"Is that you`re all confused, bwong et al, cool down, before post-industrial full scale parecon, we must workout pre-iron age little local economic habits and tools. Capitalism wasn`t born with transnational corporations and super computers in banks, but it worked on it`s own tools, on ways to keep growing."

Why? Why would embracing a new vision mean technological backslide? Given the merits of the vision, wouldn\'t it mean moving forward? Yes, capitalism was born at X point. Feudalism was born at W point, even earlier on the technological scale. Soviet Russia was born at Y point later. None of these facts changed the viability of these systems, why would there be a reboot for parecon?

"

mtbrad says "Take your example of a doctor and a hospital administrator.  It is an exact inverse of Alberts thesis.  The doctor has more status and power in our society than the "coordinator"."

The review is confused on many levels, including the false

assertion that the differences are "essentially political,

not economic" Properly defined, I agree we are

not going to eliminate "money" in any desirable economic

model in the foreseeable future (in the unforseeable future

we may have what today would appear magic so I ignore that)

 

As for wages, I understand that term to be getting $x/hour

or $z/year, and if that is the understanding of a reasonable

number of others, then progressives will wonder whether

that is a desirable way to order society.

 

Sure enough,

we have to be more careful and include models

where "subsistance food and housing is guaranteed,

above which you have to earn wages [in one of

the two above senses of $/hour or $/year in

return for doing a certain job]"

 

But even with the above addition, that is not

the only viable, much less desirable model.

In turn, do people receive a share of the product? Obviously they must if they are to survive, much less attain their capacities. So, that being true, is there any correlation between the share one gets and what one does as one's work? If not, anyone can take anything, in any amount, and do no work - which, of course, is absurd, since demand would exceed supply If there is a correlation, however, then there are to that extent "wages" according to some norm, even if the correlation is due to people collectively and responsibly establishing their own incomes.

 

Ok, if people collectively and responsibly establish their own

share of what is created, that includes things I would

not considere undesirable (ie it includes models

I would consider supporting) but the term "wages"

here (perhaps also "incomes", but certainly "wages")

is asking for trouble since it is far too closely associated

with other ways of allocating resources, and

those conceptions of what recieving a "wage" is,

are radically different from

the general comments above by Michael, or from e.g.

a commune or village collectively and fairly

making a decision of how resources will be allocated.

Michael, you once wrote an essay suggesting

we abandon the term 'socialism' since it is far too

misunderstood. I am suggesting 'wages' will

shed a negative amount of light on what (even

with our differneces) most of us on Znet would support,

and would be suggesting for desirable economic models.

You may disagree with this suggestion (and experience tells

me I won't have the time to keep up with the long exchanges

here :-) but at least my last comment hopefully ensures that

while my suggestion may be disagreed with, it will

hopefully not be misunderstood. We need to use

terms that are not as likely to distort people's perceptions.

hb

 

[Added the next day in "edit"] a few more thoughts--

 

** It's awkward to try to explain that we are

against "wage slavery" (which some phrase as

"against waged slavery") but are for "waged [something else]"

Wages, working for wages, etc, mean to most people

something so different from what "collectively agreed

upon [via some equitable democratic structure mechanism]

way of allocating resources"...so would only cause confusion

 

** It also occurs to me that if wages are also understood

by many to mean "$x/hour" or "$/year" that means

the money one earns is due to putting in a certain

number of hours ($x/hour) or for a year's worth (or whatever

period) of doing specified tasks ($/year) and that's it.So

this commonly understood meaning for "wages" does not mean

not mean payment due to effort.

 

But the wage slavery phrase is particularly suggestive

to me though that for the above concepts which

Michael (or you, I never know when to switch from second

to third person and back..) uses (use) it's only asking

for trouble and misunderstanding and it's best to not

use the term 'wages' if we want people to understand

what we are talking about parecon

(or when talking about something not identical to parecon but which uses democratic structures in collectively and

equitably allocate resources)

 

mtbrad says "Take your example of a doctor and a hospital administrator.  It is an exact inverse of Alberts thesis.  The doctor has more status and power in our society than the "coordinator"."

We have internet. And almost a la carte web aps, that should be enough to build some multiuser data filling and desicion making starters tools. But by the moment the first solid parecon spots will appear, only god knows what supermonstercomputers will be available, so even if the complexity case was a serious one, never say never ;-)

Is that you`re all confused, bwong et al, cool down, before post-industrial full scale parecon, we must workout pre-iron age little local economic habits and tools. Capitalism wasn`t born with transnational corporations and super computers in banks, but it worked on it`s own tools, on ways to keep growing.
I`m working on an idea, but since I`m reading all the material on Parecon I don`t know when it`ll be ready. But for those that say that the complexity is overwhelming, I claim that it could begin whith plain spreasheets and training courses. Still no need for trac or bugzilla, or big relational DBs (but since we have them we better use them).
But yes, from where we stand Parecon is Sci-fi, and without a concrete path to go there (or near there), few will actively try to leap on that direction.

"Troubling" would appear to be a slight understatement.

"this is getting confusing, correct me if I am wrong but the primary idea Albert has with parecon and the extended planning or controlling is to try to minimizes the effort to succeed in a society that he does perceive as more efficient...."

I never question Albert's noble intention. I just think that his implementation in the form of parecon is ridiculously flawed.

Parecon is a quest for the absolute. Everything operates on the binary logic of all or nothing. Since participation and democracy are good, let's expand it to the absolute so that your neighbours are "participating" in running your life. Democracy is fine, but nothing in the world would get done if every decison has to be made with democratic consensus at every turn.

The market is inefficient in that demand and supply rarely match, Albert claims. This is hardly news.

But what is Albert's cure? He proposes a "democratically" planned economy which matches supply and demand perfectly.

But we all know the drawbacks of a centrally planned economy. Albert's model is different. It is based on "participate planning" which alledgely not only matches supply and demand perfectly but it is also "more efficient" than central planning and  "more flexible" than the market. Well I got a flat tire on my bike the other day. What am I to do in parecon? fill in a form, get approved by my neighbours and then Albert and buddies fill another form to get the rubber and make the tire? If I don't want to be caught with a flat tire andhave to wait for months to get it replaced I would order a whole bunch of spare tires in my yearly request forms just in case. Now how efficient and flexible is that?(Since I tend to err on the safe side,chances are I would have a lot of suprpluse tires which are just taking up space. There is a strong incentive for me to get rid of them. I can sell them to some guy who has a flat and is waiting for the paper work to be done. Now we have a fledging market,--which Albert tries to stamp out so desperately)

The irony is under a parecon regime Albert would never be able to publish his book. I don't believe Albert wrote his book because someone filled in a request form in Znet and asked, "hey, Michael, can you write us a book on alternative economics?" Secondly, I don't know how many people are actually interested in parecon except for hard core fans and some on the left who are curious. The councils would probably rule that it is a waste of paper and ink to publish the book in the first place. No, in a parecon Albert would not have the option of publishing the book himself and then market it like he does now. This is an "unplanned" activity which is not allowed under parecon,--or more accurately he simply would not have the means to do it because he has to get the paper and prints only through the parecon aproved venues.

To eliminate the problem of unequal empowerment of work Albert comes up with the idea of Balanced work complex. Some may find this "empowering", but I am sure there are many who think it is a a pain on the ass. I myself prefer to do something single mindedly without interruptions for a long peroid of time and then take a long break doing something else. Balanced job complex would be a nusiance because of its insistence that one must do a little bit of everything constantly. Undivided attention to any one task is difficult if not impossible.

In addition, not everyone is a workaholic who gets satisfaction and empowerment only from work. I suspect a majority of people would prefer a reasonably paid job with a lot of free time with which they can persue outside interests than be "empowered" through compulsory multi-tasking. Given the choice, I bet most people would prefer increase PRIVATE leisure time for everyone rather than balancing work(and leisure IS technologically feasible and relatively easy to achieve, unlike all the tall tales of parecon)

"I could see a lot of big manufacturing plants working on parecon..sucessful
parecon businesses wealth being generated can be redirected for the benefit of all.."

You're missing the point. You are speaking of co ops(which I enthusistaically support btw). Parecon is a different animal. It is a way to organise a whole society. Its madate goes far beyond a factory, a plant or an entreprise.

This is Albert's whole point.

Pareconish ideas have been around long before Albert and many of them are indeed the inspirations of the whole leftist movement. But parecon is detailed, totalistic (all or nothing) and all encompassing and it pushes even cherished ideas to the limit of absurdity.

Albert, with all his good intentions, strikes me as an idelogue who lacks appreciation of nuances.He may have some good general ideas, but you can get overdosed on too much of everything, even if it is good in moderation.

