Socialist Scholars Archive The Political Economy of Incompetence: Tito in Theory, Denitch in Action Part 1 May 15, 1993 R L Norman Jr.
Last night at the CUNY DSA 1, Bogdan gave a fine analysis of the Bosnia mess and what might be done. In the usual CUNY DSA pattern, the notices went out late to a list of randomly selected SSC names and little or no internal Graduate Center publicity went up on the bulletin boards. No press contacts were made by the club press man. Perhaps forty persons showed up, counting a half dozen sectarians of the ISO variety. We had no one assigned to chair the meeting and it got awkward, once the ISO idiot got the floor. My last official act for the club about four weeks ago, after a great deal of trouble, was to obtain the Graduate Center auditorium for Bogdan's meeting. Apparently he had that changed at the last minute. Considering the turn out, its just as well. Near the end of the meeting, a man stood up and noted how well Bogdan's analysis had sounded and how he wished that more people could have heard it. The man was correct. But what he did not know, was that Bogdan himself over a period of at least fifteen years, had made a series of totally disastrous decisions at CUNY- decisions that essentially guaranteed that last Thursday night would be attended by only a few isolated, basically disconnected individuals. And barring something very fortunate from the straight press- Bogdan will remain a lost voice in the wilderness, condemned not by some power elite out to stiffle him and his message- but rather by his own total and complete arrogance and utter contempt towards all who attempt to do the organziations work in his presence. If MTV does not make him famous, his own organization never will. For the last four years or so, the SSC has steadily dropped attendance, roughly 150-200 persons per year. I have used various techniques for stalling these losses, and to some degree I have succeeded. This past conference drew perhaps 1600 persons. One year during the late 1980s, prior to Mike's death, we actually drew about 2400 persons 2. I bought extra mailing lists, I created posters oriented towards the college students' new problems, I obtained the internal CUNY mailing list for senior faculty and still the attendance has fallen. The primary problem is Bogdan. He is incapable of handling the mass of details associated with running a large conference and is unwilling to delegate these thankless chores to responsible people. He is like Clinton in that he wants to be at the center of the wheel with all spokes pointing to him. He is unable to deal with the details and when one falls through, he simply chalks it up to 'politics'. Thus in the 1992 Scholars Conference, we had no auditoriums and worse, no legal child care 3. The reason for this failure is simple. The person designated to deal with these crucial matters, Peter Kott, failed to do so and then lied to the Bogdan about it. Bogdan also gets extremely arrogant when confronted with these problems. Again the usual response is that it is 'political'. When this does not satisfy a questioner, he shows a nasty streak. On those occasions, when he has aimed his invective my way, most of the time, I've sent it right back 4. I believe that Bogdan operates the conference in roughly the way that factories were run the former Yuguslavia, according to 'political-economy', with the emphasis on political. In this respect, according 'political' principles, it doesn't really matter whether 1,000 to 2000 people show up. It should also be understood that it didn't matter whether or not the handfull of people who sweated blood to keep the conference moving were compensated or not. The mere fact that a conference occurred in accord with the wishes of the conference leader satisfied Bogdan's criteria of 'political'. The idea that the conference could or even should attempt to reach out to a larger college audience based upon some sort of economic model- is totally foreign to Bogdan Denitch. It is difficult even after ten years of working around Bogdan to determine which is the more decisive influence- his background in political-economy or his great arrogance. In fact Bogdan's political economy is so completely suffused with his arrogance, that the two are essentially two side of the same coin.
