“The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.”

“One of the principal lessons of our tragic [20th] century, which has seen so many millions of innocent lives sacrificed in schemes to improve the lot of humanity, is — beware intellectuals. Not merely should they be kept well away from the levers of power, they should also be objects of particular suspicion when they seek to offer collective advice. ”

There would still be people who insist on following their own star. Wonder what parecon equivalent of gulags set up to receive them would look like…

Yes, this is dealt with in Albert’s book.

Specialization. My thought is we’re talking about roles. Today we have roles which are power-centric and disempowering in many cases.

I think parecon is attempting to get at those class dynamics. I see no reason why a physician has to take on another role or profession to satisfy the basis of participatory governance. I think we have ample examples of professionals – particularly in the service sectors who are not representative of an elitist class. The US and capitalism has created those dynamics. The question is human nature – what are the dynamics that drive the class system – is it purely economics? Is it some notion of rational “man” optimizing/maximizing outcomes?

I don’t buy blueprints and utopias because these readily collapse under the scrutiny of implementation. I also think that societies need to be scaled to make any system work for people. A vision is good, perhaps essential, but detailed blueprints or specs on design seem incongruent with the changes needed.

While I won’t argue what “real socialism” is or is not, this point is precisely what I was making regarding a natural state – which is self-organizing. This mirrors the natural order rather than the design we’ve fabricated with industrialization over the last several centuries, and its corollary. The latter places people outside of the natural order which is unsustainable.

I agree that socialism, as you describe it has not been achieved and really was never meant to be implemented in nation-states like Russia. But while I don’t buy that there is a linear historicality such as feudalism, then capitalism, then socialism, then communism (stateless), I do think that the Soviet Union was never a socialist state as theorized. So it serves more as a strawman to be kicked around as an illustration of how socialism has failed.

That said, my problem with capitalism and socialism is that they are not natural and congruent with life. Rather than arguing from dogma (which is what political/economic theory becomes) or ideology, the premise ought to start with what people need in a sustainable ecosystem. In this sense, economics is about people as inhabitants of a delicate living planet. The human designed systems (as distinct from the biologically emergent system) would then take the form of networks of communities with both local and global interfaces (horizontal not hierachical). It is natural to have pervious borders, it is necessary (I don’t buy the libertarian notion that the state is a necessary evil, when state means governance)to have governance, and it is most preferable for it to be a democratically based governance. Democracy must be scaled small. Certainly it must be smaller than the US 3 X 2,000 land mass with its 3rd largest population – democracy cannot survive on that scale, nor was it ever intended to.

So there is the cultural shift to small eco-based sustainability, the democratic polity, and a scaled economic system that is subservient, first, to nature, and secondly to what people need. This is a living, self-organizing society which is neither at war with nature nor itself.

I suppose Michael Albert has touched on much of this in his Realizing Hope. As Albert states in an interview, he learned after developing parecon that this is only a small part of the total picture of human life and that economics is a subset of the larger picture. There will be variations, but I think it is essential to view this in a interdisiplinary way so as to avoid an economic-centric view to the exclusion of all others.

I am intrigued, but is there a solution for the problem of specialization?

I think you might enjoy reading some of what Noam Chomsky has written on ‘anarchism,’ he’s another person I don’t agree with, but I see a lot of similarities with what he and you propose.

I like the notion of a horizontal rather than hierarchical interdependency which mirrors the ecosystem’s web of networks, and nested feedback loops – yes it’s definitely more complex than your expository piece, but elegant.

I don’t know if Albert addresses the non-economic – sociologists have a long history of viewing humans as rational and economically driven – that is, creatures looking to optimize (if not maximize) gains over loses. This is not a natural state but it has been designed (marketing/advertising) – as opposed to natural emergence. Understanding human nature is the key. Not to say such a nature is static but it is structurally limited.

Still, with more insight into Albert’s full thesis some questions may be answered – I am somewhat skeptical of blueprints, but a vision of healthy alternatives is desperately needed.

And regard your BJCs was it not Marx who advocated a society-
“… in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”

I understand some of the roots of the problem , the 2nd International statism , the acquisition of political power by the Bolsheviks when Russia was socially ,economically and materially unable to achieve Socialism and the intellectuals and apparatchiks substituting themselves for the capitalist class and then the need for neo-Trotskyists to re-evaluate this failure of the revolution which Parecon has erroneously accepted and built upon .
Instead of elaborate constructs, simpler is better . Abolition of the wages system and from each according to their abilities , to each according to their needs – and not according to their work (Thats why labour-time vouchers must be rejected too)