THE SPECIFICITY OF CREATIVE SCIENTIFIC LABOR AND ITS REFLECTION IN THE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

N. G. Smirnov, B. A. Rybin

The definition of scientific labor as one of the components constituting the total productive activity of society is dictated by the state of science and by the character of modern production. This circumstance necessarily requires that, in analyzing the economics of science, it be approached from general Marxist methodological positions applied in the consideration of a concrete system of production relations.

The problem of the economic form of participation by the productive worker in the distribution of the fund of individual consumption has both its qualitative and quantitative aspects. If the qualitative essence of distribution relations, being merely the reverse side of relations in production proper, is in principle determined only by the character of ownership of the means of production, then the quantitative aspect is directly connected with the total volume of the fund being distributed, with the specificity of the content of labor, and with the social methods of evaluating its significance.

It is precisely the quantitative aspect of the problem that is of decisive importance for posing independently the question of the specificity of creative scientific labor and its reflection in the system of distribution under socialism.

It is obvious that the bearers of scientific activity participate in distribution on an equal footing with all members of socialist society, who act as associated producers. This socio-economic equality is the result of social ownership. It presupposes labor for society for all as the sole basis for participation in the process of distribution, without making any social exceptions.

However, already at this stage there are grounds to speak of a definite influence of the specificity of scientific labor. The point is that society recognizes the basic right to participate in the distribution of the fund of individual consumption only in the case where labor is recognized by it as socially useful. Or, to put it differently, society knows in advance and presupposes a socially useful result of labor activity.

Scientific labor cannot be recognized as labor that is directly productive in every concrete instance of its manifestation. Not only the final material or other result, but also the social

significance can at times be represented only very approximately or in the most general terms.

Of course, if society admits every scientific worker to participation in distribution, then in a certain sense it agrees to take a risk for the sake of the effect produced by the result of scientific activity as a whole. Practice shows a very high degree of effectiveness in this sphere of labor and thereby provides sufficient justification for recognizing every scientific labor as socially significant.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that such recognition is more formal than substantive in character. This bifurcation of society’s approach to scientific activity arises inevitably when society encounters it from the aspect under consideration. It is the objective product of the fact that society enters into relations with each particular representative of scientific labor without firm guarantees of obtaining a useful result from every worker, relying on a prediction of the possibility of its appearance.

Since, for distribution, formal recognition becomes the decisive point, a form for expressing this recognition is also necessary. Obviously, such a form may be the participation of a member of society in the social-organizational forms of scientific activity, that is, his work in state scientific institutions and in scientific institutions corresponding to them, and recognition of him as an actual scholar through the conferral of the degrees and titles required in such cases.

It should be noted that the emergence of a relation between workers and society on the formal basis of recognizing their labor as scientific does not mean that there is no independent relation between them if the concrete labor of a given worker has brought society a useful result. But it lies on a somewhat different plane and is connected with the tasks of material incentives and of the quantitative characterization of the measure of participation in distribution. In any case, under this condition as well, it was previously recognized only formally as scientific activity.

Defining scientific labor as labor that is not directly result-producing in each concrete instance of its manifestation sometimes meets with objections. As an argument, the practice is cited of assigning a clear and concrete task to a scientific worker, one that provides in advance for obtaining a known and necessary result. However, the indisputable correctness of this argument itself does not mean that a certain formal character of recognizing labor as scientific has no place or significance in all other cases.

At the same time, if one approaches the analysis of the cited fact with sufficient rigor and consistency, it will become apparent that here, too, either the genuinely scientific character of the activity is absent, or there is a prior and formal recognition of the labor as scientific regardless of the result.

An appeal to science for the purpose of obtaining a desired and definite result may mean that practice either does not know at all a tested and worked-out method of obtaining it, or does not wish to use the existing ones as unacceptable for certain reasons. In this sense, the assignment to a scientific worker inevitably takes the form not of a binding directive, but of a goal-setting. His activity is recognized as scientific, although the result may be obtained by another person or not obtained at all.

