Ideas for economic model and education.

[ComradeMan]

Some ideas from a dreamer....:)


Here's my idea (rudimentary) for an economic model

The abolition of private property which is a fundamental anarchist principle tends to lead to the idea of everything being owned by the state or sometimes a very unclear and muddled idea. Very often I feel that this results in private property not really being abolished at all nor class divisions in that they are maintained as such but just on one monolithic state level.

Economics.

A person wants to start a business so by free association they form a "company" and agree by consensus on the various roles within that company. Someone has to be responsible for different areas of production or business and therefore each person assumes responsibility according to their talents- from each according to their talents.

What about remuneration? Well this is a tricky one, assuming that we haven't abolished money in theory. Each person is awarded a percentage of the profits of the endeavour according to the amount of time/work invested in it. The percentages would be agreed beforehand- you could call this a wage or you could call this a "consensual work credit". The problem area here is deciding what the percentages would be and how to make them fair, is an hour of picking olives equal to an hour of cleaning sewers and so on?

"Endeavours" would be part of a larger community of "endeavours" with elected representatives that would meet on a regular basis to discuss problems and look for solutions. A "work committee".

"Endeavours" would be monitored by the work committee to make sure they were efficient and honest and alsoto provide work for people with relevant skills in the case that such people find themselves out of work. EG. A man who is a skilled report writer loses his job for one reason or another, the work committee would then look for a position in an "endeavour" that he could do and where there were room for him.

A safety net welfare system would be maintained only for those who were willing to work when they were in between jobs, i.e. enrolled on the work committee rolls, and of course a welfare system for people too ill or unable to work for valid reasons. Endeavours would be obliged to allot a percentage of each workers "work credits" to a healthcare and pension system.

The only influence by the "state" so to speak, in my society the "commonwealth administration" would be in granting the go ahead on a simple of basis "Does this endeavour serve/help/add to the community?" or is it potentially harmful? If an endeavour were refused than the local work committee would be obliged to explain why and suggest improvements changes etc.

I would specify that some areas such as healthcare, public transport, education (which would be different under my system) and legal aid (different under my system) would remain community controlled. They would be funded by a "tax" if you like from the local work communities.

When you have big state monopolies development tends to suffer because there is no progress through lack of competition. The problem with competition is that it is rooted in a capitalist system and way of thinking. In my alternative I see this as having been resolved as it would still be in the maximum interest of each "company" to work hard and do a good job.
I also think that this system would also level off the "snobbery" of work. There is a saying that everyone always wants to be a chief and no one wants to be an indian (apolgies for the un-pc nature of the saying) but in this system there would be no chiefs and no indians as there would be a mutual interest- as much as it is important that the accounts are handled so is it important that the toilets are clean- if you follow me.


Education.

School would be obligatory from 5-18. But schools would be different. My vision of a school would be one in which each classroom were a library, a full on mutli-media and interactive place where alumni were encouraged to find out for themselves! Teacher would be more like tutors using their specific knowledge and expertise to guide and coach rather than the didactic and rather active-passive roles we find in a lot of education. Of course, children would need to learn to read and write, count and do basic maths along with foreign languages and that always would require some level of didactic traditional teaching. Nevertheless, beyon that point it would be more down to the student to explore avenues of interest and talent.

I would also review the subjects taught at school. I think a wider range of things need to be offered to pupils. How many potential geniuses in a certain field have we lost due to economics, restrictive education systems and so on? As much as I would encourage the traditional academic subjects I would also encourage more practical subjects to- but on a serious basis, not the rubbishy woodwork classes we had at school which were also on a streamed basis!!!

I perceive the advantages to my system as follows.
1. Alumni would be enabled to focus on their specific talents early on in their educational paths and devote more time to specific subjects for which they were more gifted.
2. It would encourage a personal sense of responsibility and less of the mentality of doing something because you were told to.
3. Encourage open minds.

