Parecon in Practice Chat

[We asked sustainers to read this ZNet article by Jessica Azulay on “Parecon in Practice” then on a chosen day and time, login to chat with her about it. Below is the discussion that took place.]

 

 

jessicaazulay: hi everyone!

 

jessicaazulay: thank you so much for joining me here

 

paulorodriguez: jessica: thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

 

jen: thank you for talking with us!

 

jessicaazulay: i wanted to start off by opening the room to anyone who has questions about the essay i wrote

 

clairealexander: it sounded like a lot of time was taken in maintenance

 

jessicaazulay: can you explain what you mean by maintenance?

 

chrisvoss: i'm intestest to know how you all found each other

 

clairealexander: meetings, email discussions, decision making

 

marla: how do you think that you could have been more effective at bringing new folks in, hiring

 

chrisvoss: considering you say at some point that not everyone even knew about parecon

 

jessicaazulay: ok. as for claire's question. yes, we did spend a lot of time in meetings, but i think many of them would have been necessary whether we were parecon or not

 

jessicaazulay: we had a lot of meetings about what topics of cover as a news organization and stuff like that

 

hernanespinoza: was ever any idea, plan or prospect to organize the readership? consumer councils, is what i guess could have been called.

 

jessicaazulay: and we had meetings about budgets and other kinds of things having to do with running the organization

 

clairealexander: yes i can see that there would have been some meetings anyway.

 

jessicaazulay: but you're right, there is another layer of meetings and discussion that go along with being part of a pareconish workplace

 

paulorodriguez: @jessica: i was wondering if you would have done something differently regarding the readership increase.

 

jessicaazulay: chrisvoss, the co-founders, brian and i, found everyone else through a hiring process that involved posting on job websites

 

paulorodriguez: i mean, it all looked great to me, so what went wrong with the crucial aspect of gaining paying readers?

 

kiwi: oh! i didn't read it yet, i'm sorry jessica! can you explain in which kind of working place you experience parecon?

 

clairealexander: i have another question. in my experience when we try to flatten leadership, it seems we end up with no leader instead of shared leadership. how did you avoid that?

 

jessicaazulay: hernanespinoza, there was a little bit of talk about organizing the readership, but our first focus was on organizing ourselves and our freelancers

 

hernanespinoza: if i remember well, you only asked once for an increase in the amount of contribution (successfully but irrelevant for this comment, i may add). you also encouraged us to give feedback to you, and invite friend to read samples of the publication and

 

jessicaazulay: to answer the question about what went wrong with gaining readers, i've had a lot of time to think about this

 

jessicaazulay: ultimately, i think we lacked the connections we needed to get publicized

 

hernanespinoza: if i remember well, you only asked once for an increase in the amount of contribution (successfully but irrelevant for this comment, i may add). you also encouraged us to give feedback to you, and invite friend to read samples of the publication and

 

paulorodriguez: even among leftist circles?

 

jessicaazulay: and we never diverted time from our main focus of publishing to focus enough on promotion

 

chrisspannos: hi all, let's give jessica a minute to catch up. please hold off on questions till she's able to respond to a couple. thanks…

 

chrisspannos: she will try to get to all the questions asked so far..

 

jessicaazulay: in the end, we really needed more staff than we had, and we could not afford it. nor could we see a scenario in which we would gain enough readership quickly enough to afford it

 

jessicaazulay: and we burned out finally.

 

jonathan1: hello?

 

jessicaazulay: so if people are ok with it, i'd like to move on from the tns demise and maybe come back to it later and address some of the other questions?

 

jen: when you were able to hire, you say that hiring more employees was hard as no one wanted the lower pay. how were you able to form the body of employees if others were unaware of parecon?

 

paulorodriguez: sounds good. thanks jessica.

 

jonathan1: how does this work?

 

jessicaazulay: i'd like for us to talk about this one: i have another question. in my experience when we try to flatten leadership, it seems we end up with no leader instead of shared leadership. how did you avoid that?

