A DEBATE ABOUT PARECON

Decentralization, Communism, & Model-Building

Wednesday October 08, 2008 00:08
by Wayne Price
Source: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/10116

From my Parecon Debate with Michael Albert

Further selections from my literary debate on Znet with Michael Albert, co-founder of Parecon. The full debate can be found on
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/zdebatealbertvspric...e.htm

Decentralism

In Kropotkin’s famous essay on “Anarchism” for the Encyclopedia Britannica, he wrote that, under socialist anarchism, “True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound….”

Parecon has decentralist aspects, in its roots in workplace and consumer councils. But economically, it proposes a series of back-and-forth responses among the councils of the U.S., guided by facilitators, to result in a single plan which will be accepted for a period. This single, overriding, plan covers the whole country, which in our case includes most of a continent. Not surprisingly, in your Parecon: Life After Capitalism, you have a section rejecting “Green Bioregionalism” (hc, p. 80f). Similarly, Robin Hahnel, has a section in his book, Economic Justice and Democracy, which rejects “Community-Based Economics” (trade pb, p. 181f). So, if Parecon is not centralist, as such, neither is it decentralist.

This limits direct democracy. Instead of a local council having a significant say in the economic (and other) factors that directly affect its people, the council has only a tiny voice, being one out of a zillion councils in the whole country, making a tiny impact on the whole plan. Most of those deciding on the plan (the 330 million other people) are not you or your workmates or neighbors. Once the overall plan is decided on, the local workplace may decide how to carry it out, and the local community may make local decisions, but only within the framework of the overall national plan.

I do not insist that everything be decentralized, but I do have a bias in favor of decentralization. Social institutions should be as decentralized as possible, as much in human scale as possible, with only as much centralization and big institutions and buildings as absolutely necessary. This makes it possible for people to directly control their lives and to make decisions whose outcomes they can foresee, without power being in the hands of distant authorities. But if some industries can only function with big factories in a few central places, so be it. Big universities might need to be supported by several regions. “Representation” may be needed, but it can only be democratic if people experience self-rule locally in day-to-day decision-making. Regions encourage social, economic, and political experimentation, different ways of handling similar problems

Libertarian Communism

You seem to think that I advocate (small-c) communism (not statism, as you know, but as a method of motivating workers and sharing society’s wealth). First, I am open to several possibilities being tried out in different regions (Parecon, full communism, Takis Fotopoulis’ model, etc.). However, I have a personal preference, which is not to go immediately into full communism, where income is completely disconnected from work. Instead there needs to be some form of reward for work, as in the Parecon program or otherwise. But, I believe, the long term goal should be full communism (what Marx called the higher phase of communism): “From each according to their ability to each according to their needs.” Anything short of this still has some necessary inequalities, left over from capitalism. You write, “In parecon I get income for working longer and harder.” But some people are able to work longer and harder than others. And people have unequal and different needs and desires.

Already, our technology is potentially so productive that it could (eventually) provide plenty for all with hardly any labor. Unpleasant tasks could be rotated, with everyone expected to do their share. We could become so productive that there would be more people wanting work than there would be needed jobs (as foretold in William Morris’ News from Nowhere). People would combine necessary labor, what little is left, with creative crafts. I propose that a socialist-anarchist society (or Parecon) begin with a basic communist sector (according to what it can afford), such as health, and minimal food, clothing and shelter. Over decades or generations, as productivity (and social consciousness) rise, this sector can be expanded until it covers everything.

In Realizing Hope, you yourself conclude that at some time after Parecon has been in place, “…Maybe a new aim will be removing the whole idea of measure regarding human traits, or even the whole idea of warranting rewards at all” (pb, p. 188). You refer to the wonderful anarchist-communist utopian novel, Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed.


Concluding Statement: Model-Building and Electoralism

Much of our difference is that Michael Albert is a model-builder and I am not. This causes us to talk past each other, despite the wide range of things on which we do agree. Michael and other Pareconers keep on trying to interpret my comments as though I am proposing an alternate model of post-capitalist society. So they ask how a decentralized socialist society would work, how goods would be exchanged among regions, how libertarian communism would value goods, and so on? Frankly, I do not know the answers and am not worried about that.

