parecon

I found Michael Albert's book pretty unreadable and quit halfway through. I couldn't quite make up my mind if ParEcon was a thought-provoking attempt to describe how a classless society could work in more detail, or if it's a Reductio ad absurdum thereof.

I haven't had a chance to read Albert's primary book in full, though I have perused enough of his essays to have a general idea of what he is positing. Of the criticisms I have heard of parecon, the most common one is not that it is really a rehashing of lib-com, but rather that it is too similar to capitalism.

A few problems with Parecon:
1. calls for workers to be fully involved in the decision-making process at the points of production and distribution--without calling into question the issue of ownership, alienation, and the division of labor required to maintain a semi-greened industrialism; this is the continuation of a profit-driven market economy
2. calls for remuneration according to effort and sacrifice--without calling into question the labor theory of value or a monetary system; this is the continuation of wage labor
3. calls for the creation of institutions charged with arbitration, adjudication, mediation, and enforcement--without recognizing that this is usually called government; this is the continuation of the state
4. capitalism and the state can exist quite happily with these tweaks to the overall system of hierarchy and domination as long as the capitalists, economists, bureaucrats, and cops can still have their jobs.

Oh man, Michael Albert is such a vapid blowhard.

It's like someone took Noam Chomsky, stripped him of his genius and incisiveness, and retained the more idiotic political ideas.

Z Magazine is so unreadable. Parecon is so craptastically stupid. Hurray for money and commodity production, Arbeitspflicht for everyone!

There is interesting discussion between Michael Albert and Wayne Price on webpage "Anarkismo". It's good beginning for understanding, essentially Black Badger said basic arguments. There was also interesting presentation of Michael Albert's book "Participatory Economics" in Warsaw. I wasn't on this talk but know what was on it. Michael Albert believes the good work should get more money, the professional work can get more money, the people working bad can get less money, he made some chart for this. Like libertarian capitalistic argument : everybody earn different because some persons are lazy and don't deserve good money.

Black Badger - what's bad about the state is that it is a tool of class oppression over which we have no control. If ParEcon is able to create a classless society (something I'm not entirely convinced of), then these institutions do not constitute a state. If we want to have communism but keep a complex economy with mass production and modern technology etc then there is a necessity for institutions that plan allocation of resources, distribution and so on, and ParEcon at least gives us an idea of how this could be done in a bottom up way. Unless you're a primmo, i can see no way around that.

For example, I'd imagine that any communist society worth fighting for would want to keep a highly developed medical system that offers everyone a similar level of care. However medicine requires very large resources (lengthy training of medical workers, decades of research into the causes of disease, hugely expensive production of drugs and medical equipment etc.), in fact if you wanted to provide the best care imaginable to everyone then these resources become larger than what is affordable. Even under communism, at some point someone will have to decide that it is not possible to have 100'000 people give a year's labour to produce the drug that will make a single person live for another day, and instead allocate that labour to something that benefits a larger number of people in a better way. In other words, unless you're of the opinion that in a communist society disease will just magically disappear because all the bad things are caused by capitalism, then you must have some sort of efficiency, you must have some sort of resource allocation, and you must have institutions that achieve this in a way that's consistent with communism in a complex society.

Also, I think that the criticism that ParEcon isn't communist enough is missing the point because: if ParEcon really does create a classless society, then we will have the power to change it, unlike under capitalism where we have to first get rid of the ruling class to change anything fundamental.

In my opinion one of the biggest problems with ParEcon is that it doesn't give any ideas of how to get there from here.

no1

In my opinion one of the biggest problems with ParEcon is that it doesn't give any ideas of how to get there from here.

some of its supporters do. notably 'participatory credit unions' to set up 'participatory businesses' - i think it's a dead-end strategy that doesn't learn anything from the failiure of the co-operative movement.

for me the biggest problem is the fixation with meritocracy and measuring effort. it's true some tasks are more enjoyable/easy/empowering than others, but a whole society based on constantly measuring this by standardised means seems to lack belief in workers self-organisation to address such inequalities. Sometimes, quantitative means may be useful, other times simple discussion and rotation of tasks may suffice.

