Text of a speech delivered to a CNT Sponsored gathering in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here. 

I hope we will have time for ample discussion as I very much look forward to hearing your insights on our topic which is participatory economic vision. 

To begin, then, in the words of the great British economist John Maynard Keynes – 

“[Capitalism] is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous — and it doesn't deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.”

 

Let’s see if we can undue that perplexity.

First, briefly, what is capitalism's real problem?

 

Capitalism is theft. 

The richest in the U.S., for example, have wealth unparalleled in history.  

The poorest in the U.S., however, live under bridges inside cardboard shelters, or stop living at all. 

The gap, in the U.S. and similarly here in Spain, is a social product, a theft. 

 

Capitalism is alienation and anti-sociality. 

Within capitalism the motives guiding decisions are pecuniary not personal. 

The motives are selfish not social. 

We seek individual advance at the expense of others. Not collective advance to mutual benefit.

The result is an anti-social environment in which nice guys finish last and economic logic seeks profit rather than social well being.  

 

Capitalism is authoritarian. 

Within capitalist workplaces those who labor at rote and tedious jobs have nearly zero say over conditions, output, and aims. Those who own the workplaces or who monopolize empowering positions have nearly all say. 

Not even Stalin, for example, ever dreamed of people having to ask his permission to eat or to go to the bathroom, yet corporate owners routinely exercise such power. 

Corporations bear the same resemblance to democracy that killing fields bear to peace.

 

Capitalism is inefficient. 

Market profit seeking squanders the capacities of about 80% of the population by training them to endure boredom and to take orders, not to fulfill their greatest potentials. 

Market profit seeking also wastes inordinate resources on producing items that aren’t beneficial, and enforcing work assignments that are coerced and therefore resisted. 

 

Capitalism is racist and sexist. 

Under market competition owners inevitably exploit racial and gender hierarchies produced in other parts of society. 

If extra economic factors reduce the bargaining power of some actors while raising that of others, creating hierarchical expectations about who should rule and who should obey, capitalists will exploit the hierarchies.

 

Capitalism is violent. 

The race for capitalist market domination produces nations at odds with other nations until those which accrue sufficient power are in position to exploit the resources and populations of those who lack defensive means.

The ultimate manifestation is imperialism, colonialism, and unholy war. 

 

Capitalism is unsustainable. 

The money grabbers accumulate and accumulate, regardless of human need and desire. They ignore or willfully obscure the impact of what they do not only on workers and consumers, but also on the environment. 

The market propels short term calculations. It makes dumping waste to avoid costs an easy and competitively enforced avenue to gain. The results appear in sky and soil. They are mitigated only by social movements that compel wiser behavior.

 

Capitalism Sucks

I could of course recount for many hours the failings of capitalism, its morbid human implications both in theory and in hard statistics, as I am sure you all could too. 

But I think there is no point in doing that here, or really, almost anywhere, anymore. 

I think by this second decade of the twenty first century only a relatively few people are made so callous by their advantages, or are made so profoundly ignorant by their advanced educations, or are so manipulated by media and their own naiveté, or so coerced by their positions that they fail to see that capitalism is now a gigantic holocaust of injustice.

Everything is broken in virtually every respect, and everyone knows it.

As Keynes said, capitalism is not intelligent, is not beautiful, is not just, is not virtuous — and is not even delivering the goods. 

So what do we want instead?

 

Parecon

Participatory Economics, or parecon, which the replacement for capitalism that I advocate, is built on just four institutional commitments. 

Parecon is therefore not a blueprint for a whole economy. It is a description of key features of just a few centrally important aspects of an economy. 

Parecon is enough, and just enough, for us to know that with parecon future people will self manage their economic lives as they decide. 

 

Workers and Consumers Councils

The first feature of participatory economics is nested workers and consumers councils of the sort we have seen arise most recently in places such as Argentina and Venezuela. 

The added feature of parecon’s councils, however, is a very explicit commitment to self managed decision making. 

People in a parecon influence decisions in proportion as they are in turn affected by them. If a decision will affect me more, I will have more say in it. If it will affect me less, I will have less say in it. 

Sometimes self management entails one person one vote majority rule. Think of deciding the start time for the work day.

Sometimes self management could require a different tally, maybe two thirds or three quarters needed to win, or that only some segment of the whole populace votes. Think of decisions that mostly affect a work team, where only that team votes. 

Sometimes for those who are deciding to best approximate perfect self management, consensus is needed. Think of a team deciding its schedule, giving everyone a veto because a bad schedule can so adversely affect each person.

There are even times, many times, when we all believe dictatorial decision making most accords with self management. I decide whose picture I place in my work area, of what color socks I wear, and I do it alone, by myself, like Stalin. 

The point is, in a parecon, all such voting approaches and even particular ways of presenting, discussing, and debating before finally voting, are tactics we utilize to attain as closely as makes sense the appropriate self managing say for all involved actors. 

So as our first commitment we have self managed workers and consumers councils.

 

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