MERCADO

CUBA

WORKERS DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP

WORKER'S DICTATORSHIP AND WORKER'S DEMOCRACY

The socialist revolution carries the workers to power under the leadership of the working class. The exploiting classes- capitalists and landowners are cut off from politics, although this does not mean the end of the class struggle.  The worker's rule has as its goal the transition from capitalism to socialism. Factory and industrial workers, and all who are exploited bring down the yoke of capitalism toward the construction of a classless society. This exploiting class, who was once supreme, and has now fallen out of power, marshals a desperate resistance and as long they continue to have money (much of it hidden) the possibility of restoration of capitalism does not disappear (USSR).

UPPER CLASS RESISTANCE. All revolutions have as their task the defeat of the ruling class. The French Revolution of 1789 did not hesitate to overthrow with force the corrupt and decadent monarchy, inspiring many countries to follow suit. Precisely because the ruling class has gained enormous power and wealth, they are loathe to give up any part of their influence and must be dealt with if the Revolution is to put an end to exploitation of man by man. The privileges enjoyed by the ruling class-their wealth and culture, have made them think that they are born to give orders and everyone else is born to follow them. They are horrified at the thought of their inferior followers giving them orders, or at any attempt to modify their property or parasitic existence. They will forever hold the idea of a comeback, and make concrete attempts at comebacks as long as they see the slightest chance to recover their lost paradise. Perhaps their most horrific nightmare is that they might actually have to go to work. While workers are proud of their achievements as laborers, the ruling class consider work to be humiliating.

All is not lost, says the ruling class, as long as we still wield some power. We have friends internationally. Some of the armed forces may still support us. Subversion and propaganda are still powerful weapons at our disposal. As long as we can control some property over the means of production we have a chance. We may have lost political power, but we can still exercise plenty of economic influence over the small producers and private individuals who feel they can still get rich if things were to be put back the way they were. The ruling class has experience, in production, and government, in their contacts with engineers  and technicians, in the officers of the armed forces.  They scramble for control of media in order to denigrate the socialist movement and beef up their own through propaganda. There are many declasé and delinquent elements, left over from the ruined small business class, which are ready to be recruited by the counterrevolutionaries when things are ripe for a coup.  (Añez in Bolivia, Guaidó in Venezuela, etc). In some cases the reactionaries bring on a civil war that must be defeated by the workers, distracting them from the task at hand. A "dictatorship" is necessary to strike down the resistance of the exploiters, and to put a brake on thieves, attackers, and delinquents that are the product of the old society and rise like cream to the top during this period. The struggle goes on, but after the worker's take over it gains new characteristics. For the first time the workers dispose of political power, which they can use to control the former rulers who have not disappeared but rather increase their resistance.

THE RULE OF THE WORKING CLASS. The worker's rule is not the negation of democracy, it is not totalitarianism. Violence comes from the former ruling class, the capitalists. The workers' task is not vengeance, but to rebuild a destroyed society, and the interference with this task is what causes the need to control the counterrevolutionaries by force. This is by no means contradictory with humanism. If the defeated class is willing to cooperate, there is no need for defense. If they come back with a fury, they must be defeated by any means necessary. The former ruling class tries to pretend that any action to prevent sabotage, coup d'etats, lying propaganda is synonymous with worker's terror, repression and a limitation on democracy. This serves to cover over the reality that the defensive measures are only as violent as the defeated capitalist class wants to make them. Proof is that the worker's movement has complete use at its disposal of non-violent means of adaptation, to wit., nationalization of industry, reeducation of recalcitrant elements, and reincorporation into the work force, always honoring legal precepts established by the revolution itself, for example, the abolition of the death penalty. In any case, the majority of the members of the defeated  capitalist class are not staunch defenders of capitalism, They are perfectly content to go along with free medical care, free education, full employment and all the rest. The die-hards are few and tend to disappear as a force  as time goes on. The working class comprise  over 90% of the population and the socialist system is vastly supported by the majority, who is the governing power. Their strength is not in the bayonet, nor in the police, nor in money.  Their strength is in the trust the masses have in their ability to govern themselves in the freest, broadest and strongest wielding of the reins of power in history.

TASK OF THE WORKING CLASS. Once the counterrevolutionaries are taken care of, the task of the workers is to transform the economy by organization and by discipline, by the free use of the worker's vanguard, the most conscious and best organized sector, to end class divisions and exploitation of the population. The struggle here is between Marxists and reformists. Are we to have a  dictatorship over the workers and  democracy for the capitalist, or a dictatorship over the capitalist and democracy for the workers? Reformists support democracy, which sounds good, until they are shown to mean democracy to exploit, democracy for free enterprise, democracy to get rich at the expense of others. The proof of the emptiness of their program can be shown in countries where social democratic parties rule-(Sweden, et al)  not one has embraced socialism, and they remain capitalist parties with benefits that can be taken away as soon as another crisis shows itself. The Paris Commune fell apart precisely because it was not able to counter the ability of the bourgeoisie to gather its forces and drown the Commune in blood.

WORKER'S DEMOCRACY. Worker's democracy is democracy of a new type. While previously those in command exercised  democracy from a small number of elected officials, now democracy reaches every corner of the society, and the political economy is run by all for all. Now the rule is aimed at the small number of capitalist  hold outs, while the vast majority enjoy fraternity and communal decision making that applies to the whole country, that is, to themselves. They are two sides of the same coin.

Bourgeois apologists maintain that in order to have real democracy one has to have opposing sides, discussion in the parliament or congress, etc. but even with rivals factions you have unity insofar as pleasing the small number of billionaires who run everything. There is no people's power, nothing to serve the people. A party of a new type means something different. Gone are unemployment and homelessness, gone is illiteracy, gone is being unable to afford a doctor. A new democracy results in bounty for all the people. Living standards rise, as does culture. Peace is defended, war is outlawed. Friendship with all the people of the world replaces hostility and suspicion. The new leadership would be unable to rule if they did not enjoy the trust and support of the vast majority of the population, its greatest strength. This democracy, however, cannot be extended beyond worker's power to include the reactionary forces of the defeated ruling class, nor to those who work to restore capitalism.

ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE WORKING CLASS AND ALL OTHER WORKERS. This alliance includes all who are willing to work democratically in support of socialism. Socialism cannot be built by the working class only. It is not simply a matter of nationalizing property. The media, theaters, film , schools have to be socialized also, involving small shop owners, farm laborers, intellectuals, etc.  Again, this can only be accomplished with the cooperation of  the widest strata of the people, psychologically primed for the destruction of the old order, of capitalism, of exploitation. In the opposite of coercion, the working class can now bring about changes by example, by conviction, by stimulation and organization. 


WORKER GUARANTEES. Worker's democracy is not held to making changes in race relations, nationalities, gender issues, religion or cultural levels. The State provides all workers with resources such as buildings and locals, where they can meet and use the equipment, developing their own media, radio, film and electronic equipment. Elections are held, not so that everyone can go home after voting, but for the people to participate daily in tasks that come up, by means of state organizations, social, sectional, commissions, and advisory boards, that spring from the organs of power. Worker's democracy is not only political, but it extends into the areas of economy and culture. Workers dispose democratically of their workplace, the factory, former corporate entities, newspapers, magazines, internet, film and radio, etc. The socialization of the means of production move into the hands of the people, where these institutions are no longer run by private property holders, but  directly by the people.

DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP OF THE PARTY. Although centralization is necessary torun the country, centralized bureaucracy is abolished. Some may object to centralization (government is the problem), and anarchists may contradict the fulfillment of the actual needs of the population. Centralism is still necessary, but as long as it is democratic. This means from the ground up- subordinated to the lower organizations, where all are elected or dismissed by  the people, where those elected have to be accountable to the masses, where these same masses are incorporated into the tasks set by the directives. Bosses and soldiers spring from the same origin, workers, farm workers, intellectuals. The army is made up of working class members. The police come from and live in the neighborhood. Judges are elected, and they can be discharged. (This guarantees their independence) Sentences also change character- many are probationary, or engage in public censure, or, instead of prison, the defendant is given work and rehabilitation without losing his/her freedom, etc. The militias also work along these same democratic lines. All are connected to the neighborhood, the factories, the unions, and farm workers' cooperatives, and are under their control. The Party also grows exponentially, and is welcome as long as it remains under the control of the working class. The Party is the only organism that can succeed in the transformation of the new society, because it has a plan of action based on a scientific understanding of the laws of development, which promote the trust that the working class has on its leadership. If there is a worker's dictatorship there cannot be a Party dictatorship, since this would violate the principle of democratic centralism. The role of the Party is that of the ideological leadership in the construction of socialism. More than that,  its leadership is in the political arena, as well as in the economic and cultural, administrative, army, foreign policy spheres, a role that takes in the trust support and confidence of the masses through comradeship and the fulfillment of political, economic and cultural needs.

INTERNAL STRUGGLES. This adulation of the Party can lead to its opposite-the Party becoming spoiled, with a feeling of infallibility, all of which can separate them from the people. This is why it is so important to always engage in criticism and self criticism aimed at internal democracy and the rotating of posts so that no one person can control what everyone else is doing. There are always opportunists who seek power for themselves, and measures must be taken to prevent and minimize this by means of temporary assignments, testing the waters, and other means designed to prevent hostile elements from subverting the membership.  Party unity is primordial, and anything that weakens it must be defeated. Not only is the Party attacked by the reactionary elements, but it can be weakened by those vacillating elements inside the organization  who are not firm enough in their convictions to carry an action through and win.
If measures are not taken what follows is a split within the Party- a group of feminists, for example, who object to men making decisions, and others who likewise  put their personal agendas above the common good. (In any case the Party has already made way for the advancement of women, and those objections are bogus, designed to split and weaken). Anarchists, right wing opportunists and others, will proclaim the freedom to form factions while breaking Party unity, and the consequences if not arrested, can be disastrous.