I think it's only if you're attached to the idea of meritocracy like albert is that such a fetishisation of effort makes sense. thus parecon effectively raises the reactionary slogan 'a fair days pay for a fair days work', albeit in an (in principle) classless society.

black badger:

1. calls for workers to be fully involved in the decision-making process at the points of production and distribution--without calling into question the issue of ownership, alienation, and the division of labor required to maintain a semi-greened industrialism; this is the continuation of a profit-driven market economy
2. calls for remuneration according to effort and sacrifice--without calling into question the labor theory of value or a monetary system; this is the continuation of wage labor
3. calls for the creation of institutions charged with arbitration, adjudication, mediation, and enforcement--without recognizing that this is usually called government; this is the continuation of the state
4. capitalism and the state can exist quite happily with these tweaks to the overall system of hierarchy and domination as long as the capitalists, economists, bureaucrats, and cops can still have their jobs.

1. There is no private ownership of means of production in participatory economy. Means of production are owned in common by the entire society as are all natural resources such as land. Ownership by the whole society presupposes that there is a way for the operation of the economy -- use of socially owned means of production -- to be accountable to the population. This is the function of participatory planning.

"Alienation" in Marxist terms is the separation of one's work from one's own control. There are two things needed to overcome this: a. institutions of direct democracy for collective self-management, b. systematic re-integration of conceptualization and decision-making with the physical doing of work, which is what Albert and Hahnel call "balanced jobs." Hence no alienated labor in a participatory economy. This means the destruction of the kind of hierarchical division of labor that Taylorism has created over the past century. This is a very central theme of participatory economics literature. It looks as tho black badger is writing about something without first reading the literature. The "thus a market economy" inference that black badger makes here is simply fallacious. Participatory economics is a proposal for a non-market economy. Again, this is a central theme in all the writings of Albert and Hahnel.

2. Participatory economics isn't based on, but in fact rejects, Marx's "labor theory of value." From the fact that people earn their private consumption entitlement -- their share of the social product for personal consumption as opposed to public goods like, say, health care, housing, public transit, eco defense, etc. -- it doesn't follow that the institution of wage labor continues. The institution of wage labor refers to people being forced to submit to the authority of bosses through the fact that ownership of means of production is monopolized by a minority. But in participatory economy means of production are owned in common by everyone and all industries are self-managing. Being required to do work to earn one's entitlement to one's private consumption was for example advocated by anarcho-communists like Makhno and Isaac Puente.

3. Kropotkin pointed out correctly that it is necessary to distinguish government from the state. A governance structure or polity is inevitable. society requires a means to make and enforce rules affected the society as a whole. Having the polity be based on direct democracy of neighborhood assemblies, as participatory society assumes, is a form of popular self-governmennt but isn't a state. That's because a state is a bureaucratic structure that stands over society and is not directly controllable by the mass of the people. This is because the function of the state is to defend the interests of the dominating classes.

4. there are no capitalists, bosses or bureaucrats in a participatory economy.

there is a price system, however, but not a market based price system. Maybe this is what confuses black badger. To have an effective economy it's necessary to know what the social opportunity costs are of making any particular set of things, because we need to know that our efforts aren't wasted. Any given use of our work time and resources put to use making X could have been put to use making Y. To know if we should be makin g X rather than Y we need to know how people in general would evaluate X and Y as outcomes, that is, which are more desired? The idea of an ideal price system is that it encapsulates evaluations by the population of various possible outcomes. prices in particiipatory economics fall out of a process of negotiation. the negotiation occurs between individual households, work groups, communities putting working out their various plans and they adjusting these plans to fit with each other.

