Albert

[Camano]

Participatory Economics
Michael Albert


According to most economists, the activities of separate groups of producers and consumers can be coordinated by markets or by authoritarian planning—but there is no "third way." Those who call for planning by producers and consumers themselves only delude themselves and others. Economic pundits claim it is impossible to democratically plan a complex modern economy. Alec Nove threw down the gauntlet in no uncertain terms in The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983):

I feel increasingly ill-disposed towards those who ... substitute for hard thinking an image of a world in which there would be no economic problems at all (or where any problems that might arise would be handled smoothly by the associated producers...). In a complex industrial economy the interrelation between its parts can be based in principle either on freely chosen negotiated contracts [i.e., markets], or on a system of binding instructions from planning offices [i.e., central planning.] There is no third way.

We disagree. The truth is that socialism as originally conceived has never been tried, but not because it is impossible. Council communists, syndicalists, anarchists, and guild socialists fell short of spelling out a coherent, theoretical model explaining how such a system could work. Our predecessors frequently provided stirring comparisons of the advantages of a libertarian, nonmarket, socialist alternative compared to capitalism and authoritarian planning. But all too often they failed to respond to difficult questions about how necessary decisions would be made, why their procedures would yield a coherent plan, or why the outcome would be efficient.

In two recent books we set out to rectify this intellectual deficiency by demonstrating that a non-hierarchical, egalitarian economy in which workers' and consumers' councils coordinate their joint endeavors themselves—consciously, democratically, equitably, and efficiently—was, indeed, possible. In The Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton University Press, 1991), hereafter Participatory Economics, we presented a theoretical model of participatory planning and carried out a rigorous welfare-theoretic analysis of its properties. In Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century (South End Press, 1991), we examined the intricacies of participatory decision-making in a variety of realistic settings, described day-to-day behavior, and treated a number of practical issues conveniently ignored by theoretical models.

The most common argument against the participatory economic system–based on democratic workers and consumers councils, remuneration according to effort, balanced job complexes, and participatory planning—have heretofore been to insist that it is impossible. But recently the focus of criticism has changed. Recent critics have not challenged the technical feasibility of our model. None has argued that our planning procedure is incoherent, or incapable of yielding a feasible plan under assumptions traditionally granted other theoretical models. None has claimed that "participatory planning" as we spell it out would fail to generate reasonable estimates of social costs and benefits, even though there is no private ownership of productive resources and no market. Nobody has argued that we erred in concluding there are incentives for consumers to use relatively less costly goods and place socially responsible limits on their overall consumption requests in our system. None has challenged our conclusion that enterprises would have to make efficient use of resources and inputs they receive under the procedures of participatory planning. Instead of the old argument that such an economy is impossible, critics have turned to challenging the desirability of such a system. In other words, to all intents and purposes critics have dropped the claim that a non-hierarchical, egalitarian, libertarian, nonmarket economy is impossible, and begun to argue instead that it is not the kind of economy they and others would want to live in.



Objections to a Participatory Economy
There are too many meetings: First, we offer Pat Devine's response to this objection to his version of democratic planning:

In modern societies, a large and possibly increasing proportion of overall social time is already spent on administration, on negotiation, on organizing and running systems and people. This is partly due to the growing complexity of economic and social life and the tendency for people to seek more conscious control over their lives as material, educational and cultural standards rise. However, in existing societies much of this activity is also concerned with commercial rivalry and the management of the social conflict and consequences of alienation that stem from exploitation, oppression, inequality and subalternity. One recent estimate has suggested that as much as half the GNP of advanced Western countries may now be accounted for by transaction costs arising from increasing division of labor and the growth of alienation associated with it [D. North, "Transaction Costs, Institutions, and Economic History," in the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 1984].

Thus, as Pat Devine points out in Democracy and Economic Planning (Boulder, Col: Westview Press):

There is no a priori reason to suppose that the aggregate time devoted to running a self-governing society ... would be greater than the time devoted to the administration of people and things in existing societies. However, aggregate time would be differently composed, differently focused and, of course, differently distributed among people.

Second, we quote from David Levy's review of Looking Forward in Dollars & Sense (November 1991):

Within manufacturing firms we find echelons of managers and staff whose job it is to try to forecast demand and supply. Indeed, only a small fraction of workers directly produce goods and services. The existing system requires millions of government employees, many of whom are in jobs created precisely because the market system provides massive incentives to engage in fraud, theft, environmental destruction, and abuse of workers' health and safety. And even during our `leisure time' we must fill in tax forms and pay bill. Critics of Looking Forward's complex planning process should examine the management of a large corporation. Large corporations are already planned economies; some have economies larger than those of small countries. These firms supplant the market for thousands of intermediate products. They coordinate vast amounts of information and intricate flows of goods and materials.

In sum, "meeting time" is far from zero in existing economies. But for a participatory economy we can break the issue down into meeting time in workers' councils, meeting time in consumers' councils, meeting time in federations, and meeting time in participatory planning.

