Bureaucracy
by Devine, James
06 April 2002 17:09 UTC
Time is fleeting, so let's go greet the fleet.
Charles Brown writes:>Why aren't professors bureaucrats too ? What defines
a bureaucrat for you ?<
Like any real-world phenomenon, academia doesn't fit any academic conceptual
box exactly. The professoriat has its bureaucratic (top-down hierarchical)
aspects, especially with the move toward making universities more like
corporations, but in many places academia has a large components of the
feudal guild left over from the past. The full prof. is like a guild master
(with the Dean being the head-master), while associates are like
journeypeople and assistants a bit like apprentices. (Part-timers and other
non-tenure-track folk are on the outside of this hierarchy.) This guild
system is a strange combination of worker-controlled production -- so the
Yeshiva decision wasn't that far off when the U.S. Supes decided that
professors are part of management at private colleges -- and corporate-style
bureaucracy. The difference from the latter is that professors have pretty
good hopes of rising to the top once they get tenure. In any case, tenure --
which goes along with being part of the guild management structure -- gives
much more job security than almost anyone else has. (The corporatization of
the universities means that tenure is threatened.)
^^^^^^^^
CB: Yes, Marshall Sahlins wrote that the politics of the university is feudal or
something like that. You sketch out more of the details, although, I think you might
want to get the lords and serfs in there too.
So, professors are a combination of residually feudal and somewhat corporate, but no
doubt also government, bureaucrats.
I don't think the use of " bureaucrat" works even here. It is a reification, a kind of
intellectual filler term. What characterizes the university situation , like the
corporate and government situation is that a small percentage of total personnel of
the "bureaucracy" are powerful: the President, the Deans and the Department heads, and
the tenured profs. The rest of the "bureaucracy" , non-tenured profs, secretaries,
teaching fellows, graduate students, students, do not have equal power, except in
smaller issues.
The point is that "bureaucracy" includes in the same group people who should be
analyzed as in different sections. It's like calling everybody at a corporation "the
company" and not distinguishing between bosses and workers.
^^^^^^^^^
I wrote:>> The elections in the old USSR were a sham, while the members of
the CP didn't have real democratic control over the leaders 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.<
But K's victory over Malenkov _et al_ (and Breshnev's later victory) wasn't
decided democratically, but as a matter of bureaucratic in-fighting.
^^^^^^^^
CB: I don't agree that you have established that there is such a thing as
"bureaucracies" that have an inherent characteristic of "infighting". It is not a real
phenonmenon. What do you mean by decided democratically ? Direct vote of the whole
population ?
^^^^
^^^^^
(As
I've noted, I reject the monolithic conception of bureaucracy in which all
decisions are made at the top and then implemented. Competition within the
bureaucracy is crucial.)
^^^^^^^^^
CB: But isn't competition inherent in democracy in which there is more than one
candidate in a vote ? Isn't competition inherent to a voting system ? So,
"competition" is inherent in democracy , no ? Why is competition a sign of lack of
democracy to you ? It should be a sign that there is democracy. You should be saying
that lack of competition in the "bureaucracy" would be a sing of lack of democracy .
Please give me an example of where you think there is democracy but no competition.
^^^^^^^
CB: >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. <
Well, the ruling stratum of the USSR wasn't democratic, feudal,
slave-driving, or capitalist. How else does one describe a small elite that
monopolizes political power -- often with force -- and then dictates to both
the political system and the economic system about what should be done?
^^^^^^^^^
CB: How else does one describe it , or name it ? One could name it the U.S. ruling
class. The description " a small elite that
monopolizes political power -- often with force -- and then dictates to both
the political system and the economic system about what should be done? " sounds like
the US ruling class to me >
^^^^^^^^^
(All
societies after "primitive communism" have hierarchies and not all of them
are "bureaucratic," so merely calling it hierarchical won't do. Should we
call the old USSR "despotic" instead?)
^^^^^^^
CB: I'd call it a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That's what it had
aimed to be. "Despotic" implies a "despot" , a single individual. The Soviet Union had
a collective or group dictatorship.
Bureaucratic doesn't add any information to hierachical, in fact it actually
misleads. Even "despot" added the information that it was a single individual.
Bureaucratic misrepresents because such a large number of people are classified as
"bureaucrats" and the vast majority of them do not have the power. Substitute
"officeworker-crats" and you will see how "bureaucrat" is an actually misleading form.
