Is Democratic Collectivism Possible?
Fries, Horace S.
Is Democratic Collectivism Possible? By Horace S. Fries Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin PART II 3. Democracy IN Part 1 of this article I criticised the liberal areas and oar...
...Where freedom hss seemed to flourish in th* past, men's dominant interests more or less accidentally coincided with th* general direction of social forces...
...In a rapidly changing social order co-ordination cannot be imposed successfully from above...
...For urgent situations where it is more important to have a decision, on* way or another, than to have it mad* scientifically and democratically, there must be sufficient vested or delegated authority at the apex (and at the subordinate apexes) to produce th* decision...
...In one sense or another democracy ha* always been th* attempt to secure mor* satisfactory resolutions of conflicts of interests...
...Worldover Press...
...But it it just aa Important ia regard to th* observation of data, Weeaamst tame tie) apace here t* elaborate this claim...
...Rat the remedy I* net to desert or limit science...
...But the tide seems on the whole, to be turning against those whe would export color bars to the community...
...Another witness to the shift is the growing need and importance of the administrative departments and bureaus as advisory agencies for the legislature and chief executive...
...This is obviously th* organisational correlate of the need for economic co-ordination and experimental planning...
...As Senator LsFollette and many others hav* urged, it can be the "watch dog" of the apex...
...It is little wonder, indeed, thst our non-experimental,.capitalistic uses of science have intensified our social evils...
...What'is mor* important, however, than these functions of the chief executive and congress is the fact that as the aim gets under way the organization moves hi a democratic direction...
...Plana for a region must co-ordinate with those of another am) of the departments which overlap th* region...
...It Is as though an engineer tried to compel the transformation of steam into electricity instead of manipulating the actual conditions for transformation...
...These also limit the variety and degree of complexity of his responsibilities...
...ThESE three administrative principles form a dynamic pyramid of participating activities from the public at large Up through all levels of the planning mechanism to the apex...
...The existence of dictatorships is one...
...Within organised labor the want of genuine participation is notorious, snd some would even make a scandal of it...
...Writing with courtesy and restraint, the editor of th« local newspaper, The Antigua Magnet, describe...
...By Horace S. Fries Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin PART II 3. Democracy IN Part 1 of this article I criticised the liberal areas and oar social "sciences" for neglecting the revolutionary unification of scientific theory and a humanised, experimental practice which ia exemplified m the TV A labor relations policy...
...Titer* must be participation by all employees in a department in administrative decisions...
...Furthermore, even before the war and the depression their number was vapidly increasing...
...But indirectly this principle is also of democratic importance for the lay citizen (if there will be any left over...
...In a dictatorship th| decisions jure ''voluntarily" reached by the dictator...
...Harry O'Reilly, another respected colored citizen, has been made a Justice of the same court...
...Unfortunately our traditional notion of "efficient" administration along strictly business or even military lines is typically dictatorial...
...an occasion when a small group of soldiers attempted to persuade the manager of th* Beacli Hotel, a white Canadian, to eject colored patron...
...Fortunately, in the United States, our traditional forms of participation (designed before themschinesge), * our labor unions, and some of our civil rights have been preserved to date...
...heads) are largely made in response to the fickle winds ef political pressure groups and sectional and group rivalries...
...More recently the Hon...
...As responsibility and freedom increase throughout the organization, the apex becomes less and less an arbitrary decider and more and more a co-operative sejf-corrective aim...
...Fascism is the cause of moral decadence, but is the result of sever* economic maladjustment., Participation by th* departments means more than mere representation in cabinet or council...
...But in so far as the total administrative organisation incorporates the sim at self-corrective social inquiry, there will be a shadow of citizen participation and of self-corrective motivation even in such derisions...
...The employee must understand the aims and problems of the department, and therefore of the society which it is helping to govern...
...It is Th* frontier* •1 Public Administrate* by Gaus, White, and Dimock (University of Chicago Press, 193*5...
...For without this participating channel to the top of the administrative hierarchy, our third principle cannot function...
...One wsmiirs whether the rift between liberal journalism and the formal social "sciences" has become so wide that the former fail to net* these revolutionary developments or, like most orthodox social scientists, simply fail to understsnd them...
