Текст книги "Ford and Stalin. How to Live in Humaneness"
Автор книги: (IP of the USSR) Internal Predictor of the USSR
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 32 страниц)
SEVEN. Production and consumption form an integral system of the society. This system develops itself in the course of history. Its skeleton is formed by manufacturing processes. And it then acquires the flesh of a system of human relations determined by morals (ideological relations and those resulting from ideology – informal legal tradition, the legally codified one, financial ones, etc.)
EIGHT. The welfare of society and its future is secured SUBJECTIVELY by means of this system as a whole. This system, based on technology, exists and changes OBJECTIVELY. In order to apply this system efficiently one must do the following:
Define targets that are to be completed by means of this system;
Organize and adjust the system and its elements to the end of:
completing objectives defined,
suppressing processes that lead to completing objectives that are rejected,
adapting it to new problems and objectives that emerge (including pre-emptive measures);
Tailor the work of every colleague (and not an individual worker) so that it conforms to the objectives defined and to the scheme according to which this integral multiindustrial system of production and consumption was adjusted.
NINE. It follows that: There are economic theories that refuse to consider economic issues in terms of the systemic integrity of multiindustrial production and consumption in a modern society. Instead of focusing on the problem of controlling self-regulation of this multiindustrial production and consumption system they keep studying its components separately. Such theories avoid facing the question of the systemic integrity formed by its components which is superior to any one of them taken separately and of establishing control over self-regulation of this systemic integrity. In the modern world these theories are nothing but humbug and swindle.
This humbug and swindle in the culture of our age is performed by mafia corporations of professionals. Very often it is not the matter of mistakes actually made by economists and sociologists[57] – members of the Academy, its corresponding members, doctors, professors, candidates of science, assistant professors as well as scientists and lecturers of a lower rank. It is the matter of their parasitic self-seeking avarice and malicious venality (readiness to provide «scientific» and «theoretic» grounds for any propaganda if it is paid for, readiness to teach students and schoolchildren anything ordered by their «customers» passing it off for reliable knowledge).
TEN. The globalization of the biblical, enslaving, usurious kind involves the downfall of modern civilization and the people’s falling into savagery alike the screenplays of American «futuristic» nightmare films. A globalization alternative to it is not possible without solving the problem of establishing a mechanism to control self-regulation of the global production and consumption system to the end of ensuring that all people share in human dignity.
These are the «ten commandments» which one must bear in mind when making an assessment of the entire economic science and press. They are at the same time the axioms of modern economics, of the economics that has a right to exist and develop in our age.
Keeping them in mind let us go back to what Ford thought about organizing production and distributing products and services within the society.
4.3. Fordizm –
the First Advent of Bolshevism to America
Joseph Stalin defined the essence of the fundamental economic law of capitalism the following way:
«The main features and requirements of the basic economic law of modern capitalism might be formulated roughly in this way: the securing of the maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of the given country, through the enslavement and systematic robbery of the peoples of other countries, especially backward countries, and, lastly, through wars and militarization of the national economy, which are utilized for the obtaining of the highest profits» (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”, “Remarks on Economic Issues Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, Ch. 7. “The Basic Economic Laws of Modern Capitalism and of Socialism”[58]).
Today it is hardly possible to call the population of the «golden billion» countries impoverished: it is stupefied by over-consumption due to the global redistribution of income from usury and debts that cannot be repaid performed by the supra-national bank corporation. Yet nowadays striving for the highest possible profit is still characteristic of the Euro-American type of capitalism.[59]
And yet we find the following on the very first pages of the book “My Life and Work” by H. Ford:
«As things are now organized, I could, were I thinking only selfishly, ask for no change. If I merely want money the present system is all right; it gives money in plenty to me. But I am thinking of service. The present system does not permit of the best service because it encourages every kind of waste – it keeps many men from getting the full return from service. And it is going nowhere. It is all a matter of better planning and adjustment. (put in bold type by the authors)» (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).
