Re: utopias
I think the absence of a widely shared utopia on the left is killing us. I'm convinced by the evidence (as well as the logic) that prospect theory is essentially right in its depiction of how people evaluate their conditions. All evaluations are relative to a standard of comparison. If something is above the standard it's OK, if it's below it's not. In this picture everything depends on the standard people hold. At present we have 2+% GDP growth and 5+% (measured) unemployment in the US, with massive inequality and dwindling time to address environmental imperatives -- not to mention the continuing authoritarianism and stupidity of most of our day to day work experience (Dilbertville). The vast majority of US citizens judge this as fundamentally OK if not perfect, because their standards for comparison are capitalism during a recession, the unholy mess of the ex-communist world, and so on. There are ultimately two aspects to organizing, whatever the cause. One is giving people a sense of their collective power, as opposed to their individual powerlessness. The other is encouraging people to adopt a reference point (standard) according to which the current state of affairs is intolerable. The left in America is failing dismally on both counts. Leaving aside our organizational failings, we are suffering profoundly from our inability to present a convincing vision of an alternative world that makes our current reality look mean and inadequate. The old utopia of a benign, state-run economy was, in my opinion, always dubious, but its former wide acceptance kept the left in business. "We can regulate it and make it do exactly what we want! We can own it publicly and run it for people, not profit!" This vision, or fragments of it, worked for millions of people, and motivated them to oppose corporate hegemony. A few on the left still hold to it, but for the rest that vision has been shattered, and nothing has emerged to replace it. I can't imagine a more important task for the intellectual wing of the left (writers, filmmakers, economists, etc.) than the creation of a vivid, believable utopia. Peter Dorman
Useful URL's for the Re Utopias Thread
Yes I know you have a lot more meaty stuff to think about right now. But you all know damn well that the "Re Utopias" thread may return eventually. These are just some useful on-line resources to keep on file for when that happens. The first item on the list is by me -- because I don't DO humility. The rest are genuine Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert compositions. I've created a summary of the PE model, short on arguments, long on correct pricing and incentives. Being the sort who is unable to see a beautifully balanced machine without getting the urge to tinker, and being unable to see something good without criticizing it for not being perfect, naturally I've added some comments of my own. Also, naturally, the parts not explicitly labeled comment are still my personal view of what AH meant and are not endorsed by them in any way. This URL for this is:: http://www.lol.shareworld.com/leftonl/lipow.htm AH also have posted their own summary on this which is a little more sketchy about how the model works. It gives a great sketch of arguments about why something like Parecon is needed. http://www.lol.shareworld.com/HahnelURPE.htm Robin Hahnel also gave a talk on disputes and common ground between democratic planners and market socialists: http://www.lol.shareworld.com/ZMag/Articles/hahnelumasstalk.htm The ZNet bulletin board is now working fine. (Let it not crash after my saying so publicly). The forums work via browser, (not by news reader) but are still a little slow. If you want to get into the Parecon forums start at http://www.lol.shareworld.com/leftonl/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html and follow the prompts to forums and parecon forum. Michael Albert also has ten lectures posted on the subject which are extremely long and far more elementary than "Looking Forward". These can be found at: http://www.lol.shareworld.com/Parecon/10lecs.htm Lastly there is an article of interest on Marxism by Michael Albert. It does not directly deal with Parecon, but gives you a better idea of the overall perspective than led Michael at least to spend the time it cost to come up with Parecon. Most of the sources this article cites are join works by MA and Robin Hahnel, so I assume to represents (at least in part) Robin Hahnel's thinking as well. http://www.lol.shareworld.com/marxismarticle.htm If anyone is interested in the article I mentioned, but has to pay per minute to browse, (or uses a super slow shared browser), I will be happy to forward any of the above articles upon request via e-mail. (The only exception is the ten lectures, which are too long and in too many pieces for me to e-mail conveniently.) You can reach me to request this at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Gar Lipow Olympia, Washington.
Re: utopias
As a precautionary note, I should say that when I envision a worthwhile society, I generally think in terms of free people forming voluntary associations (though that is perhaps a muddy phrase). Thus, I tend to think of: in what manner(s) will people feel like organizing in? Neither Mike Albert nor I ever intended our "model" of a participatory economy to be a blue print that people should be forced to impliment exactly -- or be whipped with a wet noodle. We always intended it as a substantive contribution to the thinking process about exactly what kinds of organizations would we, or any sensible people, want to form, and how should they work. So, any economy in such a free society would have to be "good" enough to gain participation. Thus, exploitative relations would not exist, as no one would stand for it. This strikes me as overly simplistic... Many who did not intend to enter into exploitative arrangements have found themselves ensnared nonetheless. You seem to be implying that moves toward Parecon would not lead to such "ensnarement". But how would Parecon come into existence, if not by mass politicization and education? Indeed, the same kind of developments that preceeded the Spanish revolution, I should think. Now, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that (explicitly) working toward Parecon WILL help avoid such "ensnarement", whereas a less specific goal such as "democracy" or "no exploitation" would not avoid this sad outcome. In effect, I suppose you are saying that while some "who did not intend to enter into exploitative arrangements have found themselves ensnared nonetheless", those who work toward Parecon will NOT find themselves ensnared. Further, then, this must be due to the fact that Pareconners recognize those ensnaring hazards, or by virtue of their strategy avoid them altogether. Of course, Pareconners are not alone in this ability to recognize lurking exploitation, as anarchist (and other) struggles in Russia and elsewhere indicate. The point that I'm making is that, yes, of course revolutionary movements should seek to identify and eliminate these unacceptable seeds of exploitation such as markets and hierarchical workplaces. Yet, even fully-informed anarcho-pareconners might still avoid certain aspects of a full-blown Parecon for cultural or other reasons. That's it. That's my point- not a very big one, but it did suffice to get Mike Albert to request that I come up with an alternative to Parecon if I thought it had so many flaws. I think he missed my point; I don't pretend to know what alternatives people would invent in te course of a revolution, though I admire the Parecon effort. To be even more long-winded, I would pose the analogy of anarchist justice systems. Some anarchists say that the only form of societal control should be reasoning with deviants to convince them not to rape or murder or maim. Goodman, among others, has suggested more sophisticated, yet still stateless and democratic, methods. He suggests that existing anarchist institutions (economic and cultural, etc.) serve as forums to punish transgressors e.g. denying membership, on the basis that its members don't want to associate with a rapist. The parallels to Parecon are notable, I think. Both anticipate a problem and offer a democratic solution, based on common sense really. And both may or may not be adopted by a libertarian socialist society- they may find other ways to deal with economic and criminal problems that we haven't thought of. I would say the same thing to Goodman as I do to you and Mike: sounds good to me, I'm all for it. But I won't bet that things will turn out that way. Regards, Dave Markland Winnipeg, Canada
Re: utopias
William S. Lear wrote: I'm really enjoying this exchange, just the kind of stuff I like to think about, and I have one very small, peripheral question. Robin writes: ... Even competitive markets under conditions of perfect information can lead to very exploitative outcomes -- and inefficient one's as well. I understood competitive markets to be ones in which there is zero, or in "less than perfectly" competitive markets, close to zero profit. How would capital accumulate in any coherent way under such a system and thereby lead to exploitative outcomes? Wouldn't everyone, including capitalists, just be ragged and equally miserable? I was thinking of competitive market models I play with a lot where some people start out with more "seed corn" than others and we open up a labor market that may be perfectly competitive and the result is more exploitation because the lions share of the benefit from the labor exchange goes to the employers. There are similar models of international trade where even when the international goods markets are competitive, when countries exchange goods international inequality increases. Of course how one defines exploitation is crucial, but there are ways to define exploitation I am very comfortable with that often lead to the result that the degree of exploitation increases when competitive exchanges in labor markets, credit market, or even goods markets increase. Also, in defining inefficient, do you take into account the vast amount of duplicated effort that usually takes place in competitive markets? Competitve markets can yield lots of inefficiencies for many different reasons. You sight one. Disequilibria and externalites are biggies.
