Reimagining Socialism
Rising to the Occasion
If you haven't heard socialists doing much crowing over the fall of capitalism, it isn't just because there aren't enough of us to make an audible crowing sound. We, as much as anyone on Wall Street in, say, 2006, appreciate the resilience of American capitalism--its ability to regroup and find fresh avenues for growth, as it did after the depressions of 1877, 1893 and the 1930s. In fact, The Communist Manifesto can be read not only as an indictment of capitalism but as a breathless paean to its dynamism. And we all know the joke about the Marxist economist who successfully predicted eleven out of the last three recessions.
But this time the patient may not get up from the table, no matter how many times the electroshock paddles of "stimulus" are applied. We seem to have entered the death spiral where rising unemployment leads to reduced consumption and hence to greater unemployment. Any schadenfreude we might be tempted to feel as executives lose their corporate jets and the erstwhile Masters of the Universe wipe egg from their faces is quickly dashed by the ever more vivid suffering around us. Food pantries and shelters can no longer keep up with the demand; millions face old age without pensions and with their savings gutted; we personally are consumed with anxiety about the future that awaits our children and grandchildren.
Besides, it wasn't supposed to happen this way. There was supposed to be a revolution, remember? The socialist idea, prediction, faith or whatever was that capitalism would fall when people got tired of trying to live on the crumbs that fall from the chins of the rich and rose up in some fashion--preferably inclusively, democratically and nonviolently--and seized the wealth for themselves. Such a seizure would have looked nothing like "nationalization" as currently discussed, in which public wealth flows into the private sector with little or no change in the elites that control it or in the way the control is exercised. Our expectation as socialists was that the huge amount of organizing required for revolutionary change would create an infrastructure for governance, built out of--among other puzzle pieces--unions, community organizations, advocacy groups and new organizations of the unemployed and nouveau poor.
It was also supposed to be a simple matter for the masses to take over or "seize" the physical infrastructure of industrial capitalism--the "means of production"--and start putting it to work for the common good. But much of the means of production has fled overseas--to China, for example, that bastion of authoritarian capitalism. When we look around our increasingly shuttered landscape and survey the ruins of finance capitalism, we see bank upon bank, realty and mortgage companies, title companies, insurance companies, credit-rating agencies and call centers, but not enough enterprises making anything we could actually use, like food or pharmaceuticals. In recent years, capitalism has become increasingly and almost mystically abstract. Outside manufacturing and the service sector, fewer and fewer people could explain to their children what they did for a living. The brightest students went into finance, not physics. The biggest urban buildings housed cubicles and computer screens, not assembly lines, laboratories, studios or classrooms. Even our flagship industry, manufacturing autos, would require major retooling to make something we could use--not more cars, let alone more SUVs, but more windmills, buses and trains.
What is most galling, from a socialist perspective, is the dawning notion that capitalism may be leaving us with less than it found on this planet, about 400 years ago, when the capitalist mode of production began to take off. Marx imagined that industrial capitalism had potentially solved the age-old problem of scarcity and that there was plenty to go around if only it was equitably distributed. But industrial capitalism--with some help from industrial communism--has brought about a level of environmental destruction that threatens our species along with countless others. The climate is warming, the oil supply is peaking, the deserts are advancing and the seas are rising and contain fewer and fewer fish for us to eat. You don't have to be a freaky doomster to see that extinction may be what's next on the agenda.
In this situation, with both long-term biological and day-to-day economic survival in doubt, the only relevant question is: do we have a plan, people? Can we see our way out of this and into a just, democratic, sustainable (add your own favorite adjectives) future?
Let's just put it right out on the table: we don't. At least we don't have some blueprint on how to organize society ready to whip out of our pockets. Lest this sound negligent on our part, we should explain that socialism was an idea about how to rearrange ownership and distribution and, to an extent, governance. It assumed that there was a lot worth owning and distributing; it did not imagine having to come up with an entirely new and environmentally sustainable way of life. Furthermore, the history of socialism has been disfigured by too many cadres who had a perfect plan, if only they could win the next debate, carry out a coup or get enough people to fall into line behind them.
But we do understand--and this is one of the things that make us "socialists"--that the absence of a plan, or at least some sort of deliberative process for figuring out what to do, is no longer an option. The great promise of capitalism, as first suggested by Adam Smith and recently enshrined in "market fundamentalism," was that we didn't have to figure anything out, because the market would take care of everything for us. Instead of promoting self-reliance, this version of free enterprise fostered passivity in the face of that inscrutable deity, the Market. Deregulate, let wages fall to their "natural" level, turn what remains of government into an endless source of bounty for contractors--whee! Well, that hasn't worked, and the core idea of socialism still stands: that people can get together and figure out how to solve their problems, or at least a lot of their problems, collectively. That we--not the market or the capitalists or some elite group of über-planners--have to control our own destiny.
We admit: we don't even have a plan for the deliberative process that we know has to replace the anarchic madness of capitalism. Yes, we have some notion of how it should work, based on our experiences with the civil rights movement, the women's movement and the labor movement, as well as with countless cooperative enterprises. This notion centers on what we still call "participatory democracy," in which all voices are heard and all people equally respected. But we have no precise models of participatory democracy on the scale that is currently called for, involving hundreds of millions, and potentially billions, of participants at a time.
What might this look like? There are some intriguing models to study, like the Brazilian Workers Party's famous experiments in developing a participatory budget in Porto Alegre. Z Magazine founder Michael Albert developed a detailed approach to mass-based planning that he calls participatory economics, or "parecon," and one of us (Fletcher, in his book Solidarity Divided, written with Fernando Gapasin) has proposed a locally based network of people's assemblies. But all this is experimental, and we realize that any system for mass democratic planning will be messy. It will stumble; it will be wrong sometimes; and there will be a lot of running back to the drawing board.
