Workers Councils=Parecon ?

[Viva Fidel]

"Parecon meaning classlessness most broadly was born when revolutionaries of various camps began imagining and seeking a classless economy. Kropotkin, Rocker, Bakunin, Pannekoek. That's what parecon is, a classless economy. "

Not being fond of parecon, I am not sure how parecon activists can call Pannekoek (author of workers councils) "parecon." I'd like to hear the opinoin of both sides on this claim.

My understanding is that Parecon is another form of capitalism. Are there any scholarly articles that critique it (besides the ones on revleft)?

[SonofRage]

http://www.afed.org.uk/org/issue62/parecon.html

[syndicat]

That's an extremely confused article. I wrote a refutation of it on the WSA debate page at:

http://www.workersolidarity.org/debates.html

There's another round in that debate, also on this debate page.

[syndicat]

to answer the question about the relationship of participatory economics to the older writers in the revolutionary self-management traditions...pannekoek, rocker, etc., it shares certain things in common: industry would be managed by workers councils. the class system, including the managerial hierarchy in industry, would be dissolved. there would be no markets. the facilities of production would be owned in common by everyone. this is obviously incompatible with capitalism. parecon is motivated by anti-capitalism.

a key difference from the mentioned authors is the advocacy of a parallel structure of neighborhood assemblies ("consumer councils"). but that is similar to the libertarian communist program of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union federation in the Spanish revolution of 1936. the Spanish anarchists advocated "free municipalities," based on assemblies of residents in neighborhoods or villages. in the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist program, the free municipalities were to be the venue for consumer input for social planning and for provision of public goods (health care, housing, etc). that is also similar to parecon.

the main innovation in parecon is the idea of participatory planning, as an alternative to the market and bureaucratic central planning. but the libertarian Left historically had sort of hinted that there was an alternative way to run an economy not based on market exchange nor on centralized planning. it's just that they didn't have a clear idea of how that would work. participatory planning is a horizontal, decentralized form of planning.

[Janus]

I'd like to hear the opinoin of both sides on this claim.
Previous discussions:
Parecon 1 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65736&hl=parecon), 2 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=59083&hl=parecon), 3 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=59310&hl=parecon), 4 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57097&hl=parecon), 5 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=52545&hl=parecon), 5 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51503&hl=parecon), 6 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48539&hl=parecon)



Are there any scholarly articles that critique it (besides the ones on revleft)?

http://www.zmag.org/debateiso.htm

Parecon (http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Viva [email protected] 13, 2007 03:08 pm
"Parecon meaning classlessness most broadly was born when revolutionaries of various camps began imagining and seeking a classless economy. Kropotkin, Rocker, Bakunin, Pannekoek. That's what parecon is, a classless economy. "

Not being fond of parecon, I am not sure how parecon activists can call Pannekoek (author of workers councils) "parecon." I'd like to hear the opinoin of both sides on this claim.

My understanding is that Parecon is another form of capitalism. Are there any scholarly articles that critique it (besides the ones on revleft)?
Parecon is, specifically, another form of consumer capitalism. Everyone around here knows about capitalist exploitation of workers, but what about the more indirect CONSUMER exploitation (which cuts into capitalists' profits, forcing them to exploit workers more)?

[abbielives!]

here is a site which disingushes between capitalism and parecon:

http://www.parecon.org/capvsparecon/html/introduction.html


indirect consumer exploitation???? i dont see how

[syndicat]

hammer:
Parecon is, specifically, another form of consumer capitalism. Everyone around here knows about capitalist exploitation of workers, but what about the more indirect CONSUMER exploitation (which cuts into capitalists' profits, forcing them to exploit workers more)?

how can participatory economics be a form of capitalism if it has no market, means of production are owned in common by everyone, there's no managerial hierarchy over workers, production is self-managed by the workers, and community councils can ensure a high level of public goods?

maybe you're thinking about the fact that individuals can put in for the things they want for their own consumption, and community assemblies can put in for the the public goods they want to consume. the fact that it takes account of consumption doesn't make it capitalist. any effective economy has to be effective for people as consumers of the products that are produced. self-management has to exist over consumption as well as production.

consumer exploitation within capitalism occurs through bargaining power of large capitalist combines in the market. but these are hierarchical profit-seeking entities operating in a market. in participatory economy allocation isn't by bargaining power in markets but by social planning, there is no private ownership of production organizations, and no hierarchical control by elites over production.