Re: utopias
I'm really enjoying this exchange, just the kind of stuff I like to think about, and I have one very small, peripheral question. Robin writes: ... Even competitive markets under conditions of perfect information can lead to very exploitative outcomes -- and inefficient one's as well. I understood competitive markets to be ones in which there is zero, or in "less than perfectly" competitive markets, close to zero profit. How would capital accumulate in any coherent way under such a system and thereby lead to exploitative outcomes? Wouldn't everyone, including capitalists, just be ragged and equally miserable? Also, in defining inefficient, do you take into account the vast amount of duplicated effort that usually takes place in competitive markets? Bill
Re: utopias
maxsaw wrote: From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are financing everything via head taxes? An important first step is that income is distributed equitably in the first place -- which we believe it is in a participatory economy. . . . If incomes are judged 'fair' but still differ, do you still want head taxes? I grant that less dispersion in incomes makes head taxes less objectionable, and zero dispersion makes them kosher, so how much does a regressive tax framework flout your system? Now I see what you're getting at. You're right that if equitable income distribution were exactly equal income distribution head taxes would be proportional taxes, but if there are differences in income, head taxes are regressive rather than proportional much less progressive. Ordinarily progressive taxation is more equitable than proportional which is more equitable than regressive. We're so used to that truism that it's second nature -- and should be. But that is because we live in an economy where higher pretax incomes are almost always too high from a moral view, and lower pretax incomes are almost always too low from a moral point of view. So progressive taxation ameliorates the inequity in the income distribution somewhat -- in the world we actually live in. But in a participatory economy the only reason some would have more income than others is because they choose to deliver less effort. Essentially people with lower incomes in PE are simply opting for more leisure -- which is their perogative. If I choose more leisure and less consumption, and consumption is entirely individual, that is easy to arrange. But since collective consumption is by definition, collective, all in the same collectivities must consume the same amount of collective consumption -- those who would have more leisure and consume less as well as those who would have less leisure and consume more. [All this is further complicated by the fact that while all consume the same package of public goods that does not mean they benefit to the same extent from consuming the same package. But let's abstract from that little difficulty for the moment, and assume that if you and I live in the same neighborhood, ward, city, state, nation -- we benefit equally from consuming the same package of local, state, and national public goods.] The choices would seem to be: (1) Charge people for their proportionate share of the social cost of the public goods they consume -- which was my original statement, and which you correctly pointed out was equivalent to a head tax and was therefore regressive. I'm tempted to add the adjective "technically" regressive. This could be justified on grounds that while those with lower income would be paying a higher percentage of their income for public goods than those with higher incomes, everyone had equal (consumption benefits minus work burdens.) That something we might call "net economic benefits from participating in the economy" was the same for everyone, and viewed from that perspective proportionate charges were the most equitable. (2) Charge people their proportionate share multiplied by the ratio of their income divided by average income. This would yield proportional taxation considering only income as the measure of people's economic benefits. (3) Charge people their proportionate share multiplied by the ratio of their income divided by average income multiplied by numbers greater than one and rising at some rate for above average incomes as they rise, and by numbers less than one and falling for below average incomes as they fall. That would provide progressive taxation considering only income as the measure of people's economic benfits. All would be equally easy to do from an administrative point of view -- even though the last sounds complicated. I can see no strong argument for any of the methods over the others. As I think about I don't find #1 inferior by any means. The idea that consumption benefits minus work burdens is the appropriate bench mark seems more appealing now that I realize that was the implicit basis for the proportional charge system. I would not protest against either #2 or #3 since I personally think people have been pushed beyond their natural inclinations to overwork in capitalism (a la Julie Schor's work) and in the beginning in a PE would all be wise to democratically impose upon ourselves some correctives for a time -- which is what #2 and even more strongly #3 become -- disincentives to choose more income and less leisure and incentives to lighten up a little. On the free-rider issue, it sounds like your scheme presumes that public goods are optimally assigned to types or levels of government. Of course -- if it were non-optimal PE would be less than perfectly efficient. Why would we ever choose that? I'm joking. You're right again. We have assumed this, and pesky reality would probably go and
Re: utopias
As a precautionary note, I should say that when I envision a worthwhile society, I generally think in terms of free people forming voluntary associations (though that is perhaps a muddy phrase). Thus, I tend to think of: in what manner(s) will people feel like organizing in? Further, then, while the Parecon model is exciting (in short, I'm all for it), it seems to me to be an "end goal" that might not turn out to be the case, simply because certain problems that it solves may not arise (at least, perhaps, not ALL those problems in ALL communities). I hope you get my drift. Neither Mike Albert nor I ever intended our "model" of a participatory economy to be a blue print that people should be forced to impliment exactly -- or be whipped with a wet noodle. We always intended it as a substantive contribution to the thinking process about exactly what kinds of organizations would we, or any sensible people, want to form, and how should they work. If we want our economy to be democratic, equitable, efficient, and promote solidarity what would make sense? We thought alternative-to-capitalism visionary thinking had suffered from lack of specificity and concreteness as an intellectual excercise. That is why we have tried to be very specific. Precisely so people have somthing other than a marshmellow to talk and think about and criticise and improve upon. We are both strong democrats with a small "d." We believe as a matter of principle in respecting whatever institutions and arrangements people decide to govern themselves with through fair democratic means. That doesn't mean we will not want to excercise our democratic rights to disagree with the majority and demand a chance to voice our objections and try to convince the majority to change its mind. But that is how we would always argue for some aspect of PE that was not adopted by a group of self-governing people we were members of. So, any economy in such a free society would have to be "good" enough to gain participation. Thus, exploitative relations would not exist, as no one would stand for it. This strikes me as overly simplistic -- overy optimistic or "utopian" as some use the word. Care is required to avoid exploitative relations. Many who did not intend to enter into exploitative arrangements have found themselves ensnared nonetheless. However, in rural agricultural areas, "Smithian" markets for basic foods may well be deamed adequate. They may be deemed adequate and presumed not to lead to exploitative outcomes. But that doesn't meant that they will in fact be adequate if adequate includes the requirement of equitable outcomes. If not, the acts of voting feet would serve to transform that economy. Voting with feet to join what kind of alternative. Isn't that what the whole debate about desirable alternatives to capitalism is about in the first place. Markets existed in agricultural areas of revolutionary Spain, and while I recognize the perils (and inefficiencies) of markets, considerations of local culture and perhaps a desired rural isolation might win out over concerns of efficiency (which would pull for integration into broader syndicates or councils). Of course, participation in wider syndicates could co-exist with local economies, giving communities the "foreign exchange" necessary to augment the local economy- TV's and stereos, for instance. Am I making sense here? The point is that folks could live basically like the Amish- exchanging basic needs on whatever basis they like- while devoting some of their time to working in the local rope factory to qualify for consumption of exotic goods. Of course, if this backward life seems ridiculous to later, "modern", generations, they may choose to break from the community norms and pull more of their local economy into the broader syndicates- "rationalizing" small farms, for instance, in order to gain more efficiency and increase productivity to earn more manufactured clothes, microwaves and furniture from the "outside world"- in contrast to their parents, who saw no value in such pursuits. I'm not as concerned with how much any group would decide to be self-sufficient or local -- choosing to sacrifice some efficiency advantages of a greater division of labor. That's fine. I'm concerned with ON WHAT BASIS AND HOW AND WITH WHAT EFFECTS they engage in economic interaction with others to whatever extent they decide to do so. Even competitive markets under conditions of perfect information can lead to very exploitative outcomes -- and inefficient one's as well. Participatory planning is designed to avoid some of these unfortunate effects. How do the communities, joined in a federation, settle on who will produce what and on what sort of terms goods are exchanged between communities? I will be curious to know this, too. I think that is one of the tasks of a revolution- to figure these things out. Isn't one of the lessons of the revolutons of
Re: utopias
Pardon me for reposting. I should have mentioned in the subject line that my message "ride free or die!" was a reply to the thread on utopias. Robin Hahnel wrote, But these differences are not what is usually meant by people worried about the free rider problem in provision of public goods. They mean if we leave it to the market for people to buy as much pollution reduction or military defense as they want to, few if any will buy any at all since each enjoys such a tiny fraction of the benefit and all have an incentive to ride for free on the purchases of others. Hence the market bias against public good provision versus private good provision. In other words, the *problem* is not that some people get to ride for free, the problem is that the free-rider calculus leads to a misallocation of resources. An even more pernicious problem (a side effect of the side effect) would be the administrative machinery set in place to capture the unwarranted advantages resulting from this misallocation. Couldn't the parecon model suffer from excess literalism in its efforts to "eradicate" the free-rider problem? Or, perhaps, my oblique point would be clearer if I came at it from another angle: the greatest indignity inflicted on the poor is not their poverty; it is the retroactive justification of that poverty (and the corresponding wealth of the wealthy) as being "as of right". It's worth entertaining the thought that *most* inequality results not from misfortune or personal qualities but from the ideology erected *ex post facto* to explain, justify and, ultimately, naturalize inequality. What I'm proposing, then, is a kind of multiplier effect for free-ridership or inequality that makes the final impact much worse than any direct effects. The best solution to such a problem is not always the most obvious, direct or literal one. As a thought experiment, I'll pose an alternative to parecon: "socialotto". Socialotto doesn't seek to eliminate inequality or free-ridership, only to systematically randomize them. As an aside, I'd reckon that, given a choice in the structure of rewards (but not in their actual distribution), people would opt for much less inequality than now exists but for substantially more than a ratio of 2:1. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/ Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: utopias
john gulick wrote: So at last all the latent anarcho-syndics on pen-l come out of the woodwork. I'm pleased. A few questions posed at a fairly high level of abstraction. 1) Even at the admittedly free-wheeling level of pencil-and-paper "models," it's easy to talk about and celebrate workers' democratic planning and management of the social division of labor, much harder to actually get into the nitty-gritty. I don't mean to come on like a naive Unabomber type, but what about the partial correlation between the production of surplus (and I'm not talking about superfluous luxury goods here) and increasingly sophisticated and specialized technical and industrial divisions of labor ? While my practical politics may be informed by certain principles of an anarcho-commie utopia, I'm enough of a "historical materialist" to understand that most people the world over no longer live or want to live in peasant villages and have acquired certain expectations about what constitutes an ideal consumption basket. (I realize that I'm probably playing with a lot of false dichotomies here that I really don't subscribe to). Left Greens like Howie Hawkins and social ecologist Murray Bookchin argue for the kind of democratic economic localism you refer to. Their thinking is motivated by two goals: (1) They want the participatory democratic benefits of New England town meeting style democracy. They think democracy works if it is local, face to face, with people who deal with one another all the time over long periods of time, etc. And they think it doesn't work, it disappears whenever it is attempted on a larger scale leading to representation rather than direct participation and eventually careerism, bureacratism, and apathy. (2) They think that what we should now know regarding ecological truths also points in the direction of economic localism as sound environmental policy and practice. They think much of what you take as the advantages and benefits of the modern industrial and agricultural division of labor and technology is ultimately terribly inefficient because it is so environmentally destructive that it is unsustainable. For them, the kind of economic well being you take as our moderns "birth right" is nothing more than a demand to exploit future generations -- terribly. A few of us, Mike Albert and myself to name two, have tried to have a friendly argument with them along the following lines: (1) Granted there is much about fact to face relations that promote democratic procedures. But even if they are more difficult to achieve, institutions that promote participatory democracy on a wider scale are important, necessary, and not hopeless. In particular we argue that participatory planning as we outline its procedures is an economic institution that can facilitate self-managed decision making among groups of workers and consumers separated be great distances. So, economic self-management does not REQUIRE economic localism. (2) What if they are wrong, in part, about the requirements of sound ecology? What if a much greater division of labor is environmentally sustainable than they believe, at present, to be the case? Then it would be a shame to forego the efficiency gains of an environmentally sustainable division of labor. In this case, the job of managing such a division of labor democratically, equitably, and efficiently remains, and becomes very important. So, what we said to them was to consider participatory planning visa vis these criteria. They responded, quite reasonably I thought, that the first criteria they would use to evaluate participatory planning was whether it would guarantee environmental sustainability. I responded like the economist I am by saying that went without saying under the categories of equity (intergenerational) and efficiency (wise-use/stewardship of the environment rather than overexploitation, despoilation, or, in short, abuse.) They said they felt little protected by economists' usual applications of equity and efficiency. I commiserated with them. 2) Matters of political jurisdiction. What do we embrace as the fundamental organizational-territorial units of planning and management ? Neighborhoods and their hinterlands in a small-scale urban/rural balance ? Worker-governed industrial associations ? Phony nation-states ? All of the above w/gradually diminishing levels of direct democracy culminating in some sort of international assembly ? I don't want to tackle the issue of a world government. But on the other issues, while participatory economics is an economic not a political system, and not intended to be a substitute for a truly democratic political system, it explicitly provides for: neighborhood consumption councils, ward federations of consumption councils, city and county federations of consumption councils, state federations, and a national federation of consumption councils. It also provides for workers councils, and federations of workers
Re: utopias
More belated response to Markland and Gulick on utopian vision: I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of Bakunin-type aspirations as well as the example given by Spain. I think this is fine as far as it goes. But there is a lot of ambiguity in the phrases "basic needs and interests" and "joining in federations to take advantage of economies of scale." Where does "basic need" leave off and something beyond "basic need" that, for want of a better word we can call "luxury" begin? And why should local production and distribution be associated with basic need rather than luxury in any case? What if it is more efficient for a basic need to be filled by production elsewhere and a luxury need is something a community can take care of better locally? How do the communities, joined in a federation, settle on who will produce what and on what sort of terms goods are exchanged between communities? Do they use markets? Do they carry out a joint central planning procedure? Do they get together in a big meeting and just talk about it until they agree (tire)? Mike Albert have put these questions to the left green types like Howard Hawkins and Murray Bookchin and have not yet gotten an answer that we find satisfactory. In our view, the problem of coordinating a division of labor just won't go away. Either you use markets, central planning, or some other kind of planning like participatory planning. Or else you are stuck with autonomy -- not semi-autonomy which the "join in federations" is a prayer for. Or, you put your faith in what a Swedish union official once answered a British trade unionist demanding to know how Swedish unions came to an agreement on a particular issue: "We have a meeting."
