Thursday, July 15, 2004

The Enlightenment Tradition

from "Notes on Anarchism"

With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable.

- Noam Chomsky

The idea here is that if you recognize government as a form of centralized authority, and you accept that centralized power is dangerous, then it stands to reason that you will view other forms of concentrated power as dangerous, also. In other words, even someone like Adam Smith, who is credited as the founder of free-market capitalism, based his vision on a pre-industrial world: it presupposed a relative equality of property within the society, including productive property, meaning the resources and tools used to produce--land and livestock for farming, for example. (Chomsky often notes that contemporary students of Smith never read the chapters in "Wealth of Nations" where Smith specifically warns against high concentrations of economic power.) Modern-day conservatives, if they are honest, will acknowledge the danger of concentrated power in any form, since their (otherwise legitimate) critique of government is based on it. So, ironically, conservatism is one of the best arguments against the type of system that Republicans currently represent.

15 comments:

J.R. Boyd said...

Conservatives often couch their arguments for private ownership in terms of managerial expediency, noting that state-enterprises are plagued by unresponsive bureaucracies, waste, and general inefficiency. But framing the debate in this way presumes a false-choice between two forms of centralized control, simply on the grounds of which runs better. Efficiency in and of itself has no correlation to whether relationships of power are just or unjust. Certainly elements of Nazism represented the height of technocratic efficiency in its day; on the other hand, Alexis de Tocqueville described the American colonies as operating under a form of decentralized government that was far less efficient than that of France, and yet much more free. Rejection of private control and management has nothing to do with how efficient it is vis-a-vis anything else, but is based instead on the recognition of an unequal relationship of power between the economic decision-making class on one hand, and the disenfranchised majority on the other.

Sheryl said...

Ryan,

I'm not sure I fully agree with you about the issue of centralization being the problem. What about the japanese keiretsu system? Companies like Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Mitsui represent large organizational structures, but they gain their power through a complex and often decentralized system of intercorporate ownership.They get in bed with government through the keidanren, which is sort of the japanese version of BI-PAC, but it's actually what is referred to as horizontal ownership, which makes them virtually indestructable.

If one company in the network starts to do badly, their fellow companies bail them out because they have a finacial interest in doing so. And that safety net cuts out competition, because badly run companies are somewhat protected by other companies that have a financial stake in keeping them afloat.

A lot of US companies have started using cross ownership patterns to concentrate their stranglehold on the market. So that a majority of company's stock may well be owned by another company rather than a human being.

I think the danger in corporations is that stock investors are too detached from their investments, and since they are competing with other companies for their percentage of ownership, it's very difficult for individual investors to affect policy decisions. And most don't care anyway.

Some people are fighting back with ethical investment initives. Here's an example:

http://www.shareholderaction.org

J.R. Boyd said...

As I said earlier, one can argue about which form of centralized control is most efficient, etc., but the fundamental issue is ownership and decision-making, which in the case of corporations is in the hands of a managerial class, whether they are in a single company or integrated in complex networks of conglomerates. Corporations are not democratic institutions--they are totalitarian in their internal hierarchies and top-down decision-making, and are basically unaccountable to the external public and communities, except to whatever (increasingly marginal) extent they can be regulated by the state.

Sheryl said...

I didn't say anything about efficiency. I guess you didn't look at the link I mentioned.

J.R. Boyd said...

I must have misunderstood what you were saying about Japanese corporations.

In terms of ethical investing/shareholder activism, anything that increases popular control over the business decisions that affect communities would be very good for democracy.

Sheryl said...

I meant that they are decentralized, but not necessarily all that better to work for. The CEOs only make 10 times the workers in Japan compared to about 500 times the workers here, so that is obviously a better income distribution.

But in terms of outcome, I'm not sure Japanese companies are more ethical or democratic or any less authoritarian as a result.That's all I was saying.

If you think about it, the privately owned companies are probably incredibly centralized, but they tend to be more ethical--probably because A) family owned business have pride in their businesses and B)they don't the same liability protections.

Sheryl said...

Maybe the japanese model shows that you can have decentralized wealth without having decentralized power, eh? Or maybe they are more democratic than I realize, although they are never represented that way.

