The people doing the actual work, if allowed to see the bigger picture, even piece by piece, will do this better than ‘bosses’.
People with different experiences and who tend towards different roles will have different perspectives, different understandings all rooted in some aspect(s) of the actual function of the thing.
Having a weekly team meeting or culture of conflict resolution serves all the same purposes as a dedicated executive, with none of the inefficiencies and substantial gains in both psychological maturity and worker agency to do their shit better.
Responding to inputs from all directions rather than a rigid up/down tree based structure makes more adaptive more realistic systems with fewer kludges and more honesty.
Strategians and tacticians serve different roles because they see different levels of the battlefield, and footsoldiers can see what they directly interact with but are not privy to understanding the full battlefield. Having a fully horizontal organization is shooting yourself in the foot, we develop intra-class hierarchies like managers not because of class society, but because of the added complexity of large-scale production and distribution.
You seem pretty committed to changing as little as possible and not looking at actual scientific math-backed organizational science (read ‘brain of the firm’).
You seem really committed to fantastic delusions that hierarchal organization functions like you say it does any time it’s implemented.
And you seem committed to roles being personified, to people only doing one thing.
Let’s say, for example: Sam, who works at the steel butt plug factory, can’t be up on the latest sex toy industry publications ¹ and nerd out about it at lunch with their co-worker Alex², who reads the wikis and reports of other factories who work with steel², and Morgan, who has a degree in metallurgy and user-reviews kink³, while they all try out their latest product (a little large on small bodies, put a warning on the box?) and the vegan chili fries at the new diner down the street, while Dave, who doesn’t really care and just thinks its fun to say ‘i work my ass off at the buttplug factory on Tuesdays’, fucks off to get tacos because even though money isn’t a thing anymore, ‘taco Tuesday’ is alliterative and he’s all about that. Then go back to the factory for the weekly job cross-training half day. You’ve got more expertise more perspective and more adherence to any decision reached at that table than you do in any c suite. No authority was exercised, everyone who wanted a say got a say, and the system is better coordinated more fun and probably more efficient than under any centralized system. Maybe they also have a weekly ‘do we need to refactor?’ meeting.
Tell me how the hypothetical steel bbutt-plug factory would be improved by a single manager who does no other work
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, I’m committed to building socialism in the real world, not trying to come up with a hypothetical scenario where management is superfluous. Factories work at the scale of hundreds to thousands, not 4 people living an idyllic life, and these factories have massive supply chains ingoing and outgoing. Management becomes necessary at scales like these, because coordination at such scales cannot be all horizontal.
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don’t worry.
I’ve read quite a bit more than just Capital. I don’t think trying to have a “theory measuring contest” is useful, nor does it actually constitute a point.
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don’t worry.
Each factory would send quantified indices of production processes such as raw material input, production output, number of absentees, etc. These indices would later feed a statistical analysis program that, running on a mainframe computer in Santiago, would make short-term predictions about the factories’ performance and suggest necessary adjustments, which, after discussion in an operations room, would be fed back to the factories. This process occurred at 4 levels: firm, branch, sector, and total.
factories are big and made of thousands of people and machines
Sometimes. For some things. Not always. Especially for simpler products with fewer parts!
A steel butt plug factory could convievably have a dozen or so employees and be perfectly fine, make lots of butt plugs. How many people seriously need to work on that? You’re either casting them or machining them, plus some finishing, maybe testing and packaging–and it’s a product that benefits from being fewer pieces. I just used butt plugs because it’s fun to say and ive seen sex toy factories and single piece metal thing factories, so it isn’t a complete ass pull when i think about how stuff is made.
You seem obsessed with these ideas you have in your head, with no attention to reality. You’re being very idealist for someone who claims not to be.
Again, you’re conceptualizing jobs=people. You’re shackled to capitalist abstractions and unable or unwilling to see past them. It’s incredibly frustrating because I have to restate every principle every time, and be really pedantic.
No, your example is a hypothetical concocted specifically to imagine a case where management isn’t as useful. Even a small factory that needs less than a dozen people for a niche product needs complex supply chains, and moreover is an extreme minority of the total production and distribution. My point wasn’t that everyone needs a direct manager, my point is that management exists because it does solve problems when implemented correctly that horizontalism does not. This gets increasingly complex at larger scales.
I’m not “shackled to capitalist abstractions,” you’re trying to make a point by describing a tiny portion of hypothetical production and trying to layer it over all of production and distribution. This is idealism.
I grew up watching ‘how its made’ while i did my homework, being babysat by my (pedo) uncle who was in industrial real estate, wandering around warehouses and factory floors¹ no sane responsible adult would have allowed a child near, and learned a non-zero amount of mechanical engineering. I am not a specialist, I do not have a degree in this, but this topic was one of my comfort foods as a kid, and kind of a special interest. I do have a real, if not comprehensive, knowledge base. I have been in factories where complex electronics were made.