But as socialists we know the spirit in which this great project of collective salvation must be undertaken, and that spirit is solidarity. An antique notion until very recently, it flickered into life again in the symbolism and energy of the Obama campaign. The Yes We Can! chant was the slogan of the United Farm Workers movement and went on to be adopted by various unions and community-based organizations to emphasize what large numbers of people can accomplish through collective action. Even Obama's relatively anodyne calls for a new commitment to volunteerism and community service seem to have inspired a spirit of "giving back." If the idea of democratic planning, of controlling our destiny, is the intellectual content of socialism, then solidarity is its emotional energy source--the moral understanding and the searing conviction that, however overwhelming the challenges, we are in this together.
Solidarity, though, is an empty sentiment without organization--ways of thinking and working together, and of connecting the social movements that are battling injustice every day. We see a tremendous opportunity in the bleak fact that millions of Americans have been rendered redundant by the capitalist economy and are free to dedicate their considerable talents to creating a more just and sustainable alternative. But if we are serious about collective survival in the face of our multiple crises, we have to build organizations, including explicitly socialist ones, that can mobilize this talent, develop leadership and advance local struggles. And we have to be serious, because the capitalist elites who have run things so far have forfeited all trust or even respect, and we--progressives of all stripes--are now the only grown-ups around.
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Re: Reimagining Socialism
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 20, 2009 21:51 PM
I think I understand it well. It says I have to go through a regular back-and-forth bargaining with a committee, when short or long in duration, on how I can spend my money. I prefer the current simpler setup, where I just go the store and buy what I need and can afford. If I choose, I can get a discount by handing over my store card, which puts my decisions in a marketing database. Millions of others do the same thing, in parallel, not in series, which is why is works.
The only reason I can think of to get rid of it is that you also want to forbid me to use my money to purchase something illegal under your setup, like someone else's labor time.
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@ Jean-Francois Corbett
By Casten, J.D. at Mar 18, 2009 23:55 PM
@ Jean-Francois Corbett—
Could you be a bit more specific about why “Denmark ain’t no utopia”—what are your major complaints, and could these (like work-day length) be regulated by governments?
I have my own discussion concerning some of this at the forum:
(under "Parecon >> Why Efficiency is Crucial to Parecon")
www.zcommunications.org/forums/viewtopic.php
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Re: @ Jean-Francois Corbett
By Corbett, Jean-Francois at Mar 19, 2009 05:48 AM
J.D., you ask:
Not to be cheeky, but my answer is, well: pick your issue! We basically have the same range of problems and disastrous outcomes as in the US, though many of them are somewhat attenuated by more regulation and social-democratic culture.
Denmark participated in the attack on Iraq and Afghanistan (though with fewer soldiers than the US). Denmark has unsustainable CO2 emissions (though less than US emissions per capita) and has failed to reduce them (though not increasing as badly as US emissions). There is poverty in Denmark, and many Danes have been especially ruined by the current economic crisis (though not as badly as in the US). Advertising is creeping into all spaces, creating ever more dissatisfaction and the need for ever more consumption (though we're still far from US levels of advertising overload). And so
So, things are "less worse" than in the US... Not your typical definition of "utopia". Like all capitalist economies, the economy is not sustainable and quashes the human potential of many.
(To be fair, I should say that on other fronts, certainly in the case of racism, Denmark is worse off than the US.)
I guess government could, in theory, regulate anything and everything. However, the people who desperately need this regulation, and the people who wield the most influence on whether and how things are regulated, are not the same!
But more fundamentally, to me, it seems absurd to have a system that produces rotten outcomes, and then drown it in all manners of confusing and loopholed regulation in order to make the outcomes less rotten. Of course that could still be a step forward, but only a step -- not the desired destination, which to me would entail fundamental systemic change.
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Scarcity
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 18, 2009 16:02 PM
Markets are a function of scarcity. If goods are in abunance, more than enough available for all, the price can drop or even be ignored, as the market withers.
At the moment, people distribute goods and services in the market via money, they buy and sell them as they can. We regulate the market. Simple standards of weights and measures on one end, to heavy subsidies on the other, such as Medicare for the elderly (and hopefully soon for all).
This works fairly well for all with an income or social wage--and certainly better than rationcards/black markets (the two always go together). I see no reason to abolish it, only to expand and place certain restrictions on it.
'Participatory planning' tells me nothing other than you want to have a series of meetings, where decisions are made in series. You'll have to do better.
Markets process decisions in parallel, with mass simultaneirty, which is why they are usually much better at distributing and pricing than planning meetings, where decisions are made one after another, ie, in series.
Participatory planning and budgeting works well on the macro level in periods of crises, to set policy and direction, but rarely on the micro level, to decide what kind or styles of clothing to produce
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Re: Scarcity
By Falvo ii, Samuel at Mar 19, 2009 10:02 AM
Participatory planning and budgeting works well on the macro level in periods of crises, to set policy and direction, but rarely on the micro level, to decide what kind or styles of clothing to produce
My experience in the software development industry suggests this to be false. Management models such as extreme programming and Scrum are highly participatory in nature. While not an exact analog to ParEcon, the overlap is astounding.
The result of adopting these methods has been amazing, including substantially improved corporate bottom lines and up to 90% lower defect rates on products delivered. Both scrum and XP regularly involve the customer(s) of the products.
And, yes, there are lots of meetings. However, except for so-called "iteration" meetings, which tends to happen monthly in Scrum and maybe once every 3 to 6 months in XP, no meeting lasts beyond 45 minutes. In these meetings, a regiment is followed: for all present in the meeting, each person reports three things: (1) What have I done since the last meeting? (2) What needs to be done still? (3) What is currently blocking me from achieving my goals? The manager's role is to alleviate issues brought up in (3), while (1) and (2) are for the edification of everyone.