I totally agree with your analysis. The corporation or capitalist only has control over the worker if the supply of workers exceeds the demand for them. Then the workers themselves will bid down the price of labor in order to get a job. If there is a scarcity of workers and a high demand for them, the worker can demand and get a higher wage. It really has to do with the Law of Supply and Demand. Since, in most cases, the supply of workers is greater than the demand, the capitalist or corporation is in control. But that is not always the case.

For instance, in the recent Katrina hurricane, there were very few bricklayers left in the area. Most had left. The demand for bricklayers was high and they could demand and get twice the wages they were getting pre-Katrina. The important thing is to attain a balance of control between the two parties or among all segments of society as far as the workplace goes. That's why I advocate working by contract between buyer and seller of labor. A contract entered into on equal terms should benefit both parties. Better yet, if there is an impartial mechanism that handles the negotiation that's fair to both parties, that mediates between both parties, hopefully, that would nullify the relative power advantage of either party.

If some jobs arose that weren't getting done, coal mining for example, while others had too many, say supermodel photographer, this could be simply overcome by reduceing the hours of the former while increasing the hours of the latter, while maintaining the same pay. 

The same thing could be accomplished giving each person a range of choices in terms of hours worked and pay received. Then, typically, the one who would do the supermodel photography who was willing to accept less pay, all other things being equal, would get the job. Why does everyone have to work the same work week? That should be something the individual should have some control over: the number of hours worked per week. Why should everyone have to have the same pay per hour? Having a work schedule tailored to my preferences is worth something. I would even accept less pay per hour than if I had to work a standardized 40 hour week. Again if there is a fair and impersonal mechanism for making these decisions, which tried to give each individual as close to his highest preference as possible, why shouldn't the individual have full control over the parameters such as pay per hour, hours worked, work schedule and whatever else you can think of? For example, I might want to work 4 hours in the morning 3 days a week as a coal miner at a certain pay rate, 2 afternoons a week as a printer at a different pay rate and go surfing the rest of the time! I might not get my first choice in terms of pay rate or hours worked but, hopefully, I would get close to my first choice unless my demands were entirely unreasonable.

I do disagree with the egalitarianism of society, this to me is paramount.  Without it we will drift towards classes and the power diferrentiation that comes with it.  There is no reason that we couldn't all live very well with the current, or even reduced because of sustainability restrictions resource useage.  

I think the egalitarianism issue boils down to 2 things: Does everyone in the society have at least a basic, humane standard of living meaning adequate food, shelter, health care etc. as in the UN Declaration on Human Rights of 1948? #2 Does everyone have access to the work and consumption arenas on equal terms? If both of these conditions are met, I don't think it's important that some people have a higher standard of living than others. I think the "class" distinctions you are worried about come about when one person has more power to control the work or consumption of another person. If they enter the work and consumption arenas on equal terms and have equal access to them, no one has greater control over another. One only has control over one's own life. And the fact that one drives a Mercedes doesn't give him any special power over one who drives a Kia.

this is getting confusing, correct me if I am wrong but the primary idea Albert has with parecon and the extended planning or controlling is to try to minimizes the effort to succeed in a society that he does perceive as more efficient.. I could see a lot of big manufacturing plants working on parecon..sucessful parecon businesses wealth being generated can be redirected for the benefit of all.. the problem I have is i cannot see all businesses espousing a parecon model..

Without looking into the details yet, I think your idea of jobs based on "preferences" sounds a lot more sensible than Parecon. At least I agree with your philosophy.

Parecon is a form of Puritanism.

Albert decides what is "anti-social" and designs his system accordingly to eliminate all aspects of societies that MAY  POTENTIALLY lead to "anti-social" outcome and the system is artificially "hardwired" to promote what Albert deems to be "desirable" traits such as "solidarity",--according to Albert's interpretation of course. This is Utopian social engineering at its worse. The result of it, as MTbrad argues eloquently, would result in the end of civilization.

While I don't profess to know what "human nature" is. But I do think people have diverse motives and respond to different incentives, a truly free abd liberated society should have room to accomodate these differences(within reasons, of course). Parecon is actually participatory tyranny, and an incredibly inefficient one as far as tyrannies go.

"I do disagree with the egalitarianism of society, this to me is paramount.  Without it we will drift towards classes and the power diferrentiation that comes with it"

It depends on how you define "egalitarianism" and the presence (or abscence) of opportunities in translating a lack of egalitarianism into power over others. 

I don't see how a guy who can afford a Marcedes automatically has power over me. On the other hand, the beat cop may not be able to afford a marcedes but he likely has power over the mercedes guy in many situations.

The rich has power over the poor(or the not so rich) mainly through ownership of MOP and the fact that the not so rich has to labour under the terms of the rich. But in the absence of power to own key MOPs, or if the not so rich have a genuine alternative to make a living, the coercive power of the rich disappears. 

"Capital" does not just mean wealth, but the web of social relationships which enables the wealth to be deployed in certain coercive ways.

I don't agree with Albert's formulation of all waged employment as "waged slavery". It is only waged slavery because the bargaining power is typically unequal on favour of the employers under capitalism(but even under capitalism the bargaining powers differ a great deal depending on occupations, there are "waged slaves" who are in high demand and thus have enormous bargaining power against their supposed "masters") As long society removes the unbalanced of power between buyer and seller of labour to eliminate coercions, thus making employment truly free contracts between willing partners, I don't see the need of prohibition of waged labour in post capitalist societies.

I haven't yet got a chance to look at your scheme in details. But there seems to be some interesting ideas and you don't come across as rigid and idelologically driven as Albert.

Incidentally, in Parecon there is no money so the issue of wealth accumulation does not come up if I understand Albert correctly(but it's hard to say, given that apparantly everyone gets it wrong except for parecon converts)

Instead parecon keeps detail track of everyone's consumptions, demand and "assets" in some giantic computers.

Parecon also keeps track of all transactions,--to eliminate the possible emergence of market.

Life in parecon is drowned in a sea of meetings, negotiations, documentations, lists and forms.

While certainly many macro aspects of the market are planned, a lot of micro level decisions are spontaneous. Central planning is managible but it is inflexible and unresponsive to individual needs. Instead of proposing a reasonable balance between planned and unplanned strategies, Albert is an Utopian who seeks totalistic solutions. It is all or nothing.

Albert thinks you can have it all with parecon.

Parecon , according to Albert and supporters, is a planned economy to the last detail yet it simultaneously maximizes individual choice and flexibility.

In order to micmic the flexiblity and spontaneity of unplanned market decisions with a COMPLETLY planned system Parecon needs to anticipate all contingencies in its plans. This would require an infinitely complex plan. It would requires an infinitely complex mechanism to keep track of the flow of information and to implement, update and execute the plan on an ongoing basis.

The way Albert sweeps this intractibly complex problem under the rug is by invoking the magic word: computers.

When I spoke of computation complexity and data mining I have having parecon's scenario in mind. It is a lot more surreal than your relatively mudane examples can adequately convey

Computers play a much more important role than parecon than simply as job cataloguing and registering agents or media for virtual meetings.They are Albert's magic wands (I am not going into the technical challenges that the examples you gave in your orevious posts may present because whatever they are, they are non issues comparing to parecon) .

Another point I want to bring up is the meaning of "participation".

I don't believe "participation" necessarily translates to having more control and being in a more "empowered" state. This may be true in a work team, a medium size entreprise or a neighbourhood commitee. But not in the whole society.

In parecon everyone "participates" in hatching up a giantic, collective grand plan that governs all aspects of life.  Everyone has some small inputs in some small parts of the grand plan but it is difficult to argue that the overall plan arrived at in such complex processes really represents individual preferences in any meaningful way.

It is true that each individual "participates", but in the same way as a cog in some big machine.

Sure we live in a society,we often have to participate in collective decisions that in the end may not reflect each individual's preference(say,elections). But typically we don't need a collective plan to tell us how many eggs we should eat!

In parecon everyone's "consumption list" has to be approved by the "neighbourhood committee". Yeh, I can imagine the busy bodies asking why do you want so many condoms this year, Mr. Palm?

Solidarity? No, thank you very much. I would rather be left alone. I don't need other people to "participate" in making my personal choices. Call me "anti-social".

I agree that if given the choice to discover individual jobs based on interests, talents and the like that it would not be necessary to have  BJC.  The job hierarchy in current society is an effort to overcome the pay and prestigue disparity between jobs, while fullfilling the needs of a capitalist society.  First, this would be completely altered post capitalism.  Second, once the pay disparity is removed it would seem that most would search out what ever job they liked and did well at.  If some jobs arose that weren't getting done, coal mining for example, while others had too many, say supermodel photographer, this could be simply overcome by reduceing the hours of the former while increasing the hours of the latter, while maintaining the same pay.  That way people would seek to maintain a certain level of overall life satisfaction relative to the amount of freetime.  Those who found satisfaction in supermodel photography would work longer hours but be happier at work.  Conversly, thost who chose coal mining would have more free time to enjoy other pursuits.  As far as making people be productive through pay differentials and co worker reporting on productivity etc. this is not necessary, because people would just seek out whatever job made them happy and do well at it. 