I tend to take every opportunity to look in on industrial production, because I think it’s cool. I’m not an expert, but I’m not talking fucking hypotheticals here. I’m talking about a composite of real places I’ve been, real people ive known and in some cases fucked who did these kinds of work. I have some actual knowledge, and youre talking about ideal heroic forms of ‘manager’ derived from a russian poster² who never as far as i know actually set foot in a factory and died like a century ago as if that information is as good as modern (or at least living memory) on the ground actual conditions.
Yes there are other things. A car takes a longer supply chain, and a scaled up version of this process still works. Maybe you need a premises matrix or slack server and a local amateur sports league instead of team lunches and an SMS chat. The tools dont even need to be made; they exist already. I have used them.
How the fuck would dedicated ‘managers’ wrangle supply chains better? Why is the factory managing the whole supply chain? Is the supply chain entirely passive and automated and lacking agency? This just sounds like ‘great man’ fetishism. Get over that shit.
Your concept of management may as well involve phlogiston pneuma and agape.
This may shock you, but some of us see materialism as a useful tool for understanding what we see in the world, and not just an identity to project into everything around us in a manner indistinguishable from idealism.
I don’t think you want to play the “experience” game here regarding industrial production. Not only does it not constitute a point, but you’d lose in this instance. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.
Management isn’t “great man theory.” Coordination of tasks and functions, especially in an industrial environment, is tremendously useful and necessary. Factories don’t control supply chains themselves, but they typically have quotas often pre-sold, and work with distributors and suppliers directly. Task planning, resource allocation, and more is a useful role, which is why it exists. None of this is “Great Man Theory,” you calling it that makes it obvious that you don’t know what the term means.
This may shock you, but some of us see materialism as a useful tool for understanding what we see in the world, and not just an identity to project into everything around us in a manner indistinguishable from idealism.
Coordination does not require, and in fact is hampered by, a master! That’s literally the point of the book I suggested! Everyone can coordinate! It works better that way!
thing you said like it’s a gotcha, after pretending I understand what the fuck youre talking about and ignoring all the actual science and math because it’s in a big scary book that would be too hard to read and just pretending I understand is easier.
The people doing the actual work, if allowed to see the bigger picture, even piece by piece, will do this better than ‘bosses’.
People with different experiences and who tend towards different roles will have different perspectives, different understandings all rooted in some aspect(s) of the actual function of the thing.
Having a weekly team meeting or culture of conflict resolution serves all the same purposes as a dedicated executive, with none of the inefficiencies and substantial gains in both psychological maturity and worker agency to do their shit better.
Responding to inputs from all directions rather than a rigid up/down tree based structure makes more adaptive more realistic systems with fewer kludges and more honesty.
Strategians and tacticians serve different roles because they see different levels of the battlefield, and footsoldiers can see what they directly interact with but are not privy to understanding the full battlefield. Having a fully horizontal organization is shooting yourself in the foot, we develop intra-class hierarchies like managers not because of class society, but because of the added complexity of large-scale production and distribution.
You seem pretty committed to changing as little as possible and not looking at actual scientific math-backed organizational science (read ‘brain of the firm’).
You seem really committed to fantastic delusions that hierarchal organization functions like you say it does any time it’s implemented.
And you seem committed to roles being personified, to people only doing one thing.
Let’s say, for example: Sam, who works at the steel butt plug factory, can’t be up on the latest sex toy industry publications ¹ and nerd out about it at lunch with their co-worker Alex², who reads the wikis and reports of other factories who work with steel², and Morgan, who has a degree in metallurgy and user-reviews kink³, while they all try out their latest product (a little large on small bodies, put a warning on the box?) and the vegan chili fries at the new diner down the street, while Dave, who doesn’t really care and just thinks its fun to say ‘i work my ass off at the buttplug factory on Tuesdays’, fucks off to get tacos because even though money isn’t a thing anymore, ‘taco Tuesday’ is alliterative and he’s all about that. Then go back to the factory for the weekly job cross-training half day. You’ve got more expertise more perspective and more adherence to any decision reached at that table than you do in any c suite. No authority was exercised, everyone who wanted a say got a say, and the system is better coordinated more fun and probably more efficient than under any centralized system. Maybe they also have a weekly ‘do we need to refactor?’ meeting.
Tell me how the hypothetical steel bbutt-plug factory would be improved by a single manager who does no other work
¹they’re kind of a freak
²an entirely different kind of freak
³totally normal
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, I’m committed to building socialism in the real world, not trying to come up with a hypothetical scenario where management is superfluous. Factories work at the scale of hundreds to thousands, not 4 people living an idyllic life, and these factories have massive supply chains ingoing and outgoing. Management becomes necessary at scales like these, because coordination at such scales cannot be all horizontal.
Project Cybersyn was a real, socialist, working system, comrade and it was based on the same principles as brain of the firm.
