"Economic pundits claim
that hierarchy, inequality, and markets or central planning are inevitable.
We claim these are myths that only serve economic elites."
Wonder each morning how you're
going to hold on till evening each
Monday how you'll make it to
Saturday. Reach home without the strength to do anything but
watch TV, telling yourself you'll surely die an idiot ... Long to smash
everything... once a day, feel sick ... because you've
traded your life for a living; fear that the rage mounting within
you will die down in the end,
that in the final analysis people
are right when they say: "an, you can get used to anything."
-Andre Gorz
Capitalism in Crisis in Everyday Life
"Can't we agree that
it would be desirable to transform our economy so that every citizen can lead a dignified, fulfilling life,
employing their capacities as they prefer, and enjoying society's offerings
equally?"
The task for a modem industrial society is to achieve what is now technically
realizable, namely, a society which is really based on free voluntary
participation of people who produce and create, live their lives freely
within institutions they control, and with limited hierarchical structures,
possibly none at all.
-Noam Chomsky
Language and Politics
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An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by
gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens
that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually
die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea
from the beginning.
-Max Planck
Capitalism institutionalizes inequality, promotes poverty, wages war,
and denies dignity. It champions competition, eviscerates ecologies,
and provides malls with miles of aisles - some for Moneybags, others
for the average consumer. Eastern bloc economies reduced inequality
but also deadened, decayed, and dissolved. Moreover, they offered no
malls for anyone. Can an alternative new economy yield consumer satisfaction
and equity, variety, solidarity, and self - management?
The generally accepted answer is "no,
we must accept Western or Eastern economic models, tempering their ill
effects via clever reforms." The effect of the resulting cynicism
on popular aspirations was best described by an Italian scholar - activist,
Antonio Gramsci, who said: "Indifference is the dead weight of
history. It is a lead ball to the innovator, it is the inert matter
which drowns the most sparkling enthusiasms, it is the swamp which surrounds
the old city and defends it better than the most solid walls, better
than the bodies of its soldiers, because it swallows the assailants
in its slimy mires, it decimates them, disheartens them and, at times,
makes them desist from their heroic undertaking."
Economic pundits claim that hierarchy, inequality,
and markets or central planning are inevitable. We claim these are myths
that only serve economic elites. We believe that, contrary to popular
opinion, people can quite effectively manage their own economic affairs,
and that they can do so equitably, humanely, and efficiently, To aim
for endless abundance or for saintly behavior is "utopian"
in the negative sense, and is not our purpose. But to think about how
an economy can promote rather than subvert participatory, egalitarian
goals is "utopian" in the positive sense that recognizes that
to have no goals is to passively accept an "old city" that
squanders our potentials.
We live in the richest country in the world.
It is tied for 31st, with Albania, in infants with low birth weight
and 211 children die each week from malnutrition and poor care. We live
in the richest country in the world and so do over 31 million poor people,
3 million of whom are homeless and wander the streets eating garbage
- can dinners and sleeping in alleys. Why this pain amidst riches? In
part because the top one - half of I percent of U.S. citizens hold about
one - third of all U.S. wealth.
We live in the richest country in the world.
One out of four children under six years of age are growing up poor,
including 40 percent of all Latino, children and 50 percent of all Black
children. Violent crime is up 37 percent in the past decade, one person
in twenty suffers some sort of burglary, assault, rape, or murder each
year, there are 250 reported rapes daily, one every 6 minutes, and a
woman is beaten every 19 seconds. We live in the richest country in
the world. The mortality rate for black infants is twice that for whites
and there is 1 successful suicide every 20 minutes with over ten times
that number of failed attempts. Why this crime and despair amidst riches?
In part because in 1988 the average chief executive officer of a U.S.
corporation earned as much as 93 factory workers or 72 teachers. We
live in the richest country in the world but capitalist success triumphs
only in boardrooms and mansions.
