> Do we really need to know anything other than that the system sucks in
> order to try to conceive a better way to order our affairs?
Absolutely. *Why* does the system suck? *How* does capitalism rule, precisely? How can we install our vision of the future if we don't even know what we're fighting against? Those simplest of all questions are damnably difficult to answer, but we gotta ask them. ParEcon seems to assume that politics is one thing and the economy is quite another -- but Marx, for all his carbuncles and grouchiness (if not Groucho-ness) was on to something when he criticized "political economy", i.e. tied the two together, and showed that you can't simply call for cooperative enterprises and Proudhonian collectives. Capitalism is not a coordinator class, a bunch of rich people, or a power-structure: it's the totality of all those things, a set of dynamic social relations which we can barely even comprehend.
> Every person is *not* supposed to judge every other person's effort.
> You are judged by your immediate peers, presumably those more distant
> from you have no interest, nor relevant information on your effort.
Yes, but the value of whatever I produce is determined by processes of exchange which extend over the entire planet. I'm all for the idea of free and equal exchange, but how does that happen, precisely? Isn't it true that in a global economy as complexly socialized as this one is, democracy will have to take an overwhelming multiplicity of forms, some approaching what ParEcon describes, and others very different indeed?
> What the hell does the behavior of "monster multinationals" have to
> do with it? We won't have such creatures.
Monster multinationals rule the world economy. If you're gonna change anything at all on this planet, you've got to understand them, analyze them, figure out their strengths and weaknesses. Most multinationals have very sophisticated managerial strategies, which involve extensive teamwork, just-in-time production, built-in quality control, etc., and foster precisely the sort of inhouse camaraderie which ParEcon is claiming for its own project. The multinationals or, as the German comrades say, the "multis" are also important in the sense that many of them are practically miniature planned economies, proof that a limited form of central planning can indeed built world-class commodities.
-- Dennis