Parecon [Archive]

syndicat

25th April 2007, 02:25

Some of the comments seem to be based on mis-understanding, tho. It's not correct to say that allocation is based solely on price. On the contrary, the idea is to make qualitative information of all kinds as the basis of proposals, by workers for what to produce and including enhancements in their work situation, and requests by communities for public goods, as well as by individuals for private consumption goods. Prices emerge only as the result of people indicating the strength of their desire for particular outcomes, which preferences can and would be based on all sorts of reasons.

A common mistake is to regard it as a form of mutualism, which was a form of market collectivism based on cooperatives. It would be more accurate to see it as an evolution out of the idea first proposed by the guild socialists back in the early 1900s, of a socialized economy based on direct negotiation between workers and the consumers of the goods and services. The idea of participatory planning, developed first in the '70s by a number of radical economists, was sort of a generalization of that idea to the whole economy.

Another common mistake is to suppose that because Albert and Hahnel advocate forming cooperatives, that (1) a strategy to create a participatory economy has to be based on that, and (2) that this is the be-all and end-all of their strategic ideas. They may or may not be "reformist" -- depending on how one defines that pejorative -- but participatory economics itself is merely a conception of the basic structure or mode of production of an authentically socialized economy. There might be different ideas about strategy for realizing it. I'm a syndicalist myself and see a large-scale movement of self-managed mass organizations as the basis of social transformation. But I think the role of people as members of communities and consumers should not be left out.

A socialized economy has to be effective for people in providing them what they desire or why will they support it? If the emancipation of the working class is the work of the workers themselves, then doesn't this imply that the working class must end up self-managing the entire economy? And how to do that if they don't control the planning of production? Central planning ends up concentrating expertise and power in an elite who issue orders down thru a corporate-style hierarchy, which means a continuation of the class system.

JazzRemington

27th April 2007, 17:13

Prices emerge only as the result of people indicating the strength of their desire for particular outcomes, which preferences can and would be based on all sorts of reasons.

But isn't this how, in theory, prices are determined by bourgeoisie economists? The part about negotiations between producers and consumers seems especially odd...

In regard to a sort-of "end all be all," neither authors have indicated that there is anything beyond Parecon they are striving for.

I'm ignoring the rest of the post because 1) I did not say Parecon was like Mutualism. 2) Parecon and central planning are not the only way of organize a worker-controlled economy. That's like saying there's either Capitalism or nothing. 3) Parecon uses bourgeois economic tools, methods, and mechanisms, resulting in something that, while not Capitalism proper, is just a few steps below it.

syndicat

27th April 2007, 17:46

Prices emerge only as the result of people indicating the strength of their desire for particular outcomes, which preferences can and would be based on all sorts of reasons.

What bourgeois economists say and how capitalism actually works are two different things. Moreover, bourgeois economists propose that prices be formed through interaction in a market. in participatory economics there is no market. the social interaction that shapes prices occurs in a social planning process. no viable economy is possible if it can't acquire information about which productive outcomes people most prefer because otherwise the economy will squander our labor and other resources not making the things people most want. to acquire authentic info about relative preferences mean people have to make hard choices over possible alternatives, given that we cannot produce every conceivable thing people might want. there aren't enough hours in the day of work time or resources on the planet to do that.

In regard to a sort-of "end all be all," neither authors have indicated that there is anything beyond Parecon they are striving for.

We need to distinguish strategy and tactics we take today from the aim. I was saying that forming cooperatives today -- a strategy -- isn't the only strategic idea that Hahnel and Albert favor. But strategy for what to do to get beyond capitalism isn't the same thing as how we conceive of the post-capitalist future. Participatory economics is a vision of that post-capitalist future, it's not a strategy for getting there.

2) Parecon and central planning are not the only way of organize a worker-controlled economy. That's like saying there's either Capitalism or nothing.

There's also market systems, that's true. But those will inevitably be class systems. If you are thinking of worker collectives in a market, that means each will be in competition, and there will be a labor market where people with special expertise will be in high demand due to the need of the collectives to compete. There will be a tendency for these people with special forms of expertise such as marketeers or engineers, to demand special perks, to be able to set the agenda. You have the beginnings of a re-emergence of the class system. Eventually you'll have the professionals and managers in cooperatives in charge, as is the case in the Mondragon cooperatives. In other cases collectives will be driven out of business, and then what? Will then be employed as wage labor without internal rights in collectives? Plus, markets suffer from the problem of externalities like pollution. You can't get rid of it because competition will lead to cost-shifting behavior, such as externalizing costs onto the rest of the community as with pollution.

3) Parecon uses bourgeois economic tools, methods, and mechanisms, resulting in something that, while not Capitalism proper, is just a few steps below it.

Participatory economics is a vision of a socially owned, non-market economy, a mode of production where there is no longer a division into classes. I don't know what you are referring to as "bourgeois economic tools, methods and mechanisms." The theory is based on the idea that an efficient economy is one where allocation of resources is in order with what people most prefer. Preferences and social opportunity costs are not speficially "bourgeois" notions, but facts that any viable economic conception needs to take account of. Prices are not specific to only capitalism. Prices are needed as a social accounting tool, to measure social costs and benefits. They need not presuppose a market economy.

JazzRemington

27th April 2007, 18:24

Moreover, bourgeois economists propose that prices be formed through interaction in a market. in participatory economics there is no market. the social interaction that shapes prices occurs in a social planning process.

This social planning is negotiations between producers and consumers. Like Capitalism. Through this negotiation we determine what gets produced and how much. Like Capitalism. This negotiation also determines prices. Like Capitalism.

Participatory economics is a vision of that post-capitalist future, it's not a strategy for getting there.

You misunderstand me. You said that Parecon was not an "end all be all." Meaning, there was something beyond parecon and that it is only a transition.

don't know what you are referring to as "bourgeois economic tools, methods and mechanisms."

Essentially, they use concepts like utility maximization, some bastard version of marginalism, prices based on negotiations between producer and consumer, etc. They take mainstread economic methods and tools and use them as part of the "core" of their system. Thus, it is a failure because they cannot escape the tools used by the system they are critiqueing!

syndicat

27th April 2007, 18:45

This social planning is negotiations between producers and consumers. Like Capitalism. Through this negotiation we determine what gets produced and how much. Like Capitalism. This negotiation also determines prices. Like Capitalism.

Capitalism isn't based on social planning in an environment of self-management and social equality, it's based on who has the most clout in a market. if you do not think workers should have a say in planning out what is to be produced and how, then you are proposing they should be subject to bosses...just like capitalism! And the proposal that communities, through their assemblies, can make requests of the production system for public goods is nothing like capitalism. Prices are not determined by negotiation between producers and consumers in a social planning process in a context of self-management and equality. Prices are determined by market clout, which is determined by things like structural power such as private ownership. And if production isn't determined by negotiation between consumers and producers, how is it determined? Orders issued top-down by a central planning bureaucracy? That would inevitably just be another class system...like capitalism.

You misunderstand me. You said that Parecon was not an "end all be all." Meaning, there was something beyond parecon and that it is only a transition.

You're the one who misunderstands. What I said was not the "be-all and end-all" was not participatory economics but the strategy of forming coops.

Essentially, they use concepts like utility maximization, some bastard version of marginalism, prices based on negotiations between producer and consumer, etc. They take mainstread economic methods and tools and use them as part of the "core" of their system. Thus, it is a failure because they cannot escape the tools used by the system they are critiqueing!