Conception, coordination, and decision-making is part of the organization of production under any system. Under hierarchical organizations of production, relatively few employees spend most, if not all, of their time thinking and meeting, and most employees simply do as they're told. So it is true, most people would spend more time in workplace meetings in a participatory economy than a hierarchical one. But this is because most people are excluded from workplace decision-making under capitalism and authoritarian planning. It does not necessarily mean the total amount of time spent on thinking and meeting rather than doing would be greater in a participatory workplace. And while it might be that democratic decision-making requires more "meeting time" than autocratic decision-making, it should also be the case that less time is required to enforce democratic decisions than autocratic ones. It should also have been clear from our discussion of participatory workplaces in chapters two and seven of Looking Forward that meeting time is part of the normal work day, just as it is for managers and supervisors in existing economies, not an extra burden and infringement on their leisure.

Regarding the organization of consumption, we plead guilty to suggesting that these decisions be arrived at with more social interaction than in market economies. In our view, one of the great failures of market systems is that they do not provide a suitable vehicle through which people can express and coordinate their consumption desires. It is through a layered network of consumer federations that we propose overcoming alienation in public choice combined with isolated expression of individual choice that characterizes market systems. Whether this will take more time than the present organization of consumption depends on a number of trade-offs.

Presently economic and political elites dominate local, state, and national public choice. For the most part they operate free from restraint by the majority, but periodically time-consuming campaigns are mounted by popular organizations to rectify matters when they get grossly out of hand. In a participatory economy, people would vote directly on matters of public choice. But that doesn't require a great deal of time, or mean attending meetings. Expert testimony and differing opinions would be aired through a democratic media. Individuals with strong feelings on particular issues would presumably participate in such forms, but others would be free to pay as much or as little attention to these debates as they wished.

We also believe the amount of time and travel devoted to consumption decision-making in our model would be less than in market economies. Consumer federations could operate exhibits for people to visit before placing orders for goods that would be delivered directly to neighborhood outlets. And serious R&D units attached to consumer federations would not only provide better information about consumption options but a real vehicle for translating consumer desires into product innovation. While the prospect of proposing and revising consumption proposals within neighborhood councils might appear to require significant meeting time, we tried to explain in chapter four of Looking Forward why, with the aid of computer terminals and rather simple software packages, this needn't take more time than it takes people currently to prepare their tax returns and pay their bills. In any case, nobody would have to attend meetings or discuss their neighbors' opinions regarding consumption requests if they chose not to; the existence of greater opportunities for efficient social interaction prior to registering consumption preferences could be utilized or ignored as individuals chose; and time necessary for consumption decision- making would be treated like time necessary for production decision-making—as part of one's obligations in a participatory economy, not part of one's leisure time.

But how much meeting time is required by participatory planning? Contrary to critics' presumptions, we did not propose a model of democratic planning in which people, or their elected representatives, meet face-to-face to discuss and negotiate how to coordinate their activities. Instead we proposed a procedure in which individuals and councils submit proposals for their own activities, receive new information including new indicative prices, and submit revised proposals. Nor did we suggest meetings of constituents to define feasible options to be voted on. Instead we proposed that after a number of iterations had defined the major contours of the plan, the professional staffs of iteration facilitation boards would define a few feasible plans within those contours for constituents to vote on without ever meeting and debating with one another at all. Finally, we did not propose face-to-face meetings where different groups would plead their cases for consumption or production proposals that did not meet normal quantitative standards. Instead, we proposed that councils submit qualitative information as part of their proposals so that higher-level federations could grant exceptions should they choose to. Moreover, the procedure for disapproving proposals is a simple yes-or-no vote of federation members rather than a rancorous meeting.

But while we do not think the criticism of "too many meetings" is warranted, we do not want to be misleading. Informed, democratic decision-making is different than autocratic decision-making. And conscious, equitable coordination of the social division of labor is different than the impersonal law of supply and demand. We obviously think the former, in each case, is far preferable to the latter. But this is not to say we do not understand this requires, almost by definition, more meaningful social intercourse.

The system is too intrusive: In "A Roundtable on Participatory Economics," in Z (July/August 1991), Nancy Folbre referred to this problem as "tyranny of the busy-body" and "dictatorship of the sociable." In a class one of us taught, the issue came to be known as "the kinky underwear problem." Nancy Folbre also cautioned of the potential inefficiency of groups dominated by the sentiment, "Let's not piss anybody off." David Levy observed that while Looking Forward reminded him in some respects of Ursula LeGuin's novel, The Dispossessed, readers should be warned that LeGuin's subtitle was "An Ambiguous Utopia" because "reliance on social pressure rather than material incentives create a lack of initiative, claustrophobic conformity, and intrusiveness." In comradely private communication, Tom Weisskopf cautioned against "sacrificing too much individuality, specialization, diversity, and freedom of choice." What is the source of these misgivings, and how do we respond?

