In capitalism, owners together with about a fifth of the population who have highly empowered work decide what is produced, by what means, and with what distribution. Nearly four fifths of the population does largely rote labor, suffers inferior incomes, obeys orders, and endures boredom, all imposed from above. As John Lennon put it, “As soon as you’re born they make you feel small, by giving you no time instead of it all.”
Capitalism destroys solidarity, homogenizes variety, obliterates equity, and imposes harsh hierarchy. It is top heavy in power and opportunity. It is bottom heavy in pain and constraint. Indeed, Capitalism imposes on workers a degree of discipline beyond what any dictator ever dreamed of imposing politically. Who ever heard of citizens asking permission to go to the bathroom, a commonplace occurrence for workers in many corporations.
Capitalism’s ills are not due to antisocial people. Instead, capitalism’s institutions impose horrible behavior even on its most social citizens. In capitalism as a famous American baseball manager quipped “nice guys finish last.” More aggressively: “garbage rises.” Witness Washington’s White House.
Ekonomi penyertaan, atau parecon, ialah cara alternatif untuk mengatur kehidupan ekonomi.
Parecon mempunyai pendapatan, keadaan, peluang dan tanggungjawab yang saksama untuk semua peserta. Setiap peserta parecon mempunyai bahagian kawalan yang saksama ke atas kehidupan mereka sendiri dan ke atas semua hasil sosial yang dikongsi. Parecon menghapuskan pembahagian kelas.
Parecon menghasilkan perpaduan. Malah seorang individu antisosial dalam parecon tidak mempunyai pilihan selain untuk mengambil kira kesejahteraan sosial jika dia ingin maju.
Parecon diversifies outcomes and generates equitable distribution that remunerates each participant for how long and how hard they work as well as for harsh conditions they may suffer at work.
Parecon also conveys to each person a say in what is produced, what means are used, and how outputs are allocated, all in proportion to the degree he or she is affected by those decisions.
Parecon, in other words, has completely different values than capitalism and to further its different values parecon incorporates different institutions.
Parecon has workers and consumers councils where workers and consumers employ diverse modes of discussion, debate, and democratic determination. In parecon, there are no corporate owners and managers deciding outcomes from the top down.
Parecon mempunyai "kompleks kerja yang seimbang" di mana setiap pekerja melakukan gabungan yang adil dalam memperkasakan dan kerja hafalan, supaya semua peserta mempunyai keadaan memperkasakan yang setanding dan bukannya 20% daripada tenaga kerja yang memonopoli semua tugas memperkasakan dan 80% hanya melakukan kerja bawahan. Dalam parecon masih ada kepakaran. Masih ada penyelarasan. Keputusan masih dibuat. Tetapi tidak ada minoriti yang memonopoli memperkasakan maklumat, aktiviti dan akses kepada kedudukan membuat keputusan manakala majoriti dibuat tunduk dengan hanya melakukan tugas harian yang mematikan tanpa komponen membuat keputusan.
In parecon each and every job, which means each and every person’s work, involves a mix calibrated so that each participant has essentially equally empowering conditions. A parecon has no owning class. It has no technocratic, managerial, or coordinator class. A parecon has only workers and consumers cooperatively creatively fulfilling their capacities consistently with each participant having a fair share of influence.
Parecon mempunyai imbuhan untuk usaha dan pengorbanan, yang diterjemahkan kepada imbuhan untuk tempoh, intensiti dan kerasnya kerja yang dilakukan oleh orang ramai. Parecon menolak imbuhan untuk kuasa, harta, atau output. Daripada jurang pendapatan dan kekayaan yang besar, parecon mempunyai pengagihan produk sosial yang adil.
Parecon also does away with markets which pit each actor against all others, destroy solidarity, impose class division, mis-price all public goods, ignore collective effects beyond direct buyers and sellers, violate ecological balance and sustainability, and have many other faults as well. In place of markets parecon utilizes a system of workers and consumers, through their self managing councils, cooperatively negotiating inputs and outputs for all firms and actors in accord with true and full social costs and benefits of economic activities.
In a short article it is impossible to make even a quick much less a compelling case for an entirely different economic system. I can only offer a brief list of parecon’s values and institutions. I know such brevity is vague and hard for unfamiliar readers to give substance to. But here we have no room for clarification, supporting argument, or detailed discussion. My apologies.
What I hope, however, is that readers who know from their own experience that capitalist economies routinely cause us to fleece each other, deny us having a say over our own lives or force us to dominate the lives of others, distribute massive outputs to those who do the most pleasurable or even who do no work at all and distribute meager outputs to those who do the least pleasurable and the overwhelming volume of work, will hope that parecon is a real alternative.
I can hope, in other words, that instead of quietly accepting rich people’s passivity-inducing mantra that “there is no alternative,” we will all seek something better, beyond capitalism, and that, moved by our aspirations we will carefully consider parecon on its merits. One place that you might begin, if you don’t accept that humanity is forever doomed to suffer gross inequality and hierarchy via capitalist ownership, corporations, and markets, is at http://www.parecon.org.
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