User Profile

Neoliberale Politik hat durchweg zu einer Verschlechterung der Versorgungsqualität geführt. Essenzielle Infrastrukturen wie die Deutsche Bahn wurden vollständig heruntergewirtschaftet. Nicht die Löhne, sondern die Profite und damit die Kosten für Öffentlichkeit und Haushalte sind gestiegen. Gerade die Güter, die für unser Leben am wichtigsten sind -- ob Wohnraum, Grundversorgung oder Gesundheit -- sind teurer geworden oder wurden überhaupt erst zu kaufbaren Waren gemacht.

— Öffentlicher Luxus by communia & BUNDjugend (Hrsg.)

Und die Menschen, die gegen den Klima-Volksentscheid gestimmt haben, wissen, dass eine ökologische Transformation aktuell auf ihre Kosten gehen würde, weil sie nicht zugleich eine soziale wäre. Bei der energetischen Modernisierung von Gebäuden etwa merken viele schon lange, dass die Kosten für klimafreundliches Heizen nicht von den Vermieter*innen getragen werden, sondern zulasten der Mieter*innen gehen, die ohnehin schon mit ständig steigenden Mieten zu kämpfen haben.

— Öffentlicher Luxus by communia & BUNDjugend (Hrsg.)

What the book [Flores, Disclosing New Worlds] views as history making is the later entrepreneurial work, not Flores's earlier role in helping to lead Allende's nationalization program. "A civil democracy with a market economy is the best political construction so far because it allows people to be history makers," the authors declare. Flores's transformation form socialist minister was now complete: he had wholly remade himself in the image of neoliberalism.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina

The basic answer of cybernetics to the question of how the system should be organized is that it ought to organize itself.

To modify the behavior of such a system, one need not control its every aspect but rather change one subsystem so that the overall system naturally drifts toward the desired goal.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina

"Because technology is political, it must be recognized that [..]. new technologies will invariably constitute extensions of power and control," namely, of managers over workers. That such technologies "might be turned to humane ends is a dangerous delusion," he [David Noble] concluded.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina

"Because of my upbringing and the way I have lived I have always worked within the constraints. To do so was what was 'honorable.' But I've talked enough with Fernando [Flores] to realize that it's possible to regard that worldview with actual contempt." Maybe honor was nothing more than a "vast psychological hang-up," he mused, instead of a concept that should guide his actions and set his priorities.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina

While the opposition promoted the strike as an effort to defend the private sector and ensure its continuance, the bourgeoisie was using the strike as a public demonstration of class power.

[..]. locked workers out of their factories to forcibly shut down production, and some even offered to pay workers not to come to work.

[..]. With substantial financial support from the U.S. government, the strikers appeared poised to make good on their promise to shut down the country indefinitely.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina

[..]. although the Allende government wanted to increase worker involvement in decision making, Cybersyn shows that it also continued management practices that had disempowered and dehumanized workers in the past. [..]. it would have been much harder for workers to organize against an abstract technological system, or a factory model, than to stage a protest against a visible production manager holding a stopwatch.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina

Anderton wrote: "Although much more complex than the mental model it augments, the model might be thought of as too simple in relation to the reality it represents. In reply, it must be said that the aim is not to make a detailed 'road map' of the economy, but to pick out as a result of experimentation on the model, those quantities which determine the dynamics of its behavior. [...]" This approach differed substantially from a representational approach to modeling, which sought to replicate the complex web of relationships found in the system under study. Instead, it focused on understanding the behavior of this exceedingly complex system and identifying the key variables that had the greatest affect on economic performance. This emphasis on behavior, not representation, was congruent with Beer's general approach to modeling complexity.

— Cybernetic Revolutionaries by Eden Medina