[rouchambeau]

I'm sorry that this is only tangently related, but I feel it is really important to point out.

In a parecon remuneration is for effort and sacrifice expended in socially valued labors.
Your income depends on how long you work, how hard you work, and on any hardships that are associated with your work. However, in a parecon jobs are balanced for empowerment and quality of life. Thus, save for minor variations, your job, my job, and everyone else's job are similar regarding sacrifice. Our incomes therefore differ due to working longer or less long, or harder or less hard.


If this is what ParEcon advocates, then we should dismiss ParEcon outright. If a group of people advocate wage-labor in any form, any question about their other tenets becomes superfluous.

Also:
Workers and consumers, via there councils, cooperatively negotiate economic inputs and outputs.
lol learn 2 grammar

[wake_up]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 02:20 am
to answer the question about the relationship of participatory economics to the older writers in the revolutionary self-management traditions...pannekoek, rocker, etc., it shares certain things in common: industry would be managed by workers councils. the class system, including the managerial hierarchy in industry, would be dissolved. there would be no markets. the facilities of production would be owned in common by everyone. this is obviously incompatible with capitalism. parecon is motivated by anti-capitalism.

a key difference from the mentioned authors is the advocacy of a parallel structure of neighborhood assemblies ("consumer councils"). but that is similar to the libertarian communist program of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union federation in the Spanish revolution of 1936. the Spanish anarchists advocated "free municipalities," based on assemblies of residents in neighborhoods or villages. in the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist program, the free municipalities were to be the venue for consumer input for social planning and for provision of public goods (health care, housing, etc). that is also similar to parecon.

the main innovation in parecon is the idea of participatory planning, as an alternative to the market and bureaucratic central planning. but the libertarian Left historically had sort of hinted that there was an alternative way to run an economy not based on market exchange nor on centralized planning. it's just that they didn't have a clear idea of how that would work. participatory planning is a horizontal, decentralized form of planning.


Hello, yeah i agree with Parecon too, it's a cool modern concept. In Parecon or in a workers-controlled socialism there would be the same Wal Marts, Mcdonalds, Pepsi, GM, etc. but instead of each of those corporations and all corporations being owned by a team of stock-owners, the corporations would be democratically owned by workers who work for those companies and all companies in that economic system. I would suspect that that system would increase cash in people's pockets, people would be richer, and the central government a lot poorer, this system will bring CASH to streets, it would make us richer and wealthier, indeed coz the profits of those corporations would be in the pockets of workers which are millions of people, instead of being in vaults of private bank accounts

Wake_Up

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by abbielives!@July 15, 2007 04:37 pm
here is a site which disingushes between capitalism and parecon:

http://www.parecon.org/capvsparecon/html/introduction.html


indirect consumer exploitation???? i dont see how
If paracon needs to be distinguished from capitallism in such an elaborate way... it means it too close!

[syndicat]

wake up:
Hello, yeah i agree with Parecon too, it's a cool modern concept. In Parecon or in a workers-controlled socialism there would be the same Wal Marts, Mcdonalds, Pepsi, GM, etc. but instead of each of those corporations and all corporations being owned by a team of stock-owners, the corporations would be democratically owned by workers who work for those companies and all companies in that economic system. I would suspect that that system would increase cash in people's pockets, people would be richer, and the central government a lot poorer, this system will bring CASH to streets, it would make us richer and wealthier, indeed coz the profits of those corporations would be in the pockets of workers which are millions of people, instead of being in vaults of private bank accounts

nope, that's not parecon. in participatory economics, economic facilities are not the private property of the people who work there. they are owned in common by the entire society. there are no profits.

in reply to rochambeau: what is "wage labor"? it is a system where people are forced to work for bosses who exploit them. the means of production are owned and controlled by an elite class that dominates the workers. that is not participatory economics where there are no bosses, no class system.

"wage labor" doesn't mean merely that you receive an income for work effort because you will receive an income in any possible society and thus also in a classless society.

if you consume anything, your total consumption is your income. obviously you will thus have an income in any possible society. moreover, your share of the total social product will be finite. what determines what that share will be? if a person is not required to do any work effort, why will anyone do any work effort? earning one's entitlement to private consumption items via work effort provides people with a motivation to do work for the benefit of others.

