Back in 1993, when some of us first started our present theoretical project to take on the ‘crisis in socialism,’ we did a serious study of Bukharin, as well as modern science, complexity theory and cybernetics in production. He had his strong and weak points, but on the whole, he was head and shoulders above both Stalin and Trotsky.

I think history has absolved him, and it was a great crime that this theoretical leader and head of the Comintern ended with a bullet in his head from Stalin. As he said awaiting his execution, when you look at the Red Flag, remember that there’s a drop of my blood on it.

I actually read the transcript of his ‘trial,’ at least all of what was not kept closed. If you read between the lines, you can catch a glimpse of an alternate take on what was going down. Let us work in a way that that sort or perversion of our values never happens again.

During the 1920s in the Soviet Union the New Economic Policy allowed for a market in the sale of goods and services, as well as permitting private enterprise to develop alongside the state owned enterprises.

State owned enterprises competed with cooperatives and private industry to produce goods people wanted. Peasants, large and small, were able to make their own decisions about how to run their farms, what products to make and how much to sell them for.

This was also a period of relative political freedom, in which civil society flourished and a relatively high degree of dissent and independent thought and initiative were allowed… sometimes encouraged (frequently with Bukharin as patron/protector).

The idea was that, even though politically the soviets were in power, socialism would be a gradual process over time, with state owned enterprises gradually out-competing the private firms–with productivity improvements in the country side (spurred on by the ability of peasants to produce what they want and sell it on the market) driving the development of heavy industry as farmers required new, more sophisticated equipment they could actually buy because they were producing and reinvesting surplus value.

Essentially,this is what happened during the 1920s… with lots of conflict and contradictions, but this type of economy and society was immensely more desirable than the ‘war communism’ of the late 19teens and the Stalinism that followed.

By the end of the 1920s, following Stalin’s consolidation of power, the NEP was quickly abolished in favor of central planning at gun-point… but not without a fight from the Bukharinists.

Bukharin summed up the difference between his views and Stalin’s like this (I’m paraphrasing here): “you want equality in poverty when we should be raising everyone up to the highest level.”

Of course, one of the problems was that the technology and know-how to do this relatively quickly (and in a way that was environmentally sustainable) didn’t exist at the time.

This, the dominance of the Taylorist model of management, the temptation of making a great leap forward and – of course – Stalin’s insanity pushed the Soviet Union down the path familiar to us all. Bukharin himself eventually lost his life for his opposition to Stalin’s command economy.
Now, I’m not IN ANY WAY AT ALL comparing Albert to Stalin… but I think anyone seriously thinking about alternatives to capitalism needs to head the warnings of Bukharin.

Are we raising everyone up to the highest level — as Carl would say, using cybernation to reduce labor in commodities to zero, thus really eliminating ALL classes, including the working class — or are we proletarianizing everyone into equality in poverty?

Unlike in the 1920s, we know we can do this — or come pretty damn close — through participatory management techniques, democratic management of firms (as is done in the millions of cooperatives and thousands of ESOPs throughout the world), social control of investment, the application of technology to reducing the most menial, rote tasks, freeing people up for more “empowering” work coupled with radical, participatory democracyy in the state and civil society.

I know that Albert has had experience running successful businesses (the Z network, South End Press etc.)

But does he have any experience running a complex manufacturing enterprise, for example? Even a small one?

I think Michael Albert has one type of firm in mind when he thinks about work: a Fordist-style, second wave factory, in which the workforce is engaged primarily in deading, rote-work.

Many capitalist firms today have moved far beyond this vision: organizing the workforce in teams, responsible for all aspects of production, quality control, purchasing, hiring and more. Imagine the potential of participatory mangement practices, but applied in the context of Economic Democracy… where profit becomes simply a tool and not the end in itself.

But to make these firms run effectively and efficiently (whether capitalist or socialist), there are specific “management” skills required that simply can’t be shared effectively through a balanced job complex. I’m thinking of cost accounting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_Accounting). If you want to use resources (human and material) efficiently — and there’s no reason not to especially under a post-capitalist system –then you have to know exactly how much it costs to make something and where that cost is coming from (or, if you like, what resources are being used and in what quantities in producing something and if those resources are being used effectively).

Well, in a relatively simple firm, making one kind of very simple product, cost accounting is pretty easy. It’s just fixed and variable costs.

But what if you’re making many products? And each worker is doing many different jobs? What if you’re doing reearch and development… maybe in cooperation with a local university? What if you have an accountant? How much of the accountant’s time goes into a specific product? What if you have a marketing budget (to let people know about the products you produce)? And how much of YOUR own R&D goes into the different products Vs. the researcher at the university? Knowing this is key to the effective use of scarce resources… and being able to do this requires specific skills that can’t easily be shared… just as the person operating sophisticated machinery or doing product development needs specific skills not easily shared with the person doing the cost accounting. Using the wrong method for cost accounting, might mean putting precious resources into a wasteful product, squandering a firm’s resources and the labor of others.

There is of course the danger — as there is in political democracy — that the people elected gain a monopoly on power. It seems to me the only effective counter to this is not a balanced job complex, but information.

If information flows freely and people have the ability to use that information to make informed decisions and effectively monitor people in management positions then the risk of the “coordinator class” is eliminated. This is how things work in the best cooperatives: it’s the workforce that sets the strategic direction of the business, management implements it in constant consultation with the workforce and is constantly challenged by the workforce to justify its actions… it is never left to its own devices.

This means that our society makes a commitment to popular education and radical, informed democracy in every sphere: the market, the state and the civil society.

In the end, I want what Albert says he wants – a classless society – but we disagree significantly as to how to get there.

I don’t see how you could do this without coercion — and therefore a “state” – under Parecon. (What if I wanted to produce a product and sell it to someone without respecting my production quotas… and what if I want another pair of sneakers for my kid this Christmas, but it wasn’t in my consumption quota? Am I breaking the law?)

Me, I’m with Bukharin on this one. Let’s use technology, and radical democracy, to raise everyone to the highest level as we march, dialectically, towards a classless society.