Re: utopias
More belated responses on utopian visions: R. Anders Schneiderman wrote: At 12:37 PM 12/2/97 -0500, you wrote: One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. How exactly does it eliminate the FR problem for expressing desires for public goods? I think participatory planning is a good thing, but I don't see how it gets rid of free riders. My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks. I am charged me proportional share for the social cost of those consumption goods just like I am charged 100% of the social cost of providing me with any individual consumption goods I ask for. I am also charged my proportional share of any public goods that my ward, city, state, and national consumer federation asks for. So, when I am voting, or instructing my representatives to vote, or voting for representatives who will vote for me regarding public good requests I have no incentive to over request -- since I will be charged my proportionate share of the cost of all such requests (against my work-effort determined total consumption allowance) -- and no incentive to under request since as long as my share of the cost is less than what I feel I will benefit I should want more public goods. In brief, nobody can gain from misrepresenting their true preferences for public gods and each person would only stand to lose by any kind of misrepresentation. This does not overcome the problem of ignorance, or long-standing inefficient habits. Many people -- in my humble opinion -- fail to realize how much they gain from public goods and over estimate how much they gain from private consumption. But the paraticipatory planning system -- unlike the market system that is biased against public good provision and therefore is the source of the habitual bias people have developed -- does not provide people a clear incentive to misrepresent their desires for public goods and attempt to "ride for free" on others' purchases of public goods they cannot be excluded from benefiting from. People get effort ratings from their peers at work that entitle them to consumption rights -- which they can save or get advancements on (borrow). In other words, if you work with a group of workaholics--say, in a "movement job"--you'd get rated poorly if you weren't equally nuts. And if some folks at your job get into a personal quarrel, they can try to screw each other at the peer review. The quality of your work, your impact on your community, none of this matters except as it's perceived by your peers? This is a system worth fighting for? This sounds more like the system we have for tenured faculty--not exactly a model I'd want to use for socialism. I resort to the Shaw defense of democracy: "Democracy is the absolutely worst form of government... Except for all others." (Apologies to George for the bad quote from memory.) "Peer workmate evaluation of effort is absolutely the worst way to evaluate effort Except for all others." You're right. Lots can go wrong with peer review. But lots goes wrong with bosses review! If people should enjoy economic benefits according to how much they endured economic sacrifice -- which is the assumption behind participatory economics -- then we have the problem of assessing effort or sacrifice. Who better to do this than one's workmates. Which is not to say that there are not better and worse systems for going about this. Collect what kind of information? Collect opinions from whom? How? Self-evaluations? Appeals? Grievance procedures? Rotation of effort rating committee members? These -- and many others -- are all issues that individual workers councils will have to solve as best they can to their own satisfaction. One thing workers will check out when choosing where to apply to work will be the effort rating philosophy and system used in different work places. Does it fit my beliefs and tastes? Will the outcomes be imperfect under the best of circumstances? Yes. Will it matter a whole hell of a lot? Not really since we're talking about differences in consumption rights of maybe one to two at most -- nothing like the one to two million in capitalist economies, or the one to two hundred that would occur in market socialist economies without arbitrary limits on the marginal revenue product wage rates that would result from free labor markets. And if you don't like the way your peers evaluate you, that is good reason to go work in a different collective which is your right in a participatory economy. On the oft cited negative example of faculty tenure committees: To paraphrase Shaw again: "Tenure committees are absolutely the worst form of human interaction With no exception." I know that from 15 years of personal experience and am tired of getting beaten over the head with it in discussions of participatory economies where
Re: utopias
Louis Proyect wrote: Robin Hahnel: Or, you put your faith in what a Swedish union official once answered a British trade unionist demanding to know how Swedish unions came to an agreement on a particular issue: "We have a meeting." This was not intended as a criticism of Swedish unionists. As a matter of fact the whole joke was based on an appreciation of the superior ability of some -- such as Swedish unionists -- to engage in successful democratic decision making. Just out of curiousity, Robin, what experience do you and Mike Albert have in democratic decision-making institutions? For all your rhetoric about democracy, I am really not aware that you have ever had any experience with building grass-roots organizations that respect the ranks. Have you ever been elected to anything? For all of your bad-mouthing of Lenin, he had impressive credentials as an elected leader of Russian Social Democracy. The one institution that you two guys seem to have a history around is Z Magazine, which is--to be blunt about it--as much your property as "In These Times" is Jimmie Weinstein's. I am prompted to make this observation by my own personal experience with the mag. You invited me to submit a review of pop music to Z some months ago, which I took some trouble to do. I sent it off to Lydia Sargent and Mike Albert and never even got an acknowledgement that you received it let alone a note that it wasn't suitable. At least when the Swedish bureaucrats "have a meeting", they take the trouble to report back the results. They are one step ahead of you. You guys are writing a constitution for societies based on participatory economics in the future, but can't even reply to an email submission in the here and now. I love it. By the way, your arts section stinks. How do you allow Lydia Sargent to write the same column over and over again for five years straight? Oh, I know. She probably pays good money for this privilege. It was dumb of me to have bothered to submit the fucking review, now that I stop and think about it. I will post it here and on the Spoons Lists tomorrow, where it really belongs, not in a vanity left-wing magazine based on somebody's trust fund income. Louis Proyect As for the rest. Louis, I don't know you. I've never met you. I have never worked on Z magazine or had anything to do with running Z magazine. I certainly did not invite you to submit a review of pop music to Z magazine, so I assume you mean that Mike or Lydia did. I have no intentions of offering a defense of their management of Z magazine to you -- or anyone else for that matter. My only response to your ill-informed personal attack on me is: Fuck you.
