Annotations by <em>Solidarity</em> (1972)

[1] “Production” here meaning the shop-floor, not “the economy” or “the market.”

[2] The belief that socialism can be achieved through Parliament is, therefore, naive in the extreme. Moreover, it perpetuates illusions in the significance of this kind of popular “representation.”

[3] In the first chapter of his book, The Workers’ Councils (Melbourne: 1950), Anton Pannekoek develops a similar analysis of the problems confronting socialist society. On the fundamental issues our points of view are very close.

[4] Bakunin once described the problem of socialism as being “to integrate individuals into structures which they could understand and control.”

[5] The words are to be found in “Part III” of Engels” Anti-Dühring.

[6] A few years ago a certain “philosopher” could seriously ask how one could even discuss Stalin’s decisions, as one didn’t know the real facts upon which he alone could base them. (J. P. Sartre, “Les Communistes et la Paix,” in Les Temps Modernes, July and October-November of 1952).

[7] We deliberately say “to institute” and not “to restore,” for never in history has this domination really existed. All comparisons with historical antecedents – for instance, with the situations of the artisan or of the free peasant, however fruitful they may be in some respects, have only a limited scope and risk leading one into utopian thinking.

[8] Yet this is almost exactly what Lenin’s definition of socialism as “electrification plus (the political power of the) Soviets” boiled down to.

[9] Academic economists have analyzed the fact that of several technically feasible possibilities, certain ones are chosen, and that these choices lead to a particular pattern of technology applied in real life, which seems to concretize the technique of a given period. [See, for instance, Joan Robinson’s The Accumulation of Capital (London; 1956; pages 101–178]. But in these analyzes, the choice is always presented as flowing from considerations of “profitability” and, in particular, from the “relative costs of capital and labor.” This abstract viewpoint has little effect on the reality of industrial evolution. Marx, on the other hand, underlines the social content of machine-dominated industry, its enslaving function.

[10] In other words, abilities, know-how, and awareness are developed in production.

[11] Strictly speaking, poetry means creation.

[12] In J. A. C. Brown’s The Social Psychology of Industry (Penguin Books, 1954), there is a striking contrast between the devastating analysis the author makes of present capitalist production and the only “conclusions” he can draw which are pious exhortations to management to “do better,” to “democratize itself,” etc.

[13] In other words, what we are challenging is the whole concept of a technique capable of organizing people from the outside. Such an idea is as absurd as the idea of a psychoanalysis in which the patient would not appear, and which would be just a “technique” in the hands of the analyst.

[14] This problem is distinct from that of overall planning. General planning is concerned with determining a quantitative framework: so much steel and so many hours of labor at one end, so many consumer goods at the other. It does not have to intervene in the form or type of the intermediate products.

[15] One might add that the rate of economic growth also depends:

(a) on technical progress. But, such technical progress is itself critically dependent on the amounts invested, directly or indirectly, in research;

(b) on the evolution of the productivity of labor. But, this hinges on the amount of capital invested per worker and on the level of technique (which two factors again bring us back to investment). More significantly, the productivity of labor depends on the producers’ attitude to the economy. This, in turn, would center on people’s attitude to the plan, on how its targets were established, on their own involvement and sense of identification with the decisions reached, and, in general, on factors discussed in this text.

[16] Bureaucratic “planning” as carried out in Russia and the Eastern European countries proves nothing, one way or the other. It is just as irrational and just as wasteful. The waste is both “external” (the wrong decisions being taken) and “internal” (brought about by the resistance of the workers to production). For further details, see “La revolution proletarienne contre la bureaucratie” in Socialisme ou Barbarie (Number 20).

[17] The field is in constant expansion. However, the starting points remain the following:

— Wassily W. Leontief; The Structure of American Economy, 1919–1939: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis; Oxford University Press (1941, 1951, 1953, 1957, 1966).

— Wassily W. Leontief, et al.; Studies in the Structure of American Economy: Theoretical and Empirical Explorations in Input-Output Analysis; Harvard University Press (New York: 1953).

[18] T. C. Koopmans; Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation proceedings of a Conference; John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (New York: 1951).

[19] The division of the economy into some 100 sectors, which roughly corresponds to present computer capacity, is about “halfway” between its division (by Marx) into two sectors (consumer goods and means of production) and the thousand sectors that would be required to ensure a perfectly exact representation. Present computer capabilities would probably be sufficient in practice, and could be made more precise, even now, by tackling the problem in stages.

