PARECON

R. refuses to say what his alternative really is. Instead we have rhetorical handwaving and vague allegories (like the tool shed business, which provides no clear indication of how an entire mode of production would work).

R.: "Rather it involves the right degree of planning for the situation as the situation develops. In my opinion, a fully fleshed-out blue print for a new society is a wrong, excess degree of planning (though parecon has more problems than just being a blue print)..."

It is certainly not the case that what I propose is a "blueprint." As I've written on numerous occaions, the idea is to be clear about what conditions have to be met to liberate the working class from its subordination to other classes, and thus liberate it. I've mentioned several conditions that this involves:

1. self-management as opposed to subordination in social production and all areas of life. Is R. opposed to self-management? He counterposes self-management to "communism" (never telling us what the heck this vague rhetorical term means), so is he against self-management? Self-management is a basic human need. It is the need to be self-determining in your activities, in your life, in the sense that you plan out what you will be doing, and develop the capacities you need to carry this out, and do so collectively with others in the case of aims that are collective. "Alienated labor" is precisely the opposite of self-management. So if R. is against self-management, is he for alienated labor? Or....?

2. a participatory process of social allocation of resources in social production, producing things for each other. The only other known forms of allocation are the market and central planning. Which is R. for? He never tells us.

3. complete redesign of jobs, and the division of labor, to empower the working class, so that the work now done by the coordinator class is done by the working class. With the elimination of the coordinator class and the capitalist class (private ownership of productive property is replaced by ownership of the facilities of production by the entire society), the idea is the elimination of the class system. R. says there is a difference between the liberation of the working class and "the abolition of the working class" but he never tells us what this might be.

These conditions could be met in quite a number of different concrete ways. The idea is that to liberate itself the working class needs to (1) get rid of private ownership of productive property, making it social, (2) dissolve the class power of the coordinators by enskilling and empowering the working class, eliminating the corporate-style hierarchies, (3) develop an economic allocation system that isn't either the market or central planning.

R.: "The use of wikis as the coordination mechanism for large scale production is a clear and simple possible approach. Just as much, the concept of communism - that society would aim for producing a large-scale "creative commons" rather than for just lots more individual consumption goods - is important as well."

This is another example of R.'s tendency to substitute vague handwaving for a real discussion. This tells us nothing about the process by which humans can collectively control social production. A wiki is an information source, not a process of social interaction. But we can't know what people desire, what we should be doing for them, without a social process that reveals what they most desire.

And R. never tells us how we are supposed to eliminate the disinction between producer and consumer. You could eliminate this distinction if you produce for yourself everything that you consume. But that is not a possibility. It is inevitable that people will produce things others will consume, and other people will produce things they consume. That is why the roles of producer and consumer cannot be done away with.

R.: "The use of wikis as the coordination mechanism for large scale production is a clear and simple possible approach. Just as much, the concept of communism - that society would aim for producing a large-scale "creative commons" rather than for just lots more individual consumption goods - is important as well."

Here we run up against a strawman fallacy. Participatory economy isn't about only producing items for personal consumption. R. seems to have missed something very fundamental. What does he think the point is of the neighborhood assemblies and federations of these across wider geographic scope (city, region, etc)? The point is that these are decision-making venues to make proposals for the production of public goods. The huge role that these have in a socialized, participatory economy reflects the idea that public goods, which capitalism tends to systematically underdevelop and underproduce, would become much more central.

Through the neighborhood assemblies and congresses of the federation of these the proposals for the eco-system are articulated, and proposals for pollution reduction or avoidance, and so on, are articulated, and ecological costs are thus imposed onto the balance sheets of production groups, so that ecological costs are not avoided as they are in capitalism. The ecosystem is a huge public good, but there are many others, such as health care, education, housing, transportation, and so on.

The point here is that the partcipatory, socialized economy imparts an entirely different dynamic to what is produced, not just how it is produced (via self-management). The "logic" of the system would favor a much greater importance of collective, shared goods.

