ANARCHISTS VS. VEBLEN

Graber’s book “Direct Action” does an outstanding job describing the values and mindsets of the anarchist types.  The impression that I get from his book, however, is that these guys are, in a way, like boy scouts.  The boy scouts do not simply want to travel from point A to point B.  Instead, they use travel as the justification for engaging in an elaborate process, or ritual if you will, that is the embodiment of survivalist ideology that renounces modern conveniences that make travel easy.  Likewise, the anarchist types use politics as the justification for engaging in the ritualistic practice of direct democracy that renounces every form of formal organizational structure.

This is not a critique of the anarchist movement.  Both boy scouts and anarchists can be very useful in modern society that has a hard time living without modern conveniences and formal organizational structures.  While it is not reasonable to expect them to be actual alternatives to these modern conveniences or formal organizational structures, they provide mechanism of socialization into a certain value system that can be instrumental in developing such alternatives.  And for that reason, I give the anarchists an unqualified moral support.

What rubs me the wrong way in the anarchist way of thinking is their utopian, ritualistic and unrealistic notion of democracy that makes it look almost impossible to attain in real life, save for small tightly knit groups of aficionados.  They are likeZeno’s paradoxes of motion that make any movement look like a sensory illusion.  Yet, a simple act of jumping out of a moving train can demonstrate that it is the other way around – it is the theory that is an illusion, not the perception of reality.  Likewise, the problem of democratic governance is over-theorized to death by the anarchist types.

In real life, democratic i.e. egalitarian and undemocratic i.e. hierarchical interactions coexist rather well without any apparent contradiction.  When I take a train or a flight, or have a surgery, I do not expect democratic governance.  I abdicate my control of the situation to others.  In fact, I would avoid a railroad, an airline or a hospital in which every decision must be vetted by collective rituals of democratic consensus building.  In such circumstances the abdication of responsibility to some technical authority and well defined chains of command are not only seen as a problem but it is a necessary requirement of effective performance.

Most people have no problems abdicating their responsibility and control of situation to others if the following two conditions are met.  First, there is a certain level of expertise, skill and coordination required to achieve a safe operation or a successful outcome.  Second, the abdication of responsibility and control is conditional and reciprocal.  That is, today I abdicate my responsibility and control to you because I defer to your judgment on X, but I expect you to abdicate your responsibility and control to me when it comes to deciding Y, which is my forte.

The pre-occupation with the hyper-democratic process among the anarchist types seems to be grounded in two sources. First is the influence of bourgeois concept of democracy as a formal process rather than substantive guarantees.  In this conception democracy means simply guarantee of opportunities and due process to achieve a good life rather than substantive guarantees of resources that make a good life.  This concept of democracy is basically a set of laws that, as Anatole France aptly observed, “forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

The second source of insistence on hyper-democratic interaction is the lack of reciprocity in most current institutional arrangements.  That is, institutional arrangements of modern societies permanently deprived certain classes of people of voice and control of the situation. These arrangements are justifiably resent it by anyone with a sense of human decency, but some go further by demanding a process that abolishes all formal institutional arrangements, since these can undermine direct democracy.  It is like being upset by potholes in the roadway, and demanding that the roadway be eliminated to correct this problem.

In reality the problems of democracy can be easily solved by employing principles of reciprocity.  Workers' councils making strategic decisions or deciding salaries and tenure of management would be an example.  This is not that difficult to implement in an institution. And this micro-institutional level is what that matters the most - democracy at a national level is an abstraction and empty word most of time.  In other words, reforming the dysfunctional bourgeois demo is not as difficult as the anarchist rituals seem to suggest.  We do not need to abolish the state, the “wage system” and any formal organization, and turn anyone into a political boy scout each time finding his path without any organizational props anew.  We do not need to abolish the road of policy and organization to fix the potholes in it. 

Of course anarchists and many Marxists would counter that the solution is not as easy as it seems, mainly because the state and the bosses always collude to wrestle democratic control from workers on the factory floor as well as in the national politics.  And they have a valid point – government supported neoliberalism created social inequalities on an unprecedented scale, and seriously undermined any victories that the labor achieved in the 20^th century.  Clearly, fixing the potholes in the road of democracy seems far more difficult than my narrative suggests.

However, while I agree with this assessment of the current situation, I disagree with Marxist and anarchist diagnosis of the causes.  For the anarchists and many Marxists, “the people” are like Christian god, they can do no wrong, so if evil exists in the world, it must be caused by something else.  For the Christians that something else is the Satan, for anarchists and many Marxists – it is the state.  The power of state is what imposes the evil of capitalism on the people and prevents them from progressing to socialism.  While I recognize that anti-statism is well entrenched on this side of the pond, not just among anarchists and Marxists, and arguing against it is an uphill battle, I will nonetheless counter this view with two arguments.  