 

jessicaazulay: we avoided having no leadership by creating some serious structure in our organization from the beginning

 

jessicaazulay: people were expected to step into the shared leadership right away

 

jessicaazulay: and they were given responsibilities right off the bat

 

clairealexander: our problem was that we agreed to shared leadership, but the next thing we knew, no one was calling a meeting. it was not for a business though, but for a discussion group

 

jessicaazulay: when i explain our model to a lot of people, they assume right away that it was sort of a free-for-all

 

jessicaazulay: but it wasn't a free-for-all, it was very structured and i think that's how we managed to get so much done

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: that's interesting. usually, when i explain parecon, the response i hear is...

 

jessicaazulay: yeah, i think another big difference for us was that the newstandard was our job

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ...nodding their heads, and then moving on to another topic.

 

jessicaazulay: having it be our job felt really different from when i've volunteered for organizations as an activist

 

jen: can you be more specific as to 'structure'.

 

jen: can you be more specific as to 'structure'.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: different how, jessica?

 

jessicaazulay: about structure... we each knew very clearly what our responsibilities were and we talked about these a lot

 

jessicaazulay: and our meetings were regularly scheduled, with rotating facilitation and note taking

 

jessicaazulay: we took the balanced job complex thing very seriously, which created a lot of structure in our work

 

clairealexander: who was in charge of scheduling the rotation of facilitator?

 

jessicaazulay: and i think we created a culture of high expectations for participation

 

paulorodriguez: @jessica: was the process of determining discrete tasks difficult? i would have thought that it would be, given the variety of backgrounds from all involved...

 

paulorodriguez: within the bjc i mean

 

jessicaazulay: we agreed on an order for facilitation in one meeting and after that, it perpetuated itself

 

jessicaazulay: the order was posted on a shared website we used to store documents, meeting notes and other things like that

 

jessicaazulay: on the process of determining tasks... it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be before we started

 

jessicaazulay: we all came to the job with different skills and interests

 

jessicaazulay: and through discussion we were able to fit all the pieces together

 

jessicaazulay: we were also careful about hiring in order to choose people who we thought would compliment the skills of everyone else

 

jessicaazulay: i think the balanced job complex issue is a very interesting one for people who want to start parecon projects

 

jessicaazulay: there are so many different ways to go about dividing up the tasks

 

jessicaazulay: we found a way that worked for us, but i think there are many ways it could be done

 

clairealexander: it kinda sounds like you hired the folks with the needed technical skills and then had to sort out the other more ordinary ones.

 

paulorodriguez: it's the most difficult one it seems to me... specially when you want to do startups in areas not common for radical change

 

jessicaazulay: and i'll be first to admit that ours was not perfect

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: that's an interesting math problem: the combinatorics of balanced job complexes.

 

marla: jessica, when you tell people of your experience...

 

jessicaazulay: yeah, mitchell, you should write a computer program for this

 

marla: do you get a sense that others want to start parecon institutions?

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: but jessica, tns delivered extraordinary quality of output.

 

paulorodriguez: i second that.

 

jessicaazulay: but part of why it worked for us, i think, was that we communicated a lot

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ...so much so that i felt that the parecon structure was the reason why.

 

kenpersaud: the experiment was a good one -- but how can this be transformed to the level of a small nation as guyana, my immediate concern.

 

jessicaazulay: and we trusted each other. so if i ever felt like i was getting shafted on my balanced job complex, i could say so. and i trusted that people would try to address it

 

paulorodriguez: @jessica: was it your impression that if more time had been spent on fine-tuning the bjc's, you could have increased productivity? cuz what you mentioned in your essay sounded solid.

 

jessicaazulay: marla, i haven't had anyone say they want to start a parecon

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: one big part of why alternative projects is so hard is rule enforcement.

 

jessicaazulay: i think the parecon structure was the reason for tns quality and i will tell you why specifically

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: when i lived in a housing cooperative for three years, the hardest job was getting others to do their jobs.