[Raúl Duke]

I suppose this is a stupid question (and since I haven't analyze the parts that mentioned "wage labor" sufficeintly....)

Is there money-currency-tender-etc (LTVs, etc) in ParEcon and, Syndicat, if you were to use ParEcon in an anarchist model of society what would it look like? Would there be any currency,etc?

[rouchambeau]

in reply to rochambeau: what is "wage labor"?
Wage labor is a system of production where people sell their labor-power for money; with which they purchase the means for their existence. Wage-labor presuposes that people are separated from the means of their existence and can only obtain it if they pay a price. That is to say, if things are bought and sold, then they are not distributed by need, but by ability to consume.


it is a system where people are forced to work for bosses who exploit them. the means of production are owned and controlled by an elite class that dominates the workers. that is not participatory economics where there are no bosses, no class system.
Sure, that is one example of wage-labor.


"wage labor" doesn't mean merely that you receive an income for work effort because you will receive an income in any possible society and thus also in a classless society.
Ok.


if you consume anything, your total consumption is your income. obviously you will thus have an income in any possible society.
Ok...but you're assuming that under all systems things have a price. What about a gift economy? You know, the kind that all communists support.


moreover, your share of the total social product will be finite. what determines what that share will be? if a person is not required to do any work effort, why will anyone do any work effort? earning one's entitlement to private consumption items via work effort provides people with a motivation to do work for the benefit of others.
So you believe that people should always be threatened with the possibility of starvation if they do not work to some arbitrary level?

By changing the ownership of the means of production (no matter democratic/public) without changing the relations amongst people, you end up with nothing but a popularized form of capitalism.

[Rawthentic]

Worker's Councils=Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Parecon looks cute.

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 17, 2007 11:59 am
Worker's Councils=Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Not necessarily?



Parecon looks cute.
Perhaps dangerous.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Voz de la Gente [email protected] 17, 2007 09:59 am
Worker's Councils=Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Parecon looks cute.
Don't go into that slippery slope of reformism. Parecon, at its base and superstructure, is another half-baked attempt at reformism. :(

[syndicat]

rochambeau:
Wage labor is a system of production where people sell their labor-power for money; with which they purchase the means for their existence. Wage-labor presuposes that people are separated from the means of their existence and can only obtain it if they pay a price. That is to say, if things are bought and sold, then they are not distributed by need, but by ability to consume.


You're combining two separate questions. First, in a system of wage labor, there are proletarians who are stripped of means of production, means of sustaining themselves. Secondly, there is a separate group, apart from the proletarians, who are the gatekeepers of access to the means of production and who thus have the power to control you, as a proletarian, because they control how your working abilities are used.

Now, there is no such distinction in participatory economics. that's because the immediate producers are not stripped of the means of production but collectively control access to, and use of, those means of production. within the participatory ecomomics structure, means of production are ONLY allocated to self-managing worker groups, not to any boss class. and the allocation is derived from a community and worker council-based process of democratic planning, which determines what it is we want produced, and thus how much resources to allocate to the different worker groups. this allocation process is based on two things: (1) worker proposals for what to produce, and (2) proposals on what we want produced, derived from the grassroots neighborhood assemblies (neighborhood councils and city-wide, region-wide etc organizations of the councils).

the workers controlling a particular factory can't be making decisions about that place unilaterally because it's socially owned and they have to be accountable to the mass of the people, the rest of the working class. that's what "social ownership" means.

me: "if you consume anything, your total consumption is your income. obviously you will thus have an income in any possible society."

rochambeau:

Ok...but you're assuming that under all systems things have a price. What about a gift economy? You know, the kind that all communists support.

not necessarily. "income" doesn't have to assume price. if a moneyless economy were feasible (which I think is not the case), you'd still have an income in the language of economists because your total consumption would be your "income."

historical "gift exchange" tended to occur in the context of societies where consumption was largely based on self-subsistence. we presumably are not proposing to go back to self-subsistence where people are required to make most of the stuff they consume themselves.

money actually has a number of different functions. one of its functions, in capitalism, is as money-capital. this means that an owner of money-capital can go out on factor markets and buy labor-power (because there are propertyless wage slaves available) and buy equipment etc. and then set up control over the workers and the product and sell the commodities on markets for an amount of money greater than he started with. this is the process Marx describes in Capital.