R.: "As Peter point out, this is the difference self-management-based syndicalism and communism. You want the "liberation of the working class" and we want the abolition of the working class. We want to abolish both the antagonism of work and the antagonism of commodity production."

Mere empty rhetoric unless you can cash this out in concrete language. You've not explained the difference
between "liberation of the working class" and its "abolition". Liberation of the working class, as I understand it, means an end to the class system, and thus the abolition of proletarian condition. There is no commodity production without market governance of the economy, which doesn't exist under a socialized, participatory economy.

R.: "You want to "liberate" work and commodity production from the "shackles" of capitalist management - a world rather similar to today except without a separate elite. Since no one would really want the bother of self-management simply to live in the present world except without elites, this proposal seem highly unrealistic despite being carefully formulated to be realistic."

You seem to suggest that everything would be the same except that workplaces would be self-managed. This is simply wrong.

R.: "The overall point is not to self-manage the present economy of abundant scarcity but to have actually different social relations."

Again, this is meaningless rhetoric. In what sense is participatory economics proposing to "self-manage the present economy"? There is no private ownership of means of production, no market governance, no class division, the dominating classes are there anymore, production of public goods moves to the fore, etc.

When I describe what a participatory mode of production would be, I take myself to be describing the economic foundation of a society in which social relations are fundamentally different. What do you mean by "social relations"?

R.: "Basically, what you are proposing is a less-developed commodity system which you hope won't develop the qualities of capitalism."

What do you mean by "a commodity system"? In my understanding, a system of commodity production is a system governed by the market. A socialized, participatory economy is not governed by the market but by participatory planning, which is self-management extended to the entire economy, self-management of social planning.

R.: "The term "personal possession" seems intuitive but it seems to have quite a bit of leeway your usage. Correct me if I'm wrong but I am believe parecon assumes that entire final result of production would be divided into "personal possessions"."

Wrong. See, you've missed something absolutely fundamental, as I mention above. You completely miss the pont of the neighborhood assemblies and federations of these, making proposals for public goods. The point is to have a means through which society can expand public, collective, shared goods. When the residential organizations propose comprehensive free health care, an extensive system of health clinics, free public transit, an aggressive program to reduce air pollution or whatever, these are public goods, not divided into individual consumption.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but i suspect your problem is you don't agree with the idea that individuals should have the right to request and have produced things for their own personal consumption, their own private enjoyment. And I'd point out that the only way that could be imposed on society would be thru the methods of Pol Pot.

R.: "You would certainly have quite a bit fewer personal possession than under capitalism - indeed, the entire personal ethos of accumulating personal possessions would have to change - and you are right, this makes communism something that isn't likely to win any elections."

So you're saying some tiny, puritanical minority that doesn't like personal possessions is going to impose its will on everyone? You can't hide the authoritarian implications by reference to electoral politics.

R.: "those assigned "shit" jobs would like to goof off, those who got fewer credits for working less would like to still get stuff and so-forth."

You've apparently paid no attention whatever to what the advocates of participatory economics say about dissolving the capitalist division of labor, through things like the job balancing proposal. Under participatory economics, there won't BE any "shit jobs". People who work less would get fewer consumption credits, if they're able-bodied, that's true. One of the first true things I've encountered so far.

R.: "Simple - you get "choice" of jobs but get "paid" a certain wage for each job. If you like to work less, you wind-up doing say an "undesirable" job but that choice of job was a matter of the system and not you just deciding to do it."

No. There are no "undesireable" jobs. And what do you mean that the job "was a choice of the system not you"? In a participatory economy, there is supposed to be a system of worker organizations through which jobs are redesigned, by workers themselves, to integrate decision-making and conceptualization and skill with the physical doing of the work, to eliminate a capitalist-style division of labor. This is an essential point that you seem to have missed.