 

jessicaazulay: because the journalists and the editors were so involved in the decision making process for what stories we would cover and how we would cover them

 

jessicaazulay: and we all edited each other

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: in the chapter in "real utopia" on mondragon, this is discussed at length.

 

jessicaazulay: each of us learned so much from our co-workers and we were each pushed very hard by everyone we worked with

 

jessicaazulay: and there were so many opinions in the room, instead of just the editors

 

jessicaazulay: ok. are there questions anyone has asked that i haven't addressed yet?

 

paulorodriguez: @jessica: but this was a push that actually empowered or debilitated you? i can see how it could be wrecking at times...

 

jessicaazulay: i think the pushing was empowering

 

paulorodriguez: balancing domestic reporting, international reporting, ecology, etc

 

jessicaazulay: i can understand how it could become an obstacle, but in the end, we also had to meet real deadlines, which kept us from getting bogged down too much

 

kiwi: did you experience conflict resolution. if so, how you resolve problem?

 

jessicaazulay: i will address the "getting others to do their jobs" comment and kiwis question at the same time

 

jessicaazulay: i think they are related

 

jessicaazulay: like in any workplace, we had problems with personality conflicts as well as with people sometimes not holding up their end of the work

 

jessicaazulay: especially as we grew, this became a challenge for us

 

jessicaazulay: at first, we had no real way to deal with it and it created some very serious problems for us

 

jessicaazulay: we went through a very long process of figuring out how to address it.

 

jessicaazulay: we talked to other collectives and organizations and asked them for feedback and found that this was a challenge many orgs had and there were few solutions offered us

 

jessicaazulay: so we had a lot of meetings about what to do

 

jessicaazulay: finally, we came up with an accountability policy that worked for us

 

jessicaazulay: it is one of the things i am most proud of

 

jessicaazulay: if anyone is interested, i can try to dig it up and get it up on znet somewhere

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: jessica, have you made that tns accountability policy public?

 

mattg: yeah, i'd like to read it

 

jessicaazulay: the basics of it involved collective intervention in behavior that was hurting our collective

 

jessicaazulay: making sure the person doing the transgression had a hand in fixing the problems they were causing

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: yes!!!

 

jessicaazulay: and the rest of us trying to help them fix those problems

 

paulorodriguez: definitely, it would be a great read.

 

jessicaazulay: ok. i'll see if i can find it and get it into a format that is understandable

 

guilherme: can you give us an example?

 

jessicaazulay: are there other questions about how tns did parecon?

 

jessicaazulay: sure. i can give an example...

 

paulorodriguez: how did the interfacing with other orgs go? you mentioned solutions were proposed from other collectives but i'm thinking, orgs with classic structures, not pareconish ones. were they applicable nevertheless?

 

jessicaazulay: let's say a staff journalist kept missing deadlines

 

jessicaazulay: the first step would be that the people affected by the missing of the deadlines, like the editor who had to keep staying up all night waiting for the article to come, would go to the rest of the collective and alert them to the problem

 

kiwi: that sound a good example...

 

jessicaazulay: the next step would be a meeting about the problem

 

jessicaazulay: in the meeting, we would list the ways in which the deadline missing was causing problems

 

jessicaazulay: then we would decide whether this was a mild, medium or severe problem

 

jessicaazulay: in this example, it would likely be a mild or medium problem

 

chrisvoss: jessica, was the offender involved in the meetings?

 

jessicaazulay: then we would list some ways we would like the deadline misser to address the problem

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ha! grading problem severity like salsa flavors. i love it!

 

jessicaazulay: no, the offender was not involved in the meetings

 

jessicaazulay: then we would send a note to the deadline misser, which outlined what we'd like them to do

 

jessicaazulay: the deadline misser could accept, or propose something else

 

jessicaazulay: if the problem wasn't corrected, the next time, we might say the problem had gotten severe, which would give us different options for how to deal with it

 

clairealexander: accepting or proposing something else, so that is the way they were involved in fixing the problem?

