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Appendix
Information and the Construction of Socialism
Coordinadora, JUSOCAN
Avde. 1 de May, 13 Local 2
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Spain
Translated by:
Carlos Betancourt and Peter Waterman
Presented at:
Haymarket International Labor Conference
Chicago, May 1986
1. The strategy of the power-holders
He who has information has power. The collection and use of
data and information about objects, persons, groups or peoples one
wishes to dominate or exploit--this is the secret of the
accumulation of power, the manipulation of persons, groups and
peoples, the exploitation of natural resources, of natural and
human behavious at the end of the 20th century. The instrument
which permits the accumulation and use of information is the
computer and informatics.
There exists a growing consciousness about the problem and the
dangers that such an accumulation of information implies, there are
extensive and varied accounts of it as well as dramatic examples
and apocalyptic perspectives.
Let us summarize some of the most fundamental characteristics
of the problem:
a) The process is rapid, appears irreversible, and is accompanied by a
totalisation and internationalisation. The data banks are inter-
related and mutually supportive;
b) There is as yet no adequate, equal or
proportional consciousness of the problem on the
part of persons and sectors already victims of
the above process, or about to be placed in
positions of subordination difficult to
overcome;
c) The monopolization of information is the culmination of
capitalist
alienation. It is no longer a question of extracting
surplus value
from the product. It is no longer a question of
domination by
coercion, threats or fear. It is now a question of
extracting and
dominating consciousness itself. The problem is that data
and
information concerning persons, groups and peoples is no
longer
within their reach but within that of their dominators;
d) This situation can reach an irreversible point, a moment
at which
feelings, sentiments, motivations and `information about
informa- tion' is known and manipulated by the dominant political
power.
The manipulation of behaviour thus results in a system of
selection
in which, on the one hand, those who are both alienated
and adaptable are incorporated into the system whilst, on the
other hand, those who do not respond to the logic of the
system (in which
the fetish of productive rationality serves to conceal the
inflexible and immobile structure of power) are removed;
e) Faith in life moves us to firmly believe that the problem
can be
solved. A problem is essentially an invitation to find a
solution.
The crucial facets and characteristics of the problem reveal
to us the proper way to surpass it.
2. General characteristics of the alternative
a) The alternative to the monopolistic accumulation of
information is the socialisation of information:
access to data centres by those persons, groups or
peoples about whom information is accumulated in
such data banks. Against monopoly, diffusion.
b) Here are some partial dialectical alternatives--
if not the final, sole or most important ones:
the destruction of monopolistic accumulation,
the denial of information in the archives of
existing political powers, the secret
accumulation of information--the force of
counterpower;
c) Whether one likes it or not, the alternative
must be as global in both its concepts and
breadth as is the current threat of irreversible
alienation. What has till now been a person
option, a result of ethical or ideological
conviction--the choice between domination or
freedom, capitalism or socialisation--is
becoming, and actually appearing, as an
unavoidable scientific dilemma. There is no
intermediate space;
d) In the same manner as the channels of
communication are being internationalised, the
fragmentation or globalisation of their contents
becomes radicalised. In as much as decisions
are fundamental conditions of life and death--in
so far as they are more political--then the
fragmentation of the data supporting these
decisions make them no longer incomplete but
false. What is required is a public truth,
socially developed and used, the clear air
necessary for a collective, communal--in other
words a human--life;
e) This means cultivating the primary sources for
the creation, construction, development and
unfolding of human truth. This is a matter of
experience. And for this we need more adequate
means of genuine personal contact and of global
communication. This is, then, both the moment
of creation and the point of rupture that makes
history advance. And it is here that there is
awakened, developed and dynamised that feeling
that passes through the deepest parts of the
human being in order to continually discover
`the new,' the not-computerized, the data which
escapes the already-existing archive and which
orders the external precisely because it is
rooted in the unplumbable depths of the
internal;
f) The only means by which technological
development can deserve its name is by the
socialisation of progress. This implies that
technological development cannot justify the
exclusion of man from the productive process but
that it must, on the contrary, discover new
activities that make of labour something more
human, that allow for a reduction of routine
tasks, for an increase in creative ones,
employment for all.