First, the view of the state as monolithic juggernaut crushing the power of labor is inaccurate.  Amore realistic view of the state is that of multiple centers of bureaucratic power connected to various social interest groups and shifting alliances among them.  This means that the "state" is not a monolith - some elements of it are more likely to side with the bosses while other - with workers and for various reasons that constantly change.  What is more, the oppressive power of the state is far more limited than anarchists and Marxists believe, as the history of the downfall of ‘state socialism” in Eastern Europe demonstrates.  In these supposedly monolithic socialist states there were in fact different alignments between different parts of the technostructure and different factions of the political structure and the opposition.  The factional alignments constantly shifted, sometimes resulting in a thaw and sometimes in tightening the screw, but at the end the control of the state was handed on a silver plate to the opposition, in which labor unions played a prominent role.  The main points here are that one cannot automatically assume that the state is always anti-worker for it really depends on historical circumstances, but even when it is anti-worker, its power of oppression are limited.

My second argument provides an alternative to anarchism and Marxism explanation of the existence of “evil,” that is, capitalism.  My argument follows, in a way, that of ThomasAquinas, who believed that evil is caused not by some dark force, but by the defect of human agents who fail to achieve good embedded in their nature.  Likewise, capitalism is not caused by the evil force of the state colluding with the bosses, but a certain defect of the human agents, including the working class and the “downtrodden masses” to act rationally and responsibly.

This defect is social status attainment.  As Veblen aptly observed, social status attainment is a major force that determines not only the division of labor, but also consumption patterns.  Jobs are defined to accommodate social statuses of the incumbents, menial jobs for low status incumbents, honorific jobs for high status incumbents.  Likewise, goods are purchased because they are associated with high social status, even though their utilitarian value is limited if any.   So while Western social commentator attributed to “downfall of Communism” to exotic political causes, such as unquenched thirst for liberty or the supposed economic inefficiency of socialism, they miss the importance of social status in popular dislike of Eastern European socialism.

The flattening of social hierarchies by the socialist states in Eastern Europe was initially cheered by the "downtrodden masses" but it soon became resented by the same masses.  The sons of workers and peasants who -thanks to the socialist education system - became members of the technostructure quickly started resenting being on a more or less equal footing with the proles.  But even the proles themselves resented the relative absence of what Veblen called "conspicuous consumption" - i.e. purchase of goods that are associated with high social status regardless of their utilitarian value.  A good example is popularity of US made blue jeans that could fetch a month salary (or more) in Eastern Europe.  The US made blue jeans had no more utility than locally produced trousers, but they had a brand name tag that signified the high social status of the ass on which it was displayed. 

The relative scarcity of social status consumer products and the relative absence of social status distinctions were among the most frequently voiced grievances against the socialist system in Eastern Europe, especially in informal conversation.  On the record, however, it was about "freedom" and kindred lofty sounding abstractions.

Social status attainment and the role of conspicuous consumption in this attainment is the most powerful weapon of capitalism against socialism.  This weapon operates independently of formal power structures, although it often receives backing of the latter.  It acts as the "fifth column" that undermines the solidarity of the working class and "downtrodden masses" in general.  The competition for status in the workplace was among the mechanisms of labor control in both socialism and capitalism.  Michael Burawoy describes the labor process  as a "game" (instigated by the bosses, to be sure) that the workers play against each other.

The role of social status in the workplace has been extensively studied by feminists and labor market sociologists as well.  Their arguments boil down to the proposition that contrary to meritocratic pretenses, the division of labor is based to a significant extent on social status of the incumbents.  The close fusion of division of labor and social status is the main mechanism that legitimates that division of labor, even among those who receive the short end of this bargain.  Reskin & Roos provide case studies of deskilling of certain, mostly male dominated, occupations through "feminization."  One of the most important observations they make is that this work because female job applicants tend to be more accepting of lower social status of the newly redesigned (and Taylorized) jobs than male applicants.

Social status distinctions, which are deeply embedded in our culture, are the main mechanism that undermines not just workplace democracy, but socialism as well.  Social status attainment makes people responsive to commercialism and conspicuous consumption demands that the capitalists are more than willing to satisfy.  And if an attempt is made to curb this through rational planning of the economy and abolition of social hierarchies, this will only increase popular receptiveness to capitalist commercialism and conspicuous consumption.  

This - not the supposed "state repression" or some other external coercive force- is the main reason why democracy  and socialism- both at the micro-structural and the national levels - is rather difficult to implement, but it can be rather easily derailed by commercial interests.  This is the “fifth column” that must be neutralized to mend bourgeois democracy, or for that matter, build socialism.  Ironically, the rituals of the anarchist sects may be useful to achieve this goal – not by being a substitute for formal organization, of course, but by socializing people into a value system that shuns conspicuous consumption as the means of social status attainment.