 

I do disagree with the egalitarianism of society, this to me is paramount.  Without it we will drift towards classes and the power diferrentiation that comes with it.  There is no reason that we couldn't all live very well with the current, or even reduced because of sustainability restrictions resource useage.  

 

As for control over product production, I would leave that to markets.  With a proper political system with appropriate checks and balances, citizen input and review, and most importantly no corporat money involved and an egalitarian pay scheme, there would be no need to remove the market.  I may be missing something though. 

Regarding the balanced job complex, why is this necessary for the functioning of a post-capitalist economic system? If jobs are assigned by an impersonal mechanism in such a way as to give everyone what they wanted insofar as possible and to treat everyone fairly, people would be more satisfied than if they are forced to do onerous work (who defines what's onerous?) along with "satisfying" work. Let people choose for themselves. Some people might choose a balance of physical and mental activity for instance. Other people might choose just to do one thing exclusively. Let people decide for themselves. Personally, I like a balance of different kinds of work, but a lot of people don't. If people list their choices (see http://www.socialchoiceandbeyond.com) then an algorithm decides work assignments based on a utilitarian ethic. The more onerous jobs will be way down a person't preference list, presumably. But what's onerous to one may not be onerous to another.

Let's say my 50th preference would be to be a coal miner making $400,000. a year. This might not be a bad work assignment given the ample pay! I'd be willing to do it for a limited period of time. A natural way to assign the more onerous jobs is in accordance with a higher pay schedule rather than have a balanced job complex dictated by whom? It would be as bad to have it dictated by your peers as to have to take the job because it was the only one you qualified for. At least in capitalism you can choose to do nothing and be homeless. It's a viable lifestyle! In Parecon you wouldn't have that choice. If there were some jobs absolutely no one wanted to do no matter how high the pay (I can hardly imagine any) well some poor souls would either have to do them (at least for a time) as chosen by lottery (much like a draft) or do nothing. At least everyone would be treated fairly by an impersonal mechanism that tried to give everyone as high a preference as possible which may not be the case if their fate is decided by their peers.In this scenario one could choose to have a variety of different kinds of jobs, of various durations or not as chosen by them not somebody else. Of course, not everyone would get their first choice so it would be necessary to input a list of job preferences similar to the input of consumption preferences. And it's important to distinguish between Parecon where only one consumption preference is input and Preferensism (http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/will_blog_for_food/2005/12/what_is_prefere.html) where a list is input.

As far as equal income, why is it necessary? If the highest paid member of society makes twice as much as the lowest, then it is a "classless" society, but if they earn 3 times as much it's not? These are artificial distinctions. As in my last example, a coal miner might earn 10 times as much as the lowest paid person just because nobody wanted to do it, if the mechanism for assigning jobs was fair and utilitarian. And what about accumulated wealth? A person who saves all their money and lives frugally in Parecon will end up being wealthy compared to one who spends all his money and doesn't save anything. Wouldn't this result in a "class" based society? And how are you going to prevent it: say nobody can save more than a certain amount?

As for the consumption list, I agree with Albert only it should be a "list of lists" that is a list of preferences over different consumption baskets corresponding to the list of preferences over job assignments. That way the coal miner, for example, might end up with the Mercedes while the relatively cushy college professor ended up with the Yugo. There is no need for enforcing egalitarianism. It's more important that the individuals who make up the society have a high degree of satisfaction, happiness or utility (however you want to put it) and that the mechanism for choosing job and consumption assignments is impartial and fair. I don't think that standard can be met in Parecon where decisions are personally based.

There is no market competition in Parecon, no "invisible hand" determining the allocation of goods, services and resources. Instead consumers indicate each year what they would like to consume and in what quantities. Workers indicate what they are willing to produce. If these two patterns don't match, negotiation take place at various levels, involving consumer councils, worker councils and facilitation boards until a coherent plan is compiled. If there are several such plans, voters choose the one they prefer.

The key words are if these two patterns don't match! I agree with Albert on his basic goal just not totally on his method to achieve it. In Preferensism there is no need for all the councils to make the patterns match if the "coherent plan" is chosen by an impersonal mechanism. I agree with Albert's basic premise that work and consumption should be driven by individual preferences. I don't agree with his mechanism. And as far as an "invisible hand," wouldn't an impersonal, fair mechanism for assigning work-consumption in such a way as to maximize preference utility be just that? If you want to call that a market, so be it.

hmm so far i see some difficulties with balanced job complexes and also I also see some difficulties arising from the monitored evaluation of work performed by peers.. At first , I say a lots of people would be reticent to do job that seem degrading to them, and secondly being evaluated by peers could leaves room to workplace mobbing..so I am given to think that independent evaluator would be more appropriate.. Balanced job complexes is not a bad idea since many employers are requesting their workers to be multitasking already (balanced work).. I've also see exploitive/greedy employers/clients that refuse to pay full rates because they feel they are overpaying if during the employees tasks , should an employee install 3 light bulbs.. At first glance, Its not all the positive and negative scenarios that are being shown by the yes and no debaters of parecon, also parecon seem to be requesting a lot of trust in human nature..I'd be curious to see a paracon industry in action.. There's is work environments that could work under parecon but not so without slight modifications or adjustements.. I am still reading the stuff..

hmm so far i see some difficulties with balanced job complexes and also I also see some difficulties arising from the monitored evaluation of worked performed by peers.. At first , I say a lots of people would be reticent to do job that seem degrading to them, and secondly being evaluated by peers could leaves room to workplace mobbing..so I am given to think that independent evaluator would be more appropriate.. Balanced job complexes is not a bad idea since many employers are requesting their workers to be multitasking already (balanced work).. I've also see exploitive/greedy employers/clients that refuse to pay full rates because they feel they are overpaying if during the employees tasks , he installed 3 light bulbs.. At first glance, Its not all the positive and negative scenarios that are being shown by the yes and no debaters of parecon, also parecon seem to be requesting a lot of trust in human nature..I'd be curious to see a paracon industry in action.. There's is work environments that could work under parecon but not so with slight modifications or adjustements.. I am still reading the stuff..

I agree with much of the criticism of Parecon. I see no need for "obssessive egalitarianism," or balancing unsavory with savory jobs, or detailed lists of consumption items. However, there are <i>parts</> of Parecon I do like.The demand for consumer items as specified before they are produced rather than success or failure to sell in the marketplace. That is the market occurs a priori to production rather than a posteriori. Again consumer preferences need not be specified down to the last detail. Many can be specified just by choosing a typical basket of consumer items to cover toothpaste, toilet paper etc. Many can be chosen by "proxy" that is I would assume certain experts would do the research and then recommend certain consumption preferences. If you agree with that expert, then you would go with their recommendations just as you would with the purchase of a certain TV because Consumer Reports recommended it. Just getting away from advertising driven demand would be helpful.

I think Albert is too detail oriented and too concerned with procedures. A simplified approach that left much of the good of the marketplace intact while eliminating the bad would be my preference. I think technology can be very useful in this, but it is not the be all and end all. I think rating workers is important, but not necessarily just in terms of their effort and not necessarily by their peers. What's wrong with rating people in terms of their output? If more efficient workers were advanced, wouldn't this reduce the overall workload for everyone? Certain people have certain talents, and rewarding the talented among us is not a bad thing. People aren't equal, let's face it. Also you can't rely on the goodness of human nature. If you look at human history, I don't think you can argue that human nature is good. Self-interested, maybe, at best.

Obviously, some things cannot be specified in advance. Does it make sense to specify that director A will produce movie B next year or author C will write book D? It's the skirt length argument again. In some ways any post-capitalist system has to retain the good aspects of capitalism while eliminating the bad. Innovation, invention and individual initiative should be encouraged not flattened. You can never have a society where everyone is equal, and why would you want one. If everyone at least has a basic level of welfare as guaranteed by human rights why should I care if someone drives a Mercedes and I can't afford one?

I say retain some of the good of Parecon, modify it perhaps and throw away the obsessively detailed and unworkable features. For another approach see my website <a href="http://www.socialchoiceandbeyond.com">Social Choice and Beyond</a>. My approach is a combination of social choice and utilitarianism I call Preferensism. (I thought you could use the <a> HTML tag!)