within participatory economics money cannot exist as money-capital because people and means of production can't be bought on factor markets. there are no factor markets. means of production and job slots are only allocated to production groups through the participatory, popularly controlled planning process, and are allocated only to self-managing worker groups.

but if we are to compare the different possible things we might spend our time producing and decide what to do and how to allocate resources, we need a way to compare the alternative benefits and costs. we thus need a quantitative unit, a social accounting money, to be able to do this. this doesn't even have to exist in the form of currency.

the need for a social accounting unit is still true if a major part of the aim in a socially controlled and worker managed production system is ensuring a generous system of social provision of public goods, to ensure that people's needs are met.

if you define "communism" as requiring abolition of money even in this sense of social accounting units, then your "commumism" is something I'd be against as I don't think it would work.

hammer:
Parecon, at its base and superstructure, is another half-baked attempt at reformism.

You've said this before but i've never seen you give an argument for it. "Reformism" refers to methods for seeking change that one proposes to use. since participatory economics is a way of conceiving of a liberatarian socialist, classless economy, it's hard to see how it would be "reformist". of course i suppose a person could propose ways of trying to get there that might be "reformist" but the conception of a libertarian socialist economy isn't "reformist" in itself.

for example, if someone were to propose pursuing social change via lobbying and electoral politics and routine union collective bargaining -- as social-democrats do -- then that would be "reformist". it's "reformist" because it couldn't ever get us beyond capitalism.

but participatory economics is a vision for a post-capitalist, classless, worker-managed economy, so it's hard to see how this is "reformist." maybe you could explain yourself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/32cPareconStructure.html


Parecon differs from anarcho-syndicalism in that it doesn't give trade unions or workers' councils all power. Albert believes that the workers' councils should only decide matters that affect them directly, that is, only workplace matters such as running enterprises, scheduling work, and deciding who will be hired at each workplace.

...

An important issue that is left unclear in the parecon plan is whether the neighborhood consumption council has the right to judge who can take up residence in their area. This affects the issue of whether inequality can arise between different neighborhoods, and whether certain groups might face discrimination. For example, under parecon, one may apply to any enterprise for a job, but it is the workers' councils at a plant who make the decision on who is hired. Similarly, people at a housing collective probably have the right to decide who can live there. But it is not clear whether neighborhoods have the right to judge who can take up residence.

...

Parecon claims to remove the economic functions of government, but keep government itself. In particular, it keeps the courts and police, but Albert says nothing about them in the book Parecon other than that they exist. Under parecon, the governmental system is to exist forever. Parecon does not see it as a temporary or transitional situation.

Conceded (or not):


Parecon represents something of a compromise between anarchist autonomism and an economy of full social ownership, and this is reflected in the complexity of its structure.

Parecon eliminates the individual capitalist ownership, typical of the Western-style free-market economy, of factories and other large-scale means of production. In this respect, it goes beyond those market-socialist schemes which preserve capitalist companies and corporations as one sector of the economy. In parecon, the means of production are basically owned by all, except that an enterprise's staff has special rights over its own enterprise.

...

Thus there are several types of ownership rights of the means of production in parecon. There is overall societal ownership of the economy. Alongside this, the individual enterprises have certain rights over their own assets, and they maintain their own financial balances. And the staff of an enterprise, although they can't simply appropriate enterprise assets for their individual use, have certain rights over the enterprise. As long as the subordination of the enterprises to higher-level councils or society as a whole doesn't degenerate into a mere formality, the staff's rights to the workplace are limited. But there is a tug of war in parecon between the limited ownership rights of the enterprise staff and the overall social ownership.

More:


Albert and Hahnel believe that if supply and demand, ecological concerns, efficiency, moral considerations, and personal preferences all participate in determining prices, then prices will be an adequate tool for planning to ensure the balancing of supply and demand, ecological improvement, efficient operation, moral principles, and the satisfaction of personal desires. Parecon requires that a single measure, the price, can accomplish all these things simultaneously. But no such single measure can do this. No matter how democratically prices are determined, no matter whether this is done by planning or by markets, by central planning or by participatory economics, by fiat or by consultation, prices cannot perform this role. It is an illusion of capitalist economics that a single measure, the price, can play such a role. When parecon embraces this illusion, it means that it subjects itself to the law of value.