^^^^^^^^
Just because something is "propaganda" doesn't mean it's not true.
^^^^^^^
CB: Yes, I agree that propaganda is political education, and can be true or false.
However, the propaganda I am talking about regarding the use of "bureaucrats" is false
propaganda.
^^^^^
The most
successful propaganda over the long haul has a basis in truth ("Big
Lie"-type propaganda tends to work only in the short run or when the
population's access to independent information is severely limited). Thus, a
lot -- perhaps even almost all -- of Soviet propaganda about the US was
true. (For example, the existence of open unemployment -- and the evils of
that system -- in the "West" was emphasized in Soviet messages to their
workers; it was true, while it told the workers "it could be worse," so
you'd better start working harder. The old Soviet system didn't create much
motivation to work.)
^^^^^^^^
CB: I think capitalism creates too much work. If the workers have power , as in the
Soviet Union, they would , by common sense, not work themselves as hard as capitalism
would work them. Why else did they get socialism except to not work as hard as under
capitalism. Of course, bourgeois false propaganda turns this positive result of
workers' power into " The old Soviet system didn't create much motivation to work",
forgetting that the growth rate of the Soviet Union was faster than all the hisortical
growths of the capitalist countries in their industrializations.
So, not only did the SU motivate people to work, actually, but you cannot demonstrate
that the Soviet workers were not motivated exactly because they were working for
themselves, and realized that they had to work harder than they would have if there
was a world wide socialist revolution, and no need to keep up militarily with the
savage capitalist imperialist warmongering mass murderers who attacked the SU from the
start.
^^^^^^^
The US propaganda about (for example) the limits on free speech in the old
USSR were also true. (Obviously, the problem with such true propaganda is
what was left out.) So instead of labeling something as part of "propaganda"
in order to dismiss it, its factual or logical content has to be addressed
directly.
^^^^^^^^
CB: My estimate is that the US propaganda descriptions of this were partial truths.
This is especially true because the US defines US free speech as the model , and it is
very defective and corrupted. The US claims to being the world's greatest practicioner
of freedom of speech are highly exaggerated and over stated. I have about five or six
lectures on this if you want them . So, the fact that a US form or institution did not
exist in the SU is not proof that there is not freedom of speech.
I think there were limitations on freedom of speech in the SU, but I think that one
would not get at them by approaching them in the manner that the US propaganda does.
Perhaps the most fundamental problem is the failure to acknowledge the fact and
implications of capitalism and imperialism putting the SU under actual war invasion or
threat of invasion throughout its entire existence. The US tradition of freedom of
speech does not tolerate freedom of speech in such circumstance. Even in WWI when the
war was way "over there" Mr. Justice Holmes, in the very first ( and I do not
exaggerate) and famous US Supreme Court decision on the First Amendment, found that
there was an exception and a Socialist agitator against the war was not protected
because his speech created a "clear and present danger" to the state. Well, the SU was
under a real, clear and present danger throughout its entire existence, the likes of
which the danger to the US from WWI was like nothing, and I mean no!
thing. The US actually invaded the infant SU with a whole bunch of other capitalist
countries. Now that's a clear and present danger, by which , according to Mr. Justice
Holmes, it is legit to find an exception to freedom of speech under the U.S. free
speech standard. So, overall, I really don't buy that U.S. propaganda judgement on
freedom of speech in the SU. The U.S. really has a lot of nerve so saying, given that
much of the threat to the SU in its history from 1918 invasion, to the nuclear threat
directed at the SU . Don't forget that for a number of years the US had nuclear
weapons and the SU didn't and the US refused to get rid of them or promise not to use
them against the SU, China, Korea, Viet Nam because they were Communist. That put all
of them under a clear and present danger compared to which the threat to the US in WWI
was nothing.
> Evenhandedness in this context is unequal treatment.<
why? both superpowers involved oppression of the powerless;
^^^^^^^^
CB: Because you are in the superpower in which there is no comparison of the level of
anti-Soviet propaganda and the anti-US propaganda. Americans are fully informed, and
in fact mis-informed and exaggeratedly informed of the oppressions of the powerless in
the Soviet Union. They are under informed as to how much the US is not better or as
bad or worse than the SU. They are underinformed of the extent to which the
militarization of Soviet society was a necessary evil BECAUSE of the oppression
visited on the SU by the US and other capitalist countries. The are misinformed that
even by the best US freedom of speech and Bill of Rights standards, the US would have
moved to many of the same repressions that the SU did in the face of much bigger clear
and present dangers than the US has faced since the Civil War. That's why American
Marxists should not be "evenhanded" in criticism of the two "superpowers", in speaking
to Americans. America made itself the clear and present dang!
er to all the Communist countries.