 John Lawrence

"Data mining is a highly non trivial problem. In other words, how do you extra useful information from a hugh data set. Albert and his supporters suggest that corporations do marketing research in gauging consumer preferences anyway. But getting statistical trends as all market researches do is quite different from tracking individual demands and consumptions as in parecon. You can streamline your data for sure . But then you basically have to revert to the model of planned economcy with all its rigidity. I don't see how a"participating planing" economy which allows you to retain all the flexibility of a market while enjoying all the certainties and predictability of a planned economy. There is a trade off between ease of adminsitration, ability to make long tem plannings and flexibility. You can't have your cake and eat it too."

Let's say, for example, that you have a country with a billion people, and, to simplify the analysis, we'll just talk first about job placement. Let's say a person submits their job preferences via computer. Let's allow 2 bytes for type of job, 2 bytes for educational and work experience background, 2 bytes for scheduling preferences, 2 bytes for  pay preferences and 2 bytes for work performance rating. That's 10 bytes of information from each person for a total of 10 gigabytes of information for the whole population. Most people have a hard drive on their desk with more memory than that. Surely, there is no strain on memory resources to have a data base such as this that would encompass the whole society.

As far as consumption is concerned, there could be "proxies" i.e. people who did the research and put together a dozen or more typical consumption patterns. For example, one for a student, one for a single adult with a job, one for a married couple, one for a married couple with 2 kids, one for a retired couple etc. For those who didn't want to spend the time specifying a detailed consumption preference, they could just pick a proxy. I'm sure consumer advocates such as Ralph Nader and magazines such as Consumer Reports could simplify the process for the average individual. On the other hand individuals who wanted to spend the time could do the research themselves and specify a completely custom consumption preference.

What they would be specifying here would be, for example, a market basket of consumer goods that they would <i>prefer</i> to consume over the course of a month, for instance. Their actual consumption would not necessarily be tied to their specified preferences. Also the idea of doing market research to identify consumption preferences with the point of view of determining product outputs might accomplish the same thing. The point is that there are many ways of getting this done some more precise than others.

The real problem, as I see it, is computing what is the best solution for the entire society in terms of work assignments and production outputs. Here again simplifications can be made. You do not have to do it <i>all at once</i> but can do it piecemeal. For instance, ideal work assignments could be done at first on a local basis as a first cut. Once everything is in place, only changes in inputs (such as desired job changes, people entering or leaving the work force) would necessitate searching the database and computing the best solution. A piecemeal approach at first followed by more refined iterations would reduce the computing power necessary rather than having to construct the work inputs and consumption outputs for an entire society in one fell swoop.

Inputs and outputs need not be 100% predictable. You can have a planned economy in the sense that the output of consumption products is more or less driven by the specified inputs of individuals although it doesn't have to be 100% perfect especially at the outset. It wouldn't be a planned economy in the sense of a certain group determining the product outputs for everyone else. It seems to me that once it got rolling it would be a lot more efficient than capitalism because you wouldn't have competing corporations trying to capture market share and using advertising to force consumption. Google indexes the entire web - billions of pages - but it does it by <i>crawling</i> not by surveying the whole web instantaneously.

"To give you an idea of what I am talking about. The weather system is VERY SIMPLE comparing to any real economy. Everything can be in principle  described by a few equations (the Navier Stoke equations and equation for heat transfer) But we can't even do long term weather forecasts reliably with state of the art super computers. Moreover, it is proved mathematically even with infinite computing capacity and exhaustive data(say we know the weather conditions at every point on the earth) long term forecasts cannot go beyond two weeks! Complexity transforms a problem QUALITATIVELY. What works for SEP will not work for the state of California and there is no a priori reason why it should, even though superficially it may sounds like a "similar" problem."

I don't think the 2 situations are similar at all. The weather is more of a problem for chaos theory where small fluctuations can result in major changes of predicted outcomes. The economic problem of determing production outputs and work assignments is mainly deterministic although certainly an introduction of statistical techniques can reduce the necessary computation if necessary. For example, in voting you can pretty much determine the outcome of an election to a small probability of error just by sampling the population. Unless the outcome is very close, usually only a small sample is required. The same might be true of consumption patterns.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither would a society which used computational techniques to amalgamate worker and consumer preferences and approximate a "best fit" have to be. The main point is that production and consumption would be driven by individual preferences and not by government or corporate planning.

Those pieces are quite telling.  Like you said Albert is moralizing and worse than that he seems to live in a binary world.  At one point he claims that Schweikart by questioning the intricate details of parecon is somehow for oppression.  For him it is parecon or capitalism, he actually blames markets for the failings of capitalism. 

To me Albert seems to be approching it from the wrong direction.  Attempting to hyper-democratize all endevours because of the failings of a profit only driven system.  This is as I said, over reacting, but also it attempts to fix the problem of avarice and the exploitation it creates by simply moving it to the political level rather than seeking to decrease it.  Without an egalitarian distribution of resources, how would greed and exploytation not return?  Simply because people have to talk and horse trade for a greater share of the resources, does not remove the problem, only moves it.  In fact I would think that the inefficencies of Parecon would lead to shortages and an even more hostile competition.  I am not sure if Albert is purposely attempting to reduce the level of productivety of society or if this is simply the logical outcome of his utopia.  It does seem to be a common theme with anarchist to attempt to return to the preindustrial days.     

Very true bwong, to say that managers and stalin are in the same class is such a huge stretch.  Most managers are what I would call un-class-conscious working class, while stalin is obviously a member of the elite ruling class.  There social roles are so different as to make the very notion of them in the same class simply ridiculous. 

Take your example of a doctor and a hospital administrator.  It is an exact inverse of Alberts thesis.  The doctor has more status and power in our society than the "coordinator".  Coordinators or bureaucrats have almost no power in our society, they are mearly specialized workers, not social rulers.  Again it seems to me to be an over reaction to the USSR, claiming any bureaucratic system is now off limits and an evil power structure.  Throwing out a huge part of societies advancements which are created by a highly specialized, knowledge and rationally based division of labor.  This DOL not only creates efficency, but also reduces political strugles, and I beleve reduces the ability of the few to hold power of the many.  Removing coersion through political influence and replacing it with a general utilitarian ethos (I am not a utilitarian though, only a realist able to look at the social progress and seperate it from the social problems).

Like I said before, it makes no sense for anarchist to seek to replace what is the reduction of the states political power mechanism by replaceing it with specialized decision makers.  It would politicise every decision and concentrate power.  Creating more sharply distinct power realations not less.  It would centralize power in the hands of those who can control the information and use their powers of persuasion to influence society.  It would lead to the collapse of society out of poor decisions based on the aformentioned and represents the antithisis of anarchism.   

That is not to say that I am against all forms of concensus direct democratic social economic endeavours, but just not a overall social plan.  Society needs to be able to unfold as it will, this is not to say that we can not act and play a role, only that it cannot come from a book or worse one guys head.  It actually is really scary to me.

In my opinion, it is not illegal to sell a copy of a copy of a product that can be downloaded from the net.. hmm its not illegal because the legal system is flawed..

Bwong, Pacific mall "pirated" dvd stores get busted , then they re-open in another boot somewhere else.. In my opinion, it is not illegal to sell a copy of a copy of a product that can be downloaded from the net.. there seem to have 2 qualities of movies.. the screeners ( movie captured by a camcorder) and the rip ( ripped DVD) THE ripped DVD are DVD 9 quality.. Over all the rised of illegal copies or sale of copies of a copies is forcing stores and video stores to lower the price of the DVDs.. One of my friend an all-chinese,all-scottish kick-boxer raised in the slum of Hong KONG say most runs back to HK before paying their taxes.. Nice to know that Wal-mmart get its asses kicked; I admit it , some people complain ablout this new chinese trend in Toronto. but I do like it, I d open the immigration doors to one million more from China. ----- this lead to the topic.. Its very difficult to erase black markets and scams, I guess this would not be different under parecon.. Whenever a system is too rigid, it give way to something more flexible..Take any given work environment where workers are used to perform their work in a specific manner..comes the the new manager who want to implement a new way of doing the job. of course you will witness resistance and road blocks, but mainly the work group will adapt to the new job..The one who can't adapt , end up doing something else.. I didnt read all of the paraecon ideology yet,( it big and Michael Albert is softly expressing his idea), I understand that there is open discussion on it potential flaws; Would it work as a viable system, I dont know for sure; We do know that an entire nation survived with less than parecon ( it is small point but regardless)..it survived while emerging from starvation and war.. so far, I am asking utopic questions( the one I see) is: how do would you (or Michael Albert or anyone as matter of fact) implement such a system.. where would you start?

I heard the DVD places at the Pacific mall got busted over the new year.

I have been there only once or twice. I lived in Down Town TO. It's too far without a car. Don't know the pirated movies are that cheap. They go for about $4 in down town China town. But they are often defective, apparantly.

