> Why didn’t they have more computers?
One of the reasons: ideology.
Replacing 50 people team with 5 people team and a computer (less people working less hard) while possible technically wasn't desirable.
One of the reasons: ideology.
Replacing 50 people team with 5 people team and a computer (less people working less hard) while possible technically wasn't desirable.
No, it was more about bureaucracy. Why an existing organization might want a computer? There were no reasons for managers to want it. They didn't need to run to keep their jobs, they just had jobs. While they managed to do a "plan" they were successful managers. If they did 2% more they were super successful. If they did 50% more they interfered with the central planning and provoked a crisis of overproduction.
To work better then others is a bad idea. You work better, more productive, then next time you'll be forced to keep this productivity, and all around you also will be. And it doesn't mean a pay rise. Just more work. Blue collars figured it pretty easily. In some placed they would use their fists to explain you, that you must not work harder than others. So I'm sure did managers, though probably without using an educational physical punishment, they had other ways. There was no stimulus to do better.
And there is one more thing. If in USSR some organization got a computer, than it would be locked, and you'd need to ask to use it. In writing. And three copies of that. Because you can accidentally break this expensive machine, and your manager doesn't want to be kept responsible for it. It is easier for him to keep it locked. Moreover, it was not your immediate superior who would do it, it would be director of an organization. So you need to hop over several layers of management to get an access to a new shiny tech. And most of these layers are not interested in your bright ideas and they do not like to be hopped over. You need to do what you told to do, and everything else is not your business. Of course central planning with a one big bureaucracy for the whole country means that you might try to hop over the director of your organization, to write a letter to some really high-level bureaucrat, but it was risky, he might just relay your letter to your director, let him to deal with it.
It is not ideology, it is a management problem. Ideology mostly didn't work at '80. It was to keep people happy, but not to make management decisions. The system was built and it replaced ideology. It is like Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods" where omnian church replaced Om and didn't need him. Belief in Om was compulsory, but it was really a decorated belief in the church. Pratchett did a great work of describing this kind of situations.
:) That's not how I remember it.
This accounts for the "flunkies" class of Bullshit Jobs [1]. And I don't think that capitalism is particularly effective in keeping this type of jobs in control as company grows. Because outside of the personal prestige of a manager, there's also the corporate facade. E.g. banks often prefer to keep paying redundant employees rather than laying them off, which would signal that they're having problems.