^^^^^^^^^
both invaded
countries that they dominated when the dominated countries revolted.
^^^^^^^^^
CB: This is not at all comparable. The Eastern European countries had all been part of
the Nazi invasion of the SU. You don't lose 20 million people to invaders and then
just let them reorganize themselves. You put them on ice for a long time. You owe it
to your people to guarantee that such an invasion does not happen again. It really
makes me angry that Americans, who were not hardly touched by WWII the way the SU was
have the nerve to say , oh you must by our liberal standards let those countries go
back to capitalism if they want. No, capitalism was the source of fascism. Capitalism
can generate fascism again. The Soviets had a right to insure no capitalism in the
Eastern European countries for a long time. They had a right to defascize them over a
long period of time. The U.S still has troops in Europe and Japan. The relationship
of the SU to Eastern Europe is not at all comparable to the countries that the US has
invaded or run terrorist armies in its colonies.
^^^^^
Why
should either be let off the hook? It's oppression that we should oppose,
not simply one or two kinds of oppression. What's the point of siding with
one kind of oppression against another? Why choose typhoid over dysentery -
or vice-versa? Let's oppose all disease.
^^^^^^^^^^
CB: The two are not the same. The militarized form of Soviet society was forced on it
by the oppression of the imperialist countries. Despite this the SU specifically made
advances away from the capitalist forms of oppression and exploitation. So, to discuss
them as the same or the two countries as playing the same role in the world revolution
against oppression and exploitation in general is , in my opinion, wrong, and a big
disservice to the historic struggle against oppression and exploitation.
^^^^^^^^
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 ?<
there's a very large sociological literature on the meaning of
"bureaucracy." One of the differences that has spawned this dialogue is that
you start with the popular conceptions of bureaucracy and I am starting with
knowledge that "bureaucracy" has had a distinct meaning in social science
for generations.
^^^^^^^^^
CB: And a father of that literature is Weber, whom I mentioned in my very first post
on this issue. I may know and show I know a lot more about the academic literatue on
"bureaucracy" than you are realizing.
Anthropology and sociology are "cousins" you know.
What I am saying is that "bureaucracy" is one of those social scientific concepts like
"middle class" that are distorting and misleading. You know there is quite a bit of
reification in social science. Have you noticed how "culture" is just everywhere
nowadays ? Corporations even have "cultures". That's an anthropolgy term that has
gotten inflated beyond valid use. One has to be selective and critical about what one
uses. My whole point here is that "bureaucracy" is one of those bad concepts from the
_academic literature_. The definition below reminds me of how inflated "culture" has
become. In fact, I'm sure that somebody will say that "bureaucracies" have their own
"cultures" somewhere.
^^^^^^^^
COMPTON'S 1999 encyclopedia on CD-ROM has a description that's in between
the popular and academic visions. I'd accept most of its description:
>Bureaucracy has two shades of meaning. It may mean the governance of a
company or institution by a specific set of officials, such as management.
Or it may mean the governance of a whole nation by means of agencies,
bureaus, commissions, and departments. In this sense, bureaucracy would
denote all of the agencies and departments contained within the executive
branch of a national government.
>All forms of government establish bureaucracies to administer the
government and deal with the public welfare. There are agencies that collect
taxes, provide for defense, give police protection, administer welfare and
social security programs, operate school systems, and manage public
transportation.
>Private institutions also need bureaucracies. [This gets rid of the initial
equation of government with bureaucracy, which was silly anyway. --JD]
Church bodies, corporations, banks, hospitals, and charitable foundations
all must have some form of management that consists of paid directors and
other hired personnel.
>A bureaucracy is characterized by a highly developed division of labor, an
authority structure, the assignment of certain tasks to specific
individuals, and regulations established for the operation of the
organization. A member of the bureaucracy, called a bureaucrat, is recruited
for a job on the basis of qualifications, such as education or experience,
that demonstrate an ability to perform specialized tasks. Usually the wages
paid to a bureaucrat depend on the person's status or grade within the
organization, rather than on performance or productivity.<
NB: this is all very different from a feudal hierarchy, in which rank is
inherited from one's parents, etc. This is crucial to the distinction
between non-bureaucratic and bureaucratic hierarchies.