 

jessicaazulay: for a mild transgression, we usually just asked the person to "own up" meaning admit the problem and acknowledge how it was affecting people

 

jessicaazulay: that usually stopped it

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: that's good.

 

paulorodriguez: so social pressure from the institution was a good enough incentive to fix things usually?

 

clairealexander: how did you manage to keep this from feeling like us against the offender?

 

jessicaazulay: usually

 

jessicaazulay: we tried to be aware that people were under a lot of pressure

 

jessicaazulay: the job we did was very difficult and stressful

 

jessicaazulay: a lot of times it felt more like an intervention than anything else

 

jessicaazulay: for instance, one time, we mandated that someone take vacation

 

jessicaazulay: she hadn't taken one in more than a year

 

jessicaazulay: i realize this is complicated. i will make sure to find the full document. i think that will be easier to grasp

 

guilherme: how often did severe problems happen?

 

clairealexander: so without the person there, you were able to see their perspective. that took a very healthy group!

 

jessicaazulay: very rarely

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ???

 

jessicaazulay: yes, because we worked so closely with each other, we often knew what was causing the problem

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: for the record, i didn't leave the room.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: even though i'm listed as having left the room four times.

 

jessicaazulay: my rarely was a response to how often severe problems happened, btw

 

jessicaazulay: ok. are there other nuts and bolts questions?

 

chrisvoss: jessica, how did you deal with the "hierarchy" of having new employees coming in under the older employees

 

jessicaazulay: good question!

 

jessicaazulay: there was obviously a de facto hierarchy there

 

paulorodriguez: @jessica: how about prioritizing articles? how did that happen? how do you apply decision-making power according to impact when having a staff writing on a plethora of subjects?

 

jessicaazulay: first of all, new hires were on a trial basis for a few months at the beginning

 

jessicaazulay: this was so that they could get a feel for the org and we could get a feel for them without either party 100% committing

 

jessicaazulay: so they had all the powers of other collective members, except they couldn't block decisions

 

jessicaazulay: but on everything else, they were fully integrated

 

jessicaazulay: they joined the rotation for facilitating meetings

 

paulorodriguez: sorry about that.

 

jessicaazulay: they had a balanced job complex with equal managing time

 

jessicaazulay: and we tried to get them up to speed as fast as possible

 

chrisvoss: was there a vote to move from provisional to full employee?

 

jessicaazulay: as they became more invested, the hierarchy began to disappear

 

jessicaazulay: yes, there was a formal vote to move someone to full collective member

 

jessicaazulay: but yes, i do think there was a de facto hierarchy for new hires

 

jessicaazulay: we tried to break it down as much as possible while protecting the organization

 

jessicaazulay: i don't know if we could have done better

 

paulorodriguez: @jessica: how did the decision-making power mechanism apply to allocation of resources for articles, given that you had different reporters for different areas of news?

 

kiwi: how many were you in the staff?

 

jessicaazulay: at are biggest, there were 6 on staff

 

jessicaazulay: about allocation of resources for articles...

 

jessicaazulay: we had daily editorial meetings

 

jessicaazulay: they were at some crazy early morning hour

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: hello?

 

jessicaazulay: everyone in the collective participated in these meetings

 

jessicaazulay: here is how they went

 

jessicaazulay: before the meeting, we did a massive idea search

 

jessicaazulay: there were people on staff whose job was to do this. they would read the news, press releases, etc and find article ideas

 

jessicaazulay: all of these ideas, as well as any submitted by freelancers went on a list

 

paulorodriguez: idea research being a rotated discrete task from the bjc, right?

 

jessicaazulay: then at the editorial meeting, we went around and each listed which ones we thought we should cover

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: sorry. internet was behaving funny here.

 

jessicaazulay: idea research was part of people's bjc

 

jessicaazulay: the ones with the most votes got discussed. we talked about how we would cover it, concerns we had, ideas we had, etc

 

jessicaazulay: after that, we would look at which journalists were available and then we would make assignments accordingly

 

jessicaazulay: does that answer the question?

