Re: utopia and the state
Dave Markland wrote: > regarding the parecon model. It seems to me that Albert and Hahnel have > simply thought through the process of democratizing an economy; the parecon > model has several features which, though I suspect they would be > unnecessary, are simply the logical way to organize a libertarian economy in > the event of various problems which may arise. eg. parecon proposes that, > in order for one's job to be deemed worthwhile, it shall need a balance of > workplace responsibiblity and arduousness of tasks. Thus, in any workplace > there will be an explicit evaluation of all tasks s to their desirability. > One will need to perform shitty and glamorous jobs. Now, it seems to me > that such an explicit feature would only be necesary if all workers agreed > on what these good and bad tasks are. From my experience there are some > people in every workplace who like what I would call the shitty tasks for > whatever reason. Thus this feature of a parecon may rarely be utilized. I concur with this interpretation of what Mike and I were trying to do, including the observation that there might be parts of what we proposed that others might well disagree with -- such as balanced job complexes -- that do not mean we would disagree about other parts -- such as participatory planning procedures or payment according to sacrifice or effort rather than the value of one's contribution. To briefly clarify the idea behind balancing job complexes: First, we proposed balancing the tasks grouped into jobs in two different ways for two different purposes. Balancing for empowerment was suggested to keep formally equal rights to participate in workplace decision making from becoming a kind of dead letter. If some go to meetings and evaluate business alternatives and options all day every day while others sweep floors all the time they will hardly have effectively equal opportunity to affect economic decisions in their workplace even if they each have exactly one vote in the workers council. That's the problem. Our solution was to suggest that there be a serious attempt to make sure that all engaged in some tasks we called "empowering" and the tasks that do little to empower one be shared around. We also proposed balancing job complexes for desirability. Here the goal was not to advance the cause of self-management, but the cause of economic justice. Dilemma: How can it be fair if some people's work lives are much less desirable than the work lives of others? First of all, this is logically separable from balancing for empowerment. And one could consider the possibility of achieving overall economic justice for those with less desirable jobs by giving them greater consumption rights. We opted for the more direct approach. As for how they could be balanced for desirability, actually that is quite simple. A committee makes up the complexes -- imperfectly. But since everyone is free to bid on any job complexes for which they technically qualify, if they are not balanced for desirability there will be long applicant lists for some and short ones for others. That information tells the job balancing committee how to adjust tasks and times to get closer to equal desirability. Of course, what any two people will think is equally desirable will not be the same. So once the jobs are balanced for desirability -- in that usual economists' average sense -- you and I will bid on the ones that meet our own peculiar preferences. I mowed the grass in my family because I enjoyed the meticulous monotony of the nice even rows and sense of steady progress. My son opted for dusting. Each to his own.
Re: utopia and the state
> > Dave Markland notes: > > The Parecon model "works" independantly of the state (if there > >is one) and independently of many aspects of society. Mix 'n match yer > >favorite political forms alongside a parecon. > > Here and now very little works independently of the state. I am not versed > in parecon, but I have serious doubts to claims of models -- present or > future -- that are somehow have autonomy vis a vis the state, culture, etc. > > Especially when we start to grapple with the way states are in the business > of producing governable subjects, citizens, consumers. But do we want to > get into that? That is, re-thinking the capitalist state as permanent > cultural revolution (my current [borrowed, of course] notion of things)? If > the answer is affirmative, I have some notes on recent "rethinking the > state" lit. (Corrigan and Sayer, Nugent, Abrams, etc.) I could share. > > But maybe I'm missing some email irony here. Claiming "mix 'n I've been gone for ten days, so if I've missed important messages on utopia, I'm sorry. I can say that parecon, as it is known on the left on line bulletin board -- or participatory economics, or decentralized planning, as its been called at other times and places -- was simply an attempt to present a coherent, concrete way of going about coordinating the interrelated economic activities of groups of workers and consumers without resort to either totalitarian central planning or markets. The idea was to design a system that would afford workers and consumers decision making input in proportion to the degree they were affected by economic decisions -- or what we call self-management -- lead to equitable and efficient outcomes, and stimulate solidarity rather than stir up fear and animosity between participants in the economy as markets inevitably do. We never beleived that a participatory economy could come into existence nor survive without compatible transformations of what we call the political, kinship, and community spheres of social life. However, it is hard to talk about everything all at once. And some people have greater expertise in some areas than others. So we tried to present a concrete and therefore discussable version of an economic system that would promote self-management, equity, efficiency and solidarity assuming that many others would participate in that intellectual task, and that many others would lead and participate in similar projects trying to think through what desirable political, kinship, and cultural systems would look like. In particular, we have always been strong believers that since we are the same people who participate in all spheres of social life there are strong connections between what kinds of values, relationships, and behavior patterns are required or discouraged in different areas of our social lives. So failure to discuss compatible political -- or any other kind of arrangements -- with a participatory economy is not due to either a belief that these issues are separable, or that the economic sphere is more important, for that matter. We just thought we had greater expertise and therefore insight in one area than the others.
Re: utopia and the state
>Dave Markland notes: > >The Parecon model "works" independantly of the state (if there >>is one) and independently of many aspects of society. Mix 'n match yer >>favorite political forms alongside a parecon. >But maybe I'm missing some email irony here. Claiming "mix 'n >match"-ability of polit and econ systems -- am I supposed to intuit a ;-) >kinda thing following it? I wrote the above as a rebuttle to those who claimed, if I understood, that one can't propose an economic model without proposing how law and order would work (among other things). I fail to see the necessity (though it would be nice of course). The point is that parecon cold operate in many different kinds of society (politically speaking). there could, I think, be a state which punishes criminals. That state could be organized through balloted elections, or hereditary leadership, or lottery, etc. Of course that state would have functions and juristiction much different than ours... to reiterate, I don't understand the resistance that I've perceived here regarding the parecon model. It seems to me that Albert and Hahnel have simply thought through the process of democratizing an economy; the parecon model has several features which, though I suspect they would be unnecessary, are simply the logical way to organize a libertarian economy in the event of various problems which may arise. eg. parecon proposes that, in order for one's job to be deemed worthwhile, it shall need a balance of workplace responsibiblity and arduousness of tasks. Thus, in any workplace there will be an explicit evaluation of all tasks s to their desirability. One will need to perform shitty and glamorous jobs. Now, it seems to me that such an explicit feature would only be necesary if all workers agreed on what these good and bad tasks are. From my experience there are some people in every workplace who like what I would call the shitty tasks for whatever reason. Thus this feature of a parecon may rarely be utilized. Regards, Dave Markland Winnipeg, Canada
