overriding objective : Valorisation in command! This it achieves on the basis of -a series of linked and mutually inter-dependent developments : the extraction of relative surplus value the employment of machinery the conscious application of science and technology the mobility and replaceability of labour, (the formation of the reserve army) large scale production . 9

These are the material bases for new relations between capital and labour, relations that enforce real subordination .

Real Subordination of . Labour to Capital or the Specifically Capitalist Mode of

Production' . . . we have shown in detail that with the production o/ relative surplus-value, the whole of the real form of the mode of production is modified, so that we are now concerned with the specs/ically capitalist modeof production (from the point of view of technology also), It is on this basis - and solely as a consequence of it - that are developed relations of production which are in correspondence with the capitalist process of production, relations between the various agents of production, in particular between capitalist and wage-labourer . As the forces of production of society develop, (or the productive power of labour) they are socialised and become directly social Icollective), as a result of cooperation, the division of labour within the workshop, the use of machinery, and, in general the transformations which the production process undergoes as a result of the conscious application of the natural sciences, of mechanics, of chemistry etc ., applied with definite technological objectives, and as a result of everything that is involved in labour conducted on a large scale, etc ." (Marx, Un chapstre snedit du Capital. p . 199 Capital. I, Penguin, p. 1024) .

In Capital Marx analyses the stages of this development of real subordination from simple cooperation through manufacture to machinofacture . The introduction of machiery is a culmination of this development because it allows capital to break through the limits within which, under simple cooperation and manufacture, it could effect a real command over the labour process . But what exactly are these new relations between the agents of production that become possible with the use of machinery? And how exactly is it that this technical basis allows these new relations to be formed? What, mother words, is the connection between machinery and the real subordination of labour to capital? Marx's answer involves four main concepts . (We will only be concerned with the first two of these) .

1 . The real separation of constant from variable capital, of labour from the conditions of labour . 2 . The objective organisation of the collective worker replacing the subjective organisation . 3 . The fetishism of technology/fixed capital . 4. The reproduction of the relations of production (the labour process becoming the site of this reproduction) .

Real separation is partly a matter of scale, a consequence of the fact that

10

production is now large scale production and requires a certain large minimum of capital for it to be put in motion . In small scale production it was, as far as the individual labourer was concerned, an accident and not of the essence that he lacked the means of production . This is still true of some forms of manufacture . In a sweat-shop garment factory the girl (usually) who works the sewing machine could easily own such a machine herself . The scale of capitalist production based on manufacture may make it difficult for new individual capitalists to arise out of the ranks of the working class ; but it does not make it impossible . There is still a certain fluidity between capital, artisanal groups, workers ere ; and it is not necessary to the actual labour process itself that it be supervised by some agent of capital . Inasmuch as it is, this is a consequence of an economic compulsion and not a technical one . Capital is, from the technical point of view, redundant . On the other hand with machinofacture it is essential that there be some agency, over and above that of each individual

worker, which assembles the means of production prior to the purchase of labour power . (Fetishism arises from the tendency to see it as a necessity that this agency be capital rather than some other transindividual economic subject) .

Because production is now collective, on a large scale and machine-based, capital can appropriate to itself all the functions of specification, organisation and control, and perform them independently of labour . It can therefore impose its objectives on the labour process so that labour, even when it is brought into real association with the conditions of labour, does so in an antagonistic relationship . Of course this relation of capital to labour is not a static one, but is constantly reproduced in new conditions . It is a site of constantly renewed class struggle . The dominance of capital is reproduced because capital has both the power and the necessity to continually revolutionise the forces of production . This is the "fundamental thesis" of a book by A . D . Magaline . He says :

"In the capitalist mode of production the principal site of the reporoduction of the relations of production is the class struggle in production, a class struggle in which the capitalist bourgeoisie has the dominant role, and which is expressed in the continual upheaval in the technical and social organisation of the labour process, i .e . in the continual revolutionising of the forces of production . And here we can recall a thesis of the Communist Manifesto : the bourgeoisie, in contrast to all preceding exploiting classes, has a revolutionary basis, and its domination is based on the continual upheaval of the mode of production" . (Magaline, 1975, p . 60)

Under real subordination, labour serves the machine and not the machine labour . For some, particularly skilled, workers real separation comes to this, that they cannot do their work except in a large-scale collective labour process which

exists prior to and independently of their being brought into it by its owner/controller Compare the man whose skill is monitoring a console in a power station with those remnants or imitators of pre-machinofacture labour such as chippies, plumbers, domestic appliance repair men and soon, whomove into and out of relations with capital in ways that depend on economic rather

II

than apparently technical compulsion . With machinofacture capital now has power over constant capital ; it can now be designed and organised without reference to the traditional skills and crafts . The whole point of machinery is the speed with which it can effect mechanical transformations . From now on capital breaks through the limits represented by the speeds with which labour could perform these functions . Being no longer dependent on them the labour process is designed around the performance of the machine, and the worker has to perform in accordance with its needs rather than vice-versa . Capital controls this process because it can assemble all the knowledge and materials stored up in machinery, knowledge and materials which themselves develop under the swayof capital and from which labour is entirely separated . How does capital use this real power of control to achieve valorisation? Or what is it about machinofacture that allows capital to use this power to promote valorisation to the dominant objective of the process± It is that there is now a particular form of collective worker . Any collective worker requires organisation and supervision . The collective worker of machinofacture allows the imposition of the authority of capital . That is because capital can monopolise the knowledge required to design and enforce the way in which each individual worker functions as an appendage to a machine, i .e . the interfaces between machine functions and labour functions ; and also the integration of the various partial processes into a whole . There are two things worth emphasising here since they are often forgotten . Machinofacture transforms not only the work of each individual labourer but also their articulation into a-system . In addition, the power of capital is represented not only in its power to design and organise machine systems but also in its power to enforce the labour discipline required to keep that machine system in effective (from the point of view of capital) operation. Real subordination is a matter of both the kind of instruments of labour that are employed and also the form of social combination that is imposed on labour, the realisation of the power of capital in the form of factory discipline . These are all aspects of what Marx calls the "rational" or "objective" organisation of labour (rational and objective from the point of view of capital and its aims, that is) and which hedistinghishes from the "subjective" organisation to be found in manufacture . In manufacture each worker or group of workers still has some degree of control over the content, speed, intensity, rhythm, etc . of work ; and the integration, the balancing or harmonising of the collective work is still empirical. It is still worked out on the basis of observation of actual work rather than calculated beforehand on the basis of knowledge of the machine functions . Compare the job of a line supervisor in balancing an assembly line with that of a machine shop supervisor allocating and distributing jobs in his shop on the basis of information coming to him from progress chaser, production engineers, stock demands etc . What we have here is the calculability of the process based on a standardisation of machine functions, compared with the non-standardisable, merely inductively calculable progress of work in manufacture . With the development of machinofacture capital attempts to give the same torn even to

12

jobs that retain anon-machine basis . Parks and gardens workers, gas fitters and other tool users are brought within a similar formal framework of standardised rates for the job, standard times for the job and soon, even though the technical basis for this is lacking because each job will confront the worker with many unpredictable non-standard contingencies . Under manufacture capital does not have the knowledge or control to rigorously impose cheapness of labour, intensity, economy of materials and so on . Thus the capitalist labour process is that specific form of the collective worker based on machinofacture in which capital, having a monopoly of knowledge and power over the relations between labour and the means o f production, uses this power, this real domination, in order to enforce the objective of valorisation .

4 . VALORISATION AND CAPITALIST MANAGEMENT Valorisation is the objective of capitalist management . Machinofacture is the material basis which allows capital to take power over the labour process and to there translate this objective into a system of concrete production relations . It allows capital to design the labour process so as to achieve to the maximum degree possible on the basis of a given level of development : speed of performance of tasks ; intensity in the performance of tasks (i .e . decreasing the gaps between successive operations) ; maximal precision, predictability and quality of transformations being worked on the object of labour ; continuity of production (i .e . eliminate holdups, bottlenecks and risks of breakdown or disruption) ; cheap labour and labour functions such that labour is easily replaceable (i .e . minimise dependence on specific and scarce labour skills) ; economy of raw materials, energy, etc. The power that capital has to pursue these objectives is in part, but only in part, the power of capital to select, design or develop machinery and other aspects of the technology involved in the labour process . Capital also has, and must have, the power to design and operate the social organisation of production within the enterprise . It must therefore organise not only the machines and their integration but also a system of power relations the function of which ultimately is to define and enforce the discipline of the labour process . In addition it must organise a system of information production, diffusion and processing, which will be a presupposition of the correct functioning of the machine and discipline systems . Of course this information system will itself involve the design, selection and operation of technical equipment of various kinds (telephones, typewriters, computers etc. etc .) . Let us call these aspects of the labour process : (i) material transformations (ii) discipline (iii) information . The question of whether technology is or is not neutral is noweasy to answer within this limited frame of reference . Consider the production technology (responsible for material transformations) . It is clearly not neutral in one sense,

13

since it has beet chosen or designed by capital in the interests of valorisation . Since other technical solutions always exist to perform any particular material transformations, and to the extent that these might be chosen it objectives other than valorisation were taken into account (employing particular kinds of labour available locally, workers' health and safety, reducing pollution effects, or whatever) then to that extent the technology reflects the objectives of capital . On the other hand given a certain production technology (say an imported machine-system in China), then that very technology can always be used for objectives other than valorisation . The important point is to design the discipline and information systems, and the way in which labour is brought into relation with the machinery so as to advance other objectives (different job definitions, different division and rotation of jobs, different system of power-politics in command instead of valorisation) . In this situation, of course, there may be a non-correspondence between the form of the labour process and the relations of production, which necessitates a permanent struggle in production against the effects of this non-adequate material base . But you don't have a capitalist labour process simply by virtue of having an automatic spinning jenny and self-acting mule . Obsiously this brief comment is not meant to be a solution to all the complex problems concerning the exact relationship between the development of technology and capitalist relations of production, and the extent to which technology itself acutally embodies these relations in material form . It is only meant to emphasisethatconcretely the CLPalways functions as a combination of the material instruments of production and a social organisation of power, and that the latter is not determined by the former . Our position is not some kind of technological determinism . The relations of production are not determined by the instruments of production . There isclearlyagreat deal more work to be done on the problem of the extent to which and the ways in which the detailed technological bases of production do correspond to specifically capitalist objectives and would be different if these objectives were overthrown . But such problems cannot meaningfully be raised at this abstract level . The point is nut to conflate the propostion that the CLP reflects the objectives of capital (which is what we argue in this paper) with the proposition that the technology of production corresponds to those objectives . The article by Andre (iorz, "Technology, technicians and class struggle" , makes a useful contribution here, even if it is not without ambiguities . We would certainly agree with (iorz s points that "the divsion, specialisation and separation of jobs in industrial production" are functions not of technical imperatives but of the imperatives of

and that the transition to socialism will certainly require a revolutionising of the forces of production (and in particularot the kinds, range capital,

and distribution of skills) . But concretely much material production will have to rake place, in the transitional period, on the basis of given technologies and machine systems . A new generation of "socialist machinery" will pot spring into existence overnight . The focus and emphasis of class struggle within production will be (as it is in China today) on the questions of orgailisalion, control and power, i .e on the question Who dominates whom! .

How, concretely, does capital take such machinery and use it as the basis for its own forms of coercion? Capital designs the jobs to be done around the spinning machinery - the machinery doesn't do it . There doesn't have to be the machine operator, the assistant and the piecer, a little group of three workers with a well defined internal power and discipline structure . Capital integrates the work of this little group with that of other groups and other departments the engineering department which controls the speed of the shaft which delivers the power to the spinning machine, and which also has the power to switch on and off - the despatch department where the output of the spinning team is measured and graded . This means that there is a basis for a system of payments and penalties - bonuses, and sanctions for poor quality ; norms which have to be met and can only be met if the machine minder imposes a fierce discipline and intensity of labour on the piecer who even has to risk his body to get his taks performed while the machine is in motion . (Calling, 1970, especially chapters 9-11) . In general, forcing speed, intensity and continuity of production on the workers is achieved by capital by virtue of its power to calculate and then to impose norms for job performance and rates for the job, quality standards and sanctions for failing to meet them . This means implementing systems of supervision and of payment and penalty which depend on : (i) the knowledge capital has of the objective properties and potentialities of the machine systems ; (ii) the power that it has by virtue of the replaceability of labour ; (iii) the information that capital has which allows it to continually operate this power (information about workers' outputs in terms of both quantity and quality) . The fascinating thing is that this whole network of capitalist power and control is almost totally invisible to academic researchers into the sociology of work, job satisfaction and so on . To consider just one example of this blindness one could look at a papercalled 'Job enlargement : a case study" by Biggane and Stewart . This paper examines a case in which line-organised assembly was replaced by individual bench assembly, so that the worker was no longer paced by the line . What, then, controls the worker who sits alone at his bench and works without any direct supervision? 'The employee is, in effect, in business for himself ; he may take personal time at his own conveneince, and may accelerate or decelerate his work pace without being affected by or affecting others" . In fact, of course, this worker is not "in business" at all . He is a wage earner. And if he really paced himself according to his own convenience (and went off to a football match when he wanted to, and worked nice and slowly so as to avoid backache, and stopped for a chat with his shop steward about how to overthrow capital) then he would immediately be forcefully reminded that it is not the jobof a wageearner to take this talk of his own conveneience too seriously . He would fall below the norms for the job (which were no doubt determined "objectively" by some "technical experts" without his conveneicnce having been taken into account), and he would fail to make a decent wage,orhe would be sent to some other department as a punishment or simply get the sack . He cannot afford to be blind to all this power that capital has over him,even though those who study him, of course, do

15

not bother to mention it . As for quality : every completed unit is put by the worker himself through an automated testing routine . If it's not up to scratch he has to do it again . Of course no supervisor is standing there to force him todo it again . But if he doesn't, then he doesn't get paid, and the computer is keeping an eye on the results of these quality control tests . It is the eyes and ears of capital, enforcing discipline . One way of interpreting this case of "job enlargement then, is to say that the worker can find out "whether or not the job is done correctly", and that "this is a matter of pride of workmanship" . Ot course, another way of putting it is to say that he only gets paid for work which passes the test, and that management has both the power to withhold payment and the informational means to exercise his power . This increase in the efficiency of the power of capital is interpreted by the authors as an increase in the woerker's "sense of responsibility" . They even have the effrontery to suggest 'that such "job enlargmenr" has "genuine significance in the light of the fact that the level of education continues to rise", and that there is also "an increaing need to make work meaningful" .' Any academic discussion of job-satisfaction, alienation or the effects of automation, which fails to describe the system of power by which capital defines and enforces the limits within which labour is compelled to operate, can be thrown straight in the waste paper basket ; for instance, if it fails to mention the system of payment that a so-called semi-autonomous group is working under . or if it "forgets" to describe the system of norms and penalties . and the automated information system making them operative in the case of some enlarged" job . Capital does not always need to control labour by specifying the tasks and rates for an individual, rather than a group . And it does not need to exercise its power .), The fact that, via a system of direct face-to-face power relations (foremen etc instead, it is a computer docking your pay or sending you to another department as a punishment, or generally keeping an eye on the intensity and quality of your labour, does not mean that the labour process has ceased to be capitalist . What is it that makes itcapitalist? Abstractly, thecriteriot for a capitalist labour process is that it is a process in which valorisation is in command . Concretely, this is translated into the power to design and operate systems of material transformation, discipline and information . The capitalist labour process it the transition of the objective of valorisation into a concrete social organisation of production ; that is where the design and operation of systems of physical plant, information processing and factory discipline are the materialisation of the power o f capital to enforce its objectives on labour.

5 . THE IMMANENT LAWS OF THE CAPITALIST LABOUR PROCESS The three basic structural features of the capitalist organisation of the labour process are : (I) the division of intellecrural and manual labour ; (ii) hierarchical control ; (iii) fragmentation/ desk illing of labour . But it is very important to work out the precise theoretical content of these concepts, to know what is and

I6

what is not essential to them and what are their limits . This is because it is very easy for them to be totally trivialised, as indeed they usually are by bourgeois social scientists" . The latter think that one renders a concept rigorous by "opera tionalising" it, by giving it a precise empirical definition . However, if one gives these concepts empricial definitions in terms of the theory of the capitalist labour process, one produces utterly trivial and arbitrary concepts in terms of which one can prove anything one likes . For example, one can prove by reference to the job of monitoring dials in an oil refinery that thedays of manual labour are over ; one can prove by reference to some "enlarged" assembly job that the days of unskilled, fragmented labour are over we are entering a new epoch; or one can prove by reference to "semi-autonomous groups" that the hierarchy of control in production is dissolving, that there is a trend to democracy on the shop floor .

(i) The division of intellectual and manual labour . A division between conception and execution is immanent in the capitalist labour process : and in that sense we may speak of an immanent division of "intellectual" and "manual" labour . It is an aspect of the monopoly that capital has on the knowledge and power over the design of production systems . Only by having and reproducing that monopoly can capital impose its objectives . Seen in this light (which is very obviously what Marx has in mind in Capital), the division has nothing to do with a division between mental and bodily functions of the human organism, taken in a purely abstract sense . All human labour involves both mind and body . Manual labour involves perception and thought . No work is so utterly routinised that it can be performed without having any conceptual organisation of it whatsoever . Equally, all mental labour involves bodily activity which is in many cases a vitally important aspect of it . Above all, from our point of view, it should be noted that the production of science and technology are material practices which involve "manual labour",and of course Marx knew this very well . Clearly, then, from the point of view of the theory of the capitalist labour process the important division is that between those who produce or apply scientific and technological knowledge in the design of production systems and in day to day problem solving involved in the operation of the system, and those whose relationship with the production system is calculated, standardised and specified in advance by capital in the interests of producing an output which is known with precision in advance . workers whose jobs consist simply of monitoring the function of continuous flow processes are in no way an exception to this division . "Manual" labour has always performed such monitoring tasks . The only differences, from the present point of view, are that : (a) these tasks are now performed without manual operations on the system being performed, (or rather without human interference with the transformation process being performed) and (b) that these tasks are now just as standardised, routinised and predictable, and hence under the control of capital, as traditional labour functions are .

17

(ii) Hierurcby This is immanent in the capitalist labour process by virtue Of its inherently antagonistic nature . Discipline is essential so that capital can allii ate lobs, enforce speeds and intensities . sanction poor quality and so on . This is not a prycholo,yrcal thesis . Regardless of the extent to which a worker niav resign himself to, or adapt to, the demands made on him by capital, ( that is, regardless of the psychological strategy of the woerker), it remains true that labour u/uvya has a wider range of needs and aspirations than capital can allow itself to take into account in its design of the labour process-Capital is /orted to treat labour as rubjective (that is, in the interests of efficiency, to take note of the specificityut labour as distinct from machines - you don't penalise machines, or pay them Or send them home at some period of the day or night to sleep) . But it is also forced to confine its relationship to labour within very severe limits - limits defined by the wage-contract in the sphere of exchange and by the objective of valorisation in the sphere of production . What is essential to capitalist hierarchy is that it is ultimately capital that gives intstructions within the labour process . It iscapital that allocates tasks, that specifies rates and norms, and that enforces penalties for failure . It is not essential that the perronthcation of capital always take a particular torn, . The

traditional

form of

hierarchical control

1

management- supervisor-

foreman-group leader) can be very expensive . It has been instituted because information is required at all times about the performance, in terms Of quantity and quality, of each individual worker . You can t rationally allocate rewards and puhishments (bonuses etc .) unless you have this information . It has also been instituted where the work of a particular shop has to be continually re-allocated so as to integrate the output ut that shop with the changing needs of other processes "down-line", with varied customer requirements, and so oil, (Edwards . 1971) . This is particuarly true in machine shops making a large variety of components . Capital determines the form that its personification takes . With the automation of information processing and diffusion systems it becomes possible for capital in some cases to dispense with some of these traditional and expensive features of control . In effect it can automate control of labour .'haylor developed the control routine of starting the day in the machine shop by giving each worker a job slip with written instructions about his tasks . Nowadays there are shops where the day starts by the workers receiving computer printouts specifying their work allocations and schedules . No doubt the same computer receives information during the day about the extent to which each worker is doing his job . It is not essential that the instructions be given to each individual worker rather than to groups ; but one can see now how semi-autonoinous groups" are possible only within very severe limits . They are possible to the extent that capital can control, verity, specify and monitor the functions and work of the group so rigorously that the group has no margin at all for interposing into its Organisation of labour its own objectives . "Autnnorny I t only pot itble on the

18

basis of an increase in the material basis of capitalist power - a paradox for

bourgeois empiricists to loose sleep over . To put it in theoretical terms : this use of automation, far from introducing a non-correspondence between capital's formal subordination of labour and the material basis of its relations to labour in production, on the contrary provides an even more solid foundation to its real subordination of labour . Of course this real subordination is totally invisible to bourgeois science . One can read whole libraries of articles on "semi-autonomous groups" without coming across an analysis of the systems of norm-setting and penalties within which the work of the groups takes place .

(iii) Fragmentation/Des killing Deskilling is inherent in the capitalist labour process because capital must aim at having labour functions that are calculable, stapdardisable routines ; because this labour must be performed at the maximum speed and with the minimum of "porosity" ; and because capital wants labour which is cheap and easily replaceable . It is quite difficult to spell out what is essential to the notion of deskilling . There are three aspects : (a) First of all, there is the replacement of the relationship between labour and tools by the relationship between labour and machine . This comes down to the replacement of the craftsman by the machine operative . It could be that these two relationships are simply incommensurable, so that to speak of deskilling here is confusing . The notion of deskilling seems to imply a quantitative unilinear scale of some kind, whereas craft and machine-operative skills may require different scales . It may be abstract and arbitrary to argue about whether or not there is "more skill" involved in beating metals with hammers into craft artifacts or operating certain metal-working machines. (b) Secondly, all tasks requiring some special skill for their operation are divided off as separate jobs . In as much as skill is still required it is distributed to as few, specialised workers as possible (e .g . design work, machine setting, maintenance) . (c) Thirdly, there is the tendency for the remaining unskilled or semi-skilled tasks to be separated out from one another and distributed to different jobs . This means the fragmentation of even unskilled tasks . This third aspect of cleskilling, however, is only a tendency . The extent to which capital fragments unskilled labour (or reduces the time cycle of operations of each individual owrker) is determined by the way in which those tasks are integrated with each other and with ancillary tasks . It involves such problems as physical layout of machines, material transfers and quality control . So-called job-enlargement experiments which operate entirely at the level of recombining a group of unskilled tasks improve efficiency for capital if they solve difficult problems of line-balancing and quality control, as long as the materials flow and supervision can be performed effectively . Computers, which make it possible to automate the quality control and monitoring of individual labour performance without face to

19

face supervision, introduce for capital the possiblity of experimenting with modified systems of assembly design . The fundamental point here is that this can only take place given that labour routines have been so thoroughly deskilled

and fragmented that they can be recombined and yet still remain both fast, calculable and monitorable and require very little training . Job enlargrnent presupposes deikilling! It is the recombination of small numbers of calculable

routines . Only in the brain of a bourgeois academic could an "enlarged" job of routine assembly operations, taking place within the strictest and most rigorous network of capitalist control, be taken to represent the emergence of a new order in which labour, no longer alienated, becomes free and human . Once again, in reality automation increases real subordination of labour to capital .

6 . THE EXTENSION OF MACHINOFACTURE We can investigate changes in the labour process both in relation to changes in their technical basis and in relation to changes in the management of control, although these are clearly interdependent . In relation

to

the former one might

look, for example, at continuous flow processes, numerical control machine tools, other aspects of automation and of mechanisation of information processing, etc . In relation to the second one might focus on the ideology and practise of 'Job Design", of the "humanisation of work" movement and so on . Some innovations in labour processes are such that this (rather arbitrary) distinction would have no relevance (e .g . the cellular organisation of small batch machine shop production) . Our general thesis with repsect to such changes is that they have indeed taken place within the limits conceptualised in the theory of the CLP, as more and more processes come more and more perfectly to exemplify its capitalist character . It has been an expansion of capitalist machinofacture add thereby of the real subordination of labour to capital . It is worth pointing out some implications of this thesis . It would follow that we see no "fourth era", no break with machinofacture which would constitute a fourth term in the series simple-cooperation/ manufacture/ machincifacture . It follows also that we see no emergence of a non-correspondence with the CLP, no basic change of production relations at the level of use value that would leave these relations in conflict with the capitalist production relations at the level of value. We do not see the labour process itself, in its internal structure, as the site of a new contradiction between the exploitation of labour on the one hand and its supposed technical command of the process on the other . Developments in the labour process such as high-speed continuous flow mass production, automation, semi-automous groups do not, therefore, signal the emergence of a "a new era' in which all the brutalities of machine-based production would be left behind . Nor do they announce the impending overthrow of capitalist relations within production . Although we cannot develop the argument in this paper we want it to be clear that we see our position as one which would allow for a fundamental refutation of views such as those just mentioned, and in particular :

20

(a) The "Scientific and Technological Revolution" thef if

This thesis states or implies that there is an "autonomous" development of the forces of production which come into conflict with capitalist exploitation within production itself ; and that these developed forces of production (automated processes, technically skilled labour) are the embryonic realisation in advance of socialist production processes . It relies on a technicist interpretation of "forces of production" . For example Man, Science, Technology (a book written by authors from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia) seems, despite protestations to the contrary, to express a view of social development similar to that given in Marx's famous (but unfortunate) remark in The Poverty

of Philosophy that

"social relations are closely bound up with productive forces . In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production ; and in changing their mode of production, in changing their way of earning a living, they change all their social relations . The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord ; the steam-mill, society

with the industrial capitalist" .

And, it seems, the computer gives us socialism .

"There is a natural organic interconnection between the application of the achievements scored by the scientific and technological revolution and the development of socialism, a connection similar to that between the 18th century technological upheavals connected with the industrial revolution on the one hand, and the development of capitalism on the other. The essence of the industrial revolution, as a social process, lies in a change in the structure of the forces of production" (Academies of Science of Czechoslovakia and U .S .S .R .,

1973, p . 104)

We have been arguing in this paper that the essential significance of the development of machinofacture was the development of a specifically capitalist

labour process, a position clearly quite different from that of these East European authors . The "industrial revolution" was a phase in the class struggle in which capital developed a material basis for the real subordination of labour . The political implications of these different analyses are manifest . The "Scientific and Technological Revolution" analysis 6 tends to see the traditional

phase and its preparation for communism not in terms of class struggle but in terms of the gradual autonomous development of the "forces of production", (understood as 'technology') and even more narrowly in terms of the development of automation . It is a thoroughly depleticised view of social development which is clearly vastly different from that, for example, of the

21

Chinese .

(b) The Post-Industrial Society' thesis .

There is a mountain of bourgeois ideology which asserts that we have, as a result of developments in technology, entered a new era, an era which will be "post-industrial" and which is characterised by the disappearance of alienation in work Consider for example the work of L . Davies . He argues that the age of Taylorism and its concomitant de-skilling and alienation was a transitional one and that we are now entering a new ''post-industrial" era in which work will be characterised by higher skill and autonomy of the worker, by the dominance of supervisory, diagnostic and cognitive rather than manual skills . (L . Uavies and j . C . Taylor (ed .) ,1974) Davies' work is not just an academic exercise but is increasingly being used by capitalist management in its attempt to find ways of "humanising" work and overcoming workers' resistance to the hegemony of capital in the labour process . It is important to be able to confront this ideological initiative with not only the fact that in recent developments of labour processes, tar more important, quantitatively, than automation in materials handling, has been the enormous growth of semi-skilled clerical and other "service work" (as is shown by Harry Braverman in L4bourand Monopoly Capital, 1974) ; but also, that the actual content and power relations involved are not at all as they are described by these prophets of the new age . But for this we need theoretical concepts and not just empirical measurements of intuitively relevant variables . Our position is that the motor of history is neither an autonomous development of the forces of production nor the development of "technology , but class struggle, and that as tar as the labour process is con[erned this struggle takes place on what is essentially the very same terrain as that analysed by Marx, that of capitalist machinotacture .

CONCLUSION We have discussed the general determinations which produce the specifically capitalist character of the labour process capitalism . The discussion occurs in the

context of a capitalist crisis which, as a crisis of accumulation, must seek a solution in a reorganisation of the material conditions of valorisation, that is, in the labour process, But a crisis for capital is simultaneously a crisis for labour, a crisis of political strategy and of theory, in which the labour process also appears as a central element . However, just as capital dominates the real labour process and holds the initiative in its restructuring, so also the terms in which theoretical accounts of the labour process are posed are subject to intervention by capital and its ideologies . This means that the theoretical forms in which problems of the labour process appear cannot be taken for granted by Marxists

22

but should be considered as being, in some sense, at issue . On one level it is of course necessary to counter some of the cruder contemporary myths of the labour process, such as the idea that modern production techniques require an all-round increase in skill levels, in as direct a way as possible . Beyond this however, it becomes necessary to situate Marxist theory in relation to the corpus of more or less ideological literature and received ideas on the subject, and to investigate the possibility and place of a developed concept of the labour process within Marxist theory, and the the implications for Marxist theory of the existence of such a concept . This in turn requires questions about the specificity of the labour process . Is the labour process a rpecific site of the production process of capital, with its own determinations and results? Or should it be seen as one aspect, among others, of a general social production whose various components are subject to similar constraints and determinations? Crudely, this latter approach would see all particular struggles under capitalism as protean expressions of a constitutive capital-labour relation, and would render either unnecessary or irrelevant the delimitation of specific or immanent tendencies and limits . This paper argues for the former position : it investigates the forces in play in direct capitalist production, and claims to show the general form of the relation between capital and labour in production . It establishes the specificity of the labour process as a particular and irreducible functional form in the circuit of industrial capital . But no more than thin . It is important to recognise the limitations of this paper's project . Here are some remarks on these limitations . Firstly, a study of the fundamental structure of the capitalist labour process necessarily abstracts from the development of the capitalist mode of production itself, and in particular abstracts from the phases of accumulation through which the labour process is connected to determinations beyond those of its general form . In particular such a study abstracts from conjunctural struggleswhich will exert an impact on any particular, concrete labour process . Clearly, accurate knowledge of specific labour processes cannot be derived from considerations of the general form of the capitalist labour process : many things beyond these general determinations will affect particular class struggles in production . For example, the elements of the accumulation process are articulated concretely in the yet broader context of the capitalist social formation . The actual structure of the process is not historically determined by the abstract logic of capital accumulation, since capitalist production relations can only be reproduced as a totality of social relations . Hence the need to elaborate the links between changes in the capitalist labour process and changes in class composition, in political structures, in the role of the capitalist state (in education as much as the economy) and in interstate relations . We only want here to point out the danger of interpreting concrete developments in the capitalist labour process solely in terms of the 'logic of accumulation', rather in in terms of class struggle to be understood in a wider context . Secindly, linked with the above, we should note that the relation between capital and labour, at a general social level, cannot be derived from, or reduced

23

to,the capital-labour relation within production . Of course, the development of real subordination implies, Inter alta, that the relations of production are being fully realised and reproduced within the labour process . But this does not mean that the relation can be generated and sustained wholly within the workplace : rather it is reproduced, within the social formation as a whole, at a social level and not at the level of the enterprise, through complexes of social practices which are not discussed here . Ultimately this means that the kind of analysisot the labour process attempted here cannot be used to buttress a workerist political theory . Thirdly, a study of the capitalist labour process does not exhaust the forms of the labour process within a capitalist social formation : one can find within any particular social formation many labour processes which do not, or do not directly, fall under the full force of the law of value . For exmaple, there are labour processes taking place in non-capitalist subordinate modes of production within peripheral social functions, and the survival of certain areas of individual artisanal production even in the developed capitalist economies . In these economies there are also, and above all, many labour processes which stand in some indirect and difficult to analyse relations with the operation of the law of value and which are, nevertheless, of central importance as aspects of the which valorisation of capitals is taking place . general conditions under Perhaps the most important of these are (i) housework, and (ii) the very heterogenous range of labour processes taking place under the command of the State . To sum up : our thesis is that there has been no change in the immanent tendencies of the capitalist labour process, beyond those analysed by Marx .What have changed in complex and as yet unanalysed ways, are the manifold forms which those tendencies take : the changes in material technique, organisational structure, spatial location, etc ., which have historically occurred as products of, and interventions in, the class struggle which is their final determinant .