You might also look into Jack Stack's Great Game of Business, another highly participatory model, where corporate financials are disseminated to everyone, full-time janitorial staff included. Employees take ownership over their respective roles, including managing the expenses for their particular jobs. Periodically, everyone from the CEO to bed-pan-changers hold an all-hands meeting to discuss corporate financials. People can see how their respective actions affect corporate income, and thus, their bonuses. GGoB also strongly urges removing sales commissions, tying their bonuses to the general health of the company. This eliminates a whole class of competition that I've personally seen take good companies down before. Unlike Scrum or XP, GGoB has been applied in every major sector to date, including but not limited to manufacturing, agriculture, etc. Like XP/Scrum, GGoB has yielded unbelievable returns for those willing to put up with the meetings.
In all cases, employees report a distinct sense of empowerment, change from hating their jobs to loving them, grow a sense of comradreship between employees (imagine that!), and hard feelings during hard economic times are suppressed (people know when/if layoffs are bound to occur, since they see the warning signs very early on, and can prepare accordingly).
End result: participatory planning, as described by Albert, is only a framework. It's not intended (and he explicitly writes this in his books) to be taken as verbatim. ParEcon-like workers councils and tiny subsets of consumers councils are already in use today in major firms, yielding benefits that would make Taylor, Carnegie, and Ford jealous.
Thanks for reading.
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Re: Re: Scarcity
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 19, 2009 15:34 PM
Samuel,
"And, yes, there are lots of meetings...."
Who says?
____________________
Carl, I highly suspect you are not familiar with participatory planning.
"'Participatory planning' tells me nothing other than you want to have a series of meetings, where decisions are made in series. You'll have to do better."
Where are you getting this from? Albert and Hahnel address in nearly all of their writings the "meeting" argument.
"Participatory planning and budgeting works well on the macro level in periods of crises, to set policy and direction, but rarely on the micro level, to decide what kind or styles of clothing to produce."
Again, I think you are confused on participatory planning.
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Re: Re: Re: Scarcity
By Falvo ii, Samuel at Mar 19, 2009 16:04 PM
Says someone whose worked in these kinds of places before.
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Re: Re: Re: Scarcity
By Falvo ii, Samuel at Mar 19, 2009 16:06 PM
Says someone whose worked in these kinds of places before, and would chomp at the bit to do so again.
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Re: Re: Re: Scarcity
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 19, 2009 21:12 PM
I have no big problem with participartory planning in the workplace or in government; in fact, I'm an advocate.
But I have do desire at all to go to a meeting or report to a committee on what goods and services to spend my money on. I'd rather shop online or just go to the store, as I do now. The question arose in this context, where you want to abolish these markets. I'd rather keep them
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Scarcity
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 20, 2009 09:03 AM
Again, Carl, I don't think you are really understanding participatory planning.
This idea that it will be full of meetings and that you have to itemize each purchase with a committee is not only exaggerated and in a sense false but has been addressed numerous times in the writings of Albert and Hahnel.
From this site:
"But how much meeting time does participatory planning require? Contrary to critics’ presumptions, we did not propose a model of democratic planning in which people or their elected representatives, meet face-to-face to endlessly discuss and negotiate how to coordinate all their activities. Instead we proposed a procedure in which individuals and councils submit proposals for their own activities, receive new information including new indicative prices, and submit revised proposals until they reach a point of agreement. Nor did we suggest meetings of constituents to define feasible options to be voted on. Instead we proposed that after a number of iterations had defined the major contours of the overall plan, the staffs of iteration facilitation boards would (mechanically) define a few feasible plans within those contours for constituents to vote on without ever having to meet and debate these at all. Finally, we did not propose face-to-face meetings where different groups would plead their cases for consumption or production proposals that did not meet normal quantitative standards. Instead we proposed that councils submit qualitative information as part of their proposals so that higher-level federations could grant exceptions should they choose to."
http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/qatimee.htm
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Ration-coupon
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 17, 2009 18:41 PM
Sorry, but you answered 'Yeah' to my query as to whether you would use rationing to abolish markets. How else would one take your answer? I didn't make anything up. It's right here. If you meant something else, say what it is
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Re: Ration-coupon
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 18, 2009 09:08 AM
Carl,
Yes, my answer is there but if you look at what followed my "yeah" dont you think it is obvious that the actual context has nothing to do with ration-coupons and everything to do with making markets illegal?
[quote]"How would you abolish markets in good and services? Pass a law? Give people a ration card? Fine people or put them in jail if they ignore it or work around it?"
Basically, yeah. You make the system illegal.[/quote]
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Re: Re: Ration-coupon
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 18, 2009 10:25 AM
Well then, back to the original question. If markets are to be made 'illegal,' how would you equitably distribute scarce goods, and enforce it against those who would want to do otherwsie?
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Re: Re: Re: Ration-coupon
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 18, 2009 14:14 PM
participatory planning...
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Re: Re: Re: Ration-coupon
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 18, 2009 14:31 PM
PS: I noticed you just threw in the term "scarce." That is the first time you have mentioned scarcity. Also, how do you propose that markets are an equitable way to distribute scarce resources? Because that is what you are implying, correct????
regardless of whether goods are scarce or not, how they would be equitably distributed is easily resolved through participatory planning - workers and consumers deliberate to decide production, allocation and prices. markets do not distribute resources equitably.
i just dont see how throwing in "scarce" justifies something as anti-social as markets. let's look at it another way. assume labor is scarce, and some would like slavery. is regulated slavery acceptable if labor is scarce and some would like it? why would availability and pathological behaviors be a reasonable basis to justify markets, or slavery or any other intrinsically abhorrent practice?
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Skipping over...
