Saturday, July 29, 2017

Project Cybersyn in Chile by Allende

Comment on film "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3B5qt6gsxY&t=20s


Project Cybersyn

What is NOT mentioned is that the Allende government with very primitive computers had developed a way to organize production on a national scale so there was no over production, no price gouging, no advertising, or corporate waste. The system worked and it saved the country money and provided necessary goods and services. THIS idea of an efficiently managed economy with no corporate profit margin is what the USA sought to destroy and did destroy.


Since I studied Artificial Intelligence in graduate school (1981 - 1985), this was a fascinating story when I heard it less than ten years ago. The story was about the man who actually designed or programmed the network that organized the economy of Chile. It was impressively efficient and used antiquated and re-purposed machines (and this was in 1970).   It was an interview with him years later describing how he set up the network. I will think more on this. I remember many photographs and even a photo of the machine room. It was a tremendous effort in Artificial Intelligence and scheduling delivery and manufacturing. The reason the military (and the USA) organized the trucking strike was to foul up the working of this computer scheduling network.

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Project Cybersyn is the death of capitalism. THAT is why Allende was murdered so violently.   It has taken fifty years and we are still living in the gunpowder stone age trying to kill the competition when we could all be enjoying the fruits of our own labor in an efficiently managed economy.   No homeless.   No hunger.  No unemployment.   No street crime.  No guerrilla warfare or killer drones.   Project Cybersyn is the future of mankind.

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During the next World War III, the efficiently managed society that has no over production, or conspicuous consumption, will be more likely to win the war; because their armies will be less likely to suffer critical losses at important times.

Capitalism is extraordinarily inefficient way to convert natural resources into usable goods and services in comparison to Cybersyn.   In the Capitalist system, money is siphoned of at every phase of production and manufacture.  Each stage of Capitalist manufacture is vulnerable to misrepresentation, faulty manufacture, under manufacture, or overpricing.  Cybersyn worked to organize the process and prevent these "unseen expenses."

Eventually the more efficient system will prevail. Capitalism succeeded Feudalism because it was more efficient at providing goods and services and producing armies. The Communists won the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions because they were more efficient and less wasteful than the Imperial armies they fought. The North Vietnamese defeated the USA in Vietnam partly for the same reason -- North Vietnam was more efficient and less wasteful with their resources.


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What is important to remember in this discussion is the way the Allende government organized production on a mass scale with very limited computer resources. Their model was more efficient, and economical, than the market economy it was working to replace. Seeing this, the USA sought to destroy the government and any memory of how it was organized. For the most part they succeeded. There is, however, another way and we have found it....A workable alternative to the Capitalist market economy does exist. Time alone will tell what the future brings. Thanks.


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Additional note: This system Cybersyn was conceived and designed by English Cybernetic researcher and computer programmer Stafford Beer.  Here is a good talk on his principle ideas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COX-b3HK50

Here is a photo of the main command center of Cybersyn sometime in 1970 - 1972.
It reminds me of a hip 70's wood paneled version of the Starship Enterprise bridge.


copyright (c) 2017
William Schaeffer

 

1 comment:

  1. ***

    "The road to socialism is through technology and the internet will pave the way." - Mr. Atwater

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