NOTES (1)

. This paper is the result of discussions in the Brighton Labour Process Group, 1976, I among Diane Elson, Fabio Erber, John Humphrey, John Mepham, Robin Murray, Hugo Radice, Hubert Schmitz, Keith Smith, Kate Soper, and David Youlton . It has been written up by John Mepham . The Group hopes that comrades with comments, criticisms etc . of this paper will send them to the Group, c/o 10 Warleigh Avenue, Brighton . 2 . an English translation of this originally unpublished "6th chapter' in this paper are translated from the French by J . Mepham. The emphasis is taken from the original . ~ . "The real labour process - this is Marx's phrase and refers to the labour process from the pointof view of concrete use-values . Seethe Penguin edition of Capital, Vol . I, p . ` H I .

24



4 . This essay by Gorz is a revised and extended version of the paper that originally appeared in Telos as Technical intelligence and the capitalist division of labour". 5, bit is not necessary to be straightforward oplogists for capital, as ere the authors of the paper under discussion, to be blind to the forms of capitalist control over labour within the CLP . Cf . for example, the various studies in the 'Ieftish' magazine Jociologie du Travail, Oct-Dec . 1974, special issue devoted to non-Taylorist methods of organising the labour process . The article by Bernoux and Ruffier, for example, very interesting in many respects, nevertheless suffers from this same fault . It concerns the organisatiof work in a machine shop, but no mention is made of the system of payments, the determination of norms, or what happens when work-rates a're not maintained, nor of the means whereby management collects information about work rates and quality . The article is about so-called semi-autonomous groups . It is no wonder that the authors have no way of understanding the scepticism of workers and unions about such experiments . 6. The importance of the views discussed in this paragraph is immense because they are both an Eastern European orthodoxy and are also expressed by the ideological leadership of Western Communist Parties . It is not surprising, therefore, that there has been an intense debate on these issues in France . See, for example, Bettelhelm, 1974 ; Coriat, 1976; Magaline, 1975 . An excellent discussion of Lenin's views on the forces and relations of production, and specifically on science and technology, and their role in social development is to be found in Claudio-U rondo, 1973 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY Academies of Science of Czechoslovakia and the USSR, Academia, Prague, 1973 : Man, Science and Technology : A Marxist Analysis of the Scientific and Technological Revolution. C BETTELHEIM Seuil/Maspero, 1974 : Los Luttes de Classes en URSS . C BETTELHEIM Harvester Press, 1975 : The Transition to Socialist Economy . BIGGANE and STEWART"Job enlargement : a case study", in L . Davies and) . C . Taylor (eds.), Penguin, 1972 : Design of Jobs. H BRAVERMAN Monthly Review Press, 1974 : Labour and Monopoly Capital . H CATLING David and Charles, 1970: The Spinning Mule, M CHANAN British Film Institute, 1976 : Labour Power in the British Film Industry. C CLAUDIO-URONDO Mouton, 1973 : Lenine et la Revolution Culturelle . B CORIAT Seuil, 1976 : Science, Technique et Capital . L DAVIES and J C TAYLOR (eds .) Penguin, 1972 : Design of Jobs. • A B EDWARDS Machinery Publishing Co ., 1971 : Readings in Group Technology: Cellular Systems . A GORZ (ed), Harvester Press,- 1976 : Essays on the Division of Labour . A GORZ "Technology, technicians and class struggle", in A . Gorz (ed . ), op .cit .

A D MAGALINE Maspero, 1975 : Lutte de Classes et Devalorisation de Capital . S MARGLIN "What do bosses do? : the origins and function of hierarchy in

capitalist production" in A . Gorz (ed.), op. cit. • MARX Union Generale d'Editions, 1971 : Capital. • MARX Lawrence and Wishart, 1974 : Capital, Vol . 1 .

25

K MARX Union (Generate d'Editions, 1971 : Un cbapitre inedit du Capital . Oct-Dec . 1974 : Sociologue du Travail.

26

Penny Summer/ield

WOMEN WORKERS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

In the Second World War in Britain there was an overall labour shortage . Almost the entire population of adult women was forced into wage labour . Their non-wage domestic labour was to some extent alleviated by the state, but the alleviation was never more than partial . Discussion of this mobilisation of women, in a specific historical setting, provides an opportunity for clarification of the key place of the sexual division of labour, rooted in the family, in capitalism . The paper is a contribution to thinking on this problem, and not a finished product, emprically or theoretically . It falls into four parts . First, I deal with the wartime need for the state to distribute industrial and military labour . Then I discuss women's resistance to the state's policy of voluntary call up, and the introduction of compulsion . Thirdly, I discuss evacuation . And finally 1 deal with women's resistance to the labour process in munitions factories . The family enters the discussion at all points . The Second World War divides into three periods as far as the mobilisation of labour for industry and the armed forces is concerned . The first period is that of the Phoney War, September 1939 to May 1940 when industrial and military mobilisation were half-hearted . The second period is from May 1940 when mobilisation was intensified, to March 1941, by which time conscription had tapped most of the available male labour, but labour requirements in industry and the armed forces still exceeded the supply . The third period is from March 1941 to the end of the War in 1945,during which time the entire reserve army of labour was mobilised - through for instance the conscription of women - an absolute labour shortage was felt, and attention turned increasingly to raising

27

productivity . During the period of the Phoney War little expansion of the labour force was required because little fighting actually took place, until the evacuation of

Trondheim and Dunkirk,

lit

April and May . Armaments production merely

sustained the pace begun after Munich in 1918 . The effect of declaration of war on employment was to raise unemployment slightly, as some peacetime luxury

industries turned over to war production . Between June

193`) and

line

I9-10,

the

number of women employed increased by only half a nmlhon . Dilution had to proceed by individual upgrading agreements which unions frequently resisted .

The total of unemployed men was over one million until April

I9 .10

(( .alder

1971, pp . 84-85) . During the period of the Phoney War little expansion of the labour force was required because little lighting actually took place, until the evacuation of Trondheim and Dunkirk,in April and May . Armaments production merely

sustained the pace begun after Munich in 1938 . The effect

of

declaration of war

on employment was to raise unemployment slightly, as some peacetime luxury

industries turned over to war production . Between June

I9 ;9

and lone 1910, the

number of women employed increased by only half a million . Dilution had to proceed by individual upgrading agreements which unions frequently resisted . The total of unemployed men was over one million until April 19 . 10 (( :alder 1971, 811-5) . In this period the state was not actively organising industry . In tact Chamberlain's appeasing government was committed to leaving production to private enterprise . It did have to take action over creating an army . however . In May 1939, twenty to twenty-one year old men had been conscripted for six months training .On the first day of war all men between eighteen and forty-one were made liable for conscription . At the same time the state had to act as regulator as between the work forces in the services and in industry . A schedule of reserved occupations was drawn up to avoid the First World War problem of depleting the numbers of skilled workers through indiscriminate conscription . Conscription proceded slowly because of the organisational and administrative inflexibility of the armed forces . Each age group was called up in turn . Those

aged forty to forty-one were not reached until July 19,11 . The beginning of the second period is marked by the Nazi occuation of Belgium, France and Scandinavia, and the attempted invasion of Britain . Mobilisation for war now had to start in earnest . The change of government in 1940 was the product of the need for a more active state, capable of directing industry, and exanding the armed forces and the labour force sufficiently to obtain a level of productivity equal to or greater than that of the enemy . Conscription was intensified . (In December 1939 1.5 million men and by the end of the War nearly 5 million, or 30% of the male working population, was under military discipline, felling 1970, 3031 . It involved the removal of both single and married men from home for indefinite periods . ( .tlmpensation for this separation from the family was made both spontaneously by those experiencing it, and as part of the military authorities welfare policy . Reactions

to the experience were registered by a Mass Observation survey done

u1

an

28

R .A .F . camp (Marston, Kent) in March 1941 . Until the 1941 offensives in the Middle East, North Africa and the Far East were under way, conscription meant a sedentary period in a British training camp for the majority of servicemen . Mass Observation found in this context that in reply to the question "what do you miss most from peacetime?", by far the largest group representing 43% of the sample said "home and family" . (The next highest ranking were "money", 2i% and ''sex" and "freedom" both 14% out of a total of eighteen different things mentioned) . Mass Observation found that many servicemen compensated for this-loss by 'adopting' families in the neighbourhood of their camps where possible, or developed family roles amongst themselves in their own units where it was not . (Some men rook on sexual roles, but the most common pattern observed in the construction of these pseudo family relationships in barrack room groups of the same sex and, within a range of about ten years, the same agewas the adoption of maternal roles by some men) . During the Blitz, from August to December 1940, the strain of separation from the possibly endangered family and sense of frustration at doing nothing but sit in a British camp, was a frequent cause of goind A .W .O .L .' Consistently until the end of the War, the War Office's Directorate of Welfare operated a double standard concerning marital infidelity . It considered both suspected and actual infidelity on the part of their wives ur girl friends at home, and the absence of female company at servicemen's camps, as lowering to morale . The Inter-Services Committee on Morale proposed in 1944 that A .T .S . should be specially exported to Burma as part of the solution to the increasingly mutinous situation there .' (Infidelity by the wife would endanger the war effort, but by the husband would improve it) . Another part of the Wa,rOffice's welfare policy was to encourage letter writing between family members, particularly in the last phase of the War . It developed the Military Airgraph Service (carrying reduced-size photographs of letters) to facilitate it . In the penumbra between official

policy and private enterprise, the Daily Mirror and the forces' Morning, for submarine crews,

newspapers which it ran such as Good

contributed to the efforts to compensate for separation from the family . These papers became channels of communication between family members. As Smith points out in Paper Voices, the editorial policy in using letters and interviews

with families was such that each individual one assumed a typicality which allowed it to stand for all (Smith et al . 1975, 72ff) . These points about the efforts made to compensate for the removal of fit single and married men in their twenties from family life through military conscription, are indications of the function performed by the family in capitalism and the inadequacy of a total institution like the armed forces to act as a substitute . The family is the institution where the fulfilment of basic emotional needs as well as economic support takes place, both being necessary for the production and reproduction of labour power . As far as families bereft of their young men were concerned, conscription could mean the loss of both an authority figure and a major breadwinner or contributor to the household income . The state compensated for the latter to a limited extent . Servicemen's wives allowances were at the level of 1930s

29

unemployment benefit, calculated by some critics to be below subsistence level . Such an income acted as a pressure on servicemen's weives to take on munitions work . I During this period in which the male military army was mobilised . May 19111 to March I94I, the male industial army was restructured and expanded . Registration of Employment and Essential Works Orders were introduced by Bevin in July 1940, empowering National Service Officers to direct male workers into particular jobs under compulsion . Their direct legal application was relatively rare, preference being given to the creation of consent . ]'his wits frequently done through the veil of administrative incompetence . For instance, Mass Observation quote the case of an aircraft worker who wanted to get into other kinds of work, but was persistently kept unemployed by the Labour Exchange, rather than be given the necessarydocuments, until in desperation he returned to the aircraft factory 'voluntarily' . I The threat of call up to the forces

as the alternative to distasteful industrial work was also used . Of course, legal direction was an essential component of the softer approach . This period was one of energetic differentiation of the male labour force by the state . Workers were registered at Employment Exchanges by trade, skill, age and fitness, in an attempt to teed the rapidly developing division of labour fit tile

forces and war industry . The T .U .C . agreed to dilution of skilled by semi-skilled workers, and labour processes were gradually broken down to cut down on training time . The third period is from March 1941 to the end of the War . In thecuntextot the general labour shortage, the intensive mobilisation of women for industry and the armed forces took place . In the first manpower budget of the War, in October 1941, it was calculated that two and a half million men and women were required by June 1942 . A Labour Manager quoted by Mass Observation describes the 'scraping of the barrel' which he perceived this mobilisation to involve .

"Men over sixty and even over seventy . Men taken from non-essential work . Women and girls from all sorts of jobs and from no job at all . ( .ripples, weak hearts . discharged service men, halt-wits, criminals, All sorts of people so long as they can

stand or even sit and turn a handle . There are our Material" . (M-O 19'i2,91 )

His description includes at I of the three layers within the reserve army of labour which Marx identifies : the floating (i .e . temporarily under- or unemployed), the latent (i .e . those chronically unemployed due to e .g . the application of labour saving technology in areas where there is no development constituting a . the casual labourer, the old, .e counter attraction to labour ), and the stagnant (i cripples, paupers . criminals etc . ; Capital 1, ch . 25 sec . t) . Women occur in all three categories, Marx did not address the theory of the reserve army of labour specifically to women . The nature of domestic labour in the family makes women non-wage earners appear nut to be employed . The fact that domestic labour in the family is not subject to constraints of a tine-based wage or an 30

apprenticeship, makes it the most flexible form of work . It can be done during any hours and broken up and distributed among any available participants . It is therefore possible to combine it with other typesof work . Historically there has been a fluid movement between women's domestic work in the family, and wage labour . The majority of women are potential wage labourers at any tittle and therefore belong in Marx's floating layer of the reserve army of labour . It was to this section of the reserve army of labour that attention turned increasingly in the context of the labour shortage problem of 1941 . The official historian of labour in the munitions industries wrote of the labour shortage problem .

since women workers formed the largest remaining reserve of manpower this largely resolved itself into the problem of redistributing the women workers already in employment and of drawing into employment women previously unoccupied or working only in the home (Inman 1957, I7b) .

Appeals were made to women to volunteer their labour . They failed in the cases of both the services and industry . By December 1941 25 million people were employed out of an estimated employable population between the ages of fourteen and sixty-five of 33 .25 m . In this context the government decided to conscript women . The causes of the failure of women to volunteer their labour in sufficient quantities are various . As far as military work was concerned, its unappealing image was held responsible at the time, an image based on the reputation of the women's military services for immorality . (The A .T.S . was known as the groundsheet of the army) . This is possibly merely another way of saying that the services attracted young women who preferred adventure to the dubious benefits of a wartime marriage with an absent partner on servicemen's wives' allowance . A small Mass Observation survey of post-war plans of a selection of W .A .A .F .s in 1941 indicates an ambivalent set of attitudes . It registers a preference for employment and travel to marriage, mixed with a belief that such opportunities would not exist after the War, when jobs would be taken by men, and as a result an acceptance of marriage as the only alternative . 5 The majority of women, however, resisted the separation from the family which joining the services would involve . The resistance of women to volunteering for industrial work indicated by the figures produced by War Work Weeks around the country in 1941 . Bradford scraped up 498 women workers, while needing 11,000 (for the West Riding), and in Littlehampton so few volunteered that thecampaign was abandoned as a fiasco. Littlehampton, Worthing, Bognor, and Chichester produced only 211 war workers and 48 A .T .S . This was at a time of acute military crisis in Malaya and Libya . Mass Observation identified "domestic problems" as the main cause of resistance (M-O 9142, 150) . Women were correctly conscious of the double

31

burden of domestic and industrial labour . They tended to reject it where they were not under economic compulsion to accept it, because of the absence of adequate alternative sources of income from the state or anywhere else . A secondary but linked cause was the ambiguity of the official campaign started in March 1941, when women were encouraged to register at employment exchanges so that the state could assess its labour resources . It was vague on hours, pay and the degree of mobility expected . This vagueness was bound to result from the state's half-hearted control over the munitions industries . This control was split between at least five competing government bodies, and was control over marketing (of raw materials and products) rather than over production itself . Even in Royal Ordnance Factories, which were government owned and run, there was a high wastage of female labour . On average in 1940, the filling factory at Chorley in Lancashire had 500 new women workers a week, interviewed twice that number, and lost about the same number . Between December 1940 and /anuary 1941 its labour force failed to keep its position in this Red Queen's race, and fell from 17,800 to 16,800 . The Ministry of Labour commented that it was "expending great energy in trying to fill a leaking tub" (Inman 1957, 183, 5) . However, the ministry had only itself to blame . A major problem was the conditions inside the factories which were not geared physically and administratively to the influx of female labour . For instance, Chorley had been built to soak up floating male labour in Lancashire before the War, and had inadequate lavatory and canteen accommodation, and a complete lack of day nursery facilities, for the thousands of women workers recruited 1940-1941 . Most of the women were married, with children . These women were expected to work effective sixty-six hour week, plus up to four hours travelling, as well as to walk large distances between factory gates and the workshops, scattered over a large area (as in all filling factories, for safety) . The administration inherited from the pre-War context was inadequate . The official historian, Inman, writes :

"There were many complaints atChorley of mistakes in wages paid out and delays in rectifying them ; this was not surprising when clerks were often inexperienced and there were at one time said to be forty women on the books with the name of Anne Clark" .

Standards in private factories may have been higher . Nevertheless the government owned R .O .F .s were supposed to stand as model employers . Once the state had accepted the need for the conscription of women ( step not taken on the same scale by any of the other combatant countries ; Davies 1975, 94-5) it was forced to face its implications . First, industry must adapt to the demands domestic labour made on women . Second, the state itself must take over some aspects of this type of work . Thirdly, and partly conditionally on

32

these two, the state had to obtain women's co-operation with conscription . They had to be persuaded to take up the opportunity offered for at least temporary release from domestic labour . The extension of part-time working was a major way in which industry could adapt to the demands of domestic labour . The provision of day nurseries was one way in which the stare could become "housewife" . Personnel management in factories and official and semi-official propaganda campaigns were ways of persuading women to co-operate . All companies were ordered to employ women welfare officers after December 1941. Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, produced a pamphlet urging employers to make their hours flexible, in March 1941 . It advocated such things as :

" . . .hours must permit of each women having reasonable time to do her shopping at convenient hours . In the absence of such an arrangement, bad time keeping, absenteeism and discontent are likely to result" .

and

. . . many women workers will have husbands in the Forces coining home on leave periodically . It is suggested that those women should be told at the time of their engagement that . . . they will be given reasonable leave of absence on these occasions" . "Other women will possibly have young children to get off to school or nursery before they can come to work . Arrangements should be made to accommodate their hours to those requirements" °

and In spite of the need for women workers, state nurseries were slow to arrive and did so only under the pressure of some women workers themselves, in the press and through petitions to Parliament, at the beginning of 1942 . Official and semi-official propaganda had a hollow ring to it, in the absence of such provisions, together with communal feeding arrangements (e .g . British restaurants) and adequate health care . Lady Reading, President of W .V .S ., advocated that women reject their domestic role for the duration of the War . The duty of the wife was now to "forget your home, leave beds unmade, leave the house dirty, don't look after your husband's meals" while throwing herself into war work . By the end of 1943 there were 1450 local authority-run day nurseries (more than there were in 1975), with places for 65,000 children under five . 130,000 more of this age group had been sent to primary schools further to

33

relieve mothers . but Mass Observation found that it was still a source of complaint among women factory workers that the factories themselves did not run creches, along soviet lines, at the place of work . There was differentiation of the adult ternale population, as there had been of the male, by the state into those who could work in factories and those who were considered too old and unfit for such work, but adequate for collectively organised domestic labour, such as child minding and clinic and canteen work . Schools took on an increasing number of family functions, particularly feeding . Free school meals were provided for ten times the previous numbers between July 1940 and the end of the War, and the provision of tree school milk rose by 50t%.% in the same period . There were administrative and financial problems associated with alleviating domestic labour but there was also reluctance to take it over completely, because

of the possible effect on the family . To take one example, in the case of parental contributions to the cost of billetting evacuees, the administrative cost of collection often exceeded the amount recovered . However the policy of contributions was not dropped . As Titmuss writes :

The government did not want to take any steps which might weaken individual initiative and parental responsibility (Tiunuss 1150)

The policy of evacuation in effect, though not in intention, assisted the mobilisation of women . The safety of children as the next generation of fighters and workers was the uppermost concern of the policy-makers . But the effects of evacuation were to release women in areas of heavy concentration of industry, at maximum bombing risk, for work, in precisely the periods (after the phoney war) of maximum invasion danger, when full production was most necessary . Evacuation greatly extended the 'parental' role of the school . Most children travelled with their schools, their teachers acting as 'communal' parents, over-seeing billetting, checking on chidren's welfare and emotional needs, as well as their usual educational functions . The state through schools and billetting officers, took on direct responsibility for children in an unprecedented way, deciding where they were to go, with whom they would stay, where they would go to school, and even such matters as what they would wear, how much money should be spent on them, how often they would see their parents and even how often they should write to them . Parents' choice was curtailed, even though they had the final option of withdrawing children from the scheme, it this was a realistic proportion . The effect of evacuation on reception families represents the family tinder very great stress : they had t o take in non-blood relatives whom they did not know and virtually did not choose . Local state administration was not up to giving them choice : billetting was mostly chaotic-

34

the billetting officer made the decisions, or more often the situation descended to a kind of slave market, or the teacher had the job of selling them off one by one . Reception families had to extend to these strangers the usual functions of the family, that is practical and emotional support and care . Not surprisingly the conditions of success in these circumstances are very clear . It was found by an Oxford Psychiatrists' Group that in general it was only possible for reception families to be amoeba-like if the strangers they were taking in were wither too young to be conditioned into one sort of economically determined life style of another, or were of the same class background . Differences in class appear, from the collection of memoirs edited by B . S . Johnson, to have been primary . Differences between urban and rural life, religion, colour and nationality were secondary, but the two together could be explosive. Given the problems of removing domestic responsibilities from married women, the most sought aftergroupof workers was, in the Ministry of Labour's terminology, "surplus unskilled mobile woman labour" . Married women with young children and/or resident husbands were considered immobile . The search for single women who could be moved, extended to the pools of "latent" female labour, unemployed or underemployed in the agricultural areas of Scotland and Ireland, where a systematic and semi-official poaching system was carried out (Inman 1957,169) . However while theoretically the ideal solution to labour shortage problems, "surplus unskilled mobile woman labour" in practice presented problems of work discipline . The mobility for which it was prized, based on freedom from domestic responsibilities, was not conducive to regular and committed work . Married women tended to be reluctant to enter the workforce, but once there, were considered relatively dependable workers . The main disadvantage to employers was their high rate of absenteeism due to family commitments (husband on leave, children sick etc .) but many managers seemed able to accept their priority ordering as between home and work, given the general quality of their labour. Mass, Observation collected numberous statements from management on the commitment of married women workers to their work, of which this is one example :

"The new women are fine, especially the older ones . Many of them have not been in work before . They seem to carry over their household pride into their job . Of course the new men are a poor lot, the previous unemployables" .

The response of management to the other large group with experience of the discipline of domestic labour, ex-domestic servants, was also favourable :

"Scotch servant girls we found good hard workers . . . A hotel chambermaid . A

sensible girl who'd made up her mind to do her job to the best of her ability and put

35

tip with the rough side of it . Note she's the domestic service type . This type is used to

hard work and undefined hours of work at that

In contrast a typical reaction to the theoretically ideal Irish single woman was,

"Two Irish girls came on night shift, smoked, idled and swore at the foreman refusing to work . We sacked them

And a Midland Welfare Manager said, on l January 1942, in describing his day :

"A Labour Supply Officer phones me . He has a woman worker i untrained) he can offer me. She's Irish (I groan) . She also has a baby about I S months old (I thank him fervently). However I daren't refuse here" .

Conscription did succeed in drawing out the reserves of female labour . By mid-1943 it was calculated that among those between I b and v0, 9 single women out of 10, and 8 married women our of 10, were in the forces or industry . Absenteeism remained a problem among married women, but became stable in the last two years of the War . State welfare provisions combined with spontaneous adaptation to the industriall situation within the family and the neighbourhood contributed to this situation . In fact by 1944 the labour force was beginning to shrink because of natural wastage . Unskilled wnrkersnumbered4 million in the first half of 1943 and 3 million byJune 1945 . Increasing attention was paid to the effective use of labour in this period, when expansion of productivity engineering occurred . Beyond the problems of numbers mobilised, lie those of their productivity . Unsocialised workers, as in the cases of Irish women workers already mentioned, frequently offered resistance to industrial work as such, specifically to the experience of the sub-division of the individual inherent in the labour process in capitalist production . The following is an illustration of this . A factory making electronic radar equipment, near Bristol, called Ecko, employed Mass Observation to investigate its productivity problem in 1943 . M-O sent in a woman observer, incognito, to work as an employee while making the investigation . In terms of the mobilisation of labour, that is recruitment and turnover, Ecko's work force was satisfactory . The majority of its 800 or so labour force were single country girls recruited from either the local small country town or from the surrounding villages and farms, and included many from further afield who were billetted in the town .

36

The problem was not one of organised and articulated opposition . Women at Ecko were not at first unionised . The problem could not therefore be tackled in the same way that the problem presented by the antagonist interests of male employees and their employers was tackled, that is by developing mechanisms to contain conflict such as joint-consultation, which extends the control of employers on to the shop floor by involving workers in 'safe' decision-making on areas like piece rates, manning and production levels, and conditions in the factory, (but not on 'unsafe' areas like the type of machinery and the division of labour - directly linked to the extraction of surplus value) . The problem was in some ways more difficult for employers to cope with, even though it was less likely to blow up into collective organised strike orother action . Mass Observation identified the problem as one of an absence of a sense of "responsibility" for their work on the part of the women . They were witnessing the alienation of the worker from the product and the production process . The Ecko employers had sought to socialise women rapidly and cheaply by breaking up the labour process but in doing so they removed the possibility of the women having any commitment to the work,as such, and engendered many forms of petty resistance to work . from leaning on machines and doing nothing to so called 'lavatory mongering' meaning sitting in the lavatory chatting, knitting or doing nothing for prolonged periods . This is illustrated in the following description of the machine room, from the report of the investigation :

"At a quarter past eight there are still only about half the girls actually working at their machines (the offical time for starting work is ateight o'clock when the buzzer goes) . Not till halt past is there anything approaching the whole lot working . There is a marked tendency every morning for the older women to start sooner than the young ones ; the half dozen or so women of over 40 who work in this shop are almost always at their machiens before five past eight, a time when few of the other machines are in action . There are various types of machine in the shop - drilling, capping etc . - each of them operated by one girl sitting down. On almost all of them the work is very simple and monotonous, involving simply placing the part in position (it is usually impossible to do this wrong) and then the raising or lowering of a handleor some such action . Usually one can work atone'son speed, letting the finished parts pileup on the bench or in a cardboard box, until someone comes and takes them away ; there is little feeling of hurry or having one's pace dictated by the machine itself, as in continuous belt work . With few exceptions the work here involved neither mental norphysical effort of any kind ."

The observer described the initial feeling of peace produced by such work :

"After the rush and scramble of getting up andcoming to work through the sleerof a February morning, hurrying to get there in time, fighting to clock in at thedoxx, it is restful and pleasant to sit down in a warm room with nothing to do but fiddle with

37

iittle bits of metal, and to know that for twelve hours one will not have to think or Worry about anything at all

This feeling tended to wear off during the day :

throughout the room there is an atmosphere of greater concentration on the µob during the first hours of the morning than at any other time inthe dayThe amount of talking and idling is small and there is little of the' clock watching' which forms one of the main features of the latter hall (it the day . . .

It is at a little before eleven that the first signsofslacking off begin to appear People start going out to the coaknxom and hanging about there for long periods, doing their hair, talking, eating the cakes and sandwiches they have bought for dinner and tea. The subject of what time it is (which by four in the afternoon, as we shall see . has become altruist an obsession) begins to appear in conversations : 'It's five past eleven . That dock's gone slow again . It's nearly ten past . Jack don't you make it nearly ten past?' T lihe' 'It's ten past eleven, isn't it? Isn't that duck slow?' 'That's not slow . That's right' What is it only five pasta 'That's right' 'Oh', ( ;roads from both girls . Only five past . The official time for dinner isoneo clock and the official time forgetting ready for it

is five minutes to ; actually preparations start a long while before that . Between hail past twelve and five to one the cloakrooms are locked (the idea of this is to prevent people getting ready before the appointed time) but what happens as a result of this is that from 12?)) a crowd of girls is t o be found in the cloakroom washing their hands, preparatory to going back to the bench and doing nothing whatever for halt an hour, so as not to get their hands dirty again before dinner . (M-() 1944, 26-7) .

Financial incentives for greater productivity tended not to be successful where single women were concerned . Four aspects of single women's experience in the War context contributed to this. Firstly, being single women they tended not to be the primary bread-winner in the home . Secondly, the length of the working day (fourteen hours on average at Ecko), extended by travelling time, and the absence of consumer goods in the shops coupled with rationing, meant that opportunities to spend money on luxuries or leisure were limited . Thirdly, the . awapping of domestic for industrial labour, cant that working women tendedtolose any share of household and child responsibilities . Thus, lack of control over the organisation and methods of work in the factory was mirrored by loss of such control at home . This point is illustrated by the following rather pathetic quote from the report of the investigation .

38

"Sometimes . . segregation from the ordinary faintly life makes the girl feel almost like an intruder in her home . One girl of about eighteen described rather bitterly an occasion which had made her feel like this : 'The billeting officer had been round, and they were telling about it when I got in . What's happening'' I :eked ; Are we to have some evacuees? I hope its riot children . Don't let them send us any children, Mum, we've enough of children in this house .' Quite nicely, I said it, but Doreen (her sister) turned on me quite sharp . You leave it to Mum and me', she said ; 'it don't matter to you who we have and who we don't, you're never there Just as if it wasn't my house as much as hers . 1 toted her it was a nasty thing to say . ' (M-O 1941,86) . Fourthly, lasting relationships with men were infrequent in the War situation . These might have been an incentive to enlarge and save earnings . Courtship patterns tended to be broken down because of the transitory character of service populations, and because of the probability of not seeing a serviceman again (particularly an American) due to the objective dangers of war . During the War the rate of births among married women fell . The number of illegitimate births per thousand single or widowed women tripled to 16 .1 in 1945 . But the number of illegitimate conceptions did not increase among unmarried women, overall, so this figure reflects a growing failure to legitimise children conceived

out of wedlock, by marriage, rather than an increase inextra-marital sex, perre. It is symptomatic of the mobility required of the population . Straight discipline as a means of increasing productivity, from foremen, managers, etc ., tended to be less effective with single women than with men, because of sexism on both sides . Foremen tended to assume women to be incompetent and did notexpect them to be able to do things correctly, and in any case preferred a warm relationship to one chilled by sternness . (Women supervisors were notoriously stricter at Ecko, but they were a small minority) . Women played up to it . Sexism could become another form of resistance to work . If men would let women off the hook by believing that they could not work hard and well because they were women, why not take advantage of the situation . For example :

"The charge hands in the machine shop are all men, in their twenties and early thirties . One and all they pay much more attention to the mechanical side of their job - setting up and generally kx)king after apparatus and machinery - than to their other task of discipline and leadership among the girls on their bench . They almost all adopt the same attitude to the firls - one of amused tolerance ; nothing a girl can do will bring her a reprimand from a charge-hand ; the worst she has to fear is a piece of good humoured sarcasm . The girl themselves revel in the situation . If the charge-hands choose to look on them with amused masculine superiority as scatterbrained little nitwits who can't do anything right, then what could be easier than to accept this role and make it the cover for any and every kind of carelessness and laziness? For this attitude takes the last shredsof responsibility for their actions from the girls' shoulders, and gives the final touches to that carefree atmosphere which is the machine shop's chief attraction" .

