Come to think about it, there's other features of the Parecon model I like.
* Offers goals to evaluate it with -- and if it fails those goals,
you should reject it, or fix it. (They are: equity,
self-management, diversity, and solidarity.)
* The authors offer you some basic tools to help create your own
damn economic vision. Maybe you like hierarchies, markets, and
state control... and throw in a little public ownership? Knock
yourself out!
<http://www.zmag.org/Instructionals/EconVision/id13.htm>
* Dishonesty thrives in ambiguity and hand-waving. Parecon nails
down its stances. One reason Parecon gets such polarized
responses could be because there's many concrete parts to
attack. Less you say, less you offend.
So, in response to the claim that people don't like to plan food
consumption, a parecon advocate might respond that something like
a supermarket could plausibly spring up. (Like it does under
today's economies, saving consumers the need to haggle.) Then we
can evaluate whether such a store is plausible within parecon.
* Abstractions contain a lot of human experience. When first
learning about radical economic issues, it's nice to get a fairly
rich forest-level view. Then you can delve deeper as desired.
* "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
We can attempt to "prove" things a priori. "This will be too
inefficient." But it's more sensible to just build something and
then see what parts (if any) need to be optimized.
Dictatorship LOOKS efficient.
This is a vital lesson for those building even simple software
systems, not to mention growing complex human relations. Build it
first. Then figure out where the efficiency problems REALLY come
from. Probably won't be where you guessed.
Tayssir