The following two results of Braverman’s analysis in Labor and Monopoly Capital[1] should be extended to cover (professional) planning: first, abstract labor has been realized in actual capitalist practice via the methods of “scientific management” (the dissolution of concrete labor), and second, manual labor gradually “replaces” mental labor (the proletarianization of the lower strata of the so-called white-collar labor). The two processes are closely related. In the universal process of dissolution of concrete labor the lower strata of those who are engaged in mental labor are concomitantly dissolved.

Modern planning techniques similarly displace an ever larger population of planners into the administration via routinized planning procedures. These are based on the translation of mental procedures into organizational systems. The introduction of the computer into the administration creates man-machine systems increasingly analogous to those already in existence in the sphere of material production. Planning becomes administration, and planners turn into glorified manual workers dealing with fragmented and routinized information processing procedures. That is what Horkheimer and Adorno called “Taylorism of the mind.”[2] Specific individuals are increasingly interchangeable, and their work is increasingly mechanized, to the point of replacement by the machine. The road toward total control of social processes, analogous to the control of natural processes, has already been paved. Ironically, it has been paved with the bodies of those who traced it.

Addendum I (October 27, 1979)

In his book on the mathematical revolution in Soviet economic planning, Alfred Zauberman writes:

The early 1970s saw the formation of the working principles of the ASPR—”automized” system of plan computations—a name which carries a deliberate understatement for the man-machine system which is ultimately to take over the function of planning the national economy—to take it over “completely” and at all levels. Its basis is postulated now to be a synthesis of past planning experience with modern mathematical-economic models and computational technology.[3]

We learn that computational difficulties associated with the problem of size are still prohibitive, but that there exists an optimistic attitude concerning the future. I must admit that I do share the Soviet optimism, to the extent that I believe that many of the present computational problems can be solved, but I also share Wiener’s pessimism, concerning the possibility of totalitarian and authoritarian misuses of the Leviathan’s brain, the dream of the Enlightenment. Producers’ self-government cannot be the ultimate goal for mankind, but it is still the only means in the struggle against Leviathan’s potential power. Meanwhile, economic efficiency be damned!

Addendum II (July 17, 1980)

“Taylorism of the mind” attacks the interface between man and nature: the structure of thought, which is partially accessible via the structure of language. The mythical analogy between the brain and the computer (as exemplified by the vernacular expression “electronic brain”) strives to naturalize thought via the naturalization of language. This model of the brain is not merely a useful simplification for academic purposes, but rather a simplification that aims at reducing thought to the manipulation of symbols. In principio erat verbum, and in the end there will be “word processing,” an attempt to impose consistency by “scientific” fiat. A theory which cannot be embedded in a computer program is automatically rejected as metaphysical, as inapplicable in the context of techne. Kant’s desideratum concerning consistency presses toward its realization. Thought becomes objectified, naturalized, and it thus becomes predictable, manipulable, flat, one-dimensional… The material character of thought is not an outcome, but the telos of this universal process. The strife between science and the residuum has been intensified: the residuum must be captured surgically. It must be removed and then forgotten. Beyond the word there must be nothing. For if there is still something there, it may spring back to life and threaten the consistency of the system the sole function of which is to function smoothly.

The residuum can be best understood in terms of the gap between praxis and techne. Labor, that is, alienated productive activity, an activity devoid of conscious purpose established discursively by freely associated individuals, can be analyzed in terms of praxis only indirectly. Every attempt to identify labor and praxis is bound to result in the reconstruction of ideology. The very concept of labor is thus problematic. The reform of language, that prevents thought from escaping and rescuing the residuum, not only isolates the labor process from itself, but also from the intrusion from the outside, from the world of philosophy reduced to metaphysics. And this is a precondition for an immortal social order, or a social order that will perpetuate itself solely because it has already expired.

Addendum III (November 27, 1982)

The most chilling and widely known item of black humor relating to the electronic brain appeared in print in a short story by Fred Brown twenty years ago; it has been recounted to scientists, programmers, and salesmen over the years without credit to the writer—an oversight which the novelist and astrophysicist Arthur C. Clarke has pointed out. Mr. Brown’s story was about the super-computer that had become so sophisticated that it was independent of human sources for its own power control. The great machine was asked the ultimate question: “Is there a God?” In tones of Jovian thunder, the ultimate machine answered: “There is now.” Arthur Clarke declared that the story was “more than a brilliant myth; it is an echo from the future.” Theologians, he wrote in a 1968 magazine article, may have made a “slight but understandable error—which, among other things, makes totally irrelevant the recent debates about the death of God. It may be that our rôle on this planet is not to worship God—but to create him.”

From William Rodgers’ THINK: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM, New York: Stein and Day, 1969, p. 294.

Addendum IV (March 10, 1994)

The post-war generation in Yugoslavia was treated very much as a generation of minor deities. We were expected to change the world in the image of an ideal man and an ideal society. My fascination with social planning makes perfect sense in this context. No matter how misguided our upbringing might have been in retrospect or otherwise, many of us have done rather well in life precisely because we would not accept reality as a constraint on our expectations and our designs. Also, my fascination with computers—and especially my critical attitude toward the use of computers for social planning—makes perfect sense in this context. Deus ex machina socialist style.

Addendum V (December 6, 2003)

At the risk of losing forever the frayed thread that miraculously survives in this chain of stray reflections, I am drawn to the last sentence of the last addendum. That is, the old deus ex machina—a contrived resolution to an ostensible impasse in the narrative. The emphasis in this expression is usually placed on the last word, but now I am drawn to the first. The old deus is there for a reason, for few impasses can be resolved without mighty contrivance. Or machination, a fitting word in this particular context. Is this the clue to the “religious deviation” I first felt stir in my bosom about twenty years ago? From planning to assorted priestly pursuits to shamanism to divine stirrings pending recognition… The residuum consecrated.

Footnotes

1. Braverman, H., Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in The Twentieth Century, New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1974.

2. Horkheimer, M., and T.W. Adorno, Dialectics and Enlightenment, New York: Seabury Press, 1972 (first published in 1944), p. 242.

3. Zauberman, A., The Mathematical Revolution in Soviet Economics, London, New York, and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 35.