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To enjoy the things we ought, and to hate the things we ought has the
greatest bearing on excellence of character.
-Aristotle
The Basic Works of Aristotle
Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea as
well as the earth?
-Tecumseh
Speech to Governor Harrison
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What a sad
and tragic mistake! To give full scope to socialism entails rebuilding
from top to bottom a society dominated by the narrow individualism of
the shopkeeper. It is not as has sometimes been said by those indulging
in metaphysical woolliness just a question of giving the worker "the
total product of his labor"; it is a question of completely reshaping
the relationships ... in the factory, in the village, in the store,
in production, and in distribution of supplies. All relations between
individuals and great centers of population have to be made all over
again, from the very day, from the very moment one alters the existing
commercial organization.
- Peter Kropotkin
If production is at the foundation of
every economy, consumption is the living room. How consumption is organized
therefore affects the quality of life just as work organization does.
Under capitalism when we buy, there is every incentive to think only
of ourselves while ignoring the environment, our neighbors, and especially
the workers who produce what we enjoy. In fact, in capitalism it is
nonsensical to consider others.
Eating a salad,
we do not assess the plight of migrant pickers. Driving a car, we do
not calculate the increased probability of cancer for children playing
on the sidewalks we pass. Even as we whimsically over consume what might
help others survive, we ignore the human implications of our own gluttony.
We know relatively little about others. We feel relatively little for
others. We do relatively little to help others. Whatever our inclinations,
markets provide means for us to consider only our own welfare. Regardless
of our wishes, our scramble for goods impedes solidarity.
Yet even within
the raging individualism of our capitalist economy we can imagine a
particularly close-knit family that makes collective decisions. Such
a family, in contrast to the usual patriarchal situation, might together
allocate funds for family purchases and decide together how much each
member can spend out of what's left over. And while individual purchases
by the family's members may be primarily private, this may not be entirely
so.
For example,
given this family's special solidarity, perhaps all its members understand
that every consumption decision has implications extending beyond the
individual doing the consuming. Consider a son buying a set of drums
or father purchasing a box of cigars. Since the byproducts of those
purchases, noise and smoke, will affect everyone, the purchases are
not really private. More interesting, a family member's consumption
may affect his or her personality and then, by way of that, everyone
in his or her social orbit. Consider the result if father spends his
allowance on liquor, or if a daughter spends hers playing computer Armageddon.
Since the whole family will suffer, the family may justifiably intervene
to maintain a subtle balance between privacy, freedom, and the need
to promote an acceptable environment for everyone.
But these unusual
family members we've dreamed up are able to weigh one another's circumstances
only because they communicate considerable information to one another.
Certainly few would suggest that such tight bonds could (or should)
characterize relations between all citizens. After all, families actually
live together. Yet if participatory economics could emulate our unusual
small family's interpersonal concern for one another's well-being while
simultaneously protecting each person's right to self-management and
privacy, it would certainly help overcome the debilitating competition
familiar to normal capitalist consumption patterns.
Consumption Norms
Some personal
consumption decisions affect primarily one individual consumer and the
workers who produce what he or she consumes. Other personal consumption
decisions affect a broader spectrum of economic actors. The concept
of an "externality," wherein an economic act affects people
beyond those immediately involved is applicable in these instances and,
in fact, all goods have varying degrees of external impact.
It follows that
if every consumer is to have a say roughly proportional to the effects
they feel, and if economic decisions are to promote variety and solidarity,
we need a means for actors to interact with one another before decisions
are reached. Moreover, for work to be socially beneficial as well as
equitable, workers and consumers will have to interact as a critical
part of planning their related economic activities. Though the means
for consumers to interact with workers and with consumers in other councils
depends on the allocation system still to be discussed, we can here
address at least a means for consumers within
particular councils to consider consumption requests.
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