RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 242 Introduction to and Values Guiding No Bosses
Ep 242 of RevolutionZ begins a continuing investigation of what a post capitalist economy can and should be including the introduction to No Bosses and its first chapter on Values, and including current spontaneous ruminations on the substance and wording of those. But...
[My host site for the podcasts has installed an AI to "help" - and the AI generated the following episode description from the audio...which I thought I would keep for your edification, amusement, or horror...]
A promise and a journey. That’s what awaits you as we navigate our human nature, exposing our capacity for both cruelty and kindness. We're going to dismantle internalized complacency and habitual obedience, and rally for resistance and organization. Are we, as a society, ready to take that leap and aim for a new world, free from disease, depravity, and catastrophe? Join us in this quest, as we talk about the importance of unified motion and big change in transcending our current challenges.
It's a tall order, isn't it? To set a vision for a better future, one that balances economic, social, political, international, and ecological relations. But that's exactly what we're doing. We're not here to dictate the minutiae of that future, but to provide the hope, guidance, and means for us to get there. We want to offer a vision that blends in with the diverse expectations of future citizens. This is no easy task, but it's one we must undertake if we are to navigate from our present state to a more desirable future.
Finally, we'll zoom into the values that drive decision-making in society and how they can be applied. We'll tackle self-management concepts and the importance of equitable remuneration. We'll explore institutions and their ability to provide self-management. This is not a call to reward income for property, power or luck. Instead, it's a movement towards embracing the advantages that a society brings and finding value in its people. So press play, and join us on this journey towards a better world.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and this is the 242nd consecutive episode of the podcast titled Revolution Z. As noted last time, over the past couple of months I have intermittently offered Revolution Z episodes based on essays I had written earlier, with the new innovation being that during and also at the end of these episodes, I would spontaneously comment on the material. Last time I began a sequence of episodes that would do that for a book titled no Bosses. Last time the episode presented two prefixes, one by Noam Chomsky and one by Yanis Varifakis, plus some reaction that I spontaneously added. So these no Bosses based episodes will partly present very carefully developed formulations from the book and partly offer current spontaneous reactions in response to what I wrote about two years ago. I hope this approach of providing not just the whole book but my reactions to it two years after having written it will be edifying. So to start this episode first, here is the introduction, which I titled two years ago Beyond Depravity, a New Economy. I began the introduction and actually every chapter, if I remember right with a couple of quotations that I quite liked and that I thought fit the context. The first, for the prefixes, was Sage Advice from Amalcar Cabral Tell no Lies Claim no Easy Victories. The second was from a famous song by Sam Cook. It's been a long time coming, but I know a change is going to come. Oh, yes, it will. And then came the introduction Behind closed doors, I write outside, people die outside. The wealthy get richer, outside, the poor get poorer. This is America, this is the world, march 2021. I interject. I obviously could have written those words today. Sadly enough, the intro continues. 58 years ago, sam Cook sang a change is going to come. Yesterday, aaron Dottie Roy asked will we walk through a gateway between one world and the next, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us? Or will we walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine a new world and ready to fight for it? I interject, aaron Dottie and I may dead. Only Aaron Dottie could have written that today. The intro now gets rolling Winter, spring, summer, fall, 2021, 2022, 2023.
Speaker 1:Will we mobilize osipherously but nonetheless slip-side toward downbeat normality? Will we organize deeply and thereby dance toward upbeat liberation? Will we suffer miserably in a gasping old world? Will we flourish gloriously in a better new world To transcend disease, depravity, sadism, catastrophe and firestorm. Big change will have to come, but big change will require steadfast, informed collectivity. Big change will require unified motion. Big change will require no lies, but big change to what.
Speaker 1:Don't deny the obvious. Humans can be cruel. Israeli virus-infected settler gangs spit on Palestinians to sicken them. American youths gleefully call the virus a boomer-remover. Teenage parties invite guests with COVID, charge admission and offer prizes for whoever gets virus first. Kids kill classmates to rule school corridors.
Speaker 1:Corporate vermin impose misery to enlarge profits. Nations pour hard rain onto other nations. Militarized police crush bare-necks dead. Formacies impose murderous vaccine. Apartheid Landlords produce raging homelessness. Employers endlessly impoverish. Media lies, cruelty. Don't deny the obvious. Humans can also be kind.
