The underlying theme of this essay is that new ideas have intellectual value largely in proportion to their impact on further new ideas. Does a new idea open new doors that matter, or does it lead nowhere that matters? Does a new idea propel additional insights? Or does a new idea flash and shine a bit, but then lay dormant unto death?

Of course, the main gains that specifically social ideas need to propel are activist. 

First and foremost, therefore, we should ask about a new idea like participatory economics, as one example of a group of social ideas, does it provoke worldly efforts to attain the new institutional relations it proposes. 

But we don’t live and advance by activism alone. We can also ask, as in this essay, whether participatory economic insights (or any other insights that we might wish to consider) propel a further intellectual agenda. Do participatory economic insights raise new questions for folks to thoughtfully explore? Do participatory economic claims generate intellectual tasks that folks might decide to pursue?

 

Investigating Today’s Economy

One main type of intellectual extension of participatory economy’s insights could be to explore more deeply and fully various new concepts or claims that it makes about existing capitalism. For example, one might take a deeper look at markets to discern the details of their various consequences. 

How do markets impact personalities? How do they influence public/private consumption ratios? How do they affect the trajectory of investments? How do they handle pricing items that have external effects beyond the buyer and seller? How do they affect work volume and intensity? How do they affect work organization and divisions of labor? What affect do they have on class definition and class rule? These are a mouthful of questions that participatory economics opens a door to further exploring.

Or, one can imagine undertaking similar extensive explorations of capitalist workplaces and their divisions of labor and modes of decision making. For example, following on from participatory economic ideas, one could investigate the relation between different modes of conveying and assessing information and the influence afforded various actors over outcomes in capitalist firms. Or one could investigate the relation between different corporate decision tallying methods and actor influence. What decision patterns actually exist in existing workplaces? What properties and implications do the really existing decision patterns impose?

Continuing to suggest possible intellectual pursuits propelled by participatory economic ideas and claims, one could choose to investigate what impact decision making hierarchy and the corporate division of labor have on capitalist technological innovations and on work methodologies. Do they escalate and diversify innovation? Or do they obstruct innovations and narrowly channel their orientation? And then what effects do those implications in turn have on profit seeking, on quality of output, and on use of talents and resources?

Similarly, one might investigate the implications of the existence and agendas of the coordinator class for capitalist dynamics. One might first seek to document the coordinator class’s existence and shared properties, including circumstances, consciousness, and aims. Then one might investigate how coordinator agendas impact profit-seeking, market competition, workplace organization, workplace and market decision-making, and the interface between workers and owners, and, of course, between coordinators and workers. Also extending from participatory economics, one might ask, what consciousnesses, preferences, and interests emerge in the respective classes due to their mutual relations? In turn, how do these class characteristics affect economic motives, options, income distribution, consumption patterns, family relations, schooling, sports, and culture?

 

Investigating Tomorrow’s Economy

Each of the above possible investigations addresses the workings of capitalism. But a second area for extrapolation of participatory economic insights has to do with the participatory economic vision itself. What are additional or deeper properties of the participatory economic vision or of possible extensions and variations of it? 

I should say, though, for these pursuits, one should want to avoid either of two mistakes: 

1) thinking that all instances of participatory economics will be alike and that by naming/describing a possible feature of any one instance, we are naming/describing an actual feature that must always be present in all instances. 

Or 2) thinking that we have the means and information to closely read the future, or, for that matter, that there is good reason to want to try to closely read the future. In other words, we don’t need a blueprint. 

The point is, most details of future economies and societies will emerge from the unpredictable and often very varied choices their citizens make, not from prognostications much less instructions developed in advance. People will do what they want to do. That is the goal, after all. 

At the same time, avoiding over-reaching into excessive details should not prevent us from discussing what we are capable of usefully addressing now.

For example, we can certainly usefully further explore the logic and implications of the five broad defining institutions of the participatory economic vision, both intellectually and also in practical experiments. And we can then use the resulting insights to both improve the vision (without over-specifying the future) and to refine our comprehension of it and thus our ability to advocate and pursue it effectively.

