In response to Robin Hahnel, Justin Schwartz wrote:
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.
COMMENT: After a fashion the preferences of those who do not participate in
planning do count since their preferences are not to participate. As to voting
being relatively costless and hence not comparable, it is also possible to
make greater use of referenda as part of planning and this is a form of voting.
In the electronic age this should (eventually)
be relatively easy. Forcing people to participate certainly does not seem
the answer since it would produce donkey participation just as compulsory
voting produces donkey voting--for example picking the first name on the
ballot.
Certainly conditions should be made favorable for anyone who desires
to participate in planning to be able to do so (not just the formal right to do
so) but equally important is that participation be informed. Talk of
preferences per se recalls the deity-like status given to these in traditional
welfare economics and in liberal ideology of the individual. There are after
all preferences for children as sex objects, prefferences for child labor,
preferences to put out contracts on opponents, adaptive preferences, etc. etc.
Should these count equally. If not then you had better start developing some
ethical thinking that puts preferences in their proper place, namely as part
of ideological baggage of liberal capitalism and its deductive theology
masquerading as a science of welfare economics.
Talk of preferences serve as a convenient cover for arguments to the effect
that in a market people get to choose and so avoid the "dictatorship" of the
commmunity , the intelligent, or whomever and preserves freedom of the
individual as contrasted to the road to serfdom of planning
.. Talk of a dictatorship where
everyone has a right and opportunity to participate is inappopriate in any
event. If people allow decisions to made for them this may be undesirable in
some situations but
when the means for preventing exist and are more than formal it is their own
fault. In the vast majority of situations the vast majority of people will
probably not want to be involved. If there are problems then they will want to
act, and surely then there should be mechanisms for critical feedback into the
system. This would replace market exit, with critical voice as control
on any attempted market dictators just as market exit helps to control
production that is not wanted by consumers.
CHeers,Ken Hanly