Speaker 1:Civil aid proliferates, street to street, home to home. Blacks revolt, whites join. Neighbors share Organizers block evictions. People deploy selflessness. Change rears up, desire grows, material resources appear, optimism rises. Trillions for the already rich why not trillions for the unnecessarily poor? Bailouts for the unceasingly elevated why not healthcare, housing, education and empowerment for the tediously trampled?
Speaker 1:Pragmatism pivots left. I've got your back, you've got mine. Produce integrity, not pollution. Distribute dignity, not submission. Save the planet Kindness. As desperation surges, we cling to hospitals, drugists and police. As mortification multiplies, we beseech banks, corporations, courts and legislatures. As outrage explodes, we curse them all. As insurgency rises, we assault them all.
Speaker 1:I interject. I guess I was a bit too optimistic about the next two years two years ago. Some of what I hoped for has happened, but not enough. But what about the next two years? The intro continues. Society's institutions spit floods. Society's institutions deploy leaky life rests. North, south, east and west. High water everywhere. High water rising. What to do? What's the lesson? Reject internalized facility. Reject habitual obedience. Replace leaky life rafts. Don't just cling and curse. Swim, don't just hunker down. Reach out. Don't just mobilize, organize. We have no choice. Nine to five. Heart attack machines are everywhere. There will be no easy victories. We overcome or we die.
Speaker 1:Apocalyptic rhetoric no, this is the coming of the third decade of the 21st century. Suffer the verities of virus Resist. Suffer the ravages of racism Resist. Suffer global climate dissolution Resist. Suffer gender deprivation Resist. Suffer economic impoverishment Resist, but not so fast.
Speaker 1:Prior decades teach that needing big change will not alone win big change. Desiring big change will not alone win big change. Even believing big change is gonna come will not alone win big change. Resist. To what end? We hate how contemporary life constricts and kills. We are courageous, committed and confident. We resist, but without shared vision of what we seek, our courageous, committed and confident resistance will ultimately deposit us back where we began. Without capacity and consciousness able to persist, we will travel from outsized COVID, resurgent racism and flaming fascism back to normal sized business as usual. We will cling to leaky life rafts but not replace them. We will polish the old nasty normal but not end it. And the old nasty normal will end us.
Speaker 1:To attain a better world, we must replace today's institutions like a transplant replaces a dying heart. Keep society breathing while we operate. Scorched earth would burn us too. Our actions must mitigate present day injustice. To do less would be callous. Our actions must win changes in the present. To do less would forego the experience of struggle that arouses people to seek more. Our actions must envision, advocate, seek and finally win a succession of new presence that accelerate into a better future. To do less would forego hope and produce despair. But into what future? I interject.
Speaker 1:Reading this to you is strange for me. I don't remember the words. I like them, but I now wonder if I poured it on a bit too hard. Yet as I read it, it simultaneously seems not hard enough, not desperate, not militant, not positive enough. Maybe it would have benefited from actual evidentiary experiences. But then the introduction would have been a book, the rock and a hard place of political writing.
Speaker 1:Too much or too little, the introduction continues. When we suffer losses, our experiences must inform later wins. When we enjoy victories, our experiences must ensure that we fight on to a new world. Our losses and our victories must together accumulate awareness, connections and organization. We must win a trajectory of synchronized gains. We must bury the old and birth the new. To do less would lose. We must win, win.
Speaker 1:What Do I sound naive? Does this sound pied? Here is the harsh truth. We have no other choice. Alone on foot in the desert, we must walk until we reach water To curse the sun's heat and bemoan the sand's seeming endlessness, while standing still guarantees death. We must walk, march, prance, dance, run, but where to? I interject as I read this, I don't know how to say this. I wonder why more? Why nearly everyone doesn't see the truth that it conveys. This is not rocket science, it is trivially obvious. So then I think maybe nearly everyone does see that truth at some level, but not that it is possible, not where to go, and thus many hide that they see it or bury that they see it.