Propelled in such ways to extend core participatory economic ideas, we might explore what more we might usefully say about the economic implications of having a productive commons, workers and consumers councils, self managed decision making, balanced job complexes, remuneration for effort and sacrifice, and participatory planning. We might seek to clarify the predictable impact of each of these defining features of participatory economics on production, consumption, and allocation, and on each other’s human well being and development.

This intellectual task wouldn’t be to try to foresee tenth order or even third order impacts. This task would be to further elaborate and comprehend the main broad first and perhaps some second order implications of these core structural choices for liberating people’s options, behaviors, views, fulfillment, and development, in order to test and investigate the worthiness and viability of the vision. 

Further, one might backtrack a bit to ask are the five core features of participatory economics each as necessary as claimed if our envisioned future economy is to be self managed and classless, sustainable and fulfilling? More, are they, when taken together, not only mutually compatible but also in sum as sufficient as claimed to ensure the merit of our envisioned future economy? In these regards, one might think through the implications of participatory planning for personalities, for public/private consumption ratios, for the trajectory of investments, for the accuracy of pricing, for work length and intensity, for work organization and divisions of labor, and for class definition and class rule. 

Similarly one might undertake extensive explorations of balanced job complexes to better discern their impact on people’s work and on modes of decision making. One might further investigate the relation between self management in workers and consumers councils, and the actual influence that various actors have on outcomes in participatory economy. Or one might further investigate the impact of participatory economic institutions on technological innovations and work methodologies such as on their pace or their orientation, and investigate the effects those implications in turn have on on output, on use of talents and resources, and so on. Or one might further investigate the impact of participatory economic institutions on the environment and on the classlessness the vision claims to achieve.

What consciousnesses, preferences, and interests will likely emerge in actors in a participatory economy and will those consciousnesses, preferences, and interests abet solidarity, diversity, equity, self management, sustainability, and internationalism? Going further, we might choose yo investigate how participatory economy’s defining institutions affect economic motives, influence, income distribution, consumption patterns, family relations, schooling, sports, culture, and so on.

Opening another door for intellectual exploration, beyond its essential core features, participatory economic ideas might propel us to think through what additional contingent features future practice will likely need to adopt, likely differently in different industries, locales, and countries. We might ask what consequences contingent choices should account for? 

For example, can we now say useful things about diverse mechanisms that will need to be appended to defining institutions to facilitate job balancing and workers finding and changing jobs when necessary?  And can we now say useful things about diverse procedures that will need to be appended to defining institutions to facilitate measuring duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued work, perhaps differently in different industries and workplaces? What about diverse mechanisms to facilitate qualitative information exchange and how to best tally preferences during planning, in theory and experiment? And what about pricing ecological implications and other externalities. Or long-term planning? Done carefully, without over-stepping, these types of further investigation could enhance the case being made for participatory economics by revealing further implications of the vision and providing further evidence of its viability. 

Additionally, one could imagine undertaking not only practical experiments at various scales—such as individual workplaces or groups of them, and neighborhoods or groups of them—but also perhaps a larger scale simulation, whether in fictitious but carefully constructed computer form, or perhaps in a kind of parallel economic activity in the real world. 

 

Investigating Society Beyond Economy Today

Opening yet another door of investigation, a third broad area of informed research and intellectual innovation might investigate intersections between economy and the rest of society, both regarding capitalism itself and then regarding participatory economics. For example, regarding current capitalist conditions, extending participatory economic ideas, one might choose to investigate the ways that the “field of force” emanating from capitalist economic institutions impacts other realms of current society including gender, race, politics, ecology, international relations, education, science, art, and so on. And, likewise, one might investigate the effects back on capitalist economies from other realms of society.

For example, one might further investigate how capitalist markets, corporate divisions of labor, and the three class economic division imposed by capitalism impact family life, education, cultural communities, political parties, science, technology, art, and music. One might ask, are current families seriously constrained and textured by the processes of market participation and competition? Do current families deeply embody class consciousness and if so, in what respects for each class? Do current families internally replicate, to any significant degree, economic structures such as divisions of labor or class relations, and if so, with what consequences for nurturance and socialization? Do current families produce adults without economic categorization or do they produce members of classes? Is the sexism that exists alongside capitalism and impacted by capitalism different than sexism per se? Is it molded and constrained in important ways due to class and market pressures? 