>The virtue of a bureaucracy lies in doing efficiently the job for which it
was intended. To do their jobs well, agencies need trained, professional
workers who are dedicated to public service.
>There are two major faults that may occur in any bureaucracy. [This
paragraph really undermines the assertion above that bureaucracy is
efficient.] First, an agency may forget that its purpose is to serve the
public. It may become overly aggressive in its actions and policies and may
seek to expand its size, jurisdiction, and power at the expense of the
public and of other agencies. Second, an agency may become so bogged down in
routine and procedures that it forgets its function and its assignments. It
may seek to avoid responsibility and to shift work onto some other agency.
It may also become afraid of innovation and challenge and seek only to
perpetuate its own existence.
>To guard against bureaucratic excesses and failures, modern
states--especially the democracies--have made the agencies of government
accountable to elected officials.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CB: Don't you think this is a pretty big whopper ? The STATES (!) are guarding
against tthe excesses and failures of the bureaucracies ?!
This demonstrates the complete confusion of this author's concepts.
Also, here the anti-socialism, ant-New Deal, anti-SU ideology is creeping in. Notice
the only discussion of problems is of _public service_ "bureaucracies", not private
corporate "bureaucracies".
Also, the "agency" is "forgetting" things. That is a type of error of the locus of
consciousness. "Agencies" don't have that kind of consciousness. It is an error of
anthropomorphizing.
^^^^^^^
Bureaucracies are also subject to the law
and a process known as judicial review by which courts or tribunals may pass
judgment on an agency's decisions (see Administrative Law).
^^^^^^^^
CB: The whole thing of deregulation, neo-liberal laissez-faire is to make corporate,
private bureaucracies _less_ subject to judicial review . And when there is judicial
review, for the judges, like Posner and Rehnquist, to favor letting them do what they
what they want (laissez-faire). That's "free enterprise", doing business and not being
regulated by some "agency" that acts in the "public interest". The freedom of the
private enterprise, not its regulation by government agencies, the direction of
private bureaucracies.
This shows that this discussion of making bureaucracies responsible to courts refers
to government "bureaucracies" and the opposite is true of private corporate
"bureaucracies" . In other words, by "bureaucracy" they really mean government, not
private corps.
^^^^^^^^
>Bureaucracies have played a significant role in the history of
civilizations by providing a kind of continuity in society. Kings, emperors,
presidents, and dictators die or are removed from office, but bureaucracies
are more durable and continue the process of administering a government.
>Bureaucracies had their origin in the households of kings in the ancient
societies of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, India, and China. Kings needed
officials to collect taxes, to manage agriculture, to govern outlying
provinces, and to lead armies. The most elaborate bureaucracy developed in
China. Called the civil service, it was established in the 3rd century BC
and was expanded greatly over the next several centuries. There were schools
for civil servants and systems of examination for entrance and promotion.
During the Sung Dynasty, from 960 to 1279, schools were established
throughout the country to educate talented but poor individuals. At the
insistence of the emperor, the bureaucracy managed nearly every aspect of
Chinese public life. Because the bureaucracy sought to follow and preserve
ancient traditions, there was little room for innovation or invention in
China by the time the Middle Ages were ending in Europe.
>Bureaucracies in the Western world remained largely under the control of
kings until the modern period. European rulers generally tried to reserve
positions in the civil service for members of the nobility, but the training
and expertise required often meant accepting commoners into positions of
power. The French Revolution, which ended in 1799, greatly influenced the
democratization of the nation's civil service. Entrance examinations and
formal qualifications for office became the means of selection. Since 1855
the members of Great Britain's civil service have been chosen on the basis
of competitive examinations.
>In the United States, for most of the 19th century, the agencies of
government were filled by the patronage, or spoils, system. This meant that
positions were filled by the friends of elected officials. To end this
situation, Congress passed the Civil Service Act in 1883. Most of the states
and larger cities have adopted civil service systems....<
^^^^^^^^^
CB: I see very little or no discussion of non-government or private corporate
"bureaucracy" . I don't think there is a thing "bureaucracy" that has this wide an
existence. This is social scientific reification.
.