39

The following piece of dialogue is quoted as an illustration of this :

'Taro! Lou, it's stuck somehow' comes nr uisprct rile machine . You've put it iii crooked, that s why . You in love or somrthuig! He puts it in right for tier . Oh, thank you, Lou, Funny how this Machine's always going tunny on ore isn t it . It doesn't seem to like tile Don't like you, eh! These machines don't like anybody who can't use diem right_ No mechanical sense, that s what's the matter with you girls . No iechanical sense (M-O 1943, bi-t) . LUU

They both go away smiling . The unionisation of women was one of the solutions advocated for the low productivity problem . The state and unions and left groups all pressed for it . This was to the advantage of employers, from whom an initiative would have been resisted, particularly by existing union members . Unionisation was in the interests of employers, in as tar as it could stimulate the motivation of women, given the unions' commitment to winning the War and their strong work ethic . It could act as a form of discipline, through channelling random and haphazard forms of resistance into accepted forms of struggle . Whatever the potential of these forms of struggle in the fight against capitalism, initially at least this channelling made the extraction of surplus value from labour easier for the employer . The total number of women in unions before the War was 970,000 . By the end of 1943 it had nearly doubled, to 1,870,000 . This left a wide margin of non-unionised women . (Taking the entire workforce, including non-munitions work, there were about 7m women in it by 1943) . Their participation may not have been all that active either . In a sample of joint Production Committees it was found that more than half had no women representatives at all (Calder 1971,464) . The time of the married woman worker was obviously at a premium, while the partial failure of the financial incentive in wartime would affect the single woman worker's attitude to union struggles for higher wages, in the same way as it conditioned her response to such things as productivity bonuses . By way of conclusion, the mobilisation of women in the Second World War required a different kind of family structure from the privatised nuclear family with the paternal authority figure . A form of extended family developed, in which friends and relatives took over collective responsibilities to release fit and able women for industrial work . This does not imply a return of previous forms of the extended family . Its construction around mechanised mass production, and the intervention of the state make it unlike any previous form . It was also 'artificial' in that checks were placed on it developing a permanence which would enable it to supercede the nuclear family . Care was taken not to weaken parental responsibility more than was

40

necessary through policies such ass tate organised evacuation and day nurseries . Women were being mobilised "for the duration" only . The introduction of family allowances in the last year of the War was one among many policies whose objective was in part to tighten the nuclear family structure after its loosening by the needs of war, as a necessary condition for a smooth transition from war to peace time industry . The campaign was generalised, pervading not just the principles on which the Welfare State was founded, but numerous areas of life, from psychiatry to Picture post." The orderliness of the expulsion of women from industry, demobilisation, and the reabsorption of men into industry, indicates the success of the campaign . A contradiction was at work during the War, however . The logic of the war economy was to require unskilled mobile labour in large numbers, which could be thrown on to the relevant production points as different needs made themselves felt . Women were needed in R .O .F .s 1941-42, aircraft factories and the Services, 1942-43, everywhere in the build-up to D- day, and then nowhere after 1945 . Women's role in the family ran counter to such extreme forms of mobility . But at the same time the war economy depended as capitalist economies always do, on a disciplined workforce, prepared to acquiesce in its own exploitation. Married women were more likely to be disciplined than single, as a result of their family responsibilities, which in turn maintained the discipline of other members of society . Mass Observation recognised the contradiction . In a discussion of the effects on production of wives taking time off during their husbands' leave, they wrote :

" . . . while winning the War is the only big consideration, if the bonds of the family and continuity are weakened beyond a certain point, the morale, unity and work effort of the country is weakened" . (M-O 1942, 168) .

NOTES 1 . Mass Observation Archive, Box 214, File 1664 . Mass Observation was founded in 1936 as an "independent, scientific, fact finding body" which intended to document "the processes of social change, of political trend, of public and private opinion" . It offered its services to any political, commercial, official or other body which wanted to hire it. 2 . P .R .O. W .0.32 11195 38A . 3 . A . Calder, 1971, p . 61 . A private's wife received- 17/- from the state and 7/- from her husband . The state also gave her a child allowance of 5/- for the first, 3/-for the second,2/for the third, and 1/- for any subsequent child . This should be compared with average weekly wartime wages for men in manufacturing industries which rose from £4-10 a week in July 1940 to £6-4-4 in July 1944 . (Calder, 1971, p . 407) . 4 . M-O 1942, 18 . (.alder, 1971, p .272 . By the end of 1941, six million workers came under

41

their provisions . But only I in . direction orders were issued for men (mostly to big construction jobs in isolated areas) and HH,)N)0 for women . The nwbtlisation of 'Bevin boys for work in the coal mines, was a separate issue . 5 . M-O Archive, Box 7-t, Pile 1619

6 . Ministry and Labour and National Service . Pamphlet, The I :ntpluyment of Women . suggestions to Lmployers 2 , 1 March 1941 . 7 . This is a composite footnote for five paints in the paragraph : (i) M-O, People in Production . pp . 181-4 . ( Nursery campaign) (it) A . C . H . Smith . 1975, pp . I I i-9 . ( Lady Reading made this statement in 194,1) . (iii) Calder, 1971, p •W9 (Wartime expansion of day nurseries) . (iv) Ross Davies, 1975 . p . 191 "The number ut day nurseries did not rise between 1947 and 1969" . Since then it has shrunk . (v) M-0 . People in Production, p . l H i

H. e.g . Picture Post, I i November 1941 "Why Women [)on t Have babies 'by Anne Scott James . See also, I Mitchell, PJVchoanalVrs and Fernrnrnn . (Perlican 1975) p 227 ft "Social Psychotherapy and Post War london

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANGUS CALDER, The People's War, Britain 1939-45 . (Panther 1971) pp .

84-5 . ROSS DAVIES, Women and Work, IArrow 1975) pp . 94-5 . P INMAN, Labour in the Munitions Industries, I H .M .S .O. 1957) . p . 176. B S JOHNSON, ed ., The Evacuees, (Gollancz 1968) .

People in Production, an enquiry into British War Production . A report prepared by M-O forthe Advertising Service Guild . (John Murray 1942), p . 18 . M-O, War Factory, (Gollancz 1943), pp . 26-7 . K MARX, Capital . vol. I, Chapter xxv, Section 4 . HENRY PELLING, Britain and the Second World War) fontana 1970), p . 303 . A C H SMITH with E IMMIRZI and T BLACKWEI .I., Paper Voices, The Popular Press and Social Change, 1935-1965, (Chatto and W indus, 1975), p . 72 ff. R T TITMUSS, Problems of Social Policy, (H .M .S .O . 1950) . Section on the Social Services and Evacuation, Part 2, Administration and Finance . Mass Observation,

42

Andy Friedman

RESPONSIBLE AUTONOMY VERSUS DIRECT CONTROL OVER THE LABOUR PROCESS

Marx and Marxists have presumed the development of the labour process under capitalism to involve a progressive rise in direct managerial control (primarily through extending the division of labour and through mechanisation) . Harry Braverman (1974, ch . 4) in particular, has argued that the organisation of work during twentieth century capitalism has been guided by Taylorian principles which would ideally involve the control of all worker time and movement by management through complete specification in advance of all aspects of work tasks to be performed . This view arises from a neglect of worker resistance as a force causing accommodating changes in the capitalist mode of production, rather than simply a force which might eventually overthrow that mode of production . In this paper some implications of explicitly recognising worker resistance and managerial counter-pressure as a process by which the organisation of work itself is moulded are explored . In section I treatment of worker resistance and managerial counter-pressure by Marx and Marxists is briefly discussed . In section Il the word control is examined briefly to clear up some confusion and to clarify what I mean by direct control . The basic managerial strategies (responsible autonomy and direct control) are examined in relation to the functions of management under capitalism in section 111 . Finally, in section IV the implementation of these strategies in practice is discussed . I . Worker Resistance and Managerial Counterpressure - Marx and Marxists

Of course Marx recognised the importance of worker resistance . It was through class struggle that the capitalist mode of production ultimately would 43

be destroyed . Marx also recognised that capitalists would act within the labour process to try to overcome worker resistance . As the number of the co-operating labourers increases, so too does their resistance to the domination of capital, and with it, the necessity our capital to overcome this resistance by counterpressure . ICapital, Volume l, p . 113) .

But Marx did not systematically examine this counterpressure - the means whereby capitalism accommodates worker resistance and is thereby sustained . Generally Marxists have followed Lenin's separation of worker resistance into two categories . The first is resistance which develops spontaneously out of struggle within the labour process, directly between employers and workers . This resistance is informed by what Lenin calls 'trade union consciousness' .The second form of resistance is informed by 'socialist consciousness' . It does not develop spontaneously from experience in the labour process . Rather it develops from 'the sphere of the relations between all the various classes and strata and the state and government' (What Is To Be Done? in Selected Works II p . 98) . While this distinction may be useful for guiding one's attitude toward different working class struggles, it has reinforced Marx's emphasis of worker resistance as a force for changing the mode of production, rather than a force which also causes accommodating changes within the mode of production . Despite differences in the relative desirability of these two effects, to treat worker resistance which is informed by 'narrow' trade union consciousness and circumscribed by the particular factory or firm within which those workers are employed as a secondary and primitive form of resistance because it is relatively ineffective for overthrowing capitalism, is to neglect anextremely powerful and growing force in the development of the capitalist mode of production . This neglect has contributed to an inevitablist view of technical and organisational changes within the capitalist labour process by Marxists since Marx . As Harry Braverman has recently reminded us, throughout the 20th century Marxists have "adapted to the view of the modern factory as an inevitable if perfectible form of the organisation of the labour process", (1974, p . 11) . Lenin encouraged the imitation of capitalist technical and organisational methods in Soviet industry, including F . Taylor's scientific management techniques for controlling labour ( 1974, p . 12) . But Braverman himself, while recognising that current technical and organisational methods of production are not inevitable to any future system, wrongly treats them as inevitable to the capitalist system . In so doing he misses the possibility of changes within the capitalist mode of production in response to worker resistance . Recently labour historians in America (Montgomery, 1974 ; Stone, 1973) and in Britain, (Hinton, 1973, ch . 2), have rediscovered the high degree of direct control over the labour process won by craftsmen through struggle in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century ; and political activists in Italy (Clarie Operaie and Lotta Continual and in Britain (Big Flame, 1976) have emphasised the degree of direct control over labour time (through small-scale acts of subversion and non-cooperation) which is at times won by semi-skilled

44

workers. Unfortunately the historians have, at times, misleadingly described these developments as 'workers' control' implying that in such a situation the workers have come to run the capitalist labour process itself (see Monds, 1976), and the activists have implied that the logic of capitalist organisation of work occurs completely in response to worker resistance . In spite of some overstatement and mistaken impressions (in part due to language difficulties, see next section ), I believe these contributions help to correct the serious neglect of worker resistance within the labour process and its effect on capitalist development . Nevertheless another recent stream of Marxist thought is encouraging a return to neglect of the relation between worker resistance and managerial countrepressure, either through omission (Braverman, 1974) or through repetition of Lenin's separation of socialist from trade union consciousness without adequately dealing with counterpressure against resistance informed by the latter (Brighton labour process group, see this issue) . While labour process struggles may be insufficient for transforming the working class into a revolutionary class as Lenin emphasised and the Brighton group reiterate, they are not insufficient for changing the organisation of work or investment patterns under capitalism . In this the separation (Braverman p . 86 ; Brighton, pp. 28-30, 89) between changes in labour process organisation in response to the law of value (capitalist competition) on the one hand, from 'ideological' changes in managerial systems of authority in response to worker resistance on the other hand, is misleading . Management is not a two tier process where work organisation designed by engineers is primary, and the exercise of managerial counterpressure to worker resistance is secondary . Both are managerial problems and are measured in terms of profits . If the costs of work organisation in terms of worker resistance are too great, alternative strategies will be tried and these will involve changes in the organisation of work . II On Control The word 'control' has caused confusion when applied to the labour process because it has been used both in an absolute sense, to identify those 'in control', and in a relative sense, to signify the degree of power which people have to direct work . This confusion has become particularly evident in discussions of workers' control. On the one hand one wants to make clear that recent schemes for participation on the managerial decision-making apparatus or group technology do not confer workers' control in an absolute sense because the fundamental capitalist relations of production remain . Top managers representing capital are still 'in control' in that they, in their role as representatives of capital, continue to initiate changes in work arrangements and continue to exercise authority over the work activity of others . Also the products of workers' labour still belong to the capitalists . On the other hand, one wants to allow the possibility that changes in organisation of work or decisions about work may increase the power which workers may exercise to act within the labour process according to their own judgment and their own will, (over such things as their work pace, the particular tasks they do and the order in

45

which they do that work) . One wants to allow for shifts in the frontier of control' in spite of the continuation of the capitalist mode of production (Goxxlerich, 1920, section I11), and in spite of the continuation of managerial control in the absolute or identifying sense . The notion of control by management in the absolute sense is further complicated by a possible contusion of control with creation . To control is to exercise restraint or direction upon the action of a force or thing . The force or thing when referring to the labour process under the capitalist mode of production, is separate from its controller . It stands apart from the capitalists and the managers as well as the workers . People are not free to consciously create their own history according to their needs and abilities because capitalist society is class divided . The society, the mode of production and the associated labour process at any point in time, is a process which is created out of the dynamic of class conflict and the competitive struggle . Top managers are constrained in their power over the labour process by pressure to accumulate and the need to counteract worker resistance . While top managers are clearly those 'in control' of the labour process, their freedom to create and recreate this process is severely limited by the relations of capitalist production . If workers' control implies the possibility of those participating in the labour process exercising this sort of freedom, then workers' control could never be realised under the capitalist mode of production . Also its content would be very different from managerial control under capitalism . It could not mean a simple change in personnel 'in control' . The notion of relative control is also complicated by the desire to identity progressive' changes from the workers' point of view . The difficulty is, of course, that workers sell their labour powerout of economic necessity in the first place, rather than as part of a choice expressing their will and judgement . Also the overall organisation of work in capitalist enterprise is not a matter of worker choice . Nevertheless, some changes are fought for and won by the workers and some increase the power of workers to resist further managerial initiatives . Volvo and Fiat On this point it may be useful to distinguish changes in work organisation and decision-making which workers have fought for and those which management have initiated . Changes which top managers have initiated which increase workers' relative control over the labour process are likely to represent attempts to counteract, contain, or co-opt worker resistance, particularly when labour power markets are tight . Changes in work organisation in Swedish car factories may be viewed in this way . Faced with high labour turnover and absenteeism in Volvo and Saab car factories (encouraged by the scarcity of white male workers in Sweden's near full employment economy over the past few years), the car firms have made great publicity over their attempts to 'humanise' car assembly work by replacing long assembly lines with small working groups who assemble entire components or sub-assemblies together . Apparently these 'experiements have been more limited in scope that the Swedish publicity

, t6

implies . At Fiat, similar experiments were tried, but the impetus came from the workers and the changes were only won after long struggles . Eventually worker initiatives concerning work organisation within certain plants were superceded by initiatives concerning Fiat's overall investment policy and particularly its activity in Southern Italy . The different source of initiatives in the Swedish situation compared with the Italian one may be crucial for deciding whether the changes in relative control were progressive, from the workers' point of view . The mere fact that the changes came out of victorious struggle in the Fiat case strengthens worker resistance and encourages further initiatives . Also changes conceived by the workers are more likely to be controlled by them in their detailed implementation . In the Fiat case managerial control over the labour process was weakened . In both cases monotony was reduced and workers' relative control or autonomy over precisely what they do at any particular moment and the speed at which they do that work was increased . In the Swedish case, however, managerial control over the labour process as a whole was increased by loosening management's direct control over worker activity in order to reduce worker resistance . This conclusion makes sense only if one explicitly recognises the management of worker resistance to be an integral part of managerial control over the labour process . Authority over workers, direction of worker activity and co-ordination of flows of materials, products and cash are all necessary aspects of managerial control over the labour process within the capitalist mode of production . If management decides to reduce its direct control over the direction of worker activity and the co-ordination of materials flows in order to increase its authority over workers, unless management has made a mistake (which is possibility but a complication which may be ignored when speaking generally), success in implementing this strategy will result in greater managerial control over the labour process as a whole, greater managerial control given the reality of worker resistance.'

Two alternative strategies So top managers may loosen direct control over work activity as part of a strategy for maintaining or augmenting managerial control over the labour process as a whole, or they may be forced to loosen direct control as part of a general shift in control over the labour process in favour of the workers . In this paper I shall be focusing on the former situation because it has been more common . In fact I shall argue that top managers, particularly in large firms, are faced with a range of possible tactics for dealing with worker resistance and labour process co-ordination, (i .e . for exercising managerial control), which can often be thought of as contributing to one orotherof two managerial strategies . I have labelled these alternative strategies as responsible autonomy and direct control .

47

The direct control strategy involves maximising ttie separation of conception from execution of work tasks fort he vast majority of workers, the centralisation of conceptual activities into few hands closely related to those with high managerial status, and the maintenance of managerial authority through close supervision and financial incentives : in short the Taylorian ideal of scientific management . The responsible autonomy strategy involves allowing individual workers or groups of workers a wide measure of discretion over the direction of their work tasks and the maintenance of managerial authority by getting workers to identify with the competitive aims of the enterprise so that they will act 'responsibly' with a minimum of supervision .

111. Management Management' under the capitalist mode of production has always involved two rather different, but closely related functions . First there is the co-ordination of the various activities undertaken by the firm. Flows of input materials and instruments of labour must find their way to workers at well-timed intervals for each activity . Finances must be available from sales and borrowings to pay for labour power, materials and tools . The final output must be marketed . This job of co-ordination is part of any complicated process . The second sort of managerial function is to exercise authority over workers . Marx emphasised this managerial problem under capitalism by calling labour power variable capital . When the capitalist buys tools or raw materials he can determine their value in the labour process with a precision which is impossible when dealing with human beings . The capitalist knows that a certain portion of his outlay on constant capital will be transferred to each unit of production and he can account for this capital in terms of lay-out costs ordepreciation . But when the capitalist buys labour power he buys what is on the one hand a potentially malleable commodity, but what is on the other hand a commodity ultimately controlled by an independent and often hostile will . The exercise of managerial authority over labour power may be sub-divided into two aspects . First, top with changes in overall managers try to mould labour power to fit in organisation or techniques more or less dictated by market conditions . Second, top managers try to subdue or limit workers' independent control over their actions once particular tasks have been assigned or general orders given . These two aspects are closely related : it may be that top managers will try to re-organise the labour process in order to reduce workers' exercise of independent action, as well as simply to fit in with increasing relative suplus value as when machinery is introduced . Nevertheless, it will be useful to worker resistance to re-organisations of the labour process planned by top managers from worker resistance to existing organisation . To put it another way, managerial attempts to realise more of the potential surplus value represented by their variable capital may be separated from attempts to retain

48

the planned or expected value of that variable capital . The Responsible Autonomy type of strategy attempts to harness the adaptability of labour power by giving workers leeway and encouraging them to adapt to changing situations in a manner beneficial to the firm . To do this top managers give workers status, authority, responsibility and try to win their loyalty and co-opt their organisations to the firm's ideals (that is, the competitive struggle) ideologically . The Direct Control type of strategy tries to limit the scope for labour power to vary by coercive threats, close supervision and minimising individual worker responsibility . The first type of strategy attempts to capture the benefits of variable capital, the second tries to limit its harmful effects and treats workers as though they were machines . Direct control

In essence the direct control strategy removes broadly-based worker skill and initiative as both the heart and the detailed operation of the labour process, and replaces them with centrally conceived and managerially directed design of specific work tasks, work pace and work effort . The main methods for increasing direct control are to extend the division of labour and to mechanise, (though both will often give overall productivity benefits to management apart from through their effect on direct control) . The direct control strategy is particularly suited to large firms with stable product demand, stable technology and a poorly organised labour force . To increase direct control can be an expensive project . There are high initial costs . A certain size of operations is necessary before any particular extension of the division of labour or mechanisation can be profitable . Similarly greater centralisation of control implies higher continuing overheads forco-ordination . It is not surprising that Taylorism, the most explicit articulation of the direct control strategy, emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century during the biggest merger movement in American history . While increases in direct control may be associated with increases in the size of firms and plants, and this with rapid technological progress (associated with the development of capitalism from Domestic Industry to Manufacture to Modern Industry in Marx), by Taylor's time it was possible to conceive of an 'ultimate' achievement of direct control As a firm approached this 'ideal', benefits from the direct control strategy would come most clearly with a stable environment . As firms centralised, the losses involved if product demand suddenly fell multiplied due to higher overheads (both machines and the structures necessary to achieve co-ordination) . Also as changes in work organisation required complex, expensive and time-consuming planning at several levels, firms became less flexible for incorporating new technologies . On the other hand, with concentration of industry large firms have achieved a degree of monopoly power . This has allowed them some measure of discretion in implementing new technology and, with advertising, their relative insulation from competition has allowed them some measure of stability in product

49

demand . But monopoly power is a relative concept and under capitalism the discretion enjoyed by even the largest firms is limited by potential competition, by stock market and financial institution constraints, by the incomplete management of consumer demand and of course by worker resistance . To understand the particular limitations of the direct control strategy for dealing with worker resistance, it is useful to look more carefully at Taylor's views . Taylor began with a particular view of the worker - a view which closely resembles the homo economus used by bourgeois economists . For Taylor workers were motivated by rational calculations of their individual self-interests . The disutility of work and the utility from commodities which could be purchased with wages were conceived as commensurable and measurable along a single dimension . The only difference from the standard bourgeois view was that utility for Taylor derived at least as much from workers' relative levels of consumption as their absolute levels . This view leads to a simple view of how to motivate workers i .e . reduce resistance, scientifically . Along with prescribing all the details of tasks, pace and effort for first-class workers, those workers would be motivated to work in the first-class' manner by wages significantly higher than second-class or ordinary workers . While Taylor professed that practically everyone could be a first-class worker at some task, given sufficient training and the proper design of work )Rose, 1975, p . 4i0), if everyone became first-class workers the relative earnings differential would disappear . In fact this is what began to happen. Firms would begin to introduce time and motion studies and the delegation of work tasks based on this work . To induce workers to accept the loss of direct control over their work and the concomitant rise in boredom and monotony, firms at first offered much higher wages. But soon managers were tempted to cut wage rates or piece-rates . Taylor complained bitterly about employers using only part of his system, but Taylor neglected the law of value which evaporated much of the monopoly gains to firms which first introduced scientific management once the system became more widespread among direct competitors . In evaluating limitations to the direct control strategy it is important to take an historical perspective . It is the very success of the stragegy which makes its limitations acute . Its contradictory nature is based on the impossibility of its ultimate vision . Ultimately the direct control strategy sees the majority of people working as machines manipulated by centralised planning departments . The problem is that people are not machines . They may sell their labour power but they cannot alien ate their minds or their will . According to the direct control strategy capital must continually subdue workers' independent and often wills by appealing to their economic self-interest . Here we have the second problem with the direct control strategy's vision . The will of workers is not guided simply by economic self-interest . There is a diminishing marginal utility to money in the sense that a starving person will risk death ordishonour in cases where money will not induce people in more secure positions . Part of the direct control strategy is that first-class workers would grow steadily more affluent . Recent experiments in the Swedish car industry reflect this problem

50

for management . The third contradiction is that as workers are deskilled through the direct control strategy, the prime advantage of the system - reducing variability of labour power by limiting its scope for independent activity -disappears . Finally there is the positive aspect of labour power which is foregone when people are treated as machines . With rapidly changing techniques management will often want a flexible labour force . One cannot specify correct procedures or motions to operate a new machine in advance . New machinery will nearly always mean a period of 'teething troubles', (which can last throughout the useful life of the machine because old machines can be temperamental as well) . In these cases management must rely on worker goodwill . The flexibility on which management relies in the labour process is evident from the drastic effects on production of a 'work-to-rule' . Similarly when demand falls suddenly the high overheads required to pursue the direct control strategy can become burdensome .

'Responsible autonomy'

The direct control strategy is easily distinguished because of its primary standing in the 'progressive' or most developed sectors of the capitalist mode of production for so long (the shift from Domestic Industry to Manufacture to Modern Industry may be charted as progressive rises in managerial Direct Control over the labour process), and because Taylor was so forthright and clear . Its alternative, Responsible Autonomy, is more difficult to distinguish . It appears that industrial psychology, industrial sociology and all other variant theories of managerial authority proposed since the 1920s have been groping for a clear statement of an alternative managerial strategy to Direct Control : a strategy by which the variable aspect of labour power is harnessed for managerial ends rather than subdued . A good summary of these theories may be found in M . Rose Industrial Behaviour (1975) . It will be useful to begin with the view of worker motivation upon which these theories are based . In general they view people as creatures of instincts (industrial psychologists) or sentiments (human relations theorists), where calculation of economic self-interest and therefore rationality are (particular for the human relations school) weak . It is easy to dismiss these theories as simply attempts to combat worker resistance on a purely ideological level by calling it irrational, rather than as guides for managerial practice . But the Responsible Autonomy strategy is based on a direct appeal by managers to these irrational' desires imputed to workers . The best known and most influential group of theorists were the human relations school of Harvard and Chicago and nominally represented by Elton Mayo . According to human relations theory workers were obsessed with belongingness or sociability because the society as a whole, with its constant change and diversity, deprived people of intimacy, consistency and predictability (Rose, 1975, part 111) . Workers sought to rectify this lack by informal contacts at work and trade unionism . Social conflict was 51

viewed as the product of individual maladjustment . Taylor's solution to worker resistance was high relative financial rewards, based on his view -of rational homo economus . The various psychological and sociological theorists have suggested a combination of making the work itself more interesting (appealing to individual desires for sociability, security, challenge and variety), choosing workers who best tit in with the tasks required, and the sensitive and subtle exercising of managerial authority through the manipulation of sentiment - encouraging venom against competitors (particularly foreign), 'counselling' non-cooperative workers, and encouraging a feeling of team struggle through participatory and rewarded suggestion schemes, and the judicious payment of loyalty-inducing perks, such as company recreational facilities . Some of these tactics are peripheral to the organisation of work - such as aptitude testing and company sports fields- but some imply substantial changes to in the organisation of work . One notion which these theorists have had contend with is Taylor's idea that 'One Best Way' to organise the labour process existed at a given level of mechanisationor technology . The British 'Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in particular has emphasised the opportunity for management to choose different methods for organising work (Trist, 1963, ch . I ) . According to A . K . Rice of the Institute, the productive system has three key dimensions : the technological (rate of innovation introduction), the social (payments and other arrangements to reduce resistance), arid the economic (short-run profit maximisation) . Optimising along one of these alone will not produce optimal results for the system as a whole, (Rice, 1903, ch 2) . The Institute's message is misleadingly universal - they speak as though one can choose capitalism - but if judgement of their message is confined to the context of guiding managers operating in the capitalist mode of production, then we can see that it is sensible . Simple short-run profit maximisation is the only course open to management in highly competitive situations . In highly competitive markets, firms will not have the discretionary margin necessary to experiment with costly reorganisations of work to reduce resistance ; just as they will not be able to resist introducing the latest technical improvements available . But once firms achieve a measure of monopoly power their degree of insulation from competitive pressures will allow them to take a long-term view . Monopoly lower does not mean the absence of competition . Managers are still constrained by the need to make substantial profits, but in large firms it is rteadv substantial profits which are important . Thus organisational choice does exist for management, but it is limited . The technical or mechanical details of the labour process are not independent of these strategies, though the effect of measures to reduce resistance on technical conditions will be limited . The movement toward group technology in large car firms is the best-known example of major technical changes imposed to quell worker resistance and specifically to gain Responsible Autonomy . The Tavistock Institute's celebrated examination and recommendation of the switch from the standard flow production l .tngwell

52

method of coal extraction to a more flexible system relying on small partly self-regulating work teams in the 1950s (Trist, 1963, ch . 4), is another prominent example of the interdependence of the two managerial functions : co-ordination and managerial authority . The Responsible Autonomy strategy is designed to combat some of the undesirable effects of the Direct Control strategy . Setting up small work-teams which are able to make some of their own decisions over their direct work activity and increasing the variety of work tasks are intended to reduce solidarity by increasing heterogeneity within the work force as a whole and by encouraging stratification into small, partially competing groups . Also the technical disintegration of the labour process may reduce the power of small groups to disrupt the whole process through sabotage or strike action . Often teams will perform parallel tasks rather than tasks which feed into each other . The effectiveness of the Responsible Autonomy strategy must be seen in relation to monopoly capitalism . Before this stage, the responsible autonomy which is pursued now was viewed as an inefficient carryover from feudal times . With the gathering force of the industrial reserve army and rapid mechanisation, employee loyalty and worker self-direction became less useful or even burdensome because they were less reliable than a machine or centralised internal record keeping . Also organised worker resistance was weak and heavily concentrated among craftsmen . These conditions have changed considerably in advanced capitalist countries with the drying up of reserve armies and the rise of organised resistance among the less skilled . Responsible Autonomy is impossible as an ultimate ideal as is Direct Control . Responsible Autonomy does not remove alienation and exploitation, it simply softens their operation or draws workers' attention away from them . Its ideal is to have workers behave as though they were participating in a process which reflected their own needs, abilities and wills, rather than a process aimed at accumulation and profits . As the contradiction of the Direct Control strategy becomes more visible and more acute when the ideal is approached, so the contradiction of the Responsible Autonomy strategy becomes apparent when its ideal is approached and when the overall profit position of firms require them to cut back on loyalty or satisfaction payments . This is particularly clear when product demand suddenly falls or when general business conditions are depressed .