The radical economists who formulated participatory economics were working in the tradition of radical political economy. Their theory is structuralist. They analyze capitalism in terms of its class structure, the power of capital, the power of the coordinator class, and so on. This tradition in political economy is at odds with mainstream economics which tries to abstract economics from the social structures of power. Mainstream economics is not structuralist, that's why it's not called "political" economy, it ignores the larger social and political context, such as classes.

They do not assume that the aim of society is the individual's utility maximization. They differentiate private goods from public goods. The wants that people bring to the negotiation process are brought as both individuals and as communities and can be based on any sort of want, expressions of solidarity, of desire to protect the ecosystem, of identification with one's community and desire to see it prosper. They do not assume only self-interested wants. They do talk about preferences. That's because this is a fact. It's a better understanding than the 19th century concept of use-value. That's because wants are relative. I could use a knife to sharpen a pencil...the knife has "use-value" for that purpose, but I'd much prefer to use a pencil sharpener because it uses up less of the pencil and can give a more even point.

Economic ideas need to be defensible based on their merits, due to rational arguments. That means not being a fundamentalist, taking your theory as a kind of religion.

JazzRemington

27th April 2007, 22:38

Capitalism isn't based on social planning in an environment of self-management and social equality, it's based on who has the most clout in a market. if you do not think workers should have a say in planning out what is to be produced and how, then you are proposing they should be subject to bosses...just like capitalism! And the proposal that communities, through their assemblies, can make requests of the production system for public goods is nothing like capitalism. Prices are not determined by negotiation between producers and consumers in a social planning process in a context of self-management and equality. Prices are determined by market clout, which is determined by things like structural power such as private ownership. And if production isn't determined by negotiation between consumers and producers, how is it determined? Orders issued top-down by a central planning bureaucracy? That would inevitably just be another class system...like capitalism

You truly are ignorant of both Parecon and the Capitalism, aren't you? Just because they SAY it isn't anything like Capitalism does not make it so. If that's true, then the Stalinists are correct when they say that Russia wasn't Capitalism because they SAY it isn't Capitalism...despite structural similarities.

We are not talking about whether or not workers should have anything to do with teh production process. That is sophistry. We are talking about the FACT that what gets produced and how much is determined by a PRODUCTION class and a CONSUMER class, much like how Capitalism determines production. The PRODUCERS (either a monopoly firm or a small entreprenueral firm) state they can or have this much of a supply of goods and the CONSUMERS say they demand so much of it. The tendency is toward where supply and demand are equal. How does Parecon and Capitalism NOT seem similiar in this respect? The essential structure is the same!

And if prices are not determined by negotiations between producers and consumers, then how ARE they determined?

Again, I reiterate: the same things that Pareconists claim is the same thing that Capitalists claim. You ahve yet to show any real, concrete differences.

The radical economists who formulated participatory economics were working in the tradition of radical political economy. Their theory is structuralist. They analyze capitalism in terms of its class structure, the power of capital, the power of the coordinator class, and so on. This tradition in political economy is at odds with mainstream economics which tries to abstract economics from the social structures of power. Mainstream economics is not structuralist, that's why it's not called "political" economy, it ignores the larger social and political context, such as classes.

This has nothing to do with the FACT that they use mainstream tools as if they are factually correct and can be back by objective, empirical evidence.

syndicat

28th April 2007, 01:10

Just because they SAY it isn't anything like Capitalism does not make it so.

It's not a question of someone's evaluation of a proposal. It's a question of the actual structure described in the participatory economics proposal. You just blab about it but don't show much real understanding of it. so, let's consider the basics. The means of production -- land, buildings, equipment, ect -- are owned in common by everyone. There is no private ownership of the means of production.

There is no money capital. That's because money exists as capital when its owner can use it to buy means of production and hire wage workers to do as he says and produce commodities that are sold on markets with the aim of getting back revenue to expand the owner's total capital. In participatory economics, no one can hire people to work as wage slaves. No one can buy means of production or other factors of production on markets because resources used in production are only allocated via the social planning process, and they are only allocated to self-managing production groups.

The coordinator class is that class within corporate capitalism that has a relative monopoly over positions that giver power over workers not based on ownership -- managers, top professionals like lawyers, finance officers, etc.

The working class can't be liberated without a program to dissolve the power of this class. The participatory economics proposal for this includes a number of parts, including (1) redesign of jobs so that the conceptual and decision-making work is integrated into the same job as doing the actual work. This "job balancing" is part of empowering workers to control production. (2) Each workplace is self-managed with control by the assembly of the workers there.

Self-management -- control over your life -- has to include not just work but also consumption. This means that communities need to make the decisions about the public goods that are to be requested to be produced for their community -- things like pollution prevention, education, health care, transit. We're talking about public goods here.

If the economy isn't run in such a way that it satisfies what people want, then it will not be an effective economy for them. People need to therefore have the ability to shape the social plan in terms of what it is agreed will be produced for people as consumers, both as individuals (private consumption goods) and as communities (publiic goods).

Consumers and workers are not two different "classes". A class is a group differentiated by its power relations to other groups in social production. In the participatory economics proposals, there are no classes. Workers are not subordinate to some other class controlling them in production. Workers and consumers are mostly the same people but in different roles. These different roles are needed because some decisions affect one person more as a worker but someone else more as consumer. The decisions about how to run the bicycle factory affect the workers there, but the decisions that allow pollutants from the factory affect the community, and decisions about the kind and quality of the bicycles affect the riders of the bicycles. These different groups need to have appropriate say.

so, the basic idea is that there is a social plan and this determines what is produced. This social plan is self-managed by the entire population, through people making their proposals as workers and as consumers. The community assemblies have control over the land and the ecosystem, and can determine how much pollution they are willing to allow, if any. Communities don't have this sort of control within capitalism. Capitalism isn't a system of workers' self-management of production. Capitalism is a system with the coordinator class and capitalist class over the workers, and the workers subordinate to those classes. Those classes don't exist in a participatory economy.

The participatory economics structure can be summarized as the following points:

(1) Assemblies and federations of these in industry, and job balancing, as the means to empower the working class to control social production.

(2) Assemblies of residents in neighborhoods and federations of these over broader geographic scope. These control the allocation of the land and impacts on the ecosystem, and articulate the requests for public goods to the production system.

(3) Ownership of the land and means of production by everyone in the society in common.

(4) Job balancing (redesign) to break down the power of the coordinator class over the working class.

(5) Participatory planning as the way that the entire society participates in the crafting of the social plan for production. Allocation of resources in social production only through this social planning process. not the market.

JazzRemington

28th April 2007, 01:58

Once again, I state: they can say it doesn't resemble anything like Capitalism all they want. But the FACT is the way production works is exactly the same as how economists claim Capitalism determines what is produced and at what price: PRODUCER negotiates with CONSUMER to determine WHAT gets produced and HOW MUCH.

Workers councils, consumption councils, individuals, it makes no difference. The structure of what and how much gets produced is still the same. Using definites in place of variables in an equation does not produce different equations. A+B=C is still A+B=C no matter what is substitued for A, B, and C. No one I have pointed this out to has shown me any evidence as to how Parecon and Capitalism defer in this respect.

syndicat

28th April 2007, 03:36

the FACT is the way production works is exactly the same as how economists claim Capitalism determines what is produced and at what price: PRODUCER negotiates with CONSUMER to determine WHAT gets produced and HOW MUCH.

