Having been kindly invited to contribute to an
upcoming issue of Democracy & Nature, I was sent
some back issues, including No. 9. In it I found
Takis Fotopoulis's "Outline for an Economic Model"
and in that I found a number of references to an
economic vision that Robin Hahnel and I have
offered, called Participatory Economics (or parecon
for short). These were a bit troubling so I thought
I would reply, giving D&N readers another take on
the matter.
Fotopoulis first suggests that parecon's approach to
allocation is likely infeasible for a reason that
"concerns any kind of democratic planning that is
not market-based"--that is, that it "has to involve
an arbitrary and ineffective way of finding out what
future needs will be." Next, he claims that parecon
is undesirable because it is "bureaucratic" and
"involves a serious restriction of individual
autonomy in general and freedom of choice in
particular." This then escalates to a fear that
parecon's concern that consumption has collective
implications leads to "maoist totalitarianism."
Fotopoulis then sees "creeping totalitarianism" in
that in parecon in his words "each citizen's
consumption, production, and workload has,
ultimately, to conform to the ‘average'." Later,
after quoting us favorably about "job complexes,"
Fotopoulis rejects that we "impose" job rotation "as
an obligatory rule" "on all citizens."
As we were dealt with a bit summarily, to give
readers a different take to consider let me just say
that participatory economics or parecon is a system
built around council democracy, balanced job
complexes, remuneration according to effort and
sacrifice, and participatory planning for allocation
(rather than markets, central planning, or any
combination of the two). Of these four pillars of
parecon, the first, council democracy, is familiar,
both for workplaces and consumer units. The second,
balanced job complexes, is, however, innovative and
controversial. As in any economy, each parecon actor
enjoys a mix of tasks altogether constituting a job.
But in parecon, each job's tasks are overall alike
to the tasks composing other jobs in respect to
their empowerment and quality of life impact on
workers. We each have different jobs with different
mixtures of tasks, of course, but our jobs are
nonetheless alike in having overall comparable
quality of life and empowerment implications for us
in our work days. Thus, parecon does not have some
people having jobs more pleasant or empowering than
others and other people with jobs less pleasant and
empowering than others - nor does parecon have a
class division between conceptual administrative
workers on the one hand, and executionary workers
doing the elite's bidding, on the other. Note also,
most jobs will be far more diverse than now, having
components at many levels regarding quality of life
and empowerment effects, rather than being
homogeneous combinations of tasks all at one high or
low level, for example. The third defining feature
of parecon, remuneration according to effort and
sacrifice, means just what it sounds like. We don't
reward output much less property. This too is an
unusual stance, even on the left. Parecon doesn't
remunerate genius, or strength, or dexterity, or
even accumulated skill or knowledge (much less
property) - but only effort and sacrifice put to
valued purposes. And finally, fourth, parecon's mode
of allocation, participatory planning, is a
carefully developed and described institutional
structure for horizontal rather than top down
planning that takes into account true and complete
social costs and benefits and manifests the wills of
actors in outcomes in proportion as the actors are
affected by those outcomes. These four defining
aspects are together quite different from those of
more familiar post capitalist models and are
chosen/designed with the purpose of both getting the
economic tasks of production, consumption, and
allocation done well, and also furthering various
preferred values: equity of income and circumstance,
solidarity, diversity, and participatory
self-management.
Of course tat's too brief a description for anyone
to jump on board parecon. But, readers of
Democracy and Nature, if your interest is
perked, the thing to do would be to check our longer
presentations and discussions, perhaps
Looking
Forward (South End Press),
The Political
Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton
University Press) or
Thinking Forward (Arbeiter
Ring Press). On the other hand, if you have Internet
access, you might try http://
www.zmag.org
where you will find a "Parecon Watch" section with
lots of articles, a forum for discussion, etc. But
before investing any more time, you might wonder
what about Fotopoulis's problems with parecon? Don't
they indicate that parecon isn't worth further
examination?
Well, yes, they might that for you, if they were
accurate. So let's take them in turn. Fotopoulis is
correct that our approach to allocation is "not
market based"—or even market tinged, for that
matter. In fact, in our view that is one of its
chief virtues. But his claim that due to being "not
market based" participatory planning therefore
involves "an arbitrary and ineffective way of
finding out what future needs will be" is very
curious. In the first place, one of the things
virtually everyone agrees markets are notoriously
bad at is anything to do with the future, whether
future needs or otherwise, imposing, as markets do,
a very narrow time horizon on actors. Second, and
more damning, our own study of markets (Quiet
Revolution in Welfare Economics, Princeton
University Press) shows rather conclusively, I
think, that not only don't markets accurately
discern and account for actors' future preferences,
they instead systematically bias actor's future
preferences away from their natural trajectories in
anti-social directions. To emulate markets on this
score, therefore, would consign an economic vision
to worthlessness. Finally, third, Fotopoulis's claim
looks rather like an impossibility theorem and one
that isn't proved but merely stated, despite that it
closes the door on precisely a paramount task we
face - figuring out how to have an economy that
works really well, but which also fosters human well
being and development for all, which, of course,
markets can't do. It is quite like Alec Nove saying
that developed economies must opt for markets or
central planning, there being no third (or fourth or
fifth) way possible. But this is mere assertion. In
Nove, there is no supporting argument other than
repetition. In Fotopoulis, there isn't even
repetition. In Albert and Hahnel, however, there is
a refutation of this impossibility theorem in the
form of participatory planning. Surely we should all
hope Albert and Hahnel are right and (Nove and
Fotopoulis wrong) that we don't have to utilize
markets, even peripherally, in a better future
economy. Look for yourself to decide.
