"Larry knows that
prevalence Of consumption requests requiring rote work reduces the quality of
society's average work complex and thereby hurts work requirements he himself
faces even if he doesn't produce any of the goods in question."
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Larry, Pearl,
and all other members of MLK county go through roughly the same procedure in the
second round. They compare their first-round requests to first-round
production proposals, see which of the goods they want are in excess demand
and consequently have higher indicative prices than originally estimated, and
which are in excess supply and have lower indicative prices. They check the
value of their overall consumption requests against national averages, talk
with their friends, and submit new proposals. Although indicative prices and
projected values for average consumption guide decision making, a number of
factors refine this relationship. In particular:
a) The
quantitative data results from a social process that accounts for gradations
in peoples' personal and social preferences.
b) The
quantitative data is accompanied by meaningful qualitative information that
informs consumers' calculations by providing details about the human
sacrifices necessary to produce different goods.
For example,
when Larry works on consumption requests he has information about which
products embody more desirable work processes and which ones embody less
desirable ones. Of course such differences are reflected in the indicative
prices of goods, but detailed descriptions of job contents makes this
information more humanly meaningful. Larry knows that prevalence of
consumption requests requiring rote work reduces the quality of society's
average work complex and thereby hurts work requirements he himself faces even if he doesn't produce any of the
goods in question. He also empathizes with the workers who do produce
these goods. Therefore, Larry tries to moderate his requests to emphasize
goods requiring more desirable work and de-emphasize goods requiring
dangerous and debilitating work.
Therefore,
consumers pay attention to the work embodied in the goods they seek because
it is in their individual and collective interest to do so, and because it
becomes a natural way to behave. Participatory citizens do not have a new
human nature nor do economic problems disappear. Rather, the structure of
participatory economics has built-in features that promote feelings of
empathy such that cooperative behavior becomes as common under participatory
economics as competitive egoism is under capitalism.
For the third
planning iteration Larry's adjustments are limited, as explained before. But
beside limiting changes to less than 50 percent (toward equilibrium) and 25
percent (away from equilibrium) Larry decides to use a convenience option
available on his terminal. Rather than worry about whether to reduce his
demand for something by 14 percent or 22 percent, Larry selects the option
that automatically calculates proposed changes for all goods toward
equilibration at 5 percent (or 10 percent, or whatever he prefers).
Alternatively, he might set the automatic global changes in some other
pattern he knows to be a good rough fit to his own inclinations. Minimally,
he might flag certain items as necessities for him and not subject to
reduction (say, electricity) and use the reduction features only on more
discretionary requests. In any event, after the automatic changes, he goes
through the list of goods and refines the changes for items he wants more
precise control over. This approach makes preparing his third proposal very
quick, with little loss in quality since Larry makes all final choices
himself. Pearl chooses not to employ the automatic feature, spending more
planning time for greater flexibility. In any event, after all consumers
settle on their choices, proposals are summed, expectations and
projections updated, and new averages compiled. As in other rounds, each
individual submits a new, updated proposal, and these are summed for the
commune, county, and society.
In the fourth
round, proposals are submitted by neighborhood councils rather than living units.
This reduces the burden of adjustments for the planning process and leaves
much of the quibbling over living unit requests to the neighborhood councils.
At this stage
a proposal might be challenged by neighbors if it's significantly above
average in total or if it seems to contain items that may harm the
community-such as excessive requests for liquor or drugs.
Daily Consumption and Changes
in the Plan
In chapter 3
we described how consumers would get goods from public stocks and keep track of
activities using pocket-size computerized "credit cards." Weekly
updating of each individual's consumption would reveal divergences from the
individual's consumption plan. These variations might only require a
redistribution of goods as some households' increases for a good might be
offset by other households' decreases, or increases in demand are met out of
slack. Alternatively, it might be that changes in production are necessary or
that consumers must moderate their new demands and stick closer to plans they
agreed to earlier. In the latter case, consumption council boards would
negotiate changes by procedures outlined in chapter 4. In either case, daily
and weekly personal consumption allows for privacy, shopping, spontaneity,
and changed plans while eliminating the need for bargain hunting and greatly
reducing or eliminating hassles of lines and confusion over models, sales,
advertising, etc. But the main change, of course, is the elimination of
poverty and attainment of equity, goals whose overall implications will only
be fully appreciated with their attainment.
Although this
chapter's picture of consumer planning is of course incomplete, we hope it
provided enough detail to explain how people could participate in planning
their own consumption under equitable conditions. Next we consider price
calculations and related national accounting.
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