^^^^^^^^
I wrote:>>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.<
I examined the normative or ethical meaning of "exploitation" awhile back
(including various Marxian visions) and discovered that as far as I'm
concerned, the best definition "exploitation" would be taxation without
representation. (For example, capitalist extraction of surplus-value is like
taxation -- in that it's based on state use of force, coercion by the
reserve army of labor, and the threats by managers -- and it's clearly not
organized in a democratic-representative way.) By this criterion, I'd say
the USSR's system involved a lot of exploitation, i.e., the extraction of
surplus-labor in order to serve the needs of the CP's state dictatorship.
(NB: this doesn't mean that they did a very good job at exploitation;
capitalism, on the other hand, is renowned for the efficiency of its
exploitation.)
^^^^^^^^^
CB: I don't agree that there was not representation of the masses of people in the SU
hierarchy. This slogan tends to secrete in a bourgeois conception of "exploitation" ,
not surprisingly given its origin. At any rate, the Soviet top leadership did not
accumulate wealth through "taxation" of he populace. So, even this approach does not
demonstrate exploitation comparable to the US. and other exploiting systems.
But anyway, I would go with the more "orthodox" Marxist version of exploitation.
Socialism does not contemplate that there would be no surplus-labor from which a
public fund for the obvious needs of children, elderly and even academics ,etc. would
be met. It is not accurate to say that the SU had an exploiting ruling class in the
form of the CP bureaucracy exploiting wealth from the masses of Soviet people.
The militarization meant reduction in things like freedom of speech, and Bill of
Rights rights as I described above. But that is not the equivalent to exploitation,
and it cannot be secreted in through the slogan regarding "representation".
I wrote:> ... 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 well
known 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.<
But the fact was that the SU _was_ bureaucratic (following the COMPTON'S
description above, even though they didn't mention it). Within the context
of my (too) many contributions to pen-l, it should be clear to all who want
to know that I oppose capitalism.
^^^^^^^^^
CB: I hate to say it but the Compton's description is scientifically useless, and
precisely the type of thing I started this thread against. No, I don't think the
Soviet Union was "bureaucratic" because there isn't a thing ,"bureaucracy".
"Bureaucracy" is mainly a misleading , confused, self-contradictory false bourgeois
propaganda term, especially when used to refer to the Soviet Union.
But if one uses the term, it should always be against the false stereotype, and FIRST
mention that the most important "bureaucracy" we should be mindful of is the private
corporate "bureaucracy" .
In general , I would not use "bureaucracy" and the Compton defintion is a good example
of how harmful the term is.
^^^^^^^^
If I were criticizing the management of the Oakland Raiders, would I have to
put it into context by telling everyone that I also criticize the other NFL
teams (except the Packers)?
^^^^^^^^^^^
CB: The analogy doesn't work, and I don't want to take the time hypothetically change
a football example. The US and SU weren't like two football teams. It's more like
the Evil Empire (US) vs the Jheddi ( SU).
^^^^^^^^^
I think the fact is that you, Charles, don't want anyone to criticize the
USSR, even though it's dead and gone. Anything that even vaguely criticizes
the USSR and USSR-type modes of production -- like the use of the word
"bureaucracy" -- is verboten.
^^^^^^^^^
CB: I definitely want most people to admit that the criticisms of the SU when it
existed were exaggerated and misleading, yes, you have got that, Jim.
I might say, in turn , that I think you don't want anybody to say anything positive
about the SU. Or at least I hear you say very little positive about the SU compared to
your criticisms.
Again, it's context. We are in a situation where 99% of the people are harshly
critical of the SU. We are not in the CPUSA, where a bit more criticism might be
called for. We are in a situation where criticism of the SU is rife and off the deep
end. In that context, it is entirely approapriate to emphasize criticism of criticism
of the Soviet Union.
The criticism of the Soviet Union should be as of the Paris Commune, or other efforts
to build socialism that have been partially successful and partially failures.
And I have criticized the SU, Stalinism etc. , but it would not make sense to
emphasize criticism of the SU when that occurs in spades. Anti-Sovietism is pretty
much a dogma of the US left, no ?
>>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". <
I was _very_ explicit that "bureaucracies" also are crucial to corporations
(as was COMPTON'S, surprisingly).
^^^^^^^^^
CB: Your view is not going to become the norm. The fact that you are surprised by
COMPTON's mention of corporations, makes my point. And in its discussion, COMPTON
gives much more attention to government than private corps. They really only give
"lip service" to private corps.
(The machine won't let me put anymore on this page. Continued in another post-Charles)
^^^^^^^^^
