Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
And so, we have the third reading list of 2022! We’re at that point where spring might be coming, but we’re not sure. Do we catch up on the end of those winter readings? Or do we move along to something a bit warmer and sunnier?
I think I did a bit of both here. Continue on to see what I’ve been reading lately. I’ve even thrown in a couple of TV shows as a bonus! And let me know what you’re reading!
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post on V.I. Lenin‘s essay ‘What is to Be Done?‘. I read it in a collection of essays called the Essential Works of Lenin. The same book contains his work The State and Revolution, which he wrote much later on the eve of the October Revolution.
In the other post, I noted some of the good and bad of Lenin. He thought a great deal about strategy and tactics. Along the way, he laid out a lot of insightful critique of magical thinking and bad strategy on the left. On the other hand, he clearly had an intolerant, authoritarian style and personality. This served him poorly, both as a philosopher and as a leader.
These same issues reappear in The State and Revolution. But we get something new in the later text: Lenin on the verge of power, now using a quasi-religious reading of the classic texts of Marx and Engels to justify his own views. One of Lenin’s uses of Engels struck me in particular.
With that in mind, let’s take a brief look at this line of thought in The State and Revolution.
So, in the old days, companies built out huge, elaborate structures. They had tons of management layers. Why? In short, they wanted to prevent communication between leaders and workers. What better way to do that than force workers to go through 3 or 4 layers of bureaucrats before they get to anyone who could make a real decision?
But that got way too expensive for them. In the neoliberal era, companies started targeting middle managers (and other people who don’t work – but don’t have the power to fight back) for layoffs. They did so mainly due to pressure to cut costs. Sure, companies can lay off their actual workers. But that has certain limits. You can’t lay off everyone who does real work. That would also eliminate profits!
We can’t have that now, can we?
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