For us it is important to distinguish between misgivings that any and all participatory processes may be "too intrusive" and the criticism that some of our specific measures are more socially intrusive than need be. First, let us reiterate features of our model designed to protect the citizenry from tyrannical busy-bodies. Beside being free to move from one neighborhood to another, consumption proposals justified by one's effort rating cannot be vetoed. While there is nothing but a motion to close debate to prevent a busy-body from carrying on about someone else's consumption request, it is difficult to understand why people would choose to waste their time listening to views that had no practical consequence. Individuals can also make anonymous consumption requests if they do not wish their neighbors to know the particulars of their consumption habits. In workers' councils, balancing job complexes for empowerment should alleviate one important cause of differential influence over decision-making. Rotating assignments to committees also alleviates monopolization of authority. On the other hand we stopped short of calling for balancing "consumption" complexes for empowerment, and refused to endorse forcing people to attend or remain at meetings longer than they found useful. An apt analogy is the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." We had every intention of leading people to participate, but no doubt, some will drink more deeply from the well of participation than others, and those who do will probably influence decisions disproportionately. Even so, those who are more sociable would have a difficult time benefiting materially from their efforts, and the anti-social should suffer no material penalty. In any case, better dictatorship of the sociable with no material privileges than dictatorship of the propertied, dictatorship of the bureaucrats and party members, or dictatorship of the better-educated.

We also fail to understand why our proposal is not seen as thoroughly libertarian. People are free to apply to live and work wherever they wish. People can ask for whatever consumption goods and services they desire and distribute their consumption over their lives however they see fit. People can apply to whatever educational and training programs they want. And any individual or group of individuals can start a new living unit, consumer council, or worker council with fewer "barriers" to overcome than in any traditional model. The only restriction is that the burdens and benefits of the division of labor be equitable. That is why people are not free to consume more than their sacrifice warrants. And that is why people are not free to work at job complexes that are more desirable or empowering than others enjoy. It may be that some chafe under these restrictions, or find them excessive. We certainly never suggested they be forced on a citizenry against their will. We simply believe the logic of justice requires these restrictions on "individual freedom," just as the logic of justice places restrictions on the freedom to profit from private ownership of productive property. As citizens in a participatory economy we would argue and vote for these restrictions until convinced otherwise.

The system misfocuses priorities: Pat Devine criticizes our model for overly concentrating on popular participation in small and local decisions at the expense of larger social issues. In private communication Peter Dorman put the issue somewhat differently: "Since democracy is not easy or costless to practice, we should economize on its use."

Obviously, we would be unhappy with a model that diverted people's participatory energies from more important issues to more trivial ones. And in retrospect, we can see how our exposition could lead people to conclude we attach too little importance to long-term development and investment decisions. In Participatory Economics we were anxious to demonstrate that participatory planning was more likely to achieve allocative efficiency than traditional alternatives. Accordingly, we concentrated on a static model without resorting to the typical artifice of pretending the conclusions apply to many time periods as well. In Looking Forward we wanted to explain what a participatory economy would "feel like" to ordinary citizens. So we mostly discussed day-to-day production and consumption concerns and how they would be handled.

But our intent was that the procedures of participatory planning should also be used to formulate long-run plans. Once again the options are: (1) relegate long-run planning to the vagaries of the market place, (2) entrust long-run planning to a political and technical elite, or (3) permit councils and federations of workers and consumers to propose, revise, and reconcile the different components of the long-run plan.

There is an extensive and compelling literature to the effect that laissez-faire market systems are least appropriate for long-run development decisions. Indeed, traditional socialist critics of capitalism such as Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy were most convincing when arguing the theoretical advantages of planning over markets to achieve growth and development. Even the terribly flawed Soviet version of planning demonstrated important advantages over market economies in this regard. Moreover, every historical case of successful development by a "late comer" has been an example of the efficacy of planning rather than laissez faire, ideological claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

Rejecting the vagaries of the marketplace, if the political and technocratic elite is not chosen democratically, the dangers and disadvantages are obvious. But even if those who are entrusted to conceive and negotiate the long-term plan are chosen democratically, as they are, for example, in Pat Devine's vision of "negotiated coordination," there would be less room for popular participation than under the procedures of participatory planning. Since we agree with Devine that choosing between transforming coal mining so as to dramatically improve health and safety, replacing highway travel with a high-speed rail system, or transforming agriculture to conform to ecological norms—not all of which can be done at once—has an important impact on people's lives, we are anxious that popular participation be maximized in these matters.

