We know how the public -- consumers, regard products, by the desires to have them as manifested through the participatory planning process. Is that what you are asking?
> Do you just assume that everyone will have the same opinion
> about whether a task is empowering or fulfilling? Will it be
> based on majority opinion? Expert opinion? It's an
> important political question: Who gets the power to name things?
Ah, no, you mean for balancing.
Consider a workplace -- who decides -- the workers via their self mangeing decision making procedures through their council. Okay, so they apportion tasks into jobs so that the workforce is satisfied that they are balanced. Is that a one person one vote decision -- majority rules, or does it occur by other paths. I have no idea. Different workplaces might certainly have different approaches.
Okay, now there are balanced job complexes in workplaces -- brought about the same way we did it at South End Press, by assessing the tasks available and combing them.
Is it perfect -- like calculus. Of course not. It is a social phenomenon. If it is way off, however, there will be way disproportionate desire for the jobs that are unbalanced positively, and less desire for the others. Corrections can and would occur for errors, and also for later changes.
Balnacing across workplaces is trickier, and does entail social processes that are less trivial - logically -- but with everyone having balanced job complexes and remuneration for effort and sacrifice, and the same kind of coorection indicators, is relative straigthforward. Descriptions of diverse approaches and outcomes too, are in the verso parecon book...I honestly can't try to convey the whole model here.
The key thing is, if you think it WOULD be good WERE it to be possible without adverse problems arising, then I think perhaps finding some time for a fuller evaluation would make sense. But if you feel like balanced job complexes are themselves bad or distasteful -- even if they could deal with economic production effectively, or even more effecitvely than now, and eliminate the coordinator worker division and class hierarchy, then I would say not much point in looking more closely at parecon.
> Again, you're ducking the question. What is a "social determination"?
> Couldn't reasonable people disagree about whether a task is
> "empowering"? --And what do we do when this disagreement occurs?
> This is far from simple!
When disagreement occurs you explore some, depending on how important the issues are, and eventually you decide, by some algorithm of voting that is deemed appropriate. This holds for all decisions, not just this one.
I think what you are saying is that in social issues there will be disagreement. True. There will be decisions and people won't all get the outcome they prefered. Also true.
This is true about everything -- now and forever -- we are choosing work schedules, it doesn't come out the way I want -- we are hiring new peoople, I like a candidate who isn't chosen, and so on.
Instituions narrow the range of choices. Beyond that, in some system the decisions are taken by some sector endowed with excessive power. In other system we can imagine them being taken more deocratically -- right up to what I call self management.
We are determining balanced job complexes -- or, more relevant once we have a parecon -- we are engaged in our yearly or biyearly assessment of balanced job complexes in our workplace with corrections where necessary -- and I make some suggestion which isn't accepted...sure, that can happen.
Who decides? Those affected decide (which actually turns out to mean that the meeting and deciding goes on in the workers council but actually the consumers have had input too, the people who might have to endure pollution, and so on, by impacting what will be the overall workload of the workplace) . So the workforce meets to decide balancing issues in its workplace, though perhap differentially about specific matters. How -- by self managing methods -- which again are not fixed but sometimes means one person one vote, sometimes a smaller group being the deciders in context of being much more affected and the broader choices having already set the context, sometimes concensus, and so on.
Honestly, it really is all discussed -- I think -- in longer presentations. If you would LIKE it were it possible, take a look. If not, then there is no point, since best case, after looking and seeing it can be done, and it would function fine, you still don't like it.