Any conceivable society will have people who do the work...producers...and of course people will consume. In capitalism WORKERS do not negotiate directly with consumers. Do you negotiate with the workers who make the stuff you buy at the supermarket?

Nor does corporate management negotiate with consumers about what to produce either. Corporations decide what they can make a profit on, they devise their plans totally on spec, then produce and hope they don't lose money. The capitalist starts out with a chunk of money-capital, M, they buy means of production, C, hire workers with a payroll, V, where M=C+V, and sell the commodites for money, M'. They make a profit if M' is greater than M.

This is not how participatory economics works. When people use entitlements to consume to acquire things at distribution centers, the entitlement to consume they use doesn't go as revenue to production groups. Consumers help to craft the plans that the production groups then work to. The social value of the projected product is validated thru the participatory planning process prior to production and distribution whereas in capitalism the social value of the product is only realized in sales, after the fact of production.

To be able to make a rational case for whatever you want to claim about the participatory economics proposal, you have to start with an accurate description of what the proposal is, such as my list (1)-(5) in my previous post. Then you can try to ARGUE as to what the consequences of that would be, of what its real character would be, by trying to persuade people using persuasive arguments. That's what it is to make a rational case for a viewpoint about it.

JazzRemington

28th April 2007, 04:10

What Pareconists say about Parecon IS EXACTLY WHAT CAPITALISTS SAY ABOUT CAPITALISM!

You're asserting that what Capitalists say about Capitalism is different from how Capitalism works but yet when Pareconists say pretty much the exact same thing about Parecon the system must behave differently in large scale practice. You, as well as all the other people who support this nonsense, are being inconsistent.

syndicat

28th April 2007, 04:28

Capitalists say that there should not be private ownership of means of production and land, and that these things should be owned in common by everyone?

Capitalists say that there should be no management hierarchy controlling workers and that workers should manage the industries thesmelves, and that the ultimate decision-making power in industries and workplaces should be the participatory democracy of assemblies?

Capitalists say that there should be neighborhood asemblies and community self-governance with the community assemblies being able to ban pollution or charge production groups for polluting? Capitalism is based on the shifting of costs onto others, as with pollution, or not paying worker health benefits. Under a participatory economy, production groups must internalize their social costs, and this is forced on them thru the social planning process.

Capitalists say that remuneration should be based on how much you sacrifice and how hard your job is?

This is completely ridiculous. Supporters of capitalism say no such thing.

JazzRemington

28th April 2007, 04:55

I'll take this argument by argument, even though these have absolutely NOTHING to do with my assertion and only serve as further evidence of your complete ignorance and failure at critical thinking.

Capitalists say that there should not be private ownership of means of production and land, and that these things should be owned in common by everyone?

Private property is exclusive ownership of a certain thing. It does not presuppose individual or group owning the thing. Thus, a group owning a piece of land exclusively at the expense of someone else constitutes a private property relation. But we aren't talking about property relations. We are talking about production. But sure, because Soviet Russia claimed that property was socially owned, that must've made it true!

Capitalists say that there should be no management hierarchy controlling workers and that workers should manage the industries thesmelves, and that the ultimate decision-making power in industries and workplaces should be the participatory democracy of assemblies?

In strict sense, Capitalism does not presuppose workers owning a firm themselves and controlling it. Capitalism is essentially at its core private ownership of the means ofproduction, surplus labor, and commodity exchange. This structure can take different forms but still remain Capitalist.

But once again, we are not talking about practical Capitalism. The basic theory of Capitalism is relatively small firms that require little to no management hierarchy.

Capitalists say that there should be neighborhood asemblies and community self-governance with the community assemblies being able to ban pollution or charge production groups for polluting?

You're confusing Capitalism and government.

Capitalism is based on the shifting of costs onto others, as with pollution, or not paying worker health benefits. Under a participatory economy, production groups must internalize their social costs, and this is forced on them thru the social planning process.

Once again, you are also confusing Capitalism in practice and Capitalism in theory. Capitalists say that all costs are internalized by the producer (whoever that is).

Capitalists say that remuneration should be based on how much you sacrifice and how hard your job is?

According to Adam Smith and most mainstream economists, yes.

This is completely ridiculous. Supporters of capitalism say no such thing.

You cannot hear what is said if you choose not to listen.

syndicat

28th April 2007, 08:25

But we aren't talking about property relations. We are talking about production. But sure, because Soviet Russia claimed that property was socially owned, that must've made it true!

Capitalism presupposes private ownership of the means of production, and a mass of propertyless people who can be exploited as wage-slaves. if there is no private ownership of property, and private accumulation of wealth, there is no capitalism. You can't have capitalism without capitalists.

Your second sentence changes your argument. You previously said that capitalists agree with what is proposed for a participatory economy. You weren't talking about the soviet union. Obviously capitalists do not advocate what existed in the Soviet Union.

In the soviet union there was state ownership of property, not private ownership, but the dominating class wasn't based on ownership, but on relative monopolization of conditions giving power over workers in production, such as management positions, top engineers, planning professionals.

In strict sense, Capitalism does not presuppose workers owning a firm themselves and controlling it.

Maybe you mean to say that the laws of the present society do not preclude workers owning firms. That is true. But if that were general, it wouldn't be capitalism but something else. You're confusing a merely legal formality with the question of the basic structure.

Capitalism is essentially at its core private ownership of the means ofproduction, surplus labor, and commodity exchange. This structure can take different forms but still remain Capitalist.

So, now you're saying private ownership of the means of production IS essential to capitalism. Before you said it wasn't. Make up your mind.

But once again, we are not talking about practical Capitalism. The basic theory of Capitalism is relatively small firms that require little to no management hierarchy.

Don't be ridiculous. Capitalism can't exist without a mass of propertyless people it can hire as wage-slaves. And when capitalism develops into its advanced corporate form, a third major class emerges, the class of managers and top professionals, who are under the capitalists but dominate the working class.

It's true that the bourgeois theory of the market ignores this class difference and ignores the internal hierarchy of the firm. so what? the very fact that they ignore it makes their theory different than that of participatory economics which is based on the class analysis of advanced capitalism, and the conditions needed to liberate the working class from the actually existing subordination to the managerial and capitalist classes.

me: "Capitalists say that there should be neighborhood asemblies and community self-governance with the community assemblies being able to ban pollution or charge production groups for polluting? "

You:

You're confusing Capitalism and government.

Nope. We're talking about how social production works in a participatory economy. The community assemblies have the role of asserting stewardship over the commons, such as the atmosphere, streams, ecosystem, and other public goods, and articulating proposals for the enhancement or protection of these public goods in producion. Within capitalism a systematic tendency is cost-shifting, dumping costs on others so that the firm doesn't have to pay. These are called negative externalities. The role of the community assemblies in the participatory planning process is how participatory economics overcomes this structural failing of a market economy.

Once again, you are also confusing Capitalism in practice and Capitalism in theory. Capitalists say that all costs are internalized by the producer (whoever that is).

What we should be interested in is how actually existing capitalism works. What participatory economics is proposing is different than the actual practice of capitalism. Why is it relevant what apologists for capitalism say? And not all bourgeois economists fail to recognize externalities. In fact many do. The liberal school of neoclassical economists do recognize externalities and that is part of their argument for the need for government regulation.

me: "Capitalists say that remuneration should be based on how much you sacrifice and how hard your job is? "

You:

According to Adam Smith and most mainstream economists, yes.