Re: utopias
Robin Hahnel: Or, you put your faith in what a Swedish union official once answered a British trade unionist demanding to know how Swedish unions came to an agreement on a particular issue: "We have a meeting." Just out of curiousity, Robin, what experience do you and Mike Albert have in democratic decision-making institutions? For all your rhetoric about democracy, I am really not aware that you have ever had any experience with building grass-roots organizations that respect the ranks. Have you ever been elected to anything? For all of your bad-mouthing of Lenin, he had impressive credentials as an elected leader of Russian Social Democracy. The one institution that you two guys seem to have a history around is Z Magazine, which is--to be blunt about it--as much your property as "In These Times" is Jimmie Weinstein's. I am prompted to make this observation by my own personal experience with the mag. You invited me to submit a review of pop music to Z some months ago, which I took some trouble to do. I sent it off to Lydia Sargent and Mike Albert and never even got an acknowledgement that you received it let alone a note that it wasn't suitable. At least when the Swedish bureaucrats "have a meeting", they take the trouble to report back the results. They are one step ahead of you. You guys are writing a constitution for societies based on participatory economics in the future, but can't even reply to an email submission in the here and now. I love it. By the way, your arts section stinks. How do you allow Lydia Sargent to write the same column over and over again for five years straight? Oh, I know. She probably pays good money for this privilege. It was dumb of me to have bothered to submit the fucking review, now that I stop and think about it. I will post it here and on the Spoons Lists tomorrow, where it really belongs, not in a vanity left-wing magazine based on somebody's trust fund income. Louis Proyect Oumou Sangare performed to a sold-out house at NYC's Symphony Space on Sunday, November 16. One of Mali's most prestigious pop artists, she is among a growing number of Africans who tackle political and social problems through their music. Her lyrics challenge gender oppression in an extremely traditional Islamic society even though she is an observant Muslim herself. Her band performs in the Wassoulou style of Mali, but incorporates the sort of international influences that have been shaping African popular music for the past half-century. Guitar and bass players lay down a steady pattern of Santana-like riffs, yet adhere to a local five-note scale with a distinctively Arabic feeling. Mali's musical traditions, as well as her Islamic faith, were imports of successive waves of northern conquerors over the ages. The other string player is a master of the kamalengoni, a six-string traditional "hunter's harp" with a dry and percussive sound that defines the Wassoulou sound. It is a much of a signature for this style of music as the accordion is for Cajun music, or the castanets are for flamenco. A conga player keeps up a steady Latin beat (Afro-Cuban music has been a strong influence on African music since the 1950s) while two female backup singers help to keep rhythm with calabashes. A flute player rounds out the ensemble. What ties all these disparate elements together is Sangare herself, who is in constant motion on the stage, shaking a calabash, or dancing, or signaling to her musicians to take a solo. The 29 year old singer has been performing on-stage since the age of six and exudes supreme self-confidence. Her first professional gig was with the prestigious National Ensemble of Mali, a training ground for many of Mali's greatest artists. Shortly afterward in 1986 she decided to start her own band as a vehicle for the Wassoulou style. The Wassoulou region in the south of Mali suffered from a globalization-related economic crisis in the 1980s. People began to express their discontent through music. Malian music, like much of the music of Islamic West Africa, had devoted itself in the past largely to obsequious praise of traditional elders and religious figures, not unlike court music in feudal Western Europe. Wassoulou artists rejected this tradition entirely and regional elders regarded them as subversive upstarts. Sangare's latest CD "Worotan" appeared this year on the Nonesuch label. A worotan is the bride-price of 10 kola nuts given by a groom's parents to parents of the bride. The irony-laden song challenges the traditional submissive role of the wife in Malian society: "Young brides, be careful when you first go to your husband's house For everywhere there are traps to test you Dear young wives, once you are living with your husband's family Do not touch the money that you see under the mattress when you are doing housework It's there to test you My Dear Little Sister, once you are living with your husband Do not touch the milk at the back of the village
Re: utopias
Nevertheless, of greater interest to me is the contention that there will be "No private property at all", which I claim is quite literally impossible and therefore it is a question of how you limit (or just plain "deal with") private property that should be addressed. At this late date, I'd like to respond to Bill Lear's challenge to my contention that there is no private property in a participatory economy. For example, suppose we recognize that a person has a right to the exclusive use of a toothbrush --- that nobody has the right to walk along and snatch the toothbrush or to use it without permission. We have just created property. So, if I bake an apple pie and give it to Doug to munch on, we might reasonably agree that Anders has no right to snatch it up and give it to Tom and Robin. If we agree on this, then we agree that property will arise, quite "naturally", in any form of human society we can imagine. If property indeed, as Wray claims, "destroys the collective security" of society, then we should be aware of the ways in which it arises, and we should be prepared to deal with it, if only to say, "Yeah that will happen, but it won't be a problem because ...". As consumers people will ask for, and receive goods and services for their individual consumption -- like tooth brushes -- in a participatory economy. That kind of "private property" will exist. People will also ask for collective consumption goods and services like play grounds, state parks, national parks, city libraries, national libraries, etc. I don't know what "property" label you want to put on them. As producers workers councils will ask for, and receive productive resources and inputs they need for their production plan. They will be granted temporary user rights over any land, machines, or intermediate good inputs that are part of their approved production plan. They don't receive any income rights that in some economies accompany the user rights that go along with land and machines. And I would say that they do not "own" this kind of "productive property" in any meaningful sense. So my statement that there is no private property was in the traditional political economy sense of "no private ownership of productive property." Admittedly we could start with toothbrushes and work up to cars, houses, and the 10 acre piece of land the house you live in sits on. This does become more complicated. To be brief, what we have tentatively proposed is something like leasing with right of renewal until death -- in the case of a house or appartment. As for inheritance, we propose passing on personal belongings to children and loved ones without tax up to some limit to prevent inheritance of any substantial value that would create unequal economic opportunities among those in the younger generation. As for a house that children may have lived in all their lives, we would extend to children the renewal right on the leasing arrangement. [The lease payment would be equal to the mariginal social cost of providing the size and quality of living unit that is involved.]
Re: utopias
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks. . . . This sounded no different than the routine operation of local government. What is new and improved in the decision-making process, aside from the likely non-existence of special interests stemming from capital ownership and the absence of commercial inducements to private consumption? Wouldn't there still be special interests stemming from other factors (e.g., my block versus yours) even with no private ownership of capital? By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are financing everything via head taxes? Cheers, MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: utopias
My only response to your ill-informed personal attack on me is: Fuck you. Stronger letter to follow.
Re: utopias
maxsaw wrote: From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] My neighborhood consumption council will request neighborhood public goods like side walks and play ground equipment for local parks... This sounded no different than the routine operation of local government. What is new and improved in the decision-making process, aside from the likely non-existence of special interests stemming from capital ownership and the absence of commercial inducements to private consumption? Wouldn't there still be special interests stemming from other factors (e.g., my block versus yours) even with no private ownership of capital? By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are financing everything via head taxes? An important first step is that income is distributed equitably in the first place -- which we believe it is in a participatory economy. If there is disagreement over that, we need to go back and discuss that first. An importatn second step is that we are only talking about different levels of collective consumption, not welfare programs that are also a different matter, handled differently. So, everyone has their fair income and the only remaining issue is how people distribute their consumption right between individual consumption and different levels of collective consumption -- like side walks for their neighborhood and libraries for their city. We don't want the system to bias how people express their true preferences in this regard -- as market systems do by giving people an incentive to ride for free on others collective consumption, which is why local, state, and national governments have to come in and substitute some other decision making system for the free market one. If there are 1000 residents in both our neighborhoods and my neighborhood asks for $2000 worth of new side walks but yours only asks for $1000 worth of new side walks, you will be charged for $1 worth of side walks and I will be charged for $2 worth. If we both live in the same city of 1 million and our city consumption federation asks, among other things for a $3 million dollar new library, we each will be charged for $3 worth of library consumption. You and I will also ask for different individual consumption items that each have their social cost. Your equitable income -- determined by your effort or sacrifice in work as decided by your workmates -- has to cover your total consumption request, that is, your individual consumption requests and your proportionate share of all the collective consumption the different federations you are a member of ask for. Our claim is that this system avoids any free rider problems for public goods. In a sense it is nothing radically different from how government is supposed to work -- in theory, and if incomes were equitable in the first place. Except people consider, submit, and revise their requests for individual consumption and different levels of collective consumption at the same time and in the same way in participatory planning. That is, the planning procedure treats individual and collective consumption on the same, equal footing. There is no sense that a government comes and takes away some of my income to do who knows what with, thereby depriving me of my ability to consume what I want. I think this explains why there is no "my block versus your block" problem. Different neighborhoods will presumably ask for different kinds and different amounts of local public goods -- according to their different preferences. Their residents will be charged for different amounts. Of course there is no guarantee that you will agree with your neighbors about kind and quantity of public versus individual consumption -- anymore than there is any guarantee that you will agree with your workmates on how to run your workplace. But you have as much say and voice as any of them. And presumably people who find themselves outvoted consistently in their neighborood visa vis public good requests will move to more neighborhoods they find more compatible just as workers who get outvoted in their worker councils have an incentive to find more like minded workmates. Finally, I think the absence of "special interests stemming from capital ownership" and absence of "commercial inducements to private consumption" will be a big help too. As a footnote: There are some interesting theoretical tax schemes -- "demand revealing" and "pivot mechanisms" -- that make adjustments to proportional charges for public goods in ways that might be considered more fair, or ways that might enhance the incentive for people to develop a greater variety of preferences for public goods, that do NOT trigger the free rider incentive and attendant inefficiencies. I think a participatory economy is a much more friendly and likely insitutional setting for different localities and states to play around with these variations than market systems.