It was also an example of centralized economic planning and administration, too.
Read the damn book. Sometimes it is in fact necessary to read more than a sentence from wikipedia to understand a new idea. This one’s worth it.
Edit: nvm. The Wikipedia initial blurb also mentions devolving decision making in the main thing. Didn’t even read that much.
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don’t worry.
Have you actually read anything about this topic? Besides the Wikipedia page you’re contradicting?
Tankies are like Christians; you’ve all read exactly one book¹, and decided that was enough and you know everything.
¹counting ‘capital’ as one, admittedly a much better one on every metric but entertainment value and metalness
I’ve read quite a bit more than just Capital. I don’t think trying to have a “theory measuring contest” is useful, nor does it actually constitute a point.
No I just think you’re all fucking idealists.
Nope, it was decentralized. Read up on the theory, dawg.
If you call that system centralized, then most anarchists want to establish a centralized system.
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don’t worry.
As @[email protected] already replied to you:
Like shit you have if you don’t recognize the title “brain of the firm” being written by the fucking architect of Cybersyn.
Sometimes. For some things. Not always. Especially for simpler products with fewer parts!
A steel butt plug factory could convievably have a dozen or so employees and be perfectly fine, make lots of butt plugs. How many people seriously need to work on that? You’re either casting them or machining them, plus some finishing, maybe testing and packaging–and it’s a product that benefits from being fewer pieces. I just used butt plugs because it’s fun to say and ive seen sex toy factories and single piece metal thing factories, so it isn’t a complete ass pull when i think about how stuff is made.
You seem obsessed with these ideas you have in your head, with no attention to reality. You’re being very idealist for someone who claims not to be.
Again, you’re conceptualizing jobs=people. You’re shackled to capitalist abstractions and unable or unwilling to see past them. It’s incredibly frustrating because I have to restate every principle every time, and be really pedantic.
No, your example is a hypothetical concocted specifically to imagine a case where management isn’t as useful. Even a small factory that needs less than a dozen people for a niche product needs complex supply chains, and moreover is an extreme minority of the total production and distribution. My point wasn’t that everyone needs a direct manager, my point is that management exists because it does solve problems when implemented correctly that horizontalism does not. This gets increasingly complex at larger scales.
I’m not “shackled to capitalist abstractions,” you’re trying to make a point by describing a tiny portion of hypothetical production and trying to layer it over all of production and distribution. This is idealism.
I grew up watching ‘how its made’ while i did my homework, being babysat by my (pedo) uncle who was in industrial real estate, wandering around warehouses and factory floors¹ no sane responsible adult would have allowed a child near, and learned a non-zero amount of mechanical engineering. I am not a specialist, I do not have a degree in this, but this topic was one of my comfort foods as a kid, and kind of a special interest. I do have a real, if not comprehensive, knowledge base. I have been in factories where complex electronics were made.
I tend to take every opportunity to look in on industrial production, because I think it’s cool. I’m not an expert, but I’m not talking fucking hypotheticals here. I’m talking about a composite of real places I’ve been, real people ive known and in some cases fucked who did these kinds of work. I have some actual knowledge, and youre talking about ideal heroic forms of ‘manager’ derived from a russian poster² who never as far as i know actually set foot in a factory and died like a century ago as if that information is as good as modern (or at least living memory) on the ground actual conditions.
Yes there are other things. A car takes a longer supply chain, and a scaled up version of this process still works. Maybe you need a premises matrix or slack server and a local amateur sports league instead of team lunches and an SMS chat. The tools dont even need to be made; they exist already. I have used them.
How the fuck would dedicated ‘managers’ wrangle supply chains better? Why is the factory managing the whole supply chain? Is the supply chain entirely passive and automated and lacking agency? This just sounds like ‘great man’ fetishism. Get over that shit.
Your concept of management may as well involve phlogiston pneuma and agape.
This may shock you, but some of us see materialism as a useful tool for understanding what we see in the world, and not just an identity to project into everything around us in a manner indistinguishable from idealism.
¹non-operational, still no clue how I’m alive
²admittedly one of the greats.
I don’t think you want to play the “experience” game here regarding industrial production. Not only does it not constitute a point, but you’d lose in this instance. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.
Management isn’t “great man theory.” Coordination of tasks and functions, especially in an industrial environment, is tremendously useful and necessary. Factories don’t control supply chains themselves, but they typically have quotas often pre-sold, and work with distributors and suppliers directly. Task planning, resource allocation, and more is a useful role, which is why it exists. None of this is “Great Man Theory,” you calling it that makes it obvious that you don’t know what the term means.
This may shock you, but some of us see materialism as a useful tool for understanding what we see in the world, and not just an identity to project into everything around us in a manner indistinguishable from idealism.
Coordination does not require, and in fact is hampered by, a master! That’s literally the point of the book I suggested! Everyone can coordinate! It works better that way!
We’re done here.