The ABCs of Participatory Economics

From Participatory Economics: A Theoretical Alternative to Capitalism, a review by Geert Dhondt:

Participatory economics envisions a very different economy with new institutional arrangements. Instead of private ownership of capital, there is social ownership of the means of production, which means either there are no owners or everyone owns the means of production, so ownership does not generate income or power differences as it does in capitalism. Allocation has a different set of institutional arrangements; instead of markets, there is a system of democratic or participatory planning. Consumer councils create consumption plans, workplace councils create workplace plans, and facilitation boards (administrative institutions) try to refine the different plans and make them correspond. Everybody participates, everyone helps make decisions. Participatory economics has a few new elements that I will briefly introduce. First, it has democratic workers and consumer councils. Second, it is characterized by the concept of balanced-job complexes. Third, remuneration is determined according to one’s effort as judged by one’s work-mates. And, fourth, participatory planning is the allocation mechanism that replaces central planning and markets.

Workers are organized in workers’ councils. This is the first step in establishing non-hierarchical and dignified work. Every work place is governed by these workers’ councils. Albert and Hahnel recognize that democratic councils by themselves do not promote participation sufficiently because while some work is empowering, some work is not. Disempowered workers would come to the council (or not come) lacking information, skill, and energy to participate in a meaningful manner. To solve this problem, Albert and Hahnel propose balanced job complexes, which I think is their most valuable and original theoretical contribution.

Jobs are a certain combination of tasks, and in our current system, certain jobs are intended to be rote jobs, while others are more rewarding. Jobs are organized in a very hierarchical manner. So if one would create a workplace council in such a place there would be power differences. Take for example a person, who has only been sweeping the floor all day, and another who has been meeting all day, thinking, and making decisions. The latter has much more information than the former. When these two people sit on the council, one will be in a position to participate on a different level, which will create a monopoly of knowledge. Thus, it is necessary to break up jobs so that they are more egalitarian. This is what a balanced job complex is—a restructuring of tasks that need to be performed so that instead of having one person run the place while the other sweeps it, tasks are combined and balanced in such a way that each job is equally rote and rewarding, and each person has a fair share of each sort of task. This concept of the balanced job complex is key to creating a more egalitarian world where people are empowered and have control over their own lives—a society that has neither masters nor slaves.

~ more... ~