Re: utopias
At 02:51 PM 1/1/98 -0500, Robin wrote: So, when I am voting, or instructing my representatives to vote, or voting for representatives who will vote for me regarding public good requests I have no incentive to over request -- since I will be charged my proportionate share of the cost of all such requests (against my work-effort determined total consumption allowance) -- and no incentive to under request since as long as my share of the cost is less than what I feel I will benefit I should want more public goods. In brief, nobody can gain from misrepresenting their true preferences for public gods and each person would only stand to lose by any kind of misrepresentation. That would take care of some problems, but what about: 1) people who don't have kids who won't support increasing the education budget for elementary schools? 2) people who vote against increasing spending on extending public utilities needed to support a growing population (since their needs are already being taken care of)? These are very common free rider problems that local communities have today when they practice some form of democracy. Again, this isn't an argument against participatory economics. I just don't see how it's going to get rid of the free rider problem. It seems to me you'd need other additional institutions/mechanisms to alleviate it. People get effort ratings from their peers at work that entitle them to consumption rights -- which they can save or get advancements on (borrow). [ snip, cut, paste] Will it [the system for evaluating work performance for consumption rights] matter a whole hell of a lot? Not really since we're talking about differences in consumption rights of maybe one to two at most -- nothing like the one to two million in capitalist economies, or the one to two hundred that would occur in market socialist economies without arbitrary limits on the marginal revenue product wage rates that would result from free labor markets. Could you say a little more about this? First off, could you give a better sense of what you mean by one or two? Are we talking about another pair of movie tickets? A week's vacation? A bound edition of Talcott Parson's greatest sayings? Second, if your evaluation influences your consumption rights by very little, is it really going to influence behavior very much? And if it doesn't influence behavior by very much, doesn't that undermine the premise your evaluation system started with (i.e., that "people should enjoy economic benefits according to how much they endured economic sacrifice")? [responding to my concerns about the potential evils of peer review:] You're right. Lots can go wrong with peer review. But lots goes wrong with bosses review! If people should enjoy economic benefits according to how much they endured economic sacrifice -- which is the assumption behind participatory economics -- then we have the problem of assessing effort or sacrifice. Who better to do this than one's workmates. Which is not to say that there are not better and worse systems for going about this. Collect what kind of information? Collect opinions from whom? How? Self-evaluations? Appeals? Grievance procedures? Rotation of effort rating committee members? These -- and many others -- are all issues that individual workers councils will have to solve as best they can to their own satisfaction. [snip] On the oft cited negative example of faculty tenure committees: To paraphrase Shaw again: "Tenure committees are absolutely the worst form of human interaction With no exception." I know that from 15 years of personal experience and am tired of getting beaten over the head with it in discussions of participatory economies where it is of absolutely no relevance whatsoever! How is this example different from: Respected elites tortured people during the Spanish Inquisition? Yeah. People have done shitty things to other people. So... Actually, it's very similar to the Spanish Inquisition, the difference being that if you confessed, the Inquisition stopped, whereas faculty meetings never end. :) Faculty are fun to pick on, but they aren't that different from those of doctors, lawyers, programmers, etc. As the Sociology of Professions literature has shown ad nauseum, when folks gain considerable power to regulate themselves, they tend to abuse it. Rather than having workers evaluate themselves, why not have evaluations something that's done on multiple levels, with the evaluation of one's work-mates only one small part of it? For ex, suppose you had a series of health clinics whose workers were being evaluated. At the start of the year, the regional community collective had decided that their priorities for health had changed and that the focus of attention was going to shift into preventative and public health (sanitation, toxic emissions reductions, etc), with health clinics playing a less central role than they had in the past. Suppose that most of the folks in
Re: utopias
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote: That [participatory plannings way of handling collective consumption] would take care of some problems, but what about: 1) people who don't have kids who won't support increasing the education budget for elementary schools? 2) people who vote against increasing spending on extending public utilities needed to support a growing population (since their needs are already being taken care of)? You're right here. People in a neighborhood, or a ward, or a city, or a state, or a nation will NOT always agree on what public goods they want. Sometimes this is due to disagreements on facts: I think pollution reduction will have a much more beneficial effect on people's health than many do. Others think that military spending makes them more secure than I do -- to put it mildly! So because we disagree on the facts we have differences over how much pollution reduction and national "defense" to ask for in OUR public good package. Sometimes disagreements are over values. Even if we agreed on the facts about the health and security consequences of pollution reduction and military spending I might value health more and others might value military security more. And these differences might be just differences, or due to rather obvious differences in the situations of different people such as me being asthmatic and someone else living close to a border where contra like thugs cross to rape and pillage. Childless and nine children families, and those serviced by existing infrastructure as opposed to those needing entirely new infrastructure are examples of the last kind of reason people in a community will differ over what package of public goods they want. Incidently, in my community right now the up county (wealthy) residents with new infrastructure won't vote for infrastructure repairs needed by us (low income) down county dwellers. The bastards! I have no magical solution to any of these kinds of differences and disagreements -- based on differences of opinion, value, or situation. [Except my up county "neighbors" will no longer be wealthier than I am!] Every community will have to hammer these things out as democratically, equitably, and hopefully with as much solidarity as they can manage. But these differences are not what is usually meant by people worried about the free rider problem in provision of public goods. They mean if we leave it to the market for people to buy as much pollution reduction or military defense as they want to, few if any will buy any at all since each enjoys such a tiny fraction of the benefit and all have an incentive to ride for free on the purchases of others. Hence the market bias against public good provision versus private good provision. These are very common free rider problems that local communities have today when they practice some form of democracy. Again, this isn't an argument against participatory economics. I just don't see how it's going to get rid of the free rider problem. It seems to me you'd need other additional institutions/mechanisms to alleviate it. See above. People get effort ratings from their peers at work that entitle them to consumption rights -- which they can save or get advancements on (borrow). Will it [the system for evaluating work performance for consumption rights] matter a whole hell of a lot? Not really since we're talking about differences in consumption rights of maybe one to two at most - nothing like the one to two million in capitalist economies, or the one to two hundred that would occur in market socialist economies without arbitrary limits on the marginal revenue product wage rates that would result from free labor markets. Could you say a little more about this? First off, could you give a better sense of what you mean by one or two? Are we talking about another pair of movie tickets? A week's vacation? A bound edition of Talcott Parson's greatest sayings? Sorry. I meant ratios of the lowest person's income to the highest person's income of one to two for a participatory economyu, versus one to 2 million in capitalism, or one to two hundred in market socialist systems. Second, if your evaluation influences your consumption rights by very little, is it really going to influence behavior very much? And if it doesn't influence behavior by very much, doesn't that undermine the premise your evaluation system started with (i.e., that "people should enjoy economic benefits according to how much they endured economic sacrifice")? I was simply guessing how much difference there would ever be between the efforts, or sacrifices made by two people working full time at jobs that are already balanced to share tasks that are particularly dangerous or pleasant. I thought it was hard to imagine differences greater than a ratio of one to two. [responding to my concerns about the potential evils of peer review:] You're right. Lots can go wrong with peer review. But lots goes
Re: utopias
From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] By 'proportional share,' do you mean we are financing everything via head taxes? An important first step is that income is distributed equitably in the first place -- which we believe it is in a participatory economy. . . . If incomes are judged 'fair' but still differ, do you still want head taxes? I grant that less dispersion in incomes makes head taxes less objectionable, and zero dispersion makes them kosher, so how much does a regressive tax framework flout your system? On the free-rider issue, it sounds like your scheme presumes that public goods are optimally assigned to types or levels of government. Naturally the assignment itself is the object of political controversy. With imperfect assignment, you could still have free-rider problems. For instance, local jurisdictions understate their preference for super-highways. Or West Virginia declares that it is in charge of environmental policy within its confines, so forget about taxing coal. That's somewhat arcane and maybe not too important. What I was more focused on the typical play of interests, log-rolling, and political strategizing in any decision-making process, income or property ownership aside, which would still be present in your setting. Moreover, while tax shares might be equal, benefit shares would not. The nature of the public provision, such as whether the new swimming pool is two blocks from my house or from yours, could still lead to free-rider difficulties. Finally, your 'vote-with-feet' option is not much of a departure from present circumstances either. . . . Finally, I think the absence of "special interests stemming from capital ownership" and absence of "commercial inducements to private consumption" will be a big help too. Me too. As a footnote: There are some interesting theoretical tax schemes -- "demand revealing" and "pivot mechanisms" -- that make adjustments to proportional charges for public goods in ways that might be considered more fair, or ways that might enhance the incentive for people to develop a greater variety of preferences for public goods, that do NOT trigger the free rider incentive and attendant inefficiencies. I think a participatory economy is a much more friendly and likely insitutional setting for different localities and states to play around with these variations than market systems. Probably so. If we went that far, why not a little further? Re: Clarke taxes, my understanding is the Mr. Clarke's dissertation proposing such a thing was rejected by his committee. He had to slink away to some other university to get his degree. I don't mean to nitpick. I do intend to read Looking Forward. See you in Chicago. MBS == Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite 1200 202-775-8810 (voice) 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 Opinions here do not necessarily represent the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
Re: utopias
More belated response to Markland and Gulick on utopian vision: I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of Bakunin-type aspirations as well as the example given by Spain. I think this is fine as far as it goes. But there is a lot of ambiguity in the phrases "basic needs and interests" and "joining in federations to take advantage of economies of scale." As a precautionary note, I should say that when I envision a worthwhile society, I generally think in terms of free people forming voluntary associations (though that is perhaps a muddy phrase). Thus, I tend to think of: in what manner(s) will people feel like organizing in? Further, then, while the Parecon model is exciting (in short, I'm all for it), it seems to me to be an "end goal" that might not turn out to be the case, simply because certain problems that it solves may not arise (at least, perhaps, not ALL those problems in ALL communities). I hope you get my drift. So when I said that communities would control their basic needs while joining federations if need be, I meant that, for some activities- political, economic, cultural, etc.- there may not be widespread desire to participate in intercommunity efforts. So, any economy in such a free society would have to be "good" enough to gain participation. Thus, exploitative relations would not exist, as no one would stand for it. However, in rural agricultural areas, "Smithian" markets for basic foods may well be deamed adequate. If not, the acts of voting feet would serve to transform that economy. Markets existed in agricultural areas of revolutionary Spain, and while I recognize the perils (and inefficiencies) of markets, considerations of local culture and perhaps a desired rural isolation might win out over concerns of efficiency (which would pull for integration into broader syndicates or councils). Of course, participation in wider syndicates could co-exist with local economies, giving communities the "foreign exchange" necessary to augment the local economy- TV's and stereos, for instance. Am I making sense here? The point is that folks could live basically like the Amish- exchanging basic needs on whatever basis they like- while devoting some of their time to working in the local rope factory to qualify for consumption of exotic goods. Of course, if this backward life seems ridiculous to later, "modern", generations, they may choose to break from the community norms and pull more of their local economy into the broader syndicates- "rationalizing" small farms, for instance, in order to gain more efficiency and increase productivity to earn more manufactured clothes, microwaves and furniture from the "outside world"- in contrast to their parents, who saw no value in such pursuits. Where does "basic need" leave off and something beyond "basic need" that, for want of a better word we can call "luxury" begin? I meant "basic needs" of the community- which may not be just economic. The point is that communities will, I should think, deem some values to be more important than the benefits of syndicalization- or Parecon, for that matter. There would be trade-offs, of course. And why should local production and distribution be associated with basic need rather than luxury in any case? I didn't mean to proscribe that outcome. If folks deem that arrangement to be most beneficial, I'm sure they'd do it. How do the communities, joined in a federation, settle on who will produce what and on what sort of terms goods are exchanged between communities? I will be curious to know this, too. I think that is one of the tasks of a revolution- to figure these things out. If all else fails, i would suggest a Parecon system- it solves the problems of people not wanting to work harder than other people for no material gain; of people not wanting less empowering jobs; of widespread refusal to do purely volunteer labour- all these problems are handled in the most democratic fashion in Parecon. However, to quote John Cougar Mellencamp, "who's to say the way a man should spend his day?". As for me, in an anarcho-syndicalist society, I would still love to be a peon go-boy for Elle Macpherson if I got to place the sand on her bum for those beach photos. And I'd still carry Sonny Rollins' sax in order to be his drummer. In our view, the problem of coordinating a division of labor just won't go away. Either you use markets, central planning, or some other kind of planning like participatory planning. Or else you are stuck with autonomy -- not semi-autonomy which the "join in federations" is a prayer for. So, if I'm "praying" for "semi-autonomy" in order to avoid being "stuck with autonomy", just what does that make a Parecon system- the total lack of being "stuck with autonomy"? Do you equate Parecon
Re: utopias (II)
James Devine wrote: 1) on "private" property's abolition: I think that the point of socialism is to replace "private" property with _responsibility_. "Private" property isn't really private: owning it gives one the right to impose a lot of costs on other people and on nature, power without proportional responsibility; owning enough of it gives one the ability to appropriate surplus-value. With socialism, the point is to get responsibility in line with power. Responsibility would be to the democratic assemblage of all of society or to society's delegates. Responsibility -- unlike property -- is temporary (and one can't pass it down to one's children). The responsibility held by society's delegates is similarly temporary. I couldn't agree more with this. The issue is decision making authority rather than ownership which is a red herring. 2) on the free-rider problem: as far as I can tell, there are only three ways to deal with the free-rider problem. One is state enforcement, familiar from econ. textbooks. Another is tradition, custom, combined with a less-than-individualistic attitude on the part of people, a sense of social responsibility. The third, usually or always ignored in textbooks, is also combined with people having a sense of social responsibility: grass-roots (extrastatal) democracy. Socialism would emphasize the last, though it's going to be hard to get rid of the first. Custom seems on its way out (slowly) as capitalism abhors tradition. It is true that the spread of markes obliterates traditional solutions -- which is one thing wrong with markets. But there are "modern" solutions to free rider problems. As a matter of fact, the feature of participatory planning that has federations of consumers "bidding" at the same time and under the same conditions for public goods as individuals "bid" for private goods eliminates the free rider problem for public good provision. Solving free rider problems in private property market contexts IS difficult. Solving the problem in other contexts is not necessarily such an insuperable obstacle. 3) I don't think we can leave important issues of socialism to criminologists and legal theorists. The lines between social-science disciplines are largely artificial. Doesn't anyone know and good radical criminologists. We have a group of lawyers -- gasp -- in the AU law school who are radical law theorists. They have a code word for themselves, like we have "political economist" which I can't remember. Jamin Raskin, Mark Hagar, et. al. I just wanted to defer to these guys who are so much more familiar with the criminal mind than I.