__________________________________________________ _____________

Right, I am not saying that these ideas or perfect but I would be interested in hearing a critique from various points of view- pros and cons if you like. I didn't really base them on anything than my own ideas inspired in part from various ways of thinking.

[Psy]

Some ideas from a dreamer....:)


Here's my idea (rudimentary) for an economic model

The abolition of private property which is a fundamental anarchist principle tends to lead to the idea of everything being owned by the state or sometimes a very unclear and muddled idea. Very often I feel that this results in private property not really being abolished at all nor class divisions in that they are maintained as such but just on one monolithic state level.

Economics.

A person wants to start a business so by free association they form a "company" and agree by consensus on the various roles within that company. Someone has to be responsible for different areas of production or business and therefore each person assumes responsibility according to their talents- from each according to their talents.

What about remuneration? Well this is a tricky one, assuming that we haven't abolished money in theory. Each person is awarded a percentage of the profits of the endeavour according to the amount of time/work invested in it. The percentages would be agreed beforehand- you could call this a wage or you could call this a "consensual work credit". The problem area here is deciding what the percentages would be and how to make them fair, is an hour of picking olives equal to an hour of cleaning sewers and so on?

Problem, profits are surplus value, surplus value is a gap between exchange value and price in other words if profits exists someone is being ripped off.



"Endeavours" would be part of a larger community of "endeavours" with elected representatives that would meet on a regular basis to discuss problems and look for solutions. A "work committee".

"Endeavours" would be monitored by the work committee to make sure they were efficient and honest and alsoto provide work for people with relevant skills in the case that such people find themselves out of work. EG. A man who is a skilled report writer loses his job for one reason or another, the work committee would then look for a position in an "endeavour" that he could do and where there were room for him.

This seems far very bureaucratic, more so then a workers state simply planning production. So instead of a central plan and adjusting the plan as the production cycle progresses as more information is known, you want a committee to not set quotas but to tell workers how to produce so they are efficient in producing with no set goal of how much they should be producing.

Without a quota how would we even know what is efficient?



A safety net welfare system would be maintained only for those who were willing to work when they were in between jobs, i.e. enrolled on the work committee rolls, and of course a welfare system for people too ill or unable to work for valid reasons. Endeavours would be obliged to allot a percentage of each workers "work credits" to a healthcare and pension system.

Or a workers state could just provide a welfare system, since you'd need a workers state to enforce endeavors anyway.



The only influence by the "state" so to speak, in my society the "commonwealth administration" would be in granting the go ahead on a simple of basis "Does this endeavour serve/help/add to the community?" or is it potentially harmful? If an endeavour were refused than the local work committee would be obliged to explain why and suggest improvements changes etc.

I would specify that some areas such as healthcare, public transport, education (which would be different under my system) and legal aid (different under my system) would remain community controlled. They would be funded by a "tax" if you like from the local work communities.

When you have big state monopolies development tends to suffer because there is no progress through lack of competition. The problem with competition is that it is rooted in a capitalist system and way of thinking. In my alternative I see this as having been resolved as it would still be in the maximum interest of each "company" to work hard and do a good job.
I also think that this system would also level off the "snobbery" of work. There is a saying that everyone always wants to be a chief and no one wants to be an indian (apolgies for the un-pc nature of the saying) but in this system there would be no chiefs and no indians as there would be a mutual interest- as much as it is important that the accounts are handled so is it important that the toilets are clean- if you follow me.

The problem is in modern industrial production we are talking massive large scale means of production, they need to be centrally planned, even now to a extent large production are centrally planned just centrally planned by the corporations that own them against the production of the completing corporations.




Education.

School would be obligatory from 5-18. But schools would be different. My vision of a school would be one in which each classroom were a library, a full on mutli-media and interactive place where alumni were encouraged to find out for themselves! Teacher would be more like tutors using their specific knowledge and expertise to guide and coach rather than the didactic and rather active-passive roles we find in a lot of education. Of course, children would need to learn to read and write, count and do basic maths along with foreign languages and that always would require some level of didactic traditional teaching. Nevertheless, beyon that point it would be more down to the student to explore avenues of interest and talent.