R.: "Likewise, you are allotted certain credits for things and someone is assigned the task of making sure you only spend those credits."

There are distribution centers where you can get products. Your credit entitles to acquire things up to the level of your budget, determined by your work, if you're an employed, able-bodied adult. There are people who work in these centers, and presumably they do ensure you have the credits to use to acquire the things you are requesting, yes. So what?

R.: "Those who run a power plant might, say, blackmail the whole of a society but that would be a rather difficult and public activity - naturally one would attempt to design such crucial infrastructure so it could be operated by anyone and so minimize this problem. Even more, as you point out, this could be done in any society and it doesn't happen, much, in the present society."

Now there is where you are fundamentally wrong. What the heck do you think "private ownership" is? how is the capitalist firm going to get its profit out the investment? Through its power, entrenched in the ownership of this key asset, they can indeed demand payment for the output. Often firms with scarce skills demand and get super-profits, or firms with gigantic market share like Wal-Mart can do so, by refusing to give to suppliers more than they want to give them...they are limited only by the physical capacity of the supplier to produce at a price.

It is part of the very nature of capitalism that the ownership of the means of production by the capitalists is what enables them to force the working class to work for them at wages low enough to enable them to accumulate.

I will repeat the point I made before. You lay out very vague rhetoric. In regard to ideas about a future beyond capitalism you offer only handwaving and magical thinking.

There is no reason why the movement should take this seriously.

t.

Self-management is necessary but far from sufficient for a truly free way of life.

Given the long history of groups as un-radical as sections of the left of the UK or Australian Labour Parties advocating the self-management of capitalism us commies tend to be suspicious of any use of the term assuming that it means the self-management of a more or less capitalist economy. Maybe this is unjustified but nevertheless the problem is not so much who manages but what is managed.

I for one have no interest in self-managing my job ATR. I just don't want to have my life stolen from me in 6 hour chunks on a daily basis.

I'm pretty sure there were parts of the left of the Labour Parties talking about self-management in the 70s. In a time when a lot of workers struggles were against work the recuperative nature of this social democratic self-management should be obvious.

This may be more semantics but I don't think we should talk about work ATR. What unites the most diverse sorts of human activity within the category work is that they are all performed for wages. So for me the end of wages means the end of work.

Of course if your utopian blueprint includes wages - sorry consumption credits - then of course there'll still be work.

Yes, there was in England at least a fair bit of talk about workers control - always in the context of social democracy as you say. But so what?

After capitalism there will still be stuff that needs to be produced. Food, housing, bicycles, socks, whatever. Someone needs to do it. This is work isn't it? Productive activity? Was anyone in the 70s (outside of proto-primitivist idiots) arguing against the concept of productive activity? Or were they revolting against wage slavery?

We also need to work out a way of sharing out the social product in a fair way, and one that helps plan what we need to make collectively. Personally I think it's reasonable to have a system that will stop me hoarding lots of sex dolls (with their pretty pretty faces) to the detriment of others who may have their own need for sex dolls. If I have a consumption allowance that's a fair reflection of the effort I've given why is that, as you imply, on a par with wage slavery?

afraser: "Now that sounds to me like a market in consumer goods. One where, to be sure, profts are retained socially (effectively a 100% coporate income tax (US) / corporation tax (UK)), but still a market - A's goods compete against B's goods."

No. It's not a market. There is no revenue to the production groups from sales. Within parecon, remuneration is based on effort. The two main criteria of this are: length of time working, and how intensely people work. How can we tell how intensely they've worked? How do we know if they fuckoff? Well, there will be a different level of output than similarly situated production groups who work harder. This will entitle them to less investment in terms of remuneration, equipment and so on, as their cost/benefit ratio will be lower, other things being equal.