IV . Managerial Strategies in Practice

While each strategy distinguished in the previous section is based on a fundamental contradiction, this does not mean that either type of strategy is impossible to carry out, except as an ultimate ideal . Contradiction does not mean impossibility, (though it may mean destruction in the long run) ; rather it means the persistence of a fundamental tension generated from within . A contradiction may be suppressed, or disguised or bypassed, but its continued existence will regenerate tensions which will again threaten good order unless

53

actively suppressed again . These tensions will seem to emanate from the inadequacy of the means whereby the contradiction is suppressed, from the managerial strategies themselves . Tensions in the labour process appear in the form of inflexibility generated by each type of managerial strategy . One extremely important and effective way top managers deal with these inflexibilities is to split their workers in terms of the particular strategy used to maintain authority . Top managers will normally think of workers as either central or peripheral to theiroperations (see Industryand labour, chapter 5, for a more detailed discussion of this distinction) . Central workers on the one hand are those who through their skills or their contribution to the exercise of managerial authority are considered essential by top managers to secure high long-run profits . On the other hand central workers are those who by the strength of their resistance collectively make themselves essential to top management . During recessions the employment positions of central workers will be protected, while peripheral workers will be readily laid-off . The earnings and employment positions of middle managers and craftsmen have always been relatively protected from fluctuations in product demand and general business recessions, (see Hobsbawm, 1964, ch . 15 for 19th century evidence) . Stability and relatively high earnings for workers distinguished by the strength of their resistance, unconnected with skill or authority, is peculiar to the monopoly capital stage . This resistance is in part the product of the direct control strategy and the consequence of this resistance is for top managers to by-pass central workers in attempting to achieve overall flexibility of their operations . It may be possible to gain some flexibility by persuading workers to behave responsibily while employed, but it is difficult to get those workers to behave 'responsibly' in accepting lay-offs without a struggle . Also, achieving responsible autonomy during employment generally requires top managers to offer some safeguards of employment security . To reconcile this inflexibility inherent in the responsible autonomy strategy with top managers' need to cut costs quickly in times of adversity, top managers will try to separate groups of workers who may be laid-off without disrupting the entire process : workers with whom solidarity over employment protection will not be strong among central workers, or workers who themselves will readily accept lay-offs . To distinguish the degree of workers' employment stability according to their functional categories is possible within the firm . Categories which top managers consider peripheral will be jobs for which individual 'responsibility' is not so important anyway . Top managers will normally accord those jobs low status, relatively low pay and low job entrance requirements . The jobs may then be taken up by socially disadvantaged groups and this will give top mangers additional protection against cross-category solidarity . Often top managers will actively encourage this social division to parallel the division among its job categories by demanding education credentials above those required for the actual performance of central jobs, by locating administrative and research sections of the firm where only white male native-born workers can easily get to them, or by less subtle racist or sexist recruitment procedures (see ( "ordon, D ., 1972, ch 4 ; and Edwards, R . C . et al 1972, chs . 8 9 ) . There is substantial evidence

54



from several countries concerning the more volatile unemployment levels for blacks, immigrants and women (see Hill, M . et al, 1973, pp . 52-54 ; Edwards R . C . et al 1972, chs . 8-9 ; Castles and Kosack, 1973, ch . 111) . Not only will dividing workers into groups and applying different managerial strategies to each allow top managers to go further along the strategic path chosen for each group, it will also make it easier for top managers to reverse directions with either group of workers . The privileges of the group that top managers apply Responsible Autonomy strategies toward may be be more easily undermined if a mass of unprivileged workers are readily available . Also, disruption arising from disputes with either group may-oeeasily bypassed if the work they do may be done by the other . Of course this may itself generate further disputes . Dividing workers according to managerial strategy pursued, like the particular strategies themselves, does not eradicate the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, it simply suppresses them . It allows top managers greater flexibility for a time, but it may also help generate further tensions . The use of one group of workers to bypass disruptions due to disputes by another may eventually encourage solidarity between the two groups and undermine the contribution of the division itself to the maintenance . of managerial authority .

V . Conclusion

While Responsible Autonomy strategies do not signify a transformation of the capitalist mode of production into something else, they are also not simply an adaptation of Direct Control strategies, (not neo-Taylorism or neo-Fordism as suggested by Palloix, 1976, pp . 62-65) . They represent an alternative method to Direct Control strategies by which labour power has been controlled, particularly that of privileged groups such as male craftsmen, since the beginning of the capitalist mode of production' .

NOTES 1 . This ignores more than simply managerial mistakes . I am not dealing explicitly with the

general contradiction of capitalism at the moment : that the basic interests of capitalists and workers are opposed to each other because of exploitation and that masking that opposition or dampening worker resistance to their alienation by financial concessions, or by more pleasant working conditions or by ideological persuasion ; all create expectations of the system which become increasingly difficult to satisfy - particularly as safety valves outside the capitalist mode of production come to be incorporated, (see Luxembourg, The Accumulation o/ Capital) .

The problem with leaving the story at this highly abstract level is that the growth of worker resistance tends to be treated as a homogenousdevelopment in which one strategy or tactic appears to be as good as another and all developments appear progressive because progress towards the revolution' is assumed to be inevitable and inexhorable . Once we admit that the world's date for changing the mode of production is not fixed for some particular future moment, we must accept that some moves by workers can be regressive

55

and that some moves by management may successfully forestall fundamental change (see Amin, 1975) . The managerial strategies described in this Chapter are concerned with attempts to forestall fundamental change and get on with the business of accumulation ; not with affecting the probability of revolution in some ultimate sense . I am avoiding dealing with the latter issue . 2 .1 take management to mean theprocess or activity of managing firms, rather than those people directing firms who I am calling top managers . 3 . For an historical analysis of managerial strategies see industry and labour . chapter 4.

REFERENCES

AMIN S 1975 : 'Toward a Structured Crisis of World Capitalism', Socialist Revolution, BIG FLAME 1976 : 'Workers' Struggles and the Development of Ford in Britain', Conference of Socialist Economists Bulletin . BRIGHTON LABOUR PROCESS GROUP (mimeo 1976) : The Production Process of Capital and the Capitalist Labour Process . BARAN P A and SWEEZY P M 1966 : Monopoly Capital (Monthly Review, New York . BRAVERMAN H 1974 : Labor and Monopoly Capital (Monthly Review, New York . CASTLES S and KOSACK G (Oxford University Press, 1973) : Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe . EDWARDS R C (Prentice-Hall, Englewood cliffs, New Jersey, 1912) : et al. The Capitalist System . FRIEDMAN A L (forthcoming) : Industry and Labour. GOODRICH C L (Pluto, London, 1975, original 1920) : The Frontier Control. GORDON D M (Heath, Lexington, Mass ., 1972) : Theories of Poverty and ,Underemployment. HILL M et al (Cambridge University Press, 1973) : Men out of Work . HINTON J (Allen & Unwin, London, 1973) : The First Shop Stewards' Movement. HOBSBAWM E J (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1964) : Labouring Men . LENIN V I (Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1956) : Selected Works. LUXEMBURG R (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951) : The Accumulation of Capital. MARX K (Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1970) : Capital Volume 1 . MONDS J 1976 : 'Workers' Control and the Historians : a new Economism', New Left Review. MONTGOMERY D 1974 : 'The New Unionism and the Transformation of Workers' Consciousness in America 1909-1922', journal of Social History . RED NOTES (mimeo March 1976) : 'Workers' Struggles and the Crisis of the British Motor Industry' . PALLOIX C (CSE, London, 1976) : 'The Labour Process : from Fordism to

56

neo-Fordism' Conference of Socialist Economists, The Labour Process and Class Strategies . RICE A K (Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, 1963) : The Enterprise and its Environment . ROSE M (Allen Lane, London, 1975) : Industrial Behaviour. STONE K 1973 'The Origin of Job Structures in the Steel Industry Radical

America. TAYLOR F W(New York, 194?) : (Shop Management', (1903) in Scientific

Management . TAYLOR F W (New York, 1947) : 'Principles of Scientific Management', (1911) in Scientific Management . TRIST E L (Tavist ck Institute of Human Relations, 1963) : et al, Organisational Choice .

57

Radical Science Journal No . 5 now available £1 .00

136 pages

Contents : PATRICK PARRINDER-The Black Wave : science and social consciousness in modern science fiction ; DAVID TRIESMAN-The Institute of Psychiatry Sackings ; BOB YOUNG-Science Is Social Relations . Letter : LOUP VERLET-La Course ou la Vie (Publish or Live) No. 4 still available 60p 104 pages Contents: SIMON PICK VANCE-"Life" in a biology lab ; LUKE HODGKIN-Politics and physical sciences ; CHARLIE CLUTTERBUCK-Death in the plastics industry ; Reviews: BOB YOUNG-'Labour and Monopoly Capital', by Harry Braverman ; DAVE ELLIOTT-'Alternative Technology and the Politics of Technical Change' by David Dickson.

Subscription : £3.00 (individual) . £9 .00 (institutional) for 3 issues post paid . Individual copies : please add 15p each for postage, etc . Bulk orders : one-third reduction on 10 or more copies . Radical Science Journal, 9 Poland St, London W 1

Revolutionary Communist No 5 'Women's Oppression under Capitalism' . 'South Africa : The Crisi in Britain and the Apartheid Economy' . 'South Africa : International Solidarity and the British Working Class.' This issue contains a major analysis of women's oppression, showing how the struggle for social equality is integral to the struggle of the working class against capitalism. The articles on South Africa are essential reading for all those who support the call for a total blockade of the apartheid regime, and who wish to aid the black liberation struggle . Price : 50p . From RCG Publications Ltd ., 49 Railton Road, London SE24 OLN .

Anion Pannekoek

THE THEORY OF THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION by Adam Buick The following article originally appeared in German in 1934 as an unsigned article in Ratekorrespondenz(No . 1, June 1934) and was published in Holland by the Groups of International Communists' . It was in fact written by Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960), then world renowned Professor of Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam . Pannekoek was a life-long Marxist (and in fact wrote a book applying the materialist conception of history to the history of astronomy') and at an earlier period had been a very active member of the Social Democratic and Left Communist movements in both Germany and his native Holland . As a scientist he was interested in dialectical materialism as a theory of science and his two writings known in the English-speaking world before the first world war were his 1902 introduction to Joseph Dietzgen's The Positive Outcome of Philosolhv and his very popular pamphlet Marxism and Darwinism (1909) . His later criticism of Lenin's distortions of dialectical materialism, Lenin As Philosopher (1938), has recently been republished in English s . Pannekoek placed himself on the left wing of the Social Democratic movement, being an opponent not only of revisionism but also of the 'orthodox' centre represented by Kautsky . Even before the first world war he had come to see the futility of the traditional Social Democratic policy of merely trying to win an electoral majority on the basis of promises to reform capitalism, favouring instead conscious mass action by the working class as a whole . He was thus ready to support the appeals of the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution to split from the Social Democrats and form separate Communist Parties . He had been

59

a founding member of the Social Democratic Party in Holland, a breakaway from the orthodox Social Democrats there in 1909 which became in 1918 the Communist Party of Holland . His views, however, were never those of orthodox Bolshevism . He took their talk about there having been a 'soviet' (=workers' council) revolution in Russia literally and urged the working class to have nothing at all todo with parliament or trade unions and toorganise instead into autonomous workers' councils in order to establish Socialism, a view he maintained for the rest of his life' . People with such views were one of the constituent groups of the Communist Parties in most countries, but they were in a minority and were soon overwhelmed by the most important of the other constituent groups, the radicalised Social Democrats who brought with them some of their reformist illusions . In the disputes which broke out between those two groups over the attitude the new parties should take towards parliament and the trade unions, Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership backed the latter group and in 1920 'Left Communists' like Pannekoek were singled out for attack by Lenin in a special pamphlet Leftwing Communism : An Infantile Duorder(Pannekoek is the 'K . Horner' frequently criticised by Lenin) . The Left Communists replied by accusing Lenin of opportunism and began to realise the state capitalist nature of the Bolshevik regime which they soon ceased to support . Pannekoek was associated with the 'opposition movement' of the KAPD-Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Dcutschlands, the 'Communist Workers Party of Germany'- he mentions it in the opening paragraph of his article and it was very active in Germany in the early twenties (it is said that at one time it had some 50,000 members) . When the post-war working class revolt and discontent in Germany abated, Pannekoek settled down to an academic career as an astromer . But he remained a Marxist and continued to identify himself with the Lett Communist tradition, as represented by such journals as R#tekorrerpondenz, and its Dutch and English language equivalents and successors, to which he contributed the occasional article like the present one . Pannekoek refers in the final section of his article to this tradition as "the new workers' movement", i .e ., those who were opposed to both reformist Social Democracy and state capitalist Bolshevism (somewhat grandiose terminology, since by the 1930s it only consisted of a few hundred individuals) . They also called themselves 'Council Communists' as opposed to the 'Party Communism' represented by Stalin and Trotsky. Despite the fact that the KAPD and most of 'the new workers' movement' adhered to the view that capitalism would one day break down economically, Pannekoek himself always opposed this view . He was one of the first to criticise (in the Bremer Burger-Zeitung of 29 and 30 January 1913) the theory of economic collapse put forward by Rosa Luxemburg in her book The Accumulation of Capital (1912 ) . He repeats his 1913 criticism of Luxemburg in this article, but the bulk of it is devoted to a criticism of the rival theory of collapse put forward in 1929 by Henry Grossmann' . Whereas Luxemburg held that capitalism must eventually break down through a lack of markets, Grossman held that the cause of capitalism's inevitable economic break-down

60

would be a lack of profits . These opposing views still divide those who consider themselves Marxists . Pannekoek, however, had a third, almost unique'', and rarely heard, point of view : both Luxemburg and Grossmann were wrong ; capitalism would never collapse for purely economic reasons ; capitalism would only come to an end Icollapse' if you like - through the conscious action of the working class . Pannekoek's view, which is here translated into English for the first time', is thus still pertinent today when, as in the 1930s, there are many who treat Marxian economics as a separate academic discipline quite independent ofthe activity of the working class or who, as Pannekoek points out, only see working class activity as a battering ram to displace the present ruling class and install in their place a vanguard party, whose economic experts would attempt to plan the economy in accordance with the reproduction schema they had invented. It can also be added that, as astronomy is essentially a theoretical science involving mathematical computations, Pannekoek writes here not just as a Marxist but as a Marxist who has at the same time a profound knowledge of mathematics (which in fact he also taught at the University of Amsterdam) . The quotations from Grossmann are translated from Pannekoek's article and the references are to the original 1929 Leipzig edition which he used . The quotations from Volumes I and III of Marx's Capital are from the Moscow FLPH editions of 1961 and 1959 respectively .

FOOTNOTES

1 . Republished in Gruppe Internationaler Kommunirten Hollands, Rowohlt, Reinbek-Hamburg, 1971, and in Die Zurammenbruchstheorie des Kapitalismur oder Revolutionarer Subjekt, Karin Kramer, Berlin, 1973 . 2 . A History o/Astronomy, London, 1961 ; originally published in Dutch in 1951 . 3 . Lenin As Philosopher, Merlin Press, London 1975 .

4 . See his Workers Councils (1946), first published in English in Australia in 1948 ; republished in America in 1970 by Root and Branch, Cambridge, Mass . 5 . Das Akkumulations - and Zusammenbruchsgesetz des Kapitalischen Systems, Leipzig, 1929 ; republished in 1967 in Archiv . Sozialistrscher Literatur, Frankfurt. Not yet translated into English. 6 . The only others to put forward a similar theory were the SPGB in Britain in their pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse, published in 1932 . 7 . A French translation is published as an appendix to La Gauche Commsniste en AllemaRne (1918-1921), by Denis Authier and Jean Ballot, Payot, Paris, 1976.

61

THE THEORY OF THE COLLAPSE OF CAPITALISM

The idea that capitalism was in a final, its mortal, crisis dominated the first years after the Russian revolution . When the revolutionary workers' movement in Western Europe abated, the Third International gave up this theory, but it was maintained by the opposition movement, the KAPD, which adopted the theory of the mortal crisis of capitalism as the distinguishing feature between the revolutionary and reformist points of view . The question of the necessity and the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism, and the way in which this is to be understood, is the most important of all questions for the working class and its understanding and tactics . Rosa Luxemburg had already dealt with it in 1912 in her book The Accumulation of Capital, where she came to the conclusion that in a pure, closed capitalist system the surplus value needed for accumulation could not be realised and that therefore the constant expansion of capitalism through the trade with non-capitalist countries was necessary . This means that capitalism would collapse, that it would not be able to continue to exist any longer as an economic system, when this expansion was no longer possible . It is this theory, which was challenged as soon as the book was published from different sides. which the KAPD has often referred to . A quite different theory wasdevelopedin 1929 by Henryk Grossmann in his work Dar Akkumjlationr und Zurammenbruchreeretz der Kapitalirtirchen Syrtemr (The Law of Accumulation and Collpase of the Capitalist System) . Grossman here deduces that capitalism must collapse for purely economic reasons in the sense that, independently of human intervention, revolutions, etc ., it would be impossible for it to continue to exist as an economic system . The severe and lasting crisis which began in 1930 has certainly prepared people's minds for such a theory of mortal crisis . The recent .y published manifesto of the United Workerr of America makes Grossman's theory the theoretical basis for a new direction for the workers' movement . It is therefore necessary to examine it critically . But to do this a preliminary explanation of Marx's position on this question and the past discussions connected with it cannot be avoided .

MARX AND ROSA LUXEMBURG In the second part of Capital Marx dealt with the general conditions of capitalist production as a whole . In the abstract case of pure capitalist production all production is carried on for the market, all products are bought and sold as commodities . The value of the means of production is passed on to the product and a new value is added by labour . This new value is broken down into two parts : the value of the labour power, which is paid as wages and used by the workers to buy means of subsistence, and the remainder, the surplus value, which goes to the capitalist . Where the surplus value is used for means of subsistence and luxury goods then there is simple reproduction ; where a part of it is accumulated as new capital there is reproduction on an extended scale . For the capitalists to find on the market the means of production they need 62

and for the workers to likewise find the means of subsistence they need, a given proportion must exist between the various branches of production . A mathematician would easily express this in algebraic formulae . Marx gives instead numerical examples to express these proportions, making upcases with selected figures, to serve as illustrations . He distinguishes two spheres, two main departments of production : the means of production department (1) and the means of consumption department (II) . In each of these departments a given value of the means of production used is transferred to the product without undergoing any change (constant capital, c) ; a given part of the newly added value is used to pay for labour-power (variable capital, v), the other part being the surplus value(s) . If it is assumed for the numerical example that the constant capital is four times greater than the variable capital (a figure which rises with technical progress) and that the surplus value is equal to the variable capital (this ratio is determined by the rate of exploitation), then, in the case of simple reproduction, the following figures satisfy these conditions : 14000c+1000v+1000s = 6000 (product II 2000c+ 500v+ 500s = 3000 (product) Each of these lines satisfies the conditions . Since v+s, which are used as means of consumption, are together equal to a half of c, the value of the means of production, Department 11 must produce a value equal to a half the value produced in Department 1 . Then the exact proportion is found : the means of production produced (6000) are just the amount needed for the next turnover period : 4000c for Department I and 2000c for Department 11 ; and the means of subsistence produced in Department II (3000) are exactly what must be supplied for the workers ( 1000+500) and the capitalists (1000+500) . To illustrate in a similar way the case of capital accumulation the part of surplus value going to accumulation must be indicated ; this part is added to the capital in the following year (for reasons of simplicity a production period of a year is assumed each time) so that a larger capital is then employed in each department . We will assume in our example that half the surplus value is accumulated (and so used for new c and new v) and that the other half is consumed (consumption, k) . The calculation of the proportion between Department I and Department 11 becomes a little more complicated but can of course still be found . It turns out that,on the assumptions given, this proportion is 11 :4, as is shown in the following figures : I4400c+1I00v+1100s=(=550k+550acc(=440c +ll0v))= 6600 111600c+ 400v+ 400s (=200k+200acc (=160c+ 40v)) =2400 The capitalists need 4400+1600 for the renewal and 440+160 for the extension of their means of production, and in fact they find 66(X) means of production on the market . The capitalists need 550+200 for their consumption, the original workers need 1100+4(X) and the newly engaged workers 110+40 as means of subsistence ; which together is equal to the 24(X) in fact produced as

63

means of susbistence . In the following year all the figures are increased by 10 per cent : 14840c+1210v+1210s(=605k+484c+121v) =7260 II 1760c+440v+440s(=220k+176c+44v) =2640 Production can thus continue increasing each year in the same proportion . This is of course a grossly oversimplified example . It could be made more complicated, and thus nearer to reality, if it is assumed that there are different compositions of capital (the ratio c :v) in the two departments, or different rates of accumulation or if the ratio c :v is made to grow gradually, so changing the proportion between Department I and Department 11 each year . In all these cases the calculation becomes more complicated, but it can always be done, since an unknown figure - the proportion of Department I to Department 11 - can always be calculated to satisfy the condition that demand and supply coincide . Examples of this can be found in the literature . In the real world, of course, complete equilibrium over a period is never found ; commodities are sold for money and money is only used later to buy something else so that hoards are formed which act as a buffer and a reserve . And commodities remain unsold ; and there is trade with non-capitalist areas . But the essential, important point is seen clearly from these reproduction schemes : for production to expand and steadily progress given proportions must exist between the productive sectors ; in practice these proportions are approximately realised ; they depend on the following factors : the organic composition of capital, the rate of exploitation, and the proportion of surplus value which is accumulated . Marx did not have the chance to provide a carefully prepared presentationof these examples (see Engels' introduction to the second volume of Capital) . This is no doubt why Rosa Luxemburg believed that she had discovered an omission here, a problem which Marx had overlooked and so left unsolved and whose solution she had worked out in her book The Accumulation of Capital (1912) . The problem which seemed to have been left open was who was to buy from each other more and more means of production and means of subsistence this would be a pointless circular movement from which nothing would result . The solution would lie in the appearance of buyers situated outside capitalism, foreign overseas markets whose conquest would therefore be a vital question for capitalism . This would be the economic basis of imperialism . But from what we have said before iris clear that Rosa Luxemburg has herself made a mistake here . In the schema used as the example it can be clearly seen that all the products are sold within capitalism itself . Not only the part of the value transmitted (4400+1600) but also the 440+160 which contain the surplus value accumulated are brought, in the physical form of means of production, by the capitalists who wish to start the following year with in total 6600 means of production. In the same way, the 110+40 from surplus value is in fact bought by the additional workers . Nor is it pointless : to produce, to sell products to each other, to consume, to produce more is the whole essence of capitalism and soof men's life in this mode of production . There is no unsolved problem here which 64

Marx overlooked .

ROSA LUXEMBURG AND OTTO BAUER Soon after Rosa Luxemburg's book was published it was criticised from different sides . Thus Otto Bauer wrote a criticism in an article in the Neue Zest (7-14 March 1913) . As in all the other criticisms Bauer showed that production and sales do correspond . But his criticism had the special feature that it linked accumulation to population growth . Otto Bauer first assumes a socialist society in which the population grows each year by five per cent ; the production of means of subsistence must therefore grow in the same proportion and the means of production must increase, because of technical progress, at a faster rate . The same has to happen under capitalism but here this expansion does not take place through planned regulation, but through the accumulation of capital . Otto Bauer provides as a numerical example a schema which satisfies these conditions in the simplest way : an annual growth of variable capital of five per cent and of constant capital of ten per cent and a rate of exploitation of 100 per cent (s = v) . These conditions themselves determine the share of surplus value which is consumed and the share which must be accumulated in order to produce the posited growth of capital . No difficult calculations are needed to draw up a schema which produces the exact growth from year to year : Year 1200,000c+100,000v+100,00s

(=20,000c+5,000v+75,000k)

Year 2 220,000c+ 105,000c+ 105,000s

(=22,000c+5,250v+77,750k)

Year 3 242,000c+f 10,250v+ I 10,250s

(=24,200c+5,5I2v+80,538k)

Bauer continues his schema for four years and also calculates the separate figures for Departments I and II . This was sufficient for the*purpose of showing that no problem in Rosa Luxemburg's sense existed . But the character of this criticism was itself bound to call forth criticism . Its basic idea is well brought out by Bauer's introduction of population growth in a socialist society . Capitalism thereby appears as an unplanned socialism, as a wild and kicking foal that has not yet been broken in and which only needs to be tamed by the hands of the socialist trainer. Accumulation here serves only to enlarge production as required by population growth, just as capitalism has the general function of providing mankind with means of subsistence; but, because of the lack of planning, both these functions are carried out badly and erratically, sometimes providing too much, sometimes too little, and causing catastrophies . A gentle growth of population of 5 per cent a year might well suit a socialist society in which all mankind was neatly lined up . But forcapitalism, as it is and was, this is an inappropriate example . Capitalism's whole history has been a rush forward, a violent expansion far beyond the limits of population growth . The driving 65

force has been the urge to accumulation ; the greatest possible amount of surplus value has been invested as new capital and, to set it in motion, more and more . sections of the population have been drawn into the process . There was even, and there still is, a large surplus of workers who remain outside or half outside as a reserve, kept ready to serve the need to set in motion the accumulated capital, being drawn tit or rejected as required by this need . This essential and basic feature of capitalism was completely ignored in Bauer's analysis . It was obvious that Rosa Luxemburg would take this as the target for her anti-critique . In answer to the prtxof that there was no problem of omission in Marx's schemas, she could bring forward nothing much else than the scoffing declaration that everything can be made to work beautifully in artificial examples . But making population growth the regulator of accumulation was so contrary t o the spirit of Marxian teaching that the sub-title of her anti-critique "What the Epigones have done to Marxian Theory" was this time quite suitable . It was not a question here ias it was in Rosa Luxemburg's own case) of a simple scientific mistake ; Bauer's mistake reflected the practical political point of view of the Social Democrats of that time . They felt themselves to be the future statesmen who would take over from the current ruling politicians and carry through the organisation of production ; they therefore did not see capitalism as the complete opposite to the proletarian dictatorship to be established by revolution, but rather as a modeof producing means of subsistence thatcould be improved and had not yet been brought under control .

GROSSMANN'S REPRODUCTION SCHEMA Henryk Grossman linked his reproduction schema to that set out by Otto Bauer . He noticed that it is not possible to continue it indefinitely without it in time coining up against contradictions . This is very easy to see . Otto Bauer assumes a constant capital of 200,000 which grows each year by 10 per cent and a variable capital of 100,000 which grows each year by 5 percent, with the rate of surplus value being assumed robe 100 percent, i .e., the surplus value each year is equal to the variable capital . In accordance with the laws of mathematics, a sum which increases each year by 10 percent doubles itself after 7 years, quadruples itself after 14 years, increases ten times after 23 years and a hundred times after 46 years . Thus the variable capital and the surplus value which in the first year were each equal to half the constant capital are after 46 years only equal to a twentieth of a constant capital which has grown enormously over the same period . The surplus value is therefore far from enough toensure the 10 percent annual growth of constant capital . This does not result just from the rates of growth of 10 and 5 percentchosen by Bauer . For in fact under capitalism surplus value increases less rapidly than capital . It is a well-known fact that, because of this, the rate of profit must continually fall with the development of capitalism . Marx devoted many chapters to this fall in the rate of profit . If the rate of profit falls t o 5 percent the capital can no longer be increased by 10 percent, for the increase in capital out of 66

accumulated surplus value is necessarily smaller than the surplus value itself . The rate of accumulation evidently thus has the rate of profit as its higher limit (see Marx, Capital, Volume III, p . 236, where it is stated that "the rate of accumulation falls with the rare of profit") . The use of a fixed figure - 10 percent - which was acceptable for a period of a few years as in Bauer, becomes unacceptable when the reproduction schema are continued over a long period . Yet Grossman, unconcerned, continues Bauer's schema year by year and believes that he is thereby reproducing real capitalism . He then finds the following figures for constant and variable capital, surplus value, the necessary accumulation and the amount remaining for the consumption of the capitalists (the figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand) : c Commencement After 20 years After 30 years After 34 years After 35 years

200 1222 3170 4641 5106

v 100 253 412 500 525

s

accumulation

100 253 412 500 525

20+ 5= 25 122+13=1 .35 317+21=338 464+25=489 510+26=536

k 75 118 74 11 -II

After 21 years the share of surplus value remaining for consumption begins to diminish ; in the 34th it almost disappears and in the 35th it is even negative ; the Shylock of constant capital pitilessly demands its pound of flesh, it wants to grow at 10 per cent, while the poor capitalists go hungry and keep nothing for their own consumption .

From the 35th year therefore accumulation - on the basis of the existing technical progress - cannot keep up with the pace of population growth . Accumulation would

be too small and there would necertarily ache a rererve army which would have to grow each year (Grossmann, p . 126) .

In such circumstances the capitalists do not think of continuing production . Or if they do, they don't do so ; for, in view of the deficit of I I in capital accumulation, they would have to reduce production . (In fact they would have had to have done so before in view of their consumption expenses) . A part of the workers therefore become unemployed ; then a part of the capital becomes unused and the surplus value produced decreases ; the mass of surplus value falls and a still greater deficit appears in accumulation, with a still greater increase in unemployment . This, then, is the economic collapse of capitalism . Capitalism becomes economically impossible . Thus does Grossmann solve the problem which he had set on page 79 :

How, in what way, can accumulation lead to the collapse of capitalism?

67

Here we find presented what in the older Marxist literature was always treated as a stupid misunderstanding of opponents, for which the name' the big crash' was current . Without there being a revolutionary class to overcome and dispossess the bourgeoisie, the end of capitalism comes for purely economic reasons ; the machine no longer works, it clogs up, production has become impossible . In Grossmann's words :

. . .with the progress of capital accumulation the whole mechanism,despite periodic interruptions, necessarily approaches nearer and nearer to its end . . . The tendency to collapse then wins the upper hand and makes itself felt absolutely as 'the final crisis' (p . 140) .

and, in a later passage :

...

from our analysis it is clear that, although on our assumptions objectively necessary and although the moment when it will occur can be precisely calculated, the collapse of capitalism need not therefore result automatically by itself at the awaited moment and therefore need not be waited for purely passively (p . 601) .

In this passage, where it might bethought for a moment that it is going to be a question of the active role of the proletariat as agent of the revolution, Grossmann has in mind only changes in wages and working time which upset the numerical assumptions and the results of the calculation . It is in this sense that he continues :

It thus appears that the idea of a necessary collapse for objective reasons is not at all in contradiction to the class struggle ; that, on the contrary, the collapse, despite its objectively given necessity, can be widely influenced by the living forces of classes in struggle and leaves a certain margin of play for the active intervention of classes . It is for this precise reason that in Marx the whole analysis of the process of reproduction leads to the class struggle (p . 602) .

The "it is for this precise reason" is rich, as if the class struggle meant for Marx only the struggle over wage claims and hours of work . Let us consider a little closer the basis of this collapse . On what is the necessary growth of constant capital by 10 per cent each time based? In the quotation given above it was stated that technical progress (the rate of population growth being given) prescribes a given annual growth of constant capital . So it could then be said, without the detour of the production schema :

68

when the rate of profit becomes less than the rate of growth demanded by technical progress then capitalism must break down . Leaving aside the fact that this has nothing to do with Marx, what is this growth of capital demanded by technology? Technical improvements are introduced, in the context of mutual competition, in order to obtain an extra profit (relative surplus value) ; the introduction of technical improvements is however limited by the financial resources available . And everybody knows that dozens of inventions and technical improvements are not introduced and are often deliberately suppressed by the entrepreneurs so as not to devalue the existing technical apparatus. The necessity of technical progress does not act as an external force ; it works through men, and for them necessity is not valid beyond possibility . But let us admit that this is correct and that, as a result of technical progress, constant capital has to have a varying proportion, as in the schema : in the 30th year 3170 :412, in the 34th year 4641 :500, in the 35th year 5106 :525, and in the 36th, 5616 :551 . In the 35th year the suplus value is only 525,000 and is not enough for 510,000 to be added to constant capital and 26,000 to variable capital . Grossmann lets the constant capital grow by 510,000 and retains only 15,000 as the increase in variable capital - 11,000 too little! He says of this :

11,509 workers (out of 551,000) remain unemployed ; the reserve army begins to

form. And because the whole of the working population does not enter the process of production, the whole amount of extra constant capital (510.563) is not needed for the purchase of means of production . If a population of 551, 584 uses a constant capital of 5,616200, then a population of 540,075 would use a constant capital of only 5,499, 015 . There, therefore, remains an excerr capital of 117,185 without an

investment outlet. Thus the schema shows a perfect

examn(r ..f rhr

ciruation Marx

had in mind when he gave the corresponding partof the third volume of

title "Excess Capital and Excess Population"

Capital the

(p . 116) .