Speaker 1:The intro continues. First, what values can inform a long march into a new world? That all people share responsibilities and benefits fairly. That all people collectively self-manage their own situations. That social options and outcomes express the full diversity of human potentials. That all people feel solidarity and even empathy toward other people. That across the world, what's good for one is warranted for all. That the planet enjoys sustainability and stewardship. I interject Can anyone sensible deny that, if they can be comparably attained, these values can and should inform a long march to a new world? Can you that all people share responsibilities and benefits fairly. That all people collectively self-manage their own situations. That social options and outcomes express the full diversity of human potentials. That all people feel solidarity and even empathy toward all other people? But across the world, what's good for one is warranted for all. That the planet enjoys sustainability and stewardship? The intro continues.
Speaker 1:Second, what changes can ensure that a better future fulfills such guiding values? What arrangements can ensure that we always wisely and ceaselessly invest in the day after tomorrow's tomorrow? What attitudes and practices can ensure that we continually reharmonize with each other and with our ever changing planet? A new world should always be busy being born, a new world should never be busy dying. But what new norms and structures can meet that high standard? I interject he not busy being born is busy dying. That's from Dylan.
Speaker 1:Set values, conceive institutions consistent with those values. That is the visionary task of this book and the general task of all visionary thought. At some point, when I interject as we go along, I hope and expect that I will be critical or at least add something, apply something. But to this point it is all, at least as I read it totally evident, even if not totally asserted. The intro continues To seek what we want. We must envision it and describe it. Okay, already let's get on with it. But wait, there is an important caveat. To build a bridge over troubled waters, we have to preconceive fine details, but to build a bridge to a better future is different. We have no capacity to preconceive fine details More. It is not our place to determine the detailed preferences of everyone in a better society. I interject Perhaps you remember from the episode presenting the prefaces. That was Chomsky's point and, as I mentioned there, it played a role in how I wrote this book.
Speaker 1:The intro continues we cannot know finely detailed future choices. Even if we had a right to do so, it is beyond our experience. More a worthy future will reveal many good choices that will differ from one time to another, from one society to another and even within a single society, from one region to another. There is no one worthy future For our new future. We should not propose, share and pursue a detailed blueprint. We should envision only what we can now show to be necessary for future citizens to be prepared, able and institutionally propelled to determine their own finely detailed fates. We should propose a scaffold of a new world. A scaffold can provide hope, guidance and means. A scaffold can accept details when experience yields them. A scaffold does not go too far. A scaffold can go far enough. Different people typically hear an advisory likely above.
Speaker 1:Differently, many people's books, essays and other works claim to address a vision for a better future. But first analyze past and present relations. When the dust settles, the resultant works are typically 90%, 95% or even 99% about what we endure and barely at all about what we want. The 90%, 95% or even 99% about what we endure provides sound arguments that prove our present is perverse. But the 1%, 5% or even 10% about what we want falls horribly short of providing worthy, workable vision.
Speaker 1:No bosses, a new economy for a better world is not going to fit on the same shelf as those works. No bosses may be less eloquent. Some of no bosses' arguments may prove less sound as a proposal. No bosses will propose, not declare. It will need improvement, from ideas still to be thought and from experiences still to be had. No bosses mainly addresses economics it's every page. Knows, however, that we don't live by economy alone. We also need vision for racial and community, gender and sexual, political, international and ecological relations to overcome cynicism, to provide hope, to inspire efforts and to orient strategy. Does no bosses present a sufficiently useful, workable and evident scaffold for experience to fill out? I interject. Well, that is certainly the question, or at least it's my question, as I read the book anew, as if for the first time, because, well, it feels like the first time. Will its formulations not go too far? But will they go far enough to do what vision needs to do and what is that as stated? Vision needs to overcome cynicism, provide hope, inspire efforts and orient strategy.
Speaker 1:The intro continues. Chapter 1 offers a short list of key vision orienting values. Chapters 2 through 7 respectively address economic, common, self-managed decision making, classless division of labor, equitable income, rejected markets and central planning and finally, new participatory planning. Chapter 8 considers how our proposed economic vision might intersect new community kinship, political and ecological vision. Suppose our economic vision would be classless, equitable, self-managing and consistent with equally visionary new cultural kinship, political, international and ecological relations. Nonetheless, a question would remain Would our vision be just a thought dream, or could we navigate from where we are today to where we hope to arrive tomorrow? Chapter 9 offers a bit of strategy, a bit of tactics and a bit of mindset. A final, more personal chapter assesses and situates the whole discussion. A short bibliography then points to some selected sources and references.