And, in reverse, do contemporary kinship relations impact economics, affecting not only income distribution and decision making, but even the organization of work and workplaces? How, more exactly, does education in a society with capitalist economics reflect economic influences and constraints? Do the pedagogy, methodology, and roles of those who teach and learn embody imprints from the economy? Does the subject matter? Does the distribution of educational opportunities?

One might also ask, are racial, religious, ethnic, and regional communities internally differentiated differently than they might be otherwise due to existing in the field of influence of capitalist economics? Do racial, religious, ethnic, and regional communities show a significant impact of market competition and commercialization? Do racial, religious, ethnic, and regional communities internally abide, incorporate, and reproduce class divisions? Do racial, religious, ethnic, and regional communities’ modes of self definition, celebration, and mutual interaction embody features imposed by capitalist competition, remunerative logic, and class division?

And one might ask, do the structure, role offerings, and programs of political parties and the roles and practices of the state reflect the pressures of capitalist competition, profit seeking, accumulation, and class division and rule? Does the state contradict the existence of classes, does it accommodate the existence of classes, or does it actually reproduce the class hierarchies of capitalism? Do government’s internal methods embody corporate norms and logic?

Or one might ask, for example, moving into more specific focuses, is the structure of science and technology impacted in the processes employed, the roles available, the discoveries made and emphasized, the insights gleaned and communicated, and the products researched, conceived, designed, and widely implemented? Does all this reflect impositions from and connections to economic pressures generated by the market, corporations, profit seeking, and so on? Or is the production and enjoyment of art and music different by virtue of impositions from capitalist economy, than the intrinsic qualities of art and music would dictate? Are the artist’s work conditions and well being impacted? Is the choice of artistic focus? Is the remuneration for artistic work and the dissemination of its results? Are the music tastes of people freely arrived at or does peoples’ position in the capitalist economy, and particularly their class, bias or even predetermine their preferences? 

And what about the reverse dynamics to those noted above? In particular, how does the sexist field of force, the racist field of force, and the politically authoritarian field of force emanating from those three spheres of social life contextualize, constrain, contour, and even define features of capitalist economy? Do workplaces to some extent replicate families, cultural communities, or political states in their operations, structures, and role offerings? Are classes impacted by gender, race, and political divisions? Does the way corporate divisions of labor play out vary due to influences from other parts of society? Are there counterparts of men and women, mothers and daughters and fathers and sons in workplaces? Is there a racial community dynamic in work’s roles and products? Does market competition get contoured and constrained by the state’s intrinsic political logic? 

In short, Just a little thought on top of participatory economic ideas and fostered by them, reveals diverse examples of mutual implications—and of course many different schools of thought have tackled such matters. Indeed, their insights have in many respects provided the impetus for the inclusion of these questions here. But perhaps additional study which in particular incorporates and even emerges from participatory economic insights and modes of thought can discern additional features and especially additional patterns and dynamics that add to our understanding and, most important, that have strategic implications for activists seeking change.

Again, though, the questions and possible intellectual investigations just raised are about now. And the main message of participatory economics is not about now. So what about similar issues, but for the future? 

 

Investigating Society Beyond Economy Tomorrow

A participatory economy informed intellectual agenda might include further exploring the relations between participatory economy’s economic innovations and future dynamics for other parts of contemporary life. One might choose to further investigate the implications of participatory economic ideas/vision for racism, sexism, political authoritarianism, and unconstrained growth, and vice versa—but, more, one might choose to pursue the further elaboration of vision for other spheres of life and then the exploration of the interface between revolutionized other spheres of life and revolutionized economy.

So, first, a participatory economy informed intellectual agenda might further explore the implications of having a productive commons, self managing councils, balanced job complexes, equitable remuneration for duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor, and participatory planning, for kinship, community, political, ecological, and international relations. 

