The title of the above is a book written by Gar Alperovitz, a University of Maryland political economist and president of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives. This is an extension of an earlier thread here called “Emerging economic structures.” I think it’s a vital project to explore, promote and develop a political-economic expression of an evolving consciousness. The following is from a review of the above book in dollars & sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice
The schematic model outlined here is termed a “Pluralist Commonwealth”‗pluralist” to emphasize the priority given to democratic diversity and individual liberty; “commonwealth” to underscore the centrality of new public and quasi-public wealth-holding institutions.
At the heart of this model is a robust vision of community democracy as the necessary foundation for a renewal of democracy in general. The model prioritizes a variety of strategies to undergird local economies, thereby creating conditions favorable to the growth of local civil society associations and an increase in the power of local government to make meaningful decisions.
The model also projects the development over time of new ownership institutions, including locally anchored worker-owned and other community-benefiting firms, on the one hand, and various national wealth-holding bodies, on the other. These ultimately take the place of current elite and corporate ownership of the preponderance of large-scale capital.
At the national level, a major new institutionâ€â€call it a “Public Trust”â€â€is projected to oversee the investment of stock on behalf of the public as state and other pension boards commonly do today. The proceeds could flow to individuals, to states, to municipalities, to the federal treasuryâ€â€or perhaps to fund such basic public services as education or medical care for the elderly.
A fundamental shift in the ownership of wealth over time slowly moves the nation toward greater equality: directly, for instance, through worker-owned enterprises, and also indirectly, through a flow of funds from the large-scale public investments. (Capital would likely be assembled both by the taxation of elite income and wealth and through new loan guarantee strategies to finance the broadened public ownership of new investments.) Over time, these flows of funds are allocated to finance a reduction in the work week so as to permit more free time, which in turn bolsters both individual liberty and democratic participation. In addition, ownership structures and strategies that stabilize the local economy strengthen the traditional entrepreneurial foundations of liberty while also enhancing individual job security.
Finally, the emerging model implicitly moves in the direction of, and ultimately projects, a radical long-term devolution of the national political system to some form of regional reorganization and decentralization. The region is the most logical locus for economic planning aimed at securing jobs in particular communities and for handling ecological, transportation, and other issues in a rational and democratic fashion.
One of the points of the book, and review, is that such a transition will take time and lots of it. It’s a gradual shift. So in that sense I understand and support some of the tactics of I-I and other integral coaches to make current capitalistic businesses better, to instill some higher values, approaches and techniques. But it is questionable whether just doing that will 1) change some of the basic, inherent injustices within such a system and 2) by itself be an “integral” political-economic paradigm. Such steps are necessary in the long-term project to evolve our political economy, but so is exploring “what’s next” and working toward its enactment.
Interesting, but I doubt things would be as smooth as this narrative from dollars and sense suggests. The devil comes in the details. And the success/failure of an economic system is determined when things go awry, when there are challenges, when disasters are confronted.
I would be much less comfortable with a huge, national “Public Trust” than the diversification that comes from much smaller institutions making investments. It seems to me such a “Public Trust” would be a slow-moving Tyrannisaurus making large, devastating mistakes when mistakes are made and tending to be slow to fund good opportunities. It might also be especially subject to political influences. And if some huge Hindenburg of of an institution blows up, there are more bodies on the tarmac, affecting the whole of the economy that can’t happen from smaller institutional entities’ mess-ups.
I understand your doubts Tom, given the current state of bloated, inefficient, governmental burearcracy. But this doesn’t take into account those governmental bodies that have already implemented some of these ideas, or what govt generally might look like once it does, hence one might project “as if they [public strategies] must inherently involve grave political-economic market distortions–ignoring studies that demonstrated the measured efficiences of a wide range of available alternative [public] practices.”
Plus it would seem that this “public trust” would be administered by the reduced scale of the proposed regional governments, not a bloated federal system. And given the more democratic implementation within government, it might allow that “when the inevitable problems arise, in either public or private settings, they can be openly debated and corrected.” And of couse more of us would be more politically involved, given the expanded free time opened up by the new system (hopefully). I know if I didn’t work an 8-hour day, if it were perhaps 4 hours, I’d certainly devote much more time to politcal service and involvement.
Plus I like the emphasis on what is called “evolutionary reconstruction.” It aligns with integral theory in that it realizes a need for emerging, developmentally appropriate, political and economic systems that are in tune with the natural process of evolution, a big factor in integral theory and practice.
Now I’m not saying I’m completely on the bandwagon of this version of the pluralist commonwealth. I merely provide this, and other systems (in the previously referenced thread) to show that 1) we need to develop exterior forms to match our internal consciousness; 2) that many others are already doing so and we can learn from them, and; 3) how might some of these proposed systems already have incorporated some integral ideas upon which we can build?
As another example, here are some ideas on economic democracy in the workplace from a Green Party statement in Synthesis/Regeneration 21 (Winter 2000) at http://www.greens.org/s-r/21/21-07.html
1. Work groups should discuss how production at their factory, shop or office is safe and unsafe, both to themselves and their community. They could design plans to cope with problems. These could be minor changes at one work place or a proposal to eliminate an entire industry. (Several years ago, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union stated its willingness to see the destructive jobs of their members disappear if they received retraining and jobs of equal pay in other industries.)