Other things are not always equal, tho. We have to look at why a group has performed not as well in terms of output. It might be because they were shutdown by a flood, or poor equipment, or poor training. In these cases it might warrant more investment, not less, for better equipment, better training.

t.

afraser:

No. Prices are not set by facilitation boards. Prices are the product of an interactive process in which individuals and groups request things, and production groups propose producing things, and propose changes in their work conditions.

Price determination would require that we set up rules to determine what happens to prices in reaction to requests. Remember, participatory planning is a process of negotiation. we start with actual prices. If in the planning for the next period, demand for concrete increases but proposal of the concrete industry is not to produce more, then the price needs to go up to indicate increased demand relative to supply for a scarce resource. This would require that there be a rule, agreed to when the participatory planning process is set up. It might be something like, "When demand for X goes up by N percent, then increase theprice for X by N percent."

So, supply and demand do determine prices, but not via bargaining power in a market, but by way of rules in a planning process.

I think you don't understand the concept of a facilitation board, at least not as I understand its role. Many people put forward requests, and various production groups put forward proposals. We can't figure out if this is a do-able plan unless we know what the totals are. This means we need some group -- a workplace organized like others on the basis of self-management, job balancing -- to collect all this information and then publish a summary to everyone, with the impact on prices based on the rules that have been agreed to, as i described above. This is the facilitation council that does this.

As to innovation, things that reduce total required labor time to produce things benefit everyone, because we can reduce the total amount of time we all have to work. Things that reduce costs improve the production group's cost/benefit ratio.

We would probably also want to have groups that focus on long-term planning and R&D. These would be self-managed workplace groups like any other. They would also make proposals, just as other production groups do.

t.

Yeah, markets are horribly inefficient. They fail to take into account any costs the capitalists can shift onto others, like injuries to workers, pollution etc. A market is a system that allocates by bargaining power. If you have more money, you get served. No money, forget it.

Anyway, participatory economy isn't a market economy, but a planned economy.

t.

afraser: "If prices are set solely by the planning process, then they have to be set by planning for every commodity, in advance, for the next period. For every commodity, all several million of them.
If such planning is only conducted for investment goods, as you appeared to indicate earier (although Michael Albert would not I think hold with that), then prices could either be set by the market; or by an external agency such as a facilitation board, and then based on some criteria such as cost of production.
Which is it?"

Within participatory economy, prices are not set by a facilitation board or a market. They are set through the interactive planning process. There are millions of people involved in this process. What is the problem?

t.

Having not read all the literature I don't know what Albert/Hahnel might say on this, but I don't see that there's a big deal here. Manufacturers in a market society plan - they make stuff on the basis of demographic studies of their likely purchasers, what has sold in the past and what they think will sell in the future. Moreover they seek to influence consumer preferences.

Skirt manufacturers in a parecon will have a rough idea of demographics, what people wanted before and so on. There'd no doubt be research to see what kind of skirts people wanted. Outside of the planning processes there are likely to be consumer groups expressing preferences or driving styles or fashions. And there'll be an element of supply and demand, as it will be clear what skirt styles aren't 'purchased'.

People requested that I change my moniker since syndicalistcat was too similar to syndicalist, who is also a member of the same organization, and so people were getting us confused. It's enough to know that "gato" means cat in Spanish and Portugese.

I'm glad to see the intelligent comments by tiger and gordonL here. I don't profess to have all the answers here. i take afraser's question seriously. I think the tendency of many left-communists and anarcho-communists to think the answer is somehow "obvious" is a delusion. A social opportunity cost is not a figment of bourgeois political economy, it's a social reality. Marx recognized this in his suggestion of the need for labor-time accounting. But labor time isn't the only social opportunity cost. Nowadays we more appreciate how our lives are dependent on the eco-system -- a gigantic public good -- and how degradation of the eco-system is another social opportunity cost. And this is one of the structural flaws of markets, their inability to deal with this.

