Looking Forward. By Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel

7. Workplace Decision Making

The First Planning Iteration:

Nancy's Initial Proposal

Nancy has worked at Northstart for eight years and is predominantly concerned with science books and promotion. In preparing her initial proposal for Northstart's new year she considers three proposals for reorganization that workers who investigate innovations have proposed. While recognizing that Northstart already has an above average work complex, Nancy believes plan three would greatly improve work quality by freeing energies from distracting tasks with modest investment. She estimates that while not as valuable as some proposed transformations in heavy industries she has heard about, proposal three would be worthwhile compared to most innovations under consideration.

Indeed, the idea of a projected lower bound that proposed investment projects should attain in increased output or improved work conditions per investment required is part of the information on the national production facilitation board would provide. Wherever workers are considering changes in work organization or new technologies, differences in inputs, outputs, and work quality would need to be assessed. Obviously, any proposal that improves work quality with no loss in outputs and no investment expense would be noncontroversial since it would improve the national work complex average at no cost. However, whenever investment is necessary to improve work complexes or increase output there must be some way to decide which investments would be sufficiently beneficial to undertake. The national production facilitation board, by estimating per capita growth and anticipated change in the average work complex, provides an initial and regularly updated estimate of the minimal returns needed from investments to make them desirable.

All workers have access to computers on which they can make calculations and comparisons. Returning to our example, after consulting projections, Nancy decides to develop her first proposal for Northstart based on implementing investment plan three.

Nancy must next decide on a level of output-how many titles to publish in the coming year. She could just accept facilitation board suggestions. Or, considering data on population growth, industry IFB predictions of likely growth in numbers of titles desired and in average readership per title, and her own perceptions of people's changing tastes in reading, Nancy could decide industry predictions are a bit too modest and settles on a first proposal to increase titles published by 3.5 percent rather than the IFB projected 3.3 percent, and of readers 1.2 percent instead of the IFB projected 1. 1 percent.

To translate her estimates into a full proposal for Northstart, Nancy next settles on number of employees, hours of work per day, and effort levels at Northstart. User friendly computer programs make it easy to enter workplace proposal number three, set a number of titles and readers, and then enter choices for any two of the variables to see what the third must be to get the job done.

It is important to note that the kinds of thinking Nancy has to do become easier with familiarity and, in any event, the programs make the associated calculations simple. In any case, Nancy has arrived at her first round proposal for Northstart for the coming year. What about other workers? And how does a final plan arise?

The Second Planning Iteration

Not only Nancy but all workers at Northstart and throughout the economy complete their initial proposals and submit these to the "planning data bank." Individuals have made no attempt to accommodate their proposals to one another. But once the proposals are submitted, IFBs work on the data (in ways we discuss in chapter 9) and prepare a report of cur-rent proposed supply and demand for all goods including slack components the IFB appends; changes in indicative prices based on relative degrees of excess demand or supply; summary of current averages for consumption and production, and written descriptions of the principal causes of changes in IFB projections.

Of particular importance to Northstart workers are the current proposals for supply and demand of all goods that appear in the Northstart "budget." Therefore, these are highlighted in written reports provided Northstart workers, as are summaries of written reports from consumers regarding books. For example, since consumers are requesting more new titles than the industry suggested producing, the industry receives a written summary of consumer commentary regarding books. We should also note that although Northstart workers and consumers automatically receive this material, they can gain access to similar data for other industries at any time at any computer console in their plant or community.

So if Nancy wishes to see a more detailed breakdown of demand by region or even for specific consumer councils, she can do so easily. She can, for example, use the summary report provided by the iteration boards as a general guide and investigate details for herself, using procedures we describe in chapter 9.

It is important to note that such inquiries on the part of Nancy (or other workers) have more than one effect. In addition to getting feedback important for her planning decisions, Nancy's access to consumer commentary also gives her an indication of the social value of her labors and an understanding of the implications of her choices for others.

Let's return to the planning process. Having noticed that paper is in overdemand and paper producers have proposed no increase in production over last year, Nancy requests a computer printout of the paper industry's own report explaining their proposal.

Then, in response to all the information she has accessed, a new set of indicative prices, and whatever consultations and investigations she wishes to undertake, Nancy makes a new proposal updating her first. The process is the same as the first except she takes into account new information. We should note, however, that in line with our particular description of this society's planning system, Nancy alters the components of her first proposal in any direction and by any amounts she chooses. The issue, of course, is whether we can expect Nancy in combination with other actors to behave in ways that will bring demand and supply for all items into equality in a reasonable time frame. We address this question in detail in chapter 9 since it involves characteristics of the whole allocation process. But since the indicative prices of goods in excess demand will rise and of goods in excess supply will fall, and since there is social pressure to reduce the overall value of requests (and increase the overall value of output), it is not difficult to see the fundamental mechanism that drives the system toward a match of supply and demand.