The Technate design

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Stalinism has nothing to do with either the design or anything it proposes.

If anything, Stalin was an anti-technocrat.

Both he and Lenin were advocates of Taylorism or 'Scientific management'. This is the process where industrial processes are 'onion skinned' so that each worker has the minimum amount of training and responsibility so that the value of his or her labour is as minimal as possible.
Technocracy advocates exactly the opposite process. Stalin probably has more in common with the capitalists and market advocates, than you realise.

So communism failed because it wasn't left wing enough.

No, because it was too authoritarian and didn't advocate the correct social and economic paradigms.

As the goals of the social engineers and the people they are trying to control become farther apart, authoritarianism must necessarily increase.

No one will work against his personal self-interest unless a gun is being pointed at him.

You are still thinking in terms of hierarchical systems; this is not what this is about.
As Dr Wallace said, nature is not composed of hierarchies, it is an antiquated human construct.

No one is trying to control anyone else. The idea of a holonic system is to dispose of an antiquated accountancy system then to organically and benevolently consolidate the interests of engineers and non engineers in one direction with a commonality of interest.

There is no need for gun pointing when the interests and goals are the same. Whats more, under the current system people already do work against their own interests when they show up everyday at a dead end mind numbing, 9-5 minimal wage job for an omnipresent employer who receives the lion's share for no contribution.

Last edited by thomas81 on 12 Apr 2013, 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A hierarchical system is a manageable system. A flat structured society cannot function if its population exceeds more than a few thousand people.

Labor must be specialized. Distribution must be done by a -system-. That alone equires a pyramid shaped organization chart.

ruveyn

I think you ignored the transcription and the video. It will be a community of communities. Each individual (small) community will be a entity unto itself which will have control of its own resources and decision making.

there will be 'a system'. It will be a circular chain of holons linked by nodes or a 'relationship sequence'. No pyramid required.

It will be more efficient because each Holon will be responsible for its own area of authority and be able to make decisions without having to lobby or wait for the uninformed sanction of a bureaucratic, layman political group like under the existing system.

Last edited by thomas81 on 12 Apr 2013, 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And when they're not?
The workers are there voluntarily and can quit anytime. They are working toward their own self-interest, trading labour for money.

The employer contributes the means for the employee's labour to be productive, and takes on all the risks of investment.

Each individual person is already an entity unto himself, and (in the absence of coercion) has control over his or her own resources and decision making.

under this proposed system they are, so that is not a concern.

They can only quit as a meaningful choice when there is a abundance of other work available. If this was usually the case, Companies that dish out awful jobs would not survive because they rely on that very absence of choice to exploit vulnerable people. In this case you are assuming there is a mutual symmetry of interest, which there is not. It is an exploitative relationship.

If by means you mean equipment or machinery, how did they acquire those means? They bought the means by hiring other people Initially which is still an exploitative relationship.

Furthermore does the worker who takes the job take any less risk? the employer could go out of business, decide to relocate and offshore or arbitrarily decide to make him redundant. There is risk to both parties.

Yes he is an individual entity unto himself, until the point that he thwarts the ability of others to act as individual entities by initiating the exploitative relationship above.

Well hold on now. This is the entire point. How does this proposed system ensure everyone's interests and goals are the same?

Bad jobs exist because they don't require a lot of skill to do. Companies "dish out awful jobs" because people are willing to do them.

Means are acquired through investment. Those with capital invest in ambitious entrepreneurs without capital. They are incurring risk with the hope of payoff. The entrepreneur then invests that capital in means of production, and "rents" that means of production to the worker. A portion of the value of the worker's labour goes to the entrepreneur, in return for the entrepreneur incurring the risk of investing in the means of production.

All steps in this process are entirely voluntary. Any ambitious worker can become an entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur becomes a person with capital, who can invest in new entrepreneurs.

Unions are also a thing. If conditions are truly unfair, unions act as a balancing factor.

There are, but the employer incurs far greater risk relative to his investment (and as such enjoys greater payoff). A worker faces the risk of an end to his employment, but he does not face the risk that he will not be paid for the labour he DOES provide.

And in your proposed plan, how do you prevent the "exploitation" of voluntary free trade?

My bet: It ends with a gun.

All would be wanna be utopian schemes end with a gun. Why? Because they don't work and the people who favor these schemes very rarely admit their mistakes. That make up for failure with the gun, the whip, the sword and the dungeon. It happens each and every time.

ruveyn

His analysis makes perfect sense to me, and I have only an engineering degree.


No Utopia can long sustain itself without exercising total control over its citizens.