Democratic Meritocracy

[ContrarianLemming]

"Democratic meritocracy" is the lable I applied to the managment in the worker co-op "mondragon corporation" in Spain.

The Mondragon corporation is based on worker self managment, the wages that admins receive is democratically decided based on there perceived usefulness and skill.

bare* with me now..

I have (in my opinion) shown that a rationing system is necessary in post-revolution communism (see my toher thread), and I believe the use of labour vouchers is the best way to ration things since it encourages hard work.

And for awhile now I have been saying this: People should get labour vouchers based on how long they work and how difficult there job is.

But I have learned two important things since I decided on this years ago.

1. All labour is social/communal labour, everyone is necessary and no one completes any job alone, everyone contributes either directly or indirectly in some way, right down to the designer of the car that gets you to your job. We do nothing alone - but we still must ration goods, which means we must choose a dynamic system to ration goods which does not create monopolies (the free market).

2. My above idea that people should be paid based on "how hard their job is" is very subjective, as are some of the other specifications I've put forth (how dangerious, how rewarding).

Which is why I have decided that perhaps it would be better to completely localize the wage system. How much you earn should not be left to a very subjective formula (hours worked + difficulty + danger - training = wage) but rather to the locals. So you earn what your peers think is best.

I call this democratic meritocracy (I am shattered that someone thought of the term before me (http://www.sciforums.com/A-Democratic-Meritocracy-t-35185.html)), which I think seems far more dynamic, after all, same jobs in different areas have different levels of necessaity, different cultures have different views on "difficulty" and danger, I can also see a logistical nightmare in applying the above (hours worked + difficulty etc) worldwide.

Any thoughts?

* bare or bear?

[Quail]

It is an interesting idea. On a practical level, what kind of area would this cover? There are a lot of jobs that need to be done, and since the demand for them will always be changing depending on circumstances, how often would the wages be reviewed?

[SeaSpeck]

What about jobs that actually are done alone. Such as watch making and clock repair. Who pays them?

[ContrarianLemming]

It is an interesting idea. On a practical level, what kind of area would this cover? There are a lot of jobs that need to be done, and since the demand for them will always be changing depending on circumstances, how often would the wages be reviewed?

As always it depends, jobs there are constantly needed and dynamic could be reviewed as needed.
i think jobs which are highly professional, like sciences, should have wages decided only by feelow scientific peers but regular jobs like a cashier or librarian could have all the locals decide.

for two reasons: professional jobs are not really understood by folks like us, we don't know all there complexity so we can't decide wages fairly.

And secondly regular jobs are ones we interact with on a daily basis, so we want a more direct influence in them, as opposed to the pay of a sociologist, who doesn't affect me at all really, so we can leave them to it with a lot of indepence, but we would rather keep a closer on on the situation of our local barber.

[ContrarianLemming]

What about jobs that actually are done alone. Such as watch making and clock repair. Who pays them?

Do you mean "who decides what they get" or where they actually get the wages itself.

"who decides what they get" - in the case of a professional job like watch making, fellow watch makers would decide, they don't need to be local in this case, I invision a large internet system assisting this.

Or maybe a professional surveyer could examine there regular workday..but who decides what they get for pay..
I'm just toying with ideas here, don't take it to seriously just yet.

If you mean "where do they get there money/who gives it" then there are loads of different ways, we could have persons akin to those guys who bring money from bank to bank charged with the accurate distribution of labour vouchers based on the what peers/community decided, or make it it the job of the locals, the ideas seem endless.

btw, I say "labour voucher" out of habbit really, voucher implies it would be like paper money, but i think it would be electronic, like a debit card.

[Quail]

As always it depends, jobs there are constantly needed and dynamic could be reviewed as needed.
i think jobs which are highly professional, like sciences, should have wages decided only by feelow scientific peers but regular jobs like a cashier or librarian could have all the locals decide.

for two reasons: professional jobs are not really understood by folks like us, we don't know all there complexity so we can't decide wages fairly.

And secondly regular jobs are ones we interact with on a daily basis, so we want a more direct influence in them, as opposed to the pay of a sociologist, who doesn't affect me at all really, so we can leave them to it with a lot of indepence, but we would rather keep a closer on on the situation of our local barber.