Wrong. Mainstream economists say remuneration should be based on your marginal revenue product of your factor of production (your capital or your
labor). In other words, whatever added market value is created by hiring you, or by using your capital. This is used to justify capitalist wage differentials.

But people who work the hardest, endure the most sacrifices, are usually people who are poorly paid. This is shown by statistics about longevity and health. People with the cushiest jobs have fewer accidents, occupational illnesses, and live longer. People like managers, stockbrokers, engineers etc.

JazzRemington

28th April 2007, 19:10

Capitalism presupposes private ownership of the means of production, and a mass of propertyless people who can be exploited as wage-slaves. if there is no private ownership of property, and private accumulation of wealth, there is no capitalism. You can't have capitalism without capitalists.

Once again, because of your blatent refusal to understand simple concepts. Individuals OR GROUPS CAN OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY. What is so hard about this to grasph?

You previously said that capitalists agree with what is proposed for a participatory economy.

I never said that. I said that much of what Pareconists say about Parecon is similiar to what Capitalists say about Capitalism: remuneration based on sacrifice and hard work and prices and what is produced and how much is negotiated by consumersa and producers. The basics are the same, regardless of what form they take. Your refusal to understand this does not change it.

But if that were general, it wouldn't be capitalism but something else. You're confusing a merely legal formality with the question of the basic structure.

Capitalism is any economic system based on ownership of private property, extraction of surplus value from free labor, and the production and exchange of commodities. WHO is in WHAT standing in the economic structure does not matter. A owns a factory that B and C work in. A can be an individual OR A GROUP.

So, now you're saying private ownership of the means of production IS essential to capitalism. Before you said it wasn't. Make up your mind.

Once again your failure at comprehending simple concepts is showing through. Private property does not presuppose that only individuals can own it. It is private because ownership and use is restricted to one person or group. Period.

Don't be ridiculous. Capitalism can't exist without a mass of propertyless people it can hire as wage-slaves. And when capitalism develops into its advanced corporate form, a third major class emerges, the class of managers and top professionals, who are under the capitalists but dominate the working class.

You are confusing, once again, what Capitalism is in practical sense and what Capitalists SAY it is.

Nope.

Yes, you are. Regulations imposed on firms is NOT AN ACT OF ECONOMICS. It is an act of government.

What we should be interested in is how actually existing capitalism works.

No, we are not talking about Capitalism in reality. We are talking about the basic theory, or ideology. Stay on topic.

Wrong.

Oh yah?

Originally posted by The Wealth of [email protected] Book I, Chapter X, Part 1

First, The wages of labour vary with the ease or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or dishonourableness of the employment.
[...]
Secondly, the wages of labour vary with the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expence of learning the business.

Die Neue Zeit

28th April 2007, 20:38

What I meant by "reformist" (in addition to what you and other naysayers said) is that even Michael Albert isn't advocating "violent revolution" for a parecon society. THAT speaks volumes.

gilhyle

28th April 2007, 21:18

If i understand jazzremington's key point it is that the law of value will still apply. If I understand syndicat's key point it is that the interaction of supply and demand in the market will not determine the price of goods.

If that is s reasonable summary, and I dont know anything about parecon, you might both be correct. :D

syndicat

29th April 2007, 15:51

Participatory economics is merely a proposed way of understanding a classless, non-market, socialized economy, based on economic self-management and participatory democracy. It is not a strategy for getting there.

The pejorative "reformist" applies only as an evaluation of tactics and strategy. And participatory economics isn't tactics and strategy.

I'm sure there are things Michael Albert says that i wouldn't agree with. Maybe he thinks the Red Sox are great and I disagree. Whatever. This is not relevant to an evaluation of participatory economics as a proposed mode of production.

I think that such an economic system could only come about through a proletarian revolution, in which the working class seizes the means of production and dismantles the state.

Suppose Jerry is a person who advocates participatory economics and thinks that a violent revolution will be necessary. So, Hammer, is Jerry being inconsistent? If not, then believing that a violent revolution will be necessary is consistent with advocacy of participatory economics as the economy to be built out of the revolutionary process.

syndicat

29th April 2007, 16:29

Individuals OR GROUPS CAN OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY.

When a group of workers owns in common their means of production through a cooperative, this is collective private property. And the legal system in which capitalism exists does not make this illegal. But it is necessarily only a small niche.

An economic system in which all the means of production are held as cooperatives or collectives, collective private property of the workers, is a form of market socialism, it's not a capitalist economy. Similarly, if the workers owned their means of production as self-employed artisans and farmers, hiring no one, that would be the system that Marx called "simple commodity production" in "Capital." That is not capitalism precisely because of the absence of a class of propertyless wage-slaves. Both of these systems -- simple commodity production and market collectivism -- would be likely to evolve into capitalism, but that is another matter. It's not relevant to the evaluation of participatory economics since participatory economics is not a system of market collectivism, as the means of production in a particular facility is not collective private property of the workers there. Means of production are owned in common by the entire society and allocated to workers to use through the social planning process.

me: "Don't be ridiculous. Capitalism can't exist without a mass of propertyless people it can hire as wage-slaves. And when capitalism develops into its advanced corporate form, a third major class emerges, the class of managers and top professionals, who are under the capitalists but dominate the working class."

JazzR:

You are confusing, once again, what Capitalism is in practical sense and what Capitalists SAY it is.

Read my sentence again. It doesn't talk about what the pundits defending capitalism say about it. It talks about what capitaliism is. So i can't be confusing what capitalism is with what the pundits say.

In regard to the role of the community assemblies:

Yes, you are. Regulations imposed on firms is NOT AN ACT OF ECONOMICS. It is an act of government.

Wrong. The community assemblies and federations of these have an economic role in the participatory economics structure. They are the means to defending, making decisions about, proposals for public goods as inputs to the participatory planning system which determines allocation of resources in social production. Part of this is forcing the firms to internalize their social costs. But it happens via the negotiation process in participatory planning. The community makes proposals about how much pollution it is willing to accept and receives compensation for this. The process of negotiation determines a price for the pollution per unit which the production group is charged with on its budget. This then warrants an expansion of the community's budget over what it would otherwise be. This differs from capitalism where nobody legally owns the atmosphere so the firm is free to pollute, unless the state passes regulations on this. Within the participatory economics proposal, the atmosphere is collectively owned by the society. This implements the principle that people are to have a say over decisions to the degree they are affected by them. The communities that have a say over the pollution from a source depend on how far the impact of that pollution goes.

me: "What we should be interested in is how actually existing capitalism works."

No, we are not talking about Capitalism in reality. We are talking about the basic theory, or ideology. Stay on topic.

Wrong. The topic is participatory economics, which is a proposal for an actual post-capitalist mode of production. Look at what this thread says in RevLeft. It says "parecon". It doesn't say "capitalist ideology."

We need to have a programmatic understanding of what it is that we are aiming at as a replacement for capitalism. Given the failures of socialism in the 20th century, we can't ask people to buy a pig in poke. We need to have an understanding of what the real conditions are that need to be achieved for the liberation of the working class from the class system. This presupposes that we have some understanding of what capitalism and class oppression actually are.

In regard to capitalist ideology, I find your take rather strange. If pro-capitalist pundits say that capitalism furthers "freedom" and "democracy", are you saying that we should oppose freedom and democracy? It seems to me that we should be saying that in fact capitalism is a reign of oppression and tyranny, and stifles freedom and deomcracy.