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 11, 2009 08:42 AM
You are indeed skipping over a great deal, Michael. We have very different assessments of social reality, current and prospective. Your ration-coupon market abolitionism is neither appealing to me nor anything I see as capable of doing what you want it to do. We're just not in the same universe of discourse here.
As for cybernetics, Samuel, it will develop in fits and starts under the current order, in distorted ways. It requires economic democracy to see its best potential come to scale. But yes, I'm aware of the Venus project people. Getting from here to there is another matter.
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Re: Skipping over...
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 17, 2009 14:57 PM
"Your ration-coupon market abolitionism..."
You ever read Don Quioxte by Miguel Cervantes?
I ask because that quoted statement reminded me of when Don Quixote fought windmills...
Where do you get "ration-coupon" from? Why do you think made-up allegations is a suitable retort?
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How would you do it?
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 10, 2009 22:24 PM
Together with Marx, I view markets historically, as an achievement of human civilization, that preceded capitalism, and will be around for a while after it. So long as scarcity exists, there will be markets, warts and all, I don't care what the system is. If they're abolished by fiat, they'll re-emerge as Black Markets.
Just think about it. How would you abolish markets in good and services? Pass a law? Give people a ration card? Fine people or put them in jail if they ignore it or work around it? Once all firms are worker owned, the market in wage labor shrinks toward zero. Similarly with capital assetts held by public banks regarding capital markets. All that takes a while. But for the rest, lots of luck. I'm assuming you don't want to abolish money at the point of a gun like PolPot.
Abolishing slavery was proclaimed, then backed up with cannon and bayonets. Here you had the slaves on your side. But are you going to 'proclaim' the end of markets, and then make buying and selling goods or services for a profit illegal? And without a bureaucratic tyranny? I simply don't believe it can work on a mass scale. Even the Amish still participate in the market, although to a lower degree than most. They can manage because their intentional community is self-organized around their Faith, and is tolerated by others, for the most part.
A socialism that is not practical is less than useless for the tasks that confront us. That's the reason for each of the items put forward by me that you find objectionable.
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Re: How would you do it?
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 11, 2009 07:31 AM
"How would you abolish markets in good and services? Pass a law? Give people a ration card? Fine people or put them in jail if they ignore it or work around it?"
Basically, yeah. You make the system illegal. No doubt black markets might emerge but there is no reason to assume those cannot be dealt with as illegal and subject to judicial punishments.
"But are you going to 'proclaim' the end of markets, and then make buying and selling goods or services for a profit illegal? And without a bureaucratic tyranny?"
Yes. Of course we are skipping over how popular movements aimed at various aspects of social life could make this all possible, but the gist of it is that new economic laws defining our economy could outlaw markets and be done through a political system without a bureaucratic tyranny. If you can imagine labor movements that result in control being handed over to the workers then why is it unimaginable for a political movement that results in control being handed over to the citizens? To me it seems to be obvious that economic systems are defined by political systems. Even so far as we acknowledge in the US that campaign finance allows economic institutions to bribe the government its apparent that it happens because political laws permit it. I cannot imagine a succesful labor movement that doesnt have a succesful political movement as well.
"A socialism that is not practical is less than useless for the tasks that confront us. That's the reason for each of the items put forward by me that you find objectionable."
But thats why I object to them, Carl. I dont find what you offer to be practical. That is why I said I felt what you offered was regressive, counterproductive and unjust. I also think they are shortsighted. I think there are many other things you are not considering - i.e the relation between various movements like the political and economic ones I mentioned above.
That is the purpose of partipatory society projects, at least in my opinion. Recognizing the value of complimentary holism should lead activists to consider the significant relationships between various movments representing various spheres of social life and how they come together in the whole. If I desire a parecon then it would make sense for me to desire a parsoc. Anyway, in the end I admit i find what you offer to be preferable to the current system but i dont think its an improvement over parecon and thats ultimately why i object.
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RE: Guilty as charged
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 10, 2009 06:06 AM
I am neither for celebrating markets nor simply opposing them; I'm for regulating and using them, especially markets in goods and services. As for capital and labor markets, I would advocate severely restricting them and, step by step, getting rid of them via worker ownership of firms and public ownership of capital asset funds. But yes, I am not a 'market abolitionist' or 'state abolitionist,' even as I project a long-range strategic view that would have them wither away.
The problem you would solve via 'balanced job complexes' I would solve differently, through universal publically access to higher education for all who want to learn for as far and whereever they want to go. I wouldn't tie it to a particular job. I'd abolish welfare, perhaps even the minimum wage, in favor of a social wage of say, 18,000 a year for everyone over 18 willing to create value. "Creating value' could mean adding to your skills by going to school, raising children, assisting the elderly, managing youth sports programs in the park. It woul be on a sliding scale so it would always be in your interest to find regular employement or become part of a cooperative business, or even start your own. The social wage would also include HR 676 health care. But no one gets anything for doing nothing, save for the sick and infirm. The elderly, obviously, get pensions, which they added vaule to over their lifetime.
This helps to level the playing field and give every person, especially youth, a 'universal toolbox' providing more equitable conditions for them to shape their futures. Judging by the impact of past measure like the GI Bill, society would receive much more in return. I would encourage people to make money be creating new wealth, and if they make 'too much,' that's what tax policies are for. On their death, I'd take it all in taxes, save for perhaps, a maximum of one million per child, and turn the rest over to public schools.
I advocate workplace democracy. If any workplace decides on your approach, fine. I just think my society-wide measures to level-up and level-out, not tied to a given workplace or industrial complex, would do a better job of it. But they also require a state.