2. Work groups should discuss domineering relationships at work and design plans for collective empowerment. This could include:
• a. Do people want appointed supervisors or would they prefer to select coordinators themselves?
• b. Should management be determined by a Board of Directors or should workers at the enterprise select those who coordinate the work?
• c. Should positions such as coordinators/supervisors/managers be permanent, or should they be time-limited and rotated?
• d. Should those at the bottom of the enterprise hierarchy have the opportunity for more training so that jobs could be rotated?
• e. Is the pay differential fair, or, should there be more equitable distribution of financial rewards?
• f. If workers are concerned that managers are being denied the opportunity to experience the multi-faceted dimensions of labor in the enterprise, should they invite their bosses to share the joy of all jobs, including typing letters, working midnight shifts or cleaning bathrooms?
• g. Most important, how can transformations at work occur while reducing waste and inefficiency?
3. Workers could select delegates to participate in conferences of those who do similar work. The conferences would be a time to compare local successes and failures and plan for reorganization (or reduction) of that branch of industry.
The Self-Management Forum could become the basis for expanding a form of social wages. Karl Mark has been ridiculed as babbling utopian nonsense when he said that a communist society would be based on the principle “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.” A society founded on greed finds it unimaginable that people could take what they need without immediately exhausting stocks. Responsible consumerism is not merely the way Captain Picard ran the Starship Enterpriseâ€â€it is a major goal of an ecological society.
Unregulated consumption has long existed for several social products with no problem whatsoever. In most cities, sidewalks are “free” and relatively few people walk up and down them all day saying “I’m gonna consume this sidewalk cause it’s free.” Public libraries rarely suffer from overpopulation. Some cities even continue to have free public education without an excess of students begging to repeat the 12th grade through eternity.
These are examples of “social wages.” People receive a portion of what they earn through individual wages and a portion through payment to society as a whole. Part of the political struggle between left and right is an economic struggle over social wages. The left wants social wages to include food, clothing, housing, medical care, and retirement and unemployment benefits. The right is currently shrinking social wages as fast as it can.
Besides individual wages and traditional social wages, a “group wage” would be paid to everyone who works at an enterprise. Instead of increases in money, people might gain access to services usually distributed through social wages or rotational use of vacation sites or cars (quite useful if they are being phased out). This is similar to union housing cooperatives.
The goal would be to reduce the proportion of wages paid on an individual basis so that an expanding portion of consumption occurs through group and social wages. The more people consume as part of a group, especially consuming by rotational access, the more people would identify with the group and it would be more likely that the gluttonous society would fade.
The group wage can be the basis for transforming enterprises into (a) collectives (where workers are responsible for the enterprise but live separate lives in various communities); or, (b) communes (where workers choose to live and work together as a group). We can anticipate that, for some time, collectives and communes will coexist with state enterprises, private for-profit enterprises and private not-for-private enterprises along with a variety of other economic formations. The goal is to strengthen economic formations not based on individual wage labor so that they can flourish and create the foundation for the abolition of wages. Abe Lincoln was right when he said that no nation could endure half slave and half freeâ€â€but he stopped short of realizing that selling one’s right to criticize the boss is wage slavery and wage slavery is a kinsman of slavery.
And this from the Common Agreement on Investment and Society (CAIS), Summary and Overview by David Lewit, Alliance for Democracy
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/1360-AA.shtml
Everyone here is concerned about the World Trade Organization and their big rush to embrace all forms of economic and cultural life. Exactly how are they trying to accomplish this? What institutions make this possible? If you were to picture this, what would you draw? And after you’ve drawn all those institutions, what would you change to make it a people’s picture rather than one of the economic and political elites?
Your first picture might put the WTO at the center, with its dozen or so multilateral agreements, surrounded by major transnational corporations, and such government departments as state, commerce, treasury, and agriculture. Then you might add the military establishments which enforce the policies of those governments. Then you might add international institutions like IMF, the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development. Then you might add the parliaments or congresses of the world powers which ratify WTO agreements or set other economic policies. You might connect some dots (the institutions) to show some major dependencies and power linkages. The people themselves might hardly show up in the picture, except as amorphous workers and consumers.
That picture is top-heavy.
A year and a half ago we in the Alliance for Democracy set out to democratically draw a democratic world economic system that might be achievable in 15 or 20 years a system which recognizes world trade and investment but emphasizes and empowers communities and the human imagination.
In the Boston area we gathered 14 nonspecialists who were interested in the problem as a panel to brainstorm and to guide the effort, including a coffee importer, a sheep farmer, a physician, a union electrician, and ten others varying in occupation, gender, and nativity. We decided to produce a document that reads like a treaty quite demanding for us and for business people, government people, and the rest of us. We call it the Common Agreement on Investment and Society (CAIS). Right now it has 23 articles and 158 provisions. I have a few copies here if you ask me.
We wound up emphasizing communities, but with some international institutions to provide assistance, protection, and integration. Our proposed world system is pictured on your handout.