Of course there are no taxes for illegal stuffs like pirated DVD. It would be difficult to fill out a tax form I presume. As for the legitimate goods, they absorb the taxes themselves.Their strategy is to make up for the lower profit margin with bigger volume of sales.

You may also notice the use of space is very "efficient" in places like the Pacific Mall. Unlike typical North American malls where a few big stores occupy a whole floor with a lot of empty spaces the Chinese malls are very closely packed with small shops. Their merchandises are stacked all over the places.They have a more chaotic feel to them.. I think this arrangement may result in lower expenditures in rents. Also, I heard that some stores in the pacific mall are open til 3 or 4 am.

I should clarify that Chinese products for export are usually ok for otherwise they wouldn't be allowed into the country(well, aside from the fact that they may be made in sweat shops). The scams happen domestically.

I am not a regular consummer of pirated DVD myself(I don't have a DVD player) I am not upset particularly by people ripping off Holliwood and other big corporations. Morally that is more acceptible than buying from companies that use sweatshop labour such as Niki.

Speaking of Walmart, an acquaintance told me a story you may find amusing. Walmart set up shop in Hong Kong in the 90's and got beaten to a pulp in their own game.

Walmart dominates the market by selling below actual costs to put competitors out of business . In Hong Kong there is no law against preditory pricing.One would think that it is made for Walmart. But over there retail is dominated by this over lord Li Kai Shing who also owns a lot of prime real estates(and a bunch of god knows what). Walmart was unable to get very low prices from the local suppliers because they all work for Li, in addition it was paying high rents because the land on which Walmart erected its super store was also owned by Li. After a year or so Walmart was burnt so bad that it closed down its store and never returned again. Well, he who lives by the sword..

I am sorry to hear China is falling under chaos and scam.. Everyone seem to agree, the product are cheap and it lack quality controls.. I often go shop at Pacific Mall mainly to buy 22 cents DVD-R and pirated movies. Must products I buy are whoithout taxes, whenever i take business realted people with me.. they goes " NO TAXES? HOW do they get away with it?" the last time i Bought DVDs, was 50 DVD-R for $13, no taxes..I love this it KILLS Wal-Mart..

Albert's notion of "coordinate class" is hopelessly flawed and muddle headed.

His "coordinators" are "experts" such as doctors and engineers who alledgedly monopolize information because of their expertise. He described the U.S.S.R as an example of a society run by the "coordinate class". The fact is exactly the opposite. The "experts" were the servants of the party hacks in the U.S.S.R. The party hacks were experts in nothing except ass kissing. The U.S.S.R might be many things, but it was definitely not an example of  a "coordinator dictatorship" as Albert claim.

In the West powers are in the hands of managers, CEOs and the likes.  Administrators and the managerial elite tend to be a very special class of generalists: business majors. A doctor does not "coordinate" anything unless she is a hospital administrator.

I think this conceptual error is quite revealing of Albert's thinking and it is consistent with the "over reaction" which you speak of.

I am always skeptical of China's economical boom, much advertised in the West as well as by the Chinese themselves.

There are a lot of problems that the macro figures conceal. Even if we just look at  "pure economics" and forget about the socio, enviromemntal and political problems China's alledged strength is still quite questionable .

A lot of the manufacturing are owned by foreign investors. While a lot of products on sale here are "made in China", the labels are North American. So the economical threats are really against the Western working people who have to compete with slave labour. The Western investors see opportunities rather than threats. While some hawkish politicians are speaking of Chinese threats the business press is full of euphoria. The disconnection is quite interesting.

For people who experience China up close, its economical achievements are quite dubious.

I was in Hong Kong not long ago and the horror stories I heard are shocking. Many Chinese products for domestic consumption are substandard and pose serious health risks. There are many outright scams, like noodles with plastic additives, soyer source made of rotten human hair, furniture stuffed with hospital waste and canned food made of rotten animal flesh, faked medicine and liquor etc. The Scams are so numerous, widespread and ingenous that you have to see it to believe.

Cutting corners and bribery are comon in all sectors. Enviromental and industrial safety standards are almost non existence or never enforced.

Officials illegal siezing of peasants' land for development (thus inflating the GDP) appears to be widespread. Recently there have been several violent confrontations that resulted in policeman being killed by angry villagers.In a sperate indicence some developers hired a bunch of goons to beat up on peasants who refused to vacate. The villagers fought back and killed a few of the hired thugs,

The booms in some big cities are the result of conspicuous consumptions fueled by prostitution, corruption and their spin off industries such as construction, expensive restaurants and upscale entertainment venues.

I have the feeling that China's "growth miracle" is more shaky than the paper boom reveals. Complete lawlessness, reckless enviromental degradation and harsh expliotation of labour appears to be a large component of its growth engine. I don't know how sustainable it is.

I will answer your other points when I have time.

I think Bwongs point was that it simple is way to difficult to have meetings were everyone in the society has the appropriate amount of information regarding important decisions to facilitate timely decisions.  Society would grind to a hault.  Simple dicisions about say, roads would require everyone in the community to read up on the topic and then comence to debate the needed decision.  What would enevitably unfold would be varying positions taken based on differing information.  Or more likely hording of and surpressing of information to get the desired decision that benifited a small segment.

I always find it so ironic that it is usally anarchists that talk up paracon.  They obviously don't understand that what they are creating is more decisions based on power and less based on indepth knowledge.  The fear of the bureaucratic boogieman causes complete overreaction.  Highly skilled and specilized individuals that have indepth knowledge concerning a specific topic leads to less politics power control. 

Alberts design will lead to the complete reversal of all of societies advancements.  The good and the bad.  Sure gone will be war for the profit of the few, but gone also will be civilization, including the web.  Can you imagine your parents and your whole community getting together to decide the oppropriate bandwith that society should accept?  What if the next town over did not accept the same?  Bye, Bye internet. 

Marx said either we will achieve socialism or the shared ruin of both classes, or something close to that.  This to me seems to be the goal of paracon, to destroy both classes by destroying any material advancement of the enlightenment and since.  Sure state power has major problems, which need to be addressed, but utopian plans to structure the economy and to debate every minute detail of society is beyond overreaction. 

Capitalism leads to aggrandized state power, this does not mean that bureaucratic specialization does not lead to some increased efficiency and benifits to society.  I am not calling for increased bureaucratic size, nor am I calling for an increase in state power, only a reductio of capital influence in decision making and a more human society.      

Made a significant error... China was vilainized by the West, now it is worst since China economic boom. A threat ? So its seem that economic weapons would be used against China One weapon being used to compete against China would be to exploit Mexico and South america to sustain hegemony and supremacy over China. I mentionned "oil" ( in the above post) that can be used as a n economic weapon, but there is "possibly" other goods such as metal or other primary natural ressources..

does the West feel threatened because of China's "socialism". I don't believe that. They are afraid of competitions from China just as they were terrified of Japan 's economic might in the 1980's, except China also has a big military and can become a hagemonic power in the East. "Socialism" is only a name to pin their fear on. If China weren't "socialist" even in name, there would be other names that capture Western anxiety. Well for many years the West was threatened and vilainized: I often think that chairman Mao liked a seclusive China because he liked to protect his people from racism. Now, in my last post I copiously avoided to mention that China was seen as a Socialist threat, but not this time because you didn't failed to mention it.. that now that China is emerging as a "new" economic power, it is purely seen as a threat and this is essentially a modern problem. I doubt the US was truly terrified by Japan industrialized boom, the US tamed Japan economy by "providing" cheaper dollars..This caused Japan to crash. China is slightly different, the US cannot de-valuate their dollars or produce cheaper goods than China.. The only economic weapon the US seem to have against China is oil, whenever China tries to buy oil the US ( I guess ) raise the price of Oil.. So in my opinion, if capitalist society keep continue to see the competition as enemies i think the societies should seek alternatives.. Between 1910 and 1949, the Chinese experimented with different ideologies, from democracy, fascism to communism, pretty much covering the entire political spectrum. This is rather interesting..but what you say below is what I say the most interesting.. in an interview Mao cheerfully admitted that his Marxist education consisted of one poorly translated chapter in the Communist Manifesto and some articles on a pre revolution (underground?) journal called "popular philosophy" on dialectical materialism. He then said his inspirations mostly came from the Chinese classics. Bwong you are telling me that China survived Socialism for a period of over 50 years while the economy was based on a Chairman's notes.. This is a freaking miracle..I do know that Mao like military style action like found in Sun Tzu' Art of War, I didnt know he like other classics..) In my opinion Bwong there is something that China have which no other nation have, Bwong and it is called "population number". China would have survived regardless it was segregated or not. The Chinese society does not need other people to do business, mainly because of its huge population. The Soviet Union did not have the same population to enable it to survive, it was also engaged into an unsustainable weapon race against the US, this crippled the communist economy ( whatever it was). If there be a country where Parecon could evolve, I would take a bet that China would be the country to first make it work.

