The Scientific Management of Society

Citation preview

V G.AfANASYtV

l�c �cicntific Manaucrncnt of �ocictN

[E@ PROGRESS PUBLISHERS

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MOSCOW

j\ Translated from the Russian by L. Ilyitskaya Edited by R. Daglish Designed by M. Shlozberg

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First printing 1971

Printed

in

tire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

CONTENTS

Page

FOREWORD

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DYNAMIC INTEGRAL SYSTEMS. CONCEPT OF CONTROL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . Integral Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Self-Controlling Systems. Concept of Control . . . Chapter Two. SOCIETY A S AN INTEGRAL SELF-CONTROLLING SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . Marxist Sociology, a Comprehensive View of Society 2. Spontaneous and Conscious Social Control . . . Chapter Three. CONTROL I N CAP I TAUST SOCIETY . . . 1 . The Class Character of Control Under Capitalism 2. Control of Modern Capitalist Production . . . . . A. The Main S tages of Development of the System of Control of Capitalist Production . . . . . . . B. The Main Causes of State Economic Intervention Under Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Patterns of State-Monopoly Intervention in the Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Control o f Social and Intellectual Processes. Regulation of Human Behaviour . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Four. SOCI ALISM AS A SCIENTIF ICALLY CONTROLLED SOCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . Socialist Society as a Complex Integral System . 2. From Spontaneous Regulation to Scientific Control 3. Systemi c Approach to Control . . . . . . . 4. Scientifi c Control of Society: Soviet Experience Chapter Five. THE SUBJECT (SYSTEM) OF CONTROL OF S OCIALIST S OCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . Subject of Control as a System of Government and Non-Government Bodies and Organisations. Managerial Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. The Communist Party in the System of Management of Socialist Society . . . . . 3. The Principal Requi rements Made of the State Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . A. Being Competent and Efficient . . . B . Combining Administrative and Scientific Methods . . . . . . . . . C. System . . . . . . Personnel 4. A dministrative-Managerial A . Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B . What Qualities a Soviet Manager Should Possess . C. Training and Improvement of Managerial Personnel Chapter

One.

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5 9 9 15 25 25 31 40 40 46

46 52 58

66 77 77 83 93 1 03 1 14 1 14 1 22 1 30 131 133 137 141 141 1 45 1 48

Chapter Six. CONTENT (BASIC FUNCTIONS) OF CONTROL 152 1. Control Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 2. Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 3. Soci al Development Plans-an Important Form of 160 Managerial Decision-Making 1 65 . . . . . . 4. Organisation 17 4 5. Regulation . . . . . . . . 1 78 6. Accounting and Inspection . . . . 7. Government and Soci al Information . . . . . . 182 Chapter Seven. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC . . . . . . . . 186 REGULATION . . 1. Democratic Centralism as the Basic Principle of 186 Socialist Regulation . 197 2. Objectivity . 204 3 . Concreteness . . . 218 4. Optimality, Efficiency 226 5. The Main Link 228 6. Stimulation . . . . 238 7 . Territorial-Branch Principle . . . . 8. Combining Public and State Control . . . . . . 242 Chapter Eight. MODERN SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL MEANS OF CONTROL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 l. Employment of Mathematics in Government (General Remarks) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 2. Modern Technical Means of Information Processing and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 3. Model-Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 4 . Automation of Management . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 6 THEORETICAL PROBLEMS O F SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT OF SOCIETY (In lieu of a conclusion) . . . . . . . . 283

FOREWORD

fitoma�iio fima Ubrmy TRENT UNIVERSITY PETERSOROUGH, ONTARO

The social sciences and Marxist-Leninist theory play a great part in the development of socialist society and building of communism. Theory paves the way for practice in that it puts the ·d irection of economic, social and intellectual life on a scientific basis. The development of the social sciences and practical application of their recommendations are no less important to material production and spiritual progress than utilisation of achievements of the natural sciences. This means that the social sciences should not confine themselves to commenting upon decisions that have already been taken or to the mere stating of facts, but should actively and purposefully study life in all its complexity and with all its contradictions, and supply such recommendations as may be of practical i mport in directing the building of communism. Society can be scientifically directed in its progress from socialism to communism only on the basis of exact knowledge of the processes involved. "The construction of communism is based on science. The growth and increasing complexity of the economy, the advance of the scientific and technical revolution, the perfecting of social relations and the rise of cultural standards, make the problems of administration more intricate and diverse."1 The practical need to handle these probl ems has stimulated rapid development in a sphere of knowledge that has been named the science of management (control) . Although it originated in the system of the social 1 50th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Theses of the CPSU Central Committee, Moscow, 1 967, p. 29.