UNIONS. Under socialism, unions are the seedbed from which new progressive elements spring. They become a school for training administrators and leadership. They make economic assessments, make plans that affect the workplace, and provide training for those who are going  to take positions of responsibility. A meeting of many unions results in  production units, technical conferences, scientific societies, new inventions, etc. However, unions are not the State, and they must not be allowed to take over the means of production, because they are merely one aspect of the political economy. At general meetings, they represent a powerful but subordinated section of the population, sharing power with all the other groups and mass organizations, such as cooperatives, artisans,  writers, artists,  youth groups, etc.

BUREAUCRACY. Bureaucracy is endemic to the capitalist system. It separates the leadership from the base, so that everything is done impersonally, skewed toward the benefit of the ruling class while pretending to be objective and fair. Under socialism the opposite happens-- the State is the result of people's power, and is at the service and control of the people themselves. Nevertheless, bureaucratic thinking remains as a habit, as formalism and indifference, a lack of connection with the problems of the people, and useless paperwork. The only way to avoid a resurgence of bureaucratism is by making sure the masses are in firm control of the government by means of intense internal democracy, gearing the masses toward running things by the people and for the people.

FORMS OF CONTROL. The degree and kinds of control exercised by the people depends on what kind of society is being transformed. ie., a feudal- peasant society or a bourgeois capitalist democracy. If a country is backward and dictatorial to begin with control may need to be extreme to counter it. On the other hand, a democratic society that abides by the voting process can turn int a socialist one with relatively little strife, if the masses are sufficiently educated and willing to lay it down for socialism. At some point the capitalist ruling class has to see it is useless to object openly to the transition, and will find other, more subtle  ways of sabotaging it. In the Soviet Union during the first 10 years, there were elected 12 and a half million deputies as executive committee  and congress members. The Soviets fought against feudalism, monarchical leanings, and rich peasants, guaranteeing the self determination of nations, and equal rights for all  people.At the same time they had no intention of expelling or prohibiting competitive organizations. The Soviets were  coalition government, but those who refused to join the Soviets became the enemy. Even in the lap of the Soviets counterrevolutionary elements could be found, and the task was to expel them judiciously. Thus the Soviets were the only means by which the civil war could be resisted, the interventionists could be destroyed, economic chaos could be straightened out, and socialism in one country could be built starting with the lowest rungs of the people and raising their level of political function, economy and culture. An alternate to Soviet Power is popular democracy. This is brought about as a result of the anti fascist struggle. This is a new kind of people's power made up  of democrats who fulfill the role of the working class. These democrats are progressively disillusioned by the capitalist system and yearn for something better. These groups did not start out as the rule of the workers, but rather as a force against fascism within the country. They were allied with other classes. It was a transitional power which depended on the correlation of forces between the democratic bloc and the right wing bourgeois. Any attempt by the right to seize power will be countered by the democratic forces, (Venezuela) which will paralyze attempts at a coup and whose people's democracy will take the reins of power to establish a worker's rule.

DIFFERENT SOCIALISMS. In some countries popular democracy includes several parties, which together run the country as long as they adhere to socialist principles in terms of a popular front.  In some countries parliamentary procedures remained in place, as long as they took down the far right institutions (police, army, etc_ and replaced them with new and democratic institutions. It is not an easy task for socialists to transform large numbers of the population that had heretofore been at the service of the right wing capitalists. One way is the formation of capitalist and State enterprises, with the latter having controlling interest. This is justified as long as the tendency is to inexorably move toward the transformation from privatization to nationalization. At the same time the capitalist class must be reeducated from an emphasis on individualism to a reliance on mass populations, as the only form of genuine democracy., while at the same time absorbing the technical now how brought about through normal evolutive experience. This is not to say the transition is always easy or peaceful - there will be attempts at bringing back the old system for a long time after the seizure of power.This is why the Party is essential- to fight all attempts at revisionism, while allowing other organizations  to exist in tandem.  History is repeated in its essentials, but not in its details. As time goes on, and more countries become socialist, the probability of violence is reduced. It is possible that the working class can achieve congressional control through peaceful means, as long as it expresses the popular will.

WAR

WAR

The most monstrous consequence of imperialism lies in its world wars. Humanity has been dragged into the maw of war during entire decades. More than half of the 20th Century has been devoted to the slaughter. In the first world war 70 million men were killed for nothing, in the second. 110 million. This is only those in combat. The victims had 10 million dead and 20 million wounded, the second resulted in 32 million dead and 35 million invalids. But we are not finished yet. There are material losses to  be considered. In Europe during the second war there were 26.3 million houses destroyed, 14.5 million public buildings, and industrial installations, and more than 200,000 railways. Just in the USSR the fascists set fire to and destroyed 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages, with a result of 25 million people rendered homeless.

In spite of the propaganda of a "lightning strike", the duration of attacks did not grow less, but increased. The first war lasted 51.5 months, and the second 72 months. Imperialism is ready to engage in all sorts of ferocity and cruelty and crimes in order to defend capitalist slavery. The threats contain a certain measure of blackmail and bluff. Threats and provocations combined with the arms race hold great danger of war.

It is the ordinary people, workers and peasants and agricultural workers who suffer the brunt of the carnage. Unemployment pushes them to join the armed forces to their death or disability. Soldiers are now more ware that "patriotism" means death and have formed resistance groups against endless wars. Proof that the reactionary and aggressive spirit of empire is a constant threat of war. Formerly there were places in the world that were inaccessible, and therefore safe from war, but with modern technology every corner of the planet is liable to bombing and destruction. English writer Lyddel Hart has said," war has stopped being a war between two armies. It has been converted into a simple process of general destruction." Not only do wars carry with them the death of those directly involved, but have catastrophic consequences to people who are not involved, to the environment, and to plants and animals generally, due to the toxic fallout and especially after the use of nuclear bombs. A third world war, with atomic and hydrogen armaments,  would be, quite literally, the end of the world as we know it.

Empire is dedicated to crushing all attempts at national liberation of the peoples and to adapt the old colonial system to today's demands, waging war, if necessary (Central and South America, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria). This explains how the cold war continues, even if by another name. The main task of empire is to poison the political atmosphere with "austerity" and demonization of socialist attempts by governments. The main task  of this new cold war is to artificially maintain a state of tension, the denial of cooperation and diplomacy, and an unending posture of pressure on socialist countries. This new cold war interferes with commerce between countries by means of sanctions, embargoes and economic blockades, the halting of cultural and scientific exchanges, spying and sabotage even against so-called friendly countries. Empire abhors competition even by other capitalist countries, let alone socialist ones, and tries to turn them into docile followers of its commands. Under the pretext of the "communist menace" Empire has built the most extensive system of military blocs and strategic bases in foreign territories. (NATO), dedicated to economic, military matters and the "fight against subversion". Let us not forget that capitalists by definition are but a minority, and if all the groups of farmers, peasants, workers, intellectuals and small entrepreneurs were to unite they would create an irresistible storm that would sweep the poisonous system off the pages of history. Pandemics, world wars, are vehicles of disaster that can have the consequence of uniting those who have been so harmed by capitalist supremacy and lead to a society of peace, health and science.

War affects the most vulnerable, who supply the cannon fodder, who pay the highest taxes to pay copious amounts to the military, and are the subject of confiscation and theft of property for storaage houses and military bases for "the war effort", and whose environment is poisoned for decades after.

Science is also a casualty of war. Universities become appendages of the military, and any investigation that does not help the capitalist war effort is discarded. Artistic creation is also limited, as is what is taught in schools, where students are taught "patriotic" literature, and superstition, fatalism, decadence and lack of faith in the future.

At the same time movements for world peace grow exponentially, movements that include important and distinguished leading figures on the world scene, as well as millions of ordinary folk. The working masses and their organizations  fight more than ever for peace, for international collaboration, and for peaceful coexistence. But that is not enough. Most people are unaware of the great danger, and are apathetic.

Even so, times have changed. While those who lobbied for peace were few, now they are legion. Socialist countries and working classes of all countries, including capitalist, are no longer fooled by calls to "patriotism". They have come to realize that it is a scam, and are determined not to let the Empire embark on a new folly. People are no longer fooled by calling Venezuela a "dictatorship", or Iran a "supporter of ISIS" as propaganda for a new invasion. Wars are not inevitable. They are caused by greedy people who make whole fortunes out of war on the backs and misery of the population. How much better would it be to consign war to the ash heap of history, and to develop humankind and nature in a progressive way so that every single person, animal or bade of grass can realize its full potential.

A PLANNED ECONOMY

A planned economy is an economic system in which a single agency makes all decisions about the production and allocation of goods and services. The term is
used most often to refer to a centrally-planned economy (or command economy), in which the state or government controls the factors of production and makes all
decisions about their use and about the distribution of income. In a centrally-planned economy, the planners decide what should be produced and direct enterprises to produce those goods. A planned economy is usually contrasted with a market economy, where production, distribution, and pricing decisions are made by the private owners of the factors of production and influenced by market forces. A planned economy may either consist of state owned enterprises, private enterprises who are directed by the state, or a combination of both. Though planned economies are usually defined in contrast to market economies, it is not necessary for an economy to be either market-based or centrally-planned; other systems also exist. Important planned economies that existed in the past include the Economy of the Soviet Union, which was for a time the world's second-largest economy. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, many governments presiding over planned economies began deregulating and moving toward market based economies by introducing market forces to determine pricing, distribution, and production. Although economies today are market economies or mixed economies, planned economies exist in some countries such as Cuba and North Korea.  While the term planned economy usually refers to centrally-planned economies, it may also be used to refer to decentralized systems of planning such as participatory economics.

