maxsaw wrote:
>
> > From: Robin Hahnel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> > My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public
> > goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks...
>
> This sounded no different than the routine
> operation of local government. What is new and
> improved in the decision-making process, aside
> from the likely non-existence of special
> interests stemming from capital ownership and
> the absence of commercial inducements to private
> consumption? Wouldn't there still be special
> interests stemming from other factors (e.g., my
> block versus yours) even with no private
> ownership of capital?
> By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are
> financing everything via head taxes?
>
An important first step is that income is distributed equitably in the
first place -- which we believe it is in a participatory economy. If
there is disagreement over that, we need to go back and discuss that
first. An importatn second step is that we are only talking about
different levels of collective consumption, not welfare programs that
are also a different matter, handled differently. So, everyone has their
fair income and the only remaining issue is how people distribute their
consumption right between individual consumption and different levels of
collective consumption -- like side walks for their neighborhood and
libraries for their city. We don't want the system to bias how people
express their true preferences in this regard -- as market systems do by
giving people an incentive to ride for free on others collective
consumption, which is why local, state, and national governments have to
come in and substitute some other decision making system for the free
market one. If there are 1000 residents in both our neighborhoods and my
neighborhood asks for $2000 worth of new side walks but yours only asks
for $1000 worth of new side walks, you will be charged for $1 worth of
side walks and I will be charged for $2 worth. If we both live in the
same city of 1 million and our city consumption federation asks, among
other things for a $3 million dollar new library, we each will be
charged for $3 worth of library consumption. You and I will also ask for
different individual consumption items that each have their social cost.
Your equitable income -- determined by your effort or sacrifice in work
as decided by your workmates -- has to cover your total consumption
request, that is, your individual consumption requests and your
proportionate share of all the collective consumption the different
federations you are a member of ask for. Our claim is that this system
avoids any free rider problems for public goods.
In a sense it is nothing radically different from how government is
supposed to work -- in theory, and if incomes were equitable in the
first place. Except people consider, submit, and revise their requests
for individual consumption and different levels of collective
consumption at the same time and in the same way in participatory
planning. That is, the planning procedure treats individual and
collective consumption on the same, equal footing. There is no sense
that a government comes and takes away some of my income to do who knows
what with, thereby depriving me of my ability to consume what I want.
I think this explains why there is no "my block versus your block"
problem. Different neighborhoods will presumably ask for different kinds
and different amounts of local public goods -- according to their
different preferences. Their residents will be charged for different
amounts. Of course there is no guarantee that you will agree with your
neighbors about kind and quantity of public versus individual
consumption -- anymore than there is any guarantee that you will agree
with your workmates on how to run your workplace. But you have as much
say and voice as any of them. And presumably people who find themselves
outvoted consistently in their neighborood visa vis public good requests
will move to more neighborhoods they find more compatible just as
workers who get outvoted in their worker councils have an incentive to
find more like minded workmates.
Finally, I think the absence of "special interests stemming from capital
ownership" and absence of "commercial inducements to private
consumption" will be a big help too.
As a footnote: There are some interesting theoretical tax schemes --
"demand revealing" and "pivot mechanisms" -- that make adjustments to
proportional charges for public goods in ways that might be considered
more fair, or ways that might enhance the incentive for people to
develop a greater variety of preferences for public goods, that do NOT
trigger the free rider incentive and attendant inefficiencies. I think a
participatory economy is a much more friendly and likely insitutional
setting for different localities and states to play around with these
variations than market systems.
