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Bezig met laden... The Political Economy of Participatory Economicsdoor Michael Albert
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With the near bankruptcy of centrally planned economies now apparent and with capitalism seemingly incapable of generating egalitarian outcomes in the first world and economic development in the third world, alternative approaches to managing economic affairs are an urgent necessity. Until now, however, descriptions of alternatives have been unconvincing. Here Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel support the libertarian socialist tradition by presenting a rigorous, well-defined model of how producers and consumers could democratically plan their interconnected activities. After explaining why hierarchical production, inegalitarian consumption, central planning, and market allocations are incompatible with "classlessness," the authors present an alternative model of democratic workers' and consumers' councils operating in a decentralized, social planning procedure. They show how egalitarian consumption and job complexes in which all engage in conceptual as well as executionary labor can be efficient. They demonstrate the ability of their planning procedure to yield equitable and efficient outcomes even in the context of externalities and public goods and its power to stimulate rather than subvert participatory impulses. Also included is a discussion of information management and how simulation experiments can substantiate the feasibility of their model. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Along the way, they also address some concerns about the feasibility of their plans, though not any of the more serious objections: their moral hatred of hierarchy leading them to dismiss central planning for no real reason, the degree of bureaucracy involved in their council system which seems to easily surpass that of central planning systems, and the way in which their ideas for consumers' councils greatly seems to exaggerate people's capacity to understand and formulate their own preferences. Then there's the issue that such councils would have to be quite intrusive, as nothing could be bought or sold without councils knowing about it, so that all know about the private life of all in at least that respect. Albert & Hahnel go extremely far in their egalitarianism as well, even proposing to pay more to less competent people who undertake more effort in sports, not just at the top level, but all the way down. But at the same time, they don't seem to have realized that their council system still greatly favors people who are more talented at formulating their preferences and demands over people who are shy, lack self-knowledge, are uncertain about their life-goals, etc.
None of the above objections need defeat the proposal, but I do think Parecon needs an extra round of tinkering or two, with more ideas from more traditional socialist models put in instead of the rather overly egalitarian and optimistic proposal as it stands now. And it's telling that even an absolutely convinced socialist like me would accuse them of those things, precisely the faults socialism in general is often accused of by right-wing philistines; therefore, I may be wrong and underestimating people (as well as Albert & Hahnel), but it's also possible that Parecon as it is now is too much of a good thing.
In any case this booklet is probably not the first one one would want to buy to understand Parecon and the arguments about it, since this is really mostly aimed at economists. The book "Parecon" itself (link above) as well as "Moving Forward: Program for a Participatory Economy" might be a better buy for that.