 

paulorodriguez: so journalist where multifocused, instead of having their own nice topic?

 

paulorodriguez: it quite does, thank you

 

jessicaazulay: yes, journalists were multifocused

 

jessicaazulay: but they also eventually had topics that they became experts in

 

jessicaazulay: and we did our best of assign according to interest and expertise as well

 

clairealexander: how often did you publish? (sorry i wasn't familiar with the pub)

 

jessicaazulay: i think that our editorial meeting process contributed to the quality of our articles. because each topic got such thorough discussing and input from all of us, the journalist had a lot to work with right away

 

jessicaazulay: we published 5 days a week

 

clairealexander: that is a lot for 6 or fewer people!

 

jessicaazulay: so i thought that we could talk a little about the idea of starting other parecon workplaces if people are interested

 

paulorodriguez: 3000+ articles with notes and research, you have no idea claire. it was kickass

 

alxolex: lol

 

jessicaazulay: my time at tns convinced me that parecon workplaces can be a tool for social change

 

paulorodriguez: i'm very interested. i have tried doing one and failed.

 

jen: this kinds ties into your change of pace... how did you first get funding and let others know you were 'in business'

 

alxolex: what happened paulo ?

 

jessicaazulay: most of the people we hired were not parecon devotees

 

jen: i'm thinkinf of funding and starting out

 

paulorodriguez: though i think the sector i'm in makes it horrendously difficult with regards to attracting people

 

jessicaazulay: yes, i'd like to hear more about paulo's experience

 

paulorodriguez: information technology is like the bastion of the coordinator class

 

paulorodriguez: main issues were: it people are simply not receptive to parecon because they feel they wouldn't earn as much

 

paulorodriguez: to them it's a clear threat at losing highly paid jobs for a change in structure that wouldn't benefit them directly

 

jessicaazulay: that's interesting. i don't think that parecon squelched our earnings

 

jessicaazulay: i think the nature of our organization made us low-paid

 

jessicaazulay: i mean, the fact that we were a non-profit media organization

 

jessicaazulay: but paulo, what industry exactly?

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: i have a thought about parecon workplaces.

 

paulorodriguez: my idea was to provide it services to ngos and people

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: i wonder if parecon workplaces might make more progress in money and outreach if...

 

paulorodriguez: which i still do. basically people call for computer repairs and advice.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ...they (and i don't know a kind way to say it)...

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ...focus on less "activisty" fields or industries.

 

jessicaazulay: so why do you think people thought they wouldn't earn as much in a parecon?

 

paulorodriguez: i don't! that's the thing. but i do agree that it people could get more, in a capitalist system

 

alxolex: my guess would be that they see no advancement possibilities

 

paulorodriguez: which is wrong. i don't consider knowledge in a sometimes obscure area a reason for more pay

 

jessicaazulay: yeah. i see.

 

paulorodriguez: that's because advancement would be quantified as more pay or more power to determine projects and lead people

 

jessicaazulay: the advancement possibility is an interesting thing i hadn't thought about

 

jessicaazulay: you pretty much start and the top and bottom in a parecon workplace and don't move from there

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: huh. interesting point.

 

clairealexander: right now i can't think of a way to distinguish advancement and hierarchy

 

paulorodriguez: but what do you call advancement in a non-parecon? more pay, more say over others, more control over your circumstances

 

jessicaazulay: but i did feel like i grew a lot and advanced myself as a worker and a person

 

alxolex: you need hierarchy to have advancement

 

jessicaazulay: which i guess might not be as appealing to some people as more money

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: ...ostensible hierarchy, that is.

 

paulorodriguez: in a parecon i would expect advancement as the result of your effort: improved processes, less time at work because of better processes, creating wealth around you

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: there are ways to advance without hierarchy.

 

jen: i would have to say advancement is learning other tasks that one isn't familure with. advancement in knowledge

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: "the point, mr. offenhaus, is to improve yourself."