 Support for centrally planned economies Supporters of planned economies cast them as a practical measure to ensure the production of necessary goods—one which does not rely on the vagaries of uncontrolled markets.The government can harness land, labor, and capital to serve the economic  objectives of the state (which, in turn, are decided by the people through  a democratic process). Consumer demand is restrained in favor of greater  capital investment for economic development in a desired pattern. The state  can begin building a heavy industry at once in an underdeveloped economy without waiting years for capital to accumulate through the expansion of light  industry, and without reliance on external financing.  Consumers do not need money to express their economic demands, but may do so  through democratic councils (sometimes called workers councils) to decide and implement democratic decisions about the economy.   A planned economy can maximize the continuous utilization of all available  resources. This means that planned economies do not suffer from a business cycle. Under a planned economy, neither unemployment nor idle production  facilities should exist beyond minimal levels, and the economy should develop  in a stable manner, unimpeded by inflation or recession.  A planned economy can serve social rather than individual ends: under such a  system, rewards, whether wages or perquisites, are to be distributed according  to the social value of the service performed. A planned economy eliminates the  dependence of production on individual profit motives, which may not in  themselves provide for all society's needs.  While a market economy maximises wealth by evolution, a planned economy favors design. While evolution tends to lead to a local maximum in aggregate wealth,  design is capable of achieving a global maximum. For example, a  planned city can be designed for efficient transport, while organically grown  cities tend to suffer from traffic congestion. Taken as a whole, a centrally planned economy would attempt to substitute a number of firms with a single firm for an entire economy. As such, the stability of a planned economy has implications with the Theory of the firm. After all, most corporations are essentially 'centrally planned economies', aside from some token intra-corporate pricing (not to mention that the politics in some corporations resemble that of a Politburo).

EMPATHY

What is the relation between genes and race, class, or gender? Does social superiority spring from superior genes, or from biological differences between the sexes? As a Marxist and activist, Lewontin believed that we need to fight at both levels: to expose class, race and gender stereotypes as a reflection of power within society, and also at the level of radical science, meaning from the fundamentals of scientific theory and data. Empathy definitions encompass a broad range of phenomena, including caring for other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling;^[11] and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other. Nowhere does any biological basis for race being superior or inferior exist

Having empathy can include having the understanding that there are many factors that go into decision making and cognitive thought processes. Past experiences have an influence on the decision making of today. Understanding this allows a person to have empathy for individuals who sometimes make illogical decisions to a problem that most individuals would respond with an obvious response. Broken homes, childhood trauma, lack of parenting and many other factors can influence the connections in the brain which a person uses to make decisions in the future.^[13] According to Martin Hoffman everyone is born with the capability of feeling empathy.^[14]

Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized is derived from the way emotions themselves are characterized. If, for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate^[15] and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained^[16] and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

At the same time, empathy is systematically destroyed by capitalism, since looking out for number one, confiscating a house and putting the family out on the street, sucking up all the wealth of a third country to starve the population, deliberately creating unemployment in favor of prison labor, etc. requires good capitalist practices, but a dearth of empathy. 

IMPERIALISM

 volunteer@leftforum.org

IMPERIALISM

IMPERIALISM, the last stage of capitalism, has several stages;  Monopoly capital, parasitic, rotting capital, and-dying capitalism. There are 5 economic spheres that are covered by imperialism; 1-concentration of capital to the degree of monopolies that control every aspect of everyday life 2.- fusion of banks and industry, giving rise to finance capital 3.- the export of capital, as opposed to the export of merchandise, 4.- international monopoly alliances in order to divide the world up among themselves 5.- the end of any possibility of dividing the world any further. Imperialism is given birth to by an enormous increase and concentration of production, that is, corporations take the lion's share of the totality of production, they increase their labor power controlled by a few magnates.

Trusts (holders of property naming shareholders) are a typical form of monopoly. They are the product of the absorption of many companies, the bigger ones swallowing the smaller ones. Well-known trusts in the early days were US Steel , General Electric, of the Morgan group, and Standard Oil of Rockefeller. which at one time held 90% of petroleum products in the US. Free competition gives rise to monopolies, but this does not mean that competition ceases. Competition continues between the monopolies and those companies that have not been monopolized, between smaller and mid sized companies, between small producers, artisans  and farmers. This competition  leads to a worsening to the limit in living conditions, the intensification of labor, and the low subsistence level of small enterprises.

STOCK SHARES.The concentration of production is accompanied by the concentration and centralization of banking capital. The role of the banks is greatly modified. They go on to become owners of industrial companies, at the same time that industrial capital is encrusted in the banks. This fusion is called finance capital. These share holding companies become the dominant characteristic of empire. Shareholders may sell their shares in the stock market, which is controlled by the sum total of the holders. Each has a vote according to their holdings- one vote, one share. Those who have many share have many votes and can control the society, because many individual capitals become one capital, and this centralization takes over the national economy. Some integration of share holding companies are composed of smaller holders, employees, a small part of workers. These smaller holders can not even attend meetings, since it requires time and money to travel to another city or country. The only advantage is to the big share holders, who make more money the more shares there are , even though many of the smaller ones only get back tiny dividends. The company has control of of a second company, and third, and so on. Thus it can dispose of funds much greater than its own in a pyramid of companies under its control, opening the way to unlimited possibilities of enrichment for a few. Thus they become a financial oligarchy, which take over the key financial positions in the society. Their power resides in their ability to use huge amounts of capital that is not theirs. They might have 3 billion dollars, and control through the holding company 61 billion.

EXPORT OF CAPITAL. Control by a few corporations within a government leads to their eventual control over world finances. The way this is accomplished is by the export of capital, that is, foreign investment with the end of keeping all profits based on the labor of foreign nationals in other countries. Developed countries take advantage of underdeveloped countries and their cheap labor power. Capitalists, instead of investing on social welfare, have a tremendous "excess of capital" that they must invest somewhere, and underdeveloped countries provide the greatest advantage.


Export capital takes two forms 1.- productive capital and 2.- credit. The first is manifested in investments in industry, transportation, commerce etc., while the second deals with government loans, subsidies,  credit to other governments and private individuals. The advantages are high profits, low land price, miserable salaries and cheap raw materials. For example, Standard Oil investments in the Middle East and Latin America yielded capital gains six times greater than in the US. 1954 GUATEMALA COUP
1961 CUBA BAY OF PIGS INVASION
1964 BRAZIL COUP
1965 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC INVASION
1973 CHILE COUP
1976 ARGENTINA COUP
1983 GRENADA INVASION
1989 PANAMA INVASION
1994 HAITI INVASION
2002 VENEZUELA ATTEMPTED COUP
2009 HONDURAS COUP
2019 VENEZUELAN ATTEMPTED COUP
Corporations, benefiting from debt, based on loans they give to impoverished countries, and not least the political machinations aimed at backing reactionary forces and gaining military allies. It is only a matter of time until international monopolies are then created. The cartel is just an armistice in the industrial war. This competition between monopolies leads to war. The tendency is for all the trusts to merge into a single giant corporation worldwide, but because of capitalism's internal weakness, and its penchant for  competition, the whole thing will fall apart before that is happens, and capitalism will turn into its opposite. At the beginning of the twentieth century 6 great powers occupied 81,5 million kilometers of the earth's 133.9 million kilometers.
The great powers must consolidate in their hands as many raw materials as possible, those  in use and those with potential. This explains the appetite for other people's lands seized by the Empire, be they colonized or nominally independent. The US is the greatest colonizer in the world today. By placing capital loans in strategic places, the granting of onerous credits and the signing of unequal treaties, the US controls much of the world's natural wealth. Venezuelan oil until recently, Chilean copper, Bolivians tin, Brazilian steel and coffee are or have been  property of the US. Latin America is their backyard containing strategic materials and military bases. US monopolies are owners of 2/3 of Middle East oil, leaving "the camel's ear" to whomever is left. Thus the colonies provide high returns, raw materials, cheap labor power and cannon fodder.
Under these conditions the colonized countries have no hope of development and entering a modern economy,and remain victims of parasitic capitalism. The monopolies put a brake on the development of productive forces and technical progress. When before the capitalist offered competition by means of bettering the methods of production, lowering costs and prices, under this new competition between monopolies, the approach is different. The struggle against rivals is kept going by direct pressure, financial machinations, withholding of credit, and raw materials., boycotts, sanctions, etc.

TECHNOLOGY HELD BACK. Technical progress is held back by keeping prices artificially high and limiting the issuance of selected products. (who killed the electric car?) Technical progress is likewise held back by the monopolists reluctance to bring in new machines, due to the high cost or competition they are unwilling to engage in. Science and technology are held back when they are degraded and rendered useless in the service of profit. The consequences of all this is that humans are separated from productive work, socially useful work, and from the creation of material goods. Companies do not work at their fullest capacity- unemployment increases. Workers are used in non productive jobs such as money circulation, pubic administration, the armed forces, as servants, etc.
In spite of all this, competition can never be totally erased. Productive forces must keep developing. Rivals are done away with. What technical advances  there are become the exclusive property of the great monopolies. Parasitism in the imperial phase of capitalism is made clear by the existence of renters, economic practices of monopolization of (physical, financial, intellectual, etc. kinds of property (copyrights), and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society, those shareholders that live by clipping coupons. Hundreds of thousands  of industrial companies, banks, railroads and others are under their control. The hold untold wealth and power, and exist within a whole class of sycophants that grows around them, ready to satisfy their every whim. Toward this end public administration. the police and the army grow to protect and serve the ruling class,  in the service of  monopoly power.