I would also review the subjects taught at school. I think a wider range of things need to be offered to pupils. How many potential geniuses in a certain field have we lost due to economics, restrictive education systems and so on? As much as I would encourage the traditional academic subjects I would also encourage more practical subjects to- but on a serious basis, not the rubbishy woodwork classes we had at school which were also on a streamed basis!!!

I perceive the advantages to my system as follows.
1. Alumni would be enabled to focus on their specific talents early on in their educational paths and devote more time to specific subjects for which they were more gifted.
2. It would encourage a personal sense of responsibility and less of the mentality of doing something because you were told to.
3. Encourage open minds.

Yhea that seem okay.

[ComradeMan]

Profit- perhaps a bad word, would income be better?

Income would be divided on the percentage basis.

Also, we are quickly moving to a post-industrial society in many places- advances in technology and robotics mean we aren't necessarily going to have a large scale manufacturing industry with a huge worker base. I must admit, when I was thinking about this I had much more in mind the smaller level businesses and enterprises that exist, right down to a cellphone shop or a supermarket even.

Fair exchange is fair enough, but you have to allow for costs increasing price. If I buy a bunch of bananas I must allow for the costs involved in production and shipping or else I have to grow my own bananas which might be heard in a non-tropical zone! :D Unless global warming changes that.


This seems far very bureaucratic, more so then a workers state simply planning production. So instead of a central plan and adjusting the plan as the production cycle progresses as more information is known, you want a committee to not set quotas but to tell workers how to produce so they are efficient in producing with no set goal of how much they should be producing.

You are right but I see no fair way around it. My idea of the work committee would not be so much in setting quotas but trying to keep a balance at a localised level. Produce as much as you want, but everyone can't be producing the same thing- if you see what I mean.

The problem is with a worker state and central authority is it is easy to lose sight of the local perspective and also perhaps the good ideas that are lost on the long way to the top.

I would add here that when it comes to production of minerals in one area where a given mineral were to be found, obviously production would centre on that essential product.

No two sectors are ever going to be exactly the same and so I think it would be a mistake to apply a one size fits all kind of policy. A man who produces picture frames in his own shop cannot be compared to a steel works employing 20,000 workers- it would be absurd to say so, but the principles of a fair income based on how much you contribute would, in my opinion, do a lot to improve production, avoid exploitation and create a fair society. I don't want to create a "work hive".

The issue of profit is problematic- I mean, all economic endeavour sort of has that idea doesn't it? Even a farmer plants one grain of corn to reap seven back, but he also invests time and work in the nurture of the land etc.

So this raises the question,

How can income/profit be fair in order to pay wage credits, pensions, support the commonwealth etc but not become exploitative?

Thanks for highlighting the problems-- how would you "fix it"? I would be interested to know.

As for education, well that's one policy my revolution has got right!!! Ha ha! :)

[Psy]

Profit- perhaps a bad word, would income be better?

Income would be divided on the percentage basis.

Also, we are quickly moving to a post-industrial society in many places- advances in technology and robotics mean we aren't necessarily going to have a large scale manufacturing industry with a huge worker base. I must admit, when I was thinking about this I had much more in mind the smaller level businesses and enterprises that exist, right down to a cellphone shop or a supermarket even.

Fair exchange is fair enough, but you have to allow for costs increasing price. If I buy a bunch of bananas I must allow for the costs involved in production and shipping or else I have to grow my own bananas which might be heard in a non-tropical zone! :D Unless global warming changes that.

Then you are going to ignore economies of scale, that centralized production is more efficient. Marx clearly explained as fixed capital is centralized the labor cost to produce a unit of a commodity goes down causing devaluation of said commodity that is what we want.



You are right but I see no fair way around it. My idea of the work committee would not be so much in setting quotas but trying to keep a balance at a localised level. Produce as much as you want, but everyone can't be producing the same thing- if you see what I mean.