If, however, this appeal occurred because the scientific worker possesses a high level of qualifications and knowledge, and therefore is capable, with the least expenditure and in the shortest time, of reproducing an already known ...

the only way of obtaining the desired result, then his activity, strictly speaking, cannot be qualified as scientific.

The conclusion that society has a dual approach to scientific activity when deciding on the grounds for the participation of scientific workers in the distribution of the fund of individual consumption has not only general theoretical but also practical significance. It consists above all in the need to establish appropriate requirements for the level of knowledge and qualifications of everyone claiming the title of scientific worker. Practice regards as the determining principle the possession by the corresponding worker of higher education and his activity within scientific organizations.

If one takes into account that, of 664.6 thousand scientific workers in the USSR in 1965, 149.2 thousand persons had the academic degrees of doctor and candidate of sciences, it becomes obvious that a diploma of higher education and work on the staff of a scientific organization are the most widespread indications for recognizing labor as scientific.

In our view, the practice of a one-year probationary period should be legalized for all persons accepted onto the staff of a scientific organization, after which each of them would receive certification from a labor expert commission.

In addition, the practical significance of the conclusion concerning the formal recognition of labor as scientific consists in establishing the correct methodology for solving certain tasks of the scientific organization of scientific labor itself. From it directly follows the requirement of a clear demarcation of the functions of the scientific worker that relate to genuinely scientific activity and those that merely serve it.

In reality these functions are, as a rule, very closely interconnected and intertwined. But the search for a reasonable division of them, and for the specialization of workers, must constitute a most important element in the scientific organization of this labor.

Of course, in principle we can also conceive of an entirely different approach to solving the problem under consideration. It consists in society’s applying to scientific labor the same approach as to any other sphere of activity. This means that it recognizes as socially significant only that scientific activity which has proved productive, and only admits it to participation in distribution.

Despite the seemingly greatest advantage to society of precisely such an approach, it cannot be recognized as correct, since it does not correspond to the socio-economic position of the worker in socialist society and to the specificity of the character of scientific labor.

Such an approach would inevitably lead to the scientific worker’s losing the right to participate in distribution if his activity did not lead to a directly useful result. This would be justified under the condition of a private form of manifestation of the capacity for labor, of the transformation of labor power into a commodity. But under socialism this is not the case.

In the present case there are also no relations which, even in external form, would appear analogous to commodity relations, as occurs in material production proper. In material production, where the basis is freely reproducible activity, the economic isolation of the worker and of the collective of workers can really manifest itself only through comparison of final results. The character of scientific labor excludes the possibility of such comparison. Consequently, the possibility of the approach under consideration to scientific activity is also excluded.

As has already been indicated, the problem of the economic form of the scientific worker’s participation in the distribution of the fund of individual consumption ...

has not only a qualitative but also a quantitative aspect. It is regulated by its own principles and regularities, which are of a universal character and are applicable to any socially useful activity.

The non-value form of labor power under socialism and the level of development of material production, insufficient from the point of view of developed communism, predetermined labor-based distribution as the dominant principle of distribution, as well as the separation of part of the distributable fund into social consumption funds.

The universality of these forms of distribution makes no exception for any sphere, and therefore they perform the same functions and are applicable to scientific workers.

The specificity of the quantitative characteristics of distribution arises when the measure of consumption and its differentiation are substantiated.

The size of the measure of consumption is determined, above all, by the size of the distributable fund. If its magnitude is known, and the labor of all those participating in distribution has been reduced to simple labor, then by dividing the fund by the aggregate magnitude of such labor one obtains an estimate of its unit. Thus, distribution establishes a direct connection between the measure of consumption and the measure of the worker’s participation in socially useful labor.

But distribution is concerned not only with the quantitative individualization of the share. It is called upon to carry out distribution in such a way as to ensure the normal course of reproduction of the worker’s capacities for labor and the realization of the requirements of the basic economic law of socialism. Consequently, the measure of consumption is connected not only with the size of the fund and the shares of labor. It is conditioned by the specificity of the reproduction of concrete labor and, by its nature, cannot be the same for different kinds of this labor. The maintenance and development of capacities for labor require, in different kinds of activity, different expenditures and different ways of bringing them about.

