Текст книги "Ford and Stalin. How to Live in Humaneness"
Автор книги: (IP of the USSR) Internal Predictor of the USSR
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Virtually everywhere CEOs and top-managers treated employees as if they were working cattle without a single human right. In the collectives that could not withstand this outburst of «barstvo» (the high-brow way Russian land-owners treated serfs) and permissiveness displayed by the mafia of CEOs and top managers such attitude gave rise to many people’s unwillingness to work honestly and conscientiously.[79]
Actually in many collectives employees silently hate[80] or simply despise and ignore the entire management because they know them to be profoundly vicious people who have been systematically and impudently misusing their authority with impunity over many years.
This psychological and ethic atmosphere that reigns in many (perhaps in the majority of) collectives is the most prominent result of the post-Stalin «ottepel» (“democratic” thaw), «zastoi» (stagnation) and «democratic reforms» in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union.
It follows that establishing a psychological and ethic atmosphere that would motivate individuals and collectives at enterprises to work conscientiously is the chief problem one needs to solve at the majority of enterprises. Solving it will enable enterprises to work to the benefit of society and thereby enable Russia to get over the social and political crisis.
This problem needs to be solved because in the current psychological and ethic climate any personal professionalism no matter how high it is and what sphere it belongs to is rendered futile by the absence of voluntary conscientious support from one’s associates.
This holds true for anyone’s professionalism: ranging from a janitor’s or a dish-washer’s professionalism to professionalism of truly outstanding men of science, culture and of the state’s head.
Yet all recent discussions on labor ethics pass by the issue of psychological and ethic motivation of conscientious labor in collectives. The reasons for it are known: venality of sociologists, economists, political observers and analysts who speak on these issues in the mass media. They are more comfortable nattering about «investments» and «securing investors’ trust» – this matter does not offend anyone and imposes no commitments.
But without solving the problem of re-establishing an ethic motivation to conscientious labor in COLLECTIVES one cannot build any kind of society: neither a capitalist, nor a communist one. If collectives ARE psychologically and ethically motivated to conscientious labor there is no problem of investments: if foreign investors refuse to fund the transformation of Russia with their bucks and euros they will shortly after that have to fight for every kopeck in order to fund their own appearance on the Russian market.
At least those who sincerely support communism are more or less aware of the necessity to reinstate the ethic motivation to labor. The majority of those who support Russia’s return onto the capitalist way of development expect to solve all problems of politics and organizing production and distribution by the following means:
bribery – paying a salary big enough to the people recognized as «highly useful» by the bosses of the social system or to those whom many people and entire spheres of social activity depend on (these people comprise the privileged, artificially “elitized” social minority and to some extent the so-called «middle class» whose income to a significant extent consists of unearned parasitic income);
economic constraint to labor – those disloyal and easily replaced are under the threat of losing their jobs and their pay is kept at the minimum level (they form the majority that is almost totally dependent on the government and on the financial and economic authority of the usurious bank mafia, top managers and the stratum of businessmen whose enterprises cannot do without hired personnel)’
repressions against the members of society who have been prompted to become criminals by the system itself because of the following reasons:
the culture supported by the system has restrained and perverted personal development of most people, therefore many people’s mentality is very far from the mentality of a successful personality. Having proved noncompetitive in making a legal career they enter the criminal path;
people can find no other way to protect themselves from the crowd-“elitist” hierarchy’s oppression;
the structure of the Western type society which conceals heterogeneous slavery has no place for a human being. A successful (integral) personality[81] is therefore always a criminal in respect to the system’s founding principles as it was the case of how societies treated Buddha, Christ, Muhammad and many others.
Yet these very principles are laid as foundations of management by marauding administrations of many enterprises. Such managers are ethically and professionally capable only of getting rich by misusing authority, plundering and squandering what has been created by previous generations, and are not capable of providing for a qualitative development and expansion of the enterprises they are heading.
This way, supporters of reinstating capitalism in Russia display their utmost stupidity. At the beginning of the 21st century they are unable to see the truth that was clearly stated and published by H. Ford in the first two decades of the 20th century – after the bitter experience of the social calamities caused by class antagonisms not resolved in due time.