Grossmann has clearly not noticed that these 11,000 become unemployed only because, in a complete arbitrary fashion and without giving any reason, he makes the variable capital bear the whole deficit, while letting the constant capital calmly grow by 10 percent as if nothing was wrong ; but when he realises that there are no workers for all these machines, or more correctly that there is no money to pay their wages, he prefers not to install them and so has to let the capital lie unused . It is only through this mistake that he arrives at a 'perfect example' of a phenomenon which appears during ordinary capitalist crises . In fact the entrepreneurs can only expand their production to the extent that their capital is enough for both machinery and wages combined . If the total surplus value is too small, this will be divided, in accordance with the assumed technical constraint, proportionately between the elements of capital ; the calculation shows that of the 525,319 surplus value, 500,409 must be added to constant capital and 24,910 to variable capital in order to arrive at the correct proportion corresponding to technical progress . Not 11,000 but 1,326 workers

69



are set free and there is noquestionofexcess capital . If the schemes is continued in this correct way, instead of a catastrophic eruption there is an extremely slow increase in the number of workers laid off . But how can someone attribute this alleged collapse to Marx and produce, chapter after chapter, dozens of quotations from Marx? All these quotations in fact relate to economic crises, to the alternating cycle of prosperity and depression . While the schema has to serve to show a predetermined final economic collapse after 35 years, we read two pages further on of "the Marxian theory of the economic cycle expounded here" (p . 123) . Grossmann is only able to give the impression that he is presenting a theory of Marx's by continually scattering in this way throughout his own statements comments which Marx made on periodic crises . But nothing at all is to be found in Marx about a final collapse in line with (irossmann's schema . It is true that Grossmann quotes a couple of passages which do not deal with crises . Thus he writes on page 263 :

It appears that 'capitalist production meets in the development of its productive (Marx, Capital. Vol . III, p . 237) . forces a barrier

But if we open Volume III of Capital at page 237 we read there :

But the main thing about their (i .e . . Ricardo and other economists') horror of the falling rate of profit is the feeling that capitalist production meets in the development of its productive forces a barrier . . .

which is something quite different . And on page 79 Grossmann gives this quotation from Marx as proof that even the word 'collapse' comes from Marx :

This process would soon bring about the collapse of capitalist production if it were not for counteracting tendencies, which have continuous decentralising effect alongside the centripetal one 1Capital, Vol . II, p. 241) .

As Grossmann correctly emphasises, these counteracting tendencies refer to soon' so that with them the process only takes place more slowly . But was Marx talking here of a purely economic collapse? Let us read the passage which precedes in Marx :

70

It is this same severance of the conditions of production, on the one hand, from the producers, on the other, that forms the conception of capital . It begins with

primitive accumulation, appears as a permanent process in the accumulation and concentration of capital, and expresses itself finally as centralisation of existing

capitals in a few hands and a deprivation of many of their capital (to which expropriation is now changed) .

It is clear that the collapse which thus results is, as so often in Marx, the ending of capitalism by socialism . So there is nothing in the quotations from Marx : a final economic catastronhe can he as little read from them as it can be

concluded from the reproduction schema . But can the schema serve to analyse and explain periodic crises? Grossmann seeks to join the two together : "The Marxian theory of collapse is at the same time a theory of crises" - so reads the beginning of Chapter 8 (p . 137) . But as proof he only provides a diagram (p . 141) in which a steeply rising 'accumulation line' is divided after 35 years ; but here a crisis occurs every 5 or 7 years when in the schema everything is going smoothly . If a more rapid collapse is desired it would be obtained if the annual rate of growth of constant capital was not 10 per cent but much greater . In the ascendant period of the economic cycle there is in fact a much more rapid growth of capital ; the volume of production increases by leaps and bounds ; but this growth has nothing at all to do with technical progress . Indeed, in these periods variable capital too increases rapidly by leaps . But why there must be a collapse after 5 or 7 years remains obscure . In other words, the real causes which produce the rapid rise and then the collapse of economic activity are of a quite different nature from what is set out

in Grossmann's reproduction schema .

Marx speaks of over-accumulation precipitating a crisis, of there being too much accumulated surplus value which is not invested and which depresses profits . But Grossmann's collapse comes about through there being too little accumulated surplus value . The simultaneous surplus of unused capital and unemployed workers is a typical feature of crises ; Grossmann's schema leads to a lack of sufficient capital, which he can only transform into a surplus by committing the mistake mentioned above . So Grossmann's schema cannot demonstrate a final collapse, nor does it correspond to the real phenomena of collapse, crises . It can also be added that his schema, in conformity with its origin, suffers from the same defect as Bauer's : the real, impetuous pushing forward of capitalism over the world which brings more and more peoples under its domination is here represented by a calm and regular population growth of 5 per cent a year, as if capitalism was confined in a closed national economy .

GROSSMANN VERSUS MARX Grossmann prides himself for having for the first time correctly reconstructed Marx's theory in the face of the distortions of the Social

71

Democrats .

One of these new additions to knowledge. (lit proudly says at the beginning introduction),

column

of

IS

Marx

of

the

tote theory of utllapse, set out below, which represents the portal s

system

of

economic thought .

We have seen how little what Grossmann considers to be a theory of collapse has"to do with Marx . Nevertheless, on his own personal interpretation, he could well believe himself to be in agreement with Marx . But there are other points where this does not hold . Because he sees his schema as a correct representation of capitalist development, Grossman deduces from it in various places explanations which, as he himself had partly noticed, contradict the views developed in Capital. This is so, first of all, for the industrial reserve army . According to Grossmann's schema, from the 35th year a certain number of workers become unemployed and a reserve army forms .

The formation of the reserve army, viz ., the laying off of workers, which we are discussing, must be rigorously distinguished from the laying off of workers due to machines. The elimination of workers by machines which Marx describes in the empirical part of the first volume of Capital (Chapter 13) is a technical fact . . . (pp . 128-9) . . . but the laying off of workers, the formation of the reserve army, which

Marx speaks of in the chapter on the accumulation of capital (Chapter 23) is not caused - as has been completely ignored until now in the literature - by the technical fact of the introduction of machinery, but by the lack of investment opportunities . . .(p . 130) .

This amounts basically to saying : if the sparrows fly away, it is not because of the gunshot but because of their timidity . The workers are eliminated by machines ; the expansion of production allows them in part to find work again ; in this coming and going some of them are passed by or remain outside . Must the fact that they have not yet been re-engaged be regarded as the cause of their unemployment? If Chapter 23 of Capital Vol . I is read, it is always elimination by machines that is treated as the cause of the reserve army, which is partially reabsorbed or released anew and reproduces itself as overpopulation, according to the economic situation . Grossmann worries himself for several pages over the proof that it is the economic relation c :v that operates here, and not the technical relation means of production : labour power ; in fact the two are identical . But this formation of the reserve army, which according to Marx occurs everywhere and always from the commencement of capitalism, and in

72

which workers are replaced by machines, is not identical to the alleged formation of the reserve army according to Grossmann, which starts as a consequence of accumulation after 34 years of technical progress . It is the same with the export of capital. In long explanations all the Marxist writers - Varga, Bukharin, Nachimson, Hilferding, Otto Bauer, Rosa Luxemburg - are one after the other demolished because they all state the view that the export of capital takes place for a higher profit . As Varga says :

It is not because it is absolutely impossible to accumulate capital at home that capital is exported . . . but because there exists the prdspect of a higher profit abroad (quoted

by Grossmann, p . 498) .

Grossmann attacks this view as incorrect and un-Marxist :

It is not the higher profit abroad, but the lack of investment opportunities at home that is the ultimate reason for the export of capital (p . 561).

He then introducesnumerous quotations from Marx about overaccumulation and refers to his schema, in which after 35 years the growing mass of capital can no longer be employed at home and so must be exported . Let us recall that according to the schema, however, there was too little capital in existence for the existing population and that his capital surplus was only an error of calculation . Further, in all the quotations from Marx, Grossmann has forgotten to cite the one where Marx himself speaks of the export of capital :

If capital is sent abroad, this is not done because it absolutely could not be applied at home, but because it can be employed at a higher rate of profit in a foreign country (Vol . III, p. 251) .

The fall in the rate of profit is one of the most important parts of Marx's theory of capital ; he was the first to state and prove that this tendency to fall, which expresses itself periodically in crises, was the embodiment of the transitory nature of capitalism . With Grossmann it is another phenomenon which comes to the fore : after the 35th year workers are laid off en masse and capital is at the same time created in excess . As a result the deficit of surplus value in the following year is more serious, so that yet more labour and capital are left idle ; with the fall in the number of workers, the mass of surplus value

73

produced decreases and capitalism sinks still deeper into catastrophe . Has not Grossmann seen the contradiction here with Marx? Indeed he has . Thus, after some introductory remarks, he sets to work in the chapterentitled "The Causes of the Misunderstanding of the Marxian Theory of Accumulation and Collapse" :

The time is not ripe for a reconstruction of the Marxian theory of collapse (p . 195) The fact that the third chapter of Volume III is, as Engels says in the preface . presented, as a series of uncompleted mathematical calculations' must be given as an external reason for the misunderstanding,

lingels was helped in his editing by his friend, the mathematician Samuel Moore :

But Moore was riot an economist . . . The mode of origin of this part of the work therefore makes it probable even in advance that many opportunities for misunderstanding and error exist here and that these errors could then easily have been carried over also into the chapter dealing with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall . . . i ( NB : these chapters had already been written by Marx!) The probability of error becomes almost certain when we consider that it is a question here of a tingle word which . unfortunately, completely distorts the whole sense of the analysis : the inevitable end of capitalism is attributed to the relative fall in the rate instead of in the mass of profit . Engelsor Moore had certainly made a slip of the pen (p. 195) .

So this is what the reconstruction of Marx's theory looks like! Another quotation is given in a note which says :

In the words in brackets . Engels or Marx himself made a slin of the pen ; it should read correctly and at the same time a mass of profit which tails in relative value' (Translator's note : Grussmann refers to the passage on p . 214 of Vol . III which reads : 'Hence, the same laws produce for the social capital a growing absolute mass of profit, and a falling rate of profit') .

So now it is Marx himself who makes mistakes . And here it concerns a passage where the sense, as given in the text of Capital, isunambiguously clear . Marx's whole analysis, which ends with the passage Grussmann finds necessary

74

to change, is a continuation of a passage where Marx explains :

. . . the mass of the surplus value produced by it, and therefore the absolute mass of the profit produced by it, can, consequently, increase, and increase progressively, in spite of the progressive drop in the rate of profit . And this not only canbeso Aside from temporary fluctuations it must be so,on the basis of capitalist production (Vol . III, p . 213) .

Marx then sets out the reasons why the mass of profit must increase and says once again :

As the process of production and accumulation advances therefore, the mass of available and appropriated surplus labour, and hence the absolute mass of profit appropriated by the social capital must grow (Vol . III, p. 214) .

Thus the exact opposite to the onset of the collapse invented by Grossmann . In the following pages this is repeated yet more often ; the whole of Chapter 13 consists-of a presentation of

the law that a fall in the rate of profit due to the development of productiveness is accompanied by an increase in the mass of profit . . . (Vol . III . p. 221) .

So there can remain not the slightest doubt that Marx wanted to say precisely what was printed there and that he had not made a slip of the pen . And when Grossmann writes :

The collapse cannot therefore result from the fall in the rate of profit . How could a percentage proportion, such as the rate of profit, a pure number, bring about the collapse of a real economic system! (p . 196) .

he thereby shows yet again that he has understood nothing of Marx and that his collapse is in complete contradiction with Marx . Here is the point at which he could have convinced himself of the instability of his construction . But if he had allowed himself to be taught by Marx here, 75

then his whole theory would have fallen and his book would not have been written . The fairest way of describing (irossmann's book is as a patchwork of quotations from Marx . incorrectly applied and stuck together by means of a fabricated theory . Each time a proof is required, a quotation from Marx, which does not deal with the point in quest ion, is introduced, and it is the correctness of Marx's words which is supposed to give the reader the impression that the theory is correct .

HISTORICAL MA'T'ERIALISM The question which in the end merits attention is how run anecononust who believes he is correctly reconstructing Marx's views, and who further states with naive self-assurance that he is the first to give a correct interpretation of them, be so completely mistaken and find himself in complete contradiction with Marx . The reason lies in the lack of a historical materialist understanding . For you will not understand Marxian economics at all unless you have made the historical materialist way of thinking your own . For Marx the development of human society, and so also the economic developmentot capitalism, is determined by a firm necessity like a law of nature . But this development is at the same time the work of men who play their role in it and where eah person determines his own acts with consciousness and purpose - though not with a consciousness of the social whole . To the bourgeois way of seeing things, there is a contradiction here ; either what happens depends on human free choice or, if it is governed by fixed laws, then these act as an external, mechanical constraint on men . For Marx all social necessity is : omplisrhed by mean ; this means that a man's thinking, wanting and acting ac( although appearing as a free choice in his consciousness - are completely determined by the action of the environment ; it is only through the totality of these human acts, determined mainly by social forces, that conformity to laws is achieved in social development. The social forces which determine development are thus not only purely economic acts, but also the general-political acts determined by them, which provide production with the necessary norms of right . Conformity to law does not reside solely in the action of competition which fixes prices and profits and concentrates capital, but also in the establishment of free competition, of free production by bourgeois revolutions ; not only in the movement of wages, in the expansion and contraction of production in prosperity and crisis, in the closing of factories and the laying off of workers, but also in the revolt, the struggle of the workers, the conquest by them of power over society and production in order to establish new norms of right . Economics, as the totality of men working and striving to satisfy their susbistence needs, and politics ( in its widest sense), as the action and struggle of these men as classes to satisfy these needs, form a single unified domain of law-governed development . The accumulation of capital, crises, pauperisation, the proletarian revolution, the seizure of power by

70

the working class form together, acting like a natural law, an indivisible unity, the collapse of capitalism . The bourgeois way of thinking, which does not understand that this is a unity, has always played a great role not only outside but also within the workers' movement . In the old radical Social Democracy the fatalist view was current, understandable in view of the historical circumstances, that the revolution would one day come as a natural necessity and that in the meantime the workers should not try anything dangerous . Reformism questioned the need for a 'violent' revolution and believed that the intelligence of statesmen and leaders would tame capitalism by reform and organisation . Others believed that the proletariat had to be educated to revolutionary virtue by moral preaching . The consciousness was always lacking that this virtue only found its natural necessity through economic forces, and that the revolution only found its natural necessity through economic forces, and that the revolution only founds its natural necessity through the mental forces of men . Other views have now appeared . On the one hand capitalism has proved itself strong and unassailable against all reformism, all the skills of leaders, all attempts at revolution ; all these have appeared ridiculous in the face of its immense strength . But, on the other hand, terrible crises at the same time reveal its internal weakness . Whoever now takes up Marx and studies him is deeply impressed by the irresistible,, law-governed nature of the collapse and welcomes these ideas with enthusiasm . But if his basic way of thinking is bourgeois he cannot conceive this necessity other than as an external force acting on men . Capitalism is for him a mechanical system in which men participate as economic persons, capitalists, buyers, sellers, wage-workers, etc., but otherwise must submit in a purely passive way to what this mechanism imposes on them in view of its internal structure.

This mechanistic conception can also be recognised in Grossmann's statements on wages when he violently attacks Rosa LuxemburgEverywhere one comes across an incredible, barbarous mutilation of the Marxian theory of wages (p . 585) .

-precisely where she quite correctly treats the value of labour-power as a quantity that can be expanded on the basis of the standard of living attained . For Grossmann the value of labour-power is "not an elastic, but a fixed quantity" (p. 586) . Acts of human choice such as the workers' struggles can have no influence on it ; the only way in which wages can rise is through a higher intensity of labour obliging the replacement of the greater quantity of labour-power expended . 77

Here it is the same mechanistic view : the mechanism determines economic quantities while struggling and acting men stand outside this relation . Orussmann appeals again to Marx for this, where the latter writes of the value of labour-power :

Nevertheless, in :t givencitnntrv, at a given period, the average quantity (it the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known (Capital. Vill . I . p . 171 ) ;

but Orussmann has unfortunately once again overlooked that in Marx this passage is inunediately proceeded by :

In contradiction therefore to the case of other commodities . there enters Into the deternmnaooil of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element

Starting from his bourgeois way of thinking, ( ;wssmann states in his criticism of various Social f)ernocratic views :

We see : the collapse of capitalism is either denied or based, in a voluntarist way, on extra-economic, political factors . The economic proof of the necessity of the collapse of capitalism has never been produced (pp . 5H-59) .

And he cites with approval an opinion of Tugan-Baranovsky that, in order to prove the necessity for the transformation of capitalism into its opposite, a rigid proof of the impossibility for capitalism to continue existing must first be produced . Tugan himself denies this impossibility and wishes to give socialism an ethical basis . But that Grussmann chooses to call as witness this Russian liberal economist who, as is known, was always completely alient to Marxism, shows to what degree their basic way of thinking is related, despite their opposed practical points of view (see also Grossmann, p . 108) . The Marxian view that the collapse of capitalism will be the act of the working class and thus a political act (in the widest sense of this word : general social, which is inseparable from the take-over of economic power) Grussmann can only understand as 'voluntarist , i .e ., that it is something that is governed by men s choice, by free will . The collapse of capitalism in Marx does depend on the act of will of the working class ; but this will is not a free choice, but is itself determined by economic development . The contradictions of the capitalist economy, which

78

repeatedly emerge in unemployment, crises, wars, class struggles, repeatedly determine the will to revolution of the proletariat . Socialism conies not because capitalism collapses economically and men, workers and others, are forced by necessity to create a new organisation, but because capitalism, as it lives and grows, becomes more and more unbearable for the workers and repeatedly pushes

them to struggle until the

will and strength

to overthrow

the

domination of capitalism and establish a new organisation grows in them, and then capitalism collapses . The working class is not pushed to act because the unbearableness of capitalism is demonstrated to them from the Outside, but because they feel it generated within them . Marx's theory, as economics, shows how the above phenomena irresistibly reappear with greater and greater force and, as historical materialism, how . they necessarily give rise coo the revolutionary will and the revolutionary act .

THE NEW WORKERS' MOVEMENT It is understandable that Grossmann's book should have been given some attention by the spokesmen of the new workers' movement since he attacks the same enemy as them . The new workers' movement has to attack Social Democracy and the Party Communism of the Third International, two branches of the same tree, because they accommodate the working class to capitalism . Grossmann attacks the theoreticians of these currents for having distorted and falsified Marx's teachings, and insists on the necessary collapse of capitalism . His conclusions sound similar to ours, but their sense and essence are completely different . We also are of the opinion that the Social Democratic theorists, good theoretical experts that they often were, nevertheless distorted Marx's doctrine ; but their mistake was historical, the theoretical precipitate of an early period of the struggle of the proletariat . Grossmann's mistake is that of .a bourgeois economist who has never had practical experience of the struggle of the proletariat and who is consequently not in a position to understand the essence of Marxism . An example' of how his conclusions apparently agree with the views of the new workers' movement, but are in essence completely opposed, is to be found in his theory of wages . According to his schema, after 35 years, with the collapse, a rapidly climbingunemployment appears . As a result wages sink well below the value of labour-power, without an effective resistance being possible . "Here the objective limit of trade union action is given" (p . 599) . However familiar this sounds, the basis is quite different . The powerlessness of trade union action, which has been evident for a long time, should not be attributed to an economic collapse, but to a shift in the balance of social power . Everyone knows how the increased power of the employers' combines of concentrated big capital has made the working class relatively powerless . To which is now added the effects of a severe crisis which depresses wages, as happened in every previous crisis . The purely economic collapse of capitalism which Grossmann constructs

79

does not involve a complete passivity by tug proletariat . For, when the collapse takes place the working class must precisely prepare itself to re-establish production on a new basis .

Thus evolution pushes towards the development and exacerbation of the internal oppositants between capital and LdNlur unit) the so luolm winch canonnellnls from the struggle between the two classes is brought about i p . 599 o

This final struggle is linked also with the wages struggle because (as was already mentioned above) the catastrophe can be postponed by depressing wages or hastened by raising them . But it is the economic catastrophe that is for Gmssmann the really essential factor, the new order being forcibly imposed on men . Certainly, the workers, as the mass of the population, are to supply the preponderant force of the revolution, just as in the bourgeois revolutions of the past where they formed the mass force for action ; but, as in hunger revolts in general . this is independent of their revolutionary maturity, of their capacity to take power over society and to hold it . This means that a revolutionary group, a party with socialist aims, would have to appear as a newgoverningpower in place of the old in order to introduce some kind of planned economy . The theory of the economic catastrophe is thus ready made for intellectuals who recognise the untenable character of capitalism and who want a planned economy to be built by capable economists and leaders . And it must be expected that many other such theories will come from these quarters or meet with approval there . The theory of the necessary collapse will also be able to exercise a certain attraction over revolutionary workers . They see the overwhelming majority of the proletarian masses still attached to the old organisations, the old leaders, the old methods, blind to the task which the new development imposes on them, passive and immobile, with no signs of revolutionary energy . The few revolutionaries who understand the new development might well wish on the stupefied masses a good economic catastrophe so that they finally come out of the slumberand enter into action . The theory according to which capitalism has today entered its final crisis also provides a decisive, and simple, refutation of reformism and all Party programmes which give priority to parliamentary work and trade union action - a demonstration of the necessity of revolutionary tactics which is so convenient that it must be greeted sympathetically by revolutionary groups . But the struggle is never so simple or convenient, not even the theoretical struggle for reasons and proofs . Reformism was a false tactic, which weakened the working class, not only in crises but also in prosperity . Parliamentarism and the trade union tactic did not have to await the present crisis to prove a failure ; this has been shown for the last hundred years . It is not due to tile economic collapse of capitalism but to the enormous development of its strength, to its expansion over all the liarth, to its exacerbation of political oppositions, to the violent reinforcement of its inner

80

strength, that the proletariat must take mass action, summoning up the strength of the whole class . It is this shift in the relations of power that is the basis for the new direction for the workers' movement . The workers' movement has not to expect a final catastrophe, but many catastrophes, political - like wars, and economic - like the crises which repeatedly break out, sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly, but which on the whole, with the growing size of capitalism, become more and more devastating . So the illusions and tendencies to tranquillity of the proletariat will

repeatedly collapse, and sharp and deep class struggles

will break

out . It appears

to be a contradiction that the present crisis, deeper and more devastating than any previous one, has not shown signs of the awakening of the proletarian revolution . But the removal of old illusions is its first great task : on the other hand, the illusion of making capitalism bearable by means of reforms obtained through Social Democratic parliamentary politics and trade union action and, on the other, the illusion that capitalism can be overthrown in assault under the leadership of a revolution-bringing Communist Party . The working class itself, as a whole, must conduct the struggle, but, while the bourgeoisie is already building up its power more and more solidly, the working class has vet to make itself familiar with the new formsof struggle . Severe struggles are bound to take place . And should the present crisis abate, new crises and new struggles will arise . In these struggles the working class will develop its strength to struggle, will discover its aims, will train itself, will make itself independent and learn to take into its hands its own destiny, viz ., social production itself . In this process the destruction of capitalism is achieved . The self-emancipation of the proletariat is the collapse of capitalism .

81



Radical Philosophy RadicalPhilosophy i :, the journal of the Radical Philosophy ( ;coup . It suns to avoid the academicism of the existing philosophical journals - an academicism which trivializes philosophy and man .tfests itself in an uncritical attitude to social ideologies . Radical Philosophy publishes philosophical work contributing to the development of radical theory, :and to the exposure of the social and political assumptions embodied in orthodox philosophy . As well a : ; articles and book reviews, it carries critiques of educational .institutions, courses and teaching methods ; new; items and reports of meetings and activities ; humour aid satire . The current issue is No .1'j . Contents include hay Kd,ley : Science, Social Science and Socialist Science Richard Archer : Personal Autonomy and lliatorical Materialism Kate Soper : On Nlaterialisms 'Philosophy Prom Below' - a special supplement on the realities of philosophy in the academy Correspondence and contributions to : Jonathan Ree, Middlesex Polytechnic at Hendon, The Burroughs, Hendon, London NW4 4BT . Subscriptions and enquiries to : Radical Philosophy, 40 Langdon Park Road, London N6 5QG . Subscription to 3 issues : £2 .00 (£1 .25 for those unable to afford more) . Overseas subscriptions : £3 .00 (£1 .80 for those unable to afford more) . Airmail £6 .50 . Institutional subscriptions :

f.3 .50 (Overseas £6 .00, airmail

£9 .50) . Single copies 50p to individuals, by post 57p (Overseas 70p, airmail £3 .20) . Back numbers 60p to individuals (Overseas 70p), £1 .25 to in :' ;itutions .

Marc Rakoviki

MARXISM AND THE ANALYSIS OF SOVIET SOCIETIES

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION The paper that follows was first published in the December issue of lei Tempi Modernei, under the title 'Le marxisme devant les societes sovietiques' . Its author is a dissident East European Marxist' . Most Marxists opposing the orthodox Communist position have criticised the U .S .S .R . and its allies in terms of a theory of the transition from capitalism to socialism (e.g . 13ettelheim 1975, 1976 ; Mandel 1974) . Rakovski offers a critique of both the theoretical content and the practical application of this approach . He argues that these societies lie outside this unilinear transitional path, and must be analysed on their own terms : this implies a radically different set of concepts as well as a different view of their historical development . The central theme is that soviet societies are characterised by a lack of any formally autonomous institutions . For example, the 'market' cannot carry out the regulative functions which it fulfils under capitalism, since economic organisations are institutionally centralised and subordinate to an administrative hierarchy . Organisations such as trade unions are not really social organisations at all, for they too are dependent on the hierarchy . The unity of this single, all-embracing hierarchy is maintained through its own dependent relation to the party . Such a generalised dependence means that it is impossible for classes to exist as historical (gather than simply sociological) categories, pursuing their own interests consciously and rationally through appropriate institutions . Conflicts of interest reflecting the social division of labour define a 'producing class' and a 'class in power', but neither are classes in the sense of those in capitalist society : even the 'class in power' maintains its

83

position not through the functioning of specific institutions or ideologies, but through the functioning of the entire management system of society . The sole guarantee of the survival of the class in power is thus the maintenance of the unity and coherence of this system : no formally autonomous organisation or tendency can be permitted to develop . Hence, the autonomisation of political and economicorganisations advanced by the reform movement of the 1960s was doomed to failure, for it implied the dismantling of the whole system . In the absence of a mass international revolutionary movement capable of mounting a total challenge, the only possible choice was between neo-Stalinism and a technocratic quasi-liberalism . Iakovski argues . that the perspective of the theory of transition merely reflects this by ruling out any historical alternative : it offers no way forward . Rakovski thus offers an alternative to the increasing sterility and formalism of the debates on the 'transitional' nature of soviet societies . Together with the recent contributions of Brus (1975) and Ticktin (1976), it opens up an important area of debate for socialists in the West as well as in Eastern Europe. NOTE 1 . The present paper has been expanded into a book-length study, which will be published by Alison &Busby in September 1977 . A further article by Rakovski was published in Lei Tempi Modernei, Jan . 1976, entitled 'L' union du capital et de Is science passe et present' . Dealing with critiques of the capitalist division of labour, it drew a strong response from A . Gorz published in the same issue . MARXISM AND THE ANALYSIS OF SOVIET SOCIETIES I Very few of Stalin's projects have succeeded so perfectly, in the long term, as that of placing a taboo on Trotsky . Even Marxists without any direct ties to the communist movement prefer to avoid talking about him . But it iseven stranger that, while their attitude towards Trotsky remains determined by the factof his excommunication, their attitude towards the societies of the soviet type remains determined by the thought of Trotsky ; they remain prisoners in the vicious circle inherent in the 'revolution betrayed' . Once the critique of the Comintern's tactics was transformed into a critique of the socio-economic structure of Soviet society, a question arose which could not be avoided : what is this society, if it is not socialism? From that moment on, all independent Marxists were faced with the same reply as Trotsky himself : if it is not socialism, then it must be capitalism . And, like Trotsky, most later Marxists have sought refuge in the formula : the societies of soviet type are neither one thing nor the other, they are societies in transition between the two, whose final destination is still undecided . To say that they are in transition means that these societies are made up of elements from two incompatible social orders, incapable of coexisting in the long run . Marxists today allude more and more explicitly to the possibility which Trotsky could not yet face, that the development of the soviet societies has exhausted its socialist potential and is moving inexorably in the direction of capitalism . In this their reply is more radical than Trotsky's, but not their 84

question . They criticise the development of soviet societies as a fruitless attempt to realise socialism, rather than considering it as an evolution rui generic,

having its own historical aims, different from those of socialism . If the Marxists of today are not to be satisfied with superficial analogies, they are still forced like Ttorsky to wait for the transformation of the political and economic rulers into shareholders . And if they face up honestly to the delay in the realisation of their predictions, then they have t o admit with Trotsky that the soviet societies still contain within them something of socialism . If the formula of the society in transition leads to inadmissable conclusions, it is because it places the soviet societies in a context within which they cannot be analysed in any reasonable way . A transitional society is one in which basic institutions both presuppose and exclude each other at the same time ; they are grouped around antagonistic power centres whose relations are regulated not by mechanisms accepted as legitimate by all of society, but by more or less open class war . In order to locate soviet societies among the class of transitional societies, it is not enough to point to, forexample the simultaneous existence of central planning and something similar to the capitalist market . It must also be shown that the former is the incarnation of the economic power of the producers, while the latter is the incarnation of the power of enterprise directors, and that the legitimate cooperation of the two is inconceivable in the long term . We have only to pose the problem in this way to see that the concept of transitional society is not applicable to soviet societies . But if it is so easy to demonstrate the logical flaws in the argument, it is difficult to explain how such major logical flaws could remain unnoticed . In effect, the difficulties with the theory of transitional society lead us on to more general difficulties of Marxist social theory . Using Marx's concepts, it is impossible to describe modern, non-transitory societies, where capitalist private property is absent, but nonetheless the members of society do not equally dispose of the means of production ; where there are no capitalist or proletarian classes, but the population is nonetheless the members of soci divided into classes ; where economic priorities are not for the most part determined by the market, but neither are they the result of rational discussion among the associated producers, and so on . Plainly, Marx knew very well that traditional society was just like that . It was only in capitalist societies, in which the economy eas separated from non-economic institutions, that according to Marx there developed private property and a class structure in the modern sense, and only there did the emerge a market which encompassed all the factors of production, subjective and objective . But the more Marx underlines the historical nature of the socio-economic categories within the opposition capitalism/ pre-capitalist societies, there more obvious it is that this historiciasm is limited to that opposition alone . Marx only knew of one non-capitalist form of modern development, namely communism ; this he identified with the post-capitalist stage of general evolution, and defined not by a new configuration of categories such as classes, ownership, the market, etc., but by their complete disappearance . The totality of capitalist relations did not make up just one of the particular varieties of the modern evolution of social organisation ; rather, it was 85

the finished form of these categories of pre-communist society . Despite the central role played by historicism in his thought, Marx never succeeded in avoiding the simplifications of the unilinear evolutionism of his time . But the critique of the dominant tradition is always content simply to rediscover historicist elements in Marxist thought, and contrast them to unilinear evolutionism . This may be adequate in correcting certain points in the area of pre-modern history, but it certainly fails to get to the roots of the relation between Marxism and unilinear evolutionism . Marxism necessarily classifies all modern society either into one of two consecutive evolutionary stages capitalism or socialism - or as transitional between the two sui generts types. It contains no concepts appropriate to a modern society moving along a different evolutionary path from that of capitalism . Having accepted this unilinear scheme, critical Marxists can only describe soviet societies as some combination of the types capitalism and socialism . Marxists not only resist making connections between the difficulties of this particular explanation and those of the more general theory, but also seem not even to face up to the particular difficulties themselves ; the explanation for this has to be sought in the contextof the practical political application of the theory . Unless we want to regard the history of the Marxist interpretation of soviet societies simply as a series of mistakes and logical flaws, we must start from the thesis that the contradictory nature of the theory of transitional societies was well suited to the political needs of the Marxist left . This was in fact the case for a long period, from the consolidation of soviet power up to the end of the cold war . The consolidation of soviet power was a reaction to the resolution of the European post-war revolutionary crisis . Having rid itself of the last remaining elements of uncertainty, the 'relative stabilisation' of Western capitalism in the mid-twenties also signalled the end of the transitional period of soviet development . But the USSR could not respond to this changed situation in the same way as a new capitalist power finding its niche within the delicate equilibrium of the great powers . Instead . it had to shift the permanent mobilisation of the Comintern into a new stance . The Soviet Union subordinated the revolutionary workers' movement to its own national existence, but on the basis of a particular strategy rooted in the absolute opposition between capitalism and the workers movement . As a result of this, Marxists had to face a choice : renunciation in political practice of the liberating principles of marxism, or renunciation of the principles themselves . Those who, in upholding those principles, foreswore the USSR as one of the pillars of the existing world system, quickly found themselves lined up with the representatives of that same system as enemies of the entire revolutionary movement ; in order to avoid this dire consequence, it proved necessary to deny in advance that their critique had any practical consequences . Those who, accepting the realities of the situation, identified with the USSR as the only guarantor of the revolutionary tradition, had to share the responsibility for those aspects of reality which were incompatible with the liberating principles of Marxism . This was the alternative which caught the left critiqueof the USSR in an insoluble dilemma . 86