Speaker 1:Some books entertain and edify, some books inspire, engage and instigate. No bosses would love to do all that, but mainly seeks to prod and provoke. Will you find its economic vision sufficiently worthy to elaborate, advocate and use as you see fit? Finally, what might we call our proposed economic vision? Originally it was called participatory economics, or parrycon for short. Some have taken to calling it participatory socialism as a part of a participatory society. But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and a thorn by any other name would hurt as deep. Rose or thorn, you decide, I interject. That was how the introduction ended. I think it was a bit of a fudge. Not the rose or thorn part that is indeed for readers to determine but the name part. The reason we called it participatory economics and parrycon for short, was that the name socialism had been appropriated and applied to economies and societies that did not fulfill the values we proposed and that, as we will see later, instead obstructed our desired outcomes. So we thought that using that name would imply that we were proposing something quite different than what we were in fact proposing. I tend to think, even now, that that observation made sense and was a good choice. Others disagreed Then.
Speaker 1:The arrival on the USC scene, conveyed widely, of Bernie Sanders, tended to resurrect the word socialism from its 20th century identifications. Now there were two new dangers one, that using the word would tend to convey just social democracy, or perhaps a vague better aspiration, but without substance. Or two, using the word would slowly tend to get those doing so to alibi for what has gone before and to insufficiently transcend its failings. I think both those possibilities exist and are to an extent occurring among some who now use that label. On the other hand, I also think, as I didn't think it years back that the word may be able to attain a new definition, free of its old associations, especially when one says, say, participatory socialism or perhaps echosocialism. My own preference, though, remains as it was, albeit attenuated in its confidence a bit. While I sometimes waver, I tend to use the label participatory economy for the sought economy and participatory society for the sought society, which of course includes other domains than just economics. At any rate, back to this episode.
Speaker 1:Now comes chapter one, the first chapter, and it was titled Values for a Better World. Like the introduction, the first chapter began with two quotes, first from Malcolm X if we don't stand for something, we may fall for anything, and second from Ralph Waldo Emerson do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. After those advisories, which I still quite like and find apropos, the first chapter of no Bosses begins. All around, apocalyptic novels portray pathology, blockbuster movies display depravity, disease ravages, ecological nightmares, rampage, inexorable inequality, raging racism, surging sexism and advancing authoritarianism all assassinate dignity. I interject Eegad here. I go again like in the intro, but I bet it will be shorter here and I hope it will lead right into positive formulations. The chapter continues.
Speaker 1:Billboards reborn of cyber screams pummel our nerves and butcher truth. Hunker down, they order, serve self, they holler. Despair goes viral, virus goes normal. Pundits pontificate that it is easier to think about apocalypse than to envision a new world. The end, is it really our only friend? But pundits be damned. Desires visibly rise. What new world might our new desires seek? How can living, breathing, suffering, struggling souls on fire, envision a better future? Three ways suggest themselves Reject current realities, debilitating racism, sexism, authoritarianism and classism. Preserve what remains. Reject past visions, debilitating authoritarianism and narrowness. Extend what remains. Proclaim positive values that we want a better world to actualize. Describe new institutions to implement those values. Celebrate what emerges. I interject.
Speaker 1:I think maybe that little list was a bit convoluted and obscure. The first approach just says this, this and that are horrible, for example, racism, sexism and classism. Get rid of them. What's left is our vision. The second says look at past efforts to transform society. Dissern the flaws, reject the bad choices, race the bad commitments. Get rid of all that. What's left? Perhaps extended a bit. This is our vision.
Speaker 1:The third says start over from what we now want. Think through positive values, conceive institutions that will make them real. That's our vision. You know, there's a sense in which the first, pointing to what's horrible now and saying get rid of it, leads, you know, not inexorably but sort of to social democracy. The second, which says look at past efforts to get beyond what we have and get rid of the ills of those past efforts, that one sort of leads to what people call democratic socialism but which doesn't have a lot of substance. The third says start from what we want. Think through those values, conceive institutions that will make them real. That's our vision. That one, I think, leads pretty much inexorably toward participatory economics. At any rate, the chapter continues the first two approaches reject existing evil to seek future good. That's a nice idea. The third approach establishes positive aims to seek future good. That's also a nice idea. Luckily, we don't have to choose. We can proactively embrace positive future features and also be sure they firmly dismiss past ills that we reject.
