Linchpins

In Linchpins, Seth Godin makes a very revolutionary statement:

Understanding that your job is to make something happen changes what you do all day. If you can only cajole, not force, if you can only lead, not push, then you make different choices. (p. 221)

Italics in original

I am beginning to think that Godin is a crypto-communist despite his avowals of faithful capitalist thought. What amazed me about this book was Godin's favourable treatment of Marxism. This is extremely unusual for writers of business books. They are usually content to bad-mouth Marxism and Communism without much thought.

On p. 240, Godin writes the following about The Communist Manifesto:

This book isn't about what you think it's about. And it's certainly not about the USSR. The key argument here is that small experiments in communism don't work, because they are corrupted by the temptation to defect and engage in trade with neighbors that exploit their workers (so you can benefit). Only worldwide revolution and grabbed power by farmers and factory workers can upend their unfair bargain that kings and capitalists have put in place. At one profound level they are right: as long as the workers don't own the means of production, the exchange will be inherently unfair. A lot of what they pessimistically predicted has occurred to the workers at the bottom of the ladder.

Emphasis Mine

This is a much deeper analysis of the Communist Manifesto that is normally done by capitalist writers. They focus on the ten point plan if they bother to read the book at all. And yet I think Godin misses some of the other key points in the manifesto. And these points reinforces his argument about workers taking control of their lives in order to be creative individuals.

Godin does correctly analyse the source of profit in Capitalism:

The difference between what an employee is paid and how much value she produces leads to profit. If the worker captures all the value in her salary, there's no profit. (p. 12)

What Marx explains in Volume 1 of Capital, Godin does in a paragraph. Yet Marx was developing the Labour Theory of Value. Again, Godin separates himself from the received knowledge that this theory is bunk. It is the labour-power of the worker that adds value not the ideas of the Capitalist.

And on p. 22, I am astounded that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels are quoted directly. No more hidden references and allusions. A direct quotation! This is in a business book!

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote, "By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life." They went onto argue that what we do all day, the way money is made, drives our schooling, our politics, and our community.

This schooling, politics, and community form the superstructure of control. The critical superstructure that maintains the status quo is the education system whose real aim, Godin says, is:

We train the factory workers of tomorrow. Our graduates are very good at following instructions. And we teach the power of consumption as an aid to social approval. (p.42)

This superstructure is now threatened by the very success of Capitalism. Now the production of capital goods has become so cheap that workers can really start their factories. Godin goes onto to claim that:

Now, though, the proletariat owns the means of production. Now, the workers are self-organized online. Now, access to capital and the ability to find one another are no longer problems. (p. 22)

Italics in original

This control of production now threatens the class division in society. Godin says that Karl Marx and Adam Smith agreed that we were divided into two (2) teams: management and labour. Godin poses his thesis:

What if there were no longer only two sides? Not just capital versus labour, but a third team, one that straddled elements of both? I think there is a huge opportunity for a third kind of particioant, a linchpin, and now an opportunity to change all the rules that we've lived with all our lives. (p. 23)

I agree with Godin that workers need to make conscious choices to take charge of our working lives in order to improve society. I disagree with him that Communists cannot simply become a third class in society.

A truly Communist society is classless. There are no class divisions. All workers are owners. A Communist living in a Capitalist society gets corrupted by it as they are part of the process to exploit workers.

And yet Godin is correct in saying that the great mass of workers are not prepared to become linchpins. They would rather wait for orders. We are pushing against an ideological system that is creating compliance among the workers.

Into this model, Godin says that severe cracks are appearing. The need for Department I workers is where the productivity growth is coming from. There is no more to be gained from the exploitation of Department II workers.

In this crisis of Capitalism, we have an opportunity to show a better way.

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