Looking Forward. By Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Go to Table of Contents 3. Egalitarian Consumption

I were better to be eaten to death with rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. -Shakespeare Henry IV "One of our responsibilities is to contribute to society and fulfill our social capacities by working to our abilities. A derivative right is to enjoy the fruits of generalized economic labor by consuming our fair share." We already foresee a state of society where the liberty of the individual will be limited by no laws, no bonds-by nothing else but his own social habits, and the necessity which everyone feels, of finding cooperation, support, and sympathy among his [or her] neighbors. -Kropotkin Revolutionary Pamphlets Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human... This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. -Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The second norm that would regulate participatory consumption involves a subtle balance between the needs of consumers and the needs of producers. Whenever consumers request more of a product than producers currently propose to produce, an evaluation must occur. Is the excess demand for a good simply the result of misallocating workers and resources? If so, workers and resources win be shifted from some industries to others. Or is the excess demand general? In which case a debate over the desirable level of consumption versus leisure trade-off must take place. Concretely, do we want to switch workers from relatively under-desired radishes to relatively over-desired peaches? Do I really want to work more so peach consumers can have their fill? Or do I really want to order so many peaches when peach workers are already overburdened and no additional workers can be easily transferred to the task? We have already established that in a participatory economy each individual works at a roughly average job complex and requests a roughly average consumption bundle that may differ greatly in their particular contents. We are assuming, until we can demonstrate the point, that requests and "offerings" can be reconciled by our planning system in a way that maintains equity and collective self-management while promoting an efficient use of resources. Though we can build into the system that workers and consumers account for one another's needs, of course we must anticipate that often consumers will request more of certain goods than workers are prepared to produce. In such cases, our allocation dynamic must promote equitable solutions, but even before we describe how participatory allocation will efficiently and humanely equilibrate supply and demand, we can usefully make a few points about regulating consumption here. First, within reason one should be able to increase one's consumption in a certain year not only by consuming less in the prior year, or saving, but also by pledging to consume less in a forthcoming year, or borrowing. Similarly, one should be able to work harder or longer to "earn" additional purchasing power to be able to "afford" a special trip or a new home computer. How is this to occur? As the reader will have noticed by now, under participatory economics we do not "earn" an income that gives us a right to then spend, in the traditional sense. Instead, one of our responsibilities is to contribute to society and fulfill our social capacities by working to our abilities. A derivative right is to enjoy the fruits of generalized economic labor by consuming our fair share. In participatory economies not everyone must choose to exert exactly equal efforts in production in exchange for exactly equal consumption rights. The overall principle is that consumption should be correlated to effort or personal sacrifice for the social good. But participatory economies should permit individuals to work harder for extra consumption or less hard for less consumption if they wish, provided that the results are not socially destructive. In our discussion of the workplace we explained that everyone would work at a socially average job complex. When an individual has a job complex in a particular workplace with characteristics that are less desirable than average, he or she spends some of the work day doing more desirable work elsewhere. Likewise, those with job complexes at a workplace whose qualities are of above average desirability spend time doing rote tasks elsewhere so people's total work has roughly the same qualitative impact. This being true, the number of hours a person works can serve as a rough measure of one's contribution in the sense of inconvenience or personal sacrifice underwent for other's benefit. If one wanted to "overwork" to later "over-consume," one would only need to work extra average hours. Equity and solidarity would be preserved. All able-bodied adults are expected to work the social average number of hours at a socially average job complex. This total emerges as a function of people's overall collective desire for goods, services, and investments for future growth, as compared with their desire for free time. Everyone who does so is entitled to a bundle of goods (or savings) whose value equals the societal average. Those who want to ask for more may do so. They may borrow on future consumption, collect on past savings, cash in on extra work performed, or ask for others' permission to consume above average for special reasons. Modest consumption requests are immune to veto by fellow consumers, thus ensuring individual freedom and the right to experiment, though when it appears harmful any request, may be discussed. Also, those who want to work less may do so, up to a point and if they can find a workplace that will accommodate them, by also agreeing to consume less. Collective decisions are made before individual requests and decided by majority vote though strong minorities are given every opportunity not only to make their case, but also to devise compromise collective consumption requests acceptable to all. Every effort is made to ensure that everyone not only has a say, but that everyone influences final collective decisions. In the next chapter, specific examples clarify consumption norms further.