...Pint is the principle of administrative departmental participation in th* problem of interdepartmental coordination...
...The conference table, the temporary commission and the s.dmi'vstoKlive committee can and do serve as instruments to this end...
...The reason for thi* shortcoming, as in the case of science, is also pathetically clear...
...But if thi* function ia to be performed adequately, oar political ideas must catch ap with the revolutionary political shift of power which has already occurred...
...Color prejudice has not been a habit to the extent of creating any difficulties of a serious kind for some time, and Negroes have been elected to high office...
...To the extent that th* plana pf on* agency conflict with those of another, frustration is inevitable...
...ST...
...It is also reported that whereas the U. s. Army Base bus used to be run on Jim Crow lines, even barring workers at the base from transportation if they were not white, this discriminatory practice has been discontinued...
...Yet Mill himself recognised thst as, anything .other than a social instrument to aid in the realization of human interests, "civil liberties" sre nq more than a relatively esoteric personsl enjoyment to be indulged in by those who like to make a noise but who have no ground to beljeve that their shouting will deliberately accomplish anything...
...Th* liberal press and even nojae ef our high school social science divisions have dene better in regard to som* of the democratic aspects of the TV A. Unfortuntely, however, the prevailing idea of freedom, which i* central to democracy, is aa unsatisfactory, as pro-evolutionary, as our prevailing ideas of social science...
...The federal government is by far the gr«o**st social research agency in the country...
...Clement Malone...
...If they do not participate here, both directly and through their Unions as in the TVA, then they are excluded from the democratic process...
...Without understanding and responsibility sll along the administrative line, observational msans snd informs-ton diannels running up the line will be blocked...
...Furthermore, one successful step in this new direction would go far (as shown in the TVA) in liberating new abilities and responsible action...
...the protesting outsiders were informed that if they could not be content to mix with the Island's inhabitants, they would simply have to leave...
...But the persistence of forms and compensating economic pressures should not blind us to the fset that genuine participation has been minimized and practically eliminated by the increasingly technical nature of policy formation...
...Indeed, the factor of participative aad cooperative self-control in experimental aerial inquiry lead* to the complete Identification ef the latter with social democracy...
...Per with a clear idea of the meaning of aortal what* w* automatically come to have a clear idea ef ft si Sam...
...Science ha* won freedom for us from the worst tortures of our social institutions...
...This aspect of our second principle, and a corresponding aspect of the third, promise a genuine opportunity for education to become a highly significant part of democracy once again...
...If |he former Is lass harsh it is only because economic conditions ar* less severe...
...This requirement suggests th* second principle or problem...
...We have indicated on* at these la Hm discission of social scion tile eentrol...
...Finally, since we must cut our list short, we may mention the radical ftwaiaaaa being »n*ii*ar earner ear •ye* ay oh rente eipansioq a*d increasing necessity af Jam qeasi-Wgi*-lstrv* and gaaai-judicial fsmetfeeta ef i^Mifclltli On* iioad net have read Jaasas Bnrahaes's important and misleadng Managerial ateeolutien to realise that the shift of power to ntaaea*ea»*at aad admtai*-tratjen is a /ail Meow pit...
...But these must be broadened and others Invented if tJM<citises> ia as have a chance Aa participate in the fs9aT0**wnT *s^*^*sl^**J*tJ emeus mrCftsiUsBJf *as* ss\ mf*xxa»ame*m7a\^?BaCa%al ^rl'Oa IfJ The aeumtifi* slgriiAcaoce of this third principle is •retard *a Use count...
...I must mention one book in particular to which the following analysis is deeply indebted...
...But It It significant that in the frontier discussions of method la the social aeisoees the importance of th* idea of the "pertitinaml observer" has bean clearly recognised...
...Certainly the citizen will participate, even at the apex, more effectively than in our present system where the decisions of our chief executive (and departments...
...Civil liberties" mean littl* more as a social instrument in the one than in the other...
...The democratic significance of the principle is evident enough relative to the employees themselves...
...War is the dictator'* costly "safety valve...
...Justice O'Reilly used his skill as a barrister in drawing up some of the legal regulations connected with the defense of the colony and the installation of U. S. bases...
