What do you think of Situationist/etc. criticisms of bureaucracy?

[returning_1]

On the one hand, elites do exist, and at least in certain fields their expertise does and should enable authoritative decisions. On the other, even without thinking about 'organisational' tendencies in so called socialist parties (and I can't see a revolution degenerating in even vaguely the same way as it did in Russia), there is something extremely alienating about new stratas forming to replace the old ones that were no less vertical (makes me think of a thousand plateaus, which I have read, as well as parliamentary politics in general), even if they don't capitulate to the excesses of the 20th century or even disparate economic control etc.. FWIW (and I'm interested in replies!) I definitely don't think it is a bogus thing to consider, how elites may be best seen as servants, open etc., and for everyone's benefit, not least in analogy with people dying for (here: employed by!) their military generals.

 

[A380]

On the one hand, elites do exist, and at least in certain fields their expertise does and should enable authoritative decisions. On the other, even without thinking about 'organisational' tendencies in so called socialist parties (and I can't see a revolution degenerating in even vaguely the same way as it did in Russia), there is something extremely alienating about new stratas forming to replace the old ones that were no less vertical (makes me think of a thousand plateaus, which I have read, as well as parliamentary politics in general), even if they don't capitulate to the excesses of the 20th century or even disparate economic control etc.. FWIW (and I'm interested in replies!) I definitely don't think it is a bogus thing to consider, how elites may be best seen as servants, open etc., and for everyone's benefit, not least in analogy with people dying for (here: employed by!) their military generals.

I think it’s unforgivable how they steal paragraph breaks from the population and severely ration full stops for the proletariat.

 

[returning_1]

the last avant garde.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Bureaucracy is what you get when capital needs to manage information I think? So it’s worth analysing and critiquing.

But on the other hand it can lead to tensions within the ruling class - calls for deregulation and cutting red tape etc.

It will all be turned on its head in the next decades because of AI…

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Look at the various responses to civil servants taking out Raab over bullying.

 

[returning_1]

Bureaucracy is what you get when capital needs to manage information I think?

you could be right, and this - i'm sure i've heard - is an information society. i'd need to google it to be sure what exactly i am referring to.

 

[metalguru]

I enjoy what I've read of the classic S.I. Situationist texts (especially Vaneigem), but I think the analysis and descriptions of the Spectacular Commodity Economy, alienation etc are lot more interesting than proposed solutions which I tend to lose interest in.

 

[returning_1]

FWIW, I feel the opposite. I find situationism feverishly inventive, but 'The Spectacle', while not garbage, is maybe better left to critics. Don't know/haven't read much on anything. So e.g. Vaneigem I've probably read a couple of articles of, and IIRC is very French yet sub-Baudelaire. Maybe all art/political movements have the same worth anyway ...

 

[furluxor]

I don't really know what the situationist critique of bureaucracy is (despite reading a book on them right now) but I'll throw my (tangential?) two cents in regardless.

The way I see it, bureaucracy is a product of centralized governance. More decentralization = less bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is where organising becomes self-perpetuating, rather than facilitating whatever is supposed to be its actual focus.

As for 'elites as servants', imho it's only possible if you strip them of power (which includes wealth / connections / etc). Anything less and it sounds like mere PR.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I don't really know what the situationist critique of bureaucracy is

Occupation Committee of the People's Free Sorbonne University​

17 May 1968​

PROFESSOR IVAN SVITAK PRAGUE CZECHOSLOVAKIA​

THE OCCUPATION COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE’S FREE SORBONNE SENDS FRATERNAL GREETINGS TO COMRADE SVITAK AND OTHER CZECHOSLOVAKIAN REVOLUTIONARIES STOP LONG LIVE THE INTERNATIONAL POWER OF THE WORKERS COUNCILS STOP HUMANITY WON’T BE HAPPY TILL THE LAST CAPITALIST IS HUNG WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST BUREAUCRAT STOP LONG LIVE REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM​

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Also the SI were interested in how society was reconfiguring itself and updating Marx's critique accordingly. So a lot of their criticisms of bureaucracy were directed at so-called communist countries and their left-wing cheerleaders in Europe.

"Amidst general hilarity, the curtain is falling on the old tragedy of the expropriation by the bureaucratic class of the workers' revolutions, which in the last twenty years has been played as a simple exotic comedy."

 

[A380]

Occupation Committee of the People's Free Sorbonne University​

17 May 1968​

PROFESSOR IVAN SVITAK PRAGUE CZECHOSLOVAKIA​

THE OCCUPATION COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE’S FREE SORBONNE SENDS FRATERNAL GREETINGS TO COMRADE SVITAK AND OTHER CZECHOSLOVAKIAN REVOLUTIONARIES STOP LONG LIVE THE INTERNATIONAL POWER OF THE WORKERS COUNCILS STOP HUMANITY WON’T BE HAPPY TILL THE LAST CAPITALIST IS HUNG WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST BUREAUCRAT STOP LONG LIVE REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM​

You just know the person who wrote that had a trust fund and has now inherited both the Apartment in central Paris and the Chateau…

 

[JimW]

The political content (as opposed to the merely factional aspects) several of the post-49 campaigns and especially the GPCR had some interesting things on this, and the way the new bureaucracy formed a class, particularly some of the genuinely popular critiques during the latter. The red/expert debate similarly has a lot of genuinely interesting content quite beyond the tedious bourgeois caricatures of the history.