Notwithstanding what Ford said as early as the beginning of the 20th century there are still many fools among the Russian «businessmen» at the beginning of the 21st century who would like to live in a weird kind of society. This society consists on the one hand of «businessmen» having indisputable merits and on the other hand of employees who have no such merits and therefore suffer an «inferiority complex». They are sincerely delighted in their serving the «businessmen» and tolerate all their foolish and humiliating freaks without a murmur because… they are grateful to the «businessmen» who have hired them – «inferior people» – out of mercy, perhaps even at a loss.
Yet society of real people is different from these absurd visions and their like.
The protest against the efforts of «tough» «businessmen» (in the most common sense of the word) to bring down the rest of the people to the level of working cattle is predestined from Above (atheists would say – is in the nature of man). There are many ways in which the protest against “elitism” that humiliates and oppresses people has been manifested in the course of history. Some pretend to be an obedient servant while secretly waiting for an opportunity to stab the «benefactor» in the back, others wield a conceptual power in full awareness following the principle: «Wise men are not afraid of «mighty» rulers and do not need the «prince’s» gift. Their prophetic tongue speaks truth in freedom and follows God’s Will…»[82]
Thus actual crowd-“elitism” given rise by demonic «businessmen» (in the broadest sense of the word) who have «indisputable» merits systemically gives rise to diverse crimes viewed as such in regard to the “elitist” scheme of social order. Crowd-“elitism” systemically reacts to the crime it itself generates by establishing secret and special services. Some of their staff members also turn out to be the advocates of «business» and also start «playing tough» with other «businessmen» corporations and with the working people dependant on them. Therefore it is characteristic of crowd-“elitism” to accumulate in the course of time protest tensions that have been generated by “elitism” itself. And consequently adhering to the crazy ideals of crowd-“elitism” dooms any social system to failure. It is an attempt to squeeze this social system into the framework of the impracticable ideal in order to humor the ambitions of «businessmen» and their clans that have once achieved success on the first stage of the coming-to-be of their «firms» (in the broadest sense of the word).
The only way to resolve (release) the inward tension in a crowd-“elitist” society is to discard the crazy ideals of “elitism” and to tran s form the crowd-“elitist” society into humanity by means of purposeful alteration of the people’s morals and world unde r standing. This is the essence of bolshevism, which is the process of transition from the hi s torically formed crowd-“elitism” to the multinational humanity of f u ture Earth.
In this connection the following fact is of interest. All our efforts to find books by H. Ford in the original in the Internet have failed as well as the attempt to find those books in printed variant in the USA though there is no direct ban on publishing and selling them in the USA. Yet neither were Stalin’s works openly banned in the times of the «zastoi-sunk» USSR or in the period of democratic outburst in liberal Russia. This silent ban aimed at sinking the works by H. Ford and J.V. Stalin into oblivion has been imposed in those very countries where they have lived and worked for the welfare of society. This fact unites the work of these two outstanding personalities for the sake of the mankind’s future in spite of what the people who have banned them originally intended.
4.4 The Ethics of Bolshevism:
CONSCIENTIOUS Labor
to the Welfare of Laborers
In accordance to what has been said in the previous chapter H. Ford who is widely known as a businessman and industrialist is besides that an economist and sociologist. Moreover he is a more consistent scientist than the supposedly professional academicians as he starts analyzing labor relations within the system of multiindustrial production and consumption in the society by proclaiming an ethic principle:
The human right to work and to partake of the product of the work he took part in determines what objectives should be assigned on the microlevel of the multiindustrial system of production and consumption in order to ensure its systemic integrity.
H. Ford says:
«There is no reason why a man who is willing to work should not be able to work and to receive the full value of his work. There is equally no reason why a man who can but will not work should not receive the full value of his services to the community. He should most certainly be permitted to take away from the community an equivalent of what he contributes to it. If he contributes nothing he should take away nothing. He should have the freedom of starvation. We are not getting anywhere when we insist that every man ought to have more than he deserves to have – just because some do get more than they deserve to have.
