[Peace-discuss] Occupy Production

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

> http://www.zcommunications.org/occupy-production-by-richard-d-wolff
> Occupy Production
> By Richard D. Wolff
> Source: MRZine
> Saturday, December 03, 2011
>
> As the Occupy movement keeps developing, it seeks solutions for the
> economic and political dysfunctions it exposes and opposes. For many,
> the capitalist economic system itself is the basic problem. They want
> change to another system, but not to the traditional socialist
> alternative (e.g., USSR or China). That system too seems to require
> basic change.
>
> The common solution these activists propose is to change both systems'
> production arrangements from the ground up. Every enterprise should be
> democratized. Workers should occupy their enterprise by collectively
> functioning as its board of directors. That would abolish the  
> capitalist
> exploitative system (employer versus employee) much as our historical
> predecessors abolished the parallel exploitative systems of slavery
> (master versus slave) and feudalism (lord versus serf).
>
> In workers' self-directed enterprises, those who do the work also  
> design
> and direct it and dispose of its profits: no exploitation of workers  
> by
> others. Workers participate equally in making all enterprise  
> decisions.
> The old capitalist elite -- the major corporate shareholders and the
> boards of directors they choose -- would no longer decide what, how,  
> and
> where to produce and how to use enterprise profits. Instead, workers  
> --
> in partnership with residential communities interdependent with their
> enterprises -- would make all those decisions democratically.
>
> Only then could we avoid repeating yet again the capitalist cycle: (1)
> economic boom bursting into crisis, followed by (2) mass movements for
> social welfare reforms and economic regulations, followed by (3)
> capitalists using their profits to undo achieved reforms and
> regulations, followed by (1) again, the next capitalist boom, bust,  
> and
> crisis. US capitalism since the crash of 1929 displays this 3-step  
> cycle.
>
> In democratized enterprises, the workers who most need and benefit  
> from
> reforms would dispose of the profits of enterprise. No separate  
> class of
> employers would exist and use enterprise profits to undo the reforms  
> and
> regulations workers achieved. Quite the contrary, self-directing  
> workers
> would pay taxes only if the state secures those reforms and  
> regulations.
> Democratized enterprises would not permit the inequalities of income  
> and
> wealth (and therefore of power and cultural access) now typical across
> the capitalist world.
>
> Actually existing socialist systems, past and present, also need
> enterprise democratization. Those systems' socialization of productive
> property plus central planning (versus capitalism's private property  
> and
> markets) left far too much unbalanced power centralized in the  
> state. In
> addition, reforms (guaranteed employment and basic welfare, far less
> inequality of income and wealth, etc.) won by socialist revolutions
> proved insecure. Private enterprises and markets eventually returned  
> and
> erased many of those reforms.
>
> Traditional socialism's problems flow also from its undemocratic
> organization of production. Workers in socialized state enterprises  
> were
> not self-directed; they did not collectively decide what, how, and  
> where
> to produce nor what to do with the profits. Instead, state officials
> decided what, how, and where to produce and how to dispose of profits.
> If socialist enterprises were democratized, the state would then  
> depend
> for its revenue on collectively self-directed workers. That would
> institutionalize real, concrete control from below to balance state
> power from above.
>
> Workers' self-directed enterprises are a solution grounded in the
> histories of both capitalism and socialism. Establishing workers'
> self-directed enterprises completes what past democratic revolutions
> began in moving societies beyond monarchies and autocracies.
> Democratizing production can finally take democracy beyond being  
> merely
> an electoral ritual that facilitates rule by the 1% over the 99%.
>
> Richard D. Wolff is Professor Emeritus at the University of
> Massachusetts in Amherst and also a Visiting Professor at the Graduate
> Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New
> York. He is the author of New Departures in Marxian Theory (Routledge,
> 2006) among many other publications. Check out Richard D. Wolff’s
> documentary film on the current economic crisis, Capitalism Hits the
> Fan, atwww.capitalismhitsthefan.com. Visit Wolff's Web site
> atwww.rdwolff.com, and order a copy of his new book Capitalism Hits  
> the
> Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do about It. His weekly
> radio program, "Economic Update," broadcasts on WBAI, 99.5 FM in New
> York City every Saturday at noon for an hour; it can also be heard  
> live
> and in podcast archive on wbai.org. This article also appears in the
> Occupy Harvard Crimson.

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