What Guarantees the Ruin of Economy? 1 страница
The Preface to the English Edition
The mother tongue of the authors of this work is Russian. The translators of this edition are native Russian speakers as well.
Text comprehension implies matching a definite word or sentence order with particular images, imaginative notions, whose foretypes (protoplasts) are located either in life (when narrating about it), or inside the authors’ mentality (when fantasizing or designing the future).
Considering the fact that the authors largely focus on the topics that are not traditionally discussed in historically established cultures, Russia or the rest of the world, including the West, which is caused by inertia of thinking, there are quite a few new notions that are not common knowledge in Social Science as yet. According to Kozma Prutkov, «Lots of things are incomprehensible to us not because our notions are poor but because these things go far beyond our notions». That is why a reader of this text is supposed to labor hard even if he is a native Russian speaker, and it gets even harder due to specific style of the Russian original. As a result, the interpreters had to cope with both word choice and grammar structures to make the translation sound adequately and transmit the same message as the original version. Moreover, different chapters were translated by different people. And despite we tried to do our best when editing the translation and attempting to gain a single style for the book as a whole, it still may happen that the personal differences between the interpreters’ outlooks and their language cultures are expressed differently in different parts of the same book, so the same phenomena may be described with different terminological frameworks.
That is why we apologize to our English-speaking readers for possible inaccuracies, style imprecisions or some difficulties which might occur in the course of reading. The readers having a command of Russian are kindly invited to the web site at the address www.mera.com.ru in case they have a need to adjust their understanding of the text.
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The authors thank Russian students Maria Gerasimchuk, Dmitriy Orlov, Julia Shishkina, Yelizaveta Vasserman and Ivan Zuev for their devoted contribution in translating this book into English.
Foreword
This work concerns the outlook on economy and social life belonging to two men who are usually thought to be very different.
The first one is Henry Ford I, founder and head of «Ford Motors Company», one of the world’s largest automotive corporations. The other one is Joseph Stalin — a politician, sociologist and economist, whose world understanding and will were embodied in the foundation and prime of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the «superstate № 2» of the 20th century, the «super concern» state.
Despite what used to be taught at schools about the fight between capitalism and socialism those two people share a similar view on normal social life. The difference lies in Henry Ford’s focusing mainly on microeconomy and relations between people as employees of a single enterprise, avoiding the issues of macroeconomy and building state institutions, while Joseph Stalin concentrated on the issues of developing political economy as a science, on cultural transformation and arranging the macroeconomy by the scheme of a «super concern» state, leaving the microeconomic issues to society’s creative force.
Thus they in fact complement each other and therefore pave the way to uniting the people of Russia and America as well as the people of the world in a common culture based on morals and ethics of a conscientious laborer.
But contemporaries as well as descendants refused to understand both of them. And the world has paid for this reluctance to understand with World War II followed by the «cold war» between NATO and the USSR and with the deformed globalization that is currently taking place.
Though this work quotes both Ford and Stalin extensively where it is necessary, those are merely quotations. Their heritage should be studied not by quotations but by their works in order to form a complete and coherent understanding of who and in what way was wrong or right.
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But if the heritage of Ford and Stalin is understood, expanded and realized then the historic perspective of all peoples will acquire a new, a better quality...
Part I
SOCIALLY USEFUL
Management Principles
Have Been Proclaimed Long Ago
1. Globalization
as a Means to Counter Globalization
«Anti-globalists» are people who for various reasons oppose «globalization». But most of them don’t bother about understanding what precisely they are fighting for and what precisely they oppose to. Therefore they get nothing but hooliganism as a result. Given such an essentially vague and purely nihilistic attitude to globalization the «anti-globalists» are no smaller an evil than the historically real «globalization», which they are so unhappy with. In order to choose none of the two evils one needs to become familiar with the social meaning of both the words and the phenomena they signify.
«Globalization» is a term of political science, which became known to people interested in politics and economics in a few recent years. «Globalization» became the term for the economic and cultural phenomena that affect historically formed cultures of peoples living in different parts of the world (including the economic structure). Such phenomena on the one hand disrupt those cultures and ways of life and on the other hand integrate them into some global culture that is yet starting to come into being. In the historical perspective this global culture is to unite the whole of mankind.
Will this culture be bad or good? This is still an open question in many aspects.
But it is this very question that anti-globalists are not interested in, because they act on their prejudice of globalization being invariably bad. Such an attitude is bad in itself. The point is that:
Historically real globalization is the result of actions of many people who pursue their own interests or the interests of their groups. And those interests are mostly not of a global scale.