(…)
It is very easy, unless one keeps a plan thoroughly in mind, to get burdened with money[83] and then, in an effort to make more money, to forget all about selling to the people what they want. Business on a money-making basis is most insecure. It is a touch-and-go affair, moving irregularly and rarely over a term of years amounting to much. It is the function of business to produce for consumption and not for money or speculation. Producing for consumption implies that the quality of the article produced will be high and that the price will be low – that the article be one which serves the people and not merely the producer. If the money feature is twisted out of its proper perspective, then the production will be twisted to serve the producer.
The producer
If one might draw a generalization in regard to the whole of society it might be as follows: «as soon as people figure out that the system does not serve their welfare its collapse will be at hand» (at hand on the historic time-scale, of course). Moreover so if the people have already made up a vision of the system they will substitute the anti-national one with which has already happened in Russia.[84]
Ford devotes the entire Chapter 8 to the ethic principles of production and consumption organization, principles of the kind which would make the average man feel that the system works to his benefit. Because the average man can sense this all the people will understand those principles as the educational level increases and culture develops. People will keep following them knowingly and purposefully for the sake of their personal welfare, the welfare of their descendants and the common welfare of all the other people.
«It is not usual to speak of an employee as a partner, and yet what else is he? Whenever a man finds the management of a business too much for his own time or strength, he calls in PARTNER (put in capitals by the authors) to share the management with him. Why, then, if a man finds the production part of a business too much for his own two hands should he deny the title of «partner» to those who come in and help him produce? Every business that employs more than one man is a kind of PARTNERSHIP (put in capitals by the authors). The moment a man calls for assistance in his business – even though the assistant be but a boy – that moment he has taken a partner. He may himself be sole owner of the resources of the business and sole director of its operations, but only while he remains sole manager and sole producer can he claim complete independence. No man is independent as long as he has to depend on another man to help him. It is a reciprocal relation – the boss is the partner of his worker, the worker is PARTNER (put in capitals by the authors) of his boss. And such being the case, it is useless for one group or the other to assume that it is the one indispensable unit. Both are indispensable. The one can become unduly assertive only at the expense of the other – and eventually at its own expense as well» (Ch. 8. “Wages”).
This paragraph leaves no doubt that Ford does not tolerate the «master-and-servant» type of relationship between employer and employees that is actually more befitting a slave-owner.
And now let us quote from the book by Joseph Stalin “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” where Stalin writes about the new ethic reality emerging within the Soviet society:
«The economic basis of this antithesis is the exploitation of the country by the town, the expropriation of the peasantry and the ruin of the majority of the rural population by the whole course of development of industry, trade and credit under capitalism. Hence, the antithesis between town and country under capitalism must be regarded as an antagonism of interests. This it was that gave rise to the hostile attitude of the country towards the town and towards "townfolk" in general.
Undoubtedly, with the abolition of capitalism and the exploiting system in our country, and with the consolidation of the socialist system, the antagonism of interests between town and country, between industry and agriculture, was also bound to disappear. And that is what happened. The immense assistance rendered by the socialist town, by our working class, to our peasantry in eliminating the landlords and kulaks strengthened the foundation for the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, while the systematic supply of first-class tractors and other machines to the peasantry and its collective farms converted the alliance between the working class and the peasantry into friendship between them. Of course, the workers and the collective-farm peasantry do represent two classes differing from one another in status. But this difference does not weaken their friendship in any way. On the contrary, their interests lie along one common line, that of strengthening the socialist system and attaining the victory of communism. It is not surprising, therefore, that not a trace remains of the former distrust, not to speak of the former hatred, of the country for the town.» (“Remarks on Economics Questions Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, Part 4. “The Issue of Closing the Gap between Town and Village, between Mental and Manual Labor and of Eliminating the Differences Between Them”).
The above quotation demonstrates that what Ford thought to be an ideal the American society must aspire to (now this is also an ideal for the Russian society) was a reality for the Soviet society of the late 1940-s – early 1950-s[85] in many if not all the collectives.