So, as always, the issue comes down to how can ordinary people become best involved in a particular kind of decision-making? In our view, the federation of coal miners, the federation of rail workers, the federation of automobile makers, the federation of agricultural workers, and the transportation, food, and environment departments of the national federation of consumers should all play a prominent role in formulating, analyzing, and comparing the above alternatives. In our view, even regarding major, long-term choices, people participate best in areas closest to their personal concerns, and participatory planning is designed to take advantage of this. This is not to deny that everyone would vote on major alternatives. Nor do we deny there is an important role for expertise. But besides the professional staffs of iteration facilitation boards, professionals in R&D units working directly for the above federation would play an active role in defining long-term options. And with the aid of relatively accurate indications of social costs and benefits, we believe workers and consumers through their councils and federations can play a prominent role in long-term planning just as they can in annual planning and managing their own work and consumption.

The system provides insufficient incentives: Our model of a participatory economy is designed to maximize the motivating potential of non-material incentives. There is some reason to hope jobs designed by workers will be more enjoyable than ones designed by capitalists or coordinators. There is every reason to believe people will be more willing to carry out tasks they themselves proposed and agreed to than assignments handed them by superiors. There is also every reason to believe people will be more willing to perform unpleasant duties conscientiously when they know the distribution of those duties as well as the rewards for people's efforts are equitable.

But all this is not to say there are no material incentives in our model. As we explained [in previous chapters], one's efforts will be rated by one's peers who have every interest in seeing that those they work with work up to their potentials. Moreover, one's effort ratings in work will affect one's consumption rights.

It is true we do not recommend paying more to those with more education and training since we believe it would be inequitable to do so. But that does not mean people would not seek to enhance their productivity. First of all, the cost of education and training would be born publicly, not privately. So there are no material disincentives to pursuing education and training. Secondly, since a participatory economy is not an "acquisitive" society, respect, esteem, and social recognition would be based largely on "social serviceability" which is enhanced precisely by developing one's most socially useful potentials through education and training.

The same logic applies to innovation. We do not support rewarding those who succeed in discovering productive innovations with vastly greater consumption rights than others who make equivalent personal sacrifices in work. Instead we recommend emphasizing direct social recognition of outstanding achievements for a variety of reasons. First, successful innovation is often the outcome of cumulative human creativity for which a single individual is rarely entirely responsible. Furthermore, an individual's contribution is often the product of genius and luck as much as diligence, persistence, and personal sacrifice, all of which implies that recognizing innovation through social esteem rather than material reward is superior on ethical grounds. Second, we are not convinced that social incentives will prove less powerful than material ones. It should be recognized that no economy ever has or could pay innovators the full social value of their innovations, which means that if material compensation is the only reward, innovation will be under-stimulated in any case. Moreover, too often material reward is merely a symbol, or imperfect substitute, for what is truly desired, social esteem. How else can one explain why those who already have more wealth than they can consume continue to strive to accumulate more? In any case, these are our opinions. Actual policy in a participatory economy would be settled democratically in light of results.

Nor do we see why critics believe there would be insufficient incentives for enterprises to seek and implement innovations, unless they measure a participatory economy against a mythical and misleading image of capitalism. Sometimes it is presumed that innovating capitalist enterprises capture the full benefits of their successes, while it is also assumed that innovations spread instantaneously to all enterprises in an industry. When made explicit it is obvious these assumptions are contradictory. Yet only if both assumptions hold can one conclude that capitalism provides maximum material stimulus to innovation and achieves technological efficiency throughout the economy. In reality innovative capitalist enterprises temporarily capture "super profits" (in Marxist terms) or "technological rents" (in neoclassical terms) which are competed away more or less rapidly depending on a host of circumstances. Which means that in reality there is a trade-off in capitalist economies between stimulus to innovation and the efficient use of innovation, or a trade-off between dynamic and static efficiency.

In a participatory economy, workers have a "material incentive," if you will, to implement innovations that improve the quality of their work life. This means they have an incentive to implement changes that increase the social benefits of the outputs they produce, or reduce the social costs of the inputs they consume, since anything that increases an enterprise's social benefit to social cost ratio will allow the workers to win approval for their proposal with less effort or sacrifice on their part. But just as in capitalism, adjustments will render any advantage they achieve temporary. As the innovation spreads to other enterprises, as indicative prices change, and as work complexes are re-balanced across enterprises and industries, the full social benefits of their innovation will be both realized and spread to all workers and consumers.

The faster the adjustments are made, the more efficient and equitable the outcome. On the other hand, the more rapid the adjustments, the less the "material incentive" to innovate and the greater the incentive to "ride for free" on others' innovations. While this is no different than under capitalism, a participatory economy enjoys important advantages. Most important, direct recognition of "social serviceability" is a more powerful incentive in a participatory economy, which reduces the magnitude of the trade-off. Second, a participatory economy is better suited to allocating resources efficiently to R&D because research and development is largely a public good that is predictably under-supplied in market economies but would not be in a participatory economy. Third, the only effective mechanism for providing material incentives for innovating enterprises in capitalism is to slow their spread, at the expense of efficiency. This is true because the transaction costs of registering patents and negotiating licenses from patent holders are very high. But while we would recommend it only as a last resort, the transaction costs of delaying the recalibration of work complexes for innovative work places, or even granting extra consumption allowances for a period of time would not be high in a participatory economy.