Re: utopias (II)
. . . Doesn't anyone know and good radical criminologists. We have a group of lawyers -- gasp -- in the AU law school who are radical law theorists. . . . I know a good liberal one, and he happens to be at AU. He's Jim Lynch, in the Soc dept. I think you'd like what he does. Cheers, MBS === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer. ===
utopias (II)
I couldn't find the following on either of the csf.colorado.edu archives,
so I'm posting it again (with some minor changes). I hope it doesn't stuff
people's mailboxes unnecessarily.
The archive at csf.colorado.edu (where I read pen-l) has been down since
Monday and is still misbehaving, so I've probably missed a lot of the
discussion of utopias (or misunderstood it -- since the missives are not in
order). But here are three comments. I hope that this does not involve
repetition.
1) on "private" property's abolition: I think that the point of socialism
is to replace "private" property with _responsibility_. "Private" property
isn't really private: owning it gives one the right to impose a lot of
costs on other people and on nature, power without proportional
responsibility; owning enough of it gives one the ability to appropriate
surplus-value. With socialism, the point is to get responsibility in line
with power. Responsibility would be to the democratic assemblage of all of
society or to society's delegates. Responsibility -- unlike property -- is
temporary (and one can't pass it down to one's children). The
responsibility held by society's delegates is -- or should be -- similarly
temporary.
2) on the free-rider problem: as far as I can tell, there are only three
ways to deal with the free-rider problem. One is state enforcement or
top-down control ("command"), familiar from econ. textbooks. Another is
tradition or custom, combined with a less-than-totally-individualistic
attitude on the part of people, i.e., a sense of social responsibility. The
third, usually or always ignored in textbooks for obvious reasons, is also
combined with people having a sense of social responsibility: grass-roots
(extrastatal) democracy. Socialism would emphasize the last, though it's
going to be hard to get rid of the first. Custom seems on its way out
(slowly) as capitalism abhors tradition.
3) I don't think we can leave important issues of socialism to
criminologists and legal theorists. The lines between social-science
disciplines are largely artificial. We may have to consult such
specialists, but we have to face the fact that their issues are our issues
and we should feel free to speculate about these problems.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let
people talk.)
-- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
Re: utopias
Date sent: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 12:37:26 -0500 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Robin Hahnel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Re: utopias Hahnel writes: One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. Laws? Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a desirable system of law enforcement. No private property at all. Not really any money either. People get effort ratings from their peers at work that entitle them to consumption rights -- which they can save or get advancements on (borrow). No money, no private property!? Is this "war-communism" revisited?
Re: utopias
Bill Lear wrote,
Although Anders, Doug, and Tom all object to Robin's passing on the
question of laws and enforcement, I sympathize somewhat with Robin's
position. To the extent that any of this can be planned in advance,
there is, or should be, a certain freedom to see things in separate
compartments, to make assumptions that problems of law are somewhat
separate from economic problems . . .
I have to confess that I can also sympathize somewhat, although it can still
be useful to overstate the contrasts in opinions. Right now I'm researching
a case in which the "separation" of law and economics is central. The case
concerns a possible constitutional challenge of recent "employment
insurance" reforms in Canada. There is no protection under law against
discrimination as a result of belonging to a particular economic class ("The
law in its majesty forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges"). The
courts are also loath to interfere at all with governments' prerogative on
matters of "policy". By the same token, economists assessing the likely
consequences of various policy options don't consider whether those policies
might also have legal consequences (why should they, given the legal
nonexistence of class?).
However, there remains a possibility of demonstrating defacto discrimination
against groups that are entitled under the Charter to legal protection:
women, aboriginals, visible minorities, people with disabilities. There also
remains a possibility of establishing that the government's actions are not
a matter of "policy" but concern actuarial principles and thus may be
subject to review by the courts. So, it may be possible in this case to
build a demographic-actuarial bridge over the gap between the economics and
the law. What the economists tell us and what the lawyers tell us will be
very useful in building that bridge, but the strategy is extra-disciplinary
(not multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary).
Finally, yes Tom, I do think "the transition problem" needs to be
addressed too, but I do think that feedback here again operates (I
refuse to use the word "dialectics", which I think might also work here
--- so shoot me) in a way that makes the transition problem easier to
see if you know towards what you are transitioning.
Again, I may be overstating the contrasts to make a point. I see the
question of popular mobilization as absolutely preeminent. So my focus is
not on what precisely things should be like in the future but on how can we
get moving in the right general direction, now.
It's a bit like saying that if you're in New Jersey and you want to visit a
friend who lives in Fresno, gazing at the Fresno city street map is not
going to give you the direction you need. This is not to say that at some
point in the future discussions of "the logistics of workers' self
management" (or whatever) won't become strategic nor to argue that such
questions should be entirely ignored until they become strategic. It's even
possible that discussing such issues now might help them become strategic or
that ignoring them entirely might lead to a dead end (bang, bang -- there, I
shot you ;-)).
