Parecon

[28350]

What is (are?) participatory economics?

[RED DAVE]

Socialism for chicken-shits who are afraid of the working class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parecon

RED DAVE

[mikelepore]

One of the Parecon goals is for the workers who make each type of product to meet and negotiate with an organization of the consumers of that type of product. They would keep revising their separate plans, until they converge into a single plan that the workers and consumers agree on. I have never been able to visualize the process. As a consumer of many things, I don't want to spend all my time attending meetings of the frying pan users' organization, the alarm clock users' organization, the vinaigrette salad dressing users' organization, etc. It's not practical. There isn't enough time in the human life span to have so many meetings. I think another form of consumer input into the workplace management process will have to be found.

[syndicat]

Participatory economics is a conception of how to structure a libertarian socialist society. The only really innovative feature is the decentralized planning proposal, called participatory planning. The two authors of this concept, Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, were educated in radical economics. Hahnel was for many years a professor of economics at American University.

The idea that this derives from "fear of the working class" is crap. On the contrary, it provides a better conception for working class self-emancipation than its state socialist opponents. This is why young anarchist economists in the CNT in Spain are supporters of participatory economics.

Participatory economics is based on the following components:

1. A dual governance structure based on worker self-management of industries and social self-management of society in general. Dual governance because the base units for governance in a socialist society would be: a. assemblies and elected councils in workplaces (and federations of these) b. assemblies and elected councils (and federations of these) of residents in neighborhoods.

This is not an innovation. Dual governance structure was also the program of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in the revolution in Spain the '30s.

2. Extensive empowerment of residents thru direct democracy based governance to develop plans for extensive systems of public goods to meet needs, such as education, health care etc, and to create a means for a genuine social control over human access to the environmental commons, thus forcing production organizations to internalize enviro costs.

3. Re-integration of the conceptual and decision -making aspects of work with the physical doing of the work, so as to eliminate the class division between a subordinated working class and a bureaucratic class of managers and professionals. This would require a vast change in education and widespread democratization of expertise, and change to worker-friendly technology to the extent feasible, rather than turning workers into robots, as is done with common taylorist practices both in capitalist and the bureaucratic mode of production (socalled "Communism").

The ideas here were influenced by the critiques of taylorism of a number of authors in the '70s-'80s period such as Harry Braverman and Steve Marglin. But the concept had been advocated a hundred years ago by Peter Kropotkin with his concept of "integration of labor".

4. All means of production would be owned in common by the whole society and production would not be for market revenue but for direct benefit. In that sense, participatory economics is a form of libertarian communism and is so regarded by the CNT economists I referred to earlier.

Social benefit would be assured through a system of decentralized social planning. This system involves a widespread process of negotiation between people as producers and as consumers or citizens, using the two base governance structures described in 1 above. Workers would develop plans for their own workplaces. Through neighborhood assemblies and regional meetings of delegates from these, plans for what public goods and consumption to request would be worked up.

There would be a worker organization that would collect the plans and publish the tallies of total requested product and total projected supply. Using price rules the society had agreed to, prices would change to indicate shifts in supply and demand. Worker groups and communities would then modify their plans to keep in the limits of their budgets. Thus an ideal non-market price system plays a role as the means to ensure social accountability of the production organizations, rather than a bureaucratic socialist system of central planning, which would subordinate workers to a bureaucratic class hierarchy.

Meetings of workers in workplaces are required in any case if there is to be meaningful worker self-management of workplaces. Meetings of people in neighborhoods are required in any case if there is to be authentic popular power rather than the emergence of some new statist regime.

So if Lepore doesn't want these meetings, he's either against worker self-management or he's against direct democracy as the basis of governance. Either way the implication would be some new bureaucratic ruling class. You can't have popular self-empowerment of the masses without the direct democracy of meetings.

[bricolage]

Socialism minus the class struggle bit.

[syndicat]

Socialism minus the class struggle bit.

but how would this come about? It presupposes a massive level of class struggle. I said this to Michael Albert once, and he responded: "Of course."

[bricolage]

but how would this come about? It presupposes a massive level of class struggle. I said this to Michael Albert once, and he responded: "Of course."

I don't know to be honest, I'm not very well versed in parecon.
I say 'minus the class struggle bit' because parecon seems to entirely focussed on what a parecon society would look like (which I think there is a lot to be gained from), and there is little emphasis on how to get there. In a way this is the opposite way of thinking to Marxism/Anarchism etc.

Also the PPS vision of class seems to be that there is a 'techno-managerial' class in between the capitalist and the working classes.