In general, we find much of what parades as scientific opinion about incentives plagued by unwarranted assumptions. We are neither as pessimistic about the motivational power of non-material incentives in an appropriate environment as many of our fellow radicals have become. Nor do we see any inappropriate obstacles to the deployment of material incentives in a participatory economy should its members decide they are warranted. In the end we are quite comfortable with the very traditional socialist view that a mixture of material and social incentives would be necessary during the process of creating an equitable and humane economy. But that social progress hinges, in part, on the diminishing reliance on material incentives.



Conclusion
The issue is simple:

Do we want to try and measure the value of each person's contribution to social production and allow individuals to withdraw from social production accordingly? Or do we want to base any differences in consumption rights on differences in personal sacrifices made in producing the goods and services? In other words, do we want an economy that implements the maxim "to each according to the value of his or her personal contribution" or an economy that obeys the maxim "to each according to his or her effort?"
Do we want a few to conceive and coordinate the work of the many? Or do we want everyone to have the opportunity to participate in economic decision-making to the degree they are affected by the outcome? In other words, do we want to continue to organize work hierarchically, or do we want job complexes balanced for empowerment?
Do we want a structure for expressing preferences that is biased in favor of individual consumption over social consumption? Or do we want to it to be as easy to register preferences for social as individual consumption? In other words, do we want markets or nested federations of consumer councils?
Do we want economic decisions to be determined by competition between groups pitted against one another for their well being and survival? Or do we want to plan our joint endeavors democratically, equitably, and efficiently? In other words, do we want to abdicate economic decision making to the market place or do we want to embrace the possibility of participatory planning?

[Camano]

Buying Dreams: Visions For A Better Future
Michael Albert


Left activists are moved, first and foremost, by refusal to tolerate injustice. Still, a clear conception of improved social relations can help us understand injustices we oppose and visions, of more desirable futures can help sustain and orient struggles today. Well and good, but why should people activated by today's social movements go "dream shopping" in leftist stores?

Let's face it: Not a few left visions, peddled as dreams, have turned into nightmares. First, there was the vision of substituting public for private ownership and central planning for "anarchy." Then there was the vision of a single vanguard party, whose members are sworn to serve the interests of the working class, and whose organizational skills are honed through self-sacrifice in struggle, replacing the hypocrisy of bourgeois politicking. And of course there were the "dreams" of a socialist economy automatically emancipating women by integrating them into "productive" labor in the public sector, and of a single proletarian culture sweeping away bourgeois cultural hegemony and "primitive," pre-capitalist cultural residues alike.

No doubt some will remark that these dreams-turned-nightmares were the exclusive property of the "revolutionary left" and that the "social democratic left" disavowed them long ago. This is true, but the social democratic left also threw out the baby with the bath water. There is little chance of buying a nightmare in disguise from a social democrat, not merely because they disavow certain false visions, but because they peddle no dreams at all. They prefer to peddle only policies for which they claim an already existing mass audience, such as electoral reform, better child care, fair housing, and full employment. These reforms are well worth fighting for, of course, and self-styled "radical dreamers" who do not participate in these struggles or who "pull punches" and play with "secret agendas" are no radicals at all. But there's little reason to visit today's social democratic teach-ins if you're looking for dreams as well as program. So have dreams become the exclusive wares of evangelists and gurus? Not necessarily.

The first thing we should admit is there is no automatic relation between the diminution of material scarcity and desirable social relations. When Marx characterized "communism" as, first and foremost, a society without scarcity, and implied all problems of social relations would be rendered obsolete by material abundance, he put leftists dangerously off guard. The ecology movement should have taught us all by now that there cannot be complete material abundance. Moreover, for mortal beings time is inherently scarce regardless of how high the pile of material goods may become. And for social beings, whose relation to material wealth beyond subsistence is largely a matter of "invidious comparison," in a just society the size of the overall pile of goods is largely irrelevant. The notion that a sufficient advance in the "forces of production" would obviate the need to carefully build social relations that nurture humanist themes was utopian. There is no "communism" that automatically follows "socialism" as the "forces of production" develop sufficiently.

The second step is to clarify the criteria by which possible political, economic, community, and kinship institutions should be judged. Here we should draw freely from the wisdom of the long historical practice of progressive movements. In broadest terms, desirable social institutions help all citizens develop and fulfill their maximum potentials. Moreover, they do this in ways that do not sacrifice the well being of some groups to advance the interests of other groups. Creativity, diversity, excellence, and efficiency do not require social hierarchies, any more than "human nature" dictates that men must be misogynists, women passive, non-whites analytically disinclined, or some people born to lead and others born to follow. Institutions in all spheres of social life should promote the goals of solidarity, variety, and collective self-management in which each person partakes in decisions in proportion to the degree she or he is affected by the outcome. We believe these goals promote human potentials, reflect lessons from progressive historical experience, and incorporate more specific goals worth pursuing such as peace, justice, freedom, equity, material well being, trust, and respect.