In countries outside our immediate borders where
our influence is greatest, Central America, of the 850,000 children
born yearly 100,000 will die before the age of 5 from preventable disease
and malnutrition because their resources are used to benefit our elites.
Depending
on the type of economy a society has, work can build or erode confidence,
consumption can fulfill needs or feed alienated habits, economic decision
making can incorporate or exclude participation, and allocation can
enrich the few by impoverishing the many or generate equality for all.
Can't we agree that it would be desirable to transform our economy so
that every citizen can lead a dignified, fulfilling life, employing
their capacities as they prefer and enjoying society's offerings equally?
Can't we agree that it would be desirable to transform our economy so
that we respect others and are respected by them, all sharing in decisionmaking?
Can't we agree that it would be desirable to overcome alienation, inequality,
and the war of each against all, and to transform our economy so young
people face the future with eagerness instead of resignation, so we
do not destroy the planet, and so hierarchical structures are reduced
until there are "possibly none at all"?
Contents
In this book we describe a new type of economy.
In this new economy, work is carried out under the auspices of democratic
workplace councils, one person
one vote, with sensible delegation of responsibilities. There is no
fixed workplace hierarchy. Each worker has a complex of responsibilities
- some conceptual, some manual; some empowering, some rote - such that
each worker's set of tasks (or "job complex") is balanced
equitably with those of other workers. Each worker has a fair share
of both desirable and not so desirable things to do, has comparable
responsibilities and opportunities, and is equally prepared to participate
in decision making.
Consumers receive roughly equal shares of the
social product. While they still shop, act on impulse, and borrow and
save, consumers must also do a reasonable job of predicting their consumption
in advance. Changes in production and consumption eliminate needless
waste in packaging, advertising, product duplication, etc. Collective
goods are chosen by consumer councils with one person one vote. Equity
and self management prevail, but so do respect for privacy and a positive
attitude toward diversity and experimentation.
Participatory planning in the new economy is
a means by which worker and consumer councils negotiate and revise their
proposals for what they will produce and consume. All parties relay
their proposals to one another via "facilitation boards."
In light of each round's new information, workers and consumers revise
their proposals in a way that finally yields a workable match between
consumption requests and production proposals. The system rests on a
comprehensive exchange of information including a new type of "indicative
prices" to help with calculations, data about supply and demand
to help people create proposals, and qualitative accounts of social
relations to promote better decisions and greater solidarity.
The following 6 chapters deal with the norms
and structure of workplaces (I and 2), consumption (3 and 4), and allocation
(5 and 6). Then chapters 7, 8, and 9 deal with the mechanisms of decision
making from the perspective of work, consumption, and allocation respectively.
Chapter 10 discusses the role of computers in a participatory economy,
and the implications of our findings for strategy and transition are
treated in chapter 11. A Glossary, beginning on page 15 1, includes
brief definitions of original and technical terms used in the book.
While all this is logical and orderly, it places
a heavy burden on readers who may have different opinions about what
we should address first. Though Looking
Forward addresses all important aspects of a new economy, we discuss
production and consumption before
allocation, and institutional structures before
details of decision making procedures. For some readers questions
will arise in early sections that are not addressed until later. We
apologize, but no ordering could entirely avoid this inconvenience.
Throughout Looking
Forward illustrations and graphics clarify points raised in the
text. With only a few exceptions, these were conceived and produced
by Matt Wuerker. At various points written commentary appears in the
margins. In most instances these are quotations meant to clarify or
situate ideas in the text. When these appear in italics and with quotation
marks, they are lifted directly from the main text. In all other instances
their author is identified. Occasional sidebars in roman type provide
factual information about relevant circumstances in the U.S.
Readers might be interested to know that a companion
volume to Looking Forward, The
Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton University
Press 1991), covers the same ground more abstractly, using arguments
and mathematical demonstrations geared to economists. But anyone who
reads this book will be able to follow the main line of argument in
the companion volume.
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