In this respect, scientific labor and its reproduction possess a number of entirely specific features. They compel us to single out this specificity as an independent problem.

Scientific labor is, above all, labor of the highest qualification. But its chief feature lies in its purely creative content. This compels us to assign such labor to the category of not freely reproducible labor, possessing an element of economic monopoly.

From this follows an important conclusion for distribution. It consists in the fact that establishing the measure of consumption at any level does not, by itself, yet ensure the reproduction of labor precisely as scientific labor.

At first glance, such a conclusion breaks off any connection in determining the measure of consumption of a scientific worker with the reproduction of his capacities for labor. But this would be a superficial and incorrect supposition.

Such a connection is preserved, but its character changes sharply. If in any other activity the quantitative characteristic is, to a certain degree, predetermined by the conditions of repetition, by the free possibility of reproduction, then creative labor requires the individualization of this connection, its independence from the conditions of repetition. In such a case, only that volume of consumption which allows the scientific worker to devote his abilities precisely to this kind of activity can become the criterion of quantitative evaluation. In other words, the measure of consumption established for him by society must be no less than any other applied to freely reproducible activity. Na—

violation of this criterion can and in fact does cause the diversion of some scientific workers to the performance of work that does not require the knowledge and abilities they possess.

Thus, as it were, a lower boundary of the measure of consumption for the sphere of scientific activity is revealed. By its nature it is an indirect, not a direct, economic form. Economic phenomena know such modes of expressing their quantitative characteristics. Therefore the use of an indirect form in the present case does not contradict the economic essence of the relations expressed by it.

The establishment of the lower boundary of remuneration for labor at the level of highly skilled but freely reproducible labor serves, as it were, as an objective base. Taking it as a point of reference, society is able, proceeding from the concrete needs of place, time, and type of scientific activity, to make the necessary deviations in one direction or another.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that any substantial deviations from this boundary cannot be justified when determining the rates of basic pay. This limitation follows from the fact that society admits to participation in distribution, as was clarified earlier, any labor, provided that on formal grounds alone it is recognized as scientific.

This inevitably also gives rise to a duality in the approach to the evaluation of scientific labor, when evaluation is already carried out from the standpoint of determining the measure of participation in distribution.

Since, owing to the specific character of the labor, this distribution is not directly connected with the results of that labor, it therefore cannot evaluate such labor as more significant by any strictly definite magnitude. Society, in establishing the measure of its participation in distribution, is compelled to fix remuneration for labor on the established objective base.

But this method of evaluation, by its very nature, cannot be the only one and fully satisfactory. Its inadequacy consists in the fact that it contains sharply expressed features of equalization. They are the result of the fact that the scientific worker is admitted to distribution not according to the results of his activity, but merely according to the assignment of his labor to this category of activity. And the measure of participation in distribution is derived not from the reproduction of scientific labor proper, but by applying an indirect form.

If distribution were constructed only in this way, it would inevitably lose its stimulating significance in the matter of increasing the efficiency of scientific labor. Consequently, distribution must, in addition to this method, have another as well—one that would directly connect it with the final results of activity.

Consideration of this method of evaluation should be the subject of an independent analysis. Within the limits of the present article, however, only some of its characteristic features should be noted. First, the relation of distribution arises only in the event that the activity of the given scientific worker has produced a result evaluated as socially significant.

Second, for this relation to arise there is no need for a prior assignment, on the basis of any formal criteria, of the given worker to the category of scientific workers.

Third, the determination of the measure of remuneration must be maximally admissible from the point of view of social interests. Taking into account the special significance of the results of scientific activity, distribution

is intended to ensure the greatest possible interest on the part of the worker in obtaining these results.

The concept of the maximum permissible measure of participation in distribution is economically indeterminate. It contains no objectively clear boundaries. At the same time, empirically one can feel out a magnitude that would ensure the attainment of the objective function embedded in it.