But to what extent can we project a more specific vision? What institutions promote rather than subvert these goals?



Participatory Democracy
The Marxist-Leninist vision for political life is a recipe for disaster. Stalinism was an extreme form, but a logical extension of Leninism. And the counterproductive experience of Marxist-Leninist political parties out of power is perfectly consistent with the systematic suppression of democratic political life carried out by Marxist-Leninist parties in power. That the "dictatorship of the proletariat" could ever be equated with a desirable form of political life shall always remain a stain on the political escutcheon of "the Left." And outlawing all but a single "vanguard" party ruled by the norms of "democratic" centralism has nothing to do with democracy except its subversion. These political institutions systematically impede participatory impulses, promote popular passivity—if not outright fear—and breed authoritarianism, bureaucratism, and corruption in government. What can be expected when external opposition is outlawed, and the party leadership is able to suppress and manipulate internal opposition by transferring members between branches to provide themselves a majority in every branch and cell?

But Western-style electoral "democracy" is also a far cry from participatory democracy. Highly unequal distributions of wealth stack the deck before the political card game begins. Citizens choose from "pre-selected" candidates who are effectively screened by society's power elites. But even if these problems were overcome, participatory democracy requires more than infrequently voting for a representative to carry out our political activity for us. While election of representatives is part of participatory democracy, frequent and regular referenda on important political propositions and policies, at every level of government, accompanied by a full airing of competing views, are as important, if not more important, than voting for candidates.

In any case, we should not expect political life to disappear, but to intensify in a desirable society. Politics will no longer represent a means by which privileged groups perpetuate their domination. Nor will oppressed constituencies have to battle against political norms that preserve an unjust status quo. But there should be no lack of spirited disagreement about social choice. While the goal of social diversity dictates that competing conceptions should all be implemented by their adherents whenever possible, there will be many situations when one program will have to be implemented at the expense of others. The problem of "public choice" will not disappear, and since a desirable society will kindle our participatory impulses, there is every reason to expect political debate to heat up as well.

The goals are straightforward. In Chomsky's words,

A truly democratic community is one in which the general public has the opportunity for meaningful and constructive participation in the formation of social policy.... A society that excludes large areas of crucial decision-making from public control, or a system of governance that merely grants the general public the opportunity to ratify decisions taken by the elite groups... hardly merits the term democracy.

The central question is, what institutional vehicles best afford people such an opportunity? Ultimately, political controversy must be settled by democratic vote. And obviously such votes will be better informed the greater participants' access to relevant information concerning consequences. So it is also clear that groups with competing opinions must all have access to effective means of communicating their views. Democratization of political life must include democratization of the media.

Participatory democracy requires not only democratic access to the media and a plethora of single-issue political organizations, but also a pluralism of political parties with different social agendas. If we reflect briefly on the history of political life within the left, and the ultimate consequences of attempting to ban parties, factions, or any form of political organization people wish to avail themselves of, it should be clear that bans are anathema to democracy.



Intercommunalism
We will not be magically reborn in a desirable society, free of our past and unaware of our historical roots. On the contrary, historical memory, sensitivity to social process, and our understanding of history will all be enhanced during the process of reaching a desirable society. So the point is not to erase diverse cultures, nor to reduce them to a least common denominator. Instead the historical contributions of different communities should be more appreciated, and there must be greater means for their further development.

Trying to prevent the horrors of genocide, imperialism, racism, jingoism, ethnocentrism, and religious persecution by attempting to integrate distinct historical communities into one cultural "playpen" has proved almost as bad a dream as the nightmares this approach seeks to expunge. "Cultural homogenization" ignores the positive aspects of cultural differences that give people a sense of who they are and where they come from. Cultural homogenization offers few opportunities for variety and cultural self-management and proves self-defeating anyhow since it heightens exactly the community anxieties and antagonisms it seeks to overcome.

In a competitive, hostile, environment, religious, racial, ethnic, and national communities develop into sectarian camps, each concerned, first and foremost, with defending itself from real and imagined threats, if necessary waging war on others to do so. Dominant community groups rationalize their positions of privilege with myths about their own superiority and the presumed inferiority of those they oppress. Some elements within oppressed communities internalize these myths, and attempt to imitate dominant cultures. Others respond by defending the integrity of their own cultural traditions while combating the racist ideologies used to justify their oppression. But the solution lies in eliminating racist institutions, dispelling racist ideologies, and changing the environments within which historical communities relate. It does not lie in trying to obliterate the distinctions between communities.