I've run into occasional pro-capitalist pundits who say American society has no classes. Does this mean we should cease advocating a classless society? I think we should be pointing out the class realities, and advocating for the working class to liberate itself from class oppression. That presupposes we have some idea about what would need to change for that to be achieved.

Pro-capitalist pundits do occasionally argue that "hard work pays off" in capitalism (like the quote from Adam Smith). Does this mean that we should say that people should not be remunerated based on how hard their work is? I don't agree. The owners, after all, do no work, or don't have to. They may manage their money but they don't even have to do that, they can hire money managers.

And, by the way, neo-classical economists -- contemporary mainstream pro-capitalist economists -- do not say that people are paid according to how hard their work is. They say they are paid according to the marginal revenue product of the "factor" they own -- capital or labor.

JazzRemington

29th April 2007, 17:53

When a group of workers owns in common their means of production through a cooperative, this is collective private property. And the legal system in which capitalism exists does not make this illegal. But it is necessarily only a small niche.

We are not talking about market socialism or anything the like. We are talking about the fact that groups can own private property. Stay on topic.

vRead my sentence again. It doesn't talk about what the pundits defending capitalism say about it. It talks about what capitaliism is. So i can't be confusing what capitalism is with what the pundits say.

You fool, we aren't talking about what Capitalism IS. We are talking about what Capitalists say about Capitalism. Stay on topic.

Wrong.
Once again, you'ev shown you're incapable of understanding even the basics of Capitalism. The same idea of negotiations between consumers and producers (which is what in theory happens in Capitalism) is said to determine what the PRICE of not making costs internal.

Wrong. The topic is participatory economics, which is a proposal for an actual post-capitalist mode of production. Look at what this thread says in RevLeft. It says "parecon". It doesn't say "capitalist ideology."

:lol: Ah, I see! But actually, you got the thread off topic. All I did was say I posted a critique about the system. You should've read the entire thread to see the entire, and ignorant, "discussion" we had of it, as opposed to just knocking the thread of topic with your stupidity.

And, by the way, neo-classical economists -- contemporary mainstream pro-capitalist economists -- do not say that people are paid according to how hard their work is. They say they are paid according to the marginal revenue product of the "factor" they own -- capital or labor.

Which changes with "how hard it works."

syndicat

29th April 2007, 18:20

me: "And, by the way, neo-classical economists -- contemporary mainstream pro-capitalist economists -- do not say that people are paid according to how hard their work is. They say they are paid according to the marginal revenue product of the "factor" they own -- capital or labor."

JazzR:

Which changes with "how hard it works."

Wrong. Capitalists don't do anything. Hence there is no "hard work" that determines the "revenue product" per each additional unit of capital the firm works with.

And marginal revenue product of labor does NOT correlate with how hard people work. A brain surgeon's work may generate huge revenues even if he's on the golf course by 3 pm. The revenue for each additional hour of brain surgery work is far greater than the revenue per each additional hour of labor by a janitor.

The rest of your comments are either insults or mindless repetition of what you said before.

JazzRemington

29th April 2007, 18:26

Wrong. Capitalists don't do anything. Hence there is no "hard work" that determines the "revenue product" per each additional unit of capital the firm works with.

More productivity = higher revenue product, in general.

A brain surgeon's work may generate huge revenues even if he's on the golf course by 3 pm. The revenue for each additional hour of brain surgery work is far greater than the revenue per each additional hour of labor by a janitor.

Because of several factors. The two most important being 1) education and sacrifice to gain such education and 2) "importance to society." Granted, janitorial work is probably of equal importance to society as a brain surgen, but in general there is little to no "higher education" required, in the sense of going to a special school.

The rest of your comments are either insults or mindless repetition of what you said before.

I have no qualms about calling someone a fool if he or she clearly is. But accusing me of "mindlessly repeating" what I've said before only brings up two points: 1) ask a different question and get a different answer and 2) you are also mindlessly repeating what Pareconists say without actually thinking critically about it.

syndicat

29th April 2007, 18:46

me: "Wrong. Capitalists don't do anything. Hence there is no "hard work" that determines the "revenue product" per each additional unit of capital the firm works with."

More productivity = higher revenue product, in general.

Your reply is tautological, but not to the point. Capital provided by the capitalist can increase productivity. That doesn't show the capitalist does any work.

me: "A brain surgeon's work may generate huge revenues even if he's on the golf course by 3 pm. The revenue for each additional hour of brain surgery work is far greater than the revenue per each additional hour of labor by a janitor."

Because of several factors. The two most important being 1) education and sacrifice to gain such education and 2) "importance to society." Granted, janitorial work is probably of equal importance to society as a brain surgen, but in general there is little to no "higher education" required, in the sense of going to a special school.

We could rationally debate participatory economics, but that would presuppose that you could present rational arguments about it.

You're confusing the work of the brain surgeon as a student with the work they do as a brain surgeon. The principle of remuneration based on how hard a person works would merit providing a stipend to the student for the work they are doing as a student. But how harsh is studying relative to, say, cleaning toilets or collecting trash? Not very hard. Learning and gaining new insights can be rewarding, and many people enjoy it. I did when I was a college student.

But whatever that work effort of the student was, that's not the same as the work effort of the brain surgeon.

Your comment, tho, is unclear in one respect: Are you talking about how you think people SHOULD be remunerated, based on radical left principles, or are you talking about what the actual reasons are for remuneration now?

Brain surgeons are paid very high salaries because people with their skill are very scarce. The medical profession works to restrain the number of doctors the medical schools generate, and they also act to prevent others from using their talents to provide medical advice, such as nurses or other practitioners. Higher education is very expensive and the people who have access to it are mostly from the elite classes. Three-fourths of the adults in the USA do not have college degrees. In other words, the vast majority of the working class does not go thru college. Going thru college and then grad or professional school provides the credentials that are part of the access to professional jobs and the jobs of the coordinator class (doctors, lawyers, managers, etc).

In short, medical doctors in general, and specialists in particular, have very great market clout. This is especially so in the USA where medical care is more strongly controlled by market forces than in other industrialized capitalist countries.

Manual workers with limited skills are numerous, there is always a pool of unemployed to compete for the jobs, and so their market clout is low. Workers can improve their market clout through unions and mass struggles, forcing concessions in various ways from the elite classes.

JazzRemington

29th April 2007, 20:25

Your reply is tautological, but not to the point. Capital provided by the capitalist can increase productivity. That doesn't show the capitalist does any work.

We're NOT talking about CAPITALISM IN PRACTICE. Why can't you draw a distinction between Capitalist ideology and Capitalism in practice and stick to what we're discussing?

The point is that according to Capitalist ideology if one works hard in general they will get more income.

You're confusing the work of the brain surgeon as a student with the work they do as a brain surgeon.

The point is that according to Capitalist ideology, one is paid well according to the relative education one must obtain in order to perform in a certain profession.

But I'm calling you on repeating exactly what Pareconists say about remuneration.

What Capitalists say about Capitalism is similiar to what Pareconists say about Parecon. Get over it. The system is terrible and is based on bourgeoise tools and thinking.

syndicat

29th April 2007, 20:41

JazzR: have fun talking to yourself.

antieverything

29th April 2007, 20:44

Syndicat...don't worry, JR doesn't understand anything you are saying. Someone had to step in and say it.

JR...you are making an ass of yourself. If you have a rational criticism of Parecon (and there are many good ones...you'll find them all over the internet in discussions just like this) you should be willing to engage with its proponents in a clear and respectful manner.