3. Implementing the alternative
A. At the political level
It is necessary to promote the passage of rules and laws by
which it can be declared as a matter of principle that every data
bank or archive in which information about individuals, groups or
peoples is collected is open to and usable by these same
individuals, groups and peoples.
The existence of secret data banks is not only dangerous for
the `informatised' (not the same as the `informed') but is as--or
more--dangerous than the existence of arsenals of weapons,
explosives and poisons. This is why it is necessary to implement
the principle above not only in constitutional declarations but in
the most diverse normative areas such as laws, rules, negotiations,
contracts, etc.
B. At the trade union level
In so far as wages and conditions demands are concerned, we
need, in the first place, to emphasise the encessity for access to
information. And, in fact, in the same way as there exist health
and safety committees, there is an undeniable necessity for
information-access committees. These committees should seek the
advice of technical experts, just as is presently the case with
health and safety committees when they need the professional advice
of doctors and lawyers. Such a right cannot be denied on the basis
of arguments concerning the defence of enterprise security. The
`enterprise' is an artificial construction, a fetish which in
reality is nothing other than the concrete interests of concrete
persons. And in a situation of conflict between concrete persons
the alternatives are only an understanding or struggle. Any other
alternative is a delusion.
It is necessary to introduce other values into the
negotiation of collective agreements, by means of which progress is
socialised: to transform the tasks which increase alienation, to
reduce working hours, to create new activities by means of which
labor can be humanised, to create an alternative power as
counterweight.
C. At the level of the alternative movement
Personal alternative: To deepen personal communication. To
construct a basic infrastructure, primary groups, direct
relationships, in a continuous process of both structuring and
destructuring, stabilisation and rupture.
At the sectoral level: Concrete programmes (production,
consumption, culture, etc.) in which what is demanded is access to
information, its diffusion, its control, and participation in its
development.
At the level of the alternative movement: An infrastructure
of coordination services for horizontal, ascending and descending
information. The fundamental instruments at the service of
alternative groups and platforms are: the computer and
psychodynamic means.
Computers. These should be used by alternative groups and
sectors to teach and control means for access to and participation
in information.
Psychodynamic means. These should be used as instruments to
stimulate creativity outside the sphere of canned information, i.e.
as a counter to the power accumulated in the computer (see General
Characteristics of the Alternative, above, point 2.e).
4. In relation to the ports movement
The transport of commodities is the point in the chain of
control least dominated by the capitalist structure. Production is
strictly controlled by the rigid structure of the enterprise.
Consumption is fully dominated by the extreme vulnerability of the
isolated individual. Spatial mobility in the transportation of
commodities implies a certain distance from immediate control by
the instruments of the enterprise structure. And it is here where
world capitalism is currently fighting its fundamental battle.
And, within transportation, it is precisely in the movement of
commodities within ports that there continues a possibility for
exercising some kind of counterpower with a certain degree of
autonomy and strength. Maritime and land transport are both
closely tied to the power structures of the system.
It followes from the above assumptions that the alternative
ports movement should implement the following lines of activity.
Create information centres which can be used by the base at
different points: ports, autonomous trade union organisations,
national and international coordination.
Such information centres, characterized by their openness,
accessibility, participation, and by their ascending, descending
and horizontal diffusion, should be administered by representatives
of the base, or those serving them, and supplied with the necessary
material equipment (computer information bulletins, magazines, data
centres, etc.).
We would also suggest that the contents--the data to be
worked upon, stored, systematised, analysed, distributed--should be
the following:
a) Working conditions, skills, wages, collective
agreements, standards, laws and working rules,
etc.;
b) Trade union experiences, organisation,
strategies, campaigns--especially solidarity
campaigns--coordination, etc.;
c) Political structures, enterprisesm public
administration, policies, purposes, dependency,
etc.;
d) Technical structure, mechanisation;
e) Documentary archives, magazines, articles,
documents relative to matters of interest;
f) Movements, groups and alternative experiences
close to the plans of the ports movements.
The strategy against the monopolisation of information, and
stimulating the diffusion, access to and socialisation of the same:
a) Coordination of archives, studies, available
information, by means of periodical meetings and
seminars at national and international level.
Distribution of work and successive
coordination;
b) Campaign and information concerning the problem
in order to raise consciousness;
c) Concrete tactics: legal standards, negotiations,
control commissions, etc.