That is why I said parecon was and is little more than another flavour-of-the-month variety of consumer capitalism!





Contrast parecon to my "tricameral" proposal: There is a role for communal councils, but they, like factory committees and all the other workplace committees, are integrated into the small-s soviet machinery.

Contrast parecon to my "revolutionary stamocap" proposal: There is a role for non-social ownership, with "niche" enterprises owned by the locals, but if they somehow manage to socialize their businesses (in terms of increasing the DOTP equivalent of "market size" to a sufficiently social level), they become "nationalized."

The problem with parecon in the latter case is what I call the "community of communities" (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=0cM&q=joe+clark+%22community+of+communities%22&btnG=Search&meta=) problem. The locals working at local branches of social enterprises (like those, in Kautsky's words, involved in the "production of the means of production," as well as others in what Lenin called "the commanding heights") would have too much local influence ("special rights" as per above).

Nowhere is parecon going to be worse than in the area of food supply. When you've got the locals running the "food supply community of food supply communities" - especially in what I propose (full-scale industrial food production, including "factory farming" and greenhouse production of crops, all operated by multinational sovkhozy) - you've got a recipe for T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

I'd rather have the bureaucratic excesses of Bolshevik (and later Soviet) managers/"coordinators" over the social "commanding-heights" enterprises than have all these exclusivities given to the locals.

[Rawthentic]

Don't go into that slippery slope of reformism. Parecon, at its base and superstructure, is another half-baked attempt at reformism
God forbid. :lol:

I was just showing in my own terms the sillyness of such "theories."

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by Viva [email protected] 13, 2007 10:08 pm
"Parecon meaning classlessness most broadly was born when revolutionaries of various camps began imagining and seeking a classless economy. Kropotkin, Rocker, Bakunin, Pannekoek. That's what parecon is, a classless economy. "

Not being fond of parecon, I am not sure how parecon activists can call Pannekoek (author of workers councils) "parecon." I'd like to hear the opinoin of both sides on this claim.

My understanding is that Parecon is another form of capitalism. Are there any scholarly articles that critique it (besides the ones on revleft)?
The problems with ParEcon is inherent even in it's name. It is based on participation and hence on idealist notions that humans themselves must adapt their behavior after an ideological ideal. It is just slightly less idiotic than gift economics.

The fine side with energy accounting is that "human nature" does not affect it. Humans could be as wretched, egotistical and "evil" as possible, and yet energy accounting would run like a clockwork.

[syndicat]

hammer:


Parecon differs from anarcho-syndicalism in that it doesn't give trade unions or workers' councils all power. Albert believes that the workers' councils should only decide matters that affect them directly, that is, only workplace matters such as running enterprises, scheduling work, and deciding who will be hired at each workplace.

the basic premise of a participatory economy is self-management. self-management is the opposite of alienation and oppression. self-management means that people control the decisions that affect them. The decisions that have most effect on workers are the decisions about their own labor and the place where they work.

However, that is not the only thing that impacts them. They are also affected by the way that jobs are designed, the supplies provided to them, and so on. This is dealt with through their participation in larger worker federations, such as regional and national worker congresses.

Also, don't assume that I agree with Albert in every detail. The idea of a participatory economy isn't a blueprint. It's merely a set of institutional proposals for the purpose of eliminating class oppression.

The fact that workers self-manage their workplaces is an essential requirement of worker liberation. This is certainly not "reformist".


Parecon claims to remove the economic functions of government, but keep government itself. In particular, it keeps the courts and police, but Albert says nothing about them in the book Parecon other than that they exist. Under parecon, the governmental system is to exist forever. Parecon does not see it as a temporary or transitional situation.

One thing I disagree with Albert about is his tendency to separate the discussion of the economy from the discussion of the goverance structure. I don't think they can be separated if it's a question of class power.

Governance of society is inevitable. On this point I agree with Albert. This means that there needs to be a way for a society to make and enforce basic rules. For example, against people hiring people as wage slaves, against rape and murder, against people trying to monopolize the socially owned means of production, etc.

Participatory economics implies a dual structure of workplace assemblies and geographic assemblies based on residence. And th

en a structure of congresses rising up from the base assemblies. The congresses would perform the legislative role.

