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diff --git a/books/technology/cybersyn.md b/books/technology/cybersyn.md index 4d39522..a0093b5 100644 --- a/books/technology/cybersyn.md +++ b/books/technology/cybersyn.md @@ -899,3 +899,174 @@ the world such as the Middle East. -- 232-233 + +## Misc + + The strike also had the effect of radicalizing factions of the left, + some of which began preparing for armed conflict. Political scientist + Arturo Valenzuela notes: “ironically, it was the counter-mobilization + of the petite bourgeoisie responding to real, contrived, and imaginary + threats which finally engendered, in dialectical fashion, a significant + and autonomous mobilization of the working class.”18 Rather than + bringing an end to Chilean socialism, the strike pitted workers against + small-business owners and members of the industrial bourgeoisie and + created the class war that the right openly feared. + + [...] + + The solution he proposed was social and technical, as it configured + machines and human beings in a way that could help the government adapt + and survive. + + [...] + + Accusations come from Britain and the USA. Invitations [to build + comparable systems] come from Brazil and South Africa.” Considering the + repressive governments that were in power in Brazil and South Africa in + the early 1970s, it is easy to sympathize with Beer’s lament: “You can + see what a false position I am in.”46 Beer was understandably + frustrated with these international misinterpretations of his + cybernetic work. + + [...] + + This Government is shit, but it is my Government.’ ”51 + + [...] + + The big problem was “not technology, it was not the computer, it was + [the] people,” he concluded.70 Cybersyn, a sociotechnical system, + depended on more than its hardware and software components. For the + system to function, human beings also needed to be disciplined and + brought into line. In the case of Cybersyn, integrating human beings + into the system, and thus changing their behavior, proved just as + difficult as building the telex network or programming the software—or + perhaps even more difficult. While the Cybersyn team could exert some + degree of control over the computer resources, construction of the + operations room, or installation of a telex machine, they had very + little control over what was taking place within the factories, + including levels of management participation or whether Cybersyn would + be integrated into existing + + [...] + + Beer, however, recognized the real possibility of a military coup. In + his letter to the editor of Science for People, he considered whether + Cybersyn might be altered by an “evil dictator” and used against the + workers. Since Cybersyn team members were educating the Chilean people + about such risks, he argued, the people could later sabotage these + efforts. “Maybe even the dictator himself can be undermined; because + ‘information constitutes control’—and if the people understand that + they may defeat even the dictator’s guns,” Beer mused.79 I have found + no evidence that members of the Cybersyn team were educating Chilean + workers about the risks of using Cybersyn, although they might have + been. + + [...] + + after the Pinochet military coup, information in Chile did constitute + control but in a very different way than Beer imagined. The military + created the Department of National Intelligence (DINA), an organization + that used the information it gleaned from torture and surveillance to + detain and “disappear” those the military government viewed as + subversive + + [...] + + The cybernetic adventure is apparently coming to an end, or is it not?” + Kohn asked. “The original objective of this project was to present new + tools for management, but primarily to bring about a substantial change + in the traditional practice of management.” In contrast, Kohn found + that “management accepts your tools, but just them. . . . The final + objective, ‘the revolution in management’ is not accepted, not even + + [...] + + Decybernation,” a reference to the technological components of Cybersyn + that were being used independent of the cybernetic commitment to + changing government organization. Beer wrote, “If we want a new system + of government, we have to change the established order,” yet to change + the established order required changing the very organization of the + Chilean government. Beer reminded team members that they had created + Cybersyn to support such organizational changes. Reduced to its + component technologies, Cybersyn was “no longer a viable system but a + collection of parts.” These parts could be assimilated into the current + government system, but then “we do not get a new system of government, + but an old system of government with some new tools. . . . These tools + are not the tools we invented,” Beer wrote.81 + + [...] + + Decybernation” was influenced by the ideas of the Chilean biologists + Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Understanding the import of + Beer’s insistence on organizational change requires a brief explanation + of how Maturana and Varela differentiated between organization and + structure. According to the biologists, the “structure of a system” + refers to its specific components and the relationships among these + components. The “organization of the system” refers to the + relationships that make the system what it is, regardless of its + specific component parts. The structure of the system can change + without changing the identity of the system, but if the organization of + the system changes, the system becomes something else. In their 1987 + book The Tree of Knowledge + + [...] + + On 5 May the violent actions of the ultraright paramilitary group + Fatherland and Liberty pushed the government to declare Santiago an + emergency zone. Placing the city under martial law, Allende accused the + opposition of “consciously and sinisterly creating the conditions to + drag the country toward civil war.”92 The escalating conflict between + the government and the opposition did not bode well for the future of + Chilean socialism. + + [...] + + Marx, capital was evil and the enemy. For us, capital remains evil, but + the enemy is STATUS QUO. . . . I consider that if Marx were alive + today, he would have found the new enemy that I recognize in my + title.”101 In “Status Quo” Beer used cybernetics to explore some of + Marx’s more famous ideas and to update them for the modern world, + taking into account new technological advances in communication and + computing. According to Beer, the class struggle described by Marx was + out of date and “represent[ed] the situation generated by the + industrial revolution itself, and [was] ‘100 years old.’ ”102 Beer felt + that capitalism had since created new forms of work and new + exploitative relations.103 + + [...] + + Bureaucracy always favors the status quo,” he argues, “because its own + viability is at stake as an integral system.” In order to survive, + bureaucracy must reproduce itself, Beer claimed. This process + constrains freedom in the short term and prevents change in the long + term.109 “This situation is a social evil,” Beer asserts. “It means + that bureaucracy is a growing parasite on the body politic, that + personal freedoms are usurped in the service demands the parasitic + monster makes, and above all that half the national effort is deflected + from worthwhile activities.” Beer concludes that since bureaucracy + locks us into the status quo, “dismantling the bureaucracy can only be + a revolutionary aim.”110 Beer had long railed against bureaucracy + + [...] + + Nevertheless, Beer’s cybernetic analysis failed to tell him how to + advise his Chilean friends and help them save Chile’s political + project. In fact, it led him to the opposite conclusion: that it was + impossible for a small socialist country to survive within a capitalist + world system. “If the final level + + [...] + + societary recursion is capitalistic, in what sense can a lower level of + recursion become socialist?” he asks. “It makes little difference if + capital in that socialist country is owned by capitalists whose subject + is state controls, or by the state itself in the name of the people, + since the power of capital to oppress is effectively wielded by the + metasystem.”112 Or, to put it another way, Beer did not see how the + Allende government could survive, given the magnitude of the economic + pressure that a superpower like the United States was putting on the + small country. But Beer continued to work for the Allende government + even after he reached this conclusion, because his personal and + professional investment in Chilean socialism outweighed the pessimistic + judgment of cybernetics.113 |