Participatory Economics

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

In a nut shell the idea it to replace the current conception of economic freedom with self-management. The purpose being it will create a condition by which each individual has an amount of input in the decision making process proportionate to how much they are personally affected by the decision.

This is an important principle. A lot of the conflict in our society currently is due to disagreement about how much input the individual has in the decision making process, and the degree to which that input is to be respected or marginalized.

Basically US society has made claims to being a democratic system of free individuals but the reality is somewhat different. Individuals can make some decisions in our society but in the really important decisions input from the population is marginalized and the leaders of society are trained to understand and internalize the idea that people need to have the decisions made by specialists on their behalf. This includes the thinking that if people don't accept a decision made "in their own best interest" then it is best if the leaders of society coerce or delude the individual to accept the desired policy.

The result of this activity is widespread anomie due to high levels of social alienation in our society. Basically my argument is this:

Anything other than effective self management by empowered, actualized individuals is going to have the long term result of gross mismanagement.

This is true except in the most dire short terms circumstances, such as war. I think a lot of the social problems we have in the US are because we adopted ideas that were good for society in the short term during WWII and then instead of returning to a more normal production/political mode after the end of the war we tried to apply an extremely enhanced production methodology to a normal peacetime economy, consumerism was instated to give a motivation for enhanced production. The desired result was big profits, and it worked.

But look at the cost. There is a better way.