Up the commune: Robert Townsend and communism

This is a further rebuttal of some of the arguments on the political/economic philosophy threads at Ren's. It's quite likely to annoy Roy Kay, but that's not deliberate, and maybe if he reads this he'll see where I'm coming from more clearly and be less annoyed.

If I were to point to any 20th Century writer/thinker to outline how I thought a communist society would look, and perhaps even how it could be achieved, then I would turn not to any of the famous left-wing thinkers (and I'd be more likely to advocate burning rather than reading the famous works of Mao Tse Tung or Stalin or any of the leaders of so-called communist states).

I would, instead, turn to a successful businessman in the Capitalist West: Robert Townsend, and his book "Up The Organisation" (or, better, the later, extended version called "Further Up The Organisation").

Townsend was an advocate of a concept called "Theory Y" management, which had been developed by someone called Douglas McGregor, who was a management professor in the USA. The ideas that McGregor developed, Townsend put into practice and his practical experience with them is what makes "Up The Organisation" so useful. Townsend's work (as outlined in the wikipedia article linked above) is tried and tested, and proved to work.

My aim here is to demonstrate that communism as Marx foresaw it, and as plenty of modern leftwing revolutionists would have it, is in many ways a version of Theory Y writ large - applied not just to an individual company but to the whole of society.

A common term in modern leftwing discussion about the future post-revolution society is the concept of "participatory democracy". Instead of the representational democracy of the modern West, in which a delegate is sent from a community of constituency to the Big House (Federal/State Congress in the USA, Parliament or regional councils in the UK, similar structures in other European countries and so on), in participatory democracy people's voices are heard directly as far as possible; decisions are made directly by those most affected by them.

In the introduction to the "Further Up The Organisation" edition, Townsend writes of his approach, "I call it participatory management, or Theory Y..."

Now, the interesting thing is that he continues thus:

...but whatever you call it - it's not a program to be inflicted on or sold to your people. It's a way of treating everyone from top to bottom as respected adults rather than children or criminals.

Again, this is how I would characterise communism as an idea. It's obviously not what happened in the USSR (or its satellite states after WW2), nor in the East Asian countries that called themselves communist (incidentally, Townsend does quote from North Korean military philosophy at one point - but we can safely say that the rest of their society didn't and doesn't match the description given in that passage). The Bolsheviks, and Stalin in particular as their progeny, never really got this "not a program to be inflicted..." part (and it's probably fair to say that a lot of modern leftwing campaigners don't really get the "not a program to be... sold to..." bit), and they ultimately ended right back at the "Theory X" structure to which Theory Y is supposed to be the antidote.

In some ways it would be easier to tell you to go out, buy "Up The Organisation" (in one form or another), and then I could just tell you which bits I think are not communism, rather than explain in detail how each bit is. For instance, Townsend is very negative about unions, but I think his perspective is coloured by the specifics of how US labour relations have developed and might not be relevant to the way unions work over here, so I think he is wrong in principle (even though he may be correct in the context of the specifics of what has happened in the US).

But the central philosophy is what matters, and what I want to discuss. How that matches with what Marx envisaged and what later Marxian thinkers and campaigners have developed.

Townsend, in his introduction (Memorandum - from: The author. To: The reader) suggests turning to the chapter on "People" first, and here we have Townsend's version of what Theory X and Theory Y are, and how participatory management worked for his companies.

We're in this mess because for the last 200 years we've been using the Catholic Church and Caesar's legions as our patterns for creating organisations. And until the last 40 or 50 years [writing in 1970, so he's counting back to maybe the 1920s] it made sense. The average churchgoer, soldier, and factory worker was uneducated and dependent on orders from above. And authority carried considerable weight because disobedience brought the death penalty or its equivalent.

Since Marx wrote about 100 years before Townsend, it's safe to say he would have disagreed that the pattern made sense even then (except that Marx himself was pretty fierce and probably would have created exactly the same kind of model). Certainly, though, if we look at Protestantism, and Quakerism and a number of other religious organisations, we can see that the model in terms of religion already had plenty of counter-examples or counter-theories going (not every Protestant denomination was devolutionist as Luther's challenge might have prompted, but Quakerism is about as devolved as it can get without dissolving into nothingness!) It makes sense to say that the average factory worker was kept uneducated etc.

Communism in that age was in large part about changing the condition of the working class to become more educated, and less fearful, and that was a big part of what trades unions did.

Moving on:

From the behaviour of people in these early industrial organisations we arrived at the following assumptions [the so-called "Theory X"], on which all big organisations are still operating:

1. People hate work.
2. They have to be driven and threatened with punishment to get them to work towards organisational objectives.
3. They like security, aren't ambitious, want to be told what to do, dislike responsibility.