Regards,
Tom Walker
^^^
knoW Ware Communications
Vancouver, B.C., CANADA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(604) 688-8296
^^^
The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Utopias + localism
At 01:53 PM 12/2/97 +, John wrote (replying to David): I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of Bakunin-type aspirations as well as the example given by Spain. O.K., suppose that I buy the argument that the way to go is for "communities" to self-provision clothes, shelter, food, according to local ecological conditions and customs, and to engage in voluntary exchange w/other "communities" for more sophisticated goods and rare items (this opens up a huge can of worms which I won't get into). What are the territorial/functional boundaries of the "community" in the first place, given that today in advanced capitalist countries most "communities" neither produce most of what they consume nor consume most of what they produce (with the exception of personal services) ? Is the whole Bay Area (where I live) a community ? The city of San Francisco ? My neighborhood ? Most people don't even work in the neighborhood where they live (to the extent that neighborhoods, as opposed to "planned developments" demarcated by planning technocrats, landowners, and real estate developers). For that matter, assuming you can define "local," what's so great about starting locally? Obviously, any truly participatory system will have lots of local participation. But there are so many issues that require making decisions at a larger level--technological advancement, dealing with global ecological issues, funding universities, etc.--because either they require lots and lots of people/other resources to make them happen. In many areas, economies of scale are so crucial to guaranteeing basic needs (esp. given climate changes and natural/man-made disasters) that treating federations as a side-thing, something that's an adjunct to local control, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And then there are countless examples of how local control can stomp on minorities or dump a community's crap on its neighbors if it isn't strongly counterbalanced by larger entities. So, what's so great about starting locally, as opposed to starting locally _and_ regionally _and_ nationally _and_ internationally? Anders Schneiderman
Re: Utopias + localism
Wrote Anders: And then there are countless examples of how local control can stomp on minorities or dump a community's crap on its neighbors if it isn't strongly counterbalanced by larger entities. So, what's so great about starting locally, as opposed to starting locally _and_ regionally _and_ nationally _and_ internationally? Right. It can also become a sink hole for ALL political energies, at the expense of engaging "larger" issues. The government here passed a law in 1994 calld the Law of Popular Paricipation which in effect decentrailized social spending and created local governments for the first time thorughout the entire country. This is not insignificant when you consider that lots of such monies are flowing into indigenous/peasant communities, in turn producing varied, but interesting results in terms of local control and administration. Example: the Guarani of the eastern lowlands (Chaco) are talking serious turkey with Enron Corp. about compensation for running a gas pipeline to Brazil through their land. Their forthrightness and general smarts are in some measure a result of the lessons learned in managing affairs locally through the Law of Pop. Particip. YET, at the same time the same the government implementing the Law of Pop. Particip. it was also selling off national industries (parts of gas and oil, airlines, etc.) at fire sale prices. As one observer noted, the policy seems to be "los centavos para nosotros, los millones para ellos" -- "the cents for us, the millions for them". (Or: "structural adjustment with a social face".) Not to suggest that what is being discussed here is the kind of decentralized social spending alluded to. My point: in general political terms we're seeing that attention to the local comes at the expense (deliberately?) of addresing some big issues. Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5869 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: utopias
At 10:41 PM 12/1/97 -0800, you wrote: John Gulick: what about the partial correlation between the production of surplus (and I'm not talking about superfluous luxury goods here) and increasingly sophisticated and specialized technical and industrial divisions of labor ? What about it? I don't see a difficulty with divisions of labour in anarcho-syndicalist type economies. By "don't see a difficulty" what exactly do you mean ? That you don't have a philosophical problem with divisions of labor, as long as institutions of democratic planning and management allow for the reskilling of labor (i.e. re-attaching conception and execution), job rotation, etc. ? 2) Matters of political jurisdiction. What do we embrace as the fundamental organizational-territorial units of planning and management ? Neighborhoods and their hinterlands in a small-scale urban/rural balance ? Worker-governed industrial associations ? Phony nation-states ? All of the above w/gradually diminishing levels of direct democracy culminating in some sort of international assembly ? I would think that communities would control their basic needs and interests while joining in federations, both industrial and geographical, in order to take advantage of economies of scale. At least that seems to be the crux of Bakunin-type aspirations as well as the example given by Spain. O.K., suppose that I buy the argument that the way to go is for "communities" to self-provision clothes, shelter, food, according to local ecological conditions and customs, and to engage in voluntary exchange w/other "communities" for more sophisticated goods and rare items (this opens up a huge can of worms which I won't get into). What are the territorial/functional boundaries of the "community" in the first place, given that today in advanced capitalist countries most "communities" neither produce most of what they consume nor consume most of what they produce (with the exception of personal services) ? Is the whole Bay Area (where I live) a community ? The city of San Francisco ? My neighborhood ? Most people don't even work in the neighborhood where they live (to the extent that neighborhoods, as opposed to "planned developments" demarcated by planning technocrats, landowners, and real estate developers). 3) Being more or less ecological Marxist in my outlook, a so-called libertarian socialism shouldn't err too far in the direction of "workerism." What about non-production related issues and the political identities they imply, e.g., land and resource use, neighborhood environmental quality, etc. ? I.e. anarcho-communism as the supercession of anrcho-syndicalism. I've always understood that the term anarcho-communism is chiefly used for agrarian economies (as Kropotkin envisioned for much of Russia), while a-syndicalism generally refers to a more industrialized system. Neither, it seems to me, imply more or less local conrol, such that a-communism could never "supercede" a-syndicalism unless an area deindustrialized. By "supercede" I meant that a libertarian socialism would have to focus not just on issues revolving around the the production and distribution of surplus, but on the human-nature metabolism, links between production and collective consumption, and so on. (Sorry to have confused you -- I don't know much about the etymology of the terms). In many ways it boils down to even more fundamental matters of what constitutes a household and what the relation is between households and work. E.g. In advanced bourgeois society workers might work in a factory that spews pollutants on the local populace, but don't know or at least care about it because they don't live where they work. A libertarian socialist society would have to guard against this by means of one or many options -- a) because more-or-less self-sufficient communities are small-scale, production and reproduction issues are conjoined, b) workers in anarcho-syndicalist workshops are ethically self-motivated to take into account the environmental ramifications of their production processes, c) one's home is geographically and functionally connected to one's work site (this begs the question of what about other household members -- friends, children, lover, spouse, partner, whatever the set-up is), d) there is _neighborhood_ representation in production planning and management decisions. Anyway, enough for now. As for land and resource use, would you not agree that such an issue is NOT a "non-production-related issue"? It seems quite germaine to production to me. I suppose though that today it is considered "non-production-related". At any rate, this resource use issue will likely never be an easy one. However, i think the point as far as anarchism is concerned is that such a system would eliminate the obvious injustices of control of resources by a co-ordinator class or by the inefficient market mechanism. Inefficient, that is, because resources are valued according to criteria sharply at
Re: utopias
On Tuesday, December 2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, which could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), which would have to be eliminated altogether or done by machines, etc? Do you think a good first step would be to concentrate instead on which goods and services we would want to support, and derive the jobs from that? Can we even begin to ask/answer such questions with a realistic hope of a concrete agenda? Bill
Re: utopias
friends, but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, wqhich could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), whihc would have to be eliminatedaltogether or done by machines, etc? michael yates
Re: utopias
michael yates wrote, but i want to know which of our current jobs are good ones, wqhich could be mde into good ones (for our future good society), whihc would have to be eliminatedaltogether or done by machines, etc? I suspect that most of the people on this list have jobs (or work) that they like. There's usually one or two aspects to the job that make it considerably less than ideal. That "job satisfaction" is probably more generalizable than we'd like to believe. Certainly the polls, flawed as they are, usually reflect high levels of js. Most of the negative side has to do with exits and entrances -- perhaps even more so than pay. It can even be o.k. to do routine, low-payed work for a while as long as you're not "stuck for life" in the rut. I know at least one tenured professor who hates her job because she feels trapped. Where else could she make that much income or even any income at all? Machines cannot eliminate jobs. What they do is automate processes. People eliminate jobs. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: utopias
R. Anders Schneiderman wrote (responding to Robin Hahnel): One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. What about other free rider problems? And how exactly does it eliminate the FR problem for expressing desires for public goods? As anyone who's spent time slogging through endless planning meetings has probably seen firsthand, it's quite possible--easy, even--for people who are participating in the planning to want to have everything without making any compromises, or to participate in such a way that everyone else has to do all the real work involved in planning (such people are ususally referred to as "men"). I think participatory planning is a good thing, but I don't see how it gets rid of free riders. And what about the critique, as succinctly put by Nancy Folbre, that this model turns life into one long student council meeting. Some people like meetings, and others sleep through them. Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a desirable system of law enforcement. Er, no. If you're proposing this as a serious alternative, you can't just say, "I'm just an economist and can't say anything about crime" and expect folks to take such a radical, sweeping proposal seriously. No kidding. It's reminiscent of Herb Gintis' claim that as an economist, he's just a technician - like a "plumber," not an architect, and therefore not responsible for what a house looks like. Isn't participatory planning supposed to overcome the compartmentalization of responsiblity that comes with a division of labor? Doug
Re: utopias
On Tue, December 2, 1997 at 12:37:26 (-0500) Robin Hahnel writes: One great thing about participatory planning is it eliminates the free rider problem for expressing desires for public goods. Laws? Enforcement? I'm an economist. Ask lawyers and criminologists about a desirable system of law enforcement. No private property at all. Not really any money either. People get effort ratings from their peers at work that entitle them to consumption rights -- which they can save or get advancements on (borrow). Although Anders, Doug, and Tom all object to Robin's passing on the question of laws and enforcement, I sympathize somewhat with Robin's position. To the extent that any of this can be planned in advance, there is, or should be, a certain freedom to see things in separate compartments, to make assumptions that problems of law are somewhat separate from economic problems (though of course, once we get past abstract design, so to speak, we've got to connect the two domains and start "fitting" them together --- I find this quite appealing, since this is sort of the way much of computer programming works). I don't find it particularly troubling that Robin feels that he has no real expertise (or, perhaps interest) in areas of law --- after all participatory planning is about overcoming the *necessity* of "the compartmentalization of responsibility that comes with a division of labor", but that doesn't mean that Robin can't say he could care less about issues of law or spot welding --- but I do find it somewhat curious. Nevertheless, of greater interest to me is the contention that there will be "No private property at all", which I claim is quite literally impossible and therefore it is a question of how you limit (or just plain "deal with") private property that should be addressed. Let's review what private property is --- at least my (probably naive) conception of it --- just to be sure we are on the same track. Contrary to what Locke believed, there is no "natural" a priori basis for property, since property is simply a right (to use/dispose of something exclusively) conferred by people, and is therefore socially contingent. This means that property is something which can arise with the mere act of human recognition, and we can, if we wish, recognize that those who create are thereby conferred ownership rights --- but this is a matter of social choice, not an ironclad law of nature. Property is something with innumerable scopes (individuals and groups may recognize property rights of other individuals and groups, under many different