I think new technology contains the mechanism to shrink the working day, which 'withers away' the working class, and reduces living labor in commodities toward zero, which 'withers away' markets. It's not the only factor, just the key one. And it will take a while, especially when we take a global perspective. 'High design,' in addition, is what we need to save an ecosphere hospitable to advanced human civilization.
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Re: RE: Guilty as charged
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 10, 2009 07:08 AM
Carl, these are all important things to discuss constructively as im sure we agree but Im just not seeing from what little you have offered (take this as me giving you the benefit of the doubt) that you offer something better or easier. In fact I think some of what you offered, or at least what seems to be the most accurate interpretations, is in many ways regressive, counterproductive and/or unjust.
"I am neither for celebrating markets nor simply opposing them; I'm for regulating and using them, especially markets in goods and services. As for capital and labor markets, I would advocate severely restricting them and, step by step, getting rid of them via worker ownership of firms and public ownership of capital asset funds. But yes, I am not a 'market abolitionist' or 'state abolitionist,' even as I project a long-range strategic view that would have them wither away."
I just dont see how we can regulate them in such a manner as to constrain their intrensically anti-social behavior or to derive to true costs and benefits and so on. Again, I really do feel an apt analogy is any other crime like slavery or murder. Can we use or regulate slavery or murder for social liberation purposes? Even the notion sounds grotesque because the intrensic value is anti-social. Its like that Martin Buber quote where he says you cant expect a tree that has been turned into a club to grow leaves.
"The problem you would solve via 'balanced job complexes' I would solve differently, through universal publically access to higher education for all who want to learn for as far and whereever they want to go. I wouldn't tie it to a particular job. I'd abolish welfare, perhaps even the minimum wage, in favor of a social wage of say, 18,000 a year for everyone over 18 willing to create value. "Creating value' could mean adding to your skills by going to school, raising children, assisting the elderly, managing youth sports programs in the park. It woul be on a sliding scale so it would always be in your interest to find regular employement or become part of a cooperative business, or even start your own. The social wage would also include HR 676 health care. But no one gets anything for doing nothing, save for the sick and infirm. The elderly, obviously, get pensions, which they added vaule to over their lifetime.
"This helps to level the playing field and give every person, especially youth, a 'universal toolbox' providing more equitable conditions for them to shape their futures. Judging by the impact of past measure like the GI Bill, society would receive much more in return. I would encourage people to make money be creating new wealth, and if they make 'too much,' that's what tax policies are for. On their death, I'd take it all in taxes, save for perhaps, a maximum of one million per child, and turn the rest over to public schools."
That creates more problems than it solves and adds to existing ones. For example, even leaving a million dollars for inheritance is suspect of creating social inequality. Already you are talking about some starting off in a better position through no act of their own. Robin Hahnel goes through these examples in his book The ABCs of Political Economy. It also says nothing about resolving issues of division of labor, fair and just remuneration, and it gives no insight into democratic planning.
"I advocate workplace democracy. If any workplace decides on your approach, fine. I just think my society-wide measures to level-up and level-out, not tied to a given workplace or industrial complex, would do a better job of it. But they also require a state."
I am not seeing how the society-wide measures level anything. You are talking about keeping markets, inheritance and havent adequately responded to division of labor and remuneration. If we leave these fundamentals up to be decided workplace by workplace and some can choose to keep markets or hierarchial division of labor and so on then what is leveled? Its as if cities are allowed to legalize slavery. Authority can be justified and it is apparent, at least to me, that Hahnel and Albert have made a sound argument with parecon.
"I think new technology contains the mechanism to shrink the working day, which 'withers away' the working class, and reduces living labor in commodities toward zero, which 'withers away' markets. It's not the only factor, just the key one. And it will take a while, especially when we take a global perspective. 'High design,' in addition, is what we need to save an ecosphere hospitable to advanced human civilization."
Or we could utilize participatory planning which wouldnt necessarily rely on universal access to new and high technology. It just requires that each person participates to the degree they are affected.
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Re: RE: Guilty as charged
By Corbett, Jean-Francois at Mar 18, 2009 06:45 AM
Carl, you advocate the following: (allow me to quote only snippets so as to avoid cluttering my post -- readers are referred to Carl's full post below)
Basically you are describing something approximating current-day Denmark (or Sweden, Norway, ...). All these things (technicalities aside) we already have here in Denmark. But Denmark ain't no utopia -- however so it may seem to US eyes! So this strikes me as a quite unambitious vision. The Scandinavian countries are still plagued by the same fundamental inequities and problems as all other capitalist countries, albeit damped to a certain degree by the social-democratic regulations like those you propose.
I think that what you describe should be seen as a step towards wider systemic change. But it should definitely not be the long-term goal!
You also write:
This strikes me as going against a good deal of evidence.
"Technology" has exploded a billion fold since the industrial revolution, and productivity has been ever increasing as a result... but there has been no corresponding reduction in the working day. Working hours actually shot up Dickensianally during the industrial revolution, then fell following major conflicts, and has oscillated since, following the ebb and tide of social struggle. Today, working hours are actually increasing and free/family time decreasing for your typical US family, even though you would think that by now, robots and computers should have shrunk our working day down to, say, 2 hours to produce the same output as a family from the 1950s.
This lack of correlation between technological progress and labor fails to support the idea that new technology is "the key factor" for shrinking the working day.
Technology is a tool. It (the hammer, the factory, the communications sattellite) offers incredible possibilities -- to whomever controls it. So the idea is not merely to root for "more new technology", but rather, push for a change in how power over technology (its use, its development) as well as power over everything else in society is distributed.
In a capitalist society, the purpose of new technology will simply never be to shrink the workday, even though that is the ultimate great potential of technology -- a potential that could be realized given a different set of social and economic relations.
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Re: Re: RE: Guilty as charged
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 18, 2009 10:22 AM
Yes, the social wage, in varying degrees, exists in the Scandanavian countries. And yes, it's just a stop along the way, even though it would be a major advance here.
