OED Meeting [March 3, 1983]

The following is a partial transcript of another 1983 meeting of the International Workers Party's internal Office of Economic Development [OED] in which the centralization of all "pre-party" monies-including those derived from front groups such as the New Alliance Party, the New York Alliance newspaper and the New York Institute for Social Therapy-is openly discussed. Although speakers' initials have been maintained for clarity (as have the names of IWP front groups), all references to personal names and private businesses have been deleted. The full transcript will be published in the near future.

FN: [Deleted] is going to motivate the discussion tonight concerning [Deleted]'s [Deleted] office. She's raised issues-which on the one hand are particular to the [Deleted] practice-but as well generalized to some work problems that have been apparent in other aspects of the work. We thought it would be helpful as a case study, and help to come up with some solutions to some of those problems and then to, as well, to do that in regard to other projects. So, the perspective for the first couple of months of this year, January and February, by and large was to accomplish several things. One, it was to move through the financial structures, the financial activity, of the total organization with an eye on identifying how they worked. Because what we completely lacked as of the 1st of January of 1983 was the foggiest idea of how we managed to stay afloat for a day, no less a year. And that lack of clarity was part of a very complex conspiracy that various people engaged in, in various ways. So it was the attempt to at least come up with a sufficient understanding of what was actually happening so as to begin the very serious task of restructuring. That was an important part of these last 2 months of work. By and large-in my opinion and in [Deleted]'s opinion-that's been accomplished. I think we have-for the first time-a grip on how our finances work. Including how they don't work. That's sort of part of what it means to know how they work. We're in a position now to intelligently discuss how come we're in the binds we get into, when we get into them. What's completely unstable, what's relatively stable - what's workable, what's not? That's been accomplished. We're now in a position to do that. A second item was to begin to put into place some structures; some financial structuring. Not simply in terms of some finance committees; but lay down some financial operating procedures which would help to at least maintain the level of understanding that we achieved in those two months. Maybe they would not give us any greater insights, but we did not want to be fighting a losing battle at the level of understanding the (place).

So we've instituted a host of financial committees and a set of structures, which are designed to oversee the financial activities. We're also trying very, very hard-and this is still in process-to institute, not simply in the form of written memos, but in the form of political practice-a code, a financial code for the operation of the organization. For example, [Deleted] and I just finished a dinner meeting where we discussed a particular basic axiom of this code-which has yet to be instituted but which is the process of being instituted. Namely, and here we're talking about NYA [New York Alliance]/pre-party budget, which is directly run by the OED, as opposed to other entities which have separate functioning financial committees. One of the, basic axioms which we are going to institute here-though the struggle will no doubt be significant-any activity that requires expenditure by the NYA or PP is not to be construed as approved of, as an activity, until there is a quite explicit response from the OED as to what the available money is for that activity. That is, the arrangement can no longer be that an activity is approved of, then one does its and the money [is] forthcoming for it-or whatever money is necessary to carry out that activity. The approval of that activity must include the approval of a quite specific budget. And if that is not forthcoming, then there is no approval. And what that budget will look like is some . approximation of the budget response will be identical to the budget request. What will have to happen is that various projects-and I mean projects at any level of organization, including the organizational chair, the Central Committee, wherever it might happen to be-will put in requests for amounts of money to carry out activities. Those activities are to be understood as proposed activities until a budget is returned. When that approval is given, it will come with an amount of money that can be allocated-which may or may not be equal to the amount that's requested-and then a determination as to the precise character of the activity will be made based on, as one variable, the amount of money that's actually available for carrying it out. And . there will have to be sufficient notice in advance and there will be policy determination coming out of OED as to what that budget looks like. So, again, our position on this strategically is the priority financial consideration is the pre-party. It doesn't follow from that that we're adopting an axiom that means whatever the Pre-Party wishes to spend, the OED will come up with. That's not the translation of: priority goes to the pre-party. It doesn't mean that.