I made some revisions and added some extra points after I made the post "China". Unfortunately the "edit" option does not work. It seems I have to post a new message. Sorry for the confusions.

I am not sure if you are asking the right question.(if I understand you correctly)

Chinese "socialism"(and capitalism, for that matter) has to be undertsood in context.

It was not an end for itself but rather a means towards a nationalistic end. It was more of a strategy for development than a vision for a new society. Its "success" or "failure" has to be appriased by that standard.

China was an old empire which dominated a large swath of Asia for centries. A series of confrontations with the west since the opium war in 1840 turned out to be disasterous. These encounters shattered its confidence to the core.

While the ordinary people might felt less of the sting because they had never enjoyed any right to begin with and were slaughtered by the governments and the bandits alike. This was a very humiliating experience for the elite. By "elite" I mean people who ideologically identified themselves with the rulers in some traditional sense, not necessariy someone who were materially rich or powerful. For example, intellectuals raised in the traditional scholastic mode.

A mighty empire was reduced to a semi colony in mere decades. The all consumming question to the intelligensia was "how to make China big and strong again?" It has defined all of China's political history in the last two centries all the way down to these days.

Chinese intellectuals tried different ways to "empower the motherland" since the late 1800's. They desperately grabbed onto any "isms",--traditional and foregin,-- that they could lay their hands on frantically, hoping that something may work. "Empire strikes back" was the only theme that resonated. Ideologies and theories were judged by how well they served that over arching theme, not by their intrinsic visions. This is a point we must keep in mind.

At first traditionalists tried to restore old glory by resurrecting Confusian ideals and retreating back to traditional religions and supersititions. These efforts culminated in the boxer rebelllion which resulted in the join invasion of eight European powers and further humiliations(see the parallelism with the resurgence of radical Islam in the ME)

In 1890, The entire Chinese navy was wiped out by Japan.Shortly after(before?)The Japanese decimated the Russian fleet as well. This was a turning point for the Chinese.

Japan started out in worse shape than China when the Europeans forcibly opened its door. But somehow Japan managed to transform itself into a world power in decades while China's crisis only deepened. Why? the Chinese intellectuals asked. They decided that Japan had a much lighter historical baggage, it was unburdened by old pride. While challenged, the Japanese immediatedly and swiftly adopted the "Western way" and transformed their society accordingly. This realization(rightly or wrongly)prompted young Chinese intellectuals to conclude that the Chinses system was beyond repair. It had to seek something completely new.

The Republican revolution in 1910 ended three thousand years of absolute monarchy. Young scholars look abroad for inspirations. In the 1920s, angry students burned Confusian texts on campuses. Famous writers such as Lu Xun wrote that Confusian classics should be cosigned to the toilet as ass wipes etc.

Between 1910 and 1949, the Chinese experimented with different ideologies, from democracy, fascism to communism, pretty much covering the entire political spectrum.

The young forward looking intellectuals embraced "Mr. D and Mr.S",--Democracy and Science,-- in the 1920's. But it is interesting to note that Science and Democracy were introduced in a highly utilitarian way. It was taken for granted in the literature that they were mere means towards the end of a strong China. A true democrate who believes in the intrinsic ideal of democracy would have been horrified by such a vulgar interpretation. "Mr. D and Mr. S" in the ends were just butlters for nationalism.

This was the case for Marxism as well.

None of the practitioners are ideologically "pure", perhaps with the exception of  perhaps some early, Soviet trainned Marxists, who were either dead even before the civil war or be purged from the Chinese Communist Party(CPC) after their inept leaderships led to near anihilation.

Since the establishment of the people's republic. the defining challenge remained the same: how to make China big and strong again.

The great leap forward and the policy of squeezing the peasants in order to build heavy industries and the bomb etc must be viewd in this context. Mao's vision of "socialism" was a mixture of  bastardized Marxism, traditional small peasant sense of fairness, feudal fascism and a whole grab bag of other things I can't even name. In an interview Mao cheerfully admitted that his Marxist education consisted of one poorly translated chapter in the Communist Manifesto and some articles on a pre revolution (underground?) journal called "popular philosophy" on dialectical materialism. He then said his inspirations mostly came from the Chinese classics.

By the 1980. it was clear that "socialism" hasn't "worked" and Deng opted for an "open door policy".He marketed his idea as a capitalist way to build socialism. His motto was: A good cat is a cat that catches mice.It doesn't matter whether it is black or white.Since then "socialism" was abandoned totally but in name. Now they seemed to be pursuing a development strategy which mixes foreign investments with state control of key sectors, along a softer form of Fascism.

My point is that when looking at various "isms" in China and more generally in the developed world, one has to be careful not to take the rhetorics at face values. Very often they are just convenient banners in service of more immediate goals. Politcial movements in these countries are by nature "impure" with mixed ingredients from many sources. They are full of internal contradictions and are remarkably flexible(One should keep that flexibility in mind when discussing say, Hammas). The people involved, with few exceptions, rarely care about doctrinal fine points. They are all pragmatists who take a cook book approach to political philosophies. Quibbling about visions of future paradise is a luxury for us in the West

Now to answer your question after this long preamble. Would China's devolompental effort be more fruitful under "socialsim" if it wasn't isolated?

Probably.

But you need to understand a lot of disasters were self inflicted. Most notably the endless fractricidal in fighting within the CPC(incidentally quite typical in Chinese history)You can't blame foreign embargo on something like the cultural revolution, which by the Chinese's own account, set them back decades.

But would China have been successful in building "socialism" even under the most favourably international condition? I doubt that. Some people may disagree, but IMO "socialism" was never the point of the exercise, at least in the way the Western left understand it.

Does the West feel threatened because of China's "socialism". I don't believe that. They are afraid of competitions from China just as they were terrified of Japan 's economic might in the 1980's, except China also has a big military and can become a hagemonic power in the East. "Socialism" is only a name to pin their fear on. If China weren't "socialist" even in name, there would be other names that capture Western anxiety.

I am not sure if you are asking the right question.(if I understand you correctly)

Chinese "socialism"(and capitalism, for that matter) has to be undertsood in context.

It was not an end for itself but rather a means towards a nationalistic end. It was more of a strategy for development than a vision for a new society. Its "success" or "failure" has to be appriased by that standard.

China was an old empire which dominated a large swath of Asia for centries. A series of confrontations with the west since the opium war in 1840 turned out to be disasterous. These encounters shattered its confidence to the core.

While the ordinary people might felt less of the sting because they had never enjoyed any right to begin with and were slaughtered by the governments and the bandits alike. This was a very humiliating experience for the elite. By "elite" I mean people who ideologically identified themselves with the rulers in some traditional sense, not necessariy someone who were materially rich or powerful. For example, intellectuals raised in the traditional scholastic mode.

A mighty empire was reduced to a semi colony in mere decades. The all consumming question to the intelligensia was "how to make China big and strong again?" It has defined all of China's political history in the last two centries all the way down to these days.

Chinese intellectuals tried different ways to "empower the motherland" since the late 1800's. They desperately grabbed onto any "isms",--traditional and foregin,-- that they could lay their hands on frantically, hoping that something may work. "Empire strikes back" is the only theme that resonated. Ideologies and theories were judged by how well they serve that over arching theme, not by their intrinsic visions. This is a point we must keep in mind.

At first traditionalist wanted to restore old glory by resurrecting Confusian ideals and retreating back to traditional religions and supersititions. These efforts culminated in the boxer rebelllion which resulted in the join invasion of eight European powers and further humiliations(see the parallelism with the resurgence of radical Islam in the ME)

In 1890, The entire Chinese navy was wiped out by Japan.Shortly after(before?)The Japanese decimated the Russian fleet as well. This was a turning point for the Chinese.

Japan started out in worse shape than China when the Europeans forcibly opened its door. But somehow Japan managed to transform itself into a world power in decades while China's crisis only deepened. Why? the Chinese intellectuals asked. They decided that Japan had a much lighter historical baggage, it was unburdened by old pride. While challenged, the Japanese immediatedly adopted the "Western way" and transformed their society to the core. This realization(rightly or wrongly)prompted young Chinese intellectuals to conclude that the Chinses system was beyond repair. It must seek something completely new.

The Republican revolution in 1910 ended three thousand years of absolute monarchy. Young scholars look abroad for inspirations. In the 1920s, angry students burned Confusian texts on campus. Famous writers such as Lu Xun wrote that Confusian classics should be cosigned to the toilet as ass wipes etc.