Speaker 1:Start with positive social values. How? Perhaps we should divide society into a few fundamental functions and propose a value for each. That's a plan. Plans are worth trying. But what functions should we highlight? Well, why not follow activist wisdom First?
Speaker 1:Every society makes decisions. Decisions dramatically affect life prospects. What role do I play? What role do you play? What role do we all play in the decisions that impact you, me and all of us? What degree of influence do we each wield? What do we value for better decision making?
Speaker 1:Next, every society delivers burdens and benefits that dramatically affect life prospects. Do we become poor, rich or something in between? Do we endure too many burdens? Do we enjoy too few benefits? What do we value for a better distribution of burdens and benefits? But also, every society has people who delightedly, neutrally or antagonistically engage with one another. These engagements dramatically impact how we feel and what we can achieve. Do we aid or fleece one another? Thank you. Do we respect or denigrate one another? What do we value for? How people might better relate to one another? Similarly, every society offers people a range of options and outcomes. The breadth of these options and outcomes impacts the enrichment, suffering or boredom in our lives. Do limited options homogenize us? Do diverse options fulfill us? What do we value for a better range of options?
Speaker 1:Also, every society inhabits an environmental context. Can we breathe the air around us? Does available food and water make us sick or well? Do we reside in natural beauty or endure unnatural ugliness? Do we face high waters rising, garbage proliferating and extinction encroaching, or do we harmonize supportively with our surroundings? What do we value for better relations with ecology?
Speaker 1:How about the rest of the world? Every society exists among other societies. Do societies fear or celebrate one another? Do societies attack or support one another? Does each society exploit the rest and vice versa, or does each society elevate the conditions of the rest to be as good as its own conditions, and vice versa? What do we value for international relations among better societies? Finally, every society contains a population with diverse characteristics. Do some citizens become beneficiaries of enlightened values while other citizens remain regulated and repressed, or do all citizens participate and benefit comfortably? What do we value for the applicability of our values?
Speaker 1:I interject, I am not sure it matters once the results exist, but the just listed set of questions were those that Robin Hannel and I mulled over decades back, and the succinct list of values that I am confident the chapter will now present as broad answers to the questions became our guide for the whole undertaking. I think what is useful about noting that now is that I suspect to develop any vision, say, for other key parts of societies, like their polities or kinship arrangements, or for parts of the whole like, say, healthcare or education. Going through guiding values and then trying to conceive institutions that won t impede and that will even facilitate their fulfillment is a good game plan for generating vision. At any rate, the chapter continues In a philosophical treatise. A chosen value to answer any of the above questions might receive a whole book, or even a whole library of books, for its exposition and defense. In this first chapter, we give only two of the areas more than a paragraph. Is that enough, too much or too little? You judge. If it is enough, continue. If it is too much, pick and choose and then continue. If it is too little, add and then continue. That is how conceiving a better world gets started and really how it progresses as well.
Speaker 1:Decision making and being subject to decisions occurs all over social life in homes, parents and children do it. In workplaces, owners, managers and workers do it. It happens in churches and ballparks. It happens in malls and on farms. It happens in courtrooms and concert halls. Decision making is at the heart of society s political system and is comparably central to economy, culture and kinship.
Speaker 1:Decisions involve choices. Choices require decisions. Who makes them? Typically, people decide A parent, a boss, a pastor, a consumer, a community, a population decides Less. Obviously social relations decide, markets, media and structures of diverse kinds decide.
Speaker 1:So what is a worthy value for decision making? An obvious candidate is one person, one vote majority rule. But that kind of democracy is far from universally applicable At work. While one person, one vote majority rule may make sense for many decisions, it certainly would not make sense for many others. Suppose I have a desk and I m arranging items on it. Should the whole workforce vote? Suppose you and 10 others work together as a team in a workplace where 190 others also work. You propose something new for your 9 workmates and you Should 200 vote. But what if you propose for your team that you have really loud rock music in your area? What if that music would be heard by all 190 in the surrounding workplace? Should you 10 decide that alone?