So far you have done nothing to show you have an understanding of how revolutionary society would effectively (not just in name) socialize the means of production and distribution. This is what classless society ultimately boils down to: egalitarian and solidaristic techniques for mediating the various needs and desires that arise from the industrial mode of production. It isn't magic, it takes conscious efforts to create institutions and operations that are rooted in real world conditions and necessities, not theoretical generalizations derived from 19th and early 20th century experience.

History is painfully clear on this point: classless society doesn't just happen...it requires anti-hierarchical forms of behavior and organization at every level.

Your main objection with Parecon isn't that the planning process is inefficient or that it wouldn't successfully mediate economic exchanges along socialist principles. Rather you seem to be asserting that the problem is with the participatory mechanism itself. You seem to think that because people participate in the social planning in the only reasonable way they can do so with any effectiveness (through federations of producers and consumers with overlapping membership but different immediate concerns with regard to implimentation of the production of social goods). Just because the various units of production are still important units in mediating the economic activity of society as a whole and thus are differentiated does not make them essentially capitalist firms. That's absurd. There is no basis in any radical tradition I'm aware of that would lead someone to assert that different units of production should be administratively differentiated.

Your objection leads you to apparently see the system of administration in Parecon as no different than a capitalist market system...conveniently ignoring the essential difference--Parecon is characterized by cooperative administration of an interdependent system of production and distribution (and consumption) by groups of people with broad social concerns as well as individual concerns as laborers as opposed to negotiations between firms with unique organizational motivations based in pure profit and growth, necessarily as a result of exploitation and unsustainability.

...but whatever, I'm sure you think I'm an idiot too

gilhyle

30th April 2007, 00:25

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 07:44 pm
Just because the various units of production are still important units in mediating the economic activity of society as a whole and thus are differentiated does not make them essentially capitalist firms. That's absurd. There is no basis in any radical tradition I'm aware of that would lead someone to assert that different units of production should be administratively differentiated.

While I am sympathetic to the general tenor of your post, I think you are slightly unfair to JazzRemington - I reiterate my earlier point : the issue of substantce here is the fact that the law of value can continue to operate in the process of interaction between productive units in a predominantly planned economy. The point JR does not focus on is that the only way to eliminate the law of value is to make it superfluous as a consequence of the extent of the surplus produced. Prior to that, irrespective of the manner in which the agents are defined, their interaction will constitute the operation of the law of value. You cant escape it by the way you organise the planned economy. Only wealth eliminates it.

Now, of course, that does not constitute the continuation of capitalism, but it does constitute the continuation of something whcih the ideology of capitalism says is inevitable.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 00:29

And what is "the law of value," as you see it? And how is it going to operate in a non-market economy where allocation of resources in social production isn't determined by market-crafted prices but by a social planning process?

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 00:36

JR...you are making an ass of yourself. If you have a rational criticism of Parecon (and there are many good ones...you'll find them all over the internet in discussions just like this) you should be willing to engage with its proponents in a clear and respectful manner.

My critique located elsewhere says everything. I don't see a problem with calling people fools if they are failures at critical thinking and basic reading.

My main criticism is that they use the same mechanism that Capitalists say determines production in a market: negotiations between producers and consumers to bring the supply of goods and the demand for them in a sort-of balance. How does this NOT have any similarities to a market?

Second, they claim that people should be rewarded based on hard work and sacrifice. To work hard and make sacrifices are pretty much typical hallmarks of Capitalist ideology.

And I don't think YOU are an idiot. Anyone who supports Parecon and claims it resembles NOTHING like Capitalism or markets is an idiot.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 02:11

1. capitalism is obviously not a system based on negotation between WORKERS and consumers. And not within the context of a social planning system for a socially owned economy.

2. capitalism obviously does not remunerate people based on how hard they work. the capitalists' income is based on ownership, not work.

Defenders of capitalism make all sorts of claims about capitalism in order to justify it. They may say things like "work hard and you will be rewarded", or that workers are "free" or that capitalist society is "democratic." But we know this is bullshit, but they make these claims because they know that people tend to agree with things like freedom, democracy, and reward for hard work. Does this mean we should reject freedom, demoracy and reward for hard work? That would be totally silly.

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 03:04

1. capitalism is obviously not a system based on negotation between WORKERS and consumers. And not within the context of a social planning system for a socially owned economy.

According to Capitalist economic theory, production is regulated by supply of a good and demand. The point is to have it in equilibrium so there is no shortage or surplus. Parecon uses the SAME MECHANISM in production. Parecon uses the basic concept of supply and demand: supply of a good produced has to equal the demand for it. How hard is this to understand? Hell, they even use the same terrible static analysis as Capitalist economists, by splitting consumers and producers into two separate groups and non-related groups.

2. capitalism obviously does not remunerate people based on how hard they work. the capitalists' income is based on ownership, not work.

Capitalist ideology praises hard work, thrift, and sacrifice. Period.

I reassert that Pareconist thought and Capitalist thought are similiar. You have yet to prove me wrong and neither has any other supporter of such a foolish system.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 07:24

And you have yet to respond rationally to my arguments.

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 18:54

If you read my critique, which for some reasno I assumed you did, you would see my arguments are rationally. As opposed to saying asserting cosmetic differences are enough to make something unique.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 20:58

supply and demand are simply economic facts of life. they will exist in any conceivable economy. supply is what is produced. demand is what people desire. if the economy does not produce what people desire, if it doesn't meet their priorities, it will not be effective for them. hence a viable economy needs to match supply to demand. this doesn't require the existence of a market. moreover, market economies cannot effectively match supply to demand. for two reasons:

1. market systems generate massive, pervasive externalities. that's because market transactions have effects on people other than buyer or seller, such as pollution. corporations persistently try to shift their costs onto others so they don't have to pay, as with not giving workers health insurance, workplace injuries due to failing to invest in safe equipment, pollution of the air and water, and so on. people are harmed by these things so their wants in these areas are not being met.

2. in market systems demand is only made effective by market clout, as measured in how much money you have. many needs/desires of people aren't met because they don't have money. This is an effect of the capitalist system, as a system of exploitation and class domination.

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 21:10

In a market, supply and demand govern production. In Parecon, supply and demand govern production. That's similarity one.

Similarity two is that Parecon only replaces the agents within a market with production and consumption councils. But, they still relate to one another as they would in a market: producers have a supply they can produce, consumers have their needs, and a third-party mediates the two to have an equilibrium.

The ONLY difference between Parecon and a market is that Parecon has a council to match the production council's supply witht he consumption council's demands. In a market, it's market forces (which amount of the aggregate of human action). In other words, all Parecon does is replace agents but keeps the effective structure of a market in tact.

As I said, cosmetic differences don't amount of a different system.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 21:30

In a market, supply and demand govern production. In Parecon, supply and demand govern production. That's similarity one.

"Govern production" is vague. As I said, any economy that doesn't match supply and demand will be ineffective for people. in the Soviet Union supply was determined through the central planning allocation system but they were trying to match supply to demand, so in that sense "supply and demand governed". that's why "govered" is way too vague to be useful.

Similarity two is that Parecon only replaces the agents within a market with production and consumption councils. But, they still relate to one another as they would in a market: producers have a supply they can produce, consumers have their needs, and a third-party mediates the two to have an equilibrium.