circumstances, with or without the support of a ruling state), often conflicting with other conceptions of property recognition. For example, suppose we recognize that a person has a right to the exclusive use of a toothbrush --- that nobody has the right to walk along and snatch the toothbrush or to use it without permission. We have just created property. The Post Keynesian Randy Wray writes that "The development of private property destroys the collective security of tribal or even command society and makes each member of society responsible for his own security." (L. Randall Wray, *Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies*, Edward Elgar, 1990, p. 6). I feel that though this is a bit of a muddy way to express the historical genesis of property and the destruction of collective society (outright physical and legal destruction of relatively cooperative forms was itself an important way in which private property was instituted, I believe), I do feel that the whole process of introducing threat into a society works via feedback --- that is, outright destruction of cooperative forms turns people to private property to protect themselves, this in turn forces others to do the same, ratcheting up the levels of fear and need for individual security found in property. Property acts as a poison to community. If this is so, then we should be concerned with the ways in which property can come to exist wholly outside the scope of conscious plan, and how its spread might work to insidiously undermine collective security. This, I think, echoes Marx somewhat, who writes so vividly in the *Grundrisse* that money (incidentally inseparable from property in my opinion) acts as "a highly energetic solvent" which "assists in the creation of the *plucked*, object-less *free workers*". So, if I bake an apple pie and give it to Doug to munch on, we might reasonably agree that Anders has no right to snatch it up and give it to Tom and Robin. If we agree on this, then we agree that property will arise, quite "naturally", in any form of human society we can imagine. If property indeed, as Wray claims, "destroys the collective security" of society, then we should be aware of the ways in which it arises, and we should be prepared to deal with it, if only to say, "Yeah that will happen, but it won't be a problem because ...". Finally, yes Tom, I do think "the transition problem" needs
Re: utopias
Perhaps I should have made the point explicit. Tom alluded to Gomper's oft cited speech in which he describes labor's aspirations as wanting "more." Rarely do those who use the reference actually provide the entire quote from which "more" is taken. I tried to dig it up, but could not. The quote I found came pretty close, however. The fact that I posted a paragraph from Gompers should not lead you to presume, if you have, that I therefore embrace a) the content of the quote, b) the record of the AFL, c) business unionism, or d) Gomper's philosophical views or record as the "father of business unionism" (just who was its mother?). I am delighted, however, that you were able to devine the gender/race implications of this paragraph without any elucidation on my part or even my failure to put "wisdom" in quotation marks so that everyone would know that I really did not hold it up as real wisdom (which I don't seek from Gompers but do look for in the erudite contributions of the sage contributors to PEN-L). In solidarity, Michael At 01:14 PM 12/2/97 +, john gulick wrote: At 08:11 PM 12/1/97 -0800, Michael Eisenscher wrote: I spent part of the day looking for the entirety of that quote from Gompers, but did not find it. I'm sure someone out there has it at hand. But I did find the following Gompersian wisdom: "The aim of our unions is to improve the standard of life; to foster education, and instill character, manhood (sic), and an independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man (sic) upon his fellow man. We aim to establish a normal workday, to take the children from the factory and workshop; to give them the opportunity of the home, the school and the playground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate the workers, make their homes more cheerful and in every way contribute the earnest effort to make their life better worth living." (Presidential Report to the 28th Annual AFL Convention, 1908) Did you mean Gompersian "wisdom" or Gompersian wisdom ? The whole sordid history of AFL racial exclusivism aside (and the fact that Gompers can safely be considered the father of business unionism), I don't find much in the above quotation taken on its own terms too compelling. The main theme appears to collective defense of the white male family wage so that the white working class man can be king of his castle. In solidarity, John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: utopias
Tom Walker wrote: My utopia is one in which _all_ of the left immediately stops doing what they're doing and writes novels. Not because the novels would be likely to have much political impact. But because the stopping-doing-what-they're-doing might. Many (most?) on the left have been holding their finger in a certain hole in the dike (back to the watery metaphors) for the past 10 or 20 years and haven't checked for a while whether there's anything even leaking through that particular hole or whether there might be a huge crack half a block away. But paying serious attention to strategy is a sure-fire method of inviting hostility from those who've been fighting (and have grown accustomed to losing) the "good fight". It's like questioning the faith of the faithful. Huge mental-bureaucratic apparatuses have been built up around the vague notion that "we're the good guys and we're always on the good side . . . whatever we've been doing we should keep doing it because our motives are pure." Bullshit. Strategy is too important to leave to vague feelings of good intention. Did I say "accustomed to losing?" Perhaps _fond_ of losing would be more to the point. So what do you think would be a better strategy? After we all finish writing our novels, of course. Doug
Re: utopias
At 03:18 PM 12/1/97 -0800, Tom Walker wrote: [SNIP] Someone is reported to have once asked Samuel Gompers what labour really wanted. He replied "More." Ironically, it was also Samuel Gompers who said that as long as a single worker was unemployed, the hours of work were too long. I spent part of the day looking for the entirety of that quote from Gompers, but did not find it. I'm sure someone out there has it at hand. But I did find the following Gompersian wisdom: "There is not a wrong against which we fail to protest or seek to remedy; there is not a right to which any of our fellows (sic) are entitled which it is not our duty, mission, work and struggle to maintain. So long as there shall remain a wrong unrighted or a right denied there will be ample work for the labor movement to do "The aim of our unions is to improve the standard of life; to foster education, and instill character, manhood (sic), and an independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man (sic) upon his fellow man. We aim to establish a normal workday, to take the children from the factory and workshop; to give them the opportunity of the home, the school and the playground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate the workers, make their homes more cheerful and in every way contribute the earnest effort to make their life better worth living." (Presidential Report to the 28th Annual AFL Convention, 1908) In solidarity, Michael
utopias
Tom writes: On utopias. Here my world is populated with those who formerly held a pretty clear (we thought) utopia in our heads, and tried to act accordingly. I think that the utopias that many held were cleaned-up (idealized) versions of the old USSR or some other USSR-style country (just as mainstream economics clings to a utopian vision of capitalism). But that's not the point of this missive. Rather than arguing that the Left shouldn't shun utopias (as I usually do), the point is that utopias are an unavoidable part of the human psyche. You _can't_ stop people from dreaming of a better life. Much of the old left attached their dreams to real places, places that no longer exist or are terribly embattled. But they still dreamed and still we dream. What someone on the Left can try to do is to articulate such dreams in a way that works, a coherent dream that involves anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-pollution values. Turn those antis into prose! This has been done before, but books like Marge Piercy's WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME are dated, clearly out of _our_ time. I don't think that _all_ of the Left should stop doing what we're doing and write novels. Maybe _none_ of the Left should do so. Instead someone who isn't doing anything political could write a utopian novel. Utopianism cannot and should not be the sole focus of a political movement. But it can help. Edward Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD (1888, a fascinating petty-bourgeois utopia) sparked tremendous interest and a lot of imitators and responses (like William Morris' socialist NEWS FROM NOWHERE). It even sparked a Bellamyite political movement, which encouraged the Socialist Party (U.S.A.) a little. E.V. Debs, perhaps the most successful U.S. socialist, was utopian-minded, dreaming of a day when no-one was in prison, for example. The Promise Keepers and other right-wing Christians have their own utopian visions, BTW. I'm afraid they're a bit like Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
utopias and plain language
At 12:11 30/11/97 -0500, you wrote: We don't really need utopias. We need plain language to describe a world where people can work 10 to 20 hours a week producing a basket of goods that can satisfy all but those addicted to shopping. What would go with this is a clean and healthy environment, better health both physical and mental, an end to racism or national oppression, and peace. Louis Proyect I agree in part. Here, for example, the labor movement doesn't even really have a vocabulary to describe their predicament. Thus there *is* a pressing need for giving things names in plain language, so as to be able to act on them. On the other hand, I would insist that a "utopia" (in the broad [Galeano] sense I mentioned in my last post) IS a necessity for doing politics "as long as we realize the constructedness of the myth, and the complexities of making even part of it real" (Doug). Lurking behind "plain language" is of course a version of how the world *should* be, which, I maintain, is an articulation of one way of organizing our hopes. So we're back to talking about utopias. Which is not a pointless exercise, and in which nowadays I find more nourishment in poetry than most anything else. (My favorite for the moment is Neruda's "Hombre Invisible", a sort of preface to his _Odas Elementales_, now out in an excellent bi-lingual edition). Concluding, please pardon a self-referencing here. Below a piece of a previous post of mine, which touched on the organization of hope: Often they (my students) have not even engaged/articulated what, at root, they might hope for in the world, much less how to act on it. In _Animal Dreams_, a book dedicated to the memory of Benjamin Linder (killed by contras in Nicaragua in 1987), novelist/poet Barbara Kingsolver put it this way, in the words of Hallie, her protagonist off to Nicaragua to defend the revolution: "The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers or the destroyed. That's about it. Right now I'm living in that hope, running down its hallways and touching the walls on both sides." Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5869 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10206] Globalisation, socialist utopias, EU
Some thoughts on the last few days' discussion: 1. I see no contradiction between nationalism and internationalism - though I do between chauvinism and internationalism, and between nationalism and "transnationalism" in the sense of international capitalism. I call myself an internationalist nationalist without blushing. I take nationalist to mean "if we don't look after ourselves, no-one else will", rather than "bugger the rest of the world". The most important way to support other people's causes is to fight for your own cause. The reality of "internationalism" is not some vague monolithic international revolution: it is that local struggles around the world support each other. 2. Isn't the conclusion of my free trade and investment analogy the crux of the argument between Max and Sid regarding the nature of the EU? That is, the EU can be socially progressive only if its "federal" government has the power and will to redistribute incomes and resources between EU regions. Does it do so significantly now? If not, is that for structural reasons (as the "Ecologist" article and I think Sid would suggest) or for short-term political reasons (as I think Max would suggest)? 3. What has changed in capitalism? Bill Burgess gives the answer that it used to be able to afford some concessions but can't now because of falling profitability etc. I can't accept that: it is some of the most profitable companies that are laying off the most staff. And it was during the 50s and 60s when those concessions were being made that we had some of the most vicious industrial attacks and socially reactionary governments. An alternative explanation is that the *interests* of capitalism have changed. Keynes pointed out a congruence of interests between worker and employer in a closed economy: that workers were also the employer's only customers. (There remained plenty of differences in interests of course!) That gave capitalists (as a class) a vested interest in the welfare state, higher wages etc. To the extent the closed economy has opened up (the beginning of this whole debate!), their interest in these "concessions" has declined. That will only change again if they saturate the labour resources of the world economy - and haven't found another planet full of labour to exploit by then! Or if we find some way to limit the openness of national economies - which incidentally applies whether they are capitalist or socialist. 4. I found the debate between Terry and Ken on how to create a (New Zealand sized!) Socialist Utopia in the world economy interesting. I'd interpret the outcome of the discussion to be that it would be very difficult for a socialist (let alone communist) economy to retain its nature while remaining at least partly open to trade and investment in the current world economy. I'd broaden that to make a similar statement about relatively progressive capitalist economies. Such economies were at least thinkable in the 1950s and 60s, but apparently aren't now. What's changed? Bill Rosenberg /-\ | Bill Rosenberg, Acting Director, Centre for Computing and Biometrics, | |P. O. Box 84, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand. | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone:(64)(03)3252-811 Fax:(64)(03)3253-865 | \-/
