#10
As
crises gain momentum, from within contemporary capitalism, they can
only prolong for a certain duration before they are modified by the
system. Kapital advances from its programme of abundance towards the
adoption of an economy that is a mixture of profit and loss. Kapital
rolls over itself backwards to increase abundance. It can do this by
harnessing the power of the state, a sort of «levée en masse», and
Kapital reinforces its power through its techniques of resource
capture. Imported wealth increases the size of the bureaucracy of
Kapitalismo-sozjietie. The bureaucracy shares an association,
primarily, with the spectacle of mediation and its concentration.
Bureaucrats
comprise community, through their membership, the community which is
married implicitly to the economy in its entirety. The state has
direct ownership over the bureaucrat, viz-a-vie, the proletariat,
anyone who uses QWERTY, basically; AZERTY, «autre économie». The
individual concentration of self, within the economy, is juxtaposed
to the mass concentration of property made up by the bureaucracy.
The
form this concentrated mass takes is like the nucleus of
Kapitalismo-sozjietie; the administrative and authoritative centric
system controlling the organization which cannot develop without
continuous production. The commodity and its assured survival
depends on the wholesale input of data – the commodity's sale as
labour.
Processes
of production that have a scientific application significantly
upgrade the skills of the workforce. The population's general
proficiency has been upgraded by scientific sophistication which
advances processes of production. However, “{p}erhaps, in our job
specifications, each of us has learned more and more about less and
less until we each know everything there is to know about virtually
nothing.”1
The
utility, returning to the idea of the bureaucracy, the utilization of
its organization, represses the social totality appropriate to its
control by the nucleus of the bureaucracy, or by the very
participation in the processes of data production that run along its
continuum. The welfare state serves as an experiment in human
liberation.2
The welfare state “gives some solace from the worst effects of
capitalist immiseration” whilst at the same time “does so only
through coercive integration into rational-bureaucratic
apparatuses.”3
Would higher wages for bureaucrats “{mark} the rise of a new
social formation{?}”4
No
other available practice, let alone conception, of a socio-economic
system proves possible or viable other than the system governed by
Kapital. Its social totality has a systematic nature of radical
otherness, 'discrimination', radical difference, 'diversity', and
representational mediation, 'democracy'.5
Ray
Cromley writes from 1974 concerning bureaucracy to portray conditions
surrounding the time period when the Watergate scandal was being
absorbed and rationalized by the spectacle. Citizen Cromley
describes the deterioration of bureaucracy, attributing decline to:
“cronyism, heavy turnover, high loss of middle management and early
retirements.”6
What does this tell us about our governments and their predicaments?
Citizen
Cromley explains that: “Washington's bureacracy has been on this
downhill road for years.”7
The agencies and departments that were responsible for the economy
were those that exhibited these breakdowns. Citizen Cromley tells us
that indexes that took stock of prices, shipments, and industrial
production appeared to contain serious mistakes. Citizen Cromley
parallels the conditions of the contemporary crisis to the conditions
of the epoch from which he writes. “{A}n economic growth rate as
low as today's must cause a marked month-by-month growth in the
number of unemployed.”8
Citizen Cromley attributes this to the pace of the economy's
expansion when, if slow, cannot absorb new workers in order for it to
steadily grow. So, how does the bureaucracy rationalize unemployment
when it recognizes that it must increase its numbers in order for the
economy to grow? There must be growth in the public sector to expand
economic growth. “The signs of a general decline are present in
full array,”9
writes Citizen Cromley – so how does Kapital modify its conditions
to cope with the crises of today? According to Citizen Cromley, who
writes from a time when crises were similarly apparent as to today,
the answer lies in making sure that the bureaucracy attracts as many
young men and women as possible, that the numbers of middle
management within government should remain relatively proportionate
to those without, and that experienced top personnel should avoid
early retirement. A richer workforce means a richer economy.
Citizen
Cromley advises us that the government needs to: “draw in and hold
the numbers of first-rate economists needed for data management,
planning, and forecasting”10
- to create the rational-bureaucratic structures for Kapital to
oversee its own transformation. If, as Citizen Cromley observes,
“{k}ey economic posts are vacant or stand idle for months during
searches for candidates of the proper caliber {then} these slots are
... gilled with time servers,”11
which means higher turnovers and, as a result, greater expenses.
“Private industry seems to hold far more appeal for the able young
man and woman just out of college,”12
and what serves as private means works for private ends. Employment,
wages, scarcity and inflation: each of these is affected by the
government's action or inaction. Cutbacks, employment, corporate
expansion, consumer discretion – even the behaviour of the stock
market – are all part of the same repercussion.
The
economy depends on the continuous input of data which forms part of
the machinations of a large computer that animates Kapital and its
executive nature versus its bureaucratic-organic structure; to make
it less cellular is to make it less popular. And what happens when a
population goes elsewhere?
1Dugger,
W. M. (1984) “Human Liberation: Workplace Reform as the Next Step
in Social Evolution” International
Journal of Social Economics,
Vol. 11, No. 5; p.35.
2Ibid.,
p.31.
3Day,
R. J. F. (2005) Gramsci
Is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements.
London: Pluto Press; p.148.
6Cromley,
R. (1974) “Best and Brightest Avoid Posts.” Waycross
Journal-Herald, Jul. 25.
7Ibid.
8Ibid.
9Ibid.
10Ibid.
11Ibid.
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