[20] Labor value includes, of course, the actual cost of the equipment utilized in the period considered. [For the working out of labor values by the matrix method see the article “Sur la dynamique du capitalisme” in Socialisme ou Barbarie, Number 12.] The adoption of labor value as a yardstick is equivalent to what academic economists call “normal long-term costs.” The viewpoint expressed in this text corresponds to Marx’s, which is in general attacked by academic economists, even “socialist” ones. For them, “marginal costs” should determine prices. [See for instance: Joan Robinson; An Essay on Marxian Economics; Macmillan & Co Ltd (London, 1949); pages 23 -28.] We can’t here go into this discussion. All that we can say is that the application of the principle of marginal costs would mean that the price of an air ticket between London and New York would at times be zero (when the plane was already full) and at times be equivalent to that of the whole aircraft (when the plane was empty).

[21] In his major work on this theme – and after a moderate use of differential equations – Keynes comes up with the conclusion that the main determinants of investment are the “animal spirits” of the entrepreneurs (The General Theory, pages 161–162). The idea that the volume of investment is primarily determined by the rate of interest (and that the latter results from the interplay of the “real forces of productivity and thrift”) was long ago demolished by academic economists themselves (see Joan Robinson’s The Rate of Interest and Other Essays, 1951).

[22] One would look in vain through the voluminous writings of Mr. Bettelheim for any attempt at justification of the rate of accumulation “chosen” by the Russian bureaucracy. The “socialism” of such “theoreticians” doesn’t only imply that Stalin (or Khrushchev) alone can know. It also implies that such knowledge, by its very nature, cannot be communicated to the rest of humanity. In another country, and in other times, this was known as the Führer-prinzip.

[23] This net increase is obviously not just the sum of the increases in each sector. Several elements add up or have to be subtracted before one can pass from the one to the other. On the one hand, for instance, there would be the “intermediate utilizations” of the products of each sector – on the other hand, the “external economies” (investment in a given sector, by abolishing a bottleneck, could allow the better use of the productive capacities of other sectors, which although already established were being wasted hitherto). Working out these net increases presents no particular difficulties. They are calculated automatically, at the same time as one works out the “intermediate objectives” (mathematically, the solution of one problem immediately provides the solution of the other).

We have discussed the problem of the global determination of the volume of investments. We can only touch on the problem of the choice of particular investments. The distribution of investments by sectors is automatic once the final investment is determined (such-and-such a level of final consumption directly or indirectly implies such-and-such a productive capacity in each sector). The choice of a given type of investment from among several producing the same result could only depend on such considerations as the effect that a given type of equipment would have on those who would have to use it – and here, from all we have said, their own viewpoint would be decisive.

[24] From this angle (and, if they weren’t false in the first place), Russian figures which show that year-after-year the targets of the plan have been fulfilled to 100 % would provide the severest possible indictment of Russian economy and of Russian society. They would imply, in effect, that during a given 5-year period nothing happened in the country, that not a single new idea arose in anyone’s mind (or else, that Stalin, in his wisdom, had foreseen all such ideas and incorporated them in advance in the plan, allowing – in his kindness – inventors to savor the pleasures of illusory discovery).

[25] Complex, but by no means insoluble economic problems will probably arise in this respect. They boil down to the question of how agricultural prices will be determined in a socialist economy. The application of uniform prices would maintain important inequalities of revenue (“differential incomes”) between different Rural Communes or even between different individuals in a given Commune (because of differences in the productivity of holdings, differential soil fertility, etc.). The final solution to the problem would require, of course, the complete socialization of agriculture. In the meantime, compromises will be necessary. There might perhaps be some form of taxation of the wealthier Communes to subsidize the poorer ones until the gap between them had been substantially narrowed (completely to suppress inequalities by this means would however amount to forcible socialization). One should note in passing that differential yields today stem in part from the quite artificial working of poor yield soils through subsidies paid by the capitalist state for political purposes. Socialist society could rapidly lessen these gaps by questioning certain subsidies, while at the same time massively helping to equip poor, but potentially viable Communes.

[26] Although the Russian word “soviet” means “council,” one should not confuse the Workers’ Councils we have been describing in this text with even the earliest of Russian Soviets. The Workers’ Councils are based on the place of work. They can play both a political role, and a role in industrial management of production. In its essence, a Workers’ Council is a universal organism. The 1905 Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, although the product of a general strike and although exclusively proletarian in composition, remained a purely political institution. The Soviets of 1917 were, as a rule, geographically-based. They, too, were purely political institutions, in which all social layers opposed to the old regime would get together (see Trotsky’s 1905 and his History of the Russian Revolution). Their role corresponded to the “backwardness” of the Russian economy and of Russian society at the time. In this sense, they belong to the past. The “normal” form of working class representation in the Revolution to come will undoubtedly be the Workers’ Councils.