Speaker 1:Decisions differently affect people. A potential norm arises Everyone should have a say in decisions in proportion to how much they are affected by them. Decisions that affect only me, I should make unilaterally. Decisions that affect all members of a group and not others, the group should make unilaterally In a group making decisions. If you are more or less affected, you should have more or less say this we call participatory self-management. People should have a say in decisions to the extent they are affected by those decisions.
Speaker 1:This proposed decision making value treats everyone alike. It is a non-norm for all. But is it workable, is it achievable? Is it compatible with other values that we favor? To accomplish perfect participatory self-management will often be impossible or, at any rate, unduly time consuming. Luckily, to achieve participatory self-management to everyone's broad satisfaction, and so the deviations are at most modest, should be quite sufficient. It is still a demanding standard but if attained it would treat everyone fairly and consistently.
Speaker 1:But would it lead to good outcomes? The hardest part would be the broadest part. For example, when I decide to consume some item from the social product, something goes to me that could have gone to others elsewhere. Others elsewhere should have some say. But how can new institutions give me a say and give you a say across town? How can they give me much more say about what I consume and you much less? But still some say about that? And what kind of say? I interject.
Speaker 1:The questions asked about self-management point to the logic of conceiving and advocating or rejecting an economic or any other kind of vision. We have broad aims, in this case that all participants in activities and society ought to have appropriate say in decisions that must be made. We favor this broad attainment as a value, which is to say as something we think pivotal to having a desirable economy or polity or schools or whatever we are considering. And then we assess various institutions for whether they can abide or allow or, still better, facilitate the aim, in this case self-management. The idea is that the values enunciated in this first chapter or here in this episode, are not window dressing or posturing. They mean to summarize what we desire and as such, they mean to provide a standard against which we can evaluate the merit of, or even conceive and then advocate for particular institutions. The institutions are means to an end. We could list lots of worthy values, but to have a workable list we instead try to raise a few that we think will together constitute enough to ground our efforts. That is actually not just how this work no bosses was constructed, but how, decades back, participatory economics was brought into existence as an idea.
Speaker 1:The chapter continues my consumption also likely impacts the environment. That affects everyone everywhere, slightly for each, but a lot in total. Again, people beyond me need to have a say Can we achieve that? In what manner? The same holds for what a workplace produces. It directly affects those doing the work. It indirectly affects those consuming the result and those afflicted with harmful byproducts, and even those who might have wanted to use the inputs for something else. How do we involve all the impacted people yet simultaneously ensure wise choices emerge? Our new institutions will have to take all these various issues very seriously, particularly when we consider how to combine tasks into jobs and how to accomplish allocation. Self-management becomes our first guiding value. I interject Is there anything new about that? Well, anarchists and councilist heritages favored it and even often used the same term. I think we pinned down the meaning a bit from people should have a say over their own lives to the level of say that people should have. But I think it was there, even if not often precisely enunciated, before we took up the same value on the road to conceiving participatory economics.
Speaker 1:The chapter continues. Societies also affect the benefits and burdens we each receive. This is most obviously a matter of income and expenses, but it also arises in families, schools, courtrooms, elections, churches and hospitals. To hone in on a possible value for apportioning benefits and burdens, perhaps considering income, is the most direct route. We work. We receive income. What should determine its amount? Should we get for our income an amount in proportion to what our property adds to the social product? An amount in proportion to what we, by our own labor, add to the social product? An amount we can take due to our bargaining power? An amount that we say we need? An amount in proportion to our effort and sacrifice doing socially useful work? I interject Again this is not only how I was thinking about income when considering how to best organize no bosses, but how Robin Hanell and I thought about it decades back.
Speaker 1:We considered the various existing formulations of how an economy should apportion income. We had problems with each. We then extrapolated the new norm that left behind the problems and that also pointed toward a familiar value, equity, which I guess again we gave more specific substance. At any rate, the chapter continues. Of course, we shouldn't get back the specific things that are machines and employees or that we ourselves specifically have produced. If I produce bicycles, my income should not be just bicycles. I should get back a claim on the social product after some goes to investment and some to provide free goods as well as to provide income for those who cannot work. So we each get food, housing, clothes and whatever, but should the size of our overall share of the social product depend on the value of our property's output, on the value of our own personal output, on what we can take, on what we say we need, or on our socially valued effort and sacrifice? Our task is to settle a norm for remuneration in a new economy. Let's call what we seek equity. How, then, can we equitably apportion responsibilities and benefits? What is fair? What will function well? Which norm should be our norm?