What is now being termed «globalization» happened before but did not have a name. Over the whole course of recorded history «globalization» appears to be a process of national cultures penetrating one another. In the past international trade and the policy of conquest stimulated it. Nowadays it is stimulated directly by the integration of technologies belonging to different national economies into a world economy of the mankind. The economic constituent of this process consists in concentration of control over the society’s productive forces. The mankind of today cannot exist without production and distribution systems controlled this or that way. In other words globalization is a historically objective process which takes place not depending on wishes and will of a single opponent to «globalization in general».
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Thus, because globalization is the result of actions taken by many people seeking to provide for their private — and not in the least global — interests then it is really useless to fight it. In order to stop globalization one must totally ban all export-import transactions, do away with tourism, migration, concert tours of all performers, art and other exhibitions, translating business correspondence, works of art and academic papers, minimize diplomatic activity and eliminate mafias.
Judged on the basis of the above-mentioned vision a sincere effort of fighting globalization in general — as an inherent principle of civilization development on our planet — is a form of insanity. But to put up with globalization as it proceeds in the historic reality of today is to bring horrible afflictions to the mankind in future.
The point is that though globalization results from the social element of many people’s private activities of the people’s pursuing their own ends not in the least of a global scale, the historically real globalization is a controlled process. This happens because along with average people who devote themselves to vanity and avoid considering their private and largely social affairs on the global scale, there have been among the mankind from immemorial time more or less numerous social groups whose members in the succession of generations pursue some definite objectives regarding the entire mankind and develop and apply the means to accomplish those objectives. As the choice of objectives and means to accomplish them is subjectively determined by the «globalists»’s morals, globalization in itself may be directed towards accomplishing mutually exclusive objectives by mutually exclusive means following mutually exclusive scenarios.
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But as globalization is generated by actions of many people who are not globalists and as it is impossible to stop it, only one option remains. Globalization proceeding toward accomplishing unacceptable objectives by unacceptable means following unacceptable scenarios must be opposed by a profoundly different globalization, acceptable from the point of its objectives, the means to accomplish them and scenarios along which those objectives are accomplished by those means.
This approach to the issue of historically real globalization and its possible alternatives leads us directly to the question of an objective, i.e. pre-destined for the man and the mankind, Good and accordingly of an objective Evil.
2. Henry Ford and Industrialization
in the USSR
In the 20th century or at least its largest part the historically real issue of objective Good and Evil viewed globally always led to the question: which one of these two categories is represented by the «American way of life» and «American dream» and which one is represented by «the Soviet way of life» and «the ideals of bolshevism».
Many people including representatives of the well-read «intelligentsia» adhere to the view that history has given a final answer to this question even after September 11th, 2001[1]. Namely, they think that the «American way of life» and the «American dream» suit human nature and the nature of human society better and therefore are universal and viable, while the Soviet way of life and the ideals of bolshevism are the product of a far-fetched social experiment and therefore are a historical bankrupt. This bankruptcy was manifested, and to many convincingly, by the irreversible failure of the USSR in terms of state institutions, social structure and culture. And the current status of the «former USSR» and the USA is one of the facts belonging to the globalization, which defines its future perspective.
Along with that since the mid 19th century and up to present time the course of globalization and its quality (goals, means to accomplish them, scenarios) has been determined by the extent to which the people of the USA and Russia have used their chances to provide mutual help and cooperation in developing the cultures of both two countries. That is why in order to understand the future trends of globalization and discover a variant of it that is objectively executable to the benefit of all the peoples of the world it is insufficient simply to proclaim the failure of the USSR and the seemingly cloudless future of the USA (even more so after September 11th, 2001). One must turn to our common history.
Usually when one needs an example of a positive cooperation between Russia and the USA one recalls the World War II. But in our opinion the cooperation between Russia (the USSR) and the USA in that period is not the kind of phenomenon that is exemplary to the present and future politicians, businessmen and common people in both countries. The reason is that the unity between the USSR and the USA during the WWII existed due to a common enemy. The hypothetic victory of that enemy would have ended the history of both countries and their peoples. But to discover a way to a peaceful and bright future of all the peoples of mankind one needs not to answer the question «whom should we be friends against?» but the question «in the name of what ideals should we be friends and how could we make our common ideals a reality?» That is why we should find another example of fruitful cooperation in our past.
The industrialization of the USSR — new branches of industry coming into being and old ones being modernized — was going on simultaneously with the «great depression» in the USA and world economic crisis. While the crisis paralyzed the economies of all industrialized countries for many Western companies sales to the Soviet market became a way of surviving financially. The so-called «class interests», «class solidarity» of capitalists in the fight against the «world evil of communism» for many of them receded into the background. They were ready to work for the socialist regime of the USSR contrary to their class interests for the sake of preserving their firms and keeping their present social status.