This extract leads us to assume that H. Ford as businessman is not the type of businessman whose qualities served as the basis for defining the fundamental economic law of the Euro-American type of capitalism. It is so because Ford clearly condemns money-grubbing, i.e. getting a maximum profit from a business and seizing it solely for one’s private needs (we shall speak about it later), proclaimed as a goal that every «normal» member of society seeks to achieve. Ford does not accept the capitalism of his time as a system. He also contrasts the self-seeking money-grubbing that reigns in that system with the universal norm of social behavior: acting to the BENEFIT of other people and society.
Yet unlike the true Marxists – anti-capitalists – Ford is not a revolutionary. He is seeking not to overthrow the social and economic order that has formed in the course of history but to reform it. And he is a reformer who rejects violence as a means to achieve social progress. He is a teacher. He had learned a great deal about organizing production and distribution of products within the society, about politics as a whole (including global politics[60]) and interpreted what he had learned. And he had carefully written that knowledge down in his books[61] to enable others – who share his creative approach to life and to problems one must face in it – could use his knowledge and practical skills to the benefit of their contemporaries and descendants.
But before we go on quoting Ford’s book “My Life and Work” we shall make a short digression into the realm of laws and rights (which are different things).
* * *
Digression 3 :
Objective Rights and Subjective Laws
A right is an open opportunity of doing something while being safeguarded against a retribution for what has been done.
In the Russian world understanding the notions of «right» and «righteousness» are interconnected and the words that designate those notions are cognate. Therefore right is a reflection of objective righteousness predefined by God, so consequently a right is superior to a law passed by a government as a law can also represent an unrighteousness existing in the society. Only an ill-natured person can claim the words «right» and «law» to be synonymous. Such a person is seeking to make people confuse these two notions to the end of substituting rights with unrighteous laws.
It follows that if one accepts the terms of a theory where «Right» and «Law» are synonymous then one should distinguish between two categories of rights existing in social life:
objective rights given to man and mankind from above. The main right superior to all other is the right of every man to act as God’s deputy on Earth guided by his conscience and in concord with the message of the Revelations[62];
subjective «rights», established in social life by its participants themselves. They depend on their morals and are arbitrary, and can therefore be both righteous and unrighteous.
Consequently conflicts between objective and subjective rights may and do exist in the society. In following objective rights one acts in concord with God’s Will. Those who introduce, interpret and execute subjective «rights» attempt to impede the implementation of God’s Will by their arbitrary rules. In such a case Rights are superior to laws as reflected in an old Russian proverb: «The one who is righteous in the eyes of God cannot be accused by tsars». This philosophy is profoundly different from the canonical moral duplicity of the New Testament: «give to god what is god’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s».[63]
Besides any written law characteristic of the society in a specific period of history – if viewed in terms of the theory of control – falls into one of the three following information modules:
algorithms[64] for normal control following a specific conception of social life and of life and activities of physical and juridical persons within this society;
algorithms for defending control that follows this conception against attempts to exercise control within this society following other conceptions that are incompatible with the former one;
algorithms to make up for the deficiencies that are inherent to the conception supported by the algorithms of normal control as such deficiencies give rise to social tension and conflicts.
But the problem of distinguishing between conceptions and the problem of how different conceptions manifest themselves in diffe r ent fra g ments of one and the same legislation common for the state as a whole is beyond the majority of members of parliament, soc i ologists and average people. This results in the deficiency of legi s lative algorithms in most countries. Such deficiency is of a two-fold nature:
in Russia there is no definite conception. It is therefore unclear what laws and their articles reflect normal control within the chosen conception and what parts of legislation are a means of defense against implementation of conceptions incompatible to the dominating one. These are the very reasons why current Russian legislation is contradictory, ambiguous and sometimes no less than absurd;[65]
in Western countries there is a definite conception. Legislation is sophisticated in the part responsible for normal algorithms of control following the biblical doctrine (see Appendix) and in the part meant to mitigate deficiencies inherent to the biblical conception of society which is dominant in the West. Namely, it is the conception of a society financially strangled by Hebrew[66] corporate supranational usury.
Because there is a need to overcome and compensate for their own deficiencies Western legislation on business and financial a c tivities resembles a labyrinth built in the like of «the tower of Bab y lon». One group of businessmen gets a right to hunt the income of other busines s men, employees and the state as a whole aided by lawyers and judges and prosecutors, without ever thin k ing about the consequences of the self-seeking approach encou r aged among them as well as about who, when and by what means is going to disentangle all the complications. That is why Western legal pra c tice is mostly shameless pettifogging to the end of «grubbing some money» on legal grounds or preventing ot h ers from snatching his or her own money. A horde of avaricious la w yers and «jurists» get their parasitic bread from this pettifoggery.
