Looking Forward. By Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Go to Table of Contents   6. Participatory Allocation

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of the party-however numerous they may be-is no freedom as all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of justice but because all that is instruc tive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effec tiveness vanishes when freedom becomes a special privilege.  -Rosa Luxemburg in Cohn Bendit, Obsolete Communism "Nothing about this approach compels actors to change proposals at all or pushes consumers to consume goods in the same proportions or workers to produce goods with the same techniques. " One might argue that facilitation boards will require many buildings spread throughout the society. Consider that Century 21 has 7,005 franchises, Electronic Realty Associates 2,596, and H&R Block 3,886 and that all of these are already tightly networked and together con stitute only a small percentage of the buildings that are available for transfer without any new construction at all and with a reduction in staffing require ments. If that isn't enough to make the point, consider that we currently have 6,165 McDonald's, 5,782 Kentucky Fried Chicken, 5,122 Dairy Queen, 3,500 Subway Sandwiches, 3,300 Baskin Robbins, and 2,597 Wendy's chains. If we replaced all these, and many, many more, with 15,000 all purpose establishments the remaining 10,000 to 15,000 units would all be available.

Getting back to the unadorned process, if I really like nuts and have a way above-average request for them, I do not need to lower my request for nuts simply because nuts are in excess demand. I may decide my large request for nuts is more than justified given my low demand for fruit. Or, especially if it's an early round of planning, I may think that in future rounds the supply of nuts needs to go up and will. Ultimately there will be pressure on consumption councils to reduce nuts' demand and on production councils to increase nuts' supply if the status of "nuts" doesn't improve. For one thing, the indicative price of nuts will keep rising as long as nuts are in excess demand. And for another, if the gap is disruptive, lFBs may begin making suggestions. In the end, I may hold to my above-average demand for nuts while someone with a below average demand for nuts lowers his or her demand even further in face of a rising indicative price. This simply means I have a strong preference for nuts compared to others. It is not unfair because I will have to consume less of other goods and those who lowered their demands for nuts will be able to consume more of other goods. The fifth round (or a later one, if that makes more sense) involves a new twist that greatly accelerates planning. Again we meet in councils to adapt our proposals in accord with changing information about averages, totals, prices, and so on. But this time the EFBs extrapolate from the experience of the previous four rounds to provide their best estimates of (say) five feasible plans that could plausibly be the final outcome of the iteration process. What distinguishes their five options might be different ratios of consumption to investment goods, and/or different proportions of public to private goods, and slightly different amounts of total product/work expended. All actors then vote, as units, for one of these five feasible plans. Votes are tallied and the options with the two lowest totals are eliminated. Subsequent votes are held until a single option remains, establishing a total product and thus an average per capita work and consumption projection for the whole economy, as well as proportions for consumption, investment, public, and private goods. Once this feasible "macro" plan is settled, further iterations refine only the individual unit assignments. The percentage change permitted in proposals is also reduced for subsequent planning to reduce the possibility of over adjustments that prolong the process. Finally, the lFBs propose a comprehensive plan within a small margin of each unit's previous proposals. In the final round, each council receives this plan and votes whether to accept it. If alterations are still desired, they must be accommodated within federations-for example, if a neighborhood wants more of something, another neighborhood in the ward must take less-or changes must be negotiated directly with producers who must agree to fulfill additional requests out of slack even though doing so may mean that they will have to work more later. These communications within and between relevant industry and consumer units go on until a plan for all units and individuals is accepted. The above discussion outlines the contours of one possible system of rules for participatory planning and is intended only as an example. In different societies, and even in the same society at different times, rules will correspond to contemporary tastes and circumstances. Actors themselves will set the procedures. If a society's ability to transfer resources from one productive use to another were effectively perfect, there might be no such rules at all since in that case just indicative prices and the need to have one's overall proposal be equitable along with attention to qualitative details would be sufficient to engender a rapid convergence of supply and demand. On the other hand, in less developed economies less technically able to quickly accommodate changing preferences or in which some goods might be given artificially low prices to insure their availability for social reasons, iteration rules more or less like those we have described might prove important to facilitate convergence.