Comments on: Cybersyn and Allende’s socialist internet

By: Sam Gordon

Sam Gordon — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 00:19:38 +0000

Another of Stafford Beer’s pieces of work is the Viable Systems Model (VSM). This is one way of looking at organisations, which most people will not have been exposed to. The VSM has the potential to be useful to trade unions at work place or branch level, co-ops and small businesses and third sector groups. When I worked in community development it was a touch stone that I always kept within reach.
An engaging speaker certainly; but as a pretty high powered academic Stafford Beer’s written work, very often, is not for the faint hearted. But the VSM can be made accessible in a popular education context, which I’m sure is what Stafford would have wanted. It also has the advantage of being part of the greater “systems practice and thinking” tradition. This means that it often uses graphics, in the form of diagrams, pictures and drawings, and roughly sketched symbols. A lot of politicos do not like this as they generally opt for language, and only language, in communications. Not all of us are so inclined.
One reason system thinking has not have captured the imagination of the left is that it is said to lack any ideological content. Well, it’s up to the left to give it meaning. In fact, with so much of the non capitalist alternative being hopelessly fractured that could be an advantage. Given an organisational problem the VSM offers an opportunity the divergent left and fellow travellers could focus on when getting down to some practical work.

By: James O'Nions

James O'Nions — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 09:33:45 +0000

Looks like there’s going to be a public meeting on the legacy of Cybersyn in London in December: https://www.facebook.com/events/423261057785968
“Speaking at this event will be Nathan Coombs (Research Fellow at Edinburgh University) who will be speaking on the technological potentials of economic planning. Alongside him will be former Director of Project Cybersyn Raul Espejo, who will discuss his experiences with Cybersyn and the ‘Third Route’ to economic planning.”

By: M. Voicu

M. Voicu — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 08:44:44 +0000

Fascinating article.

Cornelius Castoriadis wrote about the idea of using computers to overcome the problems inherent in a planned economy. (e.g.: http://www.marxists.org/archive/castoriadis/1972/workers-councils.htm#h12). Never very convincingly.

And only a couple of years before the Chilean experiment, some of the activists and organic intellectuals of the Cultural Revolution were struggling with the problem of how the empowerment of workers at the local level could be reconciled with the shift in consciousness necessary to allow them to think in terms of ‘all of society’; how to harmonise permanent revolutionary spontaneity with the disciplines of bureaucratic planning in an industrial society?

I don’t actually think they came up with any meaningful solutions. Not surprising, really, as I don’t think there are any. At some point in the development of a post-capitalist project (real or hypothetical) the stark choice simply has to be made: prioritise bureaucratic rationality, with all the hierarchies and external discipline this inevitably entails (however humanely and effectively instituted!) or prioritise autonomy and collective self-management. Institutions can embody one or the other principle, but the two options aren’t really compatible, in practice or in their ultimate ends.

By: Matt Estrada den Hague

Matt Estrada den Hague — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 02:38:15 +0000

It might have been useful for me if this had been covered in elementary economics classes. It makes one think about alternatives to Keynes and Friedman doesn’t it, that can’t be a bad thing.

By: Mike Gatehouse

Mike Gatehouse — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 15:42:54 +0000

Compare and contrast! I was working in Chile in 1972-3 as a data analyst and computer programmer. At one point I was contacted by people in the Ministry of Agriculture and the Treasury (Ministerio de Hacienda) who wanted me to create a database to collect information on harvest projections and actual yields of key crops. I was sceptical, and asked what was wrong with their existing, paper-based systems. “The data is often wrong,” they said. Why? Because their local offices around the country had poor numerical skills. ‘Why not buy them simple calculators?’, I asked. These would tend to go missing (if not be actually pinched), they said, and sometimes figures were being deliberately mis-reported (for instance by areas wanting to qualify for additional funding or supplies, or by officials not wanting to appear incompetent). ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘but a database will not cure any of those problems’.

I found out later about Stafford Beer’s work. Although inspiring, I wonder to what extent it was implemented and whether it really played a significant role in the lorry owners’ lockout of October 1972 and in the run-up to the coup in 1973.

By: Colin Penter

Colin Penter — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 11:12:56 +0000

Great piece Leigh on an often forgotten but intriguing aspect of Allende’s Government. And great to see Stafford Beer get a mention. I stumbled across Stafford Beer’s work in the 1980’s and was very affected by the way he wrote about his involvement in Allende’s vision and the effect of Salvador Allende’s overthrow and death on him, and what appeared to be regret about the way this project’s possibility was cut short by the US inspired military coup. As an Australian I knew little about Stafford Beer’s work but was intrigued by his involvement with the Allende Government and what he wrote about the possibilities of planning and working outside of the capitalist hegemony. Beer provided us with an example of the way that politically engaged social science theory and practice could and should be deployed to serve radical political ends. I followed his work and his writings which had a great impact on my work as a social justice and social policy consultant and campaigner and activist. So I was excited to read this piece and to be reminded of the profound significance of Allende as well as Stafford Beer. And to mourn once again what might have been.