So, there's been a lot of work in an attempt to establish a set of . a codification of financial work, which gets that message across-not just in the form of something that's on paper but in the form of actual practice. That's been hard. And I think we still have much work to do in that regard. I think that the various entities, including the pre-party . I think we've made some head way on identifying at least the broad outlines of balanced maintenance budgets. To be sure, those budgets as they're now articulated and delineated are bare boned. Moreover, the problematic we've been facing over these last 2 3 months of OED operation is that [a] maintenance budget is very damn hard to work with because of the fact that we've been backlogged with extraordinary expenses that were existential in character. That is, such things as rent, electricity. There were large bills, which if they were not paid would have made the rest of the budget-not to mention our organizing work-academic. Consequently, we've been in a position of having to pay off those back debts. The reality of the maintenance budget has yet to come into being. We haven't come close to a month yet-where that bare-boned maintenance budget has been the actual budget because of the huge back expenses. Furthermore, those budgets, as I mentioned, are bare-boned and it turns out at the end of the months there are substantial expenses over and above that bare-boned budget which we're attempting to get more of a feel for by doing empirical studies of that so that we can make appropriate adjustments to the budgets.

Nonetheless, headway has been made, I think, on coming up with some budgetary rationalizations, which are at least within the ballpark of coherency. All of this has been accomplished, by the way, with significant portions of the income being shaky to various degrees. One shouldn't be fooled by the news. While the news is generally good, it's also the case that significant components of our income figure come from resources which are tenuous and which are constantly threatening to disappear by morning. So we are in a constantly delicate situation.

We are also making plans, therefore, which have not yet been enacted, to go through the budget over the next several months with an eye to solidify and developing backup systems for those various budget entities-particularly on the income side-which are shaky. That will take time. One of the damn problems with this work is that we keep trying to buy time and we often don't succeed. We keep our fingers crossed and pray that a particular income source will remain available to us long enough to put a certain thing in place. And then it turns out that it doesn't remain available so we have to keep a finger in the dyke and hope that things keep going for a while until we can stabilize. But nonetheless, I think we are beginning to make headway developing some of these backup plans and on stabilizing, to the extent possible, some very tenuous and problematic income sources. We have been-I think this is a plus or gain of the OED-we have begun to, I think, make some coherent and rational decisions on investments. We've made several key investments, which I think will do well for us. Substantial investment into the Harlem Institute, which I think is of politically great significance, but I also think will serve us well, in the long run, financially. We've made determinations along with other people in the organization around the East New York house. I think we've introduced procedures for making varied decisions that have heretofore been made in a more coordinated . I think the work that we've done on some of the emergency situations vis-à-vis [Deleted] vis-à-vis the land situation and so on have been very good.

Discussion on [Deleted]'s [Deleted] practice

FN: If [Deleted]'s this approximate with his [Deleted] practice, can you imagine what he sound's like when he talks about NAP? This is bigger money. I think what we need to go to is much more hard-headed work on getting the conceptuality of that practice-based on what we currently have down on paper-with you, with some guidance from OED. So we know what the hell we really think that practice can do, and then institute such plans in an attempt to realize that. I don't think that exists. I really don't. I think the reasons why your answers are the way they are is because you haven't resolved some of the basic conflicts. It keeps coming back to getting this massive capital investment hat you've ultimately described is a source of income, dependent on a fundamentally labor-intensive operation.

I don't think there's sufficient attention paid to how you're going to make money off of that enterprise. I don't even doubt whether we can make that thing into a big money maker. I think it can be done. The reason why I think that is because people go to [Deleted], even during recessions. So, one of the nice things about it is you could stop advertising and people keep coming to [Deleted]. I think you're a good [Deleted]. You have a decent practice. I think you're a very sellable commodity; a personality in [Deleted] business. I think you've got lots of stuff going. You have lots of contacts. There's some good things there. One of the real advantages of your practice, that other kinds of businesses don't have, is that there's potential for a constant income. Party members can't to [Deleted] for signs. They're not in need of signs. [Deleted]'s [has to] count on very limited clientele. I'm not optimistic-in the absence of doing something about the way you [Deleted] do business.

And I think one of the things that needs to be done . I want to make a clear move to get you out of the business aspect of that business. I really think we want to make a move towards making you [Deleted] director of that operation and get a business director. I think it's bad when they're mixed. I think it costs you a great deal. It costs us a great deal. I think what you wind up doing is making the figures work out like you're doing something. That's bad for everybody. I want to move to get you out of that position. That's going to take some de-privatizing; and more than de-privatizing. I don't think the issue is simply you being willing to give over the information. I think it's getting you out of that responsibility. That's why I found letting this discussion go on helpful because it gives us a real clear sense of how [Deleted] runs that operation. And it's an important operation to us. There's a lot of potential money there. But I don't think there is the way it's run. So, [Deleted], is there stuff that you want to raise off of this?

