After basically agreeing with my points (with minor quibbles), Michael Albert writes
> In parecon the overall planning process occurs via the new type of allocation system.
Perhaps you are asking about that. Or maybe something else, I am not
sure?
>A polity would need to be participatory and consistent with or even a
school for and emblem of self management too -- and for those interested
Stephen Shalom is thinking hard about that problem -- a desirable polity
-- and his early efforts are online on ZNet -- in the life after
capitalism section.<
What I'm worrying about is the promised automatic nature of the planning process of the Parecon. If my mind isn't in Alzheimer's territory again, Albert and Hahnel present a story about how all the balanced job complexes present their demand orders and supply offers to the plan and then a computer crunches out results that make for a consistent coordination of the various and heterogeneous orders and offers.
But: if the planning program doesn't work perfectly (since nothing does), don't coordinators at the planning agency have to step in and fix the results, either in the plan or in its application? doesn't this mean that we could see the rise of a coordinator class, exploiting its central role in the system to gain greater power?
Further, I don't remember anything about investment planning. How is planning for the future organized? how are the wishes of future generations represented?
Jim Devine