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ADVENT OF FASCISM. Capitalism defeated feudalism under the slogans liberty, equality and fraternity. Under imperialism the situation has changed. There is now scarce free competition, instead becoming relations of violence and domination. Once the monopolies control the economy, they reach out to control the political life. To do this they must dispense with 19th century democracy and take on the mantle of reaction, a way of life that controls and keeps tabs on the population so it does not get out of hand. Fascism is the terrorist dictatorship of monopoly ruling class  and of the landowners. Fascism is the brutal repression of the workers and farmers movements, the implacable persecution of workers' parties, and other social organizations, the militarization of the country and military adventures abroad.
Evidence of imperialism's pull to the right is shown by the militarization of life, economically and politically, and the rise of the influence of the Church ( in the US--prayer breakfasts, K St. etc.), the power of billionaire Evangelists, who claim that Jesus "told them to get rich". The monopolies try to take away all the conquests of the working class, such as the New Deal. This has the opposite effect of mobilizing the workers to protect their democratic gains.

THE LABOR ARISTOCRACY. Imperialists have an interest in setting aside a small group of workers and union leaders so that they do their bidding in opposition to the interests of their members. The domination by monopolies, the export of capital to less developed countries, and colonial policies have all contributed to the formation of the labor aristocracy. They are bribed in various ways; getting higher pay, appointed to better jobs, including public service, subsidies to reformist organizations, etc. This represents opportunism at the base of the working class. The worker's movement is tailored to fit the needs of the ruling class., allowing for collaboration and separation from the movement. By calling for a fake unity, they profess to separate the workers from the class struggle, attempting to "improve" capitalism by means of reforms. They are agents of empire in the ranks of the workers. The workers however are not fooled, since the benefits accrued to the aristocracy make more palpable their suffering.

CAPITALISM IN ITS LAST THROES. Monopoly and parasitic capital is capital in in its death rattle. The monopoly structure that is born under capitalism carries on to become a new socialism. All the internal contradictions have been carried to the limits. Out of the shit of capitalism grows the flower of socialism. When a big company turns into a giant, when it organizes raw materials with everything that it entails, when it transports on that scale, when a central depot contains all the phases of production from start to finish, when the distribution is for hundreds of millions of consumers, then it is obvious that production has been socialized, and private, economic and property relations which are simply an envelope that no longer corresponds to its content, which will rot if it is not gotten out of the way.
Socialism is not capitalism, and the former can only be implanted with the conquest of political power by the workers and their allies, the suppression of private property in the means of production, which are transformed into social property. This cannot evolve, but must pass through the fire of revolution in a great leap for which it is not enough to consider the material premises, but many other objective and subjective conditions as well.

SHARPENING OF CONTRADICTIONS. Imperialism is the lat stage of capitalism. Contradictions are sharpest and brought to the fore, between the social character of production and the private, capitalist form of confiscation. The concentration of production and the rise of monopolies represent a new advance in the development of the social character that they represent. Nevertheless, appropriation remains private. As time goes by, the contradictions become sharper; that of work in the face of capital, between the oppressed people of the world, and the great consortiums that exploit them, and those contradictions  between the imperial powers themselves.
Private  property, the anarchy of production, and the competitive spirit  make it impossible for all capitalist economies to develop in the same way. Some enterprises, sectors and entire countries remain behind, while others forge ahead. This is true in its treatment of individuals as well. By the 20th Century the US had achieved superiority in industrial production greater than that of England and Germany. This was made possible by new technology, and the concentration of production and  capital, and by the appearance of the monopolies. After a time these companies started to rot and fall behind, which put a brake on the productive forces.Some countries leapt ahead while others stagnated. The old colonial distribution was no longer in sync with the new relations of power. The countries at the vanguard let loose a series of wars to redistribute the world in their favor. This has the opposite effect and debilitates the imperialist front through a series of weak links. Economic inequality is accompanied by political inequality. this process is different in different circumstances. If the workers are weak in one country, the ruling class can divide them. By the same, if the workers are strong in one country they will take power, even if other countries lag behind. 

BEGINNING OF THE CRISIS. Capitalism goes through periodic crises- that is its nature. The general crisis, however, includes all aspects of capitalism within the social system. There is a progressive disintegration, the weakening of its internal economic, political and ideological forces (decadence). These are not simple mistakes nor passing phenomena. It is the inevitable transition in the epoch of decomposition.  It cannot keep under its control other countries, such as Cuba and Venezuela, which have freed themselves in liberation movements. Ideologues of imperialism have the idea that if they are able to suppress socialist movements of liberation they will win, but they don't realize that the problem is not socialism, but capitalism itself. They see the socialist movement as being manipulated "from without by foreign agents", not realizing that they are the internal cause of the growth of the movement. The greater the crisis, the greater the resistance. 20th Century wars gave birth to socialist countries such as the USSR, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, among others. Capitalism was not  the only social and economic  system available. Suddenly, markets had conditions they hadn't had before. Not everyone had to suffer under systemic unemployment. Workers could strike and win.
As soon as WWII was over imperialism attacked the socialist countries. The unequal development of imperialist countries made their struggle with greater virulence for the acquisition of raw  materials and for world markets. This ushered in more wars, which became the main concern of the monopolies. The result was that capitalism and imperialism gained new critics, and the more they tried to convince populations that they  represented "democracy and freedom," the less convinced they were. The population could see that with a prison population of over 2 million, democracy and freedom applied only to a tiny segment of the population- one that was "free" to exploit the rest. The ruling class also experienced changes, falling into depression, pessimism and decadence.


IMPERIALISM TODAY. First, the advent of socialist countries has forced the capitalist agenda to modify itself. Second, contradictions among the imperial powers and the colonies have sharpened. Third, the US came  out of WWII stronger and ready to control the world. Fourth, capitalist countries are experiencing revolts and contradictions among their own populations. Today socialist countries take up 35 of the globe, or 1 billion people. By the same token the imperialist camp has experienced reductions. Socialist countries have carefully retained their system making concessions, while at the same time helping exploited countries regain their sovereignty. Class wars have sharpened in the Middle East and Latin America, fighting against the private property involved in  production, which hold back the development of the productive forces. The empire can no longer control populations with the same methods as before, and has opted toward  a system of government monopoly, which is a way of privatizing the government, and to do the bidding of the capitalist. Where before the capitalist worked with the government for privileges such as low taxes, use of public credit, subsidies, etc., with the appearance of government capitalism,  things changed. Now the industrial machinery apparatus is needed to join forces with the enormous power represented by the government in order to continue its supremacy. Capitalism becomes transformed into government capitalism.

A PLANNED ECONOMY vs FREE MARKET. Socialist countries prevented economic disaster and saved socialism  by planning the economy. Capitalists took over some of the planning (Keynes) ideas in order to save capitalism. Under the rubric "public works" the government paid for the construction of highways and transportation systems, and electrical systems,  in order for the monopolies to save money. Any surplus is  destroyed in order to keep prices up and profits coming in. The government grants credits and subsidies to the monopolies so they can sell in other countries at  "dumping" prices, which are artificially cheaper. All these measures do is increase the parasitism intrinsic in  monopoly capital.

UNIFICATION OF POLITICS AND THE ECONOMY.  It was these types of measures that took Nazi Germany to its extreme. Each capitalist enterprise was a representative of public government power. (the revolving door). Private companies distributed favors among corporations, established the prices and distributed the raw materials. The government become the instrument that distributed centralized capital. Small businesses were suppressed, or were swallowed up by the corporations. The fascist government fiercely repressed the worker's struggle and dissolved the unions. It showed its true disgusting face of heartlessness. " Hitler moves quickly to remove  the non-Nazis from the driver's seat, making the Party the exclusive master of the government, with an authoritarian government and its police ready to carry out the Nazification of Germany. On May Day, the Nazis organize a massive and enthusiastic worker's demonstration, with the motto, "Honor work and respect the worker." The next day they occupied all trade  union buildings with no resistance. Union funds were confiscated, leaders arrested, even if they had pledged to cooperate with the Nazis, and sent to concentration camps (US prisons, Guantánamo and border detention centers). Three weeks later collective  bargaining is brought to an end,"labor trustees" are provided  by the Party to "regulate contracts and maintain  labor peace. (right to work)"  ( William L Shirer.)

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WAR PRODUCTION. Once the ties have been established, they are there as long as government monopoly capitalism persists, even in peace time. Military mobilization becomes a permanent part of the government apparatus. Thus the main production centers have to do with war production. War production consortiums take over government power, taking over cabinet posts and the most important political positions in order to deepen their monopoly hold on power. They are capable of any outrage, any torture, any assassination (Soleimani) in order to get what they want. Competition (freedom) is done away with. Public funds disappear into the gaping maw of private military spending (contractors). Monopoly capitalism is the union between the private and the public, but with the cautionary tale that the government takes a back seat to the wishes of the corporations.  The government saves the private companies from taxes and fees, that are paid for by the worker, and it saves them from crashing and going under financially. (bail outs).  It  increases military sending to protect the empire abroad. Police are enlisted to stop any protests by workers. Corporations take over public finances for their own use, and begin to use the GNP- gross national product-  as their private ATM machine. Each time there is more money for them and less for the population. By ordering war materiel at long range, they assure a certain stability of the market, and protection against any fall in the market. This is perhaps the most vivid example of capitalism's parasitism. The production of instruments of death separates the working, scientist and engineering population from producing anything of value for the society, and at the same time it dilapidates natural resources in a sterile way, so that the ecology suffers without reason. The worst of it is that there is no end to the production of war materiel. In addition, the banks get fabulous shares of wealth based on their risk-free handling of public funds.(Obama).  When companies collapse because they are no longer profitable, they are closed down or sold back to the government at generous prices.

