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any better for the »producers«, but makes their position morę complic-ated and multiplies the sources of their dependence. The existence of hired labor does not automatically end when the classical State, as a centralized organ, ceases to have the monopoly over all decisions and continues to make only the vital ones, while it delegates the power to make some of the decisions in connection with the organization of production and the distribution of the products of work to the enter-prises (primarily, as we said, to the organs of the State within the enterprises, such as the directors and the management); in fact, such a complex system of dependence increases the workers’ insecurity and the feeling of powerlessness. (There is no evidence for the notion that the power of the State becomes weaker due to the decentralization of social power [perhaps the term »deconcentration« would be morę ac-curate]; if there were such evidence, it would follow that it is now easier for the workers to exercise their rights, sińce social power has partially been transferred to them too. On the contrary, however, strikes occur morę and morę freąuently as a reflection of the group dissatisfaction of the workers and of their having learned that there are no forms of self-management throught which their justified de-mands could be met. In cases where the rights of individual workers are in jeopardy, they have to address themselves to the State, the courts, in order to protect themselves from the bureaucracy in the enterprises).⁸ I. Maksimović, the economist, writes:

»The individual, the direct producer of materiał and cultural values in this society, has a feeling cf deep alienation. Goals and methods of activity of the economy, and the workers’ contribu-tion to it, are determined and qualified by the State which again becomes a mythical term ... At both levels, objectively speaking, there are not criteria by which to estimate the individual’s con-tribution to the society and to stimulate his creative energy. In-stead of an objective economic and social criterion, the valoriza-tion is carried out by the bureaucratic organs of the State, for which the »objective« is only that which reproducers their exis-tence and increases their economic and administrative power. Hence the new forms and methods of exploitation, i. e. the ap-propriation of the part of the surplus of work which belongs to

⁹ From the materials for the Congress of Self-Managers one learns that »work-ers emphasize a generał slowness and hesitation with respcct to the abandonment of etatislic management of the means of production«. In work organizations it is felt that work units have jurisdiction only ovcr »disciplinary rules and employment procedurę, while decisions conceming the essentials such as development, distribution, and investments, are still madę at the top. The one-time functions of admin-istrative management of the enterprise are still preserved at all costs. Through terms such as »Direction«, »Management«, »Head of Department* - the symbols of old power - individuals tend to maintain the positions they have acquired and which do not have work as their basis«. (Quoted from the article »Sta traźi rad-nićka klasa« [What are the demands of the wurking class], that appeared in the Belgrade daily Politika in the issue for 30 April, 1 and 2 May, 1971. I do not have at my disposal the source materials in order to verify and add to statements in Politika).

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