...We shallfcite briefly three principles or problems ef public administration (on which volumes of important material have been written) which evidently must b* solved and used as guides if democracy is to survive and flourish...
...The growing discrepances between the imposed plans and actual social consequences force the dictator into extreme measures in an attempt to compel the consequences to conform...
...The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Windward and Leeward Islands Colony is a colored man, the Hon...
...By the time they have discovered one set of plans which will'conform fairly well with existing aims and social conditions the latter will have changed...
...This means that genuine politics has undergone a tad- * leal cultural mutation which is bound to confuse us 'i anf frustrate our efforts until we understand it., A -"represented" people not actually participating Jn the jj derisions and plans which shape their destiny are al- ' ready under an extraneous control ss arbt,rary as dictatorship...
...Congress can perform aa Important, often a crucial function in an administrative democracy, at least for a time...
...Plan* in regard to labor, for example, must co-ordinate with those for agriculture...
...Th* manager refused, on the ground that the col ored people present were known to him, well behaved, and respected...
...Hat her th* ressedy Use la broadening the method of science by employing it to help aa use science wisely...
...For freedom and science go hand in hand...
...and probably the movement of decision* down the line will be unintentionally, if not intentionally, perverted...
...Utrfertsxnetaty thee* boohs and writers who face th* problem 4t dameeratie management and administration are much leas popular...
...For as the instruments of planning improve, th* persona most intimately affected . by tbe plan can come to share more successfully in the planning and in the gathering and sifting af dsts...
...so they could have the place free to themselves...
...It is for this reason that the locus of the problem of democracy has shifted from the legislative to what twenty-five years ago Professor John R. Commons called the fourth Or administrative branch of government...
...The field men,'for example, ef one department will often have,, to cooperate with field men from other departments...
...EXport...
...any one who l«-lieves that successful planning and co-ordination require experimental knowledge of social realities will recognise that fact...
...The notion of participative administration is radically new, but fortunately it is under way, to a degree, in the TVA and perhaps in a few other agencies...
...NNUMERABLE factors bear wiiness to this shift of th* problem of democracy to administration...
...In the nature sciences it is the method, Race Prejudice U.S...
...Briefly, the reason is that the dictator and his elite clique (or the separate agency) cannot possibly have the necessary information for constructing successful plan...
...After our previous discussion of experimental -social planning, many of the scientific functions of these principles will be apparent...
...His understanding cannot, of course, go beyond what his abilities and in- V terests permit...
...Orders are supposed to be issued from the top and unquestionably carried down and out...
...But we have a good deal of experimenting to do before we learn how to discover such limitations and the conditions under which they change...
...Even if we assume (what is far from true) that the chief executive' and legislative personnel represent to perfection the* interests of their constituents, yst the fact remains that the translation of these interests into needs formulated so as to be hsrmonious with one another snd with the complex conditions of our industrial order is a technical undertaking which calls for the best scientific procedures available and which depends upon a highly compfex adniinistrativevmachinery...
...This third principle is that of th* participation by the citizen in adminiatrative decisions...
...Hence the promising fact that fundamental government in-service training is now sn inherent part of adequate public administration...
...Irate np^n-nsrtiripating "democracy" the decisions are eifher tltose <>f the chief executive and/or the voluntary, accidental .outcome of the dash of interests...
...JOHN'S, Antigua.—Prejudice against col ored residents of this British dependency in thi Leeward Islands, site of an American seaplani base and military post, is being manifested b) U. S. soldiers and has created considerable resentment on the part of the local population about 85 per cent Negro...
...It is clear that if adminiatrative coordination is to be democratic H must be obtained by participation of the agencies themselves and not imposed from above by a dictator (or a separate "co-ordinating" agency...
...But in a technological age of comolicated iutei dependencies and conflicts, the only wsy freedom csn be achieved is through the deliberate shaping of social forces...
...Being Journalists, they may believe that a revolutionary change must be accompanied by the brandishing of sabers and th* waving of new flags...
...As the pressure mounts, "safety-valves'* function for a time, but, mor* and mor* explosions ensue...
...A third is the utter dependency of both of these branches on administration for carrying out laws and decisions and for discovering their act'utl consequences...
Vol. 27 • August 1944 • No. 35