The problem is with a worker state and central authority is it is easy to lose sight of the local perspective and also perhaps the good ideas that are lost on the long way to the top.

And the problem with decentralized planning is it usually lacks a macro understanding.



No two sectors are ever going to be exactly the same and so I think it would be a mistake to apply a one size fits all kind of policy. A man who produces picture frames in his own shop cannot be compared to a steel works employing 20,000 workers- it would be absurd to say so, but the principles of a fair income based on how much you contribute would, in my opinion, do a lot to improve production, avoid exploitation and create a fair society. I don't want to create a "work hive".

True but industries are mostly interconnected meaning the production of picture frames effects the supply of wood, nails, cardboard and glass. Also even picture frames are more efficient to produce in bulk, having a very large picture frame factory for a region is var more efficient then having many picture frame workshops in every local community.

Also for non-perishables (goods that can still be consumed the following production cycle if properly stored) regional warehouses would be needed to store what is not-consumed if we would be trying to get rid of scarcity, meaning a percentage of picture frames produced would end up being stored in warehouses waiting to be consumed the following production cycle, for a centrally planned economy this isn't a problem the factories wouldn't have to wait for consumers to actually
buy their picture frames to get funding but for decentralized industries it means there is a temporal problem between when they produce their commodities and when those commodities are actually consumed that would lead to under-production (from a communist perspective).

In other words a centrally planned picture frame factory wouldn't care if what they produce in that year won't fully be consume for 5 years (as it would take 5 years for all of what they send to warehouses to be consumed) that would an issue for planners and planners might not be too worried of picture frames sitting in warehouses of 5 years or even 20 years as they could purposely build up a major stock pile that would last decades so they could repurpose the factory later on and supply the demand of picture frames from stockpiles for decades (not like consumes would care if the picture frame they just bought was sitting in a warehouse for decades).




The issue of profit is problematic- I mean, all economic endeavour sort of has that idea doesn't it? Even a farmer plants one grain of corn to reap seven back, but he also invests time and work in the nurture of the land etc.

Not really the farmer gains corn in exchange for the labor their invested in corn production this is not profit or surplus value as the extra corn came from converting labor value into the use-value of more corn.



So this raises the question,

How can income/profit be fair in order to pay wage credits, pensions, support the commonwealth etc but not become exploitative?

Wages are the problem, wages means you are limiting access to the very products workers produce. While wages may be a temporary necessity we shouldn't plan on using them as a permanent solution as their very existence creates scarcity.

[ComradeMan]

You make some good points, it seems we have some problems here to overcome.

I hear what you say about macro-understanding, but what about micro-understanding?

I hear what you are saying about the corn analogy, but man does not live by corn alone.

What would your 21st century model be, especially in terms of a post-industrial society that has issues of ecology and demographics etc?

I think we would have to be prepared to decide what kinds of work, production we are talking about. My problem with Marxist thinking is, and I am by no means nor claim to be an expert, it always seems to focus on factory industrial production. What about the other areas of economic activity?

Isn't there a danger with a large state controlled and, naively speaking, Marxist model that creativity, research and so on may become stifled in a large monolithic state mechanism? - viz my original point about private property and state property. Do we want to be satisfied with Sachsenrig Trabants?

I think we would perhaps have to divide agriculture and fisheries from industrial production too. I think collectivised agriculture always leads to problems so perhaps my model would be best fitted to agriculture.

Fundamentally my problems are as follows:-
1. Abolishing private property ( I don't mean personal goods, some people always seem to think that the concept means every item of possession).
2. Avoiding too much "state" interference.
3. Creating an egalitarian attitude and culture of work.
4. As you point out, wages are the problem- hence my idea of an agreed income-share system in which wage credits would be earned according to the amount and quality of work done- I think this would also give slackers a kick up the backside too!!! These wage credits would be exchangeable for goods and services, so if someone works their backside off and saves wage credits he or she can exchange these for things he wants. I don't think anyone would want gloomy soviet style queues for mediocre utilitarian products- at the same time it makes me sick when I see the wasteful, destructive, materialistic, greedy and downright immoral excesses of the West.

