I said the state is not working class as a starting retort as well as a way to signal where I’m coming from, the rest is pointing out having a class in control of the workers and the media is a bad idea.
Administrator is not a class category. In complex socialized production, coordination is not optional, it is materially necessary. Take chip fabrication as a concrete example in my mind. First, digital design teams at firms like Cadence or Nvidia work on specific modules. Then digital verification teams run exhaustive simulations to catch logical errors. Analog design teams then handle signal integrity and power management, with constant back and forth revisions as more realistic physical constraints are modeled. The design is then sent to a fab like TSMC where process engineers, lithography specialists, and yield analysts work to fabricate the masks and wafers. Finally, hardware verification teams extract actual specs and test against design assumptions. Thousands of specialists across multiple firms. Without administrative authority to mediate deadlines, specifications, and resource allocation, this process collapses. Or consider a nuclear power plant. Discipline and hierarchical coordination are not about exploitation, they are material necessities to keep thousands of workers and millions of citizens safe. The contradiction under capitalism is not that administration exists, it is who appoints administrators and to what end. Owners install management to extract surplus value. Under socialism, workers delegate coordination to serve social production. When the state is composed of and accountable to the working class, exerting authority to coordinate production in their collective interest does not strip it of working class character. Authority exercised by the working class in service of the working class is not domination, it is self organization at scale. Class character is determined by relation to the means of production, not by who holds functional authority. Those who do not own, control, or appropriate the surplus product of the means of production remain part of the working class, regardless of whether they coordinate, manage, or direct labor. The state, when it embodies the dictatorship of the proletariat, is the working class organized as the ruling class, not a new owning class.
they are bad and go against your point, also it’s a waste of time going over them, so i won’t.
Dismissing the examples does not resolve the theoretical question. If exercising authority over labor strips someone of working class character regardless of ownership relations, then why is a principal managing teachers or a senior doctor directing nurses fundamentally different from a state administrator coordinating economic planning? None of them own the school, the hospital, or the means of production. Their authority is functional, derived from the technical requirements of complex labor, not proprietary. Marxism determines class by relation to the means of production, not by who holds a clipboard or signs a schedule. The principal does not appropriate the surplus product of teachers. The doctor does not extract profit from nurses. Likewise, cadres in a workers state who coordinate production without owning the means of production remain part of the working class, provided they are accountable to and recallable by the masses. If you disagree with this framing, engage the premise rather than dismissing it.
It was obviously simplified, and you still misread it
I flagged my reading as provisional and asked for clarification. That is good faith engagement, not a trap. If “without a boss” means without an owner extracting surplus value, we likely agree. If it means without any management or coordination whatsoever, that is idealism ignoring the material requirements of large scale socialized production. Authority under socialism is not abolished, it is transformed. It becomes delegated, recallable, and accountable to the working class. The question is not whether administration exists, but whether it serves capital or serves social need. I am willing to talk if we start from material conditions and the concrete requirements of production rather than treating all coordination as domination. That is how we move past strawmen and towards genuine theoretical clarity.
Administrator is not a class category. In complex socialized production, coordination is not optional, it is materially necessary. Take chip fabrication as a concrete example in my mind. First, digital design teams at firms like Cadence or Nvidia work on specific modules. Then digital verification teams run exhaustive simulations to catch logical errors. Analog design teams then handle signal integrity and power management, with constant back and forth revisions as more realistic physical constraints are modeled. The design is then sent to a fab like TSMC where process engineers, lithography specialists, and yield analysts work to fabricate the masks and wafers. Finally, hardware verification teams extract actual specs and test against design assumptions. Thousands of specialists across multiple firms. Without administrative authority to mediate deadlines, specifications, and resource allocation, this process collapses. Or consider a nuclear power plant. Discipline and hierarchical coordination are not about exploitation, they are material necessities to keep thousands of workers and millions of citizens safe. The contradiction under capitalism is not that administration exists, it is who appoints administrators and to what end. Owners install management to extract surplus value. Under socialism, workers delegate coordination to serve social production. When the state is composed of and accountable to the working class, exerting authority to coordinate production in their collective interest does not strip it of working class character. Authority exercised by the working class in service of the working class is not domination, it is self organization at scale. Class character is determined by relation to the means of production, not by who holds functional authority. Those who do not own, control, or appropriate the surplus product of the means of production remain part of the working class, regardless of whether they coordinate, manage, or direct labor. The state, when it embodies the dictatorship of the proletariat, is the working class organized as the ruling class, not a new owning class.
Dismissing the examples does not resolve the theoretical question. If exercising authority over labor strips someone of working class character regardless of ownership relations, then why is a principal managing teachers or a senior doctor directing nurses fundamentally different from a state administrator coordinating economic planning? None of them own the school, the hospital, or the means of production. Their authority is functional, derived from the technical requirements of complex labor, not proprietary. Marxism determines class by relation to the means of production, not by who holds a clipboard or signs a schedule. The principal does not appropriate the surplus product of teachers. The doctor does not extract profit from nurses. Likewise, cadres in a workers state who coordinate production without owning the means of production remain part of the working class, provided they are accountable to and recallable by the masses. If you disagree with this framing, engage the premise rather than dismissing it.
I flagged my reading as provisional and asked for clarification. That is good faith engagement, not a trap. If “without a boss” means without an owner extracting surplus value, we likely agree. If it means without any management or coordination whatsoever, that is idealism ignoring the material requirements of large scale socialized production. Authority under socialism is not abolished, it is transformed. It becomes delegated, recallable, and accountable to the working class. The question is not whether administration exists, but whether it serves capital or serves social need. I am willing to talk if we start from material conditions and the concrete requirements of production rather than treating all coordination as domination. That is how we move past strawmen and towards genuine theoretical clarity.