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"Hierarchy is needed for PCB fabrication!" (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Yliaster@lemmy.world to c/flippanarchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I made a post on hierarchy a month ago but I have some more specific questions now.

I've been hit with the claim that mass production industries that are needed today would not be possible without a hierarchy. That due to regional limitations and the logistics of smartphone manufacturing, technology cannot be produced on the needed scale without a hierarchy of managers.

This is quoted in PCB fabrication, as well as other areas such as medicine and other mass produced goods.

It is also said that managers are needed for efficiency, though I don't understand that.

Because the anarchist movement, abolishing hierarchy, "runs counter" to the "global direction of humanity and progress", it is acclaimed to being "doomed to failure" and "idealist".

What would be the anarchist response to this? Would appreciate detailed responses and/or resources.

I want to improve my anarchist understanding

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Call me old school maybe, but I'm a fan of Anarcho Syndicalism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

The Mondragon Corporation is a federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque Country of Spain.

...

In 2024, it employed 70,085 people across four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail, and knowledge,[1] with 30,660 workers in the Basque Country, 29,340 elsewhere in Spain, and approximately 10,000 abroad.[2] Co-operative News has described it as the world's largest worker co-operative federation, the largest employer in the Basque Country, and the fifth-largest private employer in Spain.[3]

...

The corporation's companies manufacture consumer goods, capital goods, industrial components, products and systems for construction, and services. Services include:

Abantail: adaptive design optimisation

Alecop: engineering training

LKS Consultores: legal services

KREAN: architects and engineers

MCCTelecom: telecommunication engineering

Mondragon Lingua: translation and language schools

Mondragon Sistemas: automation, industrial computing, and telecommunications

Ondoan: turnkey projects in energy and environment

...

Mondragon co-operatives share a humanist view of business and a philosophy of participation and solidarity. The culture is rooted in a shared mission and a defined set of principles, corporate values, and business policies.[22]

...

Mondragon bases its culture on 10 basic co-operative principles: open admission, democratic organisation, the sovereignty of labour, instrumental and subordinate nature of capital, participatory management, payment solidarity, inter-cooperation, social transformation, universality, and education.[24]

The philosophy is complemented by four corporate values: co-operation (acting as owners and protagonists), participation (commitment to management), social responsibility (distribution of wealth based on solidarity), and innovation (continual renewal across all areas).[25]

These values are translated into basic objectives (customer focus, development, innovation, profitability, people in co-operation, and community involvement) and general policies approved by the Co-operative Congress, which feed into the four-year strategic plans and the annual business plans of the individual co-operatives, divisions, and the corporation as a whole.[26]

Wage regulation

At Mondragon, wage ratios between executive work and the field or factory work that earns a minimum wage are agreed by vote. The ratios range from 3:1 to 9:1 across cooperatives and average 5:1; the general manager of an average cooperative earns no more than five times the theoretical minimum wage paid in their cooperative. Most worker-owners do not earn the minimum wage because most jobs are classified at higher wage levels. The wage ratio of a cooperative is decided periodically by its worker-owners through a democratic vote.[27]

Personally, I think that the idea of 'abolish all hierarchy' is rather silly.

Instead, question and critique all hierarchy, and then use what you learn from that to design the most equitable system possible.

Mondragon is not perfect, but I would argue it is (at least in the west) the most well known functional antithesis to capitalist private ownership that actually literally works and produces complex things.

[–] Yliaster@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

What form(s) of hierarchy do you believe is necessary or helpful, and why?

Can you introduce me to Anarcho syndicalism?

Thanks for the mondragon example and quotations, I've saved this for future reference.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

If I could tell you plainly what specific forms of hierarchy are and are not acceptable, a consistent and coherent ruleset that 100% accurately defines that, I'd have essentially created a grand unified theory of anarchism.

I am not that smart.

I would argue that part of the entire idea of anarchism is that no one is, that people and groups will always have differences, even if they broadly agree on general principles.

Generally speaking, I would say start with the idea of 'a system is to be judged by what it does or produces, not what it claims to do or produce.'

Apply that principle to everything, every social construct, every machine, every bias or norm, every political system, every monetary or financial system, every mode of production.

There will commonalities in many of these subsets, but many of them will also have unique elements thay require at least some level of specialized knowledge or serious study to well comprehend.

As to anarcho-syndicalism, well I mean wikipedia is a decent starting point ->

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism.

Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society, and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement.

In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.