This inescapable alternative has had fatal consequences for Marxist social science . It became impossible to separate the problemof the theoretical validity of descriptive hypotheses on soviet society from their role in the conflicts between the USSR and the imperialist powers, between the workers' movement and capitalism, between communism and anti-communism . Whatever the real nature of the USSR, the Marxist critique could only employ those analytical concepts which allowed soviet development to be interpreted as a moment of the general liberation of mankind . Hence, the conceptual limitations of historical materialism were precisely suited to this situation . It is clear that the concept of the transitional society has not resolved the practical contradictions of oppositionist Marxism : it has simply reproduced them at the level of theory . But in so doing it has made it possible to interpret them : it is not possible to avoid the contradictions in political practice which arise out of this attitude towards the USSR, if the internal structure of the USSR is dominated by the same antagonisms which mark its external relations with the capitalist powers . What is important for us is not the proof in historical fact that Marxism requires the concept of transitional society, but the proof that it does not need such a concept . With the end of the cold war, the international polarisation, which had forced critical Marxism to see soviet development as a contradictory transition between capitalism and socialism, also came to an end . Furthermore, detente led to a certain ideological and political differentiation . The inevitable decomposition of Stalinist ideology, tied as it was to total confrontation, brought to light a number of ideological tendencies . In the ideological spectrum, these can be put in order : from neostalinism through official technocracy and liberalism, then different varieties of autonomous technocracy and liberalism, and finally ideologies of a romantic conservative cast such as the new slavophilism . The Marxist critique has plainly reacted to these changes . The more obvious becomes the integration of the USSR into the world system, the more ready are Marxists to regard the victory of capitalism within soviet society as certain . But the tendencies identified by the Marxist critique as restorationist are precisely those tendencies such as the decentralisation of the power structure, the re-establishment of so-called bourgeois freedoms and of horizontal mechanisms of economic regulation, which in the soviet societies themselves are upheld by progressive critics against neostalinism . It is the appearance of decentralising tendencies, especially in exceptional periods when they are transformed into a radical reformism, which are seen as the chief evidence for a tacit Thermidor . Up to the end of the cold war, the main target of the Marxist critique was the ideology of the Soviet state, and its practical direction depended on how successful it was in distancing itself from the bourgeois critique . Since then, the main target has, become the reformist critique within soviet societies, and it is now neostalinism, the most reactionary element in the State ideology, which threatens to absorb the Marxist critique . In defending the "last remaining elements of socialism", the latter defends in practice the positions of Stalinism . By insisting on the so-called socialist elements of social organisation, the

87



critique distracts attention from the fact that even partial socialism could only exist in the soviet societies if it had been created by a socialist workers movement . The critique thus makes it impossible to reflect on the minimal conditions for the self-organisation of the working class . In order to break with this unwanted role of providing apologetics for Stalinism, critical Marxism must set out unambiguously its position on democracy . This does not mean abandoning criticism of non-Marxist opposition tendencies . They must be criticised precisely because their goals in general preclude those minimal conditions for democracy, i .e . the free self-organisation of the producers and generally of different social groups . Conservative tendencies like the new slavophilism are clearly antidemocratic . Marxism opposes slavophilism just as it opposes all varieties of romanticism, in its commitment to open and dynamic forms of society . The other broad ideological grouping is made up of tendencies whose goals would be realised more by a more balanced development of the soviet societies than by a return to some imaginary traditional state . One of the progressive tendencies is straightforwardly technocratic and only aims at increasing the power of one fraction of the dominant class . But there are also elements which call themselves liberal or democratic . In the economic sphere, the difference between technocrats and liberals is basically that the former favour of a computerised' economy, still centralised, while the latter prefer some decentralisation of decision rights and an increasing role for self-regulating mechanisms working through horizontal relations between lower levels in the economy . In other domains, the technocrats display little interest in the problems realised, while the liberals also want greater cultural freedom and greater freedom of expression in general. Despite these differences, there is something very basic which is common to both these tendencies . They have both arisen out of the clear-cut failure of the reformist movements of the 1960s launched by a section of the political leadership and by the communist intelligentsia . They both drew the lesson from this that the only way to achieve a rationalisation or democratisation of the system was to abandon any attempt at changes in the basic institutional structure, and pursue instead practical changes in the way it worked. But Marxists cannot be satisfied with 'democratisation' instead of democracy . Marxist ideology can find no social basis of its own other than in the real possibility of the self-organisation of producers . Marxists cannot accept the pragmatism of the post-reform ideology : they cannot abandon all criticism of the principles of the institutional system of soviet societies . It there is one simple way in which Marxism could recover its ideological importance in soviet societies, it is by becoming the most completely democratic ideology within the opposition tendencies . This means abandoning the traditional interpretation of soviet societies . II If we abandon concepts which prevent a correct formulation of this problem, we can at the same time omve towards a clarification of some general propositions of historical materialism . Marx's social theory weaves together

88

two strands : the unilinear conception of modern social evolution, and the historicism underlying the total opposition between capitalism and precapitalist societies . Marx defined capitalism as the private ownership of the means of production, as factory organisation based of the separation of subjective from objective factors of production, as capitalist class and working class, as surplus-value and wage, etc . But Marx also argued that all these characteristics are linked to a more general condition, namely the generalisation of commodity production and the formal separation of the system of institutions integrating this production - the market and those organisations linked to it - from the totality of non-economic institutions . In capitalism in general, a considerable part of social practice and of social interests is hived off from the totality of multifunctional institutions, and constitutes itself as a group of specialised and formally autonomous organisations . This formal autonomy naturally does not exclude a real dependence . It is hard to resist the temptation to consider these formal relations as nothing more than a mystification of the real relations . However, there is a basic difference between societies in which some at least of the specialised institutions are formally independent from the others, and those in which everything is subordinated to a single administrative hierarchy . It is this institutional difference which separates capitalist societies from soviet societies . It is true that the institutional whole is no less differentiated in the latter than in the former . But in soviet societies there is no single organisation which displays the formal independence characteristic of the institutional structure of capitalism . All are integrated into a unified administrative hierarchy which does not allow conflicting social functions to be fulfilled, or conflicting social interests to be represented, by autonomous organisations . In most cases, the management system of these societies consists of a pyramid of decision and control in which every element exercises an absolute power over inferior units ; and is at the same time absolutely subordinated to superior ones . But such systems in fact only exist in ideological myths . There are always unforeseen changes to which decision centres have to react directly, without prior instruction . Even the most powerful centralisation cannot avoid a certain decentralisation in the taking of actual decisions. Furthermore, most of the information necessary for central decisions is provided by the executive organs themselves, which by this very fact acquire a certain influence on decisions taken by the higher levels . It is not just plans and instructions which circulate through the channels of economic management, but also complaints arising from problems of execution, and demands for compensation . Even the most centralised system has therefore to embody a certain combination of directive and bargaining . Further, the subordination of all formal organisations to a single administrative hierarchy does not require in itself replacing the role of bargaining by that of directives to the greatest possible degree . Dependence implies that the superior organ can give orders to inferior ones, but it is not the orders, nor their frequency, which maintains the ties of dependence . Dependence takes the form of institutional structures such as the monopoly of

89

the right to appoint, to watch over and depose enterprise directors, held by the superior authorities (who are also those who appropriate the largest share of the surplus product) ; such as the control of all investment and credit organisations by the same administrative hierarchy to which the enterprise itself is subordinated ; and such as the existence of a political sector of the hierarchy, that of the party, which controls the higher authorities through its central organs, and controls enterprises through its local organs . It could be argued that this signifies that soviet societies are in principle capable of being liberalised ; their decision system can be decentralised without dislocating the structures of dependence which make up the management hierarchy . But it also implies that this potential liberalisation is necessarily limited . This limit is set by the absence of any autonomous organisations . There are whole areas of institutional structure which can only operate in conditions of organisational autonomy ; it is the absence of such organisations which is the general consequence of the soviet type of institutional structure . One of these institutional systems is the market . Of course, the evaluation of the role played by the market in soviet societies is in part a matter of definition . If we understand by the term 'market' simply a series of institutionalised exchanges in which the participants are not indicated in advance, then even the most centralised version of the soviet-type economy includes enormous market activities . But if we mean instead that the market at the same time acts as the mechanism of regulation which directs and controls the behaviour of productive enterprises, and adjusts production to consumption according to its own standards, then the market is bound to remain peripheral even in the most decentralised soviet system . The market can only regulate enterprise behaviour if the enterprises are not prevented in advance by the form of organisation of the economy from seeking to exploit their market possibilities to an optimal extent . Clearly, this condition cannot be met in the soviet economies . Enterprise interests continually conflict with those expressed by the higher authorities . And of course it is perfectly natural that the interests of the authorities should prevail over those of the enterprise, whether they are formulated as obligatory instructions or not . The authorities have in reserve a whole battery of instruments of power : appointments and dismissals, rewards and punishments, redirection of investment funds, application of party discipline, etc . On the other hand, if the enterprise gives way to pressure from the authorities, it must be recompensed for its sacrifice. The enterprise directors respond to the pressure from above with counter-pressure : they demand special subsidies, tax exemptions, investment credits, postponement of repayments, etc . As a result, even in the most decentralised decision system, the viability of the enterprise remains independent of its effectiveness in the market. A reduction in the role of directives and an increase in the role of vertical bargaining cannot eliminate the short-circuit of hierarchical regulation ; such changes are not enough to subordinate enterprise activity to control by horizontal market relations . At a lower level of abstraction, there are nevertheless cases in which the

90

decentralisation of the decision system is sufficient by itself to re-establish the market mechanism . The smaller the scale of the enterprise, the more likely it is that the managers are able to resist the pressure of the authorities and stick to a market-oriented strategy . But this tendency cannot extend to the case of the larger enterprise . And it we bring up the limiting case of the very small enterprise, we must also point out the other limiting case, that of the powerful large enterprises which are unaffected by the tendencies of decentralisation, either because of the extreme scarcity of the resources they use, or because of the strategic importance of their products . Thus, the overall development takes a number of directions at the same time, with the activation of market mechanisms only a neglible part of this development . The last twenty years have seen several waves of heated debate between advocates and opponents of decentralisation of the economic system . But the real problem underlying this debate has not been the direction in which society would be pushed by the unleashing of market mechanisms . Rather, it arises from the fact that no amount of decentralisation can free the market from domination by hierarchical relations . The correct theoretical question is posed in this context : how do we judge the fact that in soviet societies economic decisions are shielded from the pull of market forces? Theeconomic authorities systematically deflect enterprises from the production structure which would be optimal according to the value judgement of the market . But we know full well that the 'market optimum' is systematically distorted from the 'social optimum' . In that case, surely it is precisely because of the formal autonomy of economic organisations under capitalism that the market optimum prevails over the 'social 'optimum'? Then surely the generalisation of formal dependence, that basic characteristic of the institutional structure of soviet societies, is a necessary conditions for the 'social optimum' to prevail instead, The obvious answer is 'yes' ; but first we ought to face up to another consequence of the absence of any formally autonomous organisations which may throw new light on the issue . It is true that the enterprise is not an autonomous organisation . But neither can interests opposed to those of the enterprise have any autonomous institutional representation . Above all, no social interest can define itself as an interest around which a group can organise as a coalition, a party or a union . All social organisations presuppose as a minimum condition for their functioning that they are independent of those functional organisations for whose control they have themselves been formed . As a result, we cannot speak of social organisations in soviet societies . However, it is a lot easier to arrive at this conclusion than it is to explain why, nevertheless, soviet societies contain institutions which preserve a continuity from the social organisations of their prehistory . There is the party, there are trade unions, just as there were in the workers' movement . Once their democratic potential has been discredited, these bodies, similar in form to those of a real social movement, begin to look like mere survivals without any function. In reality, these forms are today not so much survivals without function as mechanisms of a possible democracy . Paradoxical as it may seem, it is precisely the disappearance of all social

91

movements which has assu red the survival of the forms of such a movement . To be capable of functioning without relying continually on overt violence, the institutional system has to be able to canalise the interests of alienated groups . This is the origin of the first function of the forms of social movements' in soviet societies . Secondly, the less the conflicts of interest develop in the form of a struggle between autonomous organisations formed to represent opposed social interests, the more the particularism of the different sectors and levels of the hierarchy becomes the typical field for the deployment of specific interests (naturally, of those groups which are located 'within' the hierarchy) . If it is not continually checked, this particularism threatens to disintegrate the entire power system . Hence a second function for the organisations with the form of social movements . Such organisations are the defence mechanism of the institutional structure of the soviet type : they prevent the polarisation of social interests and the formation of autonomous organisations capable of representing particular aspirations, opposed to the functional requirements of the overall hierarchy . The chief function of the party is to restrict particularist tendencies inside the power hierarchy . Conflicting interests, defined by the social division of labour, tend also to be divided between different sectors and levels of functional management . The latter is thus particularly susceptible to the formation of particularistic aspirations . On the other hand, the political hierarchy, that of the party, is nothing other than hierarchy, in other words it is a technical intermediary between the centre and the operating organs . Although it follows the structure of functional management, the party does not itself embody the principle of the social division of labour . The functional hierarchy directs complex sets of specialised activities, while the party directs the whole hierarchy itself, and throughout carries out the same task, of exercising political control and repressing centrifugal tendencies . But the party is not only a pure hierarchy . It is an administrative hierarchy . It controls all the functionaries throughout the hierarchy in two ways : as subjects of particular institutional rol's via the system of dependence between party and functional management, and as party members - regardless of their official duties and interests - via its own organisation . This double mechanism provides a guarantee that no section of the hierarchy can become the direct instrument of special interests . This function of integrating the hierarchy explains the relations within the forms of social movement of the party, their relations with other sectors of the management system, and the selective advantages that are conferred together with party membership . The party needs a false consciousness to be able to function in accordance with its own interests . Although it is a hopeless task to maintain a proportional representation of workers in its membership, the party, as guarantorof united rule, has to avoid at all costs itself becoming the incarnation of a split between the institutional system and the direct producers . It is only too obvious that repressive organisations play a fundamental role in maintaining the cohesion of soviet societies . But the sporadic character of open class struggle cannot be explained simply by the direct, permanent use of

92

violence . The party cannot on its own accomplish the task of canalising the interests of groups situated 'below' the power hierarchy . It is primarily the unions which serve to canalise the interests of the majority . It is true that in the capitalist countries the union bureaucracy also seeks to transform conflicts between wage labour and capital into routinised negotiations at the highest levels of the power structure, and also seeks to check the spontaneous activism of the workers . But under capitalism the union bureaucracy is an independent partner, not a formally subordinated component part of economic and political power . Its interests force it to seek a compromise at the highest levels . It therefore has to be able to exercise pressure on its partners, which presupposes that it has at its disposal base organisations which are controlled, it is true, but which are nonetheless combative . The functional logic of the soviet-type union is quite different : it is a soburdinate parrot the power hierarchy . It is true that it is no more directly tied to economic management . But it is tied through the party, whose supremacy is formally acknowledged in the union statutes . And it is the same general interest of the power system which the party represents towards the union, namely that no sector of the overall hierarchy can become a focus for particular interests opposed to the unity of the institutional structure . The union cannot therefore represent interests of workers opposed to those of economic management: However, it would be a serious mistake to think that the soviet-type union does nothing of benefit to its members . If it did not, it would not be able to discharge its basic task of channelling the aspirations of the producers . But the limits on this are very clear . It would nonetheless be premature to conclude that in this situation workers are forced to choose between two mutually exclusive positions : to submit unconditionally to the demands of the power system, or to demonstrate their frustration in gestures of insubordination . There is also some possibility for collective actions which are rationally linked to some external goal . The power hierarchy is always fighting to break down the solidarity of groups of workers, but it often comes up against insurmountable obstacles, at least for a while, such as those thrown up by the technical requirements of production . The more the technology of labour has a cooperative character, the greater the room for manoeuvre enjoyed by the collectivity of workers . Such collectivities frequently apply a coordinated and stubborn tactic to defend their interest, such as the go-slow . But to be represented effectively, workers' interests for the most part need a higher level coordination . And at such a level, all the mechanisms tit coordination are monopolised by the combined management-party-union . It is true that this expropriation of organisational tools does not exclude the possibility of fierce strikes . But it is enough to make it impossible to consolidate organisationally the results of direct action, and to accumulate both the actual gains and the political experiences . Those who are situated 'within' the power hierarchy are able to realise their aspirations indirectly by monopolising functional decisions . But those who are 'below' the hierarchy are bereft of all instruments of institutional pressure . This brings us back to our original question : is it true that the absence of formally autonomous organisations is

93

positively related to the achievement of the 'social optirnoor,? as it r .r . that the marginalisation of the market reduces the chances of the domination of the reified interests of particular groups over the general interest of society? It is not hard to see that the attraction exercised by this argument is the result of its imprecision . Society as such has no interests . In a soviet society, the social interest is that which is seen to be the goalof the power hierarchy . It is true that this does not lead to any direct conclusion as regards the market, but it does at least mean that we cannot reject in advance the view that the disintegration of the market mechanism, far from curing the ills of the commodity economy, actually worsens them . All we shall try to show here is that the reification characteristic of the commodity economy is only made worse by the dislocation of the horizontal mechanisms of the market . However economic priorities are chosen, the central authorities are never able to determine in advance, in accordance with those priorities, all the details of enterprise activity ; the indicators set by the centre can only determine some of the characteristic variables, for example minimum gross annual output, labour productivity, etc . ; the other dimensions remain subject to the free decision of the enterprise . Every system of indicators has its particular onesidedness, according to the sort of indices and the form in which they are given . If the gross output is given as a weight, then the enterprise management chooses the process which produces the necessary weight at minimum cost, without regard for the usefulness of the resultant output . From this point of view, there is no qualitative difference between the profit of the entrepreneur and the success indicator assigned by the central authorities in a soviet-type economy . The capitalist enterprise works within a self-regulating mechanism which adjusts, snore or less continuously, the rate of profit to at least a part of the technical possibilities and social needs . True, there are important factors to which the rate of profit does not respond ; in other cases, far from reducing distortions, it actually increases them . But it is certain that the soviet-type solution, the disintegration of the market mechanism, is not a possible solution to this problem . The marginalisationof the market does not remove distortions from the success indicators ; what it actually removes are those automatic feedback mechanisms which keep the distortions within limits . To summarise the argument : the soviet type of modern development is distinguished by a lack of formally autonomous organisations . Functional and social organisations are all subordinated to the same global management and power system . In this system the working of the economy is not controlled by self-regulating market mechnisms . In the same way, the exercise of power is not controlled by democratic mechanisms involving the confrontation of opposed social interests . The possible decentralisation of the system cannot change this situation . However, it does not follow that the decentralising tendencies are deprived of any meaning . The expansion of the sphere of operation of the commodity at the expense of that of directives, restrictions on the direct intervention of the party in the affairs of functional management, the extension of the integrative role of organisations with the form of social movements at the expense of the role of

94

organisations of direct repression : all these changes are vitally important . It is only that they cannot be extended from vertical bargaining to the horizontal market . from the liberalisation of the unions to union freedoms . The institutional structure of soviet societies sets an absolute limit to the decentralisation of the system . III Assessing our analysis against immediate social experience, against the facts of every-day life, it would be easy to conclude that we are fetishising the role of formal organisations . The different institutional structure of soviet societies as compared with that of capitalism in no way alters the convergence between the two in the immediate factsof life . In this argument, theonly logical consequence to be drawn from the difference at the level of formal organisations would he that the latter do not play a decisive role in the formation of real social processes . We cannot ignore, for example, the growing tendency over the last ten years for the mass consumption structure of soviet societies to approach that of modern capitalism . People seek to satisfy needs in individual or familial consumption which could be met at a much lower social and economic cost through collective consumption . The nature of private consumption is increasingly determined by secondary commodity characteristics, symbolising for example the social status of the consumer . lust the same is found in the mature' forms of irrationality of consumer society characteristic of the neo-capitalist system . Facts like this seem to prove irrefutably that since the mid-fifties soviet societies have developed in the direction of capitalism . However, we have only to recall what everyone knows about the organisation of soviet-type economies to see that the factors by which Marxists explain the phenomena of mass consumption in the developed capitalist countries can play no such role in soviet societies . The growth in individual consumption at the expense of collective consumption is imposed through pressure not from economic organisations . but from the consumers themselves . In circumstances of general poverty, in which neither individual consumption goods nor collective services are guaranteed, workers prefer individual solutions because they have more chance of controlling their own participation in private consumption than they have in collective consumption . We are led to false conclusions it we simply assess such everyday observations by immediate reference to philosophical values which define the ideal opposition between socialism and capitalism . It is true that since the mid-fifties gradual changes have been under way whose cumulative effect has been a basic transformation of all the soviet societies . But we cannot understand the direction and content of these changes unless we take account of the fact that the economic and social forces behind them are refracted in their effect on society through the prism of a particular institutional structure . Because of the underdevelopment of the Marxist theory of soviet societies, this study must be limited to examining only the most obvious and important changes . But another consequence of this theoretical backwardness is the lack of any set of concepts appropriate for describing such changes . Without any agreed theoretical terms, we can only designate the two broad periods considered in

95

personified terms. The first is the Stalinist stage of ueve op : .?e a of soviet societies, and the second is the present, post-Stalinist stage . The usual Marxist interpretation, almost without exception, is that the particularities of the Stalinist period can be explained by the requirements of 'primitive accumulation' . The only difference between the apologetics elaborated by the official Marxism of the communist parties and most of the critical attempts of independent Marxism is in the position of the dividing line between the 'inevitable consequences' and the 'abuses' or 'deformations' . It is true that a considerable number of Marxists reject the very notion of the primacy of accumulation, in the name of the primacy of politics . But it is not hard to see that the only resultant change in the traditional theory is that the signs are reversed : its basic propositions are retained . The take-off conditions for an underdeveloped economy towards the level of self-sustained development confront the management of the economy with a number of undoubtedly very harsh necessities . An exceptionally large share of G .N .P . has to be reinvested in the priority sector over a rather long period . The earlier ratio between consumption and accumulation has to be dramatically altered . Further, the capital sums invested must be of a suitable form and technical level . There must be a technical and economic management capable of meeting these requirements . The reallocation of capital must be followed by appropriate shifts in the labour force, and somehow a solution has to be found to the problems caused by the fact that the new working class does not yet possess the skills required for industrial work . It is trivial to point out that the first of these requirements can only be satisfied if the state takes charge of controlling the changes in the ratio of consumption to investment . But it does not follow at all that all economic units must be submitted to direct management by the state administration . The difficulties of installing new technologies, the lack of competent management cadres, the lack of work discipline : these problems do not imply that each organisation has to be subordinated to a unified hierarchy encompassing all economic activities . This is also true of the reallocation of the labour force ; it is not true that the only means of achieving this are massive violence and the complete suppression of the individual and collective rights of wage-labourers . However, such discussions of 'necessary conditions' always underline the specificity of the case of the U .S.S .R ., and this would seem to invalidate the objections advanced above . Perhaps there are in principle various possible,even actual, modes of industrialisation for underdeveloped countries : it could still be argued that the Stalinist pattern was the only possibility for the U .S .S .R. But this then requires proof that Soviet economic development was really a remarkable exception, and that the Stalinist pattern of accumulation succeeded in achieving something that no other strategy could have achieved . If the growth of G .N .P . is accepted as the sole indicator of economic development, then Soviet development in the Stalinist period certainly looks like an almost unparalleled success . But one cannot measure the true development of economic potential by the growth rate of G .N .P. alone . It is true that an enumeration of other criteria does not in itself give rise to a synthetic and comparative measure : 96

in fact, not one economist has been able to carry out the very difficult task of constructing such a measure . In its absence, there is no way of refuting conclusively the view that Soviet economic development was exceptional . But the thesis that the Soviet institutional system was a necessary condition for carrying out primitive accumulation' can likewise be neither proved nor disproved . There are nonetheless historical facts which make the traditional view highly improbable : in particular, the establishmentof the institutional system of soviet society preceded the unfolding of the industrialisation programme . Far from being the result of the economic necessities of accumulation, it was rather the system itself which endowed that accumulation with its structural form and specific direction . An examination of these historical relationships could probably explain a whole series of phenomena which the traditional approach has to classify as abuses' and 'deformations' . The total suppression of the autonomy of economic organisations, and the absence of any horizontal self-regulation, were undoubtedly decisive in causing the sectoral disproportions, which necessarily accompanied a sharp acceleration in growth, to become catastrophically large. The soviet economy naturally had its own solution to such problems. Although it paralysed the equilibrating forces built into the normal functioning of the economic organisations, the suppression of the autonomy of all formal organisations created particularly favourable conditions for overcoming difficulties by exceptional measures : huge mobilisations of workers to carry out occasional taks, an extraordinary intensification of effort in day-to-day work, different forms of irregular and unpaid surplus labour . This suggests another function, not mentioned in the previous section, for organisations with the form of a social movement such as the party or the union . And it is in this context that an explanation can be found for those phenomena usually designated by the term Sta linism' . In such an economy, workers have to be ready to carry out unconditionally any task, at any time . This requires control over the workers not merely as wage-labourers, but also as complete personalities. In this atmosphere of total mobilisation, it becomes impossible to distinguish personal responsibility from objective difficulty . A difficulty arising in the execution of a task is always evidence of a lack of zeal in carrying out orders, or something still worse . And the harder it is to establish any meaningful relation between 'crime' and 'punishment', i .e. the less the individual is able t o adapt rationally to a state of insecurity, the more effective are periodic purges in guaranteeing the subordination of all particular interests to one single interest, that of accumulation . But they are effective only up to a certain point . When the witch-hunt becomes so general, and the danger signals so vague, that no social group can feel safe, then it only needs a momentary weakness in the system for the fraction in power itself to put an end to the use of mass terror . The death of Stalin led precisely to this situation . Once under way, the ebbing of the terror had just the same cumulative dynamic as its growth . To secure its own safety, the fraction in power had to permit a certain decentralisation and demobilisation of the whole of society .

