Looking forward : participatory economics for the twenty first century / Michael Albert & Robin Hahnel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Albert, Michael, 1947-

Contributor:

Hahnel, Robin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economics.

Welfare economics.

Comparative economics.

Distributive justice.

Industrial management--Employee participation.

Industrial management.

Economic policy--Citizen participation.

Economic policy.

Physical Description:

153 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

Other Title:

Participatory economics.

Place of Publication:

Boston, MA : South End Press, [1991]

Summary:

Nearly all Western economists claim that successful modern economies require hierarchical work, unequal consumption, and market coordination. Most "progressive" economists agree, adding only pleas for a more secure safety net or perhaps a "mixed economy." All these economists insist that the only alternative to the market is the discredited, bureaucratic, command economy of the Eastern Bloc Whatever else we might desire, they say, we cannot achieve anything better.

Looking Forward challenges this "impossibility theorem" and spells out how we can do much better. Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives? Albert and Hahnel agree with Noam Chomsky that "The task for a modern industrial society is to achieve what is now technically realizable, namely, a society which is really based on free voluntary participation of people who produce and create, live their lives freely within institutions they control and with limited hierarchical structures, possibly none at all."

In this popularly written and carefully argued book, Albert and Hahnel describe how work could be organized efficiently and productively without hierarchy; how consumption could be fulfilling and also equitable; and how participatory planning could promote solidarity and foster self-management while still "getting the job done." Breaking with unexamined dogmas, Albert and Hahnel provide a clear, practical, and humane alternative vision for a truly participatory economy.

Contents:

Capitalism Triumphant? 1

Socialism Repudiated? 3

Coordinatorism 4

The Origins of Coordinatorism 6

The Big Lie 8

1. Work Without Hierarchy 15

Human Labor 15

Workplace Organization 18

Workplace Decision Making 21

Confronting Skeptics and Adversaries 21

2. Participatory Workplaces 27

Book Publishing 27

Airport Council Structure 36

Printing: A Third World Example 39

3. Egalitarian Consumption 46

Consumption Norms 47

4. Participatory Consumption 53

Collective Consumption 53

Individual Consumption 56

To Consume or Be Consumed? 61

5. Allocation Without Hierarchy 65

Arguments Against Equity, Variety, and Participation 65

Contours of Economic Allocation 67

6. Participatory Allocation 74

Preparing First Proposals 75

Going from One Proposal to Another 77

Updating a Settled Plan 79

Converging 81

Allocation Alternatives 86

Is This for Real? 88

7. Workplace Decision Making 95

Planning at Northstart 95

The John Henry Plan 105

Daily Decision Making at Jesse Owens Airport 110

8. Consumption Planning 114

Determining County Level Collective Consumption 114

Determining Personal Consumption Proposals 116

Daily Consumption and Changes in the Plan 120

9. Allocation Decision Making 121

Developing Initial Data 121

Revising Data in Subsequent Iterations 124

Working at a Facilitation Board 127

Qualitative Information 127

The Logic of Participatory Planning 128

10. The Information Society 130

Technology and Economic Relations 130

"Darwinian" Technological Evolution 131

Special Characteristics of Computers 133

Computers and Capitalist Economics 137

Computers and Coordinator Economics 138

Computers and Social Change 139

11. Conclusion and Transition 141

Economics 141

Extra-Economics 143

Transition to Participatory Economics 145.

ISBN:

089608406X

0896084051

OCLC:

23286422