You're wrong in a number of respects. First, there is no "third party". The social plan is made up of the proposals of the worker groups and the requests of the individual consumers and neighborhood assemblies.

The coordination council only publishes summaries of what people have proposed and requested in the course of the negotiation process. but they have no independent decision-making authority, and are just another worker group.

Second, there is no market. Production groups receive no market revenue from sales. Production groups are allocated job slots and means of production through the social plan.

Third, within capitalism there is a division into classes. Workers are subordinate to the coordinator class (managers and top professionals) who man the hierarchies in the corporations and the state. the only negotiations workers may enter into are contract negotiations with management if they are unionized. they do not negotiate with consumers to make a social plan.

with a participatory economy, the capitalist class is gone. there is no private ownership of means of production.

coordinator class is also gone. the decision-making authority in the workplaces is the workplace assemblies and federations of these throughout industry. these organizations redesign the jobs so as to distribute the conceptual and decision-making tasks, now concentrated in the coordinator class, among the workers who do the work. there are also no capitalists. there is no private ownership of means of production or land. land and means of production are owned in common by everyone in the society. this social ownership is reflected in the power within the planning process possessed by the community assemblies and federations of these across cities, regions, nations. these organizations are the means to force production groups to internalize social costs such as pollution, which occurs as part of the economic planning process. they are also the means for articulation of the requests to the production system for publc goods, which are grossly underdeveloped within capitalism -- education, health care, child care, housing.

just as production groups do not receive their resources and jobs through revenue from sales, income is not determined by market clout or things like property ownership or the possession of power in a managerial hierarchy, but is equal. that's because with jobs balanced for the kinds of tasks, so that the harder tasks aren't concentrated onto an exploited group, remuneration for effort and sacrifice ends up as equal remuneration due to roughly equalizing the effort required in jobs. nobody gets to have just cushy work. this is ensure through the existence of worker-controlled industrial organizations that campaing for and enforce the job balancing program. it's part of worker power in society.

the differences are not "cosmetic" between capitalism and a classless system of worker management of industry and common ownership by everyone of the land and means of production and equal pay rates.

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 21:40

"Govern production" is vague. As I said, any economy that doesn't match supply and demand will be ineffective for people. in the Soviet Union supply was determined through the central planning allocation system but they were trying to match supply to demand, so in that sense "supply and demand governed". that's why "govered" is way too vague to be useful.

As in, it's the mechanism that determines how much of what gets produced.

The coordination council only publishes summaries of what people have proposed and requested in the course of the negotiation process.

The coordination council's job is to see if the supply of what the producers can give is generally in equilibrium to the demand of the consumption councils. If it is not, then the coordination council works with the two sides to come to a balance. In a market, this mechanism is replaced by market forces, which come down to teh aggregate of human actions.

Second, there is no market. Production groups receive no market revenue from sales. Production groups are allocated job slots and means of production through the social plan.

OK. Because they say there is no market, despite the fact that the structure is the same, there mustn't be one!

Third, within capitalism there is a division into classes.

Then what's all this about consumption councils and production councils? If there are no classes, how come consumers and producers are treated in Pareconist literature as two separate entities?

the differences are not "cosmetic" between capitalism and a classless system of worker management of industry and common ownership by everyone of the land and means of production and equal pay rates.

The only difference between Capitalism and Parecon, aside from the property structure (which I never said anything about becase it was self-evident), is that in a Capitalist market producers and consumers negotiate supply and demand through market forces. With Parecon, these are replaced by councils. Thus, the structure is STILL the same and is merely a cosmetic change.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 22:18

supply and demand aren't "mechanisms". supply is the set of things that are produced. demand is the set of desires for items of production among the populace.

The coordination council's job is to see if the supply of what the producers can give is generally in equilibrium to the demand of the consumption councils. If it is not, then the coordination council works with the two sides to come to a balance. In a market, this mechanism is replaced by market forces, which come down to teh aggregate of human actions.

Nope. Supply and demand are brought into equilibrium by people as workers and as consumers modifying their proposals in order to stay within their budgets. For example, suppose that this year a lot of community assemblies come up with proposals for construction, of schools, hospitals, busways, housing. As a result, demand for concrete goes up 10 percent. But the industrial federation of concrete production groups has not proposed to increase production. There are rules within the system -- this is something that would have to be set up at the time of the revolutionary process that creates this system -- which govern the planning process. One of these rules might say, "If the demand for X goes up by N percent, increase the price by N percent." So, in the scenario i'm describing here, the price of concrete would go up 10 percent, according to this rule. So, now all the communities that requested construction projects using concrete will have to modify their requests in the next round of negotiations to stay within their budgets. This is the process by which supply and demand are bought into alignment.

Participatory economics is not a market economy because resources are not allocated in social production according to market clout. A key way that market clout happens in capitalism is thru unilateral control over a resource, for example, through private ownership. So for example let's say that a developer is negotiating with a land owner to build an apartment building on his property. Well, the property owner has a monopoly over that piece of land by owning it and can put the developer over a barrel as far as what he gets for it. He's limited only by the availability of other viable sites, but there may not be many of these depending on the circumstances.

Similarly, professionals like doctors, engineers, lawyers and others can demand very high salaries and lots of respect and power because their expertise is scarce, it takes quite a bit of money to get thru professional schools, and then getting experience often involves class based networks used for hiring, as well as the fact that credentials are used to protect the general relative monopoly of this class over its positions. Again, that's a type of market clout.

Now, market clout like this dosen't exist within the participatory economic framework. In the first case, there is no private land ownership. The community controls allocation of land. In the second case, the job balancing program means there is much more widespread availability of the relevant forms of expertise, and the power of the coordinator class hierarchies is broken, replaced by the power of the worker assemblies.

Classes are social groups differentiated by the power they have in social production relative to other groups. In particular, to have a class system the workes must be subordinated to another class, that controls the labor process and the product of their labor. It cannot be the case that workers have power over the decisions that affect them. In the participatorye economic framework, by definition, workers have control over the decisions that affect them, as workers, they self-manage their workplaces.

But different decisions affect people differently. If there were just one body that made all the decisions about the economy -- such as a single workers council -- this would violate self-management. It would violate self-management because there are many decisions that affect mainly the people in one workplace, and they need to have control over those decisions if there is to be authentic self-management.

At the same time, some of the decisions of a production facility affect the community, such as a decision to use a technology that pollutes the surrounding region. Since that decision affects all the residents in the surrounding region, they need to have a say over that decision. The eco-system is "consumed" by all of us -- we depend on the water and the air to live. Control over -- stewardship of -- the eco-system is a legitimate role for the assemblies of all the residents in areas.

Consumption is an area of decision-making that is not the same as production. If a single workers council totally controlled the economy -- a form of central planning -- that would be a denial of self-management to people as consumers. Self-management as consumers means you control the decisions about what you want produced for you. if production groups didn't have to respond to what people want, there is no way to ensure they will produce what people want and therefore the economy will not be effective for the population.

but from the fact there are assemblies of people as residents of communities to make decisions about requests for public goods and eco-defense, it doesn't follow they are a separate "class" from the workers. In fact such assemblies would be mainly made up of people who are also workers.

workers obviously do NOT negotiate with consumers in capitalism about what they will produce.

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 22:52

But you keep missing the point that the Parecon economic structure is similiar to the structure of a market. There IS a council that cooperates with the production and consumption councils to make sure supply and demand are in balance.