In the years preceding the «great depression» the anti-Marxist nature of Stalin’s bolshevism[2] was yet unclear. That is why the struggle between Trotskyites and Stalinists in the governing bodies of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) [ACP (B)] and their struggle outside the party for control over the minds of Soviet citizens were taken by many people (including foreigners) for the customary fighting between leaders and their teams which is more or less in the nature of all political parties. Rearranging life in Russia on the principles of Marxist «socialism» was a part of the global project to rearrange relationships in societies throughout the world. Therefore there are reasons to believe that the «great depression» of 1929 itself was organized on purpose by the «world backstage»[3] in order to force the private capital of industrially developed countries under threat of bankruptcy to work for the benefit of building Marx’s model of the «socialism» in the USSR. Such were the immediate tasks of «globalization» in that historic period.
Consequently industrialization in the USSR was lent active political support by a part of the backstage masonry[4] and received investments from the foreign private capital, including the private capital of the USA that diplomatically acknowledged the USSR only in November 1933. Under those conditions the Soviet government enjoyed the opportunity to choose from among many firms eager to take part in building socialism in the USSR and those were the most advanced firms of every branch of industry. «Ford Motors» (founded 1903) was among the leaders of the automotive branch throughout the whole of the 1st quarter of the 20th century. Therefore it is not surprising that it was given preference over others and received an opportunity to contribute to the Soviet automotive industry’s coming into being.
As a result the foundation of the automotive and tractor industries of the USSR in the Stalinist period was heavily assisted in terms of technology and staff training by Henry Ford I (1863 — 1947), one of the most prominent businessmen of the first half of the 20th century. The first Soviet mass-production tractor «Fordson — Putilovets» (1923) — a «Ford» tractor «Fordson» adapted for production and operation in the USSR — was designed and put into full production in the years of World War I. A car factory was constructed (1929 — 1932) in Gorky[5]; Moscow «ZiL» car factory[6] was modernized during the first five-year plan, staff for both of these factories received training. Everything mentioned above was accomplished with the help of Henry Ford and various experts from «Ford Motors» and their help played a decisive role in it.
But «Ford Motors» stands out among the many private firms that took part in the industrialization of the USSR because of Ford’s personality. Ford was its founder and chief executive for over 40 years. That Ford’s personality stands out against the background of many capitalist businessmen of the first half of the 20th century was reflected in the Soviet propaganda in a peculiar way.
Marxism Talking on «Fordizm»
«FORDIZM, a system of organizing mass production on the line originated in the USA in the first quarter of the 20th century. (…) The founding principle of Fordizm and of the new methods of organizing production and labor it gave rise to was the assembly belt. (…) Every worker placed along the assembly line performed one operation consisting in several (sometimes even one) working movements (for example turning a nut with a wrench) that required virtually no qualification. As Ford indicates 43 % of workers required one-day long training, 36 % — from 1 day up to one week, 6 % — one or two weeks, 14 % from one month up to 1 year[7].
Introducing the assembly line along with several other technical innovations (product typification, standardization of component parts, their interchangeability and so on) enabled a sharp growth of labor productivity and decrease in manufacture costs[8] and initiated mass production (…) At the same time Fordizm intensified labor to an unprecedented extent, made it dull and mechanical. Fordizm counts on turning workers into robots and requires an extreme nervous and physical exertion. Compulsory pace of work set by the assembly line made it necessary to substitute piecework payment by payment by the hour[9]. The word «Fordizm» like «Tailorizm» before it became synonymous to exploitation of workers characteristic of the monopoly stage of capitalism, which is bent on increasing profits of capitalist monopolies.
Seeking to suppress the feeling of discontent among workers and to prevent them from organizing a fight for their rights and interests Ford introduced a military-like discipline in factories, encouraged spying among workers, ran his own police for severe punishment of active workers. For many years Ford did not permit trade unions at his factories.
In his book “My Life and Work” Ford claimed to play the role of some «social reformer» and asserted that his methods of production and labor organization could turn a bourgeois society into a «society of affluence and social harmony». Ford praised his system as the one catering for the workers making special emphasis on wages at his factories being higher than the average wage in the industry. However higher wages are connected with higher working pace, quick wear of workforce, the task to attract more and more new workers to substitute those put out of action.
Bourgeois ideologists regard the workers’ opposition to destructive social consequences of Fordizm as an opposition to technical progress. Actually the workers fight not against technical progress but against the capitalist way to use its achievements. Modern technological revolution, improvement of the workers’ education and training, strengthening of their struggle have turned Fordizm into an obstacle for labor productivity growth.
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