Yes, cybernation is a tool to be used for ill or for good. We have a few 'dark factories' here now but not many yet. 'Dark factories' take their name from nearly always having the lights turned off, since human line workers are replaced entirely by robotics. We've also seen the farm labor population shrink from over 50 percent to less than two percent in this country in 100 years.
Full cybernation is for the communist future, and on a world scale. There are still many places on the planet suffering more from the lack of capitalism than its presence. Until we're much further down the line of developing the productive forces, qualitiatively and in a green way, we won't face the problem of 'full unemployment' for a century or so.
But I still think this is the way markets and states, as well as classes, will wither away. In the meantime, the working class is the one bound with 'radical chains,' to use Marx's image. When they abolish themselves, they free all humanity as well. That's why I'd see them and their interests in charge of the transition.
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Re: Re: Re: RE: Guilty as charged
By Corbett, Jean-Francois at Mar 19, 2009 05:18 AM
Carl, sorry for hammering away at the same point, but you write
I agree (and so do most people, I guess) that it would be possible to *use* automation in order to shrink human labor (or at least uninteresting, rote labor) to tiny levels, thereby ending the oppression of a working class.
But automation could be used for the exact opposite, too -- as it has been at various points during and since the industrial revolution.
Therefore automation (/technology/cybernation) should be understood as an accessory that can be used to any number of different ends. I think it's quite misguided to equate an accessory to a fundamental factor or defining institution that will bring about desired change.
But, I mean, don't get me wrong: automation is definitely an *extremely* important accessory that demands much attention. As long as it is understood as such -- and not mistakenly as something more fundamental than it really is.
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Guilty as charged
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 09, 2009 14:29 PM
I think I'll just plead guilty to 'market coordinatorism,' although I world call it economic democracy as a bridge to socialism, and my view of socialism also embraces a view of the classless society of fully cybernated communism. The last of which, as I said, is down the pike a ways.
It's all spelled out in more detail at http://solidarityeconomy.net and http://net4dem.org/cyrev
But in the short-range to mid-range, all economies will be market economies, and all social orders, including progressive ones, will need coordination and coordinators. So I'm for people of the left, from among the people themselves, becoming good coordinators in all the efforts we need to get out of this crisis and moving to a positive future, even getting paid for it and making a career of it. I'm also for regulating markets in goods and services, paying people for their work in money they can spend it as they please, taxing the unduely wealthy to fund the common good, and severely restricting, with a eye to abolishing, markets in capital and wage labor. If workers in a worker-owned coop want to implement 'balanced job complexes' and set their method of renumeration for effort made, it's fine by me. I just wouldn't make it a universal requirement, for the simple reason that I don't think it will work outside an 'intentional community.'
As to what's 'entirely unreal,' I think my vision for either fully cybernated communism or the 'market coordinatorism' of the Mondragon Cooperatives, is far less unreal than a ParEcon society. Yes, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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Re: Guilty as charged
By McGehee, Michael at Mar 09, 2009 15:36 PM
"I'll just plead guilty to 'market coordinatorism,' although I world call it economic democracy as a bridge to socialism, and my view of socialism also embraces a view of the classless society..."
Dont you think that is a contradiction; how can you talk about classlessness when you plead guilty to supporting class divisions? and i dont see what is democratic about elitists making decisions for the whole - in an economy coordinated by coordinators (ie elitists, technocrats, etc) the last thing you would have is democracy. dont you think you are making the term "economic democracy" meaningless when you equate it with market coordinatorism? if I proposed to keep patriarchial structures in may family but called it "familial democracy" would you think I have adequately resolved sexism or inequitable gender and familal relations; or would you call me a farce?
and how does the size of an operation make it a class? If in a parecon I am a one-man show and you are a worker in a factory that has more than 1,000 workers how does that make you in a separate class from me? How and where do you get more empowerment and compensation than me; how are you above or below me; and how is this not remedied by other features of participatory economics?
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Re: Re: Guilty as charged
By Albert, Michael at Mar 09, 2009 18:23 PM
Carl has a long term vision, and then talks as well about something he sees that exists closer to the present - and about the latter he says it has coordinators, markets, etc. But of course it does, until we get beyond that.
The real questions are different - such as, while we have markets, do we celebrate them or oppose them, do we try to build movements that entrench them and work in ways that legitimate their logic, etc. - or movements that move people into opposition to them, and work against their logic.
The same holds for leadership, creativity, etc. Now some people have more training and knowledge and skills, more confidence, and in particular position that constantly give them still more of all of that, while others are mired in routine positions that disempower. The point isn't to not use diverse talents that exist - and to nurture more - the point is, in doing so are we moving toward having no class divisions, or toward entrenching class difference and having it persist. Do we think that something technological will undo such differences, or do we think it is a matter of social choices and organization?
If Carl said, hey, I like having balanced job complexes in our operations and making demands that move toward them in broader society, just like I like having equitable distribution in our operations and making demands that move toward that too, in the broader society. I just think it will take time - and similarly said I like self managed cooperative and participatory determination of economic options in the long term, and making demands that move toward it, but again, feel that it will take time - we would either have no differnces or differences of little consequence compared to our agreement.
On the other hand, if Carl thinks having balanced job complexes in our movements or trying to approach them elsewhere is a silly deviation from what matters with no upside, and ditto for incorporating and seeking equitable distribution, and participatory allocation, feeling that way way into the future we must have familiar divisions of labor, gaps in income, and market allocation - and that all that will disappear only and overwhelmingly due to no longer being needed as a result of somehow technologically transcending a need for work - then we have very basic disagreements that would likely lead to our having different views on a great many matters.
And honestly, I don't know which it is....