Townsend presents the following evidence:

1. Office hours 9-to-5 for everybody except the fattest cats at the top. Just a giant cheap time clock. (Are we buying brains or hours?)
2. Unilateral promotions. For more money and a bigger title I'm expected to jump at the chance to move my family to New York City. I run away from the friends and a lifestyle in Denver that have made me and my family happy and effective. (Organisation comes first; individuals must sacrifice themselves to its demands.)
3. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually "communicating" with employees. The message always boils down to: "Work hard, obey orders. We'll take care of you." (That message is obsolete by 50 years, and it wasn't very promising then.)

Theory Y is based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which Townsend summarises thus:

These things we know about man:

1. He's a wanting animal.
2. His behavior is determined by unsatisfied needs that he wants to satisfy.
3. His needs form a value hierarchy that is internal, not external:
   1. body (I can't breathe)
   2. safety (How can I protect myself from...?
   3. social (I want to belong)
   4. ego (1. Gee, I'm terrific. 2. Aren't I? Yes.)
   5. development (Gee, I'm better than I was last year.)
   
   

I think it's worth noting that other theorists point to a conflict between "social" and "protection", in that in protecting ourselves, and in particular our sense of self, we draw away from the social "belonging" - because if you belong too closely, then you start to lose ego-identity and become vulnerable to rejection. Our social existence is always a compromise between these two desires - for "belonging" and for "individuality". No, I don't know how best to navigate that when constructing a social/political theory.

Man is totally motivated by each level in order - until that need is satisfied. If he hasn't slept in three days, he's totally motivated by a need for sleep. After he has slept, eaten, drunk, is safe, and has acceptance in a group, he is no longer motivated by those three levels of needs. (McGregor's examples: The only time you think of air is when you are deprived of it; man lives by bread alone when there is no bread.)

As noted on the Wikipedia article about Maslow's hierarchy, some critics question that the needs are hierarchical, and I personally don't believe that the needs are perfectly hierarchical in the sense that people never look to the next one up when dealing with the current one, and as hinted at with my note about social versus independent urges, sometimes I think two different levels can be antagonistic so it isn't a pure hierarchy. But in general, I think it's a very good way of looking at how people deal with needs and desires.

We know that these first three need levels are pretty well satisfied in America's work force today.

The footnote explains that "this book does not come to grips with the problem of America's [x] million poor: it deals with the [y] million psychiatric cases who do have jobs, whether they're poor or not." In 1970, Townsend gave "x" and "y" as 38 and 102 respectively (implying over 25% unemployment in the US back then - the official figures say it was just ~5%).

Furthermore, nowadays it would appear as though it is no longer true that America's workforce has the first three needs met; Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" experiment of living for 1 month on the US minimum wage revealed that the basic need of safety could not even be assured on the current level of earnings that many working Americans have.

Leaving that point aside, let's assume that the basic wage in a company is in fact sufficient to assure the first 3 levels are met. What conclusions does Townsend suggest?

So we would expect man's organisations to be designed to feed the ego and development needs. But there's the whole problem. The result of our outmoded organisations is that we're still acting as is people were uneducated peasants. Much of the work done today would be more suitable for young children or mental defectives.

Okay, so the ableist language is rather unpleasant and unwelcome, and the fact that he was writing in 1970 doesn't go any distance at all to excusing it (even if it explains why he didn't see anything wrong with it). I guess the point is, the work is unfulfilling and unrewarding in itself, and there are few ways to make it so.

And look at the rewards we're offering our people today: higher wages, medical benefits [answers the first and second of the needs], vacations, pensions, profit sharing, gymnasiums, swimming pools, bowling and baseball teams. Not one can be enjoyed on the job. You've got to leave work, get sick, or retire first. No wonder people aren't having fun on the job.

Before going on to the conclusions that form Theory Y, let's look at that most famous of Marx quotations (no, not "I dont want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member"!) - "From each as according to their ability, to each as according to their need".

Obviously, in the Maslow hierarchy, the second part "to each as according to their needs", is all about answering the body and safety levels of need (levels 1 and 2). Those are the needs that enable a person to function so that they can participate in society (level 3). Marx suggests that we should ensure that everyone in society has their level 1 and 2 needs; that enables us to start answering level 3: "social needs". But what about "ego" and "development"? Well, that's what "From each as according to their ability" is all about. The formulation was from a relatively early piece of writing by Marx, and so the meaning was not fully worked out when he made it, but later references bear this out: Marx envisaged "ability" in its broadest possible sense. It is by performing to our ability that we can see ourselves as successful, and find ourselves confirmed and affirmed: in Townsend's words, 'Gee, I'm terrific. Aren't I? Yes, I am." What's more, if we perform to our abilities, such is human nature that we naturally find ourselves learning new things, acquiring new abilities - becoming better, in other words. So that we can say, "Gee, I'm better than I was last year."

The critics on the threads at Ren's made a mistake in saying that "From each... to each" means that the better workers are supporting the poorer ones directly. In essence, the Marx statement should be broken down into two independent segments:

1. To each as according to their need
2. From each as according to their ability

Although everyone giving of their ability means that it is possible for everyone to receive according to their need, in essence receiving according to one's need is a prerequisite for giving according to one's ability.