Moving, on, as to parecon being bureaucratic, I'm
unsure how to respond since it depends what
Fotopoulis means by "bureaucratic." Parecon has
institutions within and via which power is entirely
dispersed to those affected by decisions. So if we
mean by bureaucracies entities that have
disproportionate say over outcomes affecting others,
or even just themselves, parecon has no bureaucracy.
You'd have to check for yourself, of course, to
verify this one way or the other, but you can see
how the comments Fotopoulis offers aren't evidence
of anything, or even indicative, but merely
assertion.
Next, says Fotopoulis, parecon restricts choice.
This is in fact true. But then so does any
institution or society and any economy restrict
choice, of course, in some ways. Parecon rules out
certain options but in ways that promote solidarity,
diversity, equity, and self-management while being
consistent with getting economic tasks done well.
For example, pareconers can't consume more than
their income warrants and their incomes will vary
above or below average only due their working longer
or less long than average, or more or less hard than
average—remuneration being according to effort and
sacrifice. Pareconers can't employ wage slaves, nor,
more controversially, can they work at jobs with
disproportionate shares of onerous or disempowering
tasks (because these type jobs don't exist in
parecon). In other words, people will work at jobs
that are "average" in the precise sense of being not
class segmented and having a balance of tasks vis-a-vis
empowerment and quality of life impact, and they
will do so because these are the only kinds of jobs
the economy incorporates, that being the way tasks
are combined into jobs in parecon. This is a
limitation, I certainly agree, just as not being
able to own slaves or employ wage slaves is a
limitation, and on the same trajectory toward a much
better future.
Fotopoulis is concerned, however, that parecon will
restrict consumers' freedom of choice, even to the
point of "creeping totalitarianism." What bothers
him, I think—he doesn't say enough to know for
sure—is that parecon recognizes that acts of
consumption sometimes have social implications that
go beyond the person doing the consuming and
recognizes that fellow members of living complexes,
or neighborhoods, or other units need to therefore
have some rights vis-ŕ-vis one another's choices.
Actually, this is not controversial, I would have
thought. It means that if someone is entering a
request for an Uzi, neighbors can say, hold on, and
similarly for other purchases which might have
adverse social effects on them. At the same time,
parecon does incorporate means to preserve privacy
and also freedom of choice for the consumer (this is
what Fotopoulis is referring to, I think, when he
mentions that we make "an obvious attempt to
disperse any impression of maoist totalitarianism,"
though the content of our structures of course goes
unstated), even while also granting those who might
be affected a proper level of impact on the outcome.
This is apparently, even obviously for Fotopoulis
"creeping Maoism" despite their being no class
differences among actors, no unwarranted income
differences (with such differences as exist being
quite modest), no public accountability for private
choices, and so on. Again, I suggest that if
interested you look for yourself.
Finally, as to the last point, we not only
don't require job rotation on principle but instead
dispense with it as an often useless red herring re
justice and equity, the real issue being all people
having proper (balanced) jobs in the first place,
rather than those who monopolize excessively
desirable jobs merely slumming in a bad one a few
days a month.
The most ironic thing about Fotopoulis's comments,
and perhaps why I was moved to reply in this letter,
is his allusion to Maoism, totalitarianism, etc. I
have to say, I was astounded by this. Parecon is
disliked by many folks, so the fact that Fotopoulis
might dislike it too is no big surprise. But no one
has as yet, to my knowledge, seriously argued that
parecon doesn't work as an economy. Nor has anyone
before this ever seen in it creeping
totalitarianism. Instead, most of parecon's critics
have said things like: I don't want to live in it
because I couldn't have my job as it is currently
defined, or because it has too many meetings, and
such. At any rate, perhaps there is some lesser
meaning for Fotopoulis's comments than what they
seem to convey regarding his view of parecon, and
therefore perhaps some benign reason for bandying
about such derogatory terms as "totalitarian" with
so little supporting commentary - but it eludes me
just what it might be. If Fotopoulis read the book
he referenced he will surely know that its authors
are highly anti-Leninist and thus anti-Maoist. He
will know that they reject what is traditionally
termed socialism as, instead, a type of economy
(which comes in a market and centrally planned
version) that elevates a class of
intellectual/decision making actors (who we call the
coordinator class) to ruling status above workers.
Indeed, he will know that parecon is largely
conceived in the context of trying to accomplish
society's economic functions in a classless way,
with a just distribution of circumstances, incomes,
and power, promoting diversity and solidarity. Given
that he presumably knew all that, then, the use of
terms like totalitarian took me by surprise and I
thought I would offer D&N readers another take on
the model. I thank you for providing space in your
Dialogue Section for me to do so.
Yours,
Michael Albert
*
This is
an exact
reproduction of a reply by
Michael Albert to what he calls "D&N Comments", but in
reality it constitutes an
answer only to T. Fotopoulos' very short critique of
Parecon in his book Towards an
Inclusive Democracy, and not to the extended and
well-documented (and known to Albert) critique by
Fotopoulos and Inclusive Democracy that was
published in Democracy & Nature, Vol.9, No.3
("Inclusive Democracy and Participatory Economics"
at
http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol9/takis_parecon.htm)
and with later additions, in the International
Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol.1, No.2
("Participatory Economics (Parecon) and
Inclusive Democracy" at
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol1/vol1_no2_IDvsParecon.htm).
Albert' s Reply was initially published
in this web page:
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19700
but this link to Znet (along
with many others) now seem to unwillingly redirect
the reader to a fundraising "Help Us" web page with
the title: "Emergency Appeal - Please, We Urgently
Need Your Help Now!" at
http://www.zmag.org/znet_help.htm.
The Editorial Committee of the International Journal
of Inclusive Democracy, October, 26 2009.