The second part of legislature that concerns defending control in compliance with the dominating conception against alternatives incompatible with it was introduced both in Russia and in the West in the period between 1917 and the 1950s when Stalin and his era were defamed in the USSR. After that the power passed into the hands of the new generation of Trotskyites, soulless bureaucrats and self-seeking career-makers. Under their rule the USSR lapsed into the period of «zastoi» (stagnation). The ideals of socialism were discredited in the opinion of Western intelligentsia, lost their popular support and no more threatened to eliminate the capitalism of Euro-American type.
In the USSR of Stalin’s times the notorious article 58 represented this part of legislature. It set a custodial punishment for various counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet activities. In the West the policy of defending normal control in compliance with the dominating conception against alternative conceptions was also present. The «witch hunt» in the USA in the age of «McCarthyism»[67] and «professional ban» for left-wing supporters in Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s could be named as examples of executing such a policy.
But if we speak about an era when the control of society along the biblical conception is being suppressed and a self-government acting to the benefit of God’s kingdom is introduced professional lawyers and especially legislators who never think about the conceptual background of legislation are the type producing the most detrimental effect. They are more detrimental than the more or less law-abiding businessmen (including usurious bankers and stock exchange speculators) who adapt to any legislation in force. A businessman (viewed as a class) will adapt to any legislation that from his point of view merely sets the «rules of the game». If the common «rules of the game» are altered most businessmen who are interested in nothing but their business and never think about global problems of sociology will adapt to them provided their life is not endangered and they are not threatened by expropriation («nationalization») of their property and enterprises. In our age a businessman does have a traditional unwritten right to forget about the conceptual background of legislation. Professional lawyers of our time have already forfeited such a right.
* *
*
Having made this digression let us go back to Ford’s book:
«I have no quarrel with the general attitude of scoffing at new ideas. It is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and to insist upon being shown rather than to rush around in a continuous brainstorm after every new idea. Skepticism, if by that we mean cautiousness, is the balance wheel of civilization. Most of the present acute troubles of the world arise out of taking on new ideas without first carefully investigating to discover if they are good ideas. An idea is not necessarily good because it is old, or necessarily bad because it is new, but if an old idea works, then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. Ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost any one can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product.
I am now most interested in fully demonstrating that the ideas we have put into practice are capable of the largest application – that they have nothing peculiarly to do with motor cars or tractors but form something in the nature of a universal code. I am quite certain that it is the natural code and I want to demonstrate it so thoroughly that it will be accepted, not as a new idea, but as a natural code» (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).
This is a brief paragraph but very rich in meaning if one discerns in the terms «code» and «natural code» something different from the penal code, «gentleman’s code» of the criminal community and other crooks, «code of honor» of various corporations of individualists, «moral code» of a communist or a capitalist and the rest of written and unwritten legislation of a crowd-“elitist” society.
In fact in the above quotation Ford says that in his work he sincerely and in good conscience follows a code of objective human rights as far as he has managed to discover and to grasp them. And in his book he describes his vision of a normal algorithms of controlling production and distribution in society according to a conception alternative to the biblical one which dominates the Western civilization: the conception of buying everything up by means of mafia-like corporate supra-national usury. Yet Ford is not writing down his ideas in a rigid form of a law code titled «On Economic and Financial Activity, Labor Relations and Social Security» or a treatise on sociology whose structure corresponds to the lengthy list of big and small issues that are discussed. He is simply telling a story where economic, psychological, cultural and social issues are all intertwined as they are in real life. And every man is capable of understanding Ford’s story if he wishes to understand, if he is interested in these issues and if he is aware of their importance for ensuring both his own prosperity and the prosperity of other people (excluding aggressive parasites from the ranks of the prosperous since parasites must not prosper).
Also Ford says that he firmly believes in the following.
He has discovered and tested the means to control production and distribution of products and to solve social problems connected with production and distribution, and those means would be recognized by the society as the norm.