The relations between executives and average employees described by Stalin are so strikingly different from the ethic results of bourgeois reforms in modern Russia that capitalist parasites will claim them to be a fantasy of Stalin’s having nothing in common with reality. But saying this they forget that they have been screaming about Stalin the tyrant «exploiting the people’s enthusiasm» without ever asking themselves what was the source of that enthusiasm. And the point is that its source was the psychological and ethic motivation to labor conscientiously in a collective that existed in the society on the whole. This motivation existed because staff and executives were not enemies bound by the common chain of production relations but «friends and companions, members of a united manufacturing team whose vital concern is the welfare and expansion of their enterprise. The hostility between them has vanished without a trace».
To use a better word there was no trace of this hostility yet the its seeds remained intact in the society’s noosphere. After Stalin was assassinated state policy was altered by party, government and financial executives bent on introducing “elitism”, and these noospherical seeds grew into the reality of nowadays, full of class antagonisms and tensions.
Comradeship should serve as the basis of work organization as work is inevitably and objectively of collective nature at most modern enterprises. This principle also provides grounds for the payroll policy:
«There is nothing to running a business by custom – to saying: “I pay the going rate of wages.” The same man would not so easily say: “I have nothing better or cheaper to sell than any one has.” No manufacturer in his right mind would contend that buying only the cheapest materials is the way to make certain of manufacturing the best article. Then why do we hear so much talk about the “liquidation of labor” and the benefits that will flow to the country from cutting wages – which means only the cutting of buying power and the curtailing of the home market? What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages – most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living – the rate of their wages – determines the prosperity of the country» (Ch. 8. “Wages”).
He elaborates on these statements a few paragraphs later:
«It ought to be the employer’s ambition, as leader, to pay better wages than any similar line of business, and it ought to be the workman’s ambition to make this possible (put in bold type by the authors). Of course there are men in all shops who seem to believe that if they do their best[86], it will be only for the employer’s benefit – and not at all for their own. It is a pity that such a feeling should exist. But it does exist and perhaps it has some justification. If an employer urges men to do their best, and the men learn after a while that their best does not bring any reward, then they naturally drop back into “getting by.” But if they see the fruits of hard work in their pay envelope – proof that harder work means higher pay – then also they begin to learn that they are a part of the business, and that its success depends on them and their success depends on it.
“What ought the employer to pay?” – “What ought the employee to receive? These are but minor questions. The basic question is “What can the business stand?” Certainly no business can stand outgo that exceeds its income. When you pump water out of a well at a faster rate than the water flows in, the well goes dry. And when the well runs dry, those who depend on it go thirsty. And if, perchance, they imagine they can pump one well dry and then jump to some other well, it is only a matter of time when all the wells will be dry. There is now a widespread demand for more justly divided rewards, but it must be recognized that there are limits to rewards. The business itself sets the limits. You cannot distribute $150,000 out of a business that brings in only $100,000. The business limits the wages, but does anything limit the business? The business limits itself by following bad precedents.
If men, instead of saying “the employer ought to do thus-and-so,” would say, “the business ought to be so stimulated and managed that it can do thus-and-so,”
But by no means all employers or all employees will think straight. The habit of acting shortsightedly is a hard one to break. What can be done? Nothing. No rules or laws will effect the changes. But enlightened self-interest will. It takes a little while for enlightenment to spread (put in bold type by the authors). But spread it must, for the concern in which both employer and employees work to the same end of service is bound to forge ahead in business.(…)
It ought to be clear, however, that the high wage begins down in the shop[90]. If it is not created there it cannot get into pay envelopes. There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity of
But if a man feels that his day’s work is not only supplying his basic need, but is also giving him a margin of comfort and enabling him to give his boys and girls their opportunity and his wife some pleasure in life, then his job looks good to him and he is free to give it of his best (put in bold type by the authors)[92]. This is a good thing for him and a good thing for the business. The man who does not get a certain satisfaction out of his day’s work is losing the best part of his pay» (Ch. 8. “Wages”).