Other countries that dare to nationalize their industry have a limited period to enjoy their benefit to the population, since  it is only a matter of time before the capitalists enterprises re- privatize them. (countries in Latin America). Any attempt by workers to stabilize the process is met with violence, slander and prison time. Strikes are outlawed or made onerously difficult. Exploitation of the workers is demonstrated by the constant rise in prices while wages remain stagnant. 
After a war, the monopolies force the government to finance the export of merchandise and to guarantee private and export credit. The imperialist government takes over in the export of capital used to invest in areas where private capital is  considered too risky. Thus they arrange for international treaties regarding  the exploitation and division of raw materials, for example the metallurgy industry that was composed after WWII of sources from Germany, France, Italy, Belgium Holland and Luxembourg, conveniently morphed into "the Common Market", port of entry that places corporations in a position of unusual privilege. For them, war is a good thing. At the same time international corporations gather together all the right wing elements in the countries they control in order to maintain the colonial system, even under another name, to fight tooth and nail against democracy and socialism, to maintain the cold war in whatever guise, and to prepare aggression against countries that do not toe the line. This is made feasible by the use of offshore deposits such as in the Cayman Islands or Panama. The aim is world domination.

MILITARIZATION OF THE ECONOMY.The monopolist corporations take advantage of their control in order to redistribute the GNP (taxes, loans, control and distribution of resources, etc) and thereby create a gigantic war economy. Since they have a hard time selling their products everywhere, the corporations concentrate of building and selling war, for which there is always a market, which they themselves encourage. These sales no longer go into  the millions, but tread onto billion dollar figures. What the corporatists don't understand is that by exterminating masses of people sooner or later they dictate their own death sentence.
The war industry can lead to higher employment, better salaries. Temporarily. Factories are re-opened. Nevertheless at some point the war has to be over. Production decreases. Unemployment soars. The population that has been attacked is pauperized, with millions dead, while at home suicides increase, people are traumatized, without limbs, and unable to work. Liquidity has been drained. The budget has to be covered by by workers and other employees, at the same time that demand goes down. In the countries directly affected by war defense expenditures take over the economy resulting in serious shortages. The darlings of the war business, new machine guns, bombers, electronic equipment, start losing their shine and become junk to be scrapped, often without being used at all. Militarization opens the doors to an exhaustion of the economy which is seriously counterproductive. Inevitably, and civil progress is detained in favor of the war apparatus, and thus the national economy is unable to develop properly. Loans have to be paid back, with interest. The military reaches into the pockets of ordinary citizens to pay for the huge expenditures  brought about by the corporations.The result is inflation. The government cannot deal with the expenses of sustaining an army and its weapons, only by means of taxes and loans. The deficit begins to be covered by the issuance of paper money that is greater than the amount required for its circulation (artificially hyped up amounts). In addition , the debt is calculated as a means of payment and guarantee of loans that have been given by the banks to the capitalists, which results in greater money in circulation. In the US the buying power of the dollar was half in 1957 that what could be bought before the war. With inflation prices grow faster than salaries, making the capitalists richer as long as the working population is getting less, while they are forced to work longer hours and often in  dangerous conditions.
Militarization of the economy in civil society produces less money for schools, hospitals, etc. Culture is degraded, chauvinism is encouraged, and militarized thinking and bureaucracy take over in day to day transactions. Democracy disappears.

WAR APPARATUS OF MONOPOLY CAPITALISM. State capitalism can fulfill a progressive role under some circumstances, but a monopoly capitalism of the government cannot. The cry from the people to nationalize institutions is based on a hunger for justice, a stroke against oppression and the heavy yoke that privatization represents. Nationalized socialist industry is far superior in efficiency and quality, as opposed to the vagaries of the market, not the least of which is the fact that society can get along very well without capitalists. Breaking up the sacrosanct principle of private property (what gave anyone the right to take land that belonged to no one) forces monopolists to accede to the popular will, their worst nightmare. The monopolies consider the government to also be their property and at their bidding, and the struggle of the working class is often to lessen the stranglehold that the monopolies have over the government, which should be used for social programs, infrastructure,etc., and to make lives better for everyone, instead of just enriching a few monopolies. If the government can freeze salaries, why can't it establish a minimum wage? Why can't the government control inflation, and rents, and prices? Why cant it offer full employment? These things are not decided by God or destiny, but by Congress people and Wall St and the Pentagon. Why cant they be decided by the working, tax-paying population?
Only the bid for power by the working class can bring about the changes necessary to throw off the yoke of the monopolist class that sucks up every benefit provided by the workers and leaves them with precious little, changes which include the masses of workers, led by workers, toward the socialization and nationalization of industry and private property.

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REVISIONISM. Keynes had it right when he declared  that the capitalist government was in a state of agony, but he erred when he felt that it could be fixed. . Keynes felt that things would straighten out if investment was controlled, credit and interest regulation were kept at a reasonable level, and monetary circulation could be controlled so that workers should not suffer a devaluation of their salaries. The illusion was that this could be maintained forever. It did not count on the venality and greed of those who had nothing but contempt for the workers, and who were determined to sweep up the last penny into  their bank accounts, making themselves fabulously rich. The 1980s saw a determined systematic effort to dismantle the Keynesian reforms in favor of government monopoly capitalism out of control (Reagan), bringing in a nightmare only dimly perceived up to that point. The Keynesian reforms went out the window. Some revisionists feel that if Keynesianism were to be carried far enough, it would develop into socialism. Events have shown this to be an illusion, IF the government would stimulate all the means of capitalist investment in production, and established some control that would refrain them from saving and encourage spending, this would level incomes by raising taxes over earnings. . This "planned" economy would result in full employment.  This was done in England with the idea of a national social security system and free medical care, something that has been torn down bit by bit by the capitalists that refuse to yield. Monopoly capitalism is rapacious, militaristic, parasitic, prone to crises and unemployment. There is no way these two opposites can be reconciled. Until the government is under the control of the workers, it will remain under the control of the capitalist monopolies, which exercise a permanent dictatorship by the richest and most traditional families in the society. These reforms do not do away with the relations of exploitation, . Under capitalism there can be no actual socialism--the only thing to do is to set the basics for the transition. And that involves the -scientifically proven fact  that there must be a transition from private to social property. Otherwise, it's no dice.
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PERIODIC CRISES. The government tries to maintain the economy on an even keel by producing huge quantities of armaments and strategic materials . Also, it regulates banking credit , where the explosion usually starts. In a crisis of overproduction,in order to prevent panic withdrawals of bank accounts, and crashing the banks, the State takes upon itself to guarantee the shortfalls. (Obama). The result is an attempt to palliate the crisis by raising interest rates, encouraging farmers to reduce their crops, etc. as well as trying to convince consumers to reduce their credit buying of cars, machinery, furniture, homes, etc. Those who defend the system assure that capitalism is then under control, that unemployment will be a thing of the past. In the US, under so-called reforms, in the years 48-58 there were 3 production collapses, with a decrease of 10.5 % reaching into 57-58 with a decrease of 13.7%. Instead of full employment, unemployment has increased by the millions. This includes statistics relative to war production. If that is taken out of the equation the result is much greater. The crisis results in making a few rich people even richer, while draining the economic energy of the country and making lives worse for the population. The government drains the people's resources by raising taxes and devaluating the money, with the result that  demand grinds to a halt. When the economy starts  up again, it is only to start the cycle all over again. The crisis is often so deep that it drives people overboard, and the result is an offensive by the reactionaries, the introduction of fascism and the drums of war. In order to prevent this, those who fight for the workers and the people in general, must provide raising salaries, making commerce advantageous for everybody, not just the seller, the organization of great infrastructure projects (where is the bullet train, or the great damns, or the millions of houses fr the homeless, the construction of new schools and hospitals, unemployment as a living wage, the reduction of taxes and housing rents?). These reforms are not aimed at making capitalism palatable, but rather at paving the way for the socialization of property- socialism. 
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THE WORKING CLASS AND CAPITAL.   As the general crisis of capitalism advances, worker exploitation gets worse, and work is intensified, with attendant accidents and sickness that are the result of the tension suffered by the workers. In some assembly lines they are not allowed to go to the bathroom and have the keep pee bottles with them while they work). Work intensity provokes the rapid waste of the organism and the lessening of worker efficiency. The result for the capitalist is enormous wealth, while the workers are plunged into deeper poverty. The crisis does not take into account the fall of incomes vis à vis the value of labor itself. First, there is the intensification of work. The greater the intensity the greater the need to recover one's strength. Second, people have different needs in comparison with centuries back. Cities have grown at a dizzying pace. workers live farther away from the workplace, making transportation costs an important part of their expenses. More women are in the workforce. Even with a bigger salary, costs outrun income, with home conveniences, machines that help with housework, more expensive food. Health care and medicines are  an important increase in terms of cost. Children's education, often out of reach,  has nevertheless become essential. This means that the value of the work force is greater than the volume of real salaries. If a working family were to live solely according to what they earn, the would be living below the poverty line.  Add to this the millions of unemployed and partially employed and you have a population in misery. Even those who have jobs are mired in instability and anxiety for the future. It is not only fear of losing a job, but fear of accidents, illness, or intensive tension that leads to an early old age, without resources or pensions. Worker instability is accentuated by being forced to buy on credit and making time payments. These debts are in the billions of dollars. Missing a payment can mean bankruptcy. In order to cope with greater and greater discontent the bosses have come up with stark measures such as blacklisting, or police at the workplace. The ruling class will use any measure to prevent a strike, or a worker's rebellion.
The working class has increased its capacity to organize, to be conscious and to struggle effectively. The fall of fascism in Europe, the successful socialist countries, the liberation of colonial countries, have created conditions that are ripe for the struggle of workers in capitalist countries. As long as the contradiction between labor and capital exists, there will never be peace at the workplace. There is no social peace while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
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THE MIDDLE STRATA. There are other strata of society that must be taken into account., namely farmers, artisans, small business owners, intellectuals and employees. These strata, far from doing well under capitalism, also have to face the ruin of bankruptcy and unemployment at a rapid rate. Those who are owners are reduced in numbers, and those who were owners are thrown on the market to sink or swim. Even those small business owners who may fancy they are independent are nothing of the kind, since their lives are owed to the banks, have prices and credits  regulated against them, and are eventually totally subordinated to big capital.
On the other hand, big capital demands a set of intellectuals, technicians, and employees that do its bidding as much as possible. The number of technicians, scientists, office workers, specialists in commerce, and publicity, the media, education, etc are all put into the service of big capital. The actual volume increase of these strata results in lower salaries (teachers are insultingly badly paid)  and in being replaced if they don't fit in with the capitalist agenda. They lose their ability to think independently so that lawyers, doctors, scientists , artists, etc. become contracted workers, to be directly exploited and controlled by the corporations.  From a previous privileged position they are thrown without further ado on the heap of the proletariat while forced to become apologists for the system that pays them by having to toe the line, sign loyalty oaths, etc. A small fraction of these obtain high positions in the society and are the darlings of the right wing fascists. They are in the uncomfortable position of exploiting others whom they hire, while being oppressed and skimmed by the all powerful trusts and monopolies.
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LATE CAPITALISM. Late capitalism is characterized by fewer cases of tangible property and it is being substituted by stock shares, numbers on a computer, that represent absolutely nothing but can create great wealth- on paper. Apologists propagate the idea that this democratic capitalism- that anyone can buy shares. that anyone can become rich. The reality is that each time a greater number of shares are bought up by fewer and fewer people, so that we have the phenomenon of a handful of multibillionaires having more money than all the rest of the world. A great part of their accumulated wealth is hidden away in tax havens, so that very little of that money is ever used for social programs. There has not been a single case of a capitalist going broke because of taxes, nor a single case whose material goods have been passed on for the good of society.
Things have evolved to the point that a few imperial monopolies control all other monopolies, in addition to controlling  the working and middle strata of society. Ordinary mortals are prevented from joining their ranks of the great trusts, since the top owners have become a hereditary proposition as rigid as a monarchy. A few monopolists, with zero responsibility, and always the same families, base their activities upon a narrow circle of corporativists, who represent the bureaucracy and the armed forces.