It is important to have a vision, a utopian set of values, of a different, more human, unalienated, way for people to live and work and to relate to each other. This is opposed to the Marxist tendency to let the Goddess of the Historical Process take care of everything. That is a dangerous approach because it leads to accepting whatever the historical process turns up, such as totalitarianism, and calling it socialism. A workers’ revolution must be conscious, with a true analysis of how society works and with a deliberate goal. This is different from the capitalist revolutions, whose main task was to remove barriers to the market and then let it automatically perform; therefore it was possible to have all sorts of illusions and false consciousness. However this does not mean that a revolution of the workers and oppressed must have a worked-out model, as opposed to a set of values. The working people can deliberately set about to develop a new society, consciously trying out various approaches.

It can be useful for someone to develop a more-or-less detailed model of how a vision could be concretized, how it might actually work. Besides Parecon, I can think of Bookchin’s Libertarian Municipalism, Takis Fotopoulis’ Inclusive Democracy, Paul Goodman’s Scheme II in Communitas, Pat Devine’s ideas, Kirkpatrick Sale’s bioregionalism, Guild Socialism, Castoriadis’
plan factory,and so on. Not to mention the ideas Marx raised in passing in the Critique of the Gotha Program and elsewhere. (There are also models of decentralized market socialisms, which I reject but I would be against other regions invading an area which had adopted such a model, unless exploitation was reintroduced.)

It is important to study all these and other models, but I have no need to endorse any one (aside from rejecting market socialism or state planning). I am willing to be in the same revolutionary organization with people who are committed to any of them. No one knows how a free people would reorganize production and politics after a revolution.

I am an experimentalist. Under socialist anarchism, people will try out different plans at different times in different regions. There will be constant reorganizing. To quote Kropotkin again, from his encyclopedia article on “Anarchism,” “Such a society would represent nothng immutable….Harmony would (…) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitude of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the State.”

Once we agree on a general vision, then what matters most is our program for the here-and-now, what we are going to do, what we say to advanced workers who are listening to us (even if it is mostly propaganda for the future). Which is why I could be in the same organization as Pareconists, anarchist-communists, libertarian Marxists, anarchist-syndicalists, and so on, if we agree on our program for the next period.

This is why I keep on raising the issue of voting for Obama and other Democrats, even though this is a peripheral question for Michael and even though there are other Pareconists who disagree with him. Is there something in the Parecon program which leads Michael as well as Robin Hahnel (the co-founders of Parecon) to be willing to vote for an imperialist war monger? If so, this is a problem. Or is there no connection between the model of Parecon and one’s position on voting in capitalist elections? If so, this may be even worse. What good is Parecon if it gives no guidance to current political action?

(Michael’s comparison of voting for—and working for—Obama with getting a job in the capitalist economy is pretty weak. I have to work in order to feed myself and my family. I can live perfectly well without voting for my class enemy. I work because I have to; it does not imply support for capitalism. Voting for Obama, and urging others to do so, means giving political support to a politician and his capitalist program. Also, respecting other people’s motives does not require that we agree with them.)

Tom Wetzel has associated Parecon with the idea that mass movements of opposition should be participatory and directly democratic. I agree with this. And I agree with Michael’s belief that movements should be militant and threatening to the ruling class, so that it will make concessions. This approach would seem to contradict support for the Democrats and the passivity of reliance on capitalist elections. However, it is not necessarily connected to the specific program of Parecon as distinct from a general revolutionary libertarian socialism.

I believe that a revolutionary anarchist organization should not be primarily formed around a specific model of post-capitalist society. Instead it should be in general agreement on a vision, open to specific ways that vision may be eventually embodied, and in general agreement on a program for the coming period.

Right now we are at a major turning political turning point. A large part of the U.S. population is moving to the left, and many are losing their faith in capitalism. Right now, both Parecon and revolutionary class struggle anarchism are extremely marginal but this will change. We are parts of the same libertarian socialist movement and should work together where we can.

PARTICIPATORY ECONOMY AS ALTERNATIVE TO CENTRALIZED OR MARKET ECONOMIES

This book review of Moving Forward reveals Michael Albert's ideas about participatory democracy in the workplace. Jonathan Sterne points out that Albert is providing an answer to the call for a new soci0-economic structure that would be more beneficial to all than the current capitalist system. Albert calls for workers' participation in democratic processes within the workplace and teases out social and economic consequences that would be superior to the hierarchical formation of capitalist societies based on wealth. Other consequences faced by the environment and race relations require further examination since they are not covered in the book. Albert's ideas are worthwhile study for envisioning the reality of a more egalitarian and participatory future. - Editor

Moving Forward: Program for a Participatory Economy

Source: http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2001/2001-11-15-11.51AM.html

Any left movement worth its name needs to present a compelling alternative to existing ways of life. If we have a sense of what's wrong with our society, it is incumbent upon us to try and come up with a better alternative. Though this position seems commonsensical, it has been immensely difficult for leftists to agree on a concrete agenda...