We shall stop quoting here because in order to make clear the point of our further discussion (discourse) several issues of managing an enterprise and its employees must be clarified.
* * *
Digression 5 :
Directly Productive and Auxiliary Labor, Managerial Labor, Rem u neration of Labor
Earlier we have quoted the following words of H. Ford in a footnote:
«It is the product that pays the wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages».
In the modern world product is in most cases the result of the work of an integral microeconomic system – means of production, the infrastructure of the enterprise and its workers. If one considers only the factors of profit[93] and number of employees the ratio of «profit per employee» is what determines the employees’ wages on the whole. Yet because the collective is heterogeneous in terms of professions, responsibilities and authority the enterprise’s head must face the following triad of questions:
1. Whom to pay?
2. What to pay for?
3. How much should one pay?
In order to answer those three questions and ensure management efficiency one must have a clear understanding of what every worker’s professional skills and responsibilities are (within the framework of organizational structure), as well as how his or her professional skills contribute to the collective’s productive activity on the whole (the latter may or may not be covered in job descriptions).
If one grades professions without going into much detail one would get the following three categories:
Workers directly engaged in the manufacturing process are factory personnel;
Workers engaged in support and maintenance are support personnel (janitors, general-duties men, repair and servicing personnel) that also includes what is generally referred to in Russia as «technical personnel» of various divisions of the enterprise (purchase, accounting, security and others);
Workers engaged in managing work of other members of the collective and the work of structural divisions each performing a dedicated function are management personnel.
Representatives of these three categories do not have equal opportunities of participating in the manufacturing process and of developing it thereby ensuring the «profit per employee» ratio growth that to a certain extent characterizes the enterprise’s efficiency and its facility to pay wages and salaries to employees and dividends to shareholders.
Besides, in the framework of most modern manufacturing processes there are workers in all the three categories who are busy with performing their professional duties throughout the whole working day. But there are workers whose professional skill the enterprise cannot do without but the manufacturing process is of such kind that work can be assigned them only for a part of workday or only on certain days.
Because the nature of production and technology dictates the way production and collective work are organized, piecework principle in remuneration of production and auxiliary personnel labor is an irrelevant remnant of independent amateurism, of individual cottage craft. When the collective provides the systemic integrity of an enterprise, piecework means the following:
squabbles within the collective (open and covert) around who gets access to paying and non-paying work;
constant threat of piecework men violating manufacturing procedures in order to get a higher output which leads to increasing expenditure on technical control service;
encouraging repairmen and maintenance personnel to commit acts of sabotage to the end of artificially raising their importance and, correspondingly, their payments;
concealing new and better methods of work and hampering their application within the collective by piecework men of highest qualification to the end of maintaining their monopoly, which is one of the largest obstacles on the way of technological progress and of production quality growth;
facing the insoluble problem of justifying output norms while workers conceal their true abilities to the end of getting high wages from exceeding established norms.
Just these few mentioned ways of piecework’s destructive influence on the enterprise’s functioning are more than enough for a smart manager (or businessman) to start purposefully eliminating it at the enterprise he controls and in its functionally specialized structural units. But piecework is an enduring phenomenon, and in most cases if it is present at an enterprise it is evidence of a badly managed collective.
When the collective provides for the systemic integrity of an enterprise, taking into account the division of staff into productive, auxiliary (including technical and servicing personnel), managerial personnel according to the nature of their work, the salary-bonus system of remuneration of labor turns out to satisfy the requirement of efficient control better.
This system includes:
Basic salary – it is absolutely guaranteed. This money is paid for:
having one or several professions that are needed by the enterprise;
the level of qualification in each of the professions;
being ready to conscientiously carry out the orders of superior executives and support their activities on the basis of professional skills and knowledge.
However everything a salary is paid for is not actual work, not the products of labor but only a potential. That this potential is used is the responsibility not of the people who have this potential but on executives, on the entire hierarch of the enterprise’s management and the management of surrounding macroeconomic systems. This is the objective effect of the collective nature of labor in the systemic integrity of most enterprises.
