Bureaucracy

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Bureaucracy
by Devine, James
04 April 2002 18:07 UTC  < < <


the following has been finished & corrected.

-clip-

I don't get the connection between "bureaucracy" and desks except in terms
of etymology, since not all people who work at desks are bureaucrats. I work
at a desk, but I'm not a bureaucrat. Instead, I'm something worse, a tenured
professor. (Similarly, we also shouldn't take the historical link between
"salary" and "salt" too seriously. We should take it with a grain of ...)


^^^^^^^^

CB: Why aren't professors bureaucrats too ?  What defines a bureaucrat for you ?

^^^^^^^^
>> Under the Soviet system, the ruling stratum was bureaucratic:<<

CB:>What does "bureau" add that is not in "centralized" ? It was democratic
centralism, with a central committee. Hierarchical.<

Applied to the CPUSA, the phrase "democratic centralist" involves an abuse
of the word "democratic."

^^^^^^^^^

CB: How do you know it is an abuse ?  Were you ever involved in a vote in the CPUSA ?  The word "democratic" is probably not abused in the CPUSA more than the average in America.  The word "democratic" is universally abused , pretty much.

Still, the term "bureaucratic" distracts from the issue of that it is intended to address: hierarchy or centralism


^^^^^^^^



The elections in the old USSR were a sham, while
the members of the CP didn't have real democratic control over the leaders
or over the Party Line.

^^^^^^^^

CB: For the whole history ? That's probably an overstatement. Khruschev was from the oppositional group, Then Brevhnev (sp)  was in opposition to Khruschev.

Anyway, the ruling stratum, as you put it,  was the ruling statum. Calling it "bureaucratic" adds nothing to what is being said.  It was no more a ruling stratum than in the U.S., and terming it "bureaucratic" is just part of the general anti-Soviet, anti-communist propaganda of the bourgeoisie that attempts to portray the SU and Communist Parties as less democratic than the U.S. and its parties and  institutions. That history is why it is important for you to mention the U.S. when you mention the SU, especially given that you are in the U.S. where the anti-Soviet or anti-socialist discussion and consciousness is nowhere near matched by the anti-US discussion or consciousness. Evenhandedness in this context is unequal treatment.

^^^^^^





If you want to use the word "hierarchical" instead of "bureaucratic," that's
fine. But I'm going to continue my usage. There are hierarchies that aren't
bureaucratic, by the way: the feudal hiearchy is one clear example.


^^^^^^^^

CB: What do you mean by "bureaucratic" then ?  What makes a hierarchy bureaucratic or not bureaucratic ? In what sense was the feudal hierarchy not bureaucratic ?

^^^^^^^


JD:>>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. <<

^^^^^^^^^

CB: But there wasn't exploitation.

^^^^^^^

CB:>Didn't you overlook the USA ? It has one of the most top down
hierarchies in history doesn't it ? Biggest in the world today. Funny how
you don't mention the US., Britain and the capitalist "bureaucracies" . In
your conception, don't you consider the U.S. , with its Enrons, Wall Street,
WallMarts, GM , etc. , to be a highly bureaucratic system, the most
bureaucratic in the world today and for the last century ? Corporate
structure is highly bureaucratic and hierarchical,  very anti-democratic.
And corporations are at the top of another giant "bureaucracy" that includes
the capitalist state apparatus, as we discussed recently. Seems to me the
USA has the worst bureaucracy ever, no ?<

Jim D.I don't get this. I didn't overlook the USA. How could I? Just because I
criticized the USSR (or rather implied criticism, since the top-down rule
could have been justified in some way) doesn't mean that I support the USA.

^^^^^^^

CB: The point you are ignoring is that "bureaucracy" has a specific history in bourgeois and US propaganda as an anti-socialist, anti-Soviet buzz word,as if socialist , non-private enterprise institutions and societies have a tendency to be less efficient due to "big bureaucracies", etc.  So, to only mention the SU without mentioning the US in this context is to feed into this old anti-socialist, anti-Soviet propaganda.  To ignore this wellknown stereo-type is to "support" the US or capitalist "bureaucracies" by default. You have an affirmative obligation to distinguish from the stereotype. The stereotype is that the SU and socialism and government was are bureaucratic and the US.and capitalism and corporations are not. So, if you only mention the SU as bureaucratic, you feed the stereotype.

^^^^^^^^^




Similarly, just because I criticized the USA doesn't mean that I supported
the USSR (back when it existed). It's fallacious to assume that there's no
third alternative.

^^^^^^^

CB: Rarely or never did criticisms of US corporate and capitalist "bureaucracy" come up in such comparisons.   "Bureaucracy" is a buzz word for "socialist" "communist" or "government" , and not for "corporate" or "capitalist".

^^^^^^^


The above reminds me of the old (and admittedly tired) joke about the Soviet
showing the Amurrican the Moscow subway. The latter says "yes, this is
beautiful -- but where are the trains?" and the Soviet responds by saying
"what about the lynchings in the South?" I don't see why one can't say "the
emperor had no clothes" about both super-powers. The old USSR was a class
system, as is the USA.

^^^^^^^^

CB: Sounds like a joke made up by an anti-Soviet. When I was in Moscow there were plenty of trains in the subway. The only thing you might add to make it fit here  is some claim that the trains were absent due to the "bureaucracy" of the Communist Party.

 The closer analogy would be if the American asked if the train was delayed because it was a socialist system, and the Soviet replied, no, when I was in New York, I had to wait for a train , and that was in a capitalist system.

The point is "bureaucracy" has a history of ONLY  being a reference to one emperor's no clothes, not both.  ( Not to mention you are from the country of the emperor who you didn't mention )