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THE LAST RUNG OF THE LADDER. Each stage is the result of a previous stage and the harbinger of a subsequent stage. Once the general crisis of capitalism starts, it will fall with a fury, including police brutality, wars, assassinations, etc. in a futile effort to preserve itself. There is a saying in Spanish "Mientras más the empinas más el culo se te ve. " The more you bend over the more your ass shows. In socialist countries there have been no schools closed, no health benefits denied, no lack of attention to world peace, no neglect of the environment, while in capitalist countries these things become more and more sharply defined as failures of the system. The more the capitalists try to use the government for their purposes, the more convinced is the working class and its allies that there lies the enemy. The ass is there for all to see.

BUREAUCRACY

ORIGINS. Bureaucracy originally was based on "recruitment by examination, training, promotion on merit, regular salaries and pensions, and standardized procedures" in order to  maintain order, maximize efficiency and eliminate favoritism. A rigid division of labor, a chain of command is established in which the capacity to coerce is specified  by regulations. There is a regular and continuous execution of the assigned tasks by people qualified trained to perform them. This implicates a threat to individual freedoms,  in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in a soulless "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control. Unfettered bureaucracy is a threat to individual freedom, in which bureaumania and office tyranny can trap individuals in an impersonal "iron cage" of rule-based control.  The Byzantine Empire developed a notoriously complicated administrative hierarchy, and in time the term "byzantine" came to refer to any complex bureaucratic structure.  Informal bureaucratic structures began to appear in the form of corporate power hierarchies. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan gained power by promising to eliminate government regulatory bureaucracies, which they saw as overbearing, and return economic production to a purely capitalistic mode, which ironically was equally bureaucratic and domineering.

RIGIDITY. Bureaucracies  include  complicated  procedures,  intolerant and  dictatorial  attitudes  on  the  part  of the administrators and  of  dictatorial  governments. They are complex organizations that  do  not  show  clearly  who  is responsible, they use rigid norms   and   routine   procedures   without   taking   different circumstances   into   account.    They  hire  gauche,  slow  and incompetent   personnel,   they  give  conflicting  orders,  they duplicate  effort,  they   pile up charges against those they are monitoring  and  they  concentrate  control  in  a few people who mutually protect each other. De-politicization of the bureaucracy is an illusion. It is a system where the politicians give orders  and  the  bureaucrats  take  them and carry them out.   As   compensation  on  these restrictions  on  their  civil  rights, bureaucrats are protected from outside criticism. In    the   same   way   a  machine can, the bureaucrat may place him/herself  in  the  service  of  different  masters. There is a decrease  of  personal relationships. The use of a hierarchy that makes  decisions  diminishes  the  possibility  of  alternatives. Behavior  becomes  rigid.  The objectives of the organization are increasingly  seen  as  shared  by  all, although this may not be actually true. Bureaucracy  cannot  be neutral, even though it may try to appear so. Political  decisions  can  be  sabotaged  or  ignored by the bureaucrats.  Political  changes  cause  changes  in the chain of command  of  the  government.  The  routine of public bureaucracy affects  the  activities  of  the government and of public social services. Conservative  bureaucracy  can  obstruct change in a dynamic society that requires wide flexibility. Bureaucrats are not neutral. They   write   official   speeches,  participate  in government   decisions,   advise  political  leaders,  manipulate information,  explain  official  policy  to the public, etc.

Bureaucracy  is disguised as "managerial" bureaucracy and is a blight on the landscape that can reach terrifying proportions. Bureaucratic societies wind up inevitably as an alienated society. Bureaucracy can become so entrenched as to be regarded as a fetish, where human beings are at the mercy of things merchandise,  including money Humans and social relations become objectified, the population is separate from the governing class, even while it forms an integral part of it. The State oppresses the people, while at the same time taking on the mantle of its guardian angel.

INFLEXIBLE PROTECTION OF ONE'S JOB.Bureaucrats as more likely to defend their own entrenched interests than to act to benefit the organization as a whole.  Bureaucrats emphasize formality over interpersonal relationships, and are been trained to ignore the special circumstances of particular cases.  Endless paperwork and grindingly-slow procedures are well-known hazards in government work. But private-sector employees also complain of having to jump through hoops to get the resources and authority they need to do their jobs. Corporate bureaucracy "would be top on the list of sucking the life force out of workers, making them feel helpless," It contributes to the loss of "any sense of self-worth or initiative employees may have and turns them into weasels. Running into a wall of corporate bureaucracy  stunts innovation, requires mountains of paperwork and make employees feel like automatons.

BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS. Relations between the bureaucracy and the State. While  treating the public the same without taking different circumstances   into   account,  political  bureaucracy  supports politicians,  gives  different  treatment  to the same  behavior, depending  on  who  is  practicing  it.  Promotions depend on the compatibility  of  the  hierarchies  and  the  political fortunes of the bosses. Those who are suspect or neutral are purged. In  capitalist  society,  the  State and the bureaucracy are under  the  thumb  of  a single class. The weaker the spontaneous groups  in  society  are,  the  stronger will the bureaucracy be. Bureaucracy  is  the  servant  of  the State and the corporations that  defend  their  common  interests  against  other  competing groups   or  against  society  in  general.  The  State  and  the corporations  are  co-relative, that is, one cannot exist without the  other.  Only  the   eradication of the corporations by civil society would signify the eradication of the bureaucracy. The essence of bureaucracy is mystery, the privileged secret, to the point that exposure is tantamount to treason. Bureaucrats know  things  that the public doesn't, and that gives them power-the examiner knows more than the examinee. The  top  confides  in the lower circles to know the detail, while  the  lower  circles  confide in the upper echelons to know the  general  picture,  thus  each  fools  the other telling what each wants to hear.  Bureaucracy   implies   subordination,  obedience,  vulgar materialism,  and  the  chasing  after positions to further one's career. Bureaucracy means formalism in the State apparatus, divorced from  real  life.  It  has an alienated existence, it only exists in  the  office.  It sees the world as an object of its activity, it  makes  its  will the first priority, but as it has no content of  its  own,  its  existence  consists  in paperwork and "saying no", that is, in putting obstacles in the path of development.

CHANGE. Bureaucracy  fears  rapid  and unexpected change.  It fears increase  in  size  when the volume of activity is not sufficient to  support  growth.  Things  become too complex, and the ability of  the  bureaucrat   to control everything is lessened. It fears technology which introduces new and diverse ideas. The bureaucrat
fears  psychologically  the  possibility  of  having to make some sort   of   change.  It  fears  social influences  which  are based on change, technology, international operations, unions. It fears collaboration and adaptation.  Only the boss is important (authority-obedience). Rigid carrying out of delegated responsibility Strict division of labor. Centralization in decision-making Conflict resolution by means of repression,arbitration or struggle.

ANARCHISM AND STATE POWER. Anarchists loathe government because of the bureaucracy, although private enterprise has just as much bureaucracy, as does the Pentagon. Anarchists believe that the eradication of the State and of the bureaucracy go hand in hand.  Primitive societies eventually divided themselves into leaders and led, organizers and organized. The division of  labor demonstrated man's primacy over nature, and this became the seed for the idea of a society divided into classes. Thus bureaucracy was born, to hold the class divisions in place. Every progress has been countered by a step backward, every play of human energy has been accompanied by the mutilation and atrophy of creativity. Under the capitalist fiction that all men are created equal lies the hierarchy of interests, administrations, that perpetuate the fiction of equality at the same time they reinforce inequality. Arrogant bureaucrats, with their  incomprehensible language, are kindred to the ancient Egyptian priests with their divine superstitions and obfuscations. Bureaucrats find they have the power to impose tribute, and place themselves above the society. Bureaucracy is a way of imposing State power on the population under the guise of objective arbitration. Whether under feudalism, or capitalism, bureaucrats manage to ride the storm and come out on the other side to do the bidding of the ruling class, as long as their posts are secure.