There needs to be a way to adjudicate accusations of anti-social criminal conduct such as rape or murder or theft of someone's personal possessions. This is why a system of people's courts is needed. Vigilante justice would be completely arbitrary; evidence needs to be collected and there needs a way for people to defend themselves against false accusations and a requirement to prove an accusation through presentation of evidence in a fair hearing.

if you think it is possible for a society to exist without these legislative and judicial functions, let's hear the argument. this has nothing whatever to do with "reform" versus "revolution". we're talking about a classless, self-managing society in this case.


In parecon, the means of production are basically owned by all, except that an enterprise's staff has special rights over its own enterprise.

They have the right to self-manage that workplace, to control their own work. But what they produce is not decided unilaterally by them. They can make proposals but it has to be validated as something people want via the participatory social planning process.

Again, worker self-management of workplaces isn't "reformist" but is a necessary condition of worker liberation.


Albert and Hahnel believe that if supply and demand, ecological concerns, efficiency, moral considerations, and personal preferences all participate in determining prices, then prices will be an adequate tool for planning to ensure the balancing of supply and demand, ecological improvement, efficient operation, moral principles, and the satisfaction of personal desires. Parecon requires that a single measure, the price, can accomplish all these things simultaneously. But no such single measure can do this. No matter how democratically prices are determined, no matter whether this is done by planning or by markets, by central planning or by participatory economics, by fiat or by consultation, prices cannot perform this role. It is an illusion of capitalist economics that a single measure, the price, can play such a role. When parecon embraces this illusion, it means that it subjects itself to the law of value.

It's actually not clear what is being claimed here. It is certainly false that price is the only thing that brings about the aims. That's because it leaves out all the other information and considerations people can use in an institutional setting of workplace assemblies, neighborhood assemblies, regional and national congresses, and interactive negotiation of a plan.

It's simply false that price is the only consideration in decisions about what to produce. People make proposals for what to produce, as workers. And communities make requests for what they want produced. ALL relevant information is to be available to people in making these sorts of decisions. People can use information about the social effects of methods of production, effects on the ecology of products or methods, effects on people. This is all qualitative information.

Prices fall out only once people decide on what their priorities are for production. Those priorities can be based on any considerations.

The "law of value" can only exist if prices are market-governed, through a competitive system of commodity production. I think the author of this criticism assumes that price formation is only possible through a market. But in fact that is simply false. Systems of economic planning can also form prices. Prices in participatory economics measure strength of priority or desire for an outcome as determined by how strongly communities and individuals stick to proposals for their favored outcomes in the planning negotiations. Hence the claim that the "law of value" would operate in participatory economics is based on a false premise.


Contrast parecon to my "revolutionary stamocap" proposal: There is a role for non-social ownership, with "niche" enterprises owned by the locals, but if they somehow manage to socialize their businesses (in terms of increasing the DOTP equivalent of "market size" to a sufficiently social level), they become "nationalized."

Stamocap = state monopoly capitalism. This is a class system in which the coordinator class dominates and exploits the working class. Experience of Russia and China show that this system will inevitably tend to evolve back into capitalism. That's because an elite class will have the power in the society to be able to figure out a way to private the means of production. Sounds like you have both the state and the market in your proposal...and thus you have inevitably a system of wage-labor and domination and exploitation of workers, and all the oppressive and destructive shit that goes with that. no thanks.


Nowhere is parecon going to be worse than in the area of food supply. When you've got the locals running the "food supply community of food supply communities" - especially in what I propose (full-scale industrial food production, including "factory farming" and greenhouse production of crops, all operated by multinational sovkhozy) - you've got a recipe for T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

What are you talking about? The individual farming operations are self-managed by their crews, but there is also the possibility of large-scale federations that marshall resources for production of various kinds of food products. If by "factory farming" you're talking about capitalist industrial agriculture, i'd point out that it is ecologically unsustainable -- it's addiction to petro-chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers is destructive of worker health, pollutes bodies of water, has all sorts of downstream negative externalities, and often tends to run down the basic ecological infrastructure, such as the running down of the Oglala acquifer in the great plains, or the loss of topsoil.

but this is a question independent of the debate about participatory economics because if the society decides that this type of industrial agriculture is what they want to do, that is what will be done. the proposed structure doesn't preclude that, contrary to what you seem to assume.

so, to conclude, you've simply failed to make any case for why participatory economics is supposedly "reformist". if what you dislike about participatory economics is that it empowers individual consumers and communities to have a say over what is produced for their consumption, then your "objection" is actually one of participatory economy's positive features, as i see it. but it has nothing to do with capitalism.

