Is there any group actively trying to replace capitalism in the US or west?

[malcom]

Is there any group actively trying to replace capitalism in the US or west?

But with an economic system that prices everything in labor time, where production is decided by consumer spending (as opposed to a command economy), pays all workers an equal income with perhaps some variation for difficult jobs (as opposed to having a labor market which determines worker pay) and has a democratic check on the top layer of management of the economy?

The only things I have been able to find are:

Leftist Movements
They don't seem to be selling the public on an alternative economic system. They advocate improvements to the current system.

Parecon
This seems almost identical to capitalism where a worker's standard of living is based on their ability to sell themselves in the labor market and based on the profitability of the company they work for and will lead to the same income inequality that plaques the system today.

Resource Based Economy
This is something promoted by Jacque Fresco's The Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement. Although their goal of creating a society where everyone has a high standard of living using the latest technology is in line with what I think an economy should be, their economic system for reaching that goal is to make everything free and not pay people to work.

Not using some kind of money to ration goods and pay people for working will never work and is complete fantasy. Plus they do not want any democracy. It is a shame because they have become somewhat popular.

Technocracy
This was a group in the US that may have been the most popular anti-capitalist movement in US history. Jacque Fresco was a member so it is similar to the RBE above. They wanted to replace government and business with a scientific plan. However, they wanted to use energy units as money and this simply cannot work either.

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So does anyone know of any organized effort to sell the public on an alternative economic system that uses labor vouchers?

Paul Cockshott advocates this. But he is one person, not an organized movement. And I don't think he is trying to build any kind of movement.

[Rocky Rococo]

It's time to move beyond the "job" based economy. "Jobs" as we have known them are increasingly an obsolete concept. All this precarity is the result of clinging to the outmoded culture of working jobs as the prerequisite for entry into the economic system. But particularly in the post-industrialized west, there simply isn't going to be anything remotely resembling the forms of production that are going to require vast numbers of "job-holders" to execute the socially necessary tasks. Multiplying layers of sales/promotion/marketing, not to mention of management/bureaucracy/control, creates no new cumulative wealth. Most work is by its nature drudgery, that it now combines with meaninglessness dooms it as a human activity. Since we in the left aren't going to be taking power anytime in the near term anyway, we should be framing our approaches appropriately to the long-term deep social challenges to which we are the only ones that can possibly offer answers. Time to start fleshing out the character of the post-job society.

[malcom]

I believe that in the scientific management of the economy, your goal should be to automate as many jobs as you can. And I believe we can eliminate 55% of the jobs we currently do with existing automation technology.

But even with all that automation, that still means every good and service still requires labor to be produced. There is not a single good or service that is produced without labor. And I don't think that will change in my lifetime.

I'm interested in a movement that wants to change the economy now, not when I'm dead.

[Q]

I'm interested in a movement that wants to change the economy now, not when I'm dead.

For that to happen, the first order of business is to abolish private property and instead have a socialised economy that is built on the laws of planning for human need.

With such a context, I'm very interested to discuss your ideas. But we can't escape capitalist logic without tackling the very basis on which Capital operates.

[Rusty Shackleford]

massive automization of labor would be something good for the future, but doing such a thing within capitalist society is used as a weapon against labor.

like, for example, self-checkout at unionized grocery stores.

[malcom]

For that to happen, the first order of business is to abolish private property and instead have a socialised economy that is built on the laws of planning for human need.

With such a context, I'm very interested to discuss your ideas. But we can't escape capitalist logic without tackling the very basis on which Capital operates.

I believe if you tell people that in a democratic economy, where you got equal pay for equal work and equal ownership in all of industry, that you would get paid from $120,000 to $230,000 per year (based on the current US economy) which would grow 3-5% yearly, that would get people interested.

People care about their bottom line. Like the famous political saying goes, "It is the economy stupid."

$120k is more than what 95% of workers make and is 4 times more than the median income. When you include the fact that loans will be interest free, it is a very significant upgrade in your standard of living.

That will pique everyone's interest.

Then if you can back it up with a detailed, sound plan that would provide empirically based responses to all the critics, for how the economy will stay productive with the right incentives, how it will remain dynamic, remain decentralized, will become even more accountable because everything will now be fully transparent, how the commanding heights of the economy would be democratically elected adding another layer of accountability and how the government, industry and justice will still all remain independent keeping a separation of power, I believe it would be something that people would embrace.

People are generally misinformed about how significantly an alternative to capitalism will benefit them and how it would actually work. Most people think the alternative to capitalism is poverty, a dictatorship, show trials, gulags and labor camps. If they were properly educated, it would become more popular.