We can't avoid it being creating -- because it already exists. The issue is not having a post capitalist economy that it rules -- and, better still, having it disappear in such an economy.
That means having institutions that don't create a division between one set of economic actors who monopolize empowering tasks, and another who do virtually entirely rote and obedient and at least not empowering tasks.
Lots of attributes of parecon are relevant. For example, participatory planning does not create such a division much less elevate coordinators -- in contrast to both markets and central planning which do.
But the proximate institution, the most immediate one bearing on this division is the actual way of organizing work -- how jobs are defined and allocated -- and the key innovation there is balanaced job complexes.
> Deciding on balanced job complexes within a given workspace
> or on a specific project is certainly possible but who
> decides who works where?
People apply for jobs to workplaces -- of course how many workers are needed in any industry or workplace depands on what the allocation system arrives at for outputs (and in puts) which in parecon means participatory planning. But given that, workers councils hire new people.
> As an artist I have not been able to
> discern through reading your books whether I would be allowed
> to continue being an artist under parecon.
Is it socially valued labor? If you are good, of course it is. So, yes, that is a task we want to have done in a good economy. Of course, people who do art, or write, or do physics, or heart transplants, or fly airplanes, or whatever else -- all have balanced job complexes.
But if your key and defining work is, say, painting, then you work in that industry...being hired, or not, by your fellow artists (instead of funded, or not, by private capital or banks).
> If an individual
> wants to be a musician and has very little talent or ability
> but insists he is to be a musician anyway who decides yes or
> no on remunerating him for his "bad" music?
This question is no different for a musician than for me wanting to be shortstop on the Red Sox, or to play at Wimbledon. A good economy remunerates people for socially desired labor -- not just to do anything they want, regardless of either social desires for it, or their capacity for it.
So the musician has to get a job -- but the hiring part is the workers council in the music industry...just like wanting to be a pilot I have to get hired in that industry, or wanting to be a physicist, etc. etc.
> I do not see any
> way to avoid the creation of a class of coordinators that
> decides such things.
Why?
Simplify it and then worry about the larger picture. We have a workplace...in our workplace we have to hire new people at times. There are lots of ways to handle this consitent with parecon...but if everyone in our workplace has a balanced job complex, if there is remuneration for effort and sacrifice, and if there are self managed decision making norms -- then there won't be a separate and elite group monopolizing reigns of power.
It could be we have a personel committee, but overall policy will be more general. Hiring will no doubt be mightily impacted by people a hired person would directly work with, less so by others. There might be special tasks like interviewing or researching or whatever -- but that is no no different than all kinds of special tasks that exist. In a parecon it isn't that such things don't get done -- it is that no one does a mix of such things only, while others do only rote and obedient tasks -- and, in a parecon decisions are ultimately the purview of those affected.
> This question obviously goes beyond
> artists too. What if I decide I wish to be a surgeon but have
> far below average eye to hand coordination and would be a
> crappy surgeon.
Then of course you aren't going to be hired as a surgeon. There are obvious reasons -- not wanting to murder people to suit your whim.; But also workplaces have to live up to their assets, labor and material -- and to have twenty surgeons on staff -- but five who are incompetent, is not going to permit that.
> Whose job is it to tell me I suck as a surgeon and I NEED to
> find another job?
Who tells you -- someone who works at the hospital you are applying to. And that person has a balanced job complex. And is delivering a decision that is made more brooadly -- though, I suspect, if it is obvious the workplace may have delegated considerable say...such things would vary in case to case.
> Deciding who gets to be an artist by a
> democratic vote is hardly an answer. Great art is not created
> by consensus.
Right -- usually it occurs outside the econonomy -- or is perverted to advertisements and manipulation and never becomes great -- or is crushed in childhood, most often.
But in a parecon not only do these things not occur -- but the determination of whether I can do art well enough to be hired to do art -- is in the hands of artists. Where else could it be that would be better. If it is entirely in my hands -- then I am shortstop of the Red Sox. That won't do. If it is in the hands of owners and investors -- then not only does taste not play an appropriate role, but decision making power and wealth are abominable.
> Is everyone in my town supposed to vote on
> whether I get to be an artist?
No more than everyone votes on who gets to be a doctor or lawyer -- though everyone does, in a subtle sense, have a very very modest -- which is to say proportionate -- input.
Workers in industries are deciding among applicants -- but consumers are indicating what is desired for society...at least at the moment...by the consumption choices and general preferences. This impacts how much of each type work is warranted. The workers in the industry choose who. Even if everyone in society were wonderfully artisitically talented -- we can't all spend all our time painting, obviously, or we all die of starvation.
> Do only pre-approved artists
> get to vote on who is to be admitted into what would amount
> to a guild?
You apply for a job, in any industry.
Maybe you can't get one -- but you think you are good and the current artists in workplace after workplace are just blind to your innovative and oriiginal talent. You can try to initiate a new workplace, if you wish -- or you could do your art in offtime and try to demonstrate desire for it, and there are probably other options too. What is missing is that there aren't super rich benefcators to finance you doing it...a solution which, for all but a minuscule few, is about as bad as one could devise.
> If a majority vote were necessary to be allowed
> to be remunerated as an artists then most art would be
> reproductions of the Last Supper and paintings of angels.
Perhaps, though I don't think so, in a good economy. I am always a bit, well, offended when artists act as though others both have no taste and, more, don't realize that their own taste isn't the only taste -- and moreover think this would also be true in a good economy.
As of now, of course, 90% of all art is to deceive via ads...not exactly the best use of talent -- and another equal or greater amount never even surfaces.
Artistic experimentation and innovation would not be voted on per se -- rather the industry seeks income and inputs to undertake it, just like the pharamceutical industry seeks it to investigate new cures and preventions, or every other industry seeks it for innovation, design, investment, etc. etc.
Yes, one kind of art is to fill existing needs -- another kind is to induce or unveil new needs. Some is for huge numbers, and some for fewer. This really doesn't distinguish it from many other industries -- I suspect, not even from any other industries, except by degree, perhaps.
> not certain the dry cleaner up the street should be allowed
> to have any role in deciding on whether or not I can be a
> painter or a surgeon.
There is no dry cleaner, painter, or surgeon in your sense -- there are people who do these functions as part of a balanced job complex.
What we can all decide, having been aprised of relevant information, is whether we want a particular surgery or not. The sum of this, over time, gives insight into how many people doing surgery, in a balanced job complex, are needed in various hospitals. Who gets hired, as noted above, is determined by those units.
Parecon isn't anything goes. We don't automatically get to do anything we wish. Far from it. But it is equitable, diverse options and possibilities abound, there is a pressure toward solidarity rather than anti-sociality, and we all impact the decisions that affect us with a say relative to the degree we are affected.
People in Chicago impact the amount of surgery needed in Chicago, to be sure. But who gets hired at a particular hospital affects not only those consumers of surgery -- in sum a whole lot -- but also the community of surgeons, and especially the surgeons and other employees at that hospital. Thus the parecon approach...