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Re: Guilty as charged
By Falvo ii, Samuel at Mar 11, 2009 00:05 AM
Carl, I noticed you used the word "cybernated" -- are you following The Venus Project at all? I find ParEcon and TVP to be highly compatible with each other; in fact, I see TVP's cybernation as simply automating away the need for facilitator boards. Thanks.
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Re-inventing the wheel
By Wolfe, Marthe at Mar 09, 2009 11:58 AM
Socialism has been in the process of re-imagination in Venezuela for at least 10 years.
Chavez recently invited the US president to get on the bandwagon, as socialism is the only option.
Why do folks in the US have to apply their racist attitude toward Latin America to the point of cutting off their nose to spite their face?
I don't get it.
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Eliminating classes
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 09, 2009 07:40 AM
My point is that people have at least two relations to production in what Michael describes. They are either workers in a firm where their tools are owned in common, or they work alone, as artisan, craftsman or farmer, and own their own tools. Thus there's at least two classes in this 'classless' society. Moreover, in order to forbid the use of money or its equivalent in order to also forbid a small producer to hire somewone, you need a state to stop them. It doesn't matter how the democratically cops are selected or the prisons are run, you have another sector of people here who a neither coop workers or small producers.
In other words, you can try to dictate something close to absolute egalitarianism with the various rule-making under Michael's model. But making everyone 'the same' regarding conditions and advantages, worthy or not, is not the same as getting rid of classes. In my view, fully cybernated production in economies of abundance makes for a better path to the withering away of classes, markets and states. Until then, there is a succesor system class society where working class preponderance shapes the present and future, usually called socialism, that serves as a transitional class society between the present and the classless society of communism.
I also believe there is a coordinator strata, if you like, but no such thing as a coordinator class, unless you just want to define class however you like. Then anything can be a 'class'. But the coordinator strata has a left, center and right--some are your friends, some are you adversaries. But if you make it an enemy class, your target is too wide, and you turn friends into enemies.
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By Albert, Michael at Mar 08, 2009 13:44 PM
Ehrenreich and Fletcher ask: "do we have a [shared] plan?" and forthrightly answer that we don't, and we need a "deliberative process for figuring out what to do."
I agree. We need shared vision to inspire hope, incorporate the seeds of the future in the present, and illuminate a path to where we want to wind up. Here is a summary of a much longer essay "Taking Up The Task," available on the ZNet website.
Classlessness ought to inform our economic goal.
To have a classless economy requires that everyone by their economic position be equally able to participate, utilize capacities, and accrue income. Private ownership of productive assets must be gone, but so too must a division of labor that affords some producers far greater influence and income than other producers.
By their position in the economy, lawyers, doctors, engineers, managers, etc., accrue information, skills, confidence, energy, and access to means of influencing daily outcomes sufficient to largely control their own tasks and to define, design, determine, and control the tasks of workers below. These coordinator class members operate subordinate to capital, but above workers.
"Out with the old boss in with the new boss" does not end having bosses. To retain the distinction between the coordinator class and the working class would ensure coordinator class rule. This type change can end capitalism, but this type change will not attain classlessness. Thus, our movements and projects must eliminate the monopoly of capitalists on productive property, but also the monopoly of coordinators on empowering work. Indeed, this is what reimagining socialism is primarily about.
Beyond classlessness, we also ought to seek equity, solidarity, diversity, self-management, ecological balance, and economic efficiency.
Each person who is able to work, both for moral and economic reasons, should be remunerated for the duration, intensity, and onerousness of their socially valued effort.
Economic relations should produce a cooperative social partnership of mutual aid rather than people fleecing one another in an anti-social shoot out.
Economics should convey to each person self-managing say over decisions in proportion as those decisions affect us.
An economy should not compel us to destroy our natural habitat but should instead reveal the full and true social and ecological costs and benefits of contending choices, and convey to us control over the options.
Clearly, private ownership of productive property, corporate divisions of labor, top down decision-making, markets, and central planning violate all these aspirations.
For workers and consumers to influence decisions in proportion as they are affected by those decisions requires self-managing councils through which workers and consumers express and tally their preferences.
Equitable distribution requires workers be remunerated for their duration of effort, intensity of effort, and harshness of conditions, and that remunerated effort be socially useful so that workers have incentives consistent with eliciting fulfilling output.
Self-managed decisions require confident preparation, relevant capacity, and appropriate participation. There can't be some actors monopolize empowering work while others are left disempowered and unable to manifest a will of their own. Balancing of jobs for empowerment eliminates the division between coordinators and workers by ensuring that all economic actors are enabled by their conditions to participate fully in self-management.
Allocation should be undertaken by cooperative and informed negotiation in which all people's freely expressed wills are proportionately actualized and in which operations, mindsets, and structures further the logic of self-managing councils, balanced job complexes, and equitable remuneration rather than violating each. To my thinking, this implies what has been called participatory planning.
If we were to agree on features like those noted above for economic vision, then requirements for current activist projects, organizations, and movements should patiently incorporate the seeds of the future in the present, including self-managed decision-making, balanced job complexes, equitable remuneration, and cooperative negotiated planning.
Strategically, just as movements should foreshadow a future that is feminist, poly-cultural, and politically participatory to avoid being compromised in their values, incapable of inspiring diverse constituencies, incapable of overcoming cynicism, and weak in their comprehension of current relations, so should movements for the same reasons foreshadow a future that is classless, including incorporating self-managing council organization, balanced job complexes, equitable remuneration, and participatory planning.
Seeking transformed economic institutions requires that we begin to create such institutions in the present but also that we fight for changes in capitalist institutions. Indeed, the path to a better future involves primarily a long march through existing institutions, battling for changes that improve people's lives today even as they auger and prepare for more changes tomorrow.