An alternative is "intercommunalism," which emphasizes respecting and preserving the multiplicity of community forms we are blessed with by guaranteeing each sufficient material and social resources to reproduce itself. Not only does each culture possess particular wisdoms that are unique products of its historical experience, but the interaction of different cultures can enhance the internal characteristics of each and provide a richness no single approach could ever hope to attain—provided negative inter-community relations can be replaced by positive ones. But the key to this is eliminating the threat of cultural extinction by guaranteeing that each community shall have the means necessary to carry on their traditions.

Individuals should choose the cultural communities they prefer, rather than have others define their choice for them on the basis of prejudice. And while those outside a community should be free to criticize cultural practices that, in their opinion, violate humanist norms, external intervention, as opposed to criticism, should not be permitted except to guarantee that all members of every community have the right of dissent and to leave.

Most important, until a lengthy history of autonomy and solidarity has overcome suspicion and fear between communities, the choice of which community should give ground in disputes between two should be determined according to which of the two is the more powerful and therefore, realistically, least threatened. Intercommunalism will make it incumbent on the more powerful community with less reason to fear being dominated to unilaterally begin the process of de-escalation. This simple rule is obvious and reasonable, despite being seldom practiced to date.

While the goal is clear—to create an environment in which no community will feel threatened so that each will feel free to learn from and share with others—given the historical legacy of negative intercommunity relations, there is no pretense this can be achieved overnight. More so than in other areas, intercommunalist relations will have to be slowly constructed, step by step, until a different historical legacy and set of behavioral expectations are established. Nor will it always be easy to decide what constitutes the "necessary means" that communities should be guaranteed for cultural reproduction, and what development free from "unwarranted outside interference" means in particular situations.

But the intercommunalist criterion for judging different views on these matters is that every community should be guaranteed sufficient material and communication means to self-define and develop its own cultural traditions, and represent their culture to all other communities, in the context of limited aggregate means and equal right to those means for all.



Participatory Economics
What economic institutions and practices will permit people to pursue their material needs and desires efficiently and equitably while fostering collective self-management, interpersonal solidarity, and human and material diversity? The broad outlines of the answers are becoming increasingly apparent.

Ownership of the means of production must be social, not private.

Traditional Marxism was off the mark in some respects, but the proposition that private ownership of the means of production implies exploitation and alienation is not one we need to reconsider. Private ownership of the means of production means exploitation and alienation.

Organization of production and consumption must be democratic and participatory, not hierarchical.
Almost all progressives give lip-service to this proposition, but it means different things to different people. To us it means production should be managed by a council of all employees where each has equal say. But it also means the tasks of conception and execution cannot be distributed so some people always do the former and others the latter. Unless job complexes are arranged and rotation schemes developed so all do a mixture of conceptualizing, organizing, and carrying out production tasks, alienation and class hierarchies will persist. This does not mean every individual must rotate through every conceivable job. Nor does it mean expertise will not play an important role in decision-making, since democratic decision-making requires informed analysis even more than hierarchical decision-making. But planning and coordinating the productive efforts of the many cannot be the exclusive province of the few in a desirable economy.

Allocation of goods and services should be achieved through a social, iterative, planning procedure in which distinct groups of producers and consumers propose and revise their own activities.
Neither free markets nor central planning promote human well-being and development. Markets misallocate resources; pit people against one another; and make social cooperation individually irrational. Far from being the liberators of socially productive energies their bourgeois champions claim them to be, markets breed socially destructive individualism. On the other hand, central planning has proved an unworthy substitute. Central planning breeds authoritarianism, apathy, and bureaucracy. The dead weight of central planning on people's creative capabilities is more than enough to justify the desperate groping for alternatives going on throughout the "existing socialist" world. But the answer does not lie in a return to markets. Nor should one hope for much from a combination of two allocative mechanisms, each fundamentally flawed.

Work and consumption collectives are perfectly capable of developing an overall economic plan, as well as carrying it out. Individual collectives, and federations of similar collectives, are capable of proposing activities and revising those activities in light of qualitative and quantitative information received from one another in a planning dialogue. Modern computer techniques are more than sufficient to provide collectives with accurate and useful information about the implications of their choices for others, and the implications of others' choices for them. And a social, iterative planning procedure in which all participants are on equal footing is capable of yielding not only fair, but efficient outcomes as well. What is truly amazing is how few "radical" economists have devoted any of their considerable talents and energies to the task of refining the procedures of democratic planning that have supposedly been the center piece of visions of a socialist economy for over a century.

Distribution should be based on the principle: "From each according to ability, to each according to effort," until growing trust and solidarity permits distribution according to need.
It is now clear that the principle: "From each according to ability, to each according to work" was ambiguous. The increasing tendency to interpret this principle as "to each according to the market value of his or her contribution" must be rejected as a just distributive principle. Payment according to personal contribution may well be more fair than payment according to personal contribution plus the contribution of the means of production one happens to own. But there is nothing fair about payment according to personal contribution. And what may surprise many self-styled socialists even more, there is nothing efficient about payment according to personal contribution either.