What if people decided that they needed more bricklayers (for example) and fewer academics? They wouldn't have a say in whether or not the academics were socially useful at that time. That seems like quite an elitist system to me. I don't have a problem with people with the right expertise deciding what is useful research-wise, but I think that the average person should have a say in whether too many people are going into research when there are other jobs that need to be done. If one of the reasons you think labour vouchers are a good system for rationing is that they give an incentive for people to do unpleasant but necessary jobs, there should be an incentive to take the jobs on instead of (or as well as) something you enjoy, such as being a sociologist. If academics are left to mostly decide their own wages, they're not going to give themselves the incentive to do a bit of necessary work that they don't want to do.

[ComradeOm]

* bare or bear?'Bear'. As in carry/tolerate. Not 'bare', as in 'get naked' ;)

[SeaSpeck]

I think for this to work, you'd also need ration the vouchers themselves. Otherwise, with an unlimited supply of vouchers, the workers could decide to be remunerated to ridiculous amounts. The value of work work would be a particular percent of the total work done and the goods worth that much.

[ContrarianLemming]

What if people decided that they needed more bricklayers (for example) and fewer academics? They wouldn't have a say in whether or not the academics were socially useful at that time. That seems like quite an elitist system to me. I don't have a problem with people with the right expertise deciding what is useful research-wise, but I think that the average person should have a say in whether too many people are going into research when there are other jobs that need to be done. If one of the reasons you think labour vouchers are a good system for rationing is that they give an incentive for people to do unpleasant but necessary jobs, there should be an incentive to take the jobs on instead of (or as well as) something you enjoy, such as being a sociologist. If academics are left to mostly decide their own wages, they're not going to give themselves the incentive to do a bit of necessary work that they don't want to do.

Right, I don't see it ever going that far.
and I don't think it would happen because there is a great deal of evidence showing that people who work in creative/intellectual jobs do not repond to incentives. Incentives work for most of us in manual labour jobs, but study has shown time and time again that incentives make these high end workers have worse performance.

And I think in professional jobs that region A would decide region B's wages, where they could be objective.

[Quail]

People don't need incentives to do creative jobs, but if everyone chose to do a creative job, would there be enough incentive to stop doing something you liked in favour of doing something unleasant that spciety needed?


I think for this to work, you'd also need ration the vouchers themselves.
This is a good point too.

[ContrarianLemming]

would there be enough incentive to stop doing something you liked in favour of doing something unleasant that spciety needed?

I don't know, if people find necessary jobs are being neglected then they would decide to higher it's wages

basically market socialism.

[ContrarianLemming]

I think for this to work, you'd also need ration the vouchers themselves. Otherwise, with an unlimited supply of vouchers, the workers could decide to be remunerated to ridiculous amounts.

right, so each commune gets an allocated amlunt of vouchers that need to be spread out as fairly as possible.

[Quail]

Even if the wages were higher for unpleasant, socially necessary jobs and things were scaled adequately, there are personal circumstances that could prevent people from accessing those higher wages. For example, if manual labour was in high demand, people with physical disabilities might not be able to do that job. My point in the other thread was that for this to be a fair system you'd need to tailor the wages to each person's circumstances to take into account their strengths and weaknesses. I don't see how that could be practical. It would be much simpler to ration scarce resources equally.

[ContrarianLemming]

Even if the wages were higher for unpleasant, socially necessary jobs and things were scaled adequately, there are personal circumstances that could prevent people from accessing those higher wages. For example, if manual labour was in high demand, people with physical disabilities might not be able to do that job. My point in the other thread was that for this to be a fair system you'd need to tailor the wages to each person's circumstances to take into account their strengths and weaknesses. I don't see how that could be practical. It would be much simpler to ration scarce resources equally.

god that's so much simpler

But wheres the incentives?
which brings me back to parecon style "to each according to work"

However, what seperates the OP from regular "to each according to work" is that the wages are not a static formula, they are dynamic and respond to supply and demand.