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: that's a line from a star trek episode. :-)

 

paulorodriguez: hehe

 

jessicaazulay: this is an interesting point that we as parecon promoters might need to work on in terms of selling the vision

 

paulorodriguez: defining "advancement"?

 

jessicaazulay: there are many things we have to redefine for ourselves

 

jessicaazulay: there are many things we have to redefine for ourselves

 

jessicaazulay: like the idea of efficiency

 

alxolex: there's a lot of reeducation that needs to take place

 

paulorodriguez: creating more output with less means without externalities, while properly dividing the burdens and joys of production

 

jessicaazulay: one question i have thought a lot about it whether we should focus on building brand new organizations or try to reform existing ones

 

alxolex: capitalism ideas are practically ingrained in our brains by now

 

paulorodriguez: is that still that controversial an idea?

 

jessicaazulay: probably not controversial in this room

 

jessicaazulay: do people have thoughts on the building vs. reforming question

 

paulorodriguez: i'd say we need to do both.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: i agree.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: individual preferences may vary.

 

paulorodriguez: if only to create a window of opportunity within reformed institutions to spread the idea

 

jessicaazulay: i've been wondering which would be easier

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: i, for example, might prefer the building new orgs part.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: but on the whole, our movement must do both.

 

jessicaazulay: it seems both have huge challenges

 

clairealexander: it would seem, ironically, that one would have to be high in the hierarchy to start a parecon reform in an existing group

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: quite.

 

alxolex: not necessarily

 

paulorodriguez: they serve different purposes. we want to create new institutions in places prone for these to grow, but reforming institutions can create a "flow" of people to the new ones

 

jessicaazulay: yes, a big obstacle

 

alxolex: a union could pull it off

 

paulorodriguez: so i'd think it's not an "or" deal. it's an "and" deal.

 

paulorodriguez: so i'd think it's not an "or" deal. it's an "and" deal.

 

jen: you mentioned that you thought it was easier to start a parecon as your job than participating in voulenteering or doing activism. what are the differences? it seems organizations and local chapters need to adopt the parecon model.

 

jen: volunteering is rather demeaning when thinking about balanced job complexes

 

jessicaazulay: yes, i think with volunteer-run organizations, one big issue is the idea that people should be paid for their work

 

jessicaazulay: but i do think you could implement other parecon fundamentals in volunteer-run orgs

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: that's hard, i've found.

 

jessicaazulay: from my own experience, though, i think parecon worked so well at tns because we had a well defined group

 

paulorodriguez: but tactically, is that a smart move? i've got the comment that parecon could only work for social, ngo or charity work

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: i keep meaning to put in parecon fundamentals in other non-parecon volunteer groups i'm a part of.

 

jessicaazulay: everyone knew who was in the group, we were all equally committed and working roughly the same amount

 

paulorodriguez: because it lacks the monetary incentive for people to do their best. which is a hard myth to kill.

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: two problems arise:

 

jessicaazulay: that's hard to achieve in volunteer-run orgs

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: (1) enforcement is hard; if you don't like what's going on, you can leave, which defuses enforcement.

 

jen: that is what i was thinking paulo

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: (2) groups are usually too busy anyway with day-to-day tasks to think about deeper considerations.

 

alxolex: lack of commitment ?

 

chrisvoss: thanks jessica. this has been very informative

 

chrisspannos: hi all, we're going to continue for another 5 minutes and then call it a wrap...

 

paulorodriguez: about point 2: that's a general problem with leftist orgs at the core. all by ourselves in isolated entities we can't do anything, just minding our own business

 

paulorodriguez: there is so much potential for synergy, sharing of resources not being used 100% of the time etc

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: almost done? wow, the time flies.

 

jessicaazulay: i think mitchell's points are right on, which is why i favor implementing parecon in paid workplaces

 

jessicaazulay: thank you all so much for participating!

 

mitchellszczepanczyk: thanks for letting me partake. this was fun and thought-provoking. let's do this again.

 

jessicaazulay: please email with more questions/thoughts if you have them