for me the biggest problem is the fixation with meritocracy and measuring effort. it's true some tasks are more enjoyable/easy/empowering than others, but a whole society based on constantly measuring this by standardised means seems to lack belief in workers self-organisation to address such inequalities.

remuneration for work effort and balanced jobs, on the one hand, are incompatible with meritocracy. Meritocracy is the idea of power and remuneration going to those with the most expertise, education etc. The idea that worker liberation only needs some structure of democratic worker self-management is incompatible with the evidence. take a look at the Mondragon cooperatives where there is a nominal worker democracy, based on assemblies, but the coordinator class -- engineers, managers etc -- are firmly in control. There is a real "meritocracy" and workers are subordinate to it. Getting rid of that requires redesigning jobs to reintegrate design and decision-making tasks with physical labor -- doing away with meritocracy.

There was a much longer discussion of Parecon and similar issues a while back in which Robo participated to some good effect as I recall. Can anyone provide a link back to this for sickofit's benefit.

I agree with Joseph on this - Parecon may not be capitalism as such but it sure aint communism either. Personally I don't think there is any stable inbetween!

on this talk but know what was on it. Michael Albert believes the good work should get more money, the professional work can get more money, the people working bad can get less money, he made some chart for this.

this is exactly the opposite of what participatory economics advocates. You are completely confused. partticipatory economics advocates remuneration based on how hard people work, how bad their job is. They also advocate re-organizing jobs so as to mix conceptualization and control with physical doing of work. This is aimed at eliminating hierarchies where you have cushy jobs with highly paid engineers and so on and poorly paid jobs doing deskilled physical labor. thus the "professsional work" would not get more money under participatory economics if they don't work harder, have a harsher job, than the non-professional. In fact if manual workers have harsher, less desireable work, they'd be paid more. so you have it exactly backwards.

syndicalistcat, the idea of balanced jobs per se isn't the major problem. it's that parecon is 'from each according to their sacrifce, to each according to their spending power' - this ethic is fundamentally non-communist, and does owe a lot to the idea of meritocracy - reward for effort.

the idea we shouldn't let specialists dominate, should rotate tasks so everyone gets a mixture of the more mundane and more empowering tasks etc isn't particularly troubling compared to the fact these ideas are being put forward in a fundamentally non-communist context.

Joseph K:

for me the biggest problem is the fixation with meritocracy and measuring effort. it's true some tasks are more enjoyable/easy/empowering than others, but a whole society based on constantly measuring this by standardised means seems to lack belief in workers self-organisation to address such inequalities.

Quote:

MK:
on this talk but know what was on it. Michael Albert believes the good work should get more money, the professional work can get more money, the people working bad can get less money, he made some chart for this.

syndicalistcat:
this is exactly the opposite of what participatory economics advocates. You are completely confused. partticipatory economics advocates remuneration based on how hard people work, how bad their job is. They also advocate re-organizing jobs so as to mix conceptualization and control with physical doing of work. This is aimed at eliminating hierarchies where you have cushy jobs with highly paid engineers and so on and poorly paid jobs doing deskilled physical labor.

Syndicalistcat, please read the parts about "personal sacrifice" and ask what this really means. From what I see, education is considered "personal sacrifice" and "effort". With such logic, a doctor who spent years training to do a job, will be seen as putting in more effort than somebody who starts a job requiring less training. No? It is true that "more effort" could include physical work, as you said, or unpleasant work, but what the fuck is the point of this rewarding of effort, if not to encourage people to gain better financial status and privelege by working "hard"?

Albert is very heavy on the idea of "incentives", as if the world will fall apart if the stick and carrot is ever removed.

This relates to "getting from here to there" & Parecon. Who is the agent of (revolutionary) change for Albert?? How does Parecon relate to (and situate itself within) the class-historical development of Capitalism??

This (apparent) lack of understanding of both History and Capitalism, coupled with the aforementioned Meritocracy-fetish (and thus the complete undermining of the working class' emergent tendency to truly remake society: solidarity), gives me the feeling that many of the ideas of Parecon have reformist and counter-revolutionary potential.