WHAT THE FUTURE MAY HOLD. Bureaucracy is a capitalist method which carries over to socialism if not controlled. The  suppression  of bureaucracy will only be possible when individual  interests  and  general  interests  can identify with each   other.   This   idea   carries  the  assumption  that  the transformation  of  the  State  into a civil society will be made by men and women  who are not alienated. Traditional domination  is  based  on  custom,  and legal domination is based on the law and a belief in the legal order. Their job is to achieve goals set for them by their superiors. Under socialism bureaucracy can be restrained by instituting organized systems and group relations. There is mutual confidence, interdependence and shared responsibility. Belonging to many groups and having responsibilities . Shared and decentralized control. Conflict resolution through negotiation.

 

 
    

A bureaucracy (/bju?'r?kr?si/) is "a body of non-elective government officials" and/or "an administrative policy-making group". Historically, bureaucracy was government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution.
Since being coined, the word "bureaucracy" has developed negative connotations. Bureaucracies have been criticized as being too complex, inefficient, or too inflexible. The dehumanizing effects of excessive bureaucracy became a major theme in the work of Franz Kafka, and were central to his novels, The Castle and The Trial. The elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy is a key concept in modern managerial theory and has been an issue in some political campaigns.

Others have noted the necessity of bureaucracies in modern life. The German sociologist Max Weber argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which one can organize human activity, and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies were necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency and eliminate favoritism. Weber also saw unfettered bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, in which an increase in the bureaucratization of human life can trap individuals in an impersonal "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control.

The term "bureaucracy" is French in origin, and combines the French word bureau – desk or office – with the Greek word  kratos – rule or political power.

It was coined in the mid-18th century by the French economist Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay, and was a satirical pejorative from the outset. Gournay never wrote the term down, but was later quoted at length in a letter from a contemporary:


The late M. de Gournay... sometimes used to say: "We have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with us; this illness is called bureaumania." Sometimes he used to invent a fourth or fifth form of government under the heading of "bureaucracy."

—?Baron von Grimm

The first known English-language use dates to 1818. Here, too, the sense was pejorative, with Irish novelist Lady Morgan referring to "the Bureaucratie, or office tyranny, by which Ireland has so long been governed."

By the mid-19th century, the word was used in a more neutral sense. It could be to refer to a system of public administration in which offices were held by unelected career officials, and in this sense "bureaucracy" was seen as a distinct form of management, often subservient to a monarchy. In the 1920s, the definition was expanded by the German sociologist Max Weber to include any system of administration conducted by trained professionals according to fixed rules. Weber saw the bureaucracy as a relatively positive development; however by 1944, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises noted that the term bureaucracy was "always applied with an opprobrious connotation," and by 1957 the American sociologist Robert Merton noted that the term "bureaucrat" had become an epithet.

History

Ancient bureaucracy


 


 Students competed in imperial examinations to receive a position in the bureaucracy of ancient China.
Although the term "bureaucracy" was not coined until the mid 18th century, organized and consistent administrative systems are much older. The development of writing (ca. 3500 BCE) and the use of documents was critical to the administration of this system, and the first definitive emergence of bureaucracy is in ancient Sumer, where an emergent class of scribes used clay tablets to administer the harvest and allocate its spoils. Ancient Egypt also had a hereditary class of scribes that administered the civil service bureaucracy.

The Roman Empire was administered by a hierarchy of regional proconsuls and their deputies. The reforms of Diocletian doubled the number of administrative districts and led to a large-scale expansion in Roman bureaucracy. The early Christian author Lactantius claimed that Diocletian's reforms led to widespread economic stagnation, since "the provinces were divided into minute portions, and many presidents and a multitude of inferior officers lay heavy on each territory." After the Empire split, the Byzantine Empire developed a notoriously complicated administrative hierarchy, and in time the term "byzantine" came to refer to any complex bureaucratic structure.

In Ancient China, the Han dynasty established a complicated bureaucracy based on the teachings of Confucius, who emphasized the importance of ritual in family relationships and politics. With each subsequent Dynasty, the bureaucracy evolved. During the Song dynasty, the bureaucracy became meritocratic. Following the Song reforms, competitive exams were held to determine who could hold which positions. The imperial examination system lasted until 1905, six years before the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, marking the end of China's traditional bureaucratic system.

Modern bureaucracy


 


 The 18th century Department of Excise developed a sophisticated bureaucracy. Pictured, the Custom House, London.
A modern form of bureaucracy evolved in the expanding Department of Excise in the United Kingdom, during the 18th century. The relative efficiency and professionalism in this state-run authority allowed the government to impose a very large tax burden on the population and raise great sums of money for war expenditure. According to Niall Ferguson, the bureaucracy was based on "recruitment by examination, training, promotion on merit, regular salaries and pensions, and standardized procedures". The system was subject to a strict hierarchy and emphasis was placed on technical and efficient methods for tax collection.
Instead of the inefficient and often corrupt system of tax farming that prevailed in absolutist states such as France, the Exchequer was able to exert control over the entire system of tax revenue and government expenditure. By the late 18th century, the ratio of fiscal bureaucracy to population in Britain was approximately 1 in 1300, almost four times larger than the second most heavily bureaucratized nation, France. The implementation of Her Majesty's Civil Service as a systematic, meritocratic civil service bureaucracy, followed the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854. Influenced by the ancient Chinese Imperial Examination, Northcote-Trevelyan Report recommended that recruitment should be on the basis of merit determined through competitive examination, candidates should have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental transfers and promotion should be through achievement, rather than 'preferment, patronage or purchase'.[35] This system was modeled on the imperial examinations system and bureaucracy of China based on the suggestion of Northcote-Trevelyan Report. Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul in Guangzhou, China argued in his Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China, published in 1847, that "the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only," and that the British must reform their civil service by making the institution meritocratic.

France also saw a rapid and dramatic expansion of government in the 18th-century, accompanied by the rise of the French civil service; a phenomenon that became known as "bureaumania," in which complex systems of bureaucracy emerged. With the translation of Confucian texts during the Enlightenment, the concept of a meritocracy reached intellectuals in the West, who saw it as an alternative to the traditional ancient regime of Europe. Voltaire and François Quesnay wrote favourably of the idea, with Voltaire claiming that the Chinese had "perfected moral science" and Quesnay advocating an economic and political system modeled after that of the Chinese. Napoleonic France adopted this meritocracy system.

In the early 19th century, Napoleon attempted to reform the bureaucracies of France and other territories under his control by the imposition of the standardized Napoleonic Code. But paradoxically, this led to even further growth of the bureaucracy.

By the mid-19th century, bureaucratic forms of administration were firmly in place across the industrialized world. Thinkers like John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx began to theorize about the economic functions and power-structures of bureaucracy in contemporary life. Max Weber was the first to endorse bureaucracy as a necessary feature of modernity, and by the late 19th century bureaucratic forms had begun their spread from government to other large-scale institutions.

The trend toward increased bureaucratization continued in the 20th century, with the public sector employing over 5% of the workforce in many Western countries. Within capitalist systems, informal bureaucratic structures began to appear in the form of corporate power hierarchies, as detailed in mid-century works like The Organization Man and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, a powerful class of bureaucratic administrators termed nomenklatura governed nearly all aspects of public life.

The 1980s brought a backlash against perceptions of "big government" and the associated bureaucracy.Politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan gained power by promising to eliminate government regulatory bureaucracies, which they saw as overbearing, and return economic production to a more purely capitalistic mode, which they saw as more efficient. In the business world, managers like Jack Welch gained fortune and renown by eliminating bureaucratic structures inside the corporations themselves.

Still, in the modern world practically all organized institutions rely on bureaucratic systems to manage information, process and manage records, and administer complex systems and interrelationships in an increasingly globalized world, although the decline of paperwork and the widespread use of electronic databases is transforming the way bureaucracies function.

Theories of bureaucracy

Karl Marx

Karl Marx theorized about the role and function of bureaucracy in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, published in 1843. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel had supported the role of specialized officials in the role of public administration, although he never used the term "bureaucracy" himself. Marx by contrast was opposed to the bureaucracy. He saw the development of bureaucracy in government as a natural counterpart to the development of the corporation in private society. Marx posited that while the corporation and government bureaucracy existed in seeming opposition, in actuality they mutually relied on one another to exist. He wrote that "The Corporation is civil society's attempt to become state; but the bureaucracy is the state which has really made itself into civil society."




John Stuart Mill

Writing in the early 1860s, political scientist John Stuart Mill theorized that successful monarchies were essentially bureaucracies, and found evidence of their existence in Imperial China, the Russian Empire, and the regimes of Europe. Mill referred to bureaucracy as a distinct form of government, separate from representative democracy. He believed bureaucracies had certain advantages, most importantly the accumulation of experience in those who actually conduct the affairs. Nevertheless, he thought bureaucracy as a form of governance compared poorly to representative government, as it relied on appointment rather than direct election. Mill wrote that ultimately the bureaucracy stifles the mind, and that "A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy."

Max Weber

(1864-1920) The German sociologist Max Weber described many ideal-typical forms of public administration, government, and business in his 1922 essay, The Nature, Conditions, and Development of Bureaucratic Herrschaft[46] published in his magnum opus, Economy and Society. His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of the most enduring parts of his work. It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy and whose works led to the popularization of this term.Many aspects of modern public administration go back to him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil service of the Continental type is called "Weberian civil service".

As the most efficient and rational way of organizing, bureaucratization for Weber was the key part of the rational-legal authority, and furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalization of the Western society. Although he is not necessarily an admirer of bureaucracy, Weber does agree that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and (formally) rational way in which human activity can be organized, and that thus is indispensable to the modern world.



Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through knowledge

—?Max Weber

Weber listed several precondititions for the emergence of bureaucracy. The growth in space and population being administered, the growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out, and the existence of a monetary economy requiring a more efficient administrative system. Development of communication and transportation technologies make more efficient administration possible but also in popular demand, and democratization and rationalization of culture resulted in demands that the new system treats everybody equally.