After this norm is established the system that was successfully implemented in «Ford Motors» will become a natural way to do business and to take part in ventures headed by people who also adhere to this norms.
It is also important that these ethic and organizational norms of managing a business have proved their viability on the microeconomic level in a macroeconomy of the Biblical-Talmudic type which is based on domination of usury and stock exchange speculations organized by mafias and supported by all the might of state and its legal mechanism.[68]
Now let us demonstrate Ford’s views on production and consumption which form the backbone of a technical civilization’s life. Ford says:
«The primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation[69]. Community life is impossible without them
This paragraph makes it clear that Ford begins describing his social and economic views with stating that the multiindustrial system of production and consumption is systemically integral. Its performance determines whether the society as a whole or certain groups within it prosper or not. Consequently it determines the non-economic aspects of prosperity that depend on the economy.
Ford goes on:
«There is plenty of work to do. Business is merely work. Speculation in things already produced
When you get a whole country – as did ours – thinking that Washington is a sort of heaven and behind its clouds dwell omniscience and omnipotence, you are educating that country into a dependent state of mind which augurs ill for the future. Our help does not come from Washington, but from ourselves[71]; our help may, however, go to Washington as a sort of central distribution point where all our efforts are coordinated for the general good. We may help the Government; the Government cannot help us.
(…)
The moral fundamental is man’s right in his labor
If we cannot produce we cannot have – but some say if we produce it is only for the capitalists. Capitalists who become such because they provide better means of production are of the foundation of society. They have really nothing of their own[72]. They merely manage property for the benefit of others. Capitalists who become such through trading in money are a temporarily necessary evil. They may not be evil at all if their money goes to production. If their money goes to complicating distribution – to raising barriers between the producer and the consumer – then they are evil capitalists and they will pass away when money is better adjusted to work; and money will become better adjusted to work when it is fully realized that through work and work alone may health, wealth, and happiness inevitably be secured (put in bold type by the authors) (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).
And the above quotation makes it clear that the right to work naturally implies the right to the products of one’s labor. But because in the multiindustrial production and consumption system work is performed collectively the individual is entitled only to his own share of the work’s product. Besides, many products are discrete[73] and many even non-discrete products are consumed discretely by portions or collectively[74], therefore the right to receive the objects produced in most cases cannot be actualized in natural form.
This circumstance leads to the following question:
What is the best way to adjust money (which is in itself nothing), or rather money circulation, to labor and consumer relations between people in the systemic integrity of multiindustrial production and distribution of products? For it is exactly the efficiency of this systemic integrity that determines and predestines many things regarding the welfare of society and each of its members.
Ford asks the same question only in a somewhat different wording because he discusses its different interconnected aspects in different parts of his text.
While analyzing the system of self-regulation of production and distribution that has formed in the USA and the West in the course of history in order to answer the many-sided question we pointed to above, Ford adheres to the systemic views he has put forward earlier. He puts it straight:
«I only want to know whether the greatest good is being rendered to the greatest number» (Ch. 12. “Money – Master or Servant?”).
And this is a clear and unambiguous display of supporting bolshevism which acts to the benefit of the majority («bolshinstvo» in Russian) of laborers who do not want anyone to parasite on their life and labor.
Digression 4 :
The Moral and Ethic Results of Bourgeois Reforms in Russia
«I recall an incident in Siberia where I once lived in exile. It happened in spring, at the time of spring tide. About thirty people went to the river to catch the logs carried away by the raging great river. In the evening they came back to the village, but one of their companions was missing. I asked them where that man was and they answered indifferently that he «remained there». I asked again: «How is it so, he remained?» and they answered with the same indifference: «What’s the point of asking, he must have drowned». And the next moment one of them started hurrying somewhere saying that he «had to water the mare». I reproached him for feeling more sorry for a beast than for a man. One of them answered backed up by all the others: «What’s the point of feeling sorry for them people? New people we can make any time, but a mare… it’s not that easy to make a new mare» (put in bold type by the authors: this moral attitude that is widespread among the simple people reveals the reasons for abuse of power after 1917). This might be a small and insignificant detail, which is nevertheless very characteristic. It seems to me that indifference towards people, towards personnel shared by some of our executives, their inability to value people is a remnant of that strange attitude of people towards other people
WE MUST FINALLY UNDERSTAND THAT OF ALL THE VALUABLE CAPITAL IN THE WORLD PEOPLE, PERSONNEL ARE THE MOST VALUABLE AND THE MOST DECISIVE CAPITAL. WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT IN OUR PRESENT SITUATION «PERSONNEL TURNS THE SCALE…» (put in capitals by the authors. A quotation from Stalin’s address to graduates of military academies made on May 4, 1934).