[syndicat]

that appearance derives from the way that Albert & Hahnel present their conception. I disagree with their way of presenting it for this reason. In reality ideas about workers council and workers self-management and popular power only came about through the radical workers movement.

the class in between the capitalists and workers they call the "coordinator class", although I prefer to call it the "bureaucratic class." Whatever one calls it, it is a reality. It's necessary to consider the way the structure of capitalism changed in the early 1900s with the emergence of the big corporation and vast growth of the state in the 20th century. Also, the way in which control in firms was restructured through systematic application of taylorist/fordist work reorganization.

the upshot is that the bosses we work under day to day aren't capitalists (unless you work for some petty capitalist who manages his own workers).

also, it's necessary to have a conception of who the ruling class in the Soviet Union were, given that the capitalists had been expropriated and the economy no longer organized around private accumulation of weath, and competition between separate capitals in markets.

so, the idea is that there are two sources of class domination of the working class. there is the relative monopolization of ownership of means of production (business assets) in the hands of the capitalist class. and then there is a relative monopolization of decision-making authority and expertise needed for planning and decision-making, and here you have the basis of the bureaucratic class. within corporate capitalism, this class is subordinate to the plutocratic elite who own the companies, are top officers and on boards of directors, do high level strategizing about where to put their capital.

the bureaucratic class within corporate capitalism includes the middle managers, divisional directors, corporate lawyers, and various top experts (whether on corporate staff or with their own consultancy firms) such as accountants, industrial engineers, architects, etc. And the administrators in the public sector, judges, military officers, politicians (if not business owners themselves). at its lowest levels, this class includes supervisors and cops.

class is about power over others in social production (which power then spreads throughout society). so where there is a class whose power isn't based on private accumulation of wealth extracted from labor, but on power and prestige and high incomes, based on domination of the working class, then you have to allow that we have a somewhat complex class structure here.

Moreover, any theory about how the working class can liberate itself from class domination and exploitation, has to explain how the power of the dominating classes can be removed. what the Soviet Union showed clearly is that merely expropriating the capitalists isn't enough. it isn't just ownership that is a basis of domination and exploitation of the working class. What's needed is to radically restructure decision-making and work and job definitions, and create the educational systems to support empowering workers to take over the real control and planning.

[ContrarianLemming]

Parecon is anarcho-collectivism for the information age.
it's just that simple

edit: great description syndicat, I grow tired of any revleftist spouting that an idea is "anti class war" because it doesn't mention the oh so anarchronistic term "bourgeoisie" every other sentence.

[syndicat]

Parecon is anarcho-collectivism for the information age.
it's just that simple


Sorry, i have to disagree. but, hey, collectivism doesn't have a clear meaning.

[ContrarianLemming]

Sorry, i have to disagree. but, hey, collectivism doesn't have a clear meaning.

Well I understand "Anarcho collectivism" as anarchy with "to each according to labour done" which is right in line with parecon, and collecitvists favor the same social and workplace arrangments and duel government.
It seems to me that, asides from the planning boards idea, parecon is jazzed up anarcho collectivism without all the french words (syndicate, proletariat, bourgeois..)

It might seem simplistic, but they arn't reletively complicated ideas.

[mikelepore]

So if Lepore doesn't want these meetings, he's either against worker self-management or he's against direct democracy as the basis of governance.

Some reading comprehension difficulties there? I wrote against the suggestion to have consumer participation for each kind of product that they consume. So don't mention "against worker self-management" in connection with my name.

[syndicat]

Some reading comprehension difficulties there? I wrote against the suggestion to have consumer participation for each kind of product that they consume. So don't mention "against worker self-management" in connection with my name.

yes, apparently it's a question of reading comprehension...on your part. participatory economics does not advocate separate meetings for "each kind of product they consume."

[syndicat]

Well I understand "Anarcho collectivism" as anarchy with "to each according to labour done" which is right in line with parecon, and collecitvists favor the same social and workplace arrangments and duel government.


They do? Can you point to some writings of "collectivists" to verify this?

[ContrarianLemming]

They do? Can you point to some writings of "collectivists" to verify this?

I certainly don't pretend to be an expert on anarchist writings, and you're right, collecitvism is unclear and seems rather dead. I got that info from the FAQ, which I see no reason to disagree with.
I suppose it depends on your opinion on the anarchist FAQ, do you think it's reliable? They sure do source a lot of the classics

I have noticed that no one seems to call themselves collectivists anymore, you're either an ancom or syndicalist, I have yet to meet an ancol on revleft.