Between 1910 and 1949, the Chinese experimented with different ideologies, from Fascism to Communism.. But you must understand that none of the practitioners are ideologically "pure"(with the exception of  perhaps some early, Soviet trainned Marxists, who were either dead even before the civil war or be purged from the Chinese Communist Party(CPC) after their inept leaderships led to near anihilation)

Since the establishment of the people's republic. the defining challenge remained the same: how to make China big and strong again.

The great leap forward and the policy of squeezing the peasants in order to build heavy industries and the bomb, must be viewd in this context. Mao's vision of "socialism" was a mixture of  bastardized Marxism, traditional small peasant sense of fairness, feudal fascism and a whole grab bag of other things I can't even name. In an interview Mao cheerfully admitted that his Marxist education consisted of one poorly translated chapter in the Communist Manifesto and some articles on a pre revolution (underground?) journal called "popular philosophy" on dialectical materialism. He then said his inspirations mostly came from the Chinese classics.

By the 1980. it was clear that "socialism" hasn't "worked" and Deng opted for an "open door policy".He marketed his idea as a capitalist way to build socialism. His motto was: A good cat is a cat that catches mice.It doesn't matter whether it is black or white.Since then "socialism" was abandoned totally but in name. Now they seemed to be pursuing a development strategy which mixes foreign investments with state control of key sectors, along a softer form of Fascism.

My point is that when looking at various "isms" in China and more generally in the developed world, one has to be careful not to take the rhetorics at face values. Very often they are just convenient banners in service of the more immediate goal of development. Politcial movements in these countries are by nature "impure" with mixed ingredients from many sources and full of internal contradictions. The people involved, with few exceptions, rarely care about doctrinal fine points. They are all pragmatists who take a cook book approach to political philosophies. Quibbling about visions of future paradise is a luxury for us in the West(people with the same idealistic bent tend to be ignored in their homelands, they likely take up professorships in the West)

Now to answer your question after this long preamble. Would China's devolompental effort be more fruitful under "socialsim" if it wasn't isolated?

Probably.

But you need to understand a lot of disasters were self inflicted. Most notably the endless fractricidal in fighting within the CPC(incidentally quite typical in Chinese history)You can't blame foreign embargo on something like the cultural revolution, which by the Chinese's own account, set them back decades.

But would China have been successful in building "socialism" even under the most favourably international condition? I doubt that. Some people may disagree, but IMO "socialism" was never the point of the exercise, at least in the way the Western left understand it.

"Parecon completely ignores the problem of complexity, which grows exponentially with the size of the population, the economy, etc. If parecon is implemented in large scale, nothing will ever get done and people would be engage in endless exhausting meetings."

I agree, but I think computer technology can do away with endless meetings and direct economic democracy, sharing some of the flavor of parecon but not necessarily every detail as envisioned by Albert, is possible. It is not hard to envision a giant job market in which indiviuals are matched to jobs on a regional or even national level. Sweden has something like this where every available job in the country is fed into a data base. It thus takes the place of a mega employment agency. This could be accessed from a citizen's PC  in their own home. No meetings necessary.

 "The computer is a black box device for Albert to "solve" the problem of complexity.The way he waves the magic wand of information technology on key implementation issues is about as convincing as the star trek crew getting themselves out of a jam by recanting some incomprehensible techno babbles. No one really knows what they are talking about except somehow in the end the problems will be solved magicaly ."

I'm not quite sure how Albert uses information technology in parecon, but I think a fairly simple model involves the input of job and consumption preferences. No one would necessarily get their first preference. See my blog post "What is Preferensism?"

http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/will_blog_for_food/2005/12/what_is_prefere.html

How much this model would be taken literally and how much it would be based on, for instance, choosing a proxy consumption model that would choose a "stock" consumption pattern could be left up to the individual. Also statistical methods can be usedd to simplify data sets. Surveys can determine general consumption preferences. How elaborate the model is in any actual society could be up to that society. In other words each different society could implement the model differently. And the degree of complexity could be chosen by the individual. Models such as these could also be "backwardly compatible" with existing societies and be implemented not all at once but in a piecemeal fashion. For example, just locally at first.

"It appears that Albert, despite having a math degree, knows next to nothing about what computers can and cannot do and the real challenges of coping with huge data sets, like the kind parecon would generate. But even if parecon were technological feasible, there will still be other problems. For example, when everyone's consumption and allotment of resources are kept in some giantic computers, it doesn't take a genuis to predict that computer scientists would have enormous power over the rest and hackers would be in high demand in some kind of "black market" economy."

Huge data sets are exactly what computers are designed to crunch. However, simplifications in data structure can be made to accommodate the huge amount of data that will be generated. As far as hacking, secure transactions are engaged in over the internet every day. The security problems could have been solved if they were even thought about when the system was first designed. Now they are playing catch up, but they eventually will.  I think a hack-proof system is possible and in any imaginable society resources would have to be allocated to providing checks and balances and an oversight mechanism. None of this is beyond the pale.

I'm not necessarily supporting parecon as a literal definition of a society, but I like the general idea of a direct political and economic democracy insofar as it's feasible. I think computers and the internet make it feasible for the first time in human history.

John Lawrence

"Parecon completely ignores the problem of complexity, which grows exponentially with the size of the population, the economy, etc. If parecon is implemented in large scale, nothing will ever get done and people would be engage in endless exhausting meetings."

I agree, but I think computer technology can do away with endless meetings and direct economic democracy, sharing some of the flavor of parecon but not necessarily every detail as envisioned by Albert, is possible. It is not hard to envision a giant job market in which indiviuals are matched to jobs on a regional or even national level. Sweden has something like this where every available job in the country is fed into a data base. It thus takes the place of a mega employment agency. This could be accessed from a citizen's PC  in their own home. No meetings necessary.

 "The computer is a black box device for Albert to "solve" the problem of complexity.The way he waves the magic wand of information technology on key implementation issues is about as convincing as the star trek crew getting themselves out of a jam by recanting some incomprehensible techno babbles. No one really knows what they are talking about except somehow in the end the problems will be solved magicaly ."

I'm not quite sure how Albert uses information technology in parecon, but I think a fairly simple model involves the input of job and consumption preferences. No one would necessarily get their first preference. See my blog post "What is Preferensism?"

http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/will_blog_for_food/2005/12/what_is_prefere.html

How much this model would be taken literally and how much it would be based on, for instance, choosing a proxy consumption model that would choose a "stock" consumption pattern could be left up to the individual. Also statistical methods can be usedd to simplify data sets. Surveys can determine general consumption preferences. How elaborate the model is in any actual society could be up to that society. In other words each different society could implement the model differently. And the degree of complexity could be chosen by the individual. Models such as these could also be "backwardly compatible" with existing societies and be implemented not all at once but in a piecemeal fashion. For example, just locally at first.

"It appears that Albert, despite having a math degree, knows next to nothing about what computers can and cannot do and the real challenges of coping with huge data sets, like the kind parecon would generate. But even if parecon were technological feasible, there will still be other problems. For example, when everyone's consumption and allotment of resources are kept in some giantic computers, it doesn't take a genuis to predict that computer scientists would have enormous power over the rest and hackers would be in high demand in some kind of "black market" economy."

Huge data sets are exactly what computers are designed to crunch. However, simplifications in data structure can be made to accommodate the huge amount of data that will be generated. As far as hacking, secure transactions are engaged in over the internet every day. The security problems could have been solved if they were even thought about when the system was first designed. Now they are playing catch up, but they eventually will.  I think a hack-proof system is possible and in any imaginable society resources would have to be allocated to providing checks and balances and an oversight mechanism. None of this is beyond the pale.

I'm not necessarily supporting parecon as a literal definition of a society, but I like the general idea of a direct political and economic democracy insofar as it's feasible. I think computers and the internet make it feasible for the first time in human history.

John Lawrence

"Parecon completely ignores the problem of complexity, which grows exponentially with the size of the population, the economy, etc. If parecon is implemented in large scale, nothing will ever get done and people would be engage in endless exhausting meetings."

I agree, but I think computer technology can do away with endless meetings and direct economic democracy, sharing some of the flavor of parecon but not necessarily every detail as envisioned by Albert, is possible. It is not hard to envision a giant job market in which indiviuals are matched to jobs on a regional or even national level. Sweden has something like this where every available job in the country is fed into a data base. It thus takes the place of a mega employment agency. This could be accessed from a citizen's PC  in their own home. No meetings necessary.

 "The computer is a black box device for Albert to "solve" the problem of complexity.The way he waves the magic wand of information technology on key implementation issues is about as convincing as the star trek crew getting themselves out of a jam by recanting some incomprehensible techno babbles. No one really knows what they are talking about except somehow in the end the problems will be solved magicaly ."