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sciences, the science of manageme nt (control) ·draws exten­ sively on the achievements of the natural sciences. In its present state, this sphere of knowledge includes several specific branches, viz., economic management,1 management of labour activities or the scientific organisation of labour,2 state administrative and legislative control,3 socio-economic cybernetics,4 etc. Each of these branches boasts creditable achievements which are being introduced in practice on an ever increasing scale. Today we are able to summarise the available information on the management of society and various individual spheres of public life, and concentrate on some general problems of the science of management. That general problems of science have a priority claim was repeatedly pointed out by Lenin, who wrote: " . . . anybody who tackles partial problems

·

1 Cf. Materials for the All-Union Scientific-Technical Conference on the Problems of Scientific Organisation of Socialist Industrial Mana­ gement. Sections Nos. 1-5, M., 1966 (Russ. ed.) ; A. M. Birman, Some . Problems of the Science of National Economic Management, M., 1 965 (Russ. ed.) ; D. M. Gvishiani, Problems of Scientific Organisation of Industrial Management, M., 1966 (Russ. ed.) ; A. A. Godunov, Some Problems of the Theory of Production Management, Leningrad Univer­ sity, 1965 (Russ. ed.) ; Y. K. Ligachev, Economics, Politics, Management Principles, M., 1965 (Russ. ed.) ; L. N. Pentyukhov, V. V. Yefremov, The Lenin Principles of Economic Management, M., 1966 (Russ. ed.) ; A. S. Petrov, Economic Principles of Industrial Management, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.); E. Apel, G. Mittag, New Economic Methods of Planning and Direction of the National Economy in the GDR, M., 1966 (Russ. ed.), etc. 2 Cf. Scientific Organisation of Labour in the Twenties, Kazan, 1965 (Russ. ed.); Scientific Organisation of Labour and Management, M., 1965 {Russ. ed.) ; Methodological Recommendations on Scientific Organisation of Labour, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.) ; A. K. Gastev, The Proper Way to Work. A Practical Introduction to the Science of Organisation o f Labour, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.), etc. 3 Cf. Legal Problems of Scientific Management, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.) ; D. A. Kerimov, "Lenin on the Science of State Administration", Lenin­ grad University Bulletin No. 5, 1966 (Russ. ed.) ; J. S taro5ciak, Ele­ ments of the Science of Management, M., 1965 (Russ. ed.), etc. 4 Cf. A. I . Berg, Cybernetics, a Science of Optimal Control, M., 1964 (Russ. ed.) ; A. I. Berg, Y. I. Chernyak, Information and Control, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.) ; V. M. Glushkov, "Cybernetics and Control of National Economy'', Materials for the Plenary Meeting of the A ll-Union Scien­ tific-Technical Conference on the Problems of Scientific Organisation of Socialist Industrial Management, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.) ; V. S. Nemchinov, Mathematical Economic Methods and Models, M., 1965 (Russ. ed.) ; V. Trapeznikov, "Economic Efficiency of Automatic Control", Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Practice) Nos. 11, 12, 1965, etc. 6

without having previously settled general problems, will inevitably and at every s tep 'come up against' those general problems without himself realising it. To come up against them blindly in every individual case means to doom one's poli cy to the worst vacillation and lack of principles . " 1 Accordingly, this book i s devoted to some general prob­ lems of the theory of social management.2 Thi s theory is essentially a social science and it develops on the b asis of the methodol ogical principl es of Marxism­ Leninism. Its fundamental tenets were elaborated by Marx, Engels and, particularly, by Lenin, whose views on the subj ect are presented here in some detail. At the same time the author has endeavoured to draw on what has b een achieved in practice and in the social and natural sciences since the days when the founders of scientific communism lived and worked. In the author's view, the systemic, integral approach to the functioning and development of society which has found expression in historical materialism, the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the socio-economic formation, is particularly relevant to the theoretical problems of management and control . The author of ten refers to the achievements of cybernetics, which has revealed the most general laws of complex system control . Still, he is far from thinking that cybernetics can solve the problems of social management in all their com­ plexity and diversity. Cybernetics studies control processes regardless of the qualitative nature of self-controlling systems; society, on the other hand, has highly specific features n o t covered by cybernetics. What we need here i s social analysis, and i n this cybernetics plays merely an auxiliary part. The present book is an attempt to investigate and system­ atise the control processes at work in society. Basing himself on the classics of Marxism-Leninism, the author has also had 1 V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 12, p. 489.

There are very few works on the general theoretical problems of the s cientific management of society. They include: The Scientific Man­ agement of Society, Issue No. 1, M ., 1966 (Russ. ed.) ; V. S. Semyonov, "Problems of the Scientific Direction of Socio-Economic Processes". I n the collection Scientifi.c Principles of the Direction of Socio-Economic Processes, M., 1 966 (Russ. ed.) ; A. K. Belykh, Political Organisation of Society and Socialist Management, Leningrad University, 1967 (Russ. ed.) . 2

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recourse to works by various philosophers, sociologists, economists, cyberneticists and other scientists, endeavouring to the best of his ability to develop further and generalise thei r ideas and to discuss, or sometimes merely to set forth, problems not touched upon in such works. The problem of control and management is many-si