> First, in parecon, how would we decide whether or not to
> start a new business and how do we decide when a business has
> failed?
If you want to create a workplace, you petitiotn the industry, or if it is a new industry, the economy -- the trick is simply to get inputs and outputs from the planning system.
Instead of having to convince a bank or similar agent, you must convince suppliers and consumers...
> I think you have the R+D question backwards. R+D
> does not come out of what is desired but what is possible.
> Simply by placing R+D with consumption on a conceptual basis,
> you have not overcome the fact that much of what is developed
> is not ultimately found to be useful.
The fact that you do some rd and it isn't useful because it fails doesn't mean your doing rd wasn't useful. It is just probabilistic...
Society apportions funds to a research project - or whatever -- there is risk that it won't pan out, but it is deemed worth taking.
> It seems to me that you have dramatically over-emphasized
> the consumer sector. Are factories to be judged according to
> their "effort" in order to justify the distribution of scarce
> raw maerials to them? A great deal of the economy is
> business-to-business.
And a great deal of participatory planning is units getting intermediate goods, sure...
Yes, workplaces must produce in accord with their assets...
> Finally, you have not dealt with the question of quality.
> Look, for example, at bread. Bread is not one product but a
> range of products. Your system may deal well with bread, but
> how about fasteners for airframe panels? How would we
> decide, under parecon, whether to use screws or rivets and
> which manufacturer to favor with our custom?
I don't know anything about the paricular item -- but I don't understand the question. The producers would make choices...the consumers would like or dislike the results, etc.