Economia Partecipativa: che ne pensate?
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Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society. Proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, it is described as "an anarchistic economic vision"[1]. It emerged from the work of activist and political theorist Michael Albert and that of radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s.
The underlying values that parecon seeks to implement are equity, solidarity, diversity, and self-management. It proposes to attain these ends mainly through the following principles and institutions:
workers' and consumers' councils utilizing self-managerial methods for decision making,
balanced job complexes,
remuneration according to effort and sacrifice, and
participatory planning.
Albert and Hahnel stress that parecon is only meant to address an alternative economic theory and that it must be accompanied by equally important alternative visions in the fields of politics, culture and kinship. Stephen R. Shalom has begun work on a participatory political vision he calls "parpolity". Elements of anarchism in the field of politics, polyculturalism in the field of culture, and feminism in the field of family and gender relations are also discussed by the authors as being possible foundations for future alternative visions in these other spheres of society.
Institutional framework of participatory economics
[edit] The decision making principle
One of the primary propositions of Parecon is that all persons should have a say in each decision proportionate to the degree to which they are affected by it. For example, an individual who is the only one using a desk at work should have a practically complete control over the organization of his or her desk so long as such organization does not have adverse effects impacting others significantly. The same logic implies that in more socially interactive contexts, decision-making power would be relatively more dispersed and inclusive, distributed in proportion to the degree which actors are impacted by decisions. Robin Hahnel explained the principle using the example of pollution,
"if only the residents of ward 2 of Washington, D.C., feel they are adversely affected by a pollutant released in ward 2, then ward 2 is the relevant region. But if the federation representing the residents of all wards of Washington, D.C. decides that a pollutant in ward 2 affects the residents of all wards, then the entire city of Washington is the relevant region...However, the above procedure in the annual planning process protects the environment sufficiently only if present residents in the region of impact are the only ones who suffer adverse consequences. While this is the case for some pollutants, it is often the case that future generations bear a great cost of pollution today. The interests of future generations must be protected in the long-run participatory process and by an active environmental movement..." [2]
This decision-making principle is often referred to as self-management. In Parecon, it constitutes a replacement for the mainstream economic conception of economic freedom, which the authors have argued is an inadequate and misleading concept, incapable of providing useful guidance for situations where people's freedoms conflict. They argue its very vagueness has allowed it to be abused by capitalist ideologues. In the "ABC's of Political Economy" and "Economic Justice and Democracy", Hahnel offered critiques of the mainstream concept as formulated by Milton Friedman in "Capitalism and Freedom." For example, Hahnel argues that "the first problem with Milton Friedman's way of conceptualizing the notion that people should control their own economic lives is that it merely begs the question and defers all problems to an unspecified property rights system...The second problem is that while Friedman and other champions of capitalism wax poetic on the subject of economic freedom, they have remarkably little to say about what is a better or worse property rights system...What is entirely lacking is any attempt to develop criteria for better and worse distributions of property rights." [3]
[edit] Consumers' and producers' councils
To implement the decision making principle, a parecon would be organized in consumers' and producers' councils. Many individuals would participate in both types of councils. These would be the respective equivalent of workers' councils.
Geographically, these councils would probably be nested with neighborhood councils, ward councils, city or regional councils and a country council. Decisions would be achieved either through consensus decision-making, majority votes or through other means compatible with the principle. The most appropriate method would be decided on by each council.
Local decisions like the construction of a playground might be made in the ward or city consumers' council, probably interacting with both city and countrywide producers' councils. Countrywide decisions, like the construction of a high-speed mass transportation system, would be discussed by the country consumers' council, possibly interacting with a city producers' council in the city where the materials are produced, or countrywide or international producers' councils.
The producers' councils would probably correspond to workplace councils in each workplace and similar workplaces would group into nested councils on successively larger geographical and linguistic scales.
[edit] Remuneration for effort and sacrifice
Promoters of participatory economics hold that it is inequitable, and also ineffective, to remunerate people on the basis of their birth or heredity, their property, or their innate intelligence. Therefore, participatory economics advocates as a primary principle reward for effort and sacrifice. Therefore someone who works in a mine — which is dangerous, uncomfortable, and confers no power whatsoever on the worker — would get a higher income than someone who works in an office the same time, thus allowing the miner to work less hours and the burden of highly dangerous and strenuous jobs to be shared among the populace.
Additionally, participatory economics recognizes a certain leeway for exemptions from the remuneration for effort principle. It is suggested that people with disabilities who are unable to work, children, the elderly, the infirm and workers who are legitimately in transitional circumstances, can be remunerated according to need. This said, participatory economics posits an obligation for every able adult to perform some socially useful work as a requirement for receiving reward, albeit in the context of a society providing free health care, education, skills training, and the freedom to choose between democratically structured workplaces with jobs balanced for desirability and empowerment.
The starting point for the income of all workers in participatory economics is an equal share of the social product in the form of equal consumption rights for private and public goods and services. From this point incomes for private expenditures and consumption rights for public goods can be expected to diverge by small degrees reflecting the choices that individual workers make in striking a balance between work and leisure time, and reflecting effort ratings assigned by their immediate peers.
[edit] Economic planning — feedbacks and successive iterations
Every planning period would begin with the Iteration Facilitation Board {IFB}, using last year's results as a guide, announcing "indicative prices" representing the estimated marginal social opportunity cost for all final goods and services, capital goods, natural resources, and categories of labor. Using these prices as a guide citizens would respond with their private consumption proposals, and participate in the formulation of collective consumption proposals at the neighborhood, ward, municipal, and federation levels. At the same time, worker's councils, industry councils and production federations would respond with production proposals outlining the outputs they propose to produce and the inputs they believe are required to produce them.
Facilitation boards would then calculate excess supply and demand based on the proposals, adjusting the indicative price for each final good or service, capital good, natural resource, or category of labour accordingly. Using the new indicative prices, consumer and worker's councils and federations would revise and resubmit their proposals. Individual worker and consumer councils would continue to revise proposals until they submit one that is accepted by the other councils.
Iterations would continue according to some predefined method which is likely to converge within an acceptable time delay. A feasible plan for the economy is attained when there is no longer any excess demand for any goods, any categories of labor, any primary inputs, or any capital stocks.
The facilitation boards should function according to a maximum level of radical transparency and only have very limited powers of mediation, subject to the discretion of the participating councils. The real decisions regarding the formulation and implementation of the plan are to be made in the consumers' and producers' councils.
[edit] Job complexes
Some tasks and jobs are more comfortable than others, and some tasks are more empowering than others. To achieve an equitable division of labour, it is therefore proposed that every person must do different tasks, which, taken together, bring an average comfort and an average empowerment.
For instance, someone who works in a facilitation board for one year might then have to work in a steel plant, or in another uncomfortable workplace of his or her choice, for a year, or else would not get a higher salary than the standard for everyone. This assures that no class of coordinators can develop.