RE: RE: RE: Bureaucracy

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Michael Pugliese writes:>Whoa there Jim, you're sounding like Max Shactman
in, "The Bureaucratic Revolution, " published 1962, the yr. after the Bay of
Pigs invasion 'ol Max S. supported because trade unionists were part of the
invasion force. ...<

no, I consider Schachtman's work to be worthless (though interesting from an
historical perspective). He never applied his anti-bureaucratic ideas to the
AFL-CIO (which his followers ended up working for, actually for the
foreign-policy right wing of that organization) or to political parties (and
his followers set up a "Leninist" style party -- which eventually turned
into the "Social Democrats, USA" -- to push his pro-US Cold War laborism) or
to capitalist corporations. Max S. got swept away in the U.S. anti-communism
of the 1940s and 1950s and converted the idea of opposing both super-powers
(both capitalism and bureaucracy) into siding with capitalism and its
bureaucracies (including the CIA, it seems). This "turn" paid off, in the
sense that his followers had the ear of George Meany or his minions. They
may have pushed U.S. foreign policy to the right.

I prefer Hal Draper's work, though he had some obvious limitations (as do
many of his followers). These include any serious consideration of the
"third world" viewpoint, dependency theory, etc.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine



> -----Original Message-----
> From: michael pugliese [mailto:debsian@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 10:45 PM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:24644] RE: RE: Bureaucracy
>
>
>
> Jim>...Under the Soviet system, the ruling stratum was bureaucratic:
> the leadership
> of the Communist Party ruled their party in a top-down way, while
> that Party
> held a monopoly of political power. (State force was mobilized
> to suppress
> or buy off any opposition.) That is, the Party "owned" the state,
> which in
> turn officially owned the means of production and controlled
> the economy (to
> the extent that the planning process worked), i.e., they had
> more control
> than anyone else did over the process of the production and
> utilization
> of
> surplus-labor and the accumulation of fixed means of production...
>
>    Whoa there Jim, you're sounding like Max Shactman in, "The
> Bureaucratic Revolution, " published 1962, the yr. after the
> Bay of Pigs invasion 'ol Max S. supported because trade unionists
> were part of the invasion force.
> These Revisionist Tendencies Of Yours Must Be Held In Check Or
> Is That Cheka?
> Comrade Karl Kautsky aka Pugliese
>
>   The "Renegade" Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin
> ... If we apply to Kautsky and Lenin the opposite treatment to
> that which they subjected
> Marx to, if we link their ideas to the class struggle instead
> of ...
> http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/barrotk.htm
>
> >--- Original Message ---
> >From: "Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>
> >To: "'pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx '" <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >Date: 4/3/02 8:23:04 PM
> >
>
> >CB:>Isn't "bureaucracy" a Weberian and not Marxist concept ?
> ... <
>
> the issue is not whether it's a "marxist" concept in the sense
> of whether
> marx talked about it as much as whether it fits with marx's
> materialist
> conception of history. but see, for example, hal draper's book
> karl marx's
> theory of revolution (several volumes, monthly review press),
> especially
> volume i. marx talked a lot about bureaucracy. for example, in
> capital, he
> talks about how bureaucrats (hired managers) were doing more
> and more of the
> work that capitalists took credit for doing. btw, marx was quite
> familiar
> with a quasi-weberian view of the state bureaucracy, that of
> hegel.
>
> weber & marx have different theories of bureaucracy. weber was
> pro-bureaucracy, seeing hierarchies of this sort as an efficient
> and
> "rational" way of attaining goals. (my late friend al szymanski
> (sp.?) once
> embraced this view, arguing for his version of "leninism" by
> saying that a
> top-down (bureaucratic) organization was the most efficient way
> to organize
> a revolution. if corporations use hierarchy, why can't we?)
>
> draper quotes marx again and again as being anti-bureaucracy
> (and in favor
> of democracy, as with the paris commune) or at least as having
> a more
> realistic vision of bureaucracy than weber.
>
> >...When a "giant bureaucracy" is mentioned, I get this picture
> of an
> >enormous collection of people sitting at desks in office buildings.
> >HOWEVER, it is not this bureau-proletariat of secretaries, clerks,
> >mailboys, receptionists, beancounters, etc. that is the "cratic",
> the
> >power in either Russia or the New Deal, or any government. This
> mass of
> >deskclerks is not the cause of "redtape" or anti-democratic
> rule from
> >above, as if they took a vote among the vast bureaucracy to
> exercise its
> >power on major questions before whatever institution with whatever
> >bureaucracy. "Bureaucracy" is a very misleading concept that
> is rife in
> >liberal political analysis.<
>
> the thing about bureaucracy is that the power of any individual
> rises as you
> go up the hierarchy (though that power is hardly absolute, since
> people down
> below can often block the effectiveness of the organization --that's
> one of
> the things that "red tape" is about). the difference between
> the top
> bureaucrats and the petty bureaucrats is a little like the difference
> between the grand and petty bourgeoisie. (unlike weber, i see
> a bureaucracy
> as involving a lot of competition.)
>
> usually these days, however, the bureaucracy is only a means
> to an end: the
> corporate owners use it to try to attain maximum profits by organizing
> production, marketing, etc. the state bureaucracy is similarly
> a tool of the
> state elite, which under capitalism by and large serves the
> preservation
> of
> the system.
>
> getting beyond capitalism, there are lots of cases where the
> bureaucracy
> could be seen as a ruling class of some sort. the pharoah couldn't
> rule
> ancient egypt without relying on the bureaucracy, so the latter
> got a lot of
> the power. in pre-modern china, the bureaucracy was clearly a
> powerful and
> self-perpetuating stratum, bringing in only those who could pass
> the
> calligraphy test (and the like) to run the show. in pre-revolutionary
> (and
> in many ways, pre-capitalist) russia, the upper bureaucrats had
> noble titles
> and quite a bit of power, often combining "feudal" power with
> a piece of
> state power.
>
> under the soviet system, the ruling stratum was bureaucratic:
> the leadership
> of the communist party ruled their party in a top-down way, while
> that party
> held a monopoly of political power. (state force was mobilized
> to suppress
> or buy off any opposition.) that is, the party "owned" the state,
> which in
> turn officially owned the means of production and controlled
> the economy (to
> the extent that the planning process worked), i.e., they had
> more control
> than anyone else did over the process of the production and
> utilization
> of
> surplus-labor and the accumulation of fixed means of production.
>
>
> >Perhaps the kernel of truth in this demogogy is the hierarchy
> in
> >"bureaucracy" . In other words, the bosses of the bureausitters,
> the
> >"cracy' of the bureaucsitters not the bureausitters en masse.
>  It's the
> >SMALLNESS of the bureacracy at the top that is the problem.
> We want a
> >big bureaucracy, in the sense of masses people having the power
> and
> >control over society and their lives.
>
> Yes, it's the top-down nature of the rule -- hierarchy as opposed
> to
> democracy -- that's the problem. If bureaucracy were to be held
> democratically responsible at each level and stage, the bureaucracy
> can be
> more an means to an end, one determined democratically. Thus
> the problem
> with bureaucracy is ultimately that of forcing it to be subordinate
> to
> democracy.
>
> Jim Devine
>
> >
>