Am I missing something, or flat out wrong??

Concerning Parecon , i have been trying for a while to engage their proponents in the debate on Anarkismo ,Dissident Voice and Z-NET and at my blog about the Parecon claim repeated by Syndicalistcat that:-

there is a price system, however, but not a market based price system. Maybe this is what confuses black badger. To have an effective economy it's necessary to know what the social opportunity costs are of making any particular set of things, because we need to know that our efforts aren't wasted. Any given use of our work time and resources put to use making X could have been put to use making Y. To know if we should be making X rather than Y we need to know how people in general would evaluate X and Y as outcomes, that is, which are more desired?

Parecon argues much like Von Mises that a price system is a necessity for society and that the communistic objective to abolish buying and selling is an unachievable utopia since the rational allocation of resources would not be possible .

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has had to tackle this critique of its case for a moneyless world of free access which particularly came from David Steele ( an ex-SPGBer) of the Libertarian Alliance and were required to develop counter-arguments ( similar to anarchistfaq's ) and these can be applied against Parecon .

Michael Albert appears to have been unaware of the SPGB tradition for propagating the end of the wages system and when confronted by alternatives to a price system he fails to respond directly to the practical possibilties presented by us , resorting to, as MK in his contribution claims :-

"Like libertarian capitalistic argument ...some persons are lazy..."

( appropriate quotes from MA himself to be found at my blog )

Rather than repeat it all , you can read the comments attached to Price's Anarkismo articles posted by myself and DBalmer .
Or , if you forgive me for some self promotion , you can read my blog at Mailstrom

http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/pareconfusion.html

http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/10/michael-alberts-failings.html

http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/10/pareconitis.html

But to sum up :-

The reason that Parecon has to go to such lengths to construct such a complicated and complex and wasteful system of elaborate checks and balances is ultimately that its proponents are unwilling or unable to accept that if given the right economic framework humans can consciously co-operate, work and consume together.Parecon doesn’t go far enough , offering a model that retains major elements of the market system, but also more importantly it is simply highly unlikely to be workable in the real world.
Parecon is attractive to those who dislike capitalism, but who, in the final analysis, lack confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all , or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production and distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of rationing . In the end, Pareconists remain fixated to the lazy person, greedy individual critique of human behaviour .

As usual, I will point out that the major problem with Parecon is that it cannot work. Sorry, but it won't. Certain aspects of it are okay, other ones not so okay. However, that all seems a bit meaningless given the obvious impossibilities of it.

The relevant discussion can he found here: Schweickart Versus Albert

David Schweickart's critique is correct, and as can be seen from Albert's non-reply the major problem with Parecon people seems to in trying to understand the points being made. Read it -- his arguments are, I think, very convincing. Parecon supporters have simply not addressed them (and I wish they would!).

I should also note that I do not agree with Schweickart's particular version of socialism (essentially a market socialist system of co-operatives, which has shades of Proudhon). I think that communism is possible, assuming a decentralised system based on free association and federalism (that is, a libertarian communism!). However, I will say this: at least Schweickart's model seems like a system that could work -- unlike Parecon. And it shares some of the features any genuine socialist economy would have (workplace self-management and autonomy, for example). As I said, it is a version of mutualism so it does not address the problems associated with markets (rather than capitalist markets), free access and so on.

Not to mention, of course, the difficulties of introducing Parecon in the midst of a social revolution. Will we really have time to collate lists of what we consumed last year, what work we do, what we want to consume next year, collate all that information (for, in the UK, 60 million people -- and how many products and components of products would that mean? Not to mention information on millions of jobs and then balance them! Even if we take just Scotland's 5 million people, that is a staggering amount of information). Then, of course, collate all that information, create a few plans, then get those plans to the public so they can vote on them. Assuming they have time to read 3 plans involving millions of products and millions of jobs.

I cannot help thinking we would have more pressing things to do and think about!