Response to "Planned Economy and Workers Control" from Andy Blunden
by Annette Schlemm

"There is currently no Marxist theory of proletarian economic management."

1. Yes, I agree: there isn't.
2. But: are the "proletarians" then "proletarians"??? Or changed all social relations so that there are no "bourgeoises" and "proletarians" (dialectic notions are relations!).? In GDR, we said that after the revolution proletarians no longer exist, only the "working class".
   Proletarians are defined by being exploited. Then they also have subjective characterizations which have been analyzed Simone Weil in 1930. She said: "If proletarians work as gearwheels, they think as gearwheels... " (She asked herself, why German workers supported Hitler and did not make a revolution).
3. I assume that the production process changes so that we can´t find "proletarians" yet. New forms of production-organisations ("Toyotism") change the relations of production essentially. I think we need an analysis for modern production like Marx analyzed the "Great Industrialism" in "Capital". He would do this, I assume!
4. We can a) analyze the trends and b) say, what we will! (see http://www.thur.de/philo/ensoges.htm and ../aszu1e.htm). Even trends show a tendency to "decentralization". This leads to the possibility to discuss democracy in production in a new way!!! In formerly "socialism" we got a command-economy, because in the great factories democracy was impossible! ""Proletarian" economic management we must view under these new conditions (which develop independently from us and/ or which we influence).
5. Another important new condition: ecological limitations of material consumption!...
6. Generally economy has the problem, that it is based on "scantiness". In communism, where all needs are satisfied: is there "economy"? I'm fearing that if there is scantiness, socialism and communism are not possible. We have to found a way out of the increase of material production!! When the production-means, the productivity is matured enough? In this point I say, that there is not a objective measure. Here WE have to decide (so long we can till ecological catastrophes). Our technology is so developed that we can create new society - based on some of these (not all!) technics. If we not produce armaments, so much cars, so much throw-away-things and so on... we can reduce production so that each of us needn't work 40 hours a week. These conditions made a absolutely other economy - and economy-management - as we know. But we must assume absolutely new conditions (not absolutely new: Even Paul Lafargue wrote: Right of Laziness). It doesn't mean a merely simple reproduction, but a self-determined non-destroying co-evolution of humans and non-human-nature (Alliance - said Ernst Bloch).

I think that socialism isn't necessary! (Marx defined it under other conditions!). In which socialism is distinguished from socialism? Dictatorship of proletariat? We needn't. Production through "nominal output"? We needn't. Both would destroy (and destroyed!) important other conditions for communism!!!

"planned economy"

I remind on "Order without reign". I see this form of organization in the "turbulent chaos" what you mustn't confuse with chaos in absolute equilibrium (see in German: http://www.thur.de/philo/as25.htm and ../ensoges.htm). I don't want "back" to middle-age-villages, but I can imagine smaller units of life and work -interconnected by computer-networks, which exist self-determined, but in self-determined interactions with others... (like whirls in a turbulent current). These interactions do (or replace) the "plan" and the "market"... It is hard to imagine this new relations - but who could imagine feudal relations within the slave-economy or the capital-economy within the feudal economy and so on? It is a characterization of news that they doesn't exist till their coming into being... Only some conditions we can discuss and do all to realize them.

I do not define the new economy in relation to "struggle again bourgeois". This will follow than. If we know what we want, we can outline the way and means to reach it. Here I meet the anarchists again: The means must correspond with the goals... (if not, we destroy - i.e. subjective - conditions for the new!).

Transition is my great problem. I'm fearing that there will be some catastrophes in which different forces work. I can plant seems for forces in the wished direction... I self can do something in the "edge of chaos" in the "bifurcation-point" to realize my and my friends wishes... I don't hope that a "conscious class" makes a revolution and than build "the" new society. It's an evolution-revolution-process like in all natural evolution in which we can influence with our doing. This gives me hope if I can't see an increasing " "conscious class" and shows me other possibilities under (I think) given conditions.

Maybe my opinion is the "neo-Proudhonist theory" which you criticized.... I have never read Proudhon. But I see tendencies and I have experiences with other socialist practices... Please do not demarcate, but integrate the best of all... (by criticizing!: negation of negation: sublate, but keep the best).

Annette Schlemm (annette.schlemm-at-t-online.de, URL: http://www.thur.de/philo/as.htm)