Where does this leave us? I believe that the Yugoslav’s relationship to information infrastructures and cybernetic planning is suggestive of the state’s relationship to capitalism. When the Rade Končar firm began developing networked “electronic data management” systems for nationwide use, they also expressed their dreams in terms of efficiency, frictionless-ness and productivity (Rebernjak 51). These are usually capitalist buzzwords, and so are surprising to hear deployed in an ostensibly socialist context. Within self-management, a more efficient firm was a more profitable firm; and thanks to tax reductions, an ever-greater portion of profits was allocated to firms, which in turn meant higher wages for directors, managers, and sometimes workers (Patterson 35). Thus, the drive for efficiency through automation and networked data analysis was an expression of market-driven desires.
I'm not sure if Yugoslavia's demise was influenced by the flaws of self-management, and if it was, I'm not sure which of those flaws was most salient. But, I can say this: through their use of labour markets and capital markets, self-management bore many features of capitalist ecoonomic systems and took up many capitalist aims, such as using profit as an incentive for output. Nonetheless, the national economy was still protected with comparatively heavy taxation rates and tariffs (Patterson 35). Thus, a strange torsion force warped through the self-management model, as Yugoslavia hybridized its economy across the Cold War divide.
Through this acknowledgment, we return to my original premise: that infrastructures are interwoven with the modes of production that birth them. Dialectically, infrastructures are shaped by the material needs of that society, while human life and labour in turn is shaped by our infrastructures.