My idea is my "commonwealth" produces, say a cellphone, and we keep up to date with the advances in cellphone technology etc, by the same token we do not want nor do we need a new cellphone every six months because the latest one has an extra 50 crappy ringtones on it.... if you catch my drift.:)

Help us out on this one comrade! I bow to your superior knowledge.


PS There would also be some tough decisions too and perhaps some hard lines that people might like. For example I would be tough on how much food were available and what kind in my commonwealth, no gluttony here and no McDonald's style crap-- a basic right is a two hour lunch break that lets families eat food together in a decent manner, food that is wholesome and cooked properly! Perhaps that's the Italian influence!!:) Surplus food production would be exchanged internationally and used to help relieve areas struck by famines etc.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I'm split on the education question. As a kid I went to a very liberal school, no uniform, teacher was out of the room half the time, etc. and I liked it, it was a progressive atmosphere and we were treated like adults, but when I got out into the real world and started working I didn't feel like I had enough discipline, it was as if school had failed to prepare me for one of the most important aspects of life, employment. I'd like to see more work based training, like the apprenticeship scheme but with a lot more on offer, and ideally I think kids should be able to go into such schemes at 14 or 15 if they so wish, I spent two years of my life studying biology, chemistry, the Spanish language and religion, things I'm not even slightly interested in, it was a waste of my time, I could've been out there earning money or ideally, learning about things I actually care about. Of the six GCSEs I took I only really had an interest in one of them, and I didn't even stay in school long enough to finish it.

[Psy]

You make some good points, it seems we have some problems here to overcome.

I hear what you say about macro-understanding, but what about micro-understanding?

Ahh but what is the micro-understanding? At the micro level (the level of local communities) the issue is how to use the mass produced products of society to meet the needs of the community.



I hear what you are saying about the corn analogy, but man does not live by corn alone.

True but the point is the farmer is transforming their labor value into use value this is not surplus value.




What would your 21st century model be, especially in terms of a post-industrial society that has issues of ecology and demographics etc?

I don't think there is such a thing as post-industrial society, what is exactly wrong with mass production? We want cheap production costs so we can have a lesiure society of abudnance, meaning Marxists are industrialists, we want to lower labor costs of production through industrialization of production.



I think we would have to be prepared to decide what kinds of work, production we are talking about. My problem with Marxist thinking is, and I am by no means nor claim to be an expert, it always seems to focus on factory industrial production. What about the other areas of economic activity?

We actualy focus on large collectivized scale production as it has lower production costs which is why capitalists collectivizes production into larger and larger centrizlied centers of production.



Isn't there a danger with a large state controlled and, naively speaking, Marxist model that creativity, research and so on may become stifled in a large monolithic state mechanism? - viz my original point about private property and state property. Do we want to be satisfied with Sachsenrig Trabants?

That depends on how production is centrially planned, if we simply have bureaucratic planners then yes it is an issue, if the process of centrial planning is more open and democratic then it would be much less of a concern.



My idea is my "commonwealth" produces, say a cellphone, and we keep up to date with the advances in cellphone technology etc, by the same token we do not want nor do we need a new cellphone every six months because the latest one has an extra 50 crappy ringtones on it.... if you catch my drift.:)

This is where centrally planned production comes in again, for example the Vladimir Lenin-80 electric train engines from the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant started production in 1961 and are still in use in Russian railways today just with upgrades and for the most part they still perform their job well in their modernized form because they were engineered to allow for them to be upgraded easily as they were engineered to easily repaired.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I disagree with the person who said that centralisation = economies of scale. IMO, economies are a phenomena unique to free markets, and occur as a result of competition - suppliers are always competing with one another for contracts, hence they are pressured to provide discounts on bulk orders. In a planned economy, where production is fixed ahead of time, as are labour costs, there would be no need to alter this by providing discounts.

