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In the individual expression of my own life I would have brought about
the immediate expression of your life, and so in my individual activity I
would have directly confirmed and realized my authentic nature, my human,
communal nature. Our productions would be as many mirrors from which our
natures would shine forth. This relation would be mutual: what applies to me
would also apply to you. My labor would be the free expression and hence the
enjoyment of life.
-Karl Marx
Grundrisse
An earthly kingdom cannot
exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some
rulers, some subjects.
-Martin Luther
Werke, Vol XVIII
How can a rational
being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertions?
-Mary
Wollstonecraft
A Vindication
of the Rights of Women
Unquestionably submission to the single will is absolutely necessary
for the success of labor processes based on large scale machine industry....
Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses
unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labor process.
-Lenin
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Participatory Job Complexes
Classlessness and real rather than merely
formal workplace democracy require that each worker has a job complex
composed of comparably fulfilling responsibilities. Forming comparable job
complexes therefore requires that
we evaluate each workplace's tasks and carefully combine them into diverse
"job complexes" that are equally empowering. Of course this doesn't
mean everyone must do everything; this would be inefficient and usually even
impossible. It does mean, however, that the half dozen or so tasks that I
regularly do must be roughly as empowering as the different half dozen or so
tasks that you regularly do if we are to participate as equals in council
decision making.
In most workplaces there are hundreds of basic
tasks. One organizational option is to combine tasks with the same qualitative characteristics into
homogenous jobs. Some workers take phone messages and keep records. Others do
research and manage. Ever one does one
level of task and many more people have rote than have
creative assignments. This is the capitalist and the coordinator approach.
A better option is to combine tasks into job
complexes each of which has a mix of
responsibilities guaranteeing workers roughly comparable circumstances.
Everyone does a unique bundle of things that add up to an equitable assignment. Instead of secretaries answering phones and taking dictation, some workers
answer phones and do calculations
while others take dictation and design
products. This is the participatory approach.
Moreover, even beyond balancing within each workplace, we must also
adjust for differences between workplaces.
For example those who work in coal mines and those who work at publishing
houses are not likely to find their work equally desirable or empowering. If
one plant's average job complex is less desirable or empowering, workers
there should enrich their work package by spending time doing more fulfilling tasks elsewhere. If some
other plant's average job complex is more desirable or empowering, workers
there should spend time doing less fulfilling tasks elsewhere.
"Workplace rotation" balances inequalities between plants, while balanced job -complexes within plants
prevent in -plant class stratification.
In the transition to a participatory
workplace, publishing house workers will be less likely to welcome
equalization between workplaces
than will coal miners - just as engineers and lawyers will be less likely
than assembly workers and secretaries to agree that everyone can be trained
to do a fair share of conceptual and executionary work within workplaces. Nonetheless, to attain participatory goals we
must incorporate democratic councils, responsible rotation, and balanced job complexes within and
across workplaces.
Workplace Decision Making
0ne of the aims of participatory economics is
for people to develop respect and concern for one another. To attain this
type of solidarity, participatory workers must consider not only their own
activities but what others must endure to prepare the materials they work on and what benefits their output will afford others.
Democratic councils with balanced job complexes would help workers to operate
according to such norms so long as the
rest of their economy also fosters such behavior. Since neither markets
nor central planning do, we naturally need to develop a new kind of
participatory allocation to go with participatory production and consumption.
Studying this new allocation system (in
chapters 5 and 6) will help answer many questions readers might already be
asking, such as, who will work where, what they will be paid, etc. Still, it
bears pointing out that switching to participatory allocation will also
profoundly affect the content of work in
each plant. For example, tricking people into buying things they don't
need would make no sense once participatory allocation ensures that one's
income doesn't depend on selling more goods. Indeed, relations among
participatory production, consumption, and allocation ensure that to fully
understand any one we must understand them all. Even familiar concepts like "manage",
"job," "income," and "price" acquire a
different meaning in participatory economies than in capitalism so that the
general logic of the new economy will become clear only after all its
features are explained. At this stage we claim only that to be participatory
and equitable, an economy:
1. Must have democratic workplace councils.
2. Can benefit from efficacious use of job
rotation.
3. Must have job complexes balanced for
desirability and empowerment.
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