Weber's ideal-typical bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical organization, delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of and recorded in written rules, bureaucratic officials need expert training, rules are implemented by neutral officials, career advancement depends on technical qualifications judged by organization, not individuals.

Weber specifies that both the public and private bureaucracy is based on specific competencies of various offices. These competencies are specified in various rules, laws, and administrative regulations. This means there is
1.a rigid division of labor
2.a chain of command is established in which the capacity to coerce is specified and restricted by regulations
3.there is a regular and continuous execution of the assigned tasks by people qualified by education and training to perform them

While recognizing bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organization, and even indispensable for the modern state, Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms, and the ongoing bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in a soulless "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control.

Woodrow Wilson

(1856-1924) Writing as an academic while a professor at Bryn Mawr College, his essay “The Study of Administration”  argued for a bureaucracy as a professional cadre, devoid of allegiance to fleeting politics of the day. Wilson advocated a bureaucracy that "is a part of political life only as the methods of the counting house are a part of the life of society; only as machinery is part of the manufactured product. But it is, at the same time, raised very far above the dull level of mere technical detail by the fact that through its greater principles it is directly connected with the lasting maxims of political wisdom, the permanent truths of political progress."

Wilson did not advocate a replacement of rule by the governed, he simply advised "Administrative questions are not political questions. Although politics sets the tasks for administration, it should not be suffered to manipulate its offices". This essay became the foundation for the study of public administration in America.

Ludwig von Mises

In his 1944 work Bureaucracy, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was highly critical of all bureaucratic systems. He believed that bureaucracy should be universally opposed, and noticed that in the political sphere it had few defenders, even among progressives. Mises saw bureaucratic processes at work in both the private and public spheres; however he believed that bureaucratization in the private sphere could only occur as a consequence of government interference. He wrote that "No private enterprise will ever fall prey to bureaucratic methods of management if it is operated with the sole aim of making profit."

Robert K. Merton

American sociologist Robert K. Merton expanded on Weber's theories of bureaucracy in his work Social Theory and Social Structure, published in 1957. While Merton agreed with certain aspects of Weber's analysis, he also considered the dysfunctional aspects of bureaucracy, which he attributed to a "trained incapacity" resulting from "overconformity." He saw bureaucrats as more likely to defend their own entrenched interests than to act to benefit the organization as a whole. He also believed bureaucrats took pride in their craft, which led them to resist changes in established routines. Merton also noted that bureaucrats emphasized formality over interpersonal relationships, and had been trained to ignore the special circumstances of particular cases, causing them to come across as "arrogant" and "haughty."


How to bend the rules of corporate bureaucracy
By Denise Kersten, USATODAY.com

Endless paperwork and grindingly-slow procedures are well-known hazards in government work. But private-sector employees also complain of having to jump through hoops to get the resources and authority they need to do their jobs.

Corporate bureaucracy "would be top on the list of sucking the life force out of [workers], making them feel helpless," says Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip. It contributes to the loss of "any sense of self-worth or initiative [employees] have and turns them into weasels," he says.

Running into a wall of corporate bureaucracy is frustrating - it can stunt innovation, require mountains of paperwork and make employees feel like automatons. But a certain amount of procedure is necessary in any company.

"There's a lot of work that you just can't do outside of bureaucracy," says Craig Pratt, a human-resources consultant.

When procedures work, they help organizations coordinate the efforts of all employees, set quality standards, streamline the flow of information and control risks.

But when they become unruly or outdated, procedures clog the corporate system, making it difficult for workers to accomplish goals or introduce ideas, which is especially draining for innovators and creative types.

"A lot of people feel that rather than working, they're spending time trying to get the resources to do their work," says Dr. Barbara Moses, author of The Good News About Careers.
•Round up reasons

To bypass a bureaucratic blockage, begin by researching the reasons the rule or process was originally established.

"If you want to get around it or change it, you've got to understand why it exists," says David Brown, author of Organization Smarts.

You might find out that tedious paperwork serves an important purpose. Even if you can't escape filing it, seeing the bigger picture can make checking boxes and filling in blanks less disheartening.

But if the reasons you uncover don't seem relevant, apply your research to skirt the rule using one of these strategies:
•Act first, ask later.

Evaluate the consequences of bypassing the procedure. Take into account the nature of the rule, the corporate culture and your record with the company.

"Don't always assume you can't get away with something or you need permission," Moses says. In some companies, selective rule breaking is the only path to becoming a high-performance employee.

If you risk a slap on the wrist — but could earn praise for taking initiative should you pull it off — go for it.
•Seek exemption.

When going through the proper channels, you'll speed the process by trying to get around a rule rather than revamping it.

Find out who's in the position to grant your request and set up a meeting. Prepare a clear and convincing case. "Don't drown them in irrelevant information," Moses says. "Explain the consequences of not doing this. Make it easy for them."

Emphasize that the reasons for the rule or process don't apply to your circumstance and explain how the rule is thwarting company objectives.

Don't fret over seeking special treatment. "Sometimes treating people fairly means treating people differently," Brown says.

Address the decision-maker as a potential ally, rather than an obstacle. He or she likely loathes inefficiency just as much as you do. And remember: A smile and a well-timed joke can work wonders.

"Emotions play a big, big part in corporate bureaucracy," says Tom Richardson, co-author of Business is a Contact Sport. "You have to learn to master the emotions — not only yours but theirs as well."
•Request reconsideration.

Sometimes organizations establish protocol for valid reasons, but don't review this protocol when circumstances change. It's often easier to stay on a well-worn path than to forge a new one.

But if you identify a way to streamline, bring it to management's attention. Demonstrate that you understand the rationale for the old routine, but your suggestion will help the company achieve a goal - whether it's meeting the bottom line or boosting employee morale.

Expect to encounter some inertia, especially in larger organizations. Brown recommends building on a precipitating event, like a change in upper management, a round of layoffs or a move to new offices.

People are more open to rethinking at these times, Brown says, and you can use the change as an impetus for improvement.

Adams isn't optimistic about the possibility of avoiding bureaucracy. "If you put three people in a room, one of them will try to make rules for how the other two should talk to each other," he says.

But while you probably can't escape it altogether, there may be some room to wiggle around red tape.

Adhocracy is a flexible, adaptable and informal organization that is defined by a lack of formal structure. It operates in an opposite fashion to a bureaucracy. The term was first coined by Warren Bennis in his 1968 book The Temporary Society,[1] later popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations[citation needed]). The concept has been further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.

Adhocracy is characterized by an adaptive, creative and flexible integrative behavior based on non-permanence and spontaneity. It is believed that these characteristics allow adhocracy to respond faster than traditional bureaucratic organizations while being more open to new ideas.[2]





Robert H. Waterman, Jr. defined adhocracy as "any form of organization that cuts across normal bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems, and get results". For Henry Mintzberg, an adhocracy is a complex and dynamic organizational form.[4] It is different from bureaucracy; like Toffler, Mintzberg considers bureaucracy a thing of the past, and adhocracy one of the future. When done well, adhocracy can be very good at problem solving and innovations and thrives in a diverse environment. It requires sophisticated and often automated technical systems to develop and thrive.

Characteristics of adhocracy
highly organic structure
little formalization of behavior
job specialization not necessarily based on formal training
a tendency to group the specialists in functional units for housekeeping purposes but to deploy them in small, market-based project teams to do their work
a reliance on liaison devices to encourage mutual adjustment within and between these teams
low or no standardization of procedures
roles not clearly defined
selective decentralization
work organization rests on specialized teams
power-shifts to specialized teams
horizontal job specialization
high cost of communication (dramatically reduced in the networked age)
culture based on non-bureaucratic work

All members of an organization have the authority within their areas of specialization, and in coordination with other members, to make decisions and to take actions affecting the future of the organization. There is an absence of hierarchy.

According to Robert H. Waterman, Jr., "Teams should be big enough to represent all parts of the bureaucracy that will be affected by their work, yet small enough to get the job done efficiently."

Types of adhocracy
administrative - "feature an autonomous operating core; usually in an institutionalized bureaucracy like a government department or standing agency"
operational - solves problems on behalf of its clients

Alvin Toffler claimed in his book Future Shock that adhocracies will get more common and are likely to replace bureaucracy. He also wrote that they will most often come in form of a temporary structure, formed to resolve a given problem and dissolved afterwards. An example are cross-department task forces.

Issues

Downsides of adhocracies can include "half-baked actions", personnel problems stemming from organization's temporary nature, extremism in suggested or undertaken actions, and threats to democracy and legality rising from adhocracy's often low-key profile. To address those problems, researchers in adhocracy suggest a model merging adhocracy and bureaucracy, the bureau-adhocracy.

Etymology

The word is a portmanteau of the Latin ad hoc, meaning "for the purpose", and the suffix -cracy, from the ancient Greek kratein , meaning "to govern", and is thus a heteroclite.

Use in fiction

The term is also used to describe the form of government used in the science fiction novels Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow.

In the radio play Das Unternehmen Der Wega (The Mission of the Vega) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the human inhabitants of Venus, all banished there from various regions of Earth for civil and political offenses, form and live under a peaceful adhocracy, to the frustration of delegates from an Earth faction who hope to gain their cooperation in a war brewing on Earth.

In the Metrozone series of novels by Simon Morden, The novel The Curve of the Earth features "ad-hoc" meetings conducted virtually, by which all decisions governing the Freezone collective are taken. The ad-hocs are administered by an artificial intelligence and polled from suitably qualified individuals who are judged by the AI to have sufficient experience. Failure to arrive at a decision results in the polling of a new ad-hoc, whose members are not told of previous ad-hocs before hearing the decision which must be made.

The asura in the fictional world of Tyria within the Guild Wars universe present this form of government, although the term is only used in out-of-game lore writings.