First we focus on a world-wide network of distinctive communities whose people have mutual concerns and economic possibilities, like the county where we are gathered right now. By forming a “Local System Organization,” each community would be assisted by a global “Development Assistance Institute,” sort of like the National Institutes of Health combined with a Community Development Corporation which would provide seed money and development loans, assist in designing and evaluating developments and their outcomes for all stakeholders and for the environment, and provide a variety of technical services. DAI would further study international capital flow and control, and their effects, and democratic ways of ameliorating adverse effects. Positive developments would be encouraged rather than competition and conflict-settlement as in the present system.
A “World Economic Parliament” would be elected by municipalities wherever elections are possible, sort of on the model of the European Parliament. The municipalities also would have elected officers of their Local System Organizations. The Parliament would set policy for international economic relations, which might well evolve to be consistent with community self- reliance, autonomy, and cooperation. The operations and records of all bodies under CAIS would be open to public scrutiny.
Where local forums cannot resolve conflicts with such policy, a “World Economic and Environmental Court” would hear cases. Judges would be appointed by national parliaments world-wide, and legal fees would be paid from a legal expense pool where rich parties would be assessed more than poorer parties.
Our system would also create a world-wide “University of Enterprise” with many local branches and distance learning, to teach and train and share among people, for work in mixed economies where private, public, and nonprofit enterprises mingle.
To help stabilize international payments the IMF would be held to its original limited purposes, be put into receivership, and be re-staffed with input from the full range of stakeholders. The World Bank would similarly be held to its original mission, and be accountable to the elected World Economic Parliament. The World Trade Organization and its impacts would be assessed, and its agreements and functions modified or eliminated by action of the General Assembly of the United Nations upon recommendation of ECOSOC the Economic and Social Council. If it is not dissolved, WTO would be further reviewed by the World Economic Parliament.
Split up and disempowered by the Bush administration advising the UN’s Secretary General, the “Center on Transnational Corporations” would be revived as an independent body, with powers to set standards for transnational corporations and to monitor their conduct, and be accountable as international actors to the Parliament.
Whether the World Bank would go on funding huge, host-unfriendly projects like dams and oil pipelines would depend on local and parliamentary deliberations, but both local system organizations (in their varied ways) and the new international bodies would be charged with just and sustainable project-facilitation. They would refocus on viable local and regional integration rather than so-called “comparative advantage,” internationally.
The CAIS calls for new accounting concepts and methods which internalize costs to society and the environment in assessing the value of products, processes, and enterprises. These new methods would be proposed in open global conferences with subsidies for sending local system representatives, and debated and adapted to localities by local system organizations.
The heart of heartless capitalism is property ownership and the ownership of rights. CAIS recognizes that today’s inventions depend on yesterday’s inventions and insights. We propose a new system of patents and copyrights to replace the US model being forced upon the world through the WTO. All patents in international trade would thus be considered joint property of the inventor or patent holder, and the people whose cultures gave rise to the craft, science, and technology underlying that invention. Evidence would be evaluated by the popularly accountable Development Assistance Institute rather than by the unaccountable US Patent Office. Thus profits from the rent or sale of patented products or processes would be in part returned to the people or their public programs, or used to support international regulatory activities. Starting with a standard percentage of the rent or sale value, in cases of dispute the exact amount of return would be decided by the World Economic and Environmental Court.
This raises the question of how this new stimulating and regulatory system would be funded. Initial funding would draw upon assets of IMF and the World Bank. Like any company or government, the inputs of resources would be many, and would vary with its parts. Local System Organizations being autonomous, would make use of local taxes, fees for services to local and distant cooperating organizations, and grants and loans from the Development Assistance Institute, especially for new projects and programs. The Institute, Parliament, Court, and Center on Transnational Corporations would be supported by assessments from member countries, Institute fees for services, and Court fines.
Taxes on short-term international investment would also provide funds, with other means being instituted after periodic reviews of speculation control, so as to avoid regulators becoming addicted to a share of speculative profits.
The University of Enterprise would be funded in the many ways familiar to any state university.
Although three members of our citizen panel grew up in India, Cameroon, or Sicily, the democratic flavor of CAIS suggests its Western or Northern origins. How would the proposed system work in poor or authoritarian countries?
CAIS requires election of representatives to local system organizations and to the World Economic Parliament. Would such elections be possible in places like China, Uganda, Turkey, or Cuba? Apart from the question of whether elections are truly democratic in places like Mexico or the United States, China has recently reported popular elections in one set of towns. Cuba has intense local councils which elect representatives to regional bodies. Others may follow suit.
What about poor countries? CAIS is based on the principle of helping, not of competing and takeovers. Unlike neoliberalism, the emphasis is on integrated local development and self-reliance rather than foreign ownership and export. Because of their large populations, certain second- and third-world countries would have prominent representation in the Parliament and the Institute. Linkages with UN agencies, now languishing, would be revived. Sovereignty would be respected, and state services respected alongside private and nonprofit.
Economic arrangements like these may go a long way toward fostering democracy different flavors of democracy and the public welfare in all countries.