DG: One of the things I was thinking was that [Deleted] called me and asked me for help. And I was wondering what it is; what is you were asking from the OED? I never can figure out what it is that you're asking. And I always feel like you're not providing me, or the OED, with the information or a plan. Basically, we have dinner and there was nothing to talk about; nothing to negotiate. So when you asked me for a meeting to get together and talk about the practice, I didn't know what you were wanting.

AG: I wanted to share the February figures with you and get some advice; what you thought. I'm looking for help on what to do there. Share some of my ideas. That's what I had in mind.

FN: One of the things [Deleted] and I have been very aware of over a number of our enterprises is that there a tendency for people to want to relate to OED around failures. We don't get nearly as much as we should get out of the things that are going well. Not even close. But in a sense . I don't want the OED to become the doctor's office that only handles terminal cases. I don t want that to become the standard practice. So, people call up and say, we're $90 million debt, what should we do? We can make a tape recording to handle that. That's not what we're looking to do. People won't socialize the positive stuff. People are more than willing to share that they're $5,000 or $10,000 or $75,000 down. Everyone will socialize that. But that's not the major problem. The major problem is . the amount of money that we're losing around successful operations. The more we go over stuff, the more we discover that that's a great deal of money. People won't let us into that because people get ego identified with their money. Why should I tell you about that? That's working out. So the demand that we're going to be making is that that get socialized. If we socialize the failures there's going to be socialization of stuff going well, not just in some kind of terms of principles of justice, but because we can't do a hell of a lot by way of coordinating failures. If one of the primary functions of that office is business coordination, you sort of tie our hands if all we have is failures. Cause there's not much to do with that. What we can do is maximize or optimize a whole lot off of some things that are going well. That's where we can get some money. But if people won't give us that, we're really in a bad position.

We're going to demand collectivization and socialization of stuff that you've got. And we're going to bust through this damn policy of people holding onto their stuff until it fails. And then people come in and start saying Well, my God, look what happened to me. Look what you've done to me. I'm now failing and we never had a shot of doing something with the successful side of your business. That's not going to be tolerated. It just costs us too damn much money. The basic rule is not going to be socialization of failings. That's what we're going to be moving on in the upcoming period. We'll move on that in terms of individual members.

So, there's now an operation under way to get all necessary information on members of the organization, financially, so that we can use it. Not simply used in the midst of a hysterical thing. Money gets used on a coordinated basis. In the case of [Deleted]'s business, we're going to move on that business so as to make big money off of it. I want people to understand that-that that's what the upcoming period is about. I think the point I'm making in general is that even within the ranks of the OED we have to work constantly to not fall into a mentality of our operation is going to be saving the sinking ship. It's very easy to translate that into reality; make that self-fulfilling, so that's the way you run a business operation; so now's the time to move on that. We're not going to adopt the save the sinking ship mentality. Despite all of the pressure that comes from the organization to the OED to do just that. The pressure is enormous to have that kind of posture in that office over there, enormous. It's very easy to become complicit in that. We're gonna fight that, fight it ruthlessly. And we're gonna kick ass around that.

JS: (Discussion on distribution of NYA [New York Alliance]-FN asked where is that money going? No one had any particulars.)

FN: I'll tell you even more about that: no one knows answers to those kinds of questions. I'll bet you if they were losing money, I would get exact figures as to how much was going. But when I say well, how much is being made? The answer is: I'm not exactly sure, $100 maybe $200, I don t know. How come you don t know? If you were on the phone asking for an emergency loan, people would know the exact figures. You goddamn well know they'd have exact figures. They'd be on the phones saying: We need $210.07, that's the figure. When someone says to me we're taking in a 100 subscriptions I say, that nice; what kind of money is that? I don't know. We're plowing it back in. What kind of bullshit is that, we're plowing it back in? What's the fucking money? What does it come to? People will do it that way. That can't be accepted.