Speaker 1:Regarding the economy, you likely wouldn't read these pages if you thought that Jeff Bezos should get tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars for owning Amazon. So let's reject income for property without further ado, though we will return to details in due course. A caveat Some may think owning is okay because maybe they can become an owner. I have to wonder if any slaves thought people owning other people was okay because maybe they could own someone someday. Similarly, you likely agree that our value for income ought not be that if you have more bargaining power, you get to take more income, and if you have less bargaining power, you get to take less. That would establish a thugs economy. You get what you can take. We aren't thugs. So let's also summarily reject rewarding income for bargaining power. I interject here. We have the tension between comprehensiveness and concision rearing its head. Should I have presented a full argument about the effects of private ownership or bargaining power determining income when I first mentioned them? I decided not to, because so many others have done so convincingly and because I estimated that most people who would pick up a book titled no Bosses would not need such a discussion.
Speaker 1:The chapter continues. Now comes something more substantial and, at first glance, more just. We should get back in proportion to what we, by our efforts, add to the social product. If we add more, we should get more. If we add less, we should get less. This norm, as well as the two above, will get more attention in chapter five, but for now, suffice it to say that we reject this third norm, albeit for less obvious reasons than we have for rejecting income for property or for power. In essence, we reject rewarding income for luck in the genetic tools, jobs and workmate's lottery. You are born with a quick brain, a fine eye, a motive voice, outstanding strength, lightning speed or exceptional vision, or you are lucky enough to have better tools, you produce something more essential or you have better workmates. Chapter five will argue that in each of these cases, there is no reason to pile excess income on top of your good luck.
Speaker 1:I interject Now. The concision in place of comprehensiveness. Choice is a function of the longer discussion being placed later. I don't know if that was wise or not. The chapter continues as to getting what you say you need want. That would undeniably be wonderful and it is of course, essential for anyone who cannot work, but, as we will also address in chapter five, it would be unviable as an overall norm for producing outputs that match what is sought. It would also provide no guidance for investment or even for wise apportionment of limited resources, labor and tools. The problem is that, with people getting whatever they ask for, the economy hears that people want X and that people want Y, but not how greatly they want XY or anything else. I interject. Ok, I suspect this last paragraph was probably too brief. Yes, it comes up for a fuller treatment later, but since, to the extent no bosses reach readers at all, likely a good percentage of them would be adherence to the formulation, from each according to ability, to each according to need. So I should have addressed it a bit more even this early in the book. It is a sentiment I actually like, but as a guide it comes apart. But as it comes up later, I won't have my interjection go overboard, but instead just move on.
Speaker 1:The chapter continues. So we come to what we do favor, which is that we get income for our effort and sacrifice in producing socially desired outputs. We get income that is for the duration, intensity and onerousness of our socially valued work. If we usefully work longer, harder or in worse conditions than the social average, we earn more than the social average. If we usefully work less long, less hard or in better conditions than the social average, we earn less than the social average. Can we implement that norm for remuneration? Would attaining that norm be viable and worthy? For now, like self-management, equitable remuneration is a proposed value that we can aspire to. We will see if an economy can embody it and how doing so would improve on a rewarding output, much less property or power. As we proceed, equity becomes our second guiding value. I interject.
Speaker 1:I wonder if readers thought about these values for themselves as they were first enunciated and, if so, whether it caused some readers to stop dead, feeling they were inadequate or unattainable and other readers to move on, finding them worthy and hoping to see how participatory economics proposes to attain them. There is a sense in which this kind of calculation arises for someone proposing vision for anything at all economy, polity, schools, whatever. From whatever source the question may arise, you have to barrel along even when you don't yet have full answers to your doubts. The same thing arises in many pursuits. How do you plow on into uncertain conceptions or calculations when you don't know whether the end will be a valuable result or something entirely ill-conceived? This, along with an ability and, even more so, an inclination to think outside familiar suppositions, are, I think, the necessary attributes to arrive at worthy vision. But of course there is a serious danger of avoiding or even denying compelling arguments and even evidence of inadequacy or failure.