I'm not quite sure how Albert uses information technology in parecon, but I think a fairly simple model involves the input of job and consumption preferences. No one would necessarily get their first preference. See my blog post "What is Preferensism?"

http://willblogforfood.typepad.com/will_blog_for_food/2005/12/what_is_prefere.html

How much this model would be taken literally and how much it would be based on, for instance, choosing a proxy consumption model that would choose a "stock" consumption pattern could be left up to the individual. Also statistical methods can be usedd to simplify data sets. Surveys can determine general consumption preferences. How elaborate the model is in any actual society could be up to that society. In other words each different society could implement the model differently. And the degree of complexity could be chosen by the individual. Models such as these could also be "backwardly compatible" with existing societies and be implemented not all at once but in a piecemeal fashion. For example, just locally at first.

"It appears that Albert, despite having a math degree, knows next to nothing about what computers can and cannot do and the real challenges of coping with huge data sets, like the kind parecon would generate. But even if parecon were technological feasible, there will still be other problems. For example, when everyone's consumption and allotment of resources are kept in some giantic computers, it doesn't take a genuis to predict that computer scientists would have enormous power over the rest and hackers would be in high demand in some kind of "black market" economy."

Huge data sets are exactly what computers are designed to crunch. However, simplifications in data structure can be made to accommodate the huge amount of data that will be generated. As far as hacking, secure transactions are engaged in over the internet every day. The security problems could have been solved if they were even thought about when the system was first designed. Now they are playing catch up, but they eventually will.  I think a hack-proof system is possible and in any imaginable society resources would have to be allocated to providing checks and balances and an oversight mechanism. None of this is beyond the pale.

I'm not necessarily supporting parecon as a literal definition of a society, but I like the general idea of a direct political and economic democracy insofar as it's feasible. I think computers and the internet make it feasible for the first time in human history.

John Lawrence

I was not making a statement but rather raising a question.. You must admit that there were form of socialism in China; China was perceived as a threat because of it.. it is now changed to more capitalistic means. Did China prospered under socialism and would had China prospered better it the country hadnt been segregated ?

ask yourself how would have socialist economy had floursished if it hadn't been segregated ?

Opps let me re -formulate : Ask yourself how would have socialist economy had floursished if it had been segregated ?

Bwong, I realized that parecon is a new economic system designed from ground up..I agree some of the concepts seem religiously "innocent".. It transcend the very good nature or altruistic ego that seem to be Michael Arbert. Regardless parecon is an idea that could be explored..readjusted..tell me how could have the Republic of China survived if it didnt not adjust to its socio-economic problems ? How will China have survived without socialism ?. Socialism is an ideology that is/was worth exploring, readjusting. Ask yourself how would have socialist economy had floursished if not segregated ? The reason why I ask question about implementation is because I am asking myself why wait the end of this current economic system?

Parecon is not just a beefed up union movement or a network of co ops. It is a way to transform the entire economy and political structure. While well meaning I don't think it washes.

It is an Utopian attempt in designing an entire society from the ground up. Society is a living thing which evolves. It has its own ecology and dynamics. We don't even begin to understand the complex dynamics that shapes history, let alone designing it.

Albert produces examples such as SEP(South End Press) and Mondragon as mini Parecon.  But none of them really live up to the ambitious goals of parecon. Not even close. To suggest that you can generalize from localize, small scale experiments involving the VOLUNTEER participations of a few like minded individuals to the whole economy is absurd. Actually you can't even generalize examples like SEP to a large city, let alone the state of California . It is like saying you can infer directly how a human body functions by observing an earth worm.

Parecon completely ignores the problem of complexity, which grows exponentially with the size of the population, the economy, etc. If parecon is implemented in large scale, nothing will ever get done and people would be engage in endless exhausting meetings.

Albert claims "democratic planning" will eliminate the adversarial market relationship. The truth is he just move the bargaining process from the market to the meeting halls (and more likely, the back rooms) When everyone has to have her DETAIL consumption plan for the whole year approved in several morathon planning sessions you can imagine the process would become even MORE adversial, not the least deal to temper flare as a result of exhaustion.

"Direct democracy" in the way Albert envisions is a non starter.

Albert's "delegates" are not representatives, they are remote control knobs. It is naive to think that you can run any complex democracy using this remote control knob model. Right wing populists tend to favour such models and not surprisingly, they are often laughed at for the impracticality of their idea. But Albert goes way beyond the wildest proposals in this direction.

Anyone who has worked in any real project understands that people who do the work have to be empowered to make on the ground decisions without having to report to their political masters(be it parliament or "the people") at every turn. This leads to some problems for example, bureaucratic power. But  bureaucracies exist for a reason and they are not just evil designs of "the elite". It is (an imperfect, granted) a solution to the problem of having to make complex decisions on a regular basis. Of course once in place, bureaucrats often abuse their power conferred by autonomy . But Albert's cure of managerial power is to get rid of managers in favour of "direct participation". It is simplistic and unrealistic. It completely ignores the complexity problem that gave rise to managers in the first place.

The computer is a black box device for Albert to "solve" the problem of complexity.The way he waves the magic wand of information technology on key implementation issues is about as convincing as the star trek crew getting themselves out of a jam by recanting some incomprehensible techno babbles. No one really knows what they are talking about except somehow in the end the problems will be solved magicaly .

It appears that Albert, despite having a math degree, knows next to nothing about what computers can and cannot do and the real challenges of coping with huge data sets, like the kind parecon would generate. But even if parecon were technological feasible, there will still be other problems. For example, when everyone's consumption and allotment of resources are kept in some giantic computers, it doesn't take a genuis to predict that computer scientists would have enormous power over the rest and hackers would be in high demand in some kind of "black market" economy.

Albert's formula of remuneration based on "effort and sacrifice" is likewise meaningless. How do you measure "effort and sacrifice"? Would it follow that an incompetent worker who takes double the amount of time to complete a job and in the process suffers nervous break down get "paid",--there is no cash in parecon,--more than her more experienced and capable colleagues because it costs her more effort and sacrifice? This seems like a negative incentive.

This is only an outline. I have not even talked about other features such as balanced work complex and so on.

I commend Albert's effort in coming up with a somewhat detail scheme for a post capitalist economy. But in the end I don't think parecon is a workable model. Albert betrays a mechanical view of society and economy which is devoid of nuances.

It also appears that Albert is taking himself a bit too seriously.It is an interesting intellectual exercise to speculate about alternative social and economical structures in the distance future. But IMO it is a lot more productive to use one's talent and energy in addressing real problems that affect people NOW.

I am sorry if the criticism sounds harsh. I have nothing personal against Albert.

 

There is room for implementation.. http://alrb.gov.ab.ca/faq_new_union.html

Keir, i am slowly getting aquainted with parecon ideology.. ( I read slow) there is a huge documentations, it does look well framed.. I am wondering if there is way to have parecon being chartered like unions and this would slowly transform corporation ownership into cooperatives..

Cyrano, "Parecon" = "PARticipatory ECONomics"

I don't want to answer for Michael, but you might want to consider the "Doing Parecon" and other sections here. For my part, I think to implement parecon on a large scale we ought to first implement it on a small scale, multiplied many times, start to understand how it feels, experiment with it, share experiences of successes and failures, and so on. There are numerous opportunities to do this.

(my blog)

The concept of paracon seem to be a form of cooperative society..the thing i fail to understand is how do you/would you implement a new economic system based on paracon ?

I share your interest in the architecture of a post capitalist society. I think parecon has some good general ideas. I think it's important to leave the one dimensional left right spectrum and strike out in a new direction not associated with the past. A post capitalist society need not reject every vestige of capitalism. After all there are some aspects which any economic system would have to incorporate. Convenience for one thing. I think any post capitalist society would take advantage of the internet for distributed decision making. Isn't that what we're talking about when we talk about decisions taken by workers rather than corporate CEOs? A direct political-economic democracy would put the decision making in the hands of the citizenry rather than in the hands of corporate chieftains and government representative bureaucrats. How to do this in a way that avoids confusion is as much a technical problem as it is an ideological one. In what I call "preferensism" each person submits his preferences for work and consumption in a very precise way. This drives the economy in terms of work assignments, production and consumption. So there is a precise structure to the decisions that go into what is produced and consumed with every citizen having an equal "vote" if you will. A constructive use of technology results in the amalgamation of many individual decisions to produce a social outcome. There is no need for "hashing things out" verbally in endless meetings. There is private property in the form of real estate, but not in terms of corporations which are "super individuals." There are no profits since businesses are set up and dismantled as determined by the aggregate of individual demands. Private property in terms of a corporation or a business having value outside of real estate, machinery etc. is out. Please see my definition of preferensism "What is Preferensism?" on my blog: http://willblogforfood.typepad.com (since I can't figure out how to use HTML on this site and my blog on social choice on http://www.socialchoiceandbeyond.com

John Lawrence