97



As a result, the spectacle of destalinisarion unfosi

ai c y c: vta . - political

struggles . But it involved social processes of much greater weight and more long lasting effects than the struggles in the corridors of power . Long before they became insupportable at the political level, the mechanisms of the Stalinist period had become insupportable at the economic and social level . The campaign method had become less and less able to ensure the continuous functioning of an economic system which had become very complex : its only effect was to intensify social discontent . The formation of a skilled working class and a new technical intelligentsia had led to a general improvement of the cultural level, and thereby a growing demand for the production and distribution of consumer goods . The growing economic and military importance of scientific and technical research increasingly conflicted with the pretensions of ideological mobilisation . With the maturing of a whole range of conditions such as these, the effects of the political crisis of the mid-fifties became irreversible . Once the steady elimination of disequilibria became the order of the day, it was necessary to allow economic units at lower levels greater scope to choose for themselves methods of cooperation with other units at the same level, and to trade more freely with higher-level units. Once the tangible results of this decentralising tendency began to be apparent, radical intervention by the central organis became an extremely risky affair . The system of directives was relaxed under the pressures for decentralisation : but it was only a question of making the ties of dependence more flexible, not of breaking them . Today this process has gone so far that the chances of a restoration of the old system are practically neblible . But however far it goes, this development never creates a solid enough basis to allow enterprise managements, and still less their workers, to launch a struggle against higher levels for the autonomy of economic organisations . The frequency of intervention has diminished, but the dependence remains : the changes allow the higher levels to concentrate their efforts of guaranteeing the necessary conditions for realsing the major priorities, and avoiding dangerous situations . For lower management, the relaxation of the system of directives allows them to bargain more freely and to search for compromises closer to their own particular interests . The aim of the whole process is to reach an optimal compromise between these two interests . The effect of this particular development is that the formal, institutionalised consolidation of the results achieved lags behind these same results . This lag, far from diminishing, remains or grows larger once the curtain is drawn on the great political struggles of the years of transition . The end of political struggle the regularisation of development characteristic of the post-Stalin period, implies in effect that the groups manoeuvring for better positions (e .g . middleand lower-level managers) no longer see the acceptance of practical results, without any formal guarantees, as a transitory compromise . Once the appreciate the stability of the most general formal elements of the system, they consciously adopt the tactic of renouncing any formal consolidation of the changes, and hence also any rights of resistance, in order instead to press for new practical concessions . It is this ambivalence which characterises the development of 98

economic institutions after Stalin . Developments in politics, culture and everyday life have inevitably been far more ambiguous! In a more balanced economy,campaignsorganised by party or trade union cadres become superfluous or even harmful . Hence, a gradual demobilisation of these organisations takes place . Nonetheless, the power hierarchy wishes to retain the forms which in the earlier period acted as a structure for mobilisation This arises partly out of sheer inertia, and partly out of the interests of the officials of the organisations concerned . But in addition it conceals the real mechanisms of such organisations, which as we have seen are extremely functional for the system as a whole . This leads to an ambiguous situation, in which people can and must pay for peace and quiet in their daily life by performing a certain minimum of ritual obeisance . This ambiguity reaches its apogee in the ideological sphere . Having abandoned the policy of subordinating all economic and social resources to a single goal, the system no longer requires an ideological legitimation which pretends to derive all tactical decisions from the eternal laws of the universe and final goals of communism . Furtheremore, the manoeuvres of groups and fractions within the hierarchy would be directly inhibited if very specific rationalisations were required . On the other hand, it is nonetheless impossible to renounce the hegemony of the official Marxist ideology that provides symbolic reinforcement to the basic continuity of the institutional structure . The countries of soviet type are gradually, if at different speeds, arriving at a situation in which the legality, practical possibility and public recongition of scientific and artistic work must meet only one precondition, namely lip-service .to the empty formulae of official ideology, or at least disavowal of any open criticism . But the systematic development of autonomous ideological positions, and especially the formation of schools or tendencies around such positions, is still inconceiveable on any legal basis. Adherence to these limits is ensured, as a last resort, by the substantively unchanged repressive potential inherent in the institutional structure of the system . But although this potential is realised from time to time in extreme measures which awaken memories of the Stalinist period, it does not as a rule operate directly, but rather via a spontaneously created consensus . The unequal progress of the soviet societies towards balanced development must not lead us to forget that throughout there is an everyday ideology in the process of formation . This ideology sees every attempt to disintegrate the power hierarchy, to create institutional bases of alternative power, as playing into the hands of conservative or even restorationist forces. Believing that any total, rationalised programme contains the danger of intolerance and terror, this ideology is perfectly ready to denounce radical tendencies, especially oppositionist Marxism, as neo-Stalinist and totalitarian . Any exploitation of the possibilities inherent in post Stalinist developments is simultaneouslyccharacterised as liberal reformism ; as if this development really provides the conditions for liberal reformism ; as if even the most meaningful 'liberalisation of the system opened the way to liberalism in the original sense of the word .

99

We have looked at the structure of formal organisations typical of soviet societies in order to see in what directions that structure channels the effects of dynamic elements in the system, especially economic growth . We have also noted in passing the accompanying ideological developments . But an important

step remains t o he taken : that of examining the class structure of soviet societies. For Marx, class is not only a general sociological concept applicable in the same way to all non-primitive societies, but also a historical category in the strict sense, coming to the fore with the development of capitalism . The distinction between the sociological and historical concepts of class arises from the capacity of classes in their historical meaning to become conscious of their socio-economic interests as class interests, and to represent them rationally by means of suitable organisations . Hence, one of the consequences of our analysis is that soviet societies do not contain classes in the historical sense of the term . This does not mean that conflicts of interest defining classes in the sociological sense do not exist in these societies any more . In soviet societies, as in all non-primitive societies, the population is divided into opposed social groups on the basis of interests determined by the organisation of socio-economic: life . This study proposes a dichotomous division which is applicable to all soviet societies, at the present level of generality of our discussion . The agricultural population is therefore set on one side, given that the social relations within agriculture cannot easily be generalised for all soviet societies . Our starting point is that in soviet societies, tendencies towards the formation of political and professional elites are not opposed by tendencies towards the formation of an elite of owners ; rights of disposition attached to positions occupied within the power hierarchy are not limited by rights attached to private property . The fundamental antagonisms are determined solely by the position of social groups vis-a-vis the power hierarchy : on the one hand, that part of the population which undertakes real activities, and on the other, that part which controls and directs . The former can be termed 'producing class', and the latter 'class in power' . Naturally there are some factors which complicate this simple dichotomy . Some groups 'outside' the hierarchy, defined by the functional division of labour and belonging largely to the intelligentsia, are placed higher in terms of other criteria such as income, skill, prestige, etc ., than others 'inside' the hierarchy . Thus distinctions between higher and lower levels of the hierarchy do not coincide exactly with those of social stratification . It is easy to see, however, that this does not negate the primacy of class differences . There is a limit to the amassing of spectacular gain, which cannot be breached except by crossing the essential dividing line between the two classes, or even rising to a higher level in the power hierarchy . The differences between class structure and social stratification are therefore relatively unimportant compared with the existence of a sizable group which occupies a clearly intermediate position in the class structure . This group consists especially of the managers of smaller production units, whose job is to

1 00

transmit higher decisions, and to take decisions on minor matters . The continued existence of this group serves to reduce frictions between the lower levels of the hierarchy and the producers . At the same time, the very existence of this group creates illusions among the workers about their chances of upward mobility . In soviet societies, the inheritance of privilegesdoes not play a serious part in the reproduction of the dominant class . But it does not follow that anyone can reach any level in the hierarchy . There are basically three channels for selecting members of the dominant class : the distribution of opportunities for higher education ; activity in the organisations with the form of social movements ; and the system of informal relations within the dominant class . In soviet societies, the chances of acquiring a higher qualification are determined (apart from the selection mechanisms familiar in the developed capitalist countries) by a more or less formalised system of privileges . In the Stalinist period, these privileges were extended to some layers of the working class . But with steadier industrial development the dominant class has become able to fill management positions by internal reproduction, and this has changed the relation between the three selection mechanisms . Whereas in the Stalinist period it was often sufficient to pass through one of the channels, in the post-Stalin period it is generally necessary to pass through all three at once . As a result, mobility between the two classes has been sharply reduced . Management of the economy and the society, including the disposition of surplus product, is thus in the hands of a self-reproducing group . In addition, the dominant class exploits its strategic positions to maintain its consumption level well above that of the dominated class, Surely, then, it is reasonable to interpret class relations in soviet societies as if they were based on the private ownership of the means of production, despite the explicit juridical forms? Our analysis of the institutional structure characteristic of soviet societies does not allow such a conclusion, whether private ownership is seen as individual or collective . Economic organisations are not subordinated to a particular institution, functionally equivalent to the capitalist owners, which specialises in the control of the rate of return on invested capital, and is independent of those public authorities charged with responsibility for the national economy . Ownership and non-ownership functions are not separated from each otherby institutional mechanisms . It is quite simply absurd to say that a specific individual or institution could emerge as owner of an economic organisation which is integrated into such a structure . The members of the dominant class do not achieve their aspirations through instruments specifically designed to serve their particular interests ; they do so through the workings of the entire management system . And the basic function of this system? In the Stalinist period, to suppress all particular interests opposed to that of accumulation ; in the post-Stalin period, to guarantee a compromise between various particular interests . The dominant class qua class is therefore extremely concerned that all social groups should remain unable to establish specific institutions to further their own specific interests . In this context, the basic characteristics of the dominant ideology after Stalin

101

become comprehensible . The ideology of Sta inism, wr ;,c:i L~stiiieu dire soviet form of accumulation by the Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, was gradually replaced by an ideology of the nation-state . The contineud growth of this new nation-statist ideology is not simply the result of the big-power policies of the U .S .S .R . and the conflicts of interest among the different soviet-type countries . It is also a consequence of the institutional structure of these societies itself . In the absence of any institutions structuring society according to basic conflicts of interest, all classes, including the dominant class, look to the 'Stare' for the satisfaction of their needs, particularly their consumer needs. In norma I circumstances,the dominated class also accepts the logic of the nation-statist ideology, under which the level of consumption depends entirely on 'objective' conditions, with the only factor determining the growth of resources being their 'rational',' scientific' utilisation . The producers too see the economy as a 'national', 'people's' economy . They are no more capable than the dominant class of interpreting the processes of accumulation and consumption in terms of conflicting class interests . The dominated class, like the dominant class, defines its interests in terms of the common language of the nation-statist ideology, and tries to further its interests through the operations of the power hierarchy . But the dominant class has in its hands all the ideological instruments for the articulation of social interests . Hence in order for the management hierarchy to work, there has to be continuous communication among the different groups of the dominant class . This communication forms the major activity of the organisations which are supposedly based on representation and the majority principle, such as the party and the unions, and also provides the channels for the bargaining process which we have mentioned earlier . On the other hand, the dominated class can only exert a diffuse pressure . Every structured, public formulation of the producers' interests has to be carried out through channels directly controlled by the dominant class . This allows the latter to transform spontaneous demands into simple desires whose satisfaction depends on the benevolence of the' State', and above all, on 'objective' possibilities . Naturally this is not to deny that there are extreme situations where polarised conflict becomes inevitable . But direct action by the producers never acquires a cumulative dynamic . If the management-party-union structure cannot contain the tensions, and a group of workers embarks on direct action, such action generally does not spread beyond the factory gates . Exceptionally, an especially brutal provocation by the authorities may lead to an elemental explosion which can stimulate an entire region into action, even without any channels of communication other than through the interactions of day-to-day life . But these regional upheavals never consolidate into an articulated movement at the national level . Once the uprising is crushed, the authorities apply a dual policy of massive repression and material concessions . It was only during the years of transition between Stalinism and post Stalinism, and then only in some countries, that broader movements succeeded in forming and developing . The specific dynamism of those movements arose because in this transitional period the dominant classes in those countries still included sizable groups of old

1 02

militants of the international workers' movement and the indigenous resistance movements . These groups lacked any coherent programme, but nevertheless tended to utilise and stimulate mass action, even if it endangered the unity of the power hierarchy, in order to carry though a 'humanisation' of the regime . But the conditions for cush a division within the dominant class no longer existed in the U .S .S .R . Still more important, the specific economic and social problems of the U .S .S .R . made its post-Stalinist development highly complicated and retarded . This unequal development among the soviet-type countries led directly to the defeat of the radical reform movements of Eastern Europe and therefore to the consolidation of the unity of the dominant class . This unity seems to be no longer threatened by internal struggles between different fractions manoeuvring for the highest positions, nor by conflicts between the East European countries and the U .S .S .R . That brief period of relatively free development of mass movements was enough to teach the dominant class once and for all that the only guarantee of its survival as a class is the preservation of the unity of the power hierarchy . The interests of the dominant class required the suppression of self-regulating mechanisms for reaching economic equilibrium, and likewise of democratic mechanisms for reaching political equilibrium . The dominant class therefore recognises its own interests . But this clearly does not mean that it has become conscious of the objective relations themselves . The new ideology of the dominant class is merely an eclectic mish-mash of the old official Marxism, a paternalistic workerism, and fragments of a technology ideology . As a result of the consolidation of the political and ideological unity of the dominant class, the situation of unofficial Marxism, formed in the sixties, has become highly problematical . The relatively free and public development of unofficial Marxism, the foundations laid for autnonomous tendencies and schools, were nothing more than a transitory phenomenon, possible because the reformist element of the dominant class found its ideology in a rebirth of Marxism' . This element attacked Stalinist conservatism in the name of 'authentic Marxism' and 'social humanism' . Its political defeat put an end to the legality of unofficial Marxism, while the normalisation of post-Stalinist development, with the emergence of an ideological consensus particularly unfavourable to the radicalism of Marxism, forced it underground . But what made the situation of unofficial Marxism so serious was not its defeat, but the fact that it seemed to have lost all theoretical significance for soviet societies . In fact it is symptomatic that in their rearguard actions the unofficial Marxist tendencies of the sixties all retreated into research on the ontological foundations of human freedom . As a result of this transitory rebirth of Marxism, there was one thing which was salvaged from the detritus of official Marxism, namely the values of a Marxist philosophy of history . This could facilitate value judgements about soviet societies, although not their scientific analysis . In the pathetic moralising of the period of struggle against Stalinism, unofficial Marxists shrank from applying the traditional categories of historical materialism . But once they return to scientific research, they have to recognise that in their present form

1 03

these categories are not applicable to soviet societies . Furthermore, au, examination of the development of soviet societies after Stalin suggests that the changes resulting from their normalisation involve only an involution of the system : its internal development has not created the preconditions fur the formation of classes in the historical sense of the word, nor any radical alteration of the institutional structure of society . The possibility of revolutionary change appears to depend on factors which are determined by the normal working of the system, and thus subject to control through rational action by those within the system . Has Marxism any chance of becoming socially meaningful again? Current experience certainly suggests that it would be illusory to expect a considerable section of the dominated class to take on the role of social subject presupposed by Marxist theory . But it also suggests that it is not illusory to expect the continuity of oppositional Marxism to be maintained . Even if the system has succeeded in creating mechanisms which can canalise, or at least localise, social tensions, there are always marginal groups which are not integrated into the normal functioning of society and which are continually reproduced . For such groups, non-Marxist ideology offers only two options : that of consciously accepting conservative or even reactionary ideologies, or that of retracing one's steps back towards some position which the system can offer, following the direction of that specifically East European sort of liberalism . Among the fully-formed ideologies, only Marxism inherently involves an orientation in which radical opposition implies neither abandoning any active participation in social change, nor accepting the limits of the bargaining games allowed in the post-Stalin period . Obviously, the activities of such marginal groups are no substitute for the revolutionary workers' movement. But the continuity of Marxist thought itself implies the possibility of a more realistic Marxist reinterpretation of soviet societies, one less illusory than the theory of transitional society, but perhaps less hopeless than that presented here .

FOOTNOTES 1 . The terms 'soviet societies', 'societies of soviet type', etc ., should be taken to mean the U .S.S .R. and its Eastern European allies in the CMEA and Warsaw Pact, i .e . the DDR, Poland, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria . The paper does not explicitly refer to Yugoslavia or to non-European allies . When the context refers explicitly to the U .S.S .R ., I have used the capital 'S', i .e. 'Soviet' . 2 . The expressions 'forms of social movements', 'organisations with the form of social movements', etc ., as used hereafter, refer to the unions, party, etc ., as analysed in the preceding paragraph . REFERENCES BETTELHEIM C 1976 : The Transition to Socialist Economy, Harvester Press . BETTELHEIM C 1976 : Economic Calculus and Forms of Ownership, Routledge & Kegan Paul . 1 04

BRUS W 1975 : Socialist Ownership and Political Systemr, Routledge & Kegan Paul . MANDEL E 1974 : 'Ten Theses on the Social and Economic Laws Governing the Society Transitional Between Capitalism and Socialism', Critique no. 3 . TICKTIN T H 1976 : 'The Contradictions of Soviet Society and Professor Bettelheim', Critique no. 6 .

105

DEBATE

R . Tortajada

A NOTE ON THE REDUCTION OF COMPLEX LABOUR TO SIMPLE LABOUR INTRODUCTION Critical analysis which aims to dispense with the Marxist theory of value and to deny the existence of exploitation generally concentrates on two points : the transformation of values into prices, and the reduction of complex to simple labour .' On the first point, critics argue that the quantity of labour embodied in commodities during production cannot account for the rate at which they exchange . From this they conclude that the Marxist theory of value is useless a theory of prices of production is sufficient . On this basis, as Samuelson says, Marx is merely a "minor post- Ricardian" who has left unsolved the problem which Ricardo raised but did not resolve . (Samuelson, 1957, p . 95) . On the second point, critics argue that it is not possible to construct an independent standard out of the various concrete labours with which to measure, in homogenous terms, the amount of labour embodied in commodities in the course of production . These critiques have a different standing in the literature . While debate on the reduction problem appears to be a pre-condition for discussion of the transformation problem, in fact, most of the debate has been about the latter . (These debates are reviewed in Benetti, Berthomieu, and Cartelier, 1975, p . 71-136) . Roncaglia, along with others, has recently reopened discussion on the reduction problem . However, Roncaglia's procedure for reduction, like all procedures of this type, involves certain difficulties which seem to me to make it unacceptable . If my criticisms of him are correct, we shall be lead to a reformulation of the terms in which the reduction debate has been hitherto conducted, and in particular to question the status of that peculiar commodity, labour power. 1 . THE GENERAL PROBLEM OF THE REDUCTION OF COMPLEX TO SIMPLE LABOUR The most important criticism of Marx on this point, put forward by Bohm-Bawerk and Schumpeter, is that the reduction procedure Marx suggested 1 06



involves circularity . According to these writers, Marx sought to explain the rate of exchange between commodities by the quantity of labour embodied in them during production ; however in order to construct a common measure of labour quantities, Marx employed these very exchange ratios . The real subject of inquiry is the exchange relations of commodities : why, for instance, a statuette which has cost a sculptor oneday's labour should exchange for a cart of stones which has cost a stone-breaker five days labour, and not for a larger or smaller quantity of stones, in the breaking of which ten or three days labour have been expended . How does Marx explain this? He says the exchange relation is this, and no other - because one day of sculptor's work is reducible to exactly five days of unskilled work . And why is it reducible to exactly five days? Because experience shows that it is so reduced by a social process . And what is this social process? The same process that has to be explained, that very process by means of which the product of one day of sculptor's labour has been made equal to the value of the product of five days of common labor" . (&hhrn-Bawerk . 1966, pp . 8i-H4) . Roncaglia, following Hillerding, states that a Marxist reduction is possible, on the grounds that the determination of values and reduction coefficients takes place solely within the sphere of production, without reference to the sphere of exchange . Such a process of determination escapes the charge of circularity . Furthermore, the common hypothesis of homogenous labour becomes an acceptable simplification, and not merely a way of evading an important difficulty . (See Hilferding, 1966 ; Okishio, 1963 ; and Brody, 1970)'. The proposed procedure consists in determining the coefficients required to reduce different kinds of labour to a single kind of labour (in this case simple labour) on the basis of differences in the training costs of different kinds of worker. For this Roncaglia uses a Sraffa-type model, and includes in it the process of training, one might say, the process of production, of the various kinds of complex labour. The model is as follows :

Aa + . . . + K a aL + . . . X L a 6La

---*A

I

+ . . .+L+L--*K A + . . .+K K+L a K K Xy6 d

A+ .

11

A

A+ . . .

x

+K+L+ . . . +L+L -+L u( a o,

7r K 6- °

+K+L+ . . .+L+L xaz XX6x

L ,r

where Ij is the quantity of good i required for the production of quantity J of good I

107



required for the production of

ELF is the quantity of complex labour type quantity) of good j .

System I shows the production of commodities and System II shows the various training processes for various types of labour power, where each process corresponds to a particular type of "skill' . L of I£ is the quantity of good i required for the production of quantity r complex labour type E t Lf is the quantity of complex labour of type j' quantity F- L of complex labour type

required for the production of

where i, j=a . . .k

C;L is simple labour .

and

I f we assume, with Roncaglia, that the system is in a self replacing state, and if we derive the values of the commodities and the reduction coefficients, systems 1 and Il can be written thus :

-Xa A,,+ . . . +AK

a+~c•

~La+ . . : + rX x

+e =~A

"U - ~,jAK+ . . . + XkKr+ NotKLk+ . . . pr zLK ® ~ + kK

_X A+ . . .

I

a

s

+,\ K+ K .C

L+ . N~ecot

{u / X

L rL=u L -( 6

K

OLK

IVL AdA+ . . . +.\,' KI

where Ai

+P,, Lt

. . . +/4X IL ,~, L, Nx L

is the quantity of simple labour directly and indirectly

1 08

embodied in one unit of good i p, is the coefficient of reduction of complex labour types` to simple labour . There are then k +(equations to determine k+*unknowns, the k quantities of labour (the measures of value) and the ;K reduction coefficients ; systems III and IV can be solved, and values and reduction coefficients are therefore determinate . Roncaglia emphasises that this simultaneous determination of both values and reduction coefficients depends only upon the technical coefficients production of goods and skilled labour power . Thus, for such a reduction process, "prices, rates of wages and profits are not needed in any way", and thus the determination of the quantity of labour embodied in commodities does not imply any form of circularity . (Roncaglia, 1974, p . 7) .

II . THE LIMITS OF THIS "REDUCTION" : THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF USING DIFFERENCES IN INDIVIDUAL TRAINING COSTS AS A BASIS I would make two comments on this . Firstly, this approach only works if one assumes conditions which empty it of relevance . Secondly, it seems to me that this procedure is incompatible with the Marxist theory of value .

L Some difficulties arising from Roncagalia's reduction procedure. Roncaglia's method rests on a comparison of the training costs of different kinds of workers . This method correctly assumes the existence of labour power and therefore, necessarily, of surplus value . However, 1 would assert that Roncaglia's model cannot incorporate this surplus value in a valid way . (a) This procedure leads to a distinction between two kinds of labour within the total labour done by a skilled worker (Rowthorn, 1974, p . 27-28) . On the one hand, there is the unskilled labour which any worker, whatever his level of skill, is able to provide . On the other hand, there is the quantity of direct and indirect labour required for the production of a 'skill' . In other words, there is, on the one hand, the labour that creates value and surplus value, which is the unskilled labour (performed by an unskilled worker, or contained in the work done by a skilled worker) ; and on the other hand, there is labour embodied in the 'skill', which is simply transferred to commodities without the creation of any additional value. One consequence of this approach is that 'skills' appear to be like any other commodity, for instance like a machine ; in which case do not skills become in fact a form of constant capital? Indeed this was explicitly the approach of the nineteenth century follower of Adam Smith, John McCulloch . He argued : "Man is as much the produce of labour as any of the machines constructed by his agancy . . . If he spends an additional sum on his education or in order to acquire

professional qualifications . etc. his value increases in proportion . just as a machine becomes more valuable if additional capital is spent on it or work is done toendow it

1 09

with new capabilities" . (McCulloch, 1825 ; reprinted in Marx, Fondements de la critique de l'economie politique, 11, p . 119) . 2

We are therefore back with a 'human capital' problematic ; with a type of theory which, ironically, was explicitly developed to undermine Marxist theory by denying the existence of antagonistic social classes (Schultz, 1961) . In effect, because workers are the owners of 'skills' which are commodities other than their labour power, "invisible machines" (Hodges, 1961), the question of the social relation between capital and labour tends to be replaced by a comparison of the degree of wealth of different owners of means of production, both machines and 'skills' . i (b) In Roncaglia's model the reduction to simple labour is not a precondition for the construction of an homogenous measure of the value of commodities . The reduction is done in terms of simple labour merely because in the proposed model this labour has been chosen a priori as a numeraire, or unit of account, in the writing of systems I and 11 . One equation is omitted, that of the cost of training unskilled labour and thus simple labour becomes a unit of account . The results is, as we have just seen, that simple labour appears as the sole creator of new value . Thus, only simple labour is exploited, is the creator of surplus value . But this characteristic is not, as one might suppose, specific to this particular kind of labour . It is true of any labour (skilled or not),oreyen any good, which is chosen as the unit of measurement of the coefficients . It is in fact an attribute of the unit of measurement . As a result, skilled labour,or any good, such as land,or minerals, or energy could be the sole creator of the surplus appropriated by capital . The origin of the surplus is indeterminate. It is nothing but the result of the choice of numeraire . This model is incapable of giving an adequate analysis of the surplus value extracted from the worker . (c) In order to avoid this difficulty one might attempt to retain in the model the equation for the production of unskilled labour power, which requires that the rate of exploitation appear explicitly. However in this case new problems arise. On the one hand, only the assumption of a single rate of exploitation can be written into the model . If there is more than one rate of exploitation, the number of unknowns will be greater than the number of equations, and the system will become indeterminate .' However we have no reason to suppose that just because workers are exploited in the same way, they are exploited at the same rate. Since the rate of exploitation results both from the balance of class power between workers and capitalists as a whole, and from the balance of class power in particular cases, then, if one considers, as we do in this model, different categories of workers, the hypothesis of several rates of exploitation seems the most plausible . On the other hand, even if we assume equal rates of exploitation for all types of worker, other difficulties emerge . Each modification of the balance of class forces brings a modification of the rate of exploitation, and thus a new set of reduction coefficients, and values, without anything having changed except the distribution of the net product . Value, here, does not carry the meaning which it 1 10

has in Marxist theory . It is only an instrumental variable for the division of surplus value . The problem is no longer to understand the process of exploitation, but to distribute a surplus value, the eize of which is predetermined . From the problematic of Marx we are lead back to that of Ricardo . (d) Finally, we should note that, since they remain solely at the level of production, all procedures of this type are unable to encompass the total social conflict between capital and labour . In Roncaglia's model, the surplus appropriated by capital is given in physical terms by the assumptions of the model (the equations of systems I and II) . It is The difference between quantities of goods produced, and quantity of goods technically necessary for the reproduction of the systems (coefficient I j and It L 5 The problem is therefore to express this surplus in terms of homogenous labour, and this is the purpose of equations in systems III and IV It should be noted that this surplus is technically determined : It results solely from the techniques of production, techniques which are themselves given . As a result all social phenomena are eliminated from the model, by assumption, or more exactly, by the relationships built into the model ; and at the same time the idea of social conflict is eliminated . The model is incapable of taking into account in a relevant way this type of struggle . Let us try to demonstrate this . The conflict between workers and capitalists is expressed as a shortening (or lengthening) of the working day ; or as an increase (or decrease) in the value of labour power . Let us consider two cases . A shortening (or lenghhening) of the working day implies a change in the coefficient E LF, A L E and -L such that to each level of the class struggle there corresponds a specific bundle of techniques' of production, and thus of values( ; and reduction coefficients o f . And no comparison is possible between the different sets of values . An increase in the value of labour power, while leaving unchanged the coefficients f LJ will alter, instead, the coefficients 6 L E , 6'I., and l E , such that one obtains new reduction coefficients and also new sets of values . That is to say, each modification in the conditions in which workers are exploited shows up in the model as a change in the "techniques of production" and thus in the basis for valuing the surplus. Thus again we have moved from the Marxist problematic where the value of a commodity is independent of the form taken by the distribution of income, back to a Ricardian problematic where the price of commodities is the expression of this distribution . Furthermore, we are now able to emphasise the ambiguity of the concept of the "technical coefficient" . The coefficient Lj, a.l .f and i f are not straightforward expressions of a production technique given by the engineer ; they also express the fact that these 'techniques' are set in determinate social relations, the social relations of capitalism . As we have just seen, it is only if this social dimension is denied that the determination of values and reduction coefficients depends solely on "technical coefficients" . But then the object of Marxist theory, the capitalist mode of production, is eliminated at the same time . Ill

The conditions necessary for Roncaglia's method of reduction to be operational are thus in contradiction with his purpose, which is to show that there exists an acceptable way of aggregating the different kinds of labour, in conformity with the Marxist theory of value .

2 . The reduction to simple labour and the reduction to abstract labour These difficulties seem to originate in the very way in which the problem of reduction has been posed, as much by the critics of Marxist theory as by those who tried to reply ; a way which appears to me to be incompatible with Marxist theory . For Roncaglia, just as for his predecessors, the reduction problem can be reduced to a simple problem of aggregating different types of labour in use to obtain a common measure, in terms of labour, of the exchange value of commodities. This procedure rests, we may recall, on the possibility of establishing coefficients relating the different types of labours used in production to the costs of training different workers and the various quantities of labour embodied in commodities . This problematic calls for at least two comments . (a) This method of aggregating different types of labour is acceptable if, and only if, the labours which are utilised in the various processes are immediately comparable . But in fact this is not so. The types of labour which appear in the different equations of production or training, the quantities Lt and .L,, are specified both concretely and also in terms of the level of technique . The work of a cleaner in a university cannot be directly compared to that of a worker on a car assembly line, (although they are both considered as unskilled work), nor to the work of a laboratory technician . These different forms of labour appear as what in fact they are : distinct use values, concrete labours . They cannot be directly compared to each other ; they cannot therefore be aggregated . Aggregation can only be done after reduction has taken place . But this reduction is not reduction to labour of a given quality, such as simple labour for example, but reduction to a labour without qualities, to a labour from which we have abstracted all qualties, to abstract labour. (We shall return below to the method of abstraction) . Indeed, as Marx emphasises, "When the difference between various kinds of labour is treated as purely quantitative, their qualitative unity or equality, and therefore their reduction to abstract human labour, is implied" . (Marx, Capital, I p . 84) . And this reduction, this transformation can in no way be performed by a coefficient which is applied to a given quantity of labour specified in terms of the level of technique in order to transform it into abstract labour . These reduction coefficients, which as Roncaglia insists, are determined only at the level of production, can do no more than change the size of the various labour quantities ( gL r, and ~ 1. ~ ) without changing their character. This labour remains in the form of use-values, which cannot be directly compared and aggregated .

1 12

All reduction procedures which do not recognise in their problematic the two-fold nature of labour in commodity societies, concrete labour and abstract labour, creator of use values and creator of value, can only lead to conclusions in contradiction with the Marxist theory of value .' The category abstract labour cannot be incorporated in our theory if we remain solely at the level of production, like Roncaglia and his predecessors . We must, on the contrary, take into account the unity of the process of production and the process of exchange . In the capitalist mode of production, the various concrete labours are undertaken within private, atomised production processes, and are carried out independently of one another . These concrete labours are never directly compared in the course of production (which thus invalidates any direct calculations in embodied labour time) . They enter into relations with each other only via the exchange of the products they have made . It is through the exchange of products, and only to the extent that the products are exchanged, that the different private, concrete labours are recognised as part of social abstract labour. In a society where exchange is generalised, the relationships between men, "appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relations between things (Marx Capital, 1, p . 78) . The process of exchange of these 'things', as exchange values, abstracts from their use values, from all their specific qualities, and thus from all the characteristics of the concrete labour which has produced them . These commodities have now a single quality, that of being the products of human labour, of labour in general, abstract labour . As Marx-re-affirms throughout his work, "It is only by being exchanged that the products of labour acquire, as values, one uniform social status . . . The equalicationof the most different kinds of labourcan be the result only of an abstraction from their inequalities, or of reducing them to a common denominator" (Marx, Capital, 1, p. 78) It is on the market, by and through a "perilous leap" which the product achieves when it becomes a commodity that the character of labour is transformed from the particular and concrete to the general and abstract . Very often in debates which are not directly concerned with the problems of accumulation, it is assumed that there is a total matching of production and social needs . This assumption merely specifies the conditions in which the "perilous leap" is accomplished without addressing either its necessity or the results which follow from it . All that is assumed is that each product is transformed into a commodity and each particular labour into a fraction of the social abstract labour . This abstract labour is therefore not something imaginary, which exists only in the brain of the theoretician as a simplifying assumption, but is something real : it is the form of socialising of the different concrete labours in a commodity economy . In other words, the process of abstraction is not merely a theoretical means of investigation on the same level as a chemical experiment, but also the 1 13

expression of a real process whose movement thought must reproduce .' I would argue that the omission of the two-fold character of labour in the capitalist mode of production is,in the last analysis, at the root of the failure of the various attempts to base the reduction of complex to simple labour on reduction coefficients determined solely at the level of production . This 'oversight' itself is one of the consequences of the approach adopted to the reduction problem, as much by the criticis of Marxist theory as by those who have replied . (b) The critiques of the reduction process consist in showing the impossibility of establishing a common measure in terms of labour without bringing in the sphere of exchange . In this case, the labour theory of value, which according to these authors - principally Bohm-Bawerk - must be defined solely in the sphere of production, involves circular reasoning . It would thus be impossible to use labour as a unit of measurement of the exahange value of commodities . In accepting a debate on reduction on these terms, the replies to this critique have chosen the same ground . While the critique is made from the point of view of exchange, the replies are made from the point of view of production . For the latter, then, to the sphere of production belongs the category of value, and to the sphere of exchange the categories of prices and wages . In adopting the terms of debate proposed by Marxist's critics, Roncaglia is lead to neglect the necessary unity of production and circulation. 8 As a consequence, the category of abstract

labour (which Roncaglia, following Colletti, had previously emphasised) is absent from the proposed reduction procedure, and in this the latter remains outside the Marxist theory of value, despite claiming it as its own .

