this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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Strategians and tacticians serve different roles because they see different levels of the battlefield, and footsoldiers can see what they directly interact with but are not privy to understanding the full battlefield. Having a fully horizontal organization is shooting yourself in the foot, we develop intra-class hierarchies like managers not because of class society, but because of the added complexity of large-scale production and distribution.
You seem pretty committed to changing as little as possible and not looking at actual scientific math-backed organizational science (read 'brain of the firm').
You seem really committed to fantastic delusions that hierarchal organization functions like you say it does any time it's implemented.
And you seem committed to roles being personified, to people only doing one thing.
Let's say, for example: Sam, who works at the steel butt plug factory, can't be up on the latest sex toy industry publications ¹ and nerd out about it at lunch with their co-worker Alex², who reads the wikis and reports of other factories who work with steel², and Morgan, who has a degree in metallurgy and user-reviews kink³, while they all try out their latest product (a little large on small bodies, put a warning on the box?) and the vegan chili fries at the new diner down the street, while Dave, who doesn't really care and just thinks its fun to say 'i work my ass off at the buttplug factory on Tuesdays', fucks off to get tacos because even though money isn't a thing anymore, 'taco Tuesday' is alliterative and he's all about that. Then go back to the factory for the weekly job cross-training half day. You've got more expertise more perspective and more adherence to any decision reached at that table than you do in any c suite. No authority was exercised, everyone who wanted a say got a say, and the system is better coordinated more fun and probably more efficient than under any centralized system. Maybe they also have a weekly 'do we need to refactor?' meeting.
Tell me how the hypothetical steel bbutt-plug factory would be improved by a single manager who does no other work
¹they're kind of a freak
²an entirely different kind of freak
³totally normal
I'm a Marxist-Leninist, I'm committed to building socialism in the real world, not trying to come up with a hypothetical scenario where management is superfluous. Factories work at the scale of hundreds to thousands, not 4 people living an idyllic life, and these factories have massive supply chains ingoing and outgoing. Management becomes necessary at scales like these, because coordination at such scales cannot be all horizontal.
Project Cybersyn was a real, socialist, working system, comrade and it was based on the same principles as brain of the firm.
It was also an example of centralized economic planning and administration, too.
Read the damn book. Sometimes it is in fact necessary to read more than a sentence from wikipedia to understand a new idea. This one's worth it.
Edit: nvm. The Wikipedia initial blurb also mentions devolving decision making in the main thing. Didn't even read that much.
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don’t worry.
Have you actually read anything about this topic? Besides the Wikipedia page you're contradicting?
Yes, I have. I am not contradicting it, information was sent to the central level and decisions sent back based on those inputs, typically aided by cybernetic algorithms.
Central planning.
I wasn't actually the one advocating specifically that program, and I'm not interested in arguing a Wikipedia article with somebody who's never actually read the literature and understands none of the underlying concepts.
You're reading to confirm what you believe, looking for key words, not to acquire new information. Thats how Hitler said to read in his book. I urge you to better reading material.
If you're too addled by the 20s to make it through a doorstopper pike 'brain of the firm'¹ there was a podcast called 'general intellect unit' where a couple Marxists explored the concepts and went over the key points. Listen to most of that at minimum.
¹not a dig at you; I probably couldn't at this point. Shit's fucked. Kind of afraid to check.
I'm well aware already, I've read about cybernetics, I haven't read Brain of the Firm specifically but have done other reading on the subject, including how to calculate prices, and how to move beyond price. I don't just read to confirm what I believe, I became a Marxist-Leninist after changing my mind from an anarchist because I read to challenge my existing understanding and deepen it. You insult me with no actual knowledge of me, nor what I've read. It's shallow.
Nope, it was decentralized. Read up on the theory, dawg.
If you call that system centralized, then most anarchists want to establish a centralized system.
seems pretty centralized to me dawg
It was a centralized system of bottom-up reporting and top-down management, it was an experiment in cybernetics first pioneered by the soviets and most ambitiously by Allende in Chile. The top-down management aspect is part of what made it so successful. I have read up on theory, don't worry.
As @Horse@lemmygrad.ml already replied to you: