political economy of parecon - HELP!!

like i said before, classism is like racism. in the thinking of the elite, the working class deserve to be told what to do. being helots is in their genes. lack of "talent" of course. now, it's interesting however that for tens of thousands of years the system of fragmenting work, separating conceptual work and control from the physical doing of work, didn't exist. it was a creation of capitalism, and really only the last century or so, since the end of the 19th century, with the rise of the big corps that had the scale of operations and resources to completely reorganize work. for thousands of years before the 19th century, the technology, expertise, was the possession of the immediate producers, artisans and farmers. did the genes of the working class suddenly change?

also "talent" doesn't really explain why people end up getting the credentials that enable them to get jobs in the professional/managerial hierarchy. it's things like the money of their parents, the more complex jobs their parents worked, and the cultural advantages they could afford to provide. school performance largely correlates with income of the parents, and the kind of jobs the parents work. and in addition to the credentials there are things like the connections the family & college/fraternity etc chums provide, and bits of physical/monetary inheritance.

most of the wealth of the capitalists in the USA is inherited or derived from income accumulated from an initial inheritance.

Well precisely. This "new left" shopping list approach to oppression reveals the flimsy value-laden nature of PARECON.

this sentence is literally meaningless. negative externalities, cost shifting strategies, are endemic to market systems. capitalism systematically generates negative externalities. pollution, the destruction of the carbon sinking effect of forests thru clearcutting, over-fishing the seas -- these are just a few examples of negative externalities. destructive effects like this on the ecological commons don't enter the market system as a price of inputs, so capitalist firms have no motive not to profit by doing these things. the long term trend is hugely destructive of the ecosystem.

and then there is the arms race among the various states, which each exist to further the interests of its own local elite classes.

this is the sort of argument that is relevant to the question of damage to the survival prospects of the species. altho this helps to undermine capitalism's legitimacy in the eyes of the population what has the potential to do in capitalism is that it's a system of exploitation and oppression, and generates an unending class conflict.

Those of us who favor the elimination of the class system and the empowerment of the working class are not sitting on our hands. but liberation from the system of domination requires a huge mass movement, a labor movement that becomes a liberation movement. and so it's a question of organizing and movement building. this takes place "on the material plane."

it's not entirely true that there are no output-related rewards in a participatory economy. there won't be output without effort, and effort is what is remunerated. without effort, no remuneration (for able bodied adults). but remuneration isn't on the basis of revenue you can suck down due to various forms of structural power advantage. because that would not be earned income.

At least it's literally something. Let me try again, it means that PARECON can’t thrive because it is against providing selective incentives as a matter of principle. Indeed, because it rewards sacrifice over talent a PARECON movement will remain forever inept.

me: "classism is like racism"

You're assuming i don't have criteria on the basis of which i would say that the class system and structural racism and patriarchy are all forms of oppression.

Oppression is the denial of a person's self-management, that is, the denial of their control over theif life. Self-management is the capacity that each person has, in virtue of their human nature, to think in advance of aims, and to work out the path to get there, the sequence of steps, develop tools to help in the process, and to control one's own activities in the course of getting one's aims accomplished, and also the capacity for deliberation and communication with others, to cooperate in common efforts to reach agreed goals. self-management is true liberty, and the denial of someone's self-management or control over aspects of their lives, due to having power over that person, is what oppression is.

this understanding of oppression is not unique to advocates of participatory economy. It was put forward in the 1930s by Simone Weil in her book "Oppression and Liberty" and was articulated by the socialist-feminist Iris Young in her book "Justice and the Politics of Difference."

but participatory economics does have individual material incentives. remuneration for work effort is a very logical incentive. that's because work effort, unlike inheritance of talent, is something under a person's control. thus it can effect the outcome of production. since talent isn't under a person's control, it's not really a rational incentive. What it is is a system of rewarding people who have bargaining power. The real reason it occurs is "might makes right".

moreover, you assume -- in elitist fashion -- that the working class do not have more talent than they are allowed to develop within the rigid fragmented, hierarchical division of labor of corporate capitalism. so under participatory economy we gain the advantage of development of productive incentives and personal growth of the working class majority. there is a great deal of empirical evidence that expansion of worker control and scope of input in running of production increases productivity. for one thing, it allows elimination of the bloated managerial bureaucracy that largely exists to police the working class, to ensure comformity to corporate goals.

On the contrary, I'm sure you have such a basis. Further I'm sure you believe that even a little oppression is enough to escalate into the end of the species. I’m even convinced that you think the future of the species matters to a higher degree than your average punter, why else would they fail to grasp the importance of your theory?

Tell us, how does oppression cause the end of the species? (assuming it’s carefully controlled so as not to tip people over into rank despair)

"punter" is Brit slang. you'll need to translate. your last sentence is really meaningless. I've not said what matters more than what. I've already said, in fact, that the primary basis of the change to a classless system is a mass movement controlled by working people. i suppose that includes your "average punters". the other forms of oppression, such as by race and gender, are in reality closely bound up with the class system. capitalism is a multi-faceted system of oppresion(s).

as to how capitalism threatens the survival prospects of the species, i've already discussed that.

So does the future of the species matter? What's it worth?

how much do people care about what happens to their grand children? about what happens to their world?

but the thing is this: getting rid of the class system has very immediate and powerful advantages, as does in general working to increase the power of the working class. the taking over of the management of industry by workers and the dissolution of the class system puts us on the path to improving human survival chances, but it also is a direct, massive benefit to those who gain power/freedom and benefits that flow from that.

as i said before, the argument against capitalism isn't primarily that it threatens the survival of the species. it's about liberation from oppression and all the consequences that flow from that. you're the one who keeps harping on survival of the species, so it seems that you regard it as the supreme value. if not, what is your point?

This is an interesting thread - I'll have to find time to read it all.
Currently the synthesists cum anarchosyndicalists here are heavily promoting both participatory economy and participatory democracy, usually in the problematic Porto Allegre model. Albert's book was published just recently and I decided to write a series of articles and our group decided to do a series of talks. First panel talk is on Sunday. Although I see some interesting points in the book, I am more critically inclined, for many of the reasons already mentioned - so I won't repeat them. In our local case, the stuff is disastrous since some people are thinking of becoming councilmen to try to implement participatory democracy, and some are trying to combine libertarian ideas with participatory economics and other totally bizarre shit. And few people seem to think that implementing these things in the capitalist society should present any special problems. So we need locally to get into the issues, and I am particulary interested if people have more concrete examples of collectives which used PE and how they were working or not. If you also have any more links to critical articles, I'd appreciate it.

Well if liberation from oppression isn’t required for survival, what’s it for? It certainly doesn’t sound as much fun as just sticking with oppression, at least under oppression one can take the odd punt or two.

Say everything is. The particular values in PARECON inhibit its capacity to thrive. It seeks out the role of the oppressed and victimised and so can never cross the threshold into becoming something else.

Honestly, I’ve not heard that since Sunday School.

blah blah woof woof. typically Left libertarian or libertarian socialist perspecives have been based on the idea of the self-emancipation of the working class. it is in fact precisely through their self-liberation from oppression, and taking over the management of the economy, and achieving power in society that the working class majority can gain the real opportunity to "become somthing else," i.e. free. for us freedom is a primary value. that's why we're called "libertarians" (of the Left). get it?

“Of the left” just about sums PARECON up. The Fabianist mythology that the working class must shed the moral corruption of the market by bathing in the purifying flame of honest labour. Sacrifice for the greater good is the true essence of humanity and only by subsuming ourselves into the interests of the collective can we discover what it means to be truly alive.

When a hot looking chick steals your man with her fresh Brazilian wax, it must be a form of oppression. It’s certainly not an act founded in solidarity, in fact it’s bargaining in a kind of market. Yet it expresses all the beauty, risk, glamour and excitement of life. Beauty that the PARECONists and the other bitter exponents of various liberatory-religions seek to eliminate. It springs from having sand kicked in their face as teenagers or a Reichian attempt to avoid sexual excitation.

What are you on about? It's nice enough. This is where worrying about oppression gets you, deliberations on what’s naughty or nice.

No would say that if someone consents to fix your roof, this is a binding contract. A contract requires a consideration, and even if the contract is broken, normally the only recourse is a refund of said consideration.

It’s only football.

And tell us do, where do these rules come from? The Law? PARECON is for the friends of the oppressed and sets out laws that stop the inept being made even more miserable by the bargaining power of a talented minority.

I’m not sure if PARECON makes a distinction there. “Nasty” things happen in markets, “nice” things happen when everyone’s wants are taken equally into account regardless of their bargaining ability. Where do all the nasty things in the world come from Sam? PARECON would posit the market economy for sure.

Is manipulation evil Sam? Is a meritocracy nice? Really one's views on PARECON just reflect their particular psychological predilections. One may as well be exploring the political economy of Pigeon Fancying.

Is it because you don’t know what the symbols mean?

I think the big E you’re on about (Sigma) means to add up the elements in the series. A smallish backwards E means “there exists”, but I’m not sure if that’s used in your example. A vector is just a column of numbers that each measure a different thing. Some of this is taught in maths in school, the rest in undergraduate economics classes. It’s going to be a struggle to pick it up as hobby. What are you expecting out of the exercise? It’s not as if the algebra proves anything in itself.

(Other than if humans are trained to only want “nice” things, then you can make enough so everyone gets what they “deserve”)