[rouchambeau]

First, in a system of wage labor, there are proletarians who are stripped of means of production, means of sustaining themselves. Secondly, there is a separate group, apart from the proletarians, who are the gatekeepers of access to the means of production and who thus have the power to control you, as a proletarian, because they control how your working abilities are used.
This is what I disagree with: that wage labor can only exist in a system of proletarians and bourgeois.


Now, there is no such distinction in participatory economics. that's because the immediate producers are not stripped of the means of production but collectively control access to, and use of, those means of production. within the participatory ecomomics structure, means of production are ONLY allocated to self-managing worker groups, not to any boss class. and the allocation is derived from a community and worker council-based process of democratic planning, which determines what it is we want produced, and thus how much resources to allocate to the different worker groups. this allocation process is based on two things: (1) worker proposals for what to produce, and (2) proposals on what we want produced, derived from the grassroots neighborhood assemblies (neighborhood councils and city-wide, region-wide etc organizations of the councils).
None of this has anything to do with what I disagree with. It's all fine and well that ParEcon advocates this, but there is still a problem with ParEcon. It supports a system of wage-labor (to which classless societies are not mutually exclusive).


but if we are to compare the different possible things we might spend our time producing and decide what to do and how to allocate resources, we need a way to compare the alternative benefits and costs. we thus need a quantitative unit, a social accounting money, to be able to do this. this doesn't even have to exist in the form of currency.

the need for a social accounting unit is still true if a major part of the aim in a socially controlled and worker managed production system is ensuring a generous system of social provision of public goods, to ensure that people's needs are met.
I don't see how we absolutely need money in order to ensure people's needs are met. In fact, that's a highly dubious claim.


if you define "communism" as requiring abolition of money even in this sense of social accounting units, then your "commumism" is something I'd be against as I don't think it would work.

If that is the case, then you are not a revolutionary. All you want is to get rid of the bosses and have the working class run a society based on the commodity and wage-labor. You want capitalism without the capitalists.

[syndicat]

me: "First, in a system of wage labor, there are proletarians who are stripped of means of production, means of sustaining themselves. Secondly, there is a separate group, apart from the proletarians, who are the gatekeepers of access to the means of production and who thus have the power to control you, as a proletarian, because they control how your working abilities are used."

rochambeau:

This is what I disagree with: that wage labor can only exist in a system of proletarians and bourgeois.

well, then, you disagree with Marx. for Marx, wage labor was the other side of the capital/wage-labor relationship.

My statement above doesn't say the dominating class that controls the means of production has to be capitalists. The dominating class could be a coordinator class, a hierarchy of managers, elite professionals, political appartchiks, as in the Soviet Union. but it's not clear that what existed in the Soviet Union was "wage labor," strictly speaking, because what a worker's wage was worth in terms of consumption wasn't determined by the market but by centrally planned allocation. prices were determined after the fact. that's why they had really long lines in stores.

but even if we allow that wage-labor existed in the Soviet Union, the reason that it did would be because the boss class, the coordinators, controlled production, and thus access of workers to their livelihood.


None of this has anything to do with what I disagree with. It's all fine and well that ParEcon advocates this, but there is still a problem with ParEcon. It supports a system of wage-labor (to which classless societies are not mutually exclusive).

if you're saying that a classless society could be a system of "wage labor" then you're abusing language, because that is NOT how the radical left has ever used the term "wage labor" or "wages system".

you're merely using "wage labor" as an inflammatory way of describing people being required to do work effort for their entitlement to consume. this is misleading.

me: "if you define "communism" as requiring abolition of money even in this sense of social accounting units, then your "commumism" is something I'd be against as I don't think it would work."



