Michael Albert has already commented my brief critique. Thank you anyway. Best,
Matias --- troy cochrane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escribió: > Matias, > Thank you for your response and I apologize for > being unable to get the accent on the i in your > name. > > Do you mind if I forward your critique onto Michael? > > Thanks, > Troy > > Matías Scaglione <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I wrote a little comment on Michael Albert's Parecon > as a reading interrogation for a class. We, the > students, had a teleconference with Albert, in which > the problem of allocation appeared as the critical > issue of his propposal. Here are my brief comments: > > -------------------------------------- > Michael Albert’s “Participatory Economics” and the > problem of allocation > > Michael Albert’s whole proposal of Parecon > (Participatory Economics) suffers from what I > believe > are serious and insurmountable defects, among which > the solution to the problem of allocation appears as > the decisive one. Albert’s Economics –a very > misfortunate word, as long as Economics is the name > of > the official discipline that is supposed to study > ‘the > economy’– is conducted by workers and consumers; the > workers create the ‘social product’ and the > consumers > ‘enjoy’ it. The evanescent exchange of a commodity > for > money in the capitalist market is supplanted for a > ‘decentralized participatory planning’ through > councils of workers and consumers, in which an > ‘indicative price’ is achieved through subsequent > iteration of proposal of councils, at different > levels > of “social aggregation”. Let us concede –just for > critical purposes– that the entire set of Albert’s > extremely loose concepts and assumptions are right > until the participatory planning. Let us assume an > economy (or economics?) in transition with > workers–consumers decided to jump from a market > economy to a participatory planning in, let’s say, > year 0. Following Albert’s social engineering, > workers > and consumers would develop a first proposal ‘using > last year’s final prices as starting indicators of > social costs and benefits’ (p. 125). Here we have > two > alternatives: (i) the society develops, for all the > commodities of the economy, a huge vector with the > initial (artificial) prices that better represent > some > measure of ‘social costs and benefits’; (ii) the > society let the planning iteration to take place > based > in the old capitalist-market price system. If the > society chooses the first system and we assume that > the decentralized planning works well: will the > subsequent prices depend on the first prices > centrally > assigned (and, of course, on the method of price > calculus)? If the society chooses the second system, > and assuming also that the decentralized planning > works well: is there anything that assures that the > prices are going to reflect the so-called “social > costs and benefits”, whatever they are? > > But this is not the main problem with Albert’s > allocation. Once the society decides the system of > initial pricing, the iterative planning starts. The > day 1 of year 0 the workers-consumers has to make > their first proposal. There is no need of "Economics > of Information" to realize that the system faces an > enormous "asymmetry of information" (the workers > have > much more information about their products than the > consumers) and that the set of decision of the > consumers are big enough to paralyze the best > trained > shop-aholic –even if the society chooses the > abovementioned first option. Summing up: we have two > ‘actors’ that have to reach a ‘consensus’ on the > prices of the commodities: the worker is very well > informed and has a very limited –if not unitary– set > of decision, whereas the consumer has a very poor > information that worsens vis-à-vis the size of the > decision set of consumption. The final question is: > what would assure that the system would not collapse > the very first day of implementation? > > > > ------------ > Internet GRATIS es Yahoo! Conexión > 4004-1010 desde Buenos Aires. Usuario: yahoo; > contraseña: yahoo > Más ciudades: http://conexion.yahoo.com.ar > > > --------------------------------- > Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals > ------------ Internet GRATIS es Yahoo! Conexión 4004-1010 desde Buenos Aires. Usuario: yahoo; contraseña: yahoo Más ciudades: http://conexion.yahoo.com.ar
