Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First CenturyNearly all Western economists claim that successful modern economies require hierarchical work, unequal consumption, and market coordination. Most "progressive" economists agree, adding only pleas for a more secure safety net or perhaps a "mixed economy." All these economists insist that the only alternative to the market is the discredited, bureaucratic, command economy of the Eastern Bloc Whatever else we might desire, they say, we cannot achieve anything better. Looking Forward challenges this "impossibility theorem" and spells out how we can do much better. Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives? Albert and Hahnel agree with Noam Chomsky that "The task for a modern industrial society is to achieve what is now technically realizable, namely, a society which is really based on free voluntary participation of people who produce and create, live their lives freely within institutions they control and with limited hierarchical structures, possibly none at all." In this popularly written and carefully argued book, Albert and Hahnel describe how work could be organized efficiently and productively without hierarchy; how consumption could be fulfilling and also equitable; and how participatory planning could promote solidarity and foster self-management while still "getting the job done." Breaking with unexamined dogmas, Albert and Hahnel provide a clear, practical, and humane alternative vision for a truly participatory economy. -- Back cover. |
Contents
Prologue | 1 |
Introduction | 11 |
Participatory Workplaces | 28 |
Egalitarian Consumption | 43 |
Allocation Without Hierarchy | 65 |
Table Of Contents | 74 |
Workplace Decision Making | 95 |
Consumption Planning | 114 |
Allocation Decision Making | 121 |
The Information Society | 130 |
Conclusion and Transition | 141 |
Glossary | 151 |
Other editions - View all
Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century Michael Albert,Robin Hahnel No preview available - 1991 |
Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century Michael Albert,Robin Hahnel No preview available - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
actors affect airport allow alternative assess average work complex balanced job complexes capitalism capitalist central planning changes choices co-housing collective consumption consumer councils Consumption Classless consumption requests coordinator economies coordinatorism costs and benefits decide democratic desirable develop discuss efficient elites employees equitable excess demand facilitation boards final hierarchy human implications improve income indicative prices individual industry innovations inputs investment iteration Jefferson Park Jesse Owens John Henry labor Larry less live Michael Albert million Moreover neighborhood councils Noam Chomsky Northstart workers options organization outputs participation Participatory Allocation participatory economics Participatory Participatory participatory planning Participatory Workplaces percent personal consumption planning process plant political projections promote proposals require responsibilities Robin Hahnel rules self-management skills social costs social relations society solidarity sumption supply tion units updating vote workers and consumers