Michael Albert

Reviewed by Jonathan Sterne

Thursday, November 15 2001, 11:51 AM

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Any left movement worth its name needs to present a compelling alternative to existing ways of life. If we have a sense of what's wrong with our society, it is incumbent upon us to try and come up with a better alternative. Though this position seems commonsensical, it has been immensely difficult for leftists to agree on a concrete agenda for change or a vision of the good society. Many have given up: in the academic circles where I run, one often hears preemptive objections to "utopian," "totalizing," or other forms of programmatic thinking on the basis that these enterprises are inherently vanguardist, or worse, oppressive -- since in imagining alternatives, social visions inevitably exclude other possibilities.

So it is no surprise that Michael Albert's Moving Forward begins with a defense of programmatic thinking, since the book is meant as a blueprint for a more just economy. For over ten years, Michael Albert and his sometime collaborator Robin Hahnel have been working to refine a vision of participatory economics -- or "parecon" -- a series of books, interviews, and articles. Albert's Moving Forward is the latest print contribution to this project. In this very accessible book, Albert outlines the basic principles of parecon, anticipates and answers basic questions about his model, and argues for its necessity.

Albert's project should be applauded by all leftists, whatever their particular orientation. Though I will take issue with some of the specifics of his platform below, I strongly recommend this book and the parecon project as food for thought. They represent a needed alternative to the ongoing myopia of left thinking -- in the U.S. and elsewhere. Early in the book, Albert anticipates a variety of objections to his kind of programmatic thinking. He argues that while we cannot have a blueprint for social change, we need some sense of what we want so that we can go after it. More to the point, "values support and inform vision, but they are not its entirety" (p. 11). Rather than nebulous goals like "equality," Albert actually tries to reason out what equality in the economy might look like.

Moving Forward is structured around Albert's platform: seeking just rewards for effort, self-management, dignified work, and participatory allocation. Each section of the book offers an outline of his position, and then anticipates objections and responds to them in a question-and-answer-style format. The book avoids specialized and technical discussions, aiming instead to offer the broad outlines of the position. Readers interested in a more technical discussion of parecon in terms of economic theory would be wise to turn to Albert and Hahnel's The Political Economy of Participatory Economics. The book ends with discussions of economics and "the rest of life," practical questions around platforms, and a discussion of the reform vs. revolution dyad that's plagued left thought for some time.

Albert's goals are relatively simple and straightforward, though they would ultimately require a total transformation of the capitalist economy. I will briefly sketch each of them:

Albert argues that renumeration should be made according to effort, sacrifice, and need -- and not according to actual contribution to the economy. This is an important departure from traditional left economic thinking. Albert persuasively argues that renumeration according to actual contribution rewards the accumulation of wealth or other forms of fixed capital. If two people expend the same effort cutting sugar cane, but one has better tools, that person will make a larger contribution.

Albert's conception of effort and sacrifice is relatively simplistic 񠨥 rather quickly reproduces the mental-manual labor distinction (I'll return to that below) and tends to suggest that manual labor in most events requires more effort and sacrifice than mental labor. His examples of manual labor are rote working class jobs like coal mining and cane cutting while his examples of mental labor are largely professional managerial class jobs (though he does mention secretarial work on more than one occasion). Still, this is not a tremendous weakness in his argument, since rather than assigning a fixed calculus for effort or sacrifice, he argues that workers should rate one another on this scale. Though the logistics of this would need to be more fully worked out at each site, workers would rate one another on some kind of scale, either a 0-100% with fine gradations, or they could assume everyone performs an "average" job only deviate from that rating in special cases. Next, compensation would need to be regulated among workplaces by rating productivity against expectations and resources. As Albert points out, these are just proposals 񠴨e logics themselves would be negotiable. The point is simply to replace wage labor with a more egalitarian and participatory model.