[27] Not in what it hides (the police terror and the concentration camps), but in what it officially proclaims, in its Constitution.

[28] The formation of Workers’ Councils of State Employes was one of the demands of the Hungarian Workers’ Councils.

[29] Neither the means nor the overall conception of war could be copied from those of an imperialist country. What we have said about capitalist technology is valid for military technique: there is no neutral military technique, there is no “H-bomb for socialism.” P. Guillaume has clearly shown (in his article, “La Guerre et noter époque,” Numbers 3, 5, and 6 of Socialisme ou Barbarie) that a proletarian revolution must necessarily draw up its own strategy and methods (mainly propaganda) suitable to its social and human objectives. The need for “strategic weapons” does not arise for a revolutionary power.

[30] In a country like France, such a Central Assembly of Delegates might consist of 1,000 to 2,000 delegates (one delegate per 10,000 or 20,000 workers). A compromise would have to be reached between two requirements: as a working body, the Central Assembly of Delegates should not be too large; on the other hand, it must ensure the most direct and most widely-based representation of the organisms from which it emanates.

[31] Plato discusses them at length, and his Protagoras is, in part, devoted to them.

[32] See C. Wright Mills’ White Collar (pages 347–348) and The Power Elite (New York; 1956; pages 134 sq, 145 sq, etc.) for an illustration of the total lack of any relationship between “technical” capacities of any kind and current industrial management or political leaderships.

[33] It might be claimed that the problem of numbers remains, and that all would never be able to express themselves in the time available. This isn’t a valid argument. There would rarely be an Assembly of over 20 people where everyone wanted to speak, for the very good reason that when there is something to be decided there aren’t an infinite number of options or an infinite number of arguments. In rank-and-file workers’ gatherings, convened, for instance, to decide on a strike, there are hardly ever “too many” interventions. The two or three fundamental opinions having been voiced, and various arguments having been exchanged, a decision is soon reached.

The length of speeches, moreover, often varies inversely with the weight of their content. Russian leaders may speak for four hours at Party Congresses and say nothing. The speech of the Ephore which persuaded the Spartans to launch the Peloponesian War occupies 21 lines in Thucydides (I, 86). For an account of the laconicism of revolutionary assemblies see Trotsky’s account of the Petrograd Soviet of 1905 – or accounts of the meetings of factory representatives in Budapest in 1956 (Socialisme ou Barbarie, Number 21, pages 91–92).

[34] Televising present parliamentary procedures, on the other hand, could be a sure way of driving even further nails into the coffin of this institution.

[35] The basis of parties is not a difference of opinion, as such, but differences on fundamentals and the more or less systematic unity of each “nexus of views.” In other words parties express a general orientation corresponding to a more or less clear ideology, in its turn flowing from the existence of social positions leading to conflicting aspirations.

As long as such positions exist and lead to a political “projection” of expectations, one cannot eliminate political groups – but as these particular differences disappear, it is unlikely that groups will be formed about “differences” in general.

[36] All the discussion about “socialism in one country” between the Stalinists and the Left Opposition (1924–27) shows to a frightening degree how men make history thinking they know what they are doing, yet understand nothing about it. Stalin insisted it was possible to build socialism in Russia alone, meaning by socialism, industrialization, plus the power of the bureaucracy. Trotsky vowed that this was impossible, meaning by socialism, a classless society.

Both were right in what they said, and wrong in denying the truth of the other’s allegation. But, neither was talking about socialism. And no one, during the whole discussion, mentioned the regime inside Russian factories, the relation of the proletariat to the management of production, nor the relation of the Bolshevik Party, where the discussion was taking place, to the broad masses, who were in the long run, the main interested party in the whole business.

{1} The Cornucopia or horn of plenty was a horn overflowing with fruit and flowers which, for the Romans, symbolized abundance.