We can invert the statement thus:

1. I take from society according to my needs.
2. I give back to society according to my talents, skills and things I no longer need.

Now, perhaps, it is clearer how this feeds the individual's needs right up to the final level of development, encompassing all the other levels. If this sounds a bit hippie-ish, it is perhaps because Marx himself wrote some very hippie-like passages when he touched upon his vision of the post-revolutionary society.

Now let's look at what Theory Y has to say about how humans might be enabled to achieve their needs:

1/. People don't hate work. It's as natural as rest or play.

Well, that is practically lifted from Marx's own philosophy right there. Note, it is not saying that work is its own reward, but rather that given the choice most people would prefer to do some form of work than not (even if that work is relatively untaxing). The sorts of work people would prefer to do depends on the individual preferences, personality, physique, etc. But in general people who have absolutely no work to do are miserable. And it's not just to do with being poor.

2/. They don't have to be forced or threatened. If they commit themselves to mutual objectives, they'll drive themselves more efficiently than you can drive them.

"Mutual objectives", eh? Dang, if that doesn't sound like socialism!

3/. But they'll commit themselves only to the extent they can see ways of satisfying their ego and development needs (remember, the others are pretty well satisfied and are no longer prime drives).

This is to some extent something that gets dropped from discussions on the Left, as far as I have seen them go. But it's really what Marx was all about: building a society whereby everyone's ego and developmental needs are encouraged and met through participation in society as a whole, and in making society viable.

I suspect critics of communism (as it was envisaged, not the perversion created in the "Communist" East) often don't see how to meet their ego and developmental needs within the communal framework, and I think I will have to return to my "Ordinary Commies" series and write some more about how it works (I think I did touch on it in part, and in addressing the questions in comments, with those first two segments). For now, though, I still point to the "Theory Y" assumptions as being a practical demonstration that communism can work, and how it might be done.

Townsend continues:

All you have to do is look around you to see that big organisations are only getting people to use about 20% - the lower fifth - of their capacities. And the painful part is that God didn't design the human animal to function at 20%. At that pace it develops enough malfunctions to cause a permanent shortage of psychoanalysts and hospital beds.

Arguably, "stress" is what happens when people are worked too hard using the bottom 20% of their abilities, and given no opportunity to use the rest of their brains. It involves such things as responsibility without power, being placed in badly-designed structures, and things that either a) stop you doing what's needed to get things done or b) stop you using what you've got to get the job done better.

Townsend writes about the success of Theory Y at Avis:

In 1962 [when Townsend was hired as CEO for the company], after thirteen years, Avis had never made a profit. Three years later the company had grown internally (not by acquisitions) from $30M in sales to $75M in sales, and had made successive annual profits of $1M, $3M and $5M. If I had anything to do with this, I ascribe it all to my application of Theory Y. And a faltering, stumbling, groping, mistake-ridden application it was.

You want proof? I can't give it to you. but let me tell you a story. When I became head of Avis I was assured that no one at headquarters was any good, and that my first job was to start recruiting a whole new team. Three years later, Hal Geneen, the president of ITT (which had just acquired Avis), after meeting everybody and listening to them in action for a day, said, "I've never seen such depth of management; why, I've already spotted three chief executive officers!" You guessed it. Same people. I'd brought in only two new people, a lawyer and an accountant.

...

Why spend all that money and time on the selection of people when the people you've got are breaking down from under-use.

Seriously - imagine if society were run the same way. If everyone were given the opportunity and encouragement to make the very best of themselves that they can, without worrying about where the next meal is coming from or how to protect themselves from disaster. The GDP of the world would skyrocket!

Oh, and if this isn't enough to convince you that Townsend's approach is communism in microcosm, look at this final passage from the chapter on "People":

Get to know your people. What they do well, what they enjoy doing, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what they want and need to get from their job. And then try to create an organisation around your people, not jam your people into those organisation-chart rectangles. Organisations work when they maximise the chance that each one, working with others, will get for growth in his job. You can't motivate people. That door is locked from the inside. You can create a climate in which most of your people will motivate themselves to help the company reach its objectives. Like it or not, the only practical act is to adopt participative-management assumptions and get going.

It isn't easy, but what you're really trying to do is come between a man and his family. You want him to enjoy his work so much he comes in on Saturday instead of playing golf or cutting the grass.

That, dear reader, is what Marx meant by "From each as according to their ability". And it is also as good an explanation of how that philosophy can work as I have ever seen.

People, I present to you: Robert Townsend, the greatest exponent of Communism the world has ever seen.

(I've more-or-less decided that there will be future posts on other specific sections of Townsend's work, also explaining what they have to do with communism, and how they address the issues raised by the posts over at Ren's, so please stay tuned)