Originally posted by Vancouver Participatory Economics Collective pamphlet
Everyone will haev the right to submit proposals for collective consumption to a facilitation board...All of these proposals are summed up giving a "supply and demand" for the year...Consumers and workers will review the prices...Then a second round of proposals are entered, based on reactions to the new prices...This ensures that the prices and plans converge to a creative compromise beneficial to all.
http://vanparecon.resist.ca/parecon_files/...et_newestQA.pdf (http://vanparecon.resist.ca/parecon_files/parecon_leaflet_newestQA.pdf)

workers obviously do NOT negotiate with consumers in capitalism about what they will produce.

IN any market system, the relationship between producer and consumer determines how much of a good will be produced. If so much of a good is produced, and only some of it sells, the producer will produce less next time. If there is a greater demand for a supply of goods than can be satifised with current supply, more will be made. This is considered a form of negotiations by most economists.

syndicat

30th April 2007, 23:28

Jazzr quotes the vancouver parecon group:

Everyone will haev the right to submit proposals for collective consumption to a facilitation board...All of these proposals are summed up giving a "supply and demand" for the year...Consumers and workers will review the prices...Then a second round of proposals are entered, based on reactions to the new prices...This ensures that the prices and plans converge to a creative compromise beneficial to all.

The proposals of the production groups, and the requests of the community assemblies and individual consumers are summed by the coordination council ("facilitation board") and then published. This gives PROJECTED supply and demand at that point in the negotiations. Prices are determined by the rules, as I explained, they are not set arbitrarily by anyone. Consumers then revise their proposals in light of the new prices. That's what they call the "second round of proposals", "based on reactions to the new prices", as they say. This is how supply and demand are brought into alignment.

Their quote is entirely consistent with what i said.

the rest of your comments are repetitive, like a broken record.

gilhyle

30th April 2007, 23:51

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 11:29 pm
And what is "the law of value," as you see it? And how is it going to operate in a non-market economy where allocation of resources in social production isn't determined by market-crafted prices but by a social planning process?
THis is a fair question. I refer you to the Appendix to Chapter III of John Weeks Capital and Exploitation (1981) a useful book which takes the view that Engels and Stalin are wrong to think that the Law of Value can exist where there is planned allocation of resources.

On this view the Law of Value is is specifically linked to the commodity form, once that is gone the lLaw of Value is gone with it.

On this view - with which I disagree - the requirement to allocate use value is effectively a natural law - use values must always be allocated.

In my view this approach makes it very difficult to differentiate effectively between the socialist and the communist phases of post-capitalist society. What differentiates these two types of society is that the former, notwithstanding the dominance of a proletarian state (and the more - or maybe less - extensive use of planning functions to organise economic activity), remains dominated by scarcity and resources are allocated on the basis that there is insufficient surplus. This distorts, i.e. determines the allocation of surplus. In that limited sense the law of value continues a residual existence.

This is surely the substance of JR's point

JazzRemington

30th April 2007, 23:57

They appear repetative because you can't seem to udnerstand the simpel concept that Parecon economic structure is just about the same as a market structure. Thus, despite all the critiques of markets that Hahnel and Albert developed, they come to devise a system that resembles markets in structure. But like I said, ask a different question and you will get a different answer.

The basic structure of any market is that A meets with B to negotiate through or with the aid of C to bring the supply of goods and the demand for said goods in equilibrium.

In a Capitalist market, A would be producers, B would be consumers, and C would be market forces. In Parecon, A would be production councils, B would be consumption councils, and C would be the arbitration board.

The structure is the same!

syndicat

1st May 2007, 00:06

gilhyle:
On this view - with which I disagree - the requirement to allocate use value is effectively a natural law - use values must always be allocated.

In my view this approach makes it very difficult to differentiate effectively between the socialist and the communist phases of post-capitalist society. What differentiates these two types of society is that the former, notwithstanding the dominance of a proletarian state (and the more - or maybe less - extensive use of planning functions to organise economic activity), remains dominated by scarcity and resources are allocated on the basis that there is insufficient surplus. This distorts, i.e. determines the allocation of surplus. In that limited sense the law of value continues a residual existence.

if by "scarcity" you mean finite limits to what we can produce, scarcity is inevitable. It will always exist. That's because there are limited resources, and with global warming they are going to get even scarcer. The key resource in production is our own labor. There are only 24 hours in the day and only so many people to do the work. And one of our aims in an anti-capitalist transformation would be presumably to reduce the amount of work, not increase it. That means that inevitably there will be more that people might want produced than there are the resources to produce. Thus it will be essential to have a system that can respond effectively and flexibly to what people's priorities are for what they want.

I'll point out that you didn't quite answer my question in that you didn't say what you think the "law of value" IS. As I understand it the "commodity form" exists only when allocation of resources in production is market-governed. In a socialized, participatory economy, production is not market-governed.

gilhyle

1st May 2007, 20:11

NO I didnt answer your question and that was because a definition would not capture the point - as I have tried to explain, the point is to acknowledge the after-life of the law of value when commodity production is being suppressed.

On an overly logical approach, as Weeks adopts , the definition of the law of value means it cannot survive once a planned economy is introduced, because it concerns exchange value.

The issue is to go behind the fact of commodity production to what causes it to persist......and that is scarcity.

A certain level of development of the forces of production is required for the planning of the highest levels of the economy to be possible on a systematic and global basis. Thereafter, a further development of the forces of production is necessary to eliminate the scars of the birth of socialism.

What I dont share with JR (if I understand him) is the view that parecon would be no better than capitalism because it has this characteristic of negotiation between producers and consumers over the basis of exchange. I think this could survive in the early stages of a socialist society. WHat I do share with JR is the view that, over the longer term, the goal must be set of overcoming such a system in order to move forward to the higher stages of a socialist society.

Critical to my view is the understanding that because the early stages of socialism are built and defended by a workers state, that that state willl have the material basis to guide society forward without further revolution to build the forces of production and constantly reform itself to reap the benefits for all of that increasing wealth.

As to your comment that 'scarcity is inevitable', its worth noting that the best 'definition' of the highest stage of communism is a society where significant scarcity has been eliminated.

syndicat

1st May 2007, 20:34

yes, it was my understanding that the "law of value" presupposes allocation in production be governed by market exchange. since a participatory economy is a socially planned economy, it's hard to see how the "law of value" in that sense survives.

i think it could happen in a period of transition that it takes awhile to get the participatory social planning system set up, and so there might be an initial period when some market exchange survives in the relations between worker-managed facilities that have been expropriated. but the aim should be to get past the market.

Critical to my view is the understanding that because the early stages of socialism are built and defended by a workers state, that that state willl have the material basis to guide society forward without further revolution to build the forces of production and constantly reform itself to reap the benefits for all of that increasing wealth.

well, i would talk of a working class controlled governance system, rooted in assemblies and congresses of delegates from the assemblies. i wouldn't call this a "state" but I don't want to get hung up on possible differences of terminology.

the point is that the aim of a liberatory revolution is self-governance by the mass of the people, the working masses being in charge. i think a shift in investment in social production depends on the creation of a system that enables the mass of the people to articulate what they want, and for this to become effective in shaping allocation of resources, in both investment and immediate consumption. i don't see this as a "government" function but as an economic function. but i believe that a key change in the economic structure has to be empowerment of communities through the assemblies and congresses, so that public goods come to the fore as a priority for production. Also, a key aspect of the "development of the forces of production" is development of the skills and knowlege of workers, the key "force of production".