[syndicat]

Both the FAQ and Wikipedia are very vague. Neither points to any particular texts. Frankly, i think "collectivism" is a bogus notion. It's hard to see how it differs from mutualism for example.

It's possible people are referring to Marx's concept of "the lower phase of communism" as described in Critique of the Gotha Program. But that was a form of communism, otherwise why call it the "early phase of communism"?

Participatory economics differs from that in that it doesn't propose effort prices.

[ContrarianLemming]

Both the FAQ and Wikipedia are very vague. Neither points to any particular texts. Frankly, i think "collectivism" is a bogus notion. It's hard to see how it differs from mutualism for example.

The FAQ does cite books, quite often, wiki does so to, not so much
Collectivism differs from mutualism in that it's anti market
And I remind you that this isn't some bogus ideology like ancapism, it was Bakunins ideology.


It's possible people are referring to Marx's concept of "the lower phase of communism" as described in Critique of the Gotha Program. But that was a form of communism, otherwise why call it the "early phase of communism"?

Participatory economics differs from that in that it doesn't propose effort prices.
You're correct, the ancol "to each according to labour done" is the same as how the soviet union theoretically worked. Collectivists believe that after awhile the society living under ancol will eventually go on to ancom.

Parecon does propose effort wages, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics#Compensation_for_effort_an d_sacrifice but what do you mean by effort prices?

[syndicat]

Participatory economics does not propose that the products received by people in general is earned by them through work. There would be many things provided through need....such as support for children, retired, those not working, those injured, plus public goods like education and health care and so on. It is only in regard to earning of private consumption goods by the able bodied that remuneration for effort enters into the picture.

In "collectivism" and Marx's program for the transition, prices that people pay for goods for individual consumption are based on labor hours to produce them. This is a form of effort prices. That is, prices determined by labor effort to produce.

This is not what is proposed in participatory economics. Participatory economics makes a distinction between effort as the determination of wages and supply and demand (not labor effort) as the determination of prices. This is because labor effort for prices would be systematically inefficient.

[ContrarianLemming]

Participatory economics does not propose that the products received by people in general is earned by them through work. There would be many things provided through need....such as support for children, retired, those not working, those injured, plus public goods like education and health care and so on. It is only in regard to earning of private consumption goods by the able bodied that remuneration for effort enters into the picture.

In "collectivism" and Marx's program for the transition, prices that people pay for goods for individual consumption are based on labor hours to produce them. This is a form of effort prices. That is, prices determined by labor effort to produce.

This is not what is proposed in participatory economics. Participatory economics makes a distinction between effort as the determination of wages and supply and demand (not labor effort) as the determination of prices. This is because labor effort for prices would be systematically inefficient.

I see, thank you
So what do you believe? Calling yourself a syndicalist, as you noted before, doesn't actually say much.

[syndicat]

Syndicalism refers to two things: 1. a method based on class/mass struggle, development of self-managed unionism to prefigure self-managed socialism, development of an aspiration for self-managed socialism in the labor movement, and 2. the aim of creating a form of libertarian socialism in which workers self-management is a central part.

I also use "libertarian socialism" to refer to the broad social aim, of change to a society based on elimination of forms of oppression and exploitation, and rooted in direct democracy and self-management.

[Die Neue Zeit]

the class in between the capitalists and workers they call the "coordinator class", although I prefer to call it the "bureaucratic class." Whatever one calls it, it is a reality.

[...]

What's needed is to radically restructure decision-making and work and job definitions, and create the educational systems to support empowering workers to take over the real control and planning.

I agree, but the function of "red director" in a system of publicly owned and controlled vertical farms (sovkhozy) is still necessary. :D

[syndicat]

I agree, but the function of "red director" in a system of publicly owned and controlled vertical farms (sovkhozy) is still necessary

well, first of all, a "vertical" managerial structure is inconsistent with authentic worker self-management. moreover, there might be someone who is a chair of the coordinating committee or something like that, but there is no point for them to have managerial powers like hiring and firing or unilateral veto and so on, rather than orchestration and coordination or chairing at meetings.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I did say "function" for a reason. You can have frequent rotations and such, but the function itself is quite something.

I agree with you re. unilateral hirings and firings, but keep in mind that "red directors" themselves didn't have this power (the state did).

I almost got confused by your "vertical managerial structure" remark. I thought you didn't know what vertical farming was, especially in light of my Politics remarks about kolkhozy vs. sovkhozy.