Differences in contribution are due to differences in talent, preparation and training, job assignment, luck, and effort. As long as trust and solidarity are insufficient to elicit necessary productive efforts, an argument can certainly be made for rewarding effort on efficiency grounds. No doubt some would argue effort should be rewarded on equity grounds as well, and we are not inclined to quibble. But rewarding talent, preparation and training, job assignment, and luck makes no sense on either equity or efficiency grounds. Why is talent, which is the outcome of a genetic lottery, any more deserving of reward than the contributions of privately-owned means of production which is the outcome of an inheritance lottery? And since talent is not something reward can induce, there is no efficiency argument for rewarding it either. Provided preparation and training are undertaken at public expense, including compensation for any burdens beyond those born by people not receiving training, education neither deserves nor requires reward to induce people to seek it. Rewarding the occupant of a job for the contribution inherent in the job itself makes no sense on either grounds. And there is clearly no justice or efficiency in rewarding luck. Which leaves us with the conclusion that rewarding the combined outcome of talent, preparation, job assignment, luck, and effort—which nobody could reasonably argue is the same as rewarding effort alone—is patently unfair and inefficient as well.



Feminism
Kinship institutions are necessary for people to develop and fulfill their sexual and emotional needs and raise new generations of children. But present day gender relations elevate men above women and children, oppress homosexuals, and warp human sexual and emotional potentials. In other words, present day gender relations are almost universally patriarchal, and while there are differences, some of which are very important, this holds for "existing socialist" societies as well as for modern Western societies. In a humanist society we will have to eliminate oppressive definitions that are socially imposed so all can pursue their lives as they choose, whatever their sex, sexual preference, and age. There can be no non-biologically imposed sexual division of labor—men doing one kind of work and women another—nor any demarcation of individuals according to sexual preference. We need gender relations that respect the social contributions of women as well as men, and promote sexuality that is physically rich and emotionally fulfilling. New kinship forms must overcome the possessive narrowness of monogamy while allowing preservation of the "depth" that comes from lasting relationships. They must destroy the division of roles between men and women so that both sexes are free to nurture and initiate. They must give children room for self -management and learning, while providing the extra support and structure children need. But what will make this possible?

Obviously women must have reproductive freedom—the freedom to have children without fear of sterilization or economic deprivation, and the freedom not to have children through unhindered access to birth control and abortion. There can be no more compromising on this issue than compromising about private ownership of the means of production. Just as private ownership abrogates the rights of employees to control and direct their laboring capacities, denial of birth control and abortion abrogates the rights of women to control and manage their reproductive capacities and thereby their lives in general.

But feminist kinship relations must also ensure that child-rearing roles do not segregate tasks by sex and that there is support for traditional couples, single parents, lesbian and gay parenting, and more complex, multiple parenting arrangements. All parents must have easy access to high quality day-care, flexible work hours, and parental leave options. The point is not to absolve parents of child-rearing by turning over the next generation to uncaring agencies staffed mainly by women accorded low social esteem. The idea is to elevate the status of child rearing, encourage highly personalized interaction between children and adults, and distribute responsibilities for these interactions equitably between men and women and throughout society. After all, what social task could be more important than rearing the coming generation of citizens? So what could be more irrational than patriarchal ideologies that deny those who fill this critical social role the status they merit? In a desirable society, kinship activity must not only be arranged more equitably, but the social evaluation of this activity must be corrected as well.

Feminism should also embrace a liberated vision of sexuality respectful of individual's inclinations and choices, whether homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, monogamous, or nonmonogamous. Beyond respecting human rights, the exercise and exploration of different forms of sexuality by consenting partners provides a variety of experiences that can benefit all. In a humanist society without oppressive hierarchies, sex can be pursued solely for emotional, physical, and spiritual pleasure and development. Experimentation to these ends is not merely to be tolerated, but appreciated.

Yes, the vision is uncompromising. It is a vision of gender relations in which women are no longer subordinate, and the talents and intelligence of half the species is free at last. It is also a vision in which men are free to nurture, childhood is a time of play and increasing responsibility with opportunity for independent learning, not fear, and in which loneliness does not grip as a vice whose handle turns as each year passes. The vision is one where living is reclaimed from the realm of habit and necessity, and is seen and appreciated as an art form we are all capable of practicing and refining. But there is no pretense that all this can be achieved over night. Nor do we claim a single kind of partner-parenting institution is the best for all. While the contemporary nuclear family has proven all too compatible with patriarchal norms, a different kind of nuclear family will no doubt evolve along with a host of other kinship forms as people experiment with how to achieve the goals of feminism.



The Importance of Dreams
Things don't have to be the way they are. Human nature is not so stingy as to permit only minor variations on oppressive themes. The set of possible human worlds is not one-dimensional and limited to the way we live today. We must keep thinking and talking about more desirable visions, and keep refining what we want. And it is important to keep strategizing about how to reach our goals. There is no other way to "keep the dream alive." And if the dream dies, there is nothing.