Back in the '70s/'80s period i read a lot of the same literature that got Hahnel and Albert trying to devise a solution. In the early '70s i was in the same organization as Barbara Ehrenreich when she published "The Professional/Managerial Class" with her then-husband. I could see that markets had huge destructive effects, via cost-shifting and externalities. But I could also see the oppressive consequences of central planning. I could see that we needed a program that could avoid the coming to power of a new class based not on ownership but monopoly of positions in a professional/managerial hierarchy.

I think the solution in regard to participatory planning for public goods and inter-production group relations is easier than in regard to private consumption goods. Traditional libertarian communism thought only in terms of basic units of assemblies, in workplaces and/or communities, which assumes that the decisions are about public goods. But individuals differ in terms of taste, and in the USA it's very obvious that we have various sub-cultures, often rooted in things like the ethno-racial diversity of the country. We need a vision that can account for individual and sub-cultural differences in taste/need.

This could easily lead one to think in terms of a compromise along the lines of Pat Devine, where you have a market for private consumption goods but participatory planning for public goods and inter-production group relations (i.e. production goods).

But Michael Albert always reminds me of the horrible consequences of markets. I think, if we think about a likely transitional period, I could imagine something like Devine's idea being put into practice, as an evolution out of the society we are coming from. But people may then be confronted with the problems that markets create.

I like gordonL's suggestion about a closer relation between the producer and consumer, and perhaps the customization of the product for the consumer. A feature of participatory economics that it's critics in the radical orbit sometimes forget is the emphasis on providing *qualitative* information in the participatory planning process, not just quantitative (via the price system). This is important in terms of overcoming the alienation between the producer and consumer and commodity fetishism.

Consider for example housing. In the 1970s Christopher Alexander, an architecture professor at UC Berkeley, particpated in an experiment in participatory design and house building in Baja California, financed by a local credit union. A group of families were involved in working in advance the design of their housers, using modular design concepts, to build houses that were personalized to the desires of their families. A family that wanted to do more socializing had more of the room in the front room, a family that was more focused on providing private space for their kids, had more of the room in the bedrooms.

I've involved in building a grassroots housing organization. We work with tenant associations and tenant organizing groups to help tenants take over and collectivize their buildings. One idea we've had is being able to do new construction where we'd find prospective residents and then work with them to design housing, within the available budget, according to a design that fits with their priorities. On the one building we're currently working on -- an apartment building of low-income Chinese immigrant working class tenants -- we've been doing participatory design to some extent, which involves meetings between the tenants and an anarchist architect on working out the design plan for rehab of their apartments (meetings that are translated between Chinese and English).

I did put afraser's question to Michael Albert. His answer was sort of similar to the comments by tiger and gordonL in that he thought a variety of techniques would be available to determine the exact mix of products people want, and he made a point of emphasizing that incoming input during the course of the year is important to the production group in terms of understanding how well they've been doing in meeting people's desires.

t.

Yeah, I've tried to figure out a realistic vision for a post-capitalist society since the '70s, and parecon is the best attempt i've seen thus far, altho there are aspects of it that i have questions about. I'm not a "mindless cheerleader for parecon" either, despite what the fundamementalist commies may say. I'm not satisfied with hand-waving and vague rhetoric.

t.

Anarchist who state that ''thinking about how an anarchist society should look like'' as authoritarian should seriously reconsider their statement. I was drawn to parecon because it gives hope on what the future could look like. It is in our own interest to think about the practicality of anarchist economics. We can say that we want a classless stateless society, but people are right when they ask the question, but with what to replace it with? People are nothing with political and social liberation when there economies don't provide them the necessary benefits to sustain a decent standard of living. As anarchist we must notice this fact that if people want to take us serious, we also have to come forward with serious alternatives. It's not that these is the ultimate form of organization that has no flaws, but at least it is an attempt to come closer to the society that we envision. And for you anarcho-communist out there, parecon is a form of anarcho-collectivism, witch could then lead to a more solidaric society, so our goal is the same.