This brings us to the second part of his platform: self-management. He argues that the default for parecon should be democratic self-management, while acknowledging that there will be times when it is most appropriate for the good of a society to delegate decision making to a particular group that may have some kind of expertise. He does not argue for a consensus model of decision making (a good thing, since consensus models of decision making can be paralyzing), acknowledging that even in an ideal society, well-intentioned people will have differences of opinion.

To read the rest of the review, click here.

PARECON: PARTICIPATORY ECONOMICS

In the following interview, Michael Albert expounds on his vision of the participatory economic model that he calls PARECON. Visit his website for more information (link below). - Editor

Michael Albert – On Participatory Economics

Source: http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=46

Michael Albert has coined Parecon (participatory economics) as a term denoting a new type of post-capitalist, self-managing economy. He hopes that Parecon can help inspire and inform activism that wins a new type of classless economy.

An interview to Pavlos Hatzopoulos for Re-public

Pavlos Hatzopoulos: Is Parecon (participatory economics) a blueprint for a future society beyond capitalism?

Michael Albert: It depends what you mean by the word blueprint, but I would say no, it isn’t. Can you imagine, for example, a blueprint for capitalism? I can’t. I could imagine, I guess, a very detailed specification of capitalism as it appears in some country, say in the U.S., or in some other country, say Sweden or Thailand, each of which would differ from one another in countless respects, of course. But even if such a blueprint could be produced, I don’t know what anyone would do with it.

I can also imagine, however, a description of key institutions central to all instances of capitalism, despite the many detailed differences each specific instance has from country to country and time to time. That would be a description of markets for allocation, of private ownership of productive assets, of remuneration for power and property and to an extent output, and of corporate divisions of labor. It would be skeletal and therefore not a blueprint, but it would be nonetheless important in specifying key attributes so that we could say useful things about capitalism per se, which is to say, about all instances of capitalism.

Parecon gives that kind of broad skeletal picture of a type or range of self-managing, classless economies that could come in many instances in different countries, times, etc. To provide that broad picture, or vision, parecon specifies key defining institutions including workers and consumers’ councils, balanced job complexes, remuneration for effort and sacrifice, and participatory planning. Parecon is therefore not a blueprint of another type of economy, but it is rather a broad description of central features of another type of economy. It is what we need, I think, if we are to be convincing that such an economy is possible and would be desirable.

You also ask about society, not economy, in that you ask if parecon is a blueprint of a new type society. Parecon isn’t even a picture of defining features of a new type participatory society, only of an economy. There is a big difference. To have a broad description of a societal vision rather than just an economic vision would entail having not only a picture for a new type economy–for example, parecon—but also a vision of key features of a new culture, polity, kinship, and perhaps some other aspects of society as well.

So, the bottom line is that parecon offers a picture of key defining features of a new type of post-capitalist, self-managing, and classless economy. It could be part of a picture of a new type of society, yes, but it certainly isn’t itself such a picture.

P.H.: In what sense is Parecon an initiative coming from below?

M.A.: In every sense that I can imagine. After all, what does “coming from below” actually mean? Presumably by “coming from above” you would mean thought up and imposed from some top-down perspective and serving elite interests, as well.

Parecon emerges, instead, from decades -really centuries- of grassroots activism and struggle to attain a classless economy. It learns from past experiments, both successes and failures, as well as from current ones. It is written accessibly, offered publicly. It welcomes and seeks debate, refinement, critique. It doesn’t favor some elite but embodies, instead, classlessness.

Ultimately, however, the extent to which parecon will be adopted and widely held by broad popular constituencies who make it their own, is still to be seen. That will depend on many variables, not least on its merits. Wide public advocacy by popular movements is of course the aim. The hope is that parecon can help inspire and inform activism that wins a new type of classless economy. I don’t know what “from below” would mean, if not these things.

Parecon and contemporary social movements

P.H.: Would you see Parecon as the answer to the question of what does the movement for an alternative globalization want?

M.A.: No, and also yes. That is, a movement against corporate globalization is almost by definition for internationalism, which means it is for some kind of equitable and solidaritious approach to trade and exchange among people internationally. Thus it would be against the IMF and World Bank and other institutions that seek to maintain or worsen the bias of international exchange toward enriching the already rich and impoverishing the already poor, but it would be for new international relations that would instead narrow the gap between rich and poor.

The thing is, no such approach can persist on top of each nation being capitalist in its domestic economic organization. So what I think is that while there are a great many very desirable steps that can be taken to move us away from the most egregious types of corporate globalization even before domestic economies are revolutionized away from capitalism, still, that domestic step is in the end essential, and yes, I think parecon provides answers regarding that step.

