[lbo-talk] Understanding _Capital_ (Was Re: barbaric)

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Sun Mar 11 17:30:13 PDT 2007


On 3/9/07, Tayssir John Gabbour <tayssir.john at googlemail.com> wrote:
> But I think it's reasonable to be as detailed as Parecon is. Parecon
> should be implementable.

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



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