> The suggestion in the book in question is that a small European country with
> a strong public sector (over 50% of the economy) first puts its public sector
> under the job market and then provides various incentives to private firms
> (low interest loans, etc.) to join it. The details of the transition--for
> example, in currency--are probably not worth going into here.
Fair enough. I've often found that email discussion lists aren't ideal for going into the minutae of how post-capitalist systems could work, after a certain point. Personally, I'm not on here to write a book - or read one. I missed the earlier parts of this thread, but I'm guessing that now you're essentially elaborating on the ParEcon vision?
> How that
> particular country managed to elect a government on the platform of
> instituting a job market is a slightly different question.
That's what this or any other system hinges on - its institution in the public sphere. When I earlier asked how this system you were describing was viable, this is what I meant. Sooner or later, writing about the future, analyzing current trends, isn't enough - steps have to be taken to turn social ideas into social facts. Therefore, I wonder why people should be convinced to agitate for legislation that would institute the job market idea, as opposed to, for example, simply abolishing wages, or anything else. You've already indicated you think wages should ultimately abolished, but that, for some reason, this job market system must come before that. I'm trying to understand why you think this must be the case. In other words, if one is going to agitate for any system that is not likely to come about without a broad sea change in public sentiment, why the one you're describing and not the abolition fo the wage system, which you've also posited is desirable, but for some reason must be put off.
> >> freedom, without losing the organizational and productive capacity which
> >> creates many benefits that we want.
> >
> >Yes, greater outputs with less inputs = good thing.
> I don't think of emancipation as an output resulting from less inputs.
I don't either. I was referring to not "losing the productive capacity which creates many benefits that we want" - like, ideally, increased prductive outputs with less inputs, one of the major innovations of capitalism that should be preserved or expanded upon in a post-capitalist world. That is, if this is at all congruent with non-exploitative or non-coercive social relations.
> 'Abolition of the wage system' doesn't address the
> organization of work, or how the productive capacity of a complex society can
> be developed and maintained.
Of course the slogan by itself doesn't address something that complex. I was using the slogan as a way to denote a system, different from yours, where wages were abolished, not set by software or other structures. Much of the industrial democracy movement of the 1910s -1930s, for example, held the abolition of the wage system as a guiding precept, but there was of course a very lively debate about how work should be organized so that wages were abolished. And that debate continues to this day.
> I was recalling that example. But, no, the workers are not the only ones who
> have wishes, the retirees, the kids, the students, those who can't work on
> aircraft for one reason or another, they have wishes too.
That's a good point. I'm pretty familiar with these considerations, and have seen this brought up again and again in debates around "pure workers' control" vs. "worker + community control," the latter of which you seem to describe. One argument the "pure workers' control" camp often makes to those who endorse the broader, community control model, where you said retirees or kids would also have input, is - "Should pants-pressers (or the children of pants-pressers) prescribe medicine along with pharmacists or doctors?"
>
> >> As for viability, here I'm going to interpret you to mean political
> >> viability. I'd say all these "models of intermediate social orders"
> >>have one goal right now, and that's educational.
> >
> >But educating people to do WHAT to get to this system you've described?
> >In "gently" suggesting that we need intermediate systems like the one you've
> >described before we get to a society where the wage system has been
> >abolshed, it's as if you've suggested the plan you're describing is more
> >practical. Okay - what are the practical means for getting there as
> >opposed to anywhere else?
>
> In the current situation, and with the current model of abolition of the wage
> system (and the track record in other countries that have had socialist
> revolutions of one sort or another and haven't abolished wages) I'd say, yes,
> it's more practical. But I'm not so interested in practicality as I am
> showing how our current system does not fulfill the roles we claim for it,
> and showing that there are alternatives that decrease the workweek, give us
> job choice, remove entirely the fear of unemployment, change the power
> On organizing, I mean, is 'abolition of the wage system' getting people
> excited? Can they picture it in their heads? What does it look like to
> them? (I'm not asking to make a point, I'm asking cause I'd like to know.)
In my experience, it gets punk rockers and bohemian/artist-types excited, but not many mainstream Americans. But I don't think "wage-setting software legislated into existence in a small European country" would get any camp excited. (I could be wrong.)
Brian
--
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Il etait enfin venu, le jour ou je fus un pourceau!" - Comte de Lautreamont, Les Chants de Maldoror, 4th Hymn, Strophe 6