One of the things happening at the NYI [New York Institute]: it's happening less now, people would tell me: 14 new patients today, 6 new patients the next day. And I say: gee, that should be generating some new income. Well, I'm not exactly sure; expenses go up also. It [has to] be generating some income; these patients are paying money. Where is it? So, then the answer is: well, we're sort of deep in debt; it's covering that stuff. But that doesn't deny that it's generating income. But nobody knows that it's generating income. One of the really shocking things of the studies is that one of the most significant things [about] this . is that people haven the foggiest idea how money is made. People have much less of an idea how we generate than how we spend it. As dumb as people are on how money is spent, people are significantly dumber on how it's made. If you listen carefully to what people are saying, you'd think we're performing one of the biggest miracles in history. The monthly income, if you listen to what people say, comes out to about a buck forty!

How is it happening? How come we're only 3 months behind on the rent? We should be 3 years behind on the rent! Relative to a lot of people [Deleted] is precise about the [Deleted] practice. People don't know where money is coming.

JS: [Deleted] and [Deleted] have been saying about your budget work with NAP is that they're not getting precise, written-out budgets from the 2 of you that they need in order to make decisions. Literally, they've said: write down what the expenses are and what the income is-they haven't been getting that. So, I'm wondering why that is.

FN: That's directly related to another basic money principle that we're gonna have to make small fires to root out. That one goes like this: this has been very operative, and we're moving on this strongly. An awful lot of stuff was done by different groupings in the organization-including NAP, including different internal committees-with out-of-pocket money. That's clear. So people decided to make a trip somewhere and there's nothing in the budget. So people reach into their pockets and they make the trip. That s a practice-that happens in lots of organizations and it happens with us. What's beginning to happen now is that, now that there's rationalization and restructuring, people are assuming that the budget must include what used to be covered by their out of pocket. But that's crazy. That makes no sense at all. The truth of the matter is that the budget [has to] be what the budget can be. It [has to] be a rational and balanced budget and it might be that you can't do those kinds of things. Or, over and above the balanced budget you want to do out-of-pocket spending, you do that. But you can't automatically presume that the budget was what you anarchistically determined the budget to be, by your willingness in any given week to reach into your pocket and lay out. We might not be able to support that budget. You might be willing to do that, but that doesn't mean we, organizationally, are. And that's really raising a big issue, because a lot of people are emotionally pissed off about that. That's life. We're not going to have anarchistic thinking going into developing our budgets. So, budgets have to be budgets that are meetable, reasonable-that are determined and approved by OED. Those things have to get met. If there are activities that people are willing to pay for out of pocket, fine. But don't suppose that if that happens that it automatically becomes a new budget item that we guarantee. It can't be that way. What that effectively means is that budget is gonna go crazy, and we'd never know it. So, if you have some internal committee of the organization where something goes on and someone decides to reach into their pocket for $600/$700 [and] the next time the event goes on they suddenly decide that they're going to get 600/$700-but they're not. That decision wasn't reached by any planned consensus. It can't be done that way. I think that's very much . the big problem with the reorganization of NAP is: how much of what was spent was simply done on the basis of what immediately could come out of pocket. And people therefore haven't had to take on the responsibilities as fundraisers, as finance people to support. People have functioned more as dummies than as a fundraising department and that's got to be changed. And that's hard to change, but it's got to be done.

There are still reports that people can't reach [Deleted], for instance. [Deleted] can't be found. That's a problem, because [Deleted]'s job there is not to just supply money-it's to run a fundraising department. He's got to be found. He's a political finance officer. He [has to] be available. We can't afford some of the luxuries of going all the time without monthly fundraisers. We went too long on that. It's become a bind because that's standard practice. There's a real crisis now because you can't get away with stuff. You can't go into your pockets 'cause it's not there. Our money people count too much on their generating extra cash. In a way, I'm pleased we can't do that so well anymore. I think the system we're introducing has to be that if you've got extra cash-we'll take care of that. We'll take the extra cash, you be the finance officer. We'll decide how that gets spent. We don't want that to make your life easier as a finance officer. That's not a good situation.

DG: The points you covered really hit on the major problems of running this office.

FN: Yeah, I think the month of March is an important transition. It's the first month we have some of these systems in place. We need to monitor this very carefully. I want to remind ourselves, collectively, the seriousness of which we need to take this reorganization.

MORE TO COME.