Of The People, By The People: The case for a participatory economy PDF
Preview Of The People, By The People: The case for a participatory economy
F THE PE PLE, THE PE PLE The case for a participatory economy ROBIN HAHNEL More praise for Of The People, By The People: The case for a participatory economy "I read Participatory Economics with absolute fascina tion. Some leading activist scholars have moved towards a more explicit consideration of post-capitalist alternatives. Lucid, thorough, and iconoclastic, Participatory Economics is an outstanding contribution to this important genre of radical social theory." --Andrej Grubacic Andrej Grubacic is Associate Professor and Department Chair of the Anthropology and Social Change program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is an outspoken protagonist for "new anarchism," and co-author with Staugh ton Lynd ofWobblies and Zapatistas (PM Press 2008). "Participatory Economics is a vision, a practice and, for Robin Hahne[, a particular model. As a vision, it points to a new society in which people can develop as free and as sociated producers outside of the domination of their own product (capital) or of a state which stands over and above them. As a practice, it is embodied in the collective struggles for cooperation rather than competition that have occurred for centuries and which are reflected today in processes of participatory budgeting and the development of worker co operatives. And, as the model advanced by Hahne[, it is a powerful demonstration both of the theoretical feasibility of participatory economics as well as of the flaws and inherent bias of mainstream economics as taught in universities and promoted in the capitalist mass media." -- Michael Lebowitz Michael Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Faser University in Vancouver Canada, and author of Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century (Month ly Review 2006). He was Director, Program in Transformative Practice and Human Development, Centro Internacional Mi randa, in Caracas, Venezuela, from 2006 to 2011. DEDICATION To my grandchildren, Eleanor and Beckett, and to all who Occupy-- past and future. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Meredith Jordan for help with copy editing and Yotam Marom who helped plan this book and provided valuable suggestions and feedback. In the end, Ma rom was unable to participate as co-author because working as an activist and organizer for Occupy Wall Street and the Organization for a Free Society became an urgent priority. OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE The case for a participatory economy Robin Hahnel .!!fa ..... SOAP~ - This edition first published by Soapbox 2012 ©Robin Hahnel2012 All rights reserved www.soapboxpress.org Distributed by AK Press www.akpress.org ISBN: 978-0-9830597-6-9 Cover design by Jordan Karr-Morse CONTENTS III CONTENTS Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter Two PARTICIPATORY ECONOMICS: ORIGINS 9 Chapter Three ECONOMIC BASICS 13 Chapter Four ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY 17 Chapter Five ECONOMIC JUSTICE 21 Chapter Six SUSTAINABILITY 33 Chapter Seven MORE GOALS 37 Chapter Eight SOCIAL OWNERSHIP 45 Chapter Nine INSTITUTIONS 47 IV OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE Chapter Ten WORK: LIFE'S PRIME WANT? 51 Chapter Eleven BALANCED JOBS 55 Chapter Twelve REWARDS FOR EFFORT 59 Chapter Thirteen CONSUMPTION 79 Chapter Fourteen PARTICIPATORY PLANNING 89 Chapter Fifteen INCENTIVES 105 Chapter Sixteen INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PLANNING 115 Chapter Seventeen PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT 123 Chapter Eighteen FROM HERE TO THERE 133 REFERENCES 145 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION About This Book This book is for people who want to know what a desirable alternative to capitalism might look like. It is for people who want more than rosy rhetoric and Pollyannaish descriptions of people working in harmony. It is for people who want to dig into what economic justice and economic democracy mean. It is a book for optimists-who believe the human species must be capable of something better than succumbing to competi tion and greed or authoritarianism, and would like to know how we can do it. It is also a book for skeptics-who demand to be shown, explicitly and concretely, how a modern econ omy can dispense with markets and authoritarian planning, and how hundreds of millions of people can manage their own division of labor efficiently and equitably. This book is written by someone who understands that capitalism will not disappear overnight - falling victim to some mythical internal contradiction. It is written by some one who understands that capitalism can only be replaced by a better economic system when a majority is ready to do so. And it is written by someone who knows this will only occur after many progressive mass movements have waged many suc cessful struggles over many years, and after millions of people have created a multitude of real world experiments in different forms of equitable cooperation even while global capitalism 2 OF THE PEOPLE, BYTHE PEOPLE persists. It is written by someone who appreciates the Occupy Wall Street movement as an important new beginning where he lives, here in the United States, but understands that we are still far from capitalism's "end game:· This book is also written by someone who understands that not all versions of capitalism are equally terrible. In what are often called "social democratic" versions of capitalism, fi nancial institutions can be competently regulated, investment priorities can be guided by some political planning, environ mental, health, and safety regulations can be enforced, work ers can be represented by unions who bargain successfully for better wages, and people's health, education, and retirement needs can be provided for through adequately funded public programs. On the other hand, in what are now called "neolib eral" versions of capitalism, giant corporations, and rapacious financial institutions in particular, reign supreme, unregulated markets compel socially irrational uses of our productive re sources and energies, economic crises are more frequent and severe, the environment is dangerously stressed, starved of resources, public services deteriorate, and the distribution of income and wealth becomes ever more unequal. Anyone who cannot see that social democratic capitalism is preferable to neoliberal capitalism is simply not paying attention. But while fighting for progressive reforms makes sense as long as capitalism persists, stopping short of replacing capital ism with a new economic system in the twenty-first century makes no sense for three reasons. • While social democratic capitalism is less unfair, less insecure, less inefficient, and treads less heav ily on the environment than neoliberal capital ism, social democratic capitalism cannot provide full economic justice and democracy. It cannot tap the economic creativity and potentials of the entire population. It cannot fully and adequately protect an environment that is seriously at risk.
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