And it is truly so: «Personnel turns the scale». Those who disagree with this statement made by the outstanding Bolshevik manager, man of state thinking and economist, Joseph Stalin, can find consolation in a different formula, which is of a slave-owning nature in its essence:
«Assets[75] are resources owned by company «A». And though the EMPLOYEES of this COMPANY are probably its MOST VALUABLE RESOURCE (put in capitals by the authors) they nevertheless (are/ are not) a resource subject to accounting. Underline the correct answer» (Robert N. Antoni, professor at Harvard university Business school, “Essentials of Accounting”).[76]
Though various equipment and technologies are indeed important, in any sphere of maintenance of modern civilization it is not the money, equipment, technology and software, not the lifeless knowledge contained in books, not the infrastructures that do the work. It is the living people who control the whole thing and contribute their productive labor (whether manual or intellectual).
At the same time the overwhelming majority of products and services needed for an individual’s, a family’s, a nation’s life in modern civilization are of such a nature that they cannot be produced on one’s own by anyone. Manufacturing them in good quality requires the coordinated effort of dozens of enterprises and agencies:
They must work «as a single person» who is something like a multitude of personalities existing simultaneously. This «person» should perform the elements of the common work (the manufacturing process) in different places with proper professional skills and industry.
If this is not the case then any projects and ventures end up unrealizable (at the maximum) or at the least the quality of their products does not satisfy consumers and their participants themselves, depending on how far they were from this ideal. In some cases the project fails because one man out of the thousands of its participants has made a single mistake that passed unnoticed or if noticed uncorrected by other workers; or this one man could knowingly do his part of the common job carelessly.
Totally removing man from the system of production and turning to a fully automatic and robotic production will not solve this problem. On the contrary, it will aggravate it:
first, any software controlling automatic equipment is written by teams of humans. Both their strengths and weaknesses leave an imprint on this software;
second, one of the basic qualities of most automatic applications is that it is impossible for people to control accuracy of its operation and to correct its mistakes at the pace at which automatically controlled processes (especially fast ones) proceed[77].
Owing to the above-mentioned qualities of the modern society’s production basis in any period of time at any enterprise it is the relations between superiors and inferiors and between workers of similar status, which determine whether it will achieve success or fail.
Therefore when executives share such notorious prejudices in their relations with subordinates as «I’m the boss – you’re the fool», «personnel must do what they are told and mind their own business», etc. and use the clichés «you’re the boss – I’m the fool», «I shall do anything you say without any pangs of conscience» when addressing their superiors this is most detrimental to any team work.
If this psychological and ethic climate is maintained among staff members by the executives whose behavior is more befitting to a «pukhun» (leader in a criminal community») or «barin» (Russian landlord) and by other factors of social importance the enterprise is doomed to exist in abject misery. A hierarchy of real fools and «smart» rascals pretending to be fools is formed at the enterprise breeding incompetence and establishing a gap between the post and the qualities the holder of this post has. This happens on every level of controlling the manufacturing processes and controlling the collective. The same goes for the economy as a system formed by many enterprises managed on the principles described in the previous paragraph.[78]
Unfortunately, in the course of the post-1991 reforms in the countries of the former USSR top executives on the whole (with minor exceptions known to few people) treated the collectives they headed with permissiveness and carelessness. CEOs and top managers of most enterprises misused their authority, suppressed and dismissed those who opposed their aggressive parasitism and self-seekingly made money. Considering themselves and their relatives to be the society’s «cream of the cream» and the true proprietors of those enterprises – the first generation of capitalists, they redistributed Soviet NATIONAL property (according to the legislation in force) and COOPERATIVE property of the KOLKHOZES (collective farms) to their own benefit.