In battles around income, workplace conditions, decision-making, allocation, jobs, work-day length, and other facets of economic life, our rhetoric should advance comprehension of ultimate values. Our organizations should embody the norms we seek for the future. Our spirit should be full of optimism, but also clear about obstacles.
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Re:
By Frchristie, Frederic at Mar 08, 2009 18:43 PM
I have to add that Adam Smith, as Chomsky has repeatedly noted, was far from a market fundamentalist...
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Re: Classless Society
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 08, 2009 20:06 PM
To my way of thinking, what Michael presents here is not a classless society. It still has at least two classes, defined by their relation to production, coop workers and small producers. There may be more, such as government officials and police, unless he's arguing a pure'y anarcho-syndicalist view. I would argue, alternatively, that classes will wither away, along with markets and state, as the amount of living labor time in commodities approaches zero and the working day approaches zero, in the cybernated communism down the pike a bit. In this vision all classes are abolished, including the working class, leaving us with liberated humanity. But then, my view here is rather orthodox and in tune with Marx.
The class society between the present order and this classless society of the future has the working class as the preponderant and leading force, but it also has some small producers, some engaged capitalists and even some of the dreaded coordinators, which are really a strata in all classes. And it also has a regulated market in goods and services, even as it restricts and then abolishes the labor and capital markets.
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Re: Re: Classless Society
By Ward, Peter at Mar 08, 2009 21:29 PM
Presumably, the goal would be to eliminate govenment officials and where necessarry appoint deligates in an ad hoc fashion. As to police, they would be subservient to the general public rather than vested interests as now therefore would not be more (or less) empowered than others.
Your remarks re: coop workers and small producers are not clear. Whaterever industry one is employed in one would not by virtue of that have more power. In practice there is of course a danger that monopolistic control of specific resources or skills could be exploited toward achieving greater power (as at present) and this is a potential weakness that needs to be taken seriously, at least in the transitional phases.
In terms of who would profit and who would pay, it is going to be the World's general population (the proletariate, if you wish) who profit and the business owners and possibly, but not obviously, the coordinater class who pay. But ultinmately the core issue is getting general economic and political empowerment. Introducing illdefined terms like proletariate, IMO, often confuses the argument.
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Re: Re: Classless Society
By Albert, Michael at Mar 09, 2009 07:43 AM
HI Carl ...
I guess I don't understand though the forums might be a better place to pursue it...
You say what "Michael presents here is not a classless society." Well, it is only a smidgin of a comment about a deliberative approach to thinking about a better economic goal, but...
For you, "t still has at least two classes, defined by their relation to production, coop workers and small producers."
This is odd since I never used here or have used any where else in talking about parecon either term, and neither category even exists in parecon. There is no such thing as a coop, as compared to not a coop, in parecon, since all work is done in parecon firms with the same defining structure which includes what I suspect you mean by the attirbutes of a coop but goes a bit further, too. And while there are people in smaller parecon workplaces, and larger ones, of course, again, they don't have different relations to the economy, but instead earn, decide, relate to needs and potentials, the same ways. They are no more of different classes than someone now who works in a smaller plant is of a different class than someone who works in a larger one, in the same social relationship to it and to the broader economy.
Then you say, "There may be more, such as government officials and police, unless he's arguing a purely anarcho-syndicalist view."
In a parecon there are of course people who work at differnt things - medicine, construction, song and dance, and also, I believe, dealing with crime, adjudicating disputes, etc. But as described in many presentations, they all have balanced job coplexes, all do their work in workers councils, all have the same routes to well being and influence with no fast track or blocked track, etc. etc.
To have classes means to have a differentiation between groups based on their economic position - their role within the economy - such that ttheirinterests are opposed and one gets ahead at the cost of the other, one has say due to denying say to the other, etc. Parecon has none of that - though I agree from a very paragraphs, one can't tell.
"I would argue, alternatively, that classes will wither away, along with markets and state, as the amount of living labor time in commodities approaches zero and the working day approaches zero, in the cybernated communism down the pike a bit. In this vision all classes are abolished, including the working class, leaving us with liberated humanity. But then, my view here is rather orthodox and in tune with Marx."
guess we can just agree to disagree, though perhaps you might want to critically review a full presentation, rather than a snippet, since I think this is not only entirely unreal, but, more, at least as offered here, in brief, but I suspect at any length, provides zero useful instruction/guide for how to arrange our real lives in any real future.
I am sorry...but this way of talking about our vision always seemed to me a kind of dodge to providing real substance - whether undertaken by marxists, anarchists, or anyone else. What classes withering away due to improved technical capacity says to me, is that as long as there is work that is remunerated and allocated, there will be class division and class rule - a rather Thatcherian perspective, honestly I think, which is to say entirely defeatest - and it means, therefore, that our only task until technology rescues us from work and thus from class division (like medicines someday rescuing us, say, from mortality and thus the pain of death) is to mitigate the unavoidable hardship but with no need to even think about eliminating the basic problem - class division - which will finally wither on its own.
You add: "The class society between the present order and this classless society of the future has the working class as the preponderant and leading force, but it also has some small producers, some engaged capitalists and even some of the dreaded coordinators, which are really a strata in all classes. And it also has a regulated market in goods and services, even as it restricts and then abolishes the labor and capital markets."
Again, we can agree to disagree. Small and large producers has zero to do with it, but for me, as best I can reason out, a system with regulated markets that sees class division as unavoidable, or even if it doesn't but it has markets, will be either a capitalist system (and if it permits private ownership) or a coordinator system (if it precludes private ownership).
Of course these are larger questions - but the evidence of past efforts is without any question on my side of this discussion...with market coordinatorism for example in Yugoslavia not evolving into classlessness, but actually, persisting quite a while, horrendously, and then devoling back into capitalism....
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