Hi, Robin. We met a long time ago at a Rethinking Marxism meeting, but you won't remember me. I was a philosophy professor at Ohio State then, but I got canned for being a red, so I'm a a law student (also at OSU) now. I'm a Schweickartian market socialist: we argued about that. With regard to your point below, I understand that your model does not require participation. But that results in a different problem. This is that those who do take advantage of the opportunities to participate in the planning have their preferences count for more than those who do not. This tends to favor the sociable, the argumentative, and those who have time to do it--a factor which militates against parents in particular (I am one). You may say, well, it's no different from voting, those who don't vote, aren't counted. But participatory planning is a lot more time and skill-intensive than voting. Voting is relatively costless and anyone can do it. Speaking at meetings, taking responsibility for getting things done, etc. are costly and require a special personality as well as time. I'm not presenting this point as a fatal critique, or even asa reason to prefer cooperative production in a sociualist market--worker self-management involves some of the same problems. But I'd like to hear your response. --Justin Schwartz On Sun, 26 Jan 1997, Robin Hahnel wrote: > The system we call participatory planning bears no resemblance to one > long student council meeting. Like any economic model that purports to > be "worker managed" we provide full opportunities for workers to participate > in decisions about what they will make and how they will make it. We also > provide consumers with opportunities to participate in decisions regarding > the different kinds of public goods they will, or will not enjoy -- as well > as decision making authority over their individual consumption. The principle > innovation of participatory planning is that it ALSO provides ways for > ordinary people -- workers and consumers -- to participate in the critical > decisions about investments and new products that neither market nor central > planning procedures can do -- WITHOUT requiring people to go to long > contentious, detailed filled meetings. > > Incidently, I agree that Folbre has expressed the view above, but I never > have seen her phrase it as you put it -- like a student council meeting. > She has warned of the "dictatorship of the sociable" and the "let's not > piss anyone off syndrome."