Speaker 1:The chapter continues. Instead, my well-being should depend on everyone else's well-being and vice versa. Social institutions should cause us to employ our capacities for empathy. Social institutions should cause us to feel and enjoy solidarity toward one another. Solidarity becomes our third guiding value. I interject, I hope when one reads this or hears it, it is, even without describing why and how totally obvious, just how viciously and completely existing institutions not only obstruct the proposed values but produce their opposite. Perhaps I should have already been more explicit about that, but I'm pretty sure it will come up later. The chapter continues.
Speaker 1:Like solidarity, a value for range of life options is also uncontroversial. We cannot do all things at once. We cannot even do all things ever. Partly we don't have the time, partly we don't have the capacity, partly we don't have the means. As a result, we can benefit from enjoying the achievements of others. Other things being equal, the more our relations and outcomes are homogenized, the more our life options are impoverished. The more our relations and outcomes are multi-fold, the more our life options are enriched.
Speaker 1:Valuing diversity negates any inclination to remove conflict or hierarchy. By removing differences, valuing diversity avoids a mindset that would put all our eggs in one basket. Valuing diversity establishes a mindset that preserves multiple options, lest any single option proves unwise. Among other virtues, valuing diversity promotes personal and collective flexibility. Diversity becomes our fourth guiding value. I interject here again. A lot goes unsaid or only briefly indicated, and again it is concision versus comprehensiveness. Knowing more is to come, but still I now feel a need to note how these values provide a guide not only for, say, allocation in a new economy or decision making and so on, but also for our current activist choices. This value of diversity, even as quickly described in the above brief account, offers a strong corrective to activist sectarianism and a strong aim for activist inclusiveness.
Speaker 1:The chapter moves on. Do we favor exploiting and despoiling our environment at the expense of future generations or do we favor accounting for the impact of our actions on our surroundings, taking into account our own well-being but also the well-being of our children, our children's children and thereafter, even more aggressively but equivalently, are we sentient or stupid, far-seeing or myopic relations to our environment evidence civility, sanity and even humanity, or evidence the opposite? Should we value sustainability? Does that set too low a bar? If we carefully clarify its meaning as we proceed, sustainability can be our fifth guiding value.
Speaker 1:Next is another straightforward issue what we value for our society? We should value for all societies. Peace, mutual aid and respect are watchwords for relations among societies. Each society should have relations with all societies that permit and even facilitate all preferred values being met by each and all. Diversity with solidarity, equity with self-management. Sustainability for all Internationalism is our other values, writ large To keep us alert to it. Internationalism becomes our sixth guiding value. Finally, what good would it be to choose fine values but then apply them to a limited selection of people or have them be unviable, viable, self-management, equity, solidarity, diversity, sustainability and internationalism are not for only some people. Society's benefits and burdens, its rights and responsibilities should be for everyone. Participation for all who can participate is our seventh guiding value for envisioning new institutions for a new society.
Speaker 1:I interject Perhaps I should have said values are nice, but if they are unattainable, or if attaining one precludes attaining the others, then they aren't collectively real, only rhetorical. The idea is not to propose a gaudy but unattainable utopia, but a real, attainable utopia. This chapter on values didn't address viability and interconnectivity of each with the rest, but of course coming chapters will and indeed that is the institutional task Create a social setting in which our values are mutually attainable and even create a social setting that facilitates their attainment and precludes their denial. The chapter continued. The above values may morph a little depending on which part of society we think about. Think about politics, and equity might usefully become justice. Think about culture, community or gender, and we may highlight race and ethnicity or highlight gender and sexuality.
Speaker 1:Our hope is that when we think about how an economy ought to meet needs, develop potentials and not waste things that we value. Our shared values will give us an agreed standard to organize our thoughts. Our shared values will orient us to ask how will what we propose for production, consumption and allocation fulfill our preferred values, rather than to ask how will what we propose for production, consumption and allocation implement some old ideological scripture? I interject Get beyond what has failed to attain what is desired. That's the task. And that said, this is Michael Albert signing off for Revolution Z. Until next time.