Ill FROM "INDIVIDUAL WORKER" TO "COLLECTIVE WORKER" If our argument is correct, this means that it is not possible to find a correct reduction procedure within the terms in which the debate has hitherto been posed . One of the possibilities that suggest themselves is to recast the terms of the debate itself . That is to say, to question the nature of the relations which may or may not exist between different labour powers, taken individually and labour as a standard of measure of value. The main purpose of this note was to examine Roncaglia's reduction method, so we can here only indicate a few possible lines of research . One possibility is to question the status of the peculiar commodity, labour power . This commodity seems to me peculiar on several counts . In the first place, because of its use as creatorof value ; then, because this commodity, whose existence is the characteristic feature of the capitalist mode of production, cannot be understood if we rest within the confines of the capitalist mode of production . It seems to me, that its production and reproduction, as a commodity which belongs to a free labourer, indeed a free individual, stands outside the capitalist mode of production . The analysis of the sense in which it is external to the capitalist mode of production leads us to reconsider the idea of an individual labour power, as well as the character of the exchange relations

1 14

between capitalist and worker . Another possibility is to see to what extent one must move away from the idea of an individual power, that is to say, of a labour power for which one can establish an individual cost of training and reproduction, and an individual contribution to production Ian idea which is the basis of both the criticism and the various procedures for calculating reduction coefficients) and must move towards the idea of the 'collective worker' . The concept of this 'worker' does not have, as one might suppose, the consequence of making different labours immediately comparable because the different processes of production remain private and separated from one another . But it does allow us, it seems to me, to emphasise the character of the relations which exist between labour power and capital . This 'collective worker', while it is a moment of capital is also its negation .

NOTES 1 . This was well understood and explained by the best known of the revisionists ; see Bernstein, 1974, p . 69-77 . For a critical analysis of this position, see Colletti, 1976, pp . 45-108. 2 . Translator's note : this quotation is translated from a French edition of the (irundrisse. It does not appear in full in Nicolaus' translation of the (irundrisse into English . 3 . For Hodges, qualifications are merely 'invisible machines', belonging to the worker in whom they are embodied . Equally we might note that the notion of human capital' is explicitly referred to by Brody, 1970, pp . 76-83 and pp. 150 .153 ; according to Roncaglia, this author gives a solution formally similar to his own . The kind of procedures proposed by Okishio, Row thorn and Roncaglia lead to a similar conclusion, although we must note that these authors do not actually draw that conclusion . 4 . We must emphasise that it is not possible to give, a priori, such a structure of rates of exploitation, because knowledge of different ratesof exploitation necessarily presupposes knowledge of values. 5 . Let us understand that the hypothesis of simple reproduction in the Marxist sense is not the same as a model without surplus of the type proposed by Sraffa or Brody, 1970, p . 85 . While for these latter the absense of a surplus implies that a surplus does not exist to be divided between the capitalists, for Marx simple reproduction assumes the existence of surplus value, and designates a particular way of utilising surplus value.

6 . According to Marx himself, the highlighting of the two-fold character of labour is the best thing in his work . c .f . Letter to Engels, 24 August 1867, Marx-Engels, Selected Correxpondence, Moscow 1953, p. 232 . 7 . For a start at analysing this idea, see Colletti, 1976 . 8 . This point, and some suggestions for an alternative approach to the reduction debate, are developed in an earlier work, R . Tortajada, 1974.

115

BIBLIOGRAPHY C BENETTI, C BERTHOMIEU, J CARTELIER 1975 : Economic Classique, Economie Vulgaire, P . U .G . - Maspero, Grenoble. E BERNSTEIN 1974 : Les Presupposes du Socialisme, Seuil, Paris . E VON BOHM-BAW ERK 1966 : Karl Marx and the Close of his System, (ed. P. Sweezy), Kelly . A BRODY 1970 : Proportions, Prices and Planning, North Holland. L COLLETTI 1976 : From Rousseau to Lenin, New Left Books . R HILFERDING 19X66 : Bohm-Bawerk's criticism of Marx, (ed . P . Sweezy) . Kelley . D C HODGES Jan 1961 : "La Controverse sur la reduction du travail", Economie et Politique.

K MARX 1974, haweence & Wishart, London . K MARX. Fondements de la critique de'l'economie politique, Anthropos. J McCULLOCH, 1825 : The Principles of Political Economy . N OKISHIO 1963 : "A Mathematical Note on Marxian Theorems", Weltwirtshaftliches Archiv, vol . 91 . A RONCAGLIA Autumn 1974 : "The Reduction of Complex to Simple Labour", Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, R ROWTHORN Spring 1974 : "Skilled Labourin the Marxist System", Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists .

P A SAMUELSON December 1957 : "Wages and Interest : a modern dissection of Marxian economic models", American Economic Review. T W SCHULTZ 1961 : "Investment in Human Capital", American Economic Review .

J A SCHUMPETER 1970 : Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Unwin . R TORTAJADA 1974 : "Analyse des debats sur la reduction du travail complexe a du travail simple", mimeo, Paris .

1 16

REVIEWS

Stuart Holland . Capital versus the Regions. MacMillan, E8 .95 (hard cover) X3 .95 (paperback), pp 328 ; and The Regional Problem : MacMillan,€ 7 .95 (hard cover), (100, pp 179 . Reviewed by David Purdy In these two books, stuart holland presents, in the inexpert opinion of this reviewer, an original and mostly convincing analysis of the regional imbalances in ncome, unemployment, economic st ucture and the quality of life which have grown out of the development of the advanced capitalist states of Europe and North America. Even more important, building on ideas first developed in his earlier and analytically inferior book, "The Socialist Challenge" (Holland, 1975), he suggests an approach towards policies for redressing these imbalances, which has sadly neglected implications for the left's economic policy in general . Holland starts from a rather cursory critique of the harmonious self-balance theses of neo-classical regional theory, which is condemned for the unrealism of its assumptions and the idealism of its method . (The German theorist, August Losch, maintained that if reality failed to corroborate his model, the fault lay with reality!) He then reviewes the relevant writings of theorists of regional imbalance - Marx, Myrdal and Perroux - as a prelude to his own analysis . He first synthesizes from Harrods growth theory and Hicks' theory of the trade cycle a two-region model to illustrate the likelihood of divergent growth between a more and a less-developed region (MDR and LDR) . Italy's post-war experience affords an apt case study. Against this macro setting there follows a discussion of internal labour migration and its concomitant costs both in deskilling and senilizing the labour force of the LDR, and in congesting the cities of the MDR. The author then proceeds to his main task - to chart the rise of the meso-economic sector, consisting of large and mostly multinational corporations, whose growth is both cause and consequence of regional disproportions . Through their superior investment, innovation, economies of scale - widely conceived to include size advantages in access to finance, capacity for self-finance, distribution network acquire a decisive lead over their smaller rivals, Moreover, the industrial giants which dominate the upper half of manufacturing, the most regionally mobile sector of the economy, are increasingly impervious to regional aids, incentives and controls operated by nat onal governments. They may have more to gain from low labour costs in underdeveloped countries and from transfer pricing . They can also evade national

117

location controls by threatening to locate abroad if they are denied some favoured site at home . Holland argues that until recently the forces making for uneven regional development have been largely held in check by income transfers and the relative success of regional policy in countering market forces . But current trends suggest that regional discrepancies will become more critical than hitherto unless there are radical new departures in policy . These trends are the flexibility of multinational enterprise, the shrinkage of employment in the foot-loose manufacturing sector, the deepening crisis of inner urban areas and the centrpetal tendencies associated with the process of integration in the EEC. There is also the structural limit to regional regeneration posed by the fact that only about one fifth of all investment consists of investment in entirely new plant . What is now required is an extension of public ownership to embrace selected leading companies, though not whole industries, in the growth hoints of the manufacturing sector . Such public enterprise would be used to countervail the power of the private meso firms, both directly through positively discriminatory location policies, and indirectly as a base from which to harness the activities of big league firms to the needs of the LDRs . This harnessing would be achieved by means of planning agreements negotiated on a multitateral basis betzeen the companies concerned, central and local government, trade unions and community organisations . The agreements nould be enforced by progressively graduated sanctions against recalcitrant firms based on the government's procurement, taxation, subsidy, lending and pricing policies with the ultimate threat of public ownership as a backstop . There are some weaknesses in the argument . Holland is inclined to exaggerate the power of the multinationals and the divergence of interests between them and their "home" stete . Thus the only evidence he offers for the gains to be made from transfer pricing is the sensational, but almost certainly atypical, case of Hoffman La Roche . It may also be unsafe to generalise from the experience of the Italian state holding companies, which Holland cites as a model for the role of public enterprise in regional resuscitation . In Britain, the initial enlargement of the public sector which zould be needed to operate the strategy he proposes would be fraught with political conflicts which never had to be faced in Taly, where state holding companies were inherited from the fascist period . Finally, though Holland is alert to the dangers of Yugoslav style workers' self-management in amplifying regional inequalities, he pays scant attention to the risks of overcentralisation, bureaucratisation and, as Italian experience testifies, corruption, which could easily be spawned by a new regional planning system . There will be those on the left who dismiss Holland's approach to policy as a reformist prop to capitalism . In my view this would be a serious misestimate . The planning agreements framework offers a rich solution to the old problem of how to link the long-term objective of socialism with the immediate conduct of class struggle . It provides a method of inscribing an alien, socialist logic into the workings of capitalism, and of generating self-activity amongst diverse 1 18



social groups around programmes which emobdy the concrete, living meaning of socialism . In short, this approach to policy comes to terms with the requirements of revolutionary strategy in the advanced bourgeois hegemony and the ruling capitalist power bloc . Chile 1970-73 . The Political Economy of the Rire and Fall of the Unidad Popular.

1975 .

Stefan

de Vylder. Stockholm,

Unga

Filoroferr

Forlag,

Reviewed by J . Ann Zammit

Compared with much of the literature on the Chilean Popular Unity (UP) government, Stefan de Vylder's book is an eminently readable, coherent and penetrating analysis of the political economy of its rise and fall . Fortunately, the Cambridge University Press has now published this valuable volume and it will therefore be accessible to a wider readership . Stefan de Vylder starts from the position that most CSE readers need no convincing of : that the "inflation and chaos" interpretations of the UP's political defeat - it failed for lack of competent economists - is simplist c and erroneous . (This ight wing rationalisation of the persistent opposition and eventual military intervention is given full scope in Markos Mamalakis's new book, The Growth and Structure of the Chilean Economy, which reads very much like an ant -communist manifesto - communist being his catch-all term for all socialist and marxist tendencies .) Obviously more fundamental reasons must explain the UP's final political defeat and bstefan de Vylder locates these in the UP's economic programme and its political strategy of concession and conciliation, in conjunction with the initial objective socio-political conditions . The author's approach to the political economy of the UP is from the critical stence of one who seems sympathetic to the socialist as opposed to the nommunist party line within the coalition . He analyses the UP's overall programme and sectoral policies, examining their roots, main content, coherence from an economic and political point of view, chances of success and degree of achievement . Such an analysis necessarily requires careful assessment of the nonstellation of political forces and nomposition of the social classes deriving from the initial economic structure, and evaluation of the way these would be, and ndeed were, affected by the UP's economic strategy and policies . This has been done quite successfully, revealing in the process the limitations of the UP's programme in the face of its stated political and economic objectives . The analysis also points to the programme's internal contradictions and the potential for confrontation within the ranks of the UP supporters as well as with the forces of the right . The programme's "anti-monopoly capital" emphasis set its own limit on the number of workers end peasants who would benefit directly as a result of-the nationalisat on of enterprises and the agrarian reform (roughly 8 percent of the labour force, and the same grosps who, relative to the rest of the labour force, were already privileged) . It also generated antagonisms, since the vast majority of workers not affected directly by the proposed social area( I ) of the ec onomy had no objective interest in adhereing to a rest icted programme of nationalisa1 19

Their initiatives - factory to eovers, ruraa lornar, parallel Lion . etc ., teken in self-interest and distribution networks, cordonec inductriales self-defence, einforced the cohesive tendency of the bourgeoisie . One of the UP's fundamental assumptions - that it was possible to divide the bourgeoisie by winning the support of small businessmen, traders and hrofessions (the ostensibly "progressive", "nationalist" sector), was soon shown to be without foundation . ,Taking into account Chile's socio-economic structure and the multiple social and holitical implications of the UP's main programme, the chances of gaining total or controlling power in society as a whole were slender . Add to this the inherited legal and political framezork, the UP's minimal hold on theorgansof state power (it controlled the executive only), its nommitment to a const tutional, pluralistic strategy, with no chanceof changing the constitution, and its conciliatory approach to the repressive organs of state, and it is hardly surprising that the UP should suffer political defeat . Stefan de Vylder emphasises the impossibility, in the absence of sufficient power, of successfully implementing a two-stage strategy to achieve socialism ; first the anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly capital phase with guarantees for the rest of the private sector and, once consolidated, a full-scale socialist policy . Stefan de Vylder also states his belief that, even had the UP not been forced from power and prevented from reducing, if not eliminating, the economic base of the powerful bourgoisie, its programme would still not have solved Chile's development problem . There is no doubt that the UP's programme and economic plans are predicated on the need for rapid overall development, including regional development, to provide a substantial improvement in the standard of living, particularly of the poorer sections of the population . And, in fairness to the UP, it must be said that its many documents on planning and policies do refer to various means to achieve these ends (e .g. income distirbution and restructuring of consumption and production, employment and technology policies, etc .) . But whether, under the best of circumstances, the UP would have devised and implemented an economic and political strategy which, in the short run rather than the elusive long run, would have incorporated the mass of the population as full and equal members cannot, of course, be ascertained . In thinking that overall development could not have been achieved through the UP's programme de Vylder has perhaps over-emphasised that part of the programme concerning nationalisation and the formation of the social area of the economy, to the detriment of other aspects of their development strategy, though admittedly, they were hardly elaborated to the point of being functional . If, however, his scepticism is based on the potential for conflict among different sectors of the work force inherent in the formation of the social property area, rather than on the fact that its immediate beneficiaries would be limited in number, then perhaps he is right . The social area of the economy, comprising the most advanced sector of the economy, was capable of generating large surpluses for capital accumulation, assuming appropriate policies . However, it also increased the power ofe relatively small number of workers to protect their interests at the expense of those in lower paid and less productive jobs and of the 120

unemployed . Presumably the ability to resolve this incipient, if not overt, conflict would depend on the particular form of political organisation developed . But, for an economy with Chile's socio-economic structure, the nature of an economic and political st ategy which is both viable and worthy of the name socialist is still at the core of socialist debate . Michael Bleaney . Underconsumption Theories : A History and Critical Anal_yrir. Lawrence and Wishart, 1976, pp 262, 63 (paperback) . SBN85315 366 3 .

Reviewed by Ian Steedman Underconsumption theories of capitalist development portray the capitalist system as having an inherent tendency to economic stagnation . They then seek to explain this alleged tendency as the result of inadequate consumption demand . Bleaney distinguishes two main types of underconsumption theory ; those which refer primarily to excessive saving in the economy and those which emphasise the restricted consuming power of the workers . As Bleaney points out, these two variants of underconsumption theory are mutually compatible, since a reduction in the share of national income going to wages will normally lead to an increase in the share of national income saved, but the difference in emphasis is nonetheless significant, not least because it is the second form of the theory which most often has influence within the labour movement . As Bleaney makes clear in the early chapters of his book, the fundamental flaw in all underconsumption theories is the failure to recognise that investment spending constitues demand no less than does consumption spending . (As do government spending and export receipts .) It follows at once that pointing to "excessive" saving or "restricted" consumption - in particular, workers' consumption - can never constitute an adequate explanation of stagnation, or even of temporary recession . For the question always remains, "Why is investment spending not high enough to offset the savings and to absorb the output not demanded for consumption?" Bleaney argues persuasively that a major reason for the inability of such early underconsumptionists as Malthus to deal with this question was the inadequate classical view of investment, which failed to recognise the investment industries as an independent sector of the economy . The question is also sometimes sidestepped by appealing to the idea that "ultimately" investment is narried out in order to increase consumption, the latter being the only final goal of economic activity . Such a view is, as Bleaney points out in criticising Sweezy, a purely myst Eying one, for in a capitalist economy investment is not carried out for the purpose of increasing anyone's consumption . In his chapter on Marx, Bleaney first points out that Marx was completely free from any "Classical" confusion over the role of the investment sector and that Marx's reproduction schema, in Capital vol. Il, provide a clear statement of the fact that both investment and consumption spending constitute demand . (Those schema may also, incidentally, have helped Kalecki to reach his ideas on 12 1

effective demand more easily than Keynes reached his .) he stesses ivdarx's view of the capitalist system as essentially dynamic and, not surprisingly, challenges the view of Sweezy - and others - that Marx was an underconsumptionist . In a later chapter, Bleaney also argues that Rosa Luxemburg was not an underconsumptionist, since although she argued (incorrectly) that capitalism needs an ''external" market, she was clear that demand for means of production was just as good for the purpose as demand for consumption goods . Bleaney also discusses, at length, the work of J . A . Hobson and that of two Narodnik writers, arguing that the Narodnik view, that capitalism could not develop in Russia, finds a close parallel in the ideas of Baran (now under challenge) on the limited possibilities for growth in the backward capitalist seconmies . Some rather inconclusive discussion of the role of arms spending is also provided, as is a sharp critique of the work of Baran and Sweezy . The book may well fall between two stools, being insufficiently detailed for the specialist in the history of economic theory, while yet being too specialised for the reader concerned only to snderstand what underconsumption theories are and what is wrong with them . This is a pity, for as Bleaney says in his closing paragraph, the influence of underconsumption theories amongst Marxists has "acted as a barrier to a more profound analysis of modern capitalism . It is easy, and politically attractive, to attribute the economic problemsof capitalism to the relative poverty of the workers, and to imply that they can only get worse with time - so the only answer can be socialism . Such reliance on inexorable laws of capitalist development has always appealed to mechanistic or economist versions of Marxism . . . . Until these issues are resolved, and unt I simplistic conceptions are decisively rejected, Marxist economics will not escape out of dogmatic declarations from tin high and demonstrate its true explanatory power ."

Erhard Lucas . Arbeiterradikalifmuf : Zwei Formen von Radikalifmlss in der dentschen Arbeiterbewegung . Frankfurst am Main, Verlag Roter Stern, 1976 . Reviewed by James Wickham The recent CSE conference on the labour process marked g welcome interest on the English-speaking left in recent work on the composition of the working class and its political implications . In West Germany a similar discussion has been st mulated by the work of Karl-Heinz Roth (1974) and the thesis of the "mass working class" : in brief, the claim that the reformism of all working-class parties, including the traditional communist parties, lies in their basis in the skilled sections of the working class, a section which occupies a privileged position within production, unlike the unskilled and semi-skilled workers of mass production . For Roth, it is in this often foreign, culturally and politically unintegrated, "mass working class", despised by the conventional working-class organisations and neglected by traditional socialist history writing, that the real revolutionary force of capitalism lies . Such a thesis has gained credibility from the militant forms of struggle of 122

some (though relatively few) groups of immigrant workers in the FRG, notably the strike by Turkish workers at Fords-Cologne in 1974 . Its popularity is also partly explicable by the social and political isolation of the radical German intelligentsia, an isolation which results in a terifying ignorance of contemporary proletarian and even petty bourgeois life, so that this can easily be denigrated as the mere reflection of total integration . The mass working-class thesis however is both empirically and theoretically weak, and the great merit of Lucas' book is to concretely demonstrate this for the Revolution of 1918-1919 . Howevero, far more is involved than (brilliant) working-class history-writing : Lucas' book enables us all to begin a long-overdue task - the settling of accounts with Leninism . While arguments like Roth's rely upon an analysis of the entire history of the German working class, Lucas focuses on a tightly delimited area : the two Rhineland industrial towns of Hamborn and Remscheid . Following Marx in the Grundrisse, and more directly, Negt and Kluge (1973), Lucas attempts to explain the differences between the two towns and their two working-class movements by analysing production as not just the production of material goods but as the production of social life itself . While such a position makes for an analysis of almost unparalleled empirical richness, this is achieved at the cost of theoretical vagueness ; Lucas can identify two very different working-class realities and two very different forms of working-class radicalism, but he can only relate these in a very ad hoc fashion . The first town, Hamborn, grew from almost nothing at the end of the 19th century (population 6,000 in 1895, 100,000 in 1910) with the development of coal mining and the iron and steel industry . The bhamborn proletariat was almost entirely unskilled, with a preponderance of young males and a large Polish and Catholic immigrant component; it was a proletariat housed in monotonous Mietskasernen built by the employers, a proletariat renowned both for its violence and its lack of interest in trade unions and social democratic organisation - a prototypical mass working class . By contrast, Remscheid has been a centre for the metal working industry since the 17th centsry. Despite a concentration of ownership and a growth of large factories, by the end of the 19th century, small and medium-scale industry predominated . Here the proletariat was largely highly skilled, with a developed cultural life in the convent onal sense of the term (Lucas documents working-class interest in the local theatre end libraries), and with a strong SPD that had before 1914 won considerable improvements in the locally administered social welfare . However, despite what the mass working-class thesis would predict, in Remscheid the workers' council (Arbeiterrat) was one of the most radical councils in the November revolution ; if the council movement as a whole is dismissed as reformist, then it was the workers of Remscheid, and not of Hamborn, who played the more important part in the armed struggles of the 1920 "Marzrevolution" . More important than the mere empirical refutation of the mass working-class thesis is that the two working classes produced very different forms of radicalism . Thus the strength of the Hamborn movement is

1 23

its form : a mass strike of the coal miners, the strike controlled by "spontaneously" elected strike committees responsible to mass meetings of each pit, the strike spread by mass marches to other pits . the weakness of the Hamborn movement lay in its localised nature, its restriction to "economic" demands and its disinterest in national politics . Precisely the opposite was the case in Remscheid . Here the movement was firmly orientated to national polit cs, its delegates participating in the national congress of councils, its leaders attempting to organise regional resistence to the spreading military counter-revolution . The weakness of the Remscheid movement lay in the rigid relationship between leaders and mass, the movement effectively was the leaders, zhose conception of revolution was the conquest of political power in the state (through the congress of councils) and then the creation of a council system by the state . All working-class activity was successfully subordinated to this aim - the masses acted only through their leaders . Clearly, however, the strengths and weaknesses of the two movements can be seen as complementary, and indeed for Lucas, the German revolution failed because this complementerity remained only potentiality . The revolution did not fail because of the structural reformism of the skilled workers, as the weakness of the Hamborn movement demonstrates, nor did it fail for the lack of a "revolutionary party", es the Remscheid case also shows. Lucas' book is important at several levels . Firstry, simply as a historical reconstruction of working-class politics almost unparalleled within German historiography with its excessive orientation to the leaders and official organisations of the working class . Particularly important are Lucas' comments on the importance of the religion and rural background of the Hamborn proletariat - a matter of desperate import to met opolitan socialists confronted with the recalcitrantly "backward" forms of say, Irish revolt . Secondly, behind the confrontation with the mass zorking-class thesis, there stands, often inadequately theorised, a confrontation with a crucial related topic - the whole question of political organisation itself . I shall now attempt to draw out the implications of Lucas' argument as I see them . Theories of "working-class aristocracies", whether propounded by Lenin or Roth, all ultimately deny that class conflict is internal to capitalism . Revolutionary opposition to capitalism is only possible "from outside", for non-revolutionary struggle is only adaptation . The at least potentially ambiguous nature of the privileged position of the traditional craft worker, the fact that the "social skills" of the "respectable" worker are not just aspects of integration but also necessities for political organisation against integration, these are issues which within the "aristocracy" argument cannot even be discussed . Instead there is only the romanticisation of all apparently non-integrated forms of working-class life . Once it is argued that socialism can only be brought about by people somehow isolated from capitalism, the way is open for the theory of the revolutionary party, whose justification derives from its claimed ability to shield its members from the society in which they live . Within this argument now, any working-class action which does not occur through the party is termed 1 24



spontaneous, for by a sleight of hand, organisation now equals the party . This dichotomy spontaniety/organisation reveals the enormous gap between Leninism and working-class life . As Gramsci pointed out, there is no such thing as "spontaneous" popular action, only forms of organisation which do not leave behind formal organisations and written records . No serious discussion of the suitable forms of organisation for socialists today can even begin until the insulting term "spontaneity" is overcome . And this means the abandonment of the myth of the all-powerful revolutionary party, for the party as the organisation is the necessary other pole of that dichotomy . Finally, as Lucas points out, for Leninists working-class action is only relevant if it can be doubly'instrumentelised - channelled through the party and towards the state . Once needs are instrumentalised in this way, then the revolution becomes a question of technique, the question of its form and its goal need never be discussed . To be precise, While for the working class of (East and West) Europe it is the reality of "socialism" in the beast that is the basis of criticism of conventional socialist politics, for the self-proclaimed revolutionaries their criticism of the established parties is only in terms of tactics . The consequence of this instrumentalisation has years stagnation of the been more than 50 socialist movement . Ultimately, it is because his discussion of two German towns in 1918/191.9 raises these questions that Lucas' book is so important today .

1 25



?AE 9NSUJ~GEN.T %OCIOLOgIST A quarterly review of radical sociology, book reviews, research notes, and conference reports . RECENT ISSUES HAVE INCLUDED THESE ARTICLES :

What Does The Ruling Class Do When It Rules? - Goren Therborn Multinational Corporations And The Crisis Of Capitalism - Marty Landsberg Alternative Perspectives In The Marxist Theory Of Accumulation And Crisis How The West Was Won : Last Shootout For The Yankee-Cowboy Theory The Long Shadow Of Work - Herb Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Peter Meyer On Teaching Marxism - Bertell Oilman Dialectics As A Method - Howard Sherman Interimperialist Rivalry And Industrial Education - Charles Reitz

ALSO AVAILABLE : NEW DIRECTIONS IN POWER STRUCTURE RESEARCH (264-page special issue) Edited by G . WILLIAM DOMHOFF $4 .00 SUBSCRIPTION RATES : $6 00 low income $1000 sustaining $14 00 institutional $300 back issues

Insurgent Sociologist Department of Sociology Univiversity of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 97403

Name Institution Street -

City

State

Zip

LAIU3LIS14IIi SPECIAL FOCUS ISSUE NO . 4/5 .1976 THE URBAN CRISIS AND THE CAPITALIST STATE M . Castells : The Wild City R .C . Hill : Fiscal Crisis and Political Struggle A . Merkusen : Class and Urban Social Expenditure S . Clark & N . Ginsburg : Political Economy of (lousing M . Edel : Marx's Theory of Rent S . Sardei-Biermann : Cities and City (Tanning A . Evers : Urban Structure and State Intenvmtionisnt Boulder Kap'state : Ilegel and the State G . Anderson et al . : Class Struggle and the State R . Gutlmann : Economic Policy in England 1971-1975 S . Sunneson : State Ideology and Trade Unions in Sweden

BACK ISSUES No . 1 XFROXED COPIFS ONLY Feshbark 4 Shlpnuek U .S . Corporate Regionalism Pleelollo 4 Radke World Economy Martlnelll & Somalnl Multinational (' rporauons Altvster State Intervendnttisat out State and Legitintation

No . 2

No . 3

I .eiblrled Ash Reforms Ilein & Stenrel State in Vene,uela oil .." State as Value Rclati,m Sardel-Blermann ei al . Class Domination & State Gldlng Pna Colonial State

Ins Arcs Kap'state Watergate Lo 1L .5 . Military Spending Jaeobl el al. Inflation Felnhrrg & SWllngs Chile tinder Allende Bad Area Kap'tule Fiscal Crisis

kapitalistate

British subscriptions to t Simon Clarke,Dept .of Sociology,University of Warwick,Coventry CV4 7AL . Individual issues t £1 .50 (f2 .00)to instiDouble issue 4/5 t £2 .50 (f4 .00)tutions Subscriptions (4 issues,state starting issue)t £5 .50 (individuals) £9 .00 (institutions)

UAGiALIcFF 4

The Conference of Socialist Economists was formed in 1970 . We are committed to the development within the labour movement of a materialist critique of capitalism in the Marxist tradition . The membership of the CSE covers a broad political spectrum which generates wide-ranging debates, unconstrained by the bourgeois division of intellectual labour into "economics", "politics", "sociology", "history" etc. At its annual confernence of 1976, the CSE decided to transform its Bulletin, which had been published since 1971 in litho-duplicated form, into a printed journal renamed CAPITAL & CLASS. Single copies of the journal will now be sold, but all subscribers automatically become members of the CSE . This enables them to play an active part in a wide range of CSE activities, of which CAPITAL & CLASS is only part. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Individuals: UK Full E2 .50 ; Low Income f2 .00 . Overseas Full fi6 .00 (or $9 .50) ; Low Income 14 .00 (or 4!6 .50) . Institutions : 69 .00 ($14 .50) .

Australia : subscriptions to Transnational Co-operative (CSE), GPO Box 161, Sydney, NSW 2001 . Rate : $A10 (full rate), $A7 (reduced rate), $A15 (Institutions) . If payment is made by non-sterling cheque, please add 50p or equivalent for bank charges . Special arrangements can be negotiated for overseas subscriptions in cases of financial or foreign exchange difficulties . All subscriptions and queries to CSE Membership, c/o Dept . of Economics, Birkbeck College, 7-15 Gresse Street, London W1P IPA . CSE Activities

1 . The annual conference, where papers are discussed and workshops held, is also the decision-making body for the CSE, the policy being carried out between conferences by the Co-ordinating Committee . The theme for the 1977 conference is "The Restructuring of Capital, Class Struggle and the State" . The conference will be held in Bradford on July 2, 3 and 4 . Preparatory work for the conference is carried out in working groups and at open meetings during the year, when draft papers are read . Forthcoming meetings include a day school on law and a weekend meeting on the restructuring of the state apparatus . For full details see Newsletter . 2 . Local, regional and affiliated groups hold regular meetings and carry on work on topics related to the subject of the annual conference, or other topics . In addition to local groups, there are national groups on European Integration Capital and the State ; State Economic Policy ; Money ; Housing ; Women ; The Neo-Colonial State ; a historians' group and others . 3 . Pamphlets are produced which are available to members at reduced prices . 4 . We have a system of international contacts and exchanges . 5 . In addition to CAPITAL & CLASS a duplicated Newsletter is produced and sent to members about six times a year . This contains details of all these activities and other communications and announcements for members .