So in a communist scarity anarchism, we can either
Ration everything equally (Classic comumnism)
Ration everything based on how much you worked (Anarcho-collectivism, Parecon)
Ration everything based on how much peers think you deserve (Democratic Meritocracy)
OR Ration everything based on job empowerment - those who enjoy there jobs more get less, those who hate there jobs get more

they're all compatible with communism and they can all be tried.


ultimately, people with disabilities are always going to be at a disadvantage, it's unfortunate but that's the way of it

[Quail]

Isn't the incentive that for society to function, certain things need to be done? As an example, my boyfriend and I both hate washing up, but it's necessary for us to live comfortably, so it gets done nonetheless.

I disagree with the idea of disregarding different people's ability to work at different rates or even to do various jobs. In the case of people with disabilities being unable to do manual labour, your system means that these people can potentially be totally prevented from doing a job that gets them a higher wage which is completely not their fault.

I understand that you said that wages are not a static formula, but I'm saying that to be fair, wages should also take into account an individual's ability to do that work. If two people are working equally hard, but worker A is better at his job and more productive, he shouldn't earn more than worker B who is working just as hard in the same job but is less productive for whatever reason. Your system would be biased against people with disabilities or illnesses, and people who are less able at their job.

[ContrarianLemming]

People who are hampered by old age, disability and such could be given a higher minimum standard of living, or a form of welfare.

we're trying to build a utopia here people, we want everyone to be happy.


my boyfriend and I both hate washing up
eww


wages should also take into account an individual's ability to do that work.

i think, along with the measures I mentioned, that the people in a democratic meritocracy would take this into account.

[Quail]

i think, along with the measures I mentioned, that the people in a democratic meritocracy would take this into account.

How, practically, would this work? Each person would have to be individually assessed for what wages they should earn for their job.

Plus, if we take into account someone's ability to get work done when working a certain job, the wages everyone got would tend to roughly the same amount.

Would it make more sense to give everyone a basic ration, and if there were jobs that nobody wanted to do, but really needed doing, extra rations could be offered for those jobs until it was no longer a problem?

[ContrarianLemming]

Would it make more sense to give everyone a basic ration, and if there were jobs that nobody wanted to do, but really needed doing, extra rations could be offered for those jobs until it was no longer a problem?

It doesn't make any more or any less sense since we haven't tried it.

[Outinleftfield]

god that's so much simpler
OR Ration everything based on job empowerment - those who enjoy there jobs more get less, those who hate there jobs get more

I can see a lot of people saying "I hate my job!" while secretly enjoying it just so they can make more money.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm admittedly jumping into the middle of the conversation here -- I'd like to post a model I created that addresses some of the topics discussed in this thread:





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Ownership / control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

labor [supply] -- Only active workers may control communist property -- no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want, with the proviso that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only -- after a certain period of disuse all personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property




Associated material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources have no quantifiable value -- are considered as attachments to the production process

labor [supply] -- Labor supply is selected and paid for with existing (or debt-based) labor credits

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily




Determination of material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources may be created and sourced from projects and production runs

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination




Material function

communist administration -- Assets and resources are collectively administered by a locality, or over numerous localities by combined consent [supply]

labor [supply] -- Work positions are created according to requirements of production runs and projects, by mass political prioritization

consumption [demand] -- All economic needs and desires are formally recorded as pre-planned consumer orders and are politically prioritized [demand]




Infrastructure / overhead

communist administration -- Distinct from the general political culture each project or production run will include a provision for an associated administrative component as an integral part of its total policy package -- a selected policy's proponents will be politically responsible for overseeing its implementation according to the policy's provisions

labor [supply] -- All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardless of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process




Propagation

communist administration -- A political culture, including channels of journalism, history, and academia, will generally track all known assets and resources -- unmaintained assets and resources may fall into disuse or be reclaimed by individuals for personal use only

labor [supply] -- Workers with past accumulated labor credits are the funders of new work positions and incoming laborers -- labor credits are handed over at the completion of work hours -- underfunded projects and production runs are debt-based and will be noted as such against the issuing locality

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may create templates of political priority lists for the sake of convenience, modifiable at any time until the date of activation -- regular, repeating orders can be submitted into an automated workflow for no interruption of service or orders


A further explanation and sample scenario can be found here:


'A world without money'

tinyurl.com/ylm3gev


'Hours as a measure of labor’

tinyurl.com/yh3jr9x