I also think that the values and norms of parecon, and its insights about social relations including markets, etc., can greatly assist people conceiving demands for immediate improvements in global relations. I have written some about that myself, indeed, and of course many others have, too.

P.H.: How has Parecon related so far to the World Social Forum process? There have been recent attempts to unite the organizations participating in the forum under a common political platform, like the Bamako Appeal. Is Parecon complementary to these prospects?

M.A.: I and others have participated regularly in the forums. I don’t know, however, what I think about the efforts you mention. On the one hand, I am not sure that the WSF constituency is the right one to try to galvanize into a new more programmatic organization and project. The wide array of people who relate to the WSF may be too politically diverse, on the one hand, including, for example, elements that aren’t anticapitalist, and perhaps also too separate from typical and important sectors of people in countries around the world, on the other hand.

It may be, in other words, that trying to get a degree of organizational unity out of the WSF constituencies would entail too many compromises of important commitments–as but one example, dispensing with overt anticapitalism to keep some groups involved. Or it could be that it would entail adopting some views that would distance the project from poorer elements worldwide, say. I just don’t know. Creating new organizations with activist agendas is certainly worth trying–and we certainly need something new internationally and in the U.S. too, even more so, for that matter. And of course trying out ideas is the way we find out whether they can work or not.

As to parecon and these efforts, well, yes, I do think that if it is to matter much over the long haul, any new international or domestic truly left organization needs to be anticapitalist. More, I think it can’t just say that capitalism sucks. Rather, if it wants to be convincing and to have its efforts accord with its aims, it has to be able to not only detail why capitalism sucks but, even more important, describe an economic alternative that would instead be highly desirable. That’s what I think parecon provides so that, yes, I do think parecon is not only complimentary with projects to create new domestic or international movements or organizations of the Left, but perhaps also essential to that effort. I guess time will tell if parecon’s advocates are right about that.

Existing participatory experiments

P.H.: Do you consider some existing political experiments, like participatory budgeting, as partial realizations of Parecon?

M.A.: They are projects that incorporate elements of pareconish structure and values, yes, and so yes, in that sense they are partial realizations of parecon–and there are many. The budgeting that you mention is one such experiment–though it doesn’t yet see itself as related to parecon, as far as I am aware of, at least. Actual workplaces that incorporate pareconish structures such as balanced job complexes are another such experiment, and there are now quite a few of those in various parts of the world, too. But I should say that I don’t think social change is a matter of only setting up such experiments and projects, as important as I think those efforts are. I also think it is essential to fight for a great many kinds of short and medium term gains, to better people’s lives now and to travel a path that leads toward parecon not in a few isolated projects, but throughout economies.

For example, to create a pareconish workplace is good. Doing so can inspire and instruct by example and by lessons, as well as benefit those involved. Doing so begins to plant the seeds of the future in the present. Likewise, to create an experiment in budgetary planning that has some elements of pareconish values and practices is also good, of course. But to create workers councils in large capitalist firms, and consumer councils in neighbourhoods and regions–in part inspired and guided by the other projects and giving them their reason for being—and to then fight and win innovations moving populations and structures toward pareconish commitments, will be even better. One can imagine all kinds of gains such movements can win–redistributive taxes, higher wages, changes in property laws, changes in the division of labor, a shorter work week, and so on.

The point is, with a pareconish commitment, both efforts to organize future-oriented small projects or experiments or workplaces, etc., and also wider movement efforts to win gains in the present would be informed by and would seek to enhance and enlarge support for visionary and strategic commitment to balanced job complexes, equitable remuneration, council-based self-management, and participatory planning.

P.H.: How do you explain the fact that these participatory experiments are springing up within the framework of existing capitalist relations?

M.A.: Well, where else would they spring up? I mean that seriously. It occurs more aggressively where a state is fostering the projects, whether in local venues like for the participatory budgets in Brazil and now some other places too, or even in a whole country as with the many experiments and projects under way in Venezuela, but in any event what we have in the world is overwhelmingly capitalism. So, anticapitalists–or even just people trying to improve their lives or enlarge justice without ideological comittments–can be expected to try to carve out space or win gains where they are, which is inside capitalism–and so, as you say, that’s what we see. I don’t actually think there is anything to explain, unless I am missing something.

Further links:

Parecon website
South End Press