oligarchy at the top. These tendencies at bureaucratisation have
posed many problems. One of the problems which
bureaucratisation poses is on the question of democracy. The
obligarchic nature of organisation has reduced the individual’s
freedom. A free man has been reduced to a mere cog in the
bureaucratic machinery. He has been forced to obey and im-
plement orders or policies which are made by the hierarchical
authority at the top. As a result the ordinary worker in the
economic organisation has been too blinded to see and understand
the complex whole of the organisation in which he works. Lack
of interest on the part of the worker in the organisational goals
has thus been common. The phenomenon of the ‘alienated’®
worker becomes predominant. In capitalist countries this state of
affairs has led to bad industrial relations with much industrial
unrest in the form of strikes, go-slows, demands for social benefits
etc. In socialist countries where strikes are usually illegal, apathy
in work and irresponsibility have been common. The workers
have tended to develop a lack of interest and identification with
the states’ institutions which are supposed to be under their con-
trol. All these evils are a result of allowing only a few bureaucrats
at the top in an organisation to make all the decisions for the
subordinate staff. Experiments in workers participation have thus
been aimed at doing away with this general tendency.

Workers’ Participation in Tanzania: Its Rationale

Tanzania, like all other countries, has faced similar experiences
with her economic organisations. Even after the publication of the
socialist document — the Arusha Declaration — and the sub- !
sequent series of nationalisation of the major means of production 1'
like the financial institutions and other important economic en- 3
terprises, Tanzania’s management of these state institutions have
been still in the hands of a few managerial oligarchy. There has
been no marked change in the management of these ‘socialised’
institutions. Tanzania has retained the capitalit mode of
management as the President points out in the Circular:

We. . . followed in our public enterprises the same work customs as
we had learned from the traditional capitalist enterprises — a strict hierar-
chy of industrial discipline and a strict hierarchy of ideas promotion,
with just a suggestion box put in for the occasional use of the more
daring junior workers.’

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