<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Orsan</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:orsan1234@gmail.com">orsan1234@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 3:26 AM<br>Subject: Re: [NetworkedLabour] Work/Hack/ers' ethic according to Bogdanov<br>To: Anna Harris <<a href="mailto:anna@shsh.co.uk">anna@shsh.co.uk</a>><br>Cc: <a href="mailto:networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org">networkedlabour@lists.contrast.org</a><br><br><br><div dir="auto"><div>As Sochor goes on; </div><div><br></div><div>
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<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">"To be sure, Bogdanov's alternative was not </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">without </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">its </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">own </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">problems.
He predicated many of his hopes for socialism on technological progress, </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">which </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">would alter both the work process </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">and </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">work relations, </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">thus </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">paving the way for "cultural liberation." This position left Bogdanov
open to the criticism of "technological determinism." Something of a
crude technological bent was, in fact, apparent in his search for all-
encompassing "organizational principles," leading him to declare, for
example, that relations between humans </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">and </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">their tools were similar
to those between humans.</span><span style="font-size:9.000000pt;font-family:'Times';vertical-align:5.000000pt">18 </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">In addition, he seemed little aware that a
world of engineers, operating in a highly rationalistic style, </span><span style="font-size:7.000000pt;font-family:'HiddenHorzOCR'"> </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">pro-
duce its </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">own </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">sources of alienation. Nevertheless, Bogdanov devoted
his practical efforts to culture </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">and </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">aesthetics rather than to technology
and the organization of labor. Indeed, he attempted to develop "proletarian culture" in a country that could boast only of minimal technological progress. Even according to his own scheme, he might be
labeled utopian. It seems that Bogdanov assumed technological advance
was essential to sustaining change in authority relations </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">but </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">not nec-
essarily to initiating it.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">Another problem </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">in </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">Bogdanov's scheme was the underrating of political power. Because he downgraded the significance of </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">the </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">seizure
of power as a precondition to the transition to socialism, he exposed
himself to charges of reformism. Although he did not deny that revo</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">lution was a means of change, it is certainly true that his systems
thinking was much more in line </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">with </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">incremental change. He also
tended to view political power as a resource, fully in keeping </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">with </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">the
systems perspective, rather than as a potential means of domination.
He was blind to some of the realities of political life </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">and </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">clearly no
match for Lenin in political maneuvering.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">The merit of Bogdanov's alternative lies not in a successful answer
to the question of how to create utopia </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">but in an </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">aler\ness to the ob-
stacles to utopia. In particular, Bogdanov attempted to find means to
overcome these hurdles rather than denigrate utopia. Perhaps this at-
tempt is the most that could be expected, from even the most zealous
believer in socialism. In fact, </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Helvetica'">if </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">there is any "social usefulness" to
utopian thinking, it may very well be, as Kolakowski argues, to "anticipate things that are impracticable now in order to make </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">them </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">prac-
ticable one day in the future."19
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<p><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">Bogdanov's concerns reflected the basic problems </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">in </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">Marxism that
continue to plague the socialist world. Despite, or perhaps because of,
the existence of several countries that call themselves socialist, there
is </span><span style="font-size:11.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">an </span><span style="font-size:10.000000pt;font-family:'Times'">ongoing debate on what constitutes the essence of socialism. The
two conceptions that seem to predominate among contemporary Marxists </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">split along the same lines as did those of Lenin </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">and </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">Bogdanov, with
one emphasizing public ownership and party control, and the other
the </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">end </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">of </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Times">human </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times">alienation."</span></p>
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