Sheryl said...

Or actually....maybe the japanese model shows that the structure itself can can have the power.

Sheryl said...

I keep adding comments, but I keep thinking of things after I post. Isn't that the beef with bureaucracy? That if you get too much decentralization of power, then everything is running in automatic and no one really has power anymore?

J.R. Boyd said...

It's important to distinguish between centralization of power within society and centralization of power within institutions. Corporations represent a form of concentrated power within society that places economic decision-making in the hands of one group exclusively, and thus constitutes a centralization of that power. My point earlier was that this fundamental relationship of power remains the same no matter how companies organize themselves internally, or whether actual *ownership* is centralized within a single company or diffused through complex networks and conglomerates. One can argue over all the details (many a career is based on it) yet miss the larger point that people should control the economic decisions that affect their lives democratically.

You're probably right that centralized ownership of a company would allow for greater input from the owners than if ownership is so complex that nobody even knows what's going on. And if the owners have a conscience, then certainly that can have a big effect on ordinary people's lives. But in terms of power and how it informs democracy, it's a bit like lobbying slave owners for the ethical treatment of their subjects. The institution itself is an abuse of power, regardless of whatever beneficial effects might be derived from an enlightened ruling class.

Sheryl said...

So if you'll allow me to be nosey, what have you learned being in the Teamsters (you know,in a less abstract sort of way, 'cause I'm a real nut for details.)

J.R. Boyd said...

Well, I'm employed by UPS, and represented by the Teamsters. I'm not really sure what you mean by what I've "learned." I think I've learned lots of things, but I'm not sure what you're interested in.

Sheryl said...

Hi Ryan,

Well, the topic was the centralization of power within the company. You had mentioned the Teamsters in your profile, so I thought you might have some insights into what works and doesn't work when trying to affect corporate policy. Seems like that would be one of the 4 basic checks on that centralization of power:

1) Stockholders--via ethical investments, resolutions, votes on who sits on the board of directors
2) Consumerism- via boycotts (like Coke and South Africa) or investing in solar or wind power when you are sick oil dependence, etc.
3) Government Regulation --such as the Security and Exchange Commission or getting Congress to write better laws or improving trade treaties
D) Unions--strikes, negotiation, offering alternatives to management, lobbying or supporting certain legislators in Congress via PACs

J.R. Boyd said...

Yes, I think you've summed it up pretty well right there. I don't think I have any unique insights, frankly, at least in this respect; or rather, I think you have to look at each company case-by-case, to see what type of organizing would be most effective. In the case of UPS, conventional organizing works well because the company is physically rooted in the communities it serves. That's sort of rare these days. There's also ideological factors, having to do with the company's original mission, which have lent it a social benevolence dimension--but more about that later.

Sheryl said...

Hi Ryan,

It would indeed be interesting to hear about the social mission of UPS. Mail is a philosophical discussion all by itself.

I recall attending a debate once about the virtues and costs of privatizing mail. The beef against companies like UPS and Federal Express was that they don't have the profit incentives to deal with rural routes--that the regular post office subsidizes their non-profitable mail services with their profitable ones and that companies like UPS make that harder to do.

That's not to bash UPS though. I tried to apply for a job the post office once and sadly discovered they give preferential treatment to military vets. That has always made me nervous, because people who have been in the military are trained for the type of authoritarian power structure you were talking about with corporations. Just do what you are told and don't worry if it's moral. Meanwhile, we'll have these people in charge of a major conduit for public information and intellectual exchange and hope they don't "go postal" over my left wing mail.

It bothered me during the beginning of this war in Iraq that all but one of my local post offices was completely draped in US flags. And there was a lot of concern when they released that 57 cent stamp with the nazi eagle on it. Also, these days it seems like they subsidize their business clients by charging the private sector more.

I'm not saying that everyone in the post office is nationalistic. At the beginning of the war I remember asking a clerk at my favorite post office if she had any commerative stamps without flags all over them, and she laughed as if she knew exactly what I meant.

And in fact, just the images on our stamps carry very political messages on them. The commeratives are usually a lot better though. Oops, I'm on my soapbox again. Sigh.