If that is the case, then you are not a revolutionary. All you want is to get rid of the bosses and have the working class run a society based on the commodity and wage-labor. You want capitalism without the capitalists.

this is dogmatic bullshit. participatory economics is a proposal for a planned economy. there are no markets and thus not market-governance of what is produced. production groups do not make decisions about what to produce based on expectation of revenue in a market. therefore, it's not a system of commodity production. and you can' have "capitalism without capitalists." that's a contradiction in terms. you can have a class system without capitalists, as existed in the old Soviet Union. but you've already conceded that participatory economics is a classless system. if it's a classless system, then it liberates the working class from class domination and exploitation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 08:46 am
Stamocap = state monopoly capitalism. This is a class system in which the coordinator class dominates and exploits the working class. Experience of Russia and China show that this system will inevitably tend to evolve back into capitalism. That's because an elite class will have the power in the society to be able to figure out a way to private the means of production. Sounds like you have both the state and the market in your proposal...and thus you have inevitably a system of wage-labor and domination and exploitation of workers, and all the oppressive and destructive shit that goes with that. no thanks.
If you actually read my threads in regards to the various forms of stamocap/"stamocap" (primitive, reactionary, and revolutionary), you'll realize that I'm only using that term as the perfect economic description of the DOTP because:

"Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite tranition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble." (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm) (Lenin)

<_<

Read this work in full, and also read this:

"Left-Wing" Childishness (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm)

Granted, what Lenin describes here in regards to Russia&#39;s situation is primitive stamocap (yes, Bolshevik-"imposed" CAPITALISM in the form of the "revolutionary-democratic" dictatorship of the proles AND PEASANTS), but he also alludes to revolutionary "stamocap" as being the international DOTP proper in the future.



As for "markets," the word "market" has MANY definitions, from the connotations of "market economy" to the street markets down to who the hell you&#39;re trying to sell your goods and/or services to (like Joe Six Packs and his beers <_< ).




If by "factory farming" you&#39;re talking about capitalist industrial agriculture, i&#39;d point out that it is ecologically unsustainable -- it&#39;s addiction to petro-chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers is destructive of worker health, pollutes bodies of water, has all sorts of downstream negative externalities, and often tends to run down the basic ecological infrastructure, such as the running down of the Oglala acquifer in the great plains, or the loss of topsoil.

Tell you what: go read Voz&#39;s communist link, ask him for his pamphlet, and read it. Parecon could fit into the "immediate demands" section at the end (like the Communist Manifesto&#39;s demands for progressive income taxes, abolition of inheritance, nationalization of ALL land, state monopoly over all finance capital, "COMBINATION OF AGRICULTURE WITH MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES" and so on), but it is FAR from being the DOTP itself, let alone socialism.

[syndicat]

if there is any protracted period coming out of a revolution in which a professional/managerial hierarchy presides over the society via the state and management structures in industry, then inevitably what will happen is you&#39;ll have a coordinator class consolidate itself. This will tend to lead back to capitalism as the example of the USSR and China show. no ruling class has ever given up power voluntarily and none will. to assume that any would do so, is un-marxist because one would have to be imagining that commitment to certain "communist" (or whatever you want to call them) ideas will govern. that&#39;s an idealist assumption.

a revolutionary process can only liberate the working class if they immediately take over management of production, and governance of society, and re-design the jobs and begin the process of learning how to manage, how to design, setting up the needed training systems, and so on.

so, there are two kinds of anti-capitalist revolutions that are possible, a proletarian revolution in which the working class ends up actually in control, or a coordinatorist revolution, in which a professional/managerial hierarchy consolidates its hold, as happened in the soviet union.

i still don&#39;t see any argument showing that participatory economics is "reformist."

[Rawthentic]

coordinatorist revolution, in which a professional/managerial hierarchy consolidates its hold, as happened in the soviet union.
What the fuck? October was a proletarian revolution, the workers seized powers by means of the their soviets.

You&#39;ve come up with some good crap lately, but this by far exceeds all of it.

[syndicat]

there was a proletarian revolution in Russia in 1917 as there was in Spain 1936 but in neither case was the proletariat victorious. in the Russian revolution a coordinator ruling class consolidated its hold. in other words, the coordinatorist revolution triumphed. another way of saying this is that there were contending class forces in the revolution. if a coordinatorist system is consolidated it is still an anti-capitalist revolution. there were also coordinatorist class forces in the Spanish revolution (the Communist Party was the vehicle of this class), but the fascist-capitalist forces triumphed.