I have to admit, I think a large subset of these implications are quite straightforward, while some other implications are more complex. With a participatory economy in place and not violated the new economy simply would not include the option of hierarchical degrees of productive asset ownership (there is no such ownership), or hierarchical degrees of decision making influence (everyone self manages), or hierarchical differences in labor conditions (all have balanced jobs), or hierarchical differences in income (all have equitable income), or hierarchical relations to influencing allocation based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, or political role (all relate as worker and/or consumer).

But as promising as those observations are, two other areas of further exploration of the intersection of participatory economy and the rest of society remain. One might, for example, choose to investigate how participatory economic relations might impact relations throughout the rest of society, due to its removing material and influential hierarchies inside the economy, but also due to how the inclinations and habits instilled during economic life carry over into other parts of society.

How do the habits of self management and equity, of participation, carry into households, sexual relations, cultural communities, education, health care, polity, and relations to environment? How do the needs of participatory economy pressure the practices of other dimensions of life?

As well, another participatory economics influenced intellectual agenda item is for activists and movements to generate a compelling vision for other parts of society, and in particular to do this for kinship and gender/sexuality, for community and race/religion, for politics and the state and citizenship, and for relations to nature and relations among societies. One possibility bearing on this desire for additional vision, is to consider whether the approach to conceiving and advocating a participatory economy is more or less repeatable for other focuses. Perhaps for any dimension of life activists can set out key guiding values, refine them for each new sphere of life, and then seek to conceptualize and comprehend new institutions for that sphere that would be necessary to get their key functions accomplished in accord with the preferred values.

For example, a feminist intellectual agenda influenced by participatory economy’s methods might start from the insight that the kinship sphere is concerned with procreation, sexuality, nurturance, socialization, and handling the associated daily life relations. It might posit as guiding values solidarity, diversity, equity (meaning in this case that people should have kinship related responsibilities free of gender, sexual, or age-related social hierarchies), and self management. And it might then seek to describe favored feminist living and sexual arrangements—obviously celebrating a great diversity of types, but simultaneously including certain key defining structures thought necessary to accomplish kinship functions while advancing the guiding values. Indeed this is what Real Utopia members Cynthia Peters and Savvina Chowdhury, among others, have worked on.

Or, similarly, anti-racists and liberation theologists and others concerned about cultural and community liberation might note that community is about self-definition, mutual communication, celebration, etc., and might posit values such as solidarity, diversity, equity, and security (in this case for cultural communities), and self management, and might then conceive and advocate multicultural (or perhaps it might be called intercommunal) ways of communities defining and mutually interacting with one another to accomplish cultural functions without generating racial, ethnic, religious, national, or other cultural community hierarchies of security, status, freedom, wealth, or power.

Similarly, anarchists and others concerned about political relations might note that politics is about legislation of shared norms, adjudication of disputes and violations, and implementation of collective projects and programs, and might pose as values solidarity, diversity, and equity/justice (meaning a desirable distribution of accountability and responsibility), and self management, and might then conceive and advocate liberatory new structures thought necessary to accomplish political functions consistent with enhancing our political values. This participatory anarchist agenda would not be about eliminating polity per se, nor about merely capturing the current polity, but about conceiving and constructing a new polity in accord with the logic of a new society. Indeed, this is what Real Utopia member Stephen Shalom, among others, has worked on.

 

Getting From Today to Tomorrow

Finally, in all these cases of intellectual pursuit extending from participatory economic ideas, beyond looking toward conceiving the future’s defining features, another task, and I admit the one that seems now to be of highest immediate priority, will be to investigate strategic implications of the visionary insights for present practice and to test and continually refine proposed methods for seeking a new society in practical work…as well as to conceive, further off, how transition to envisioned aims might plausibly occur. 

Indeed, experience advocating participatory vision has suggested, of late, that for people to take seriously and give needed attention to vision may ultimately depend on people feeling there is a plausible path forward so that the vision being proposed is attainable and not just intellectually interesting. Vision must be a worthy, viable, and attainable real utopia, not the fictitious kind. So the additional intellectual and practical agenda participatory ideas and aims propel is not simply to theorize the world, but to change it.

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