{2} Our text is a close (but not always literal) translation of the French original. The milieu in which our pamphlet will be distributed and discussed differs from that of the 1957 article. Throughout, our main concern has been with getting essential concepts over to as wide (and unspecialized) an audience as possible. To a great extent, this has influenced our choice of wording and sentence structure. Paragraphs have been shortened. A number of sectional and chapter headings have been added. Some additional footnotes have been inserted (clearly indicated as “Solidarity” footnotes). One or two of the original footnotes have been omitted, and one or two others incorporated into the text proper, which has been slightly shortened. The diagrams and illustrations are our own.

{3} See Hungary ’56 by Andy Anderson, a “Solidarity” book, now again in print. (25p plus postage.)

{4} This is an area where “Solidarity” has been slow in saying what needed to be said.

{5} Published in March 1949.

{6} The paralyzing effect on the functioning of any segment of capitalist society of “working to rule” (i.e., of accepting the rules made by those in authority) indirectly illustrated this point.

{7} See The “Central Assembly” and Its “Council” for a discussion on the functions of such an “assembly,” in a completely self-managed society.

{8} See our texts The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control: 1917–1921, From Spartakism to National Bolshevism, and Hungary ’56 for a fuller documentation of these experiences.

{9} Bernard Shaw once cynically described democracy as “substituting election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.”

{10} Those who argue about the “intrinsic merits” of decentralization seldom pursue their thoughts to their logical conclusions. Do they really envisage every town and every village generating its own electricity (or atomic power), arranging its own jet aircraft schedules, importing its own tea or sugar, growing its own bananas, or building its own neurosurgical centers? Or will the “free” society dispense with these altogether?

{11} We are fully aware that this statement will be taken out of context and that we will be accused of standing for the “perpetuation of the wage-slavery, etc., etc.” For a discussion of the role of money and wages in the early stages of socialism, see “Money,” “Wages,” Value. For a discussion of how money can readily be abolished from one day to the next, see any utopian writings, i.e., any writings in which the author substitutes his/her own wishes for tendencies existing here and now, within capitalist society itself. The experience of groups which have attempted the immediate abolition of money has so far been one of invariable recuperation by established society. Those who had taken their wishes for reality have had reality imposed upon their wishes.

{12} Karl Marx; “Volume III” of Capital; Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow: 1959); pages 799–800.

{13} See the article, The New Proletariat by John King in Solidarity (London), Volume VI, Number 1.

{14} All the preceding talk of “wages,” “prices” and “the market” will, for instance, undoubtedly have startled a certain group of readers. We would ask them momentarily to curb their emotional responses and to try to think rationally with us on the matter.

{15} This will probably prove necessary for as long as some kind of work proves necessary (i.e., for as long as there is not such vast abundance as to allow the immediate and full satisfaction of every conceivable human demand). Those who think in terms of a society of immediate abundance, where work is unnecessary and where every citizen will forthwith be able to consume whatever he wants in terms of goods and services, seldom pause to consider who will produce these goods or provide these services, or who will produce the machines to produce them.

{16} One could also invent new words, if it would make people happy, but this would not change the underlying reality.

{17} Today, those who can afford it are prepared to travel considerable distances to work, often at considerable physical or financial cost to themselves, because of the drabness, dirt, smell, or noise of where they work. Many others live at a distance just because there is no suitable accommodation in the vicinity. How will the new society cope with the horror of most modern workplaces? Will it seek to associate workplaces and homes – or, on the contrary, to separate them?

{18} Tanks were used to suppress revolutionary uprisings in Berlin in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Aircraft were used to bomb civilians in the Spanish Civil War. It would be sheer self-deception to blind oneself to the likelihood that similar attempts would be made to put down revolutionary uprisings in Western Europe or the USA. The main defense of the revolution would of course be political, an appeal over the heads of their government to the working people of the “enemy” side. But, what if the revolutionaries were physically attacked? Should they be prepared to use tanks in self-defense? If bombed, would they be entitled to use fighter aircraft or bombers to destroy enemy airfields? Single bombers or squadrons of bombers? There is a ruthless internal logic in these questions. The collective use of tanks or aircraft implies the services to maintain them, and is not a function for a local Council, but for some regional or national body. However abhorrent this may seem to some libertarians, we see no way out. We would be interested to hear of alternative means from those who throw up their hands in horror at our suggestions.

{19} The task of such bodies would be much easier than it is at present. Today, this task usually consists in “re-adapting the deviant” to the requirements and values of a destructive and irrational society. In the future, it would be to help those still dominated by the old ideology of self-seeking to see that their problems can best be tackled in conjunction with others.

{20} This occurred when the Social Democrats were in a majority in the German Workers’ Councils, immediately after the World War I.