His treatment of Joe is a prime example. I have no particular truck for Joe. I feel that the DSA youth section has continually ignored me as a speaker 6, in favor of people like Joe. Frankly I'm a damn good speaker with a several pretty good spiels on the economy and politics, which I keep reasonably up to date 7. That notwithstanding, I feel that Joe is a damn excellent speaker. I also believe that Joe is an up and coming member and leader, who is willing to put in a lot of time for the DSA organization. I've seldom interfered with Bogdan's decisions on major plenary speakers, despite some truly disastrous moves. Yet even if Joe could not be up front, why couldn't he be somewhere? Why couldn't he speak in a 100 person room for the organization? The answer is very simple. Bogdan did not want him there 8. He fails to consult with most other DSA leaders either, so far as I can see. Consulting does not mean calling once a week, every week. It means asking once in a while what they think and what they would like to see done. It doesn't even mean actually doing what they ask, but to at least make a good faith effort to take their ideas into account- especially if the conference is to use their names in publicity. He not only fails to consult people, he acts as if doing so is an imposition on his own time. He has a fax, he could simply fax out a short common letter once or twice a year to the top ten or twelve DSA leaders, asking what they think about the conference and asking for a return fax. He seems to have less trouble contacting major European speakers such as Luciana Castelina 9. I personally regard Luciana as a major speaker and a damn fine human being, but I fail to understand why Bogdan can keep contact with her in Brussels or Italy and not with yourself. What it comes down to is very simple. Bogdan demands the right to do or say any god damned thing he pleases, any god damned time he damn well pleases. Any one not prepared to accept this as a condition should not deal with him. This attitude of arrogance and contempt extends not only to what might be called the editorial side of the conference, but more crucially to the technical or publishing side of the conference as well. I've understood for several years that this attitude was hurting our speaker base, but I let it slide, figuring that this editorial side of the conference was not my business. During the early and middle conference years, I tended to work around Bogdan's incompetence on the technical issues. I failed to understand that the problems I faced organizing the details of the conference were primarily caused Bogdan's arrogance as much as his incompetence and that he was as willing to treat me with the same contempt as anyone else. It didn't occur to me that his division of labor around the conference was never oriented around a degree of efficiency for the smooth running of the thing, but was always oriented around giving him maximum control over all details, irrespective of anything including future growth. Since he was and remains unwilling to responsibly manage these details, he has caused me and the handful of other actual workers around the conference an inordinant amount of stress and worry. In my opinion, he has also sabotaged the conference's possible growth. It is this last problem which has caused the most aggravation. I've never minded working on something for the movement writ large. I've not minded working for little of nothing all these years. I can't say that I've been happy working as basically the financial controller for most of the time- with little real guaranteed tax protection, if the cover for this thing ever blows; but again for the movement, sometimes that is the price. What I cannot accept is the idea or in this case the fact, that I may have wasted several years of my life, while this arrogant asshole has sabotaged the very conference he supposedly was directing, simply so that he could assert what he assumes to be the proper degree of personal control. This is a very serious charge and I do not make it lightly. What is perhaps a more damaging criticism beyond what has happened, is what has failed to happen because of Bogdan's policies, for lack of a better term. The conference which could have grown into a major platform for democratic socialist thinking within the academic system, has not done so. I can not say that the conference would have done so. Instead, I believe that we are seen as a relatively marginal conference which is friendly to crazy, sectarian movements. In fact Bogdan has little use for the sectarians, but I believe that is the impression and that there are good reasons for the impression 10. The absence of such a conference today is a problem. During the Reagan years, it might have been enough to simply hang on and survive- notably with the good offices of Joe Murphy [CUNY Chancellor]. The full extent of the general economic malfeasance of the Reaganites was not known and specifically the higher education system, while under attack, was not facing economic catastrophe.Now with the federal debt at $4 trillion and the combined Anerican national debt 11 over $15 trillion in 1992, the depth of the general problem is coming into focus as the number of jobs drops slowly but steadily in the private sector. Higher education faces its worst crisis since the Great Depression. Tuition is rising well beyond the inflation rate, state level support is dropping all over the country and in general, students are having a very difficult time finding the money for higher education. And at a time when higher education is increasingly necessary for employment, the actual financial return on the increasingly expensive education is dropping. Kids are leaving public colleges with $40,000 debts all the time. The crisis can be seen simply by reading the daily newspaper.
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