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Perhaps Haldane was making an analogy between fascist autocrats and the commissars that run a Leninist society.

by michael1999 3y ago

rexpop 3y ago
Ah, of course. I always feel a bit stupid when I read assertions like "Henry Ford could run a socialistic enterprise" as though that weren't a contradiction in terms. The man was violently anti-worker. He publicly opposed the New Deal as a “socialist scheme” and refused to cooperate with its programs, eg the Social Security Act. He hired thugs and spies to prevent unionization and in 1937, at his “Battle of the Overpass”, Ford service members beat UAW officials and union supporters who were trying to distribute flyers at the plant. Hardly a "socialistic" undertaking. His Americanism, was based on individualism, nationalism, nativism, and Protestantism, precepts anathema, certainly, to the "internationalism" prevalent among his socialist contemporaries. All in all, I highly doubt the guy could tie his shoes in a socialistic fashion, let alone "run" a commune.
- michael1999 3y ago
  I think the critique is deeper that that. The duties and activities of central planners and capitalists are very similar. They set priorities, decide on production processes, allocate labour, set budgets, quotas. They decide compensation and "punishments" for those deemed to have failed. Downthread, Eru links to the famous "The Theory of the Firm" where Coase analogizes capitalist firms as islands of central planning in a sea of competition. Coase is very explicit about tradeoffs to scale between planned internal production, and market production, and this is similar to the tradeoffs in scale described by Haldane here. Coase published that in 1937 but Haldane clearly sees the parallel in 1926. Haldane's _point_ is that it would take a talented brute like Ford to try to run even a tiny entity like Andorra in a centrally-planned way. It's not like the revolutionary Leninists had any hesitation to arrest workers showing "counter-revolutionary" tendencies like striking to demanding better pay. I don't think it coincidental that this article coincides with the rise of Stalin. Haldane was a wooly-headed romantic Socialist at heart, but he recognized that Leninist dictatorship couldn't work at a national scale, even in theory. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37552027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37552027 https://libcom.org/article/strikes-against-stalin-1930s-russia-jeffrey-rossman https://libcom.org/article/strikes-against-stalin-1930s-russ...
  - rexpop 3y ago
    "Islands of tyranny," was Chomsky's retort. He and Coase are both cited in Verso's 2019 People's Republic of Walmart which I haven't read, but is now pulling ahead of Stafford Beer on my nightstand.

Perhaps Haldane was making an analogy between fascist autocrats and the commissars that run a Leninist society.

Ah, of course. I always feel a bit stupid when I read assertions like "Henry Ford could run a socialistic enterprise" as though that weren't a contradiction in terms. The man was violently anti-worker. He publicly opposed the New Deal as a “socialist scheme” and refused to cooperate with its programs, eg the Social Security Act. He hired thugs and spies to prevent unionization and in 1937, at his “Battle of the Overpass”, Ford service members beat UAW officials and union supporters who were trying to distribute flyers at the plant. Hardly a "socialistic" undertaking. His Americanism, was based on individualism, nationalism, nativism, and Protestantism, precepts anathema, certainly, to the "internationalism" prevalent among his socialist contemporaries. All in all, I highly doubt the guy could tie his shoes in a socialistic fashion, let alone "run" a commune.

michael1999 3y ago
I think the critique is deeper that that. The duties and activities of central planners and capitalists are very similar. They set priorities, decide on production processes, allocate labour, set budgets, quotas. They decide compensation and "punishments" for those deemed to have failed. Downthread, Eru links to the famous "The Theory of the Firm" where Coase analogizes capitalist firms as islands of central planning in a sea of competition. Coase is very explicit about tradeoffs to scale between planned internal production, and market production, and this is similar to the tradeoffs in scale described by Haldane here. Coase published that in 1937 but Haldane clearly sees the parallel in 1926. Haldane's _point_ is that it would take a talented brute like Ford to try to run even a tiny entity like Andorra in a centrally-planned way. It's not like the revolutionary Leninists had any hesitation to arrest workers showing "counter-revolutionary" tendencies like striking to demanding better pay. I don't think it coincidental that this article coincides with the rise of Stalin. Haldane was a wooly-headed romantic Socialist at heart, but he recognized that Leninist dictatorship couldn't work at a national scale, even in theory. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37552027 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37552027 https://libcom.org/article/strikes-against-stalin-1930s-russia-jeffrey-rossman https://libcom.org/article/strikes-against-stalin-1930s-russ...
- rexpop 3y ago
  "Islands of tyranny," was Chomsky's retort. He and Coase are both cited in Verso's 2019 People's Republic of Walmart which I haven't read, but is now pulling ahead of Stafford Beer on my nightstand.