The only other comment I have to make is regarding your education system. Although we should be aiming to abolish a class society, this should not extend to every single strata in society. Though many students do not like their teachers, in the same way a worker does not, generally, like his/her manager, it seems to me that the current method of teaching is established as the better one. You should research the problems the Soviets had with introducing their own experimental 'rabfak' style of education, and how when they returned to traditional methods, they formed an excellent system. All we must do to reform education is teach according to our own principles, rather than those which the bourgeoisie currently impose on us, by indoctrinating us when we are young.

[Psy]

I disagree with the person who said that centralisation = economies of scale. IMO, economies are a phenomena unique to free markets, and occur as a result of competition - suppliers are always competing with one another for contracts, hence they are pressured to provide discounts on bulk orders. In a planned economy, where production is fixed ahead of time, as are labour costs, there would be no need to alter this by providing discounts.

It is more then that, as you centralize production you consolidate fixed capital and have labor spread across more units of commodities.

[ComradeMan]

I disagree with the person who said that centralisation = economies of scale. IMO, economies are a phenomena unique to free markets, and occur as a result of competition - suppliers are always competing with one another for contracts, hence they are pressured to provide discounts on bulk orders. In a planned economy, where production is fixed ahead of time, as are labour costs, there would be no need to alter this by providing discounts.

The only other comment I have to make is regarding your education system. Although we should be aiming to abolish a class society, this should not extend to every single strata in society. Though many students do not like their teachers, in the same way a worker does not, generally, like his/her manager, it seems to me that the current method of teaching is established as the better one. You should research the problems the Soviets had with introducing their own experimental 'rabfak' style of education, and how when they returned to traditional methods, they formed an excellent system. All we must do to reform education is teach according to our own principles, rather than those which the bourgeoisie currently impose on us, by indoctrinating us when we are young.

Well, I'm going to stick to my guns on this one! :) Motionless already provided a personal example- which I would say is a perfect example of someone being failed by a system.

As for teaching by principles, how about applying those principles to learning? My theory is that people need to learn to liberate themselves and that idea can begin with children needing to find out for themselves and looking things up rather than just being passively spoon fed.

I also think the standard of education these days is very low, it seems we are producing a mass of ignorami- easier to control them that way isn't it?
I am not talking about abolishing reading, writing and 'rithmetic but taking a whole different approach. Remember not all children come from homes where there are a lot of books to start with, the library-school would help address that imbalance. Don't think I am proposing some far out hippy style free-for-all. The kids at my schools would have a lesson "community service" in which they actually did stuff that was beneficial to the community, like gardening the park etc.

[ckaihatsu]

My field is education, and the single most important tool I've come across is Bloom's Taxonomy:


http://i50.tinypic.com/2qnaao9.jpg





Bloom's Taxonomy refers to a classification of the different objectives that educators set for students (learning objectives).

[...]

Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three "domains:" Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive. Within the taxonomy learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels (Orlich, et al. 2004). A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.

[...]

Cognitive
Categories in the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and critical thinking of a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives.

There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:


[1] Knowledge
Exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers

* Knowledge of specifics - terminology, specific facts
* Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics - conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology
* Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field - principles and generalizations, theories and structures

Questions like: What are the health benefits of eating apples?


[2] Comprehension
Demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas

* Translation
* Interpretation
* Extrapolation

Questions like: Compare the health benefits of eating apples vs. oranges.


[3] Application
Using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way

Questions like: Which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why?


[4] Analysis
Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations

* Analysis of elements
* Analysis of relationships
* Analysis of organizational principles

Questions like: List four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits. Provide references to support your statements.


[5] Synthesis
Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions

* Production of a unique communication
* Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations
* Derivation of a set of abstract relations

Questions like: Convert an "unhealthy" recipe for apple pie to a "healthy" recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones.


[6] Evaluation
Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria

* Judgments in terms of internal evidence
* Judgments in terms of external criteria

Questions like: Do you feel that serving apple pie for an after school snack for children is healthy? Why or why not?

[...]