Planet Parecon

Is this what democracy looks like?

2009-05-06T07:29:17+00:00

( this has little to do with radical politics but I was asked to do some work with the anti-eviction campaign and here is the abbreviated result)

The case of the Hawkers being evicted from the Mitchells Plain CBD is one which should radically concern all South Africa’s consumers. Considering the increasing dominance of large retail chains ,and how this large scale capital is able to engineer state support as we see in this and other instances , consumers run the risk of not only dealing with inflated prices in a contracting economy ,but in the long term having financially colonized possibilities. The Tiger Brands saga, and other cases of price fixing, where retailers have kept mum, illustrate that no matter how beautifully branded the chain is, the consumers best interests will always defer to be the chains profit margins.

There is general consensus amongst analysts that South African retailers need to adopt a more mutual relationship with consumers, as the residue of apartheid has ensured that large scale capital precedes human public interests. The old battle of capital verses the people takes on especially sobering dimensions in the Mitchells Plain context. The bylaw enables the eviction of 800 hawkers, with a knock on effect on dependents, suppliers as well as consumers. Given that this is not an affluent area, and that a huge portion of household income is dedicated to food, there is no room for reticence in this situation.

Limitations to our response include the widely held assumption by consumers that supermarkets are cheaper than smaller stores. While this may hold true for convenience stores and other small stores situated in isolated areas, the Michells Plain hawkers are certainly not more expensive then the chains. While doing comparative pricing I was expecting the hawkers to be selling stock at very similar prices to Shoprite, however I found that more often then not the hawkers undercut the supermarkets substantially, and the quality of the produce was overall far superior. Two comparative shopping case studies undertaken were for a woman hypothetically buying back to school supplies and the other set of goods was grouped around buying weekly fruit and vegetables for a family. The results were shocking, as the groupings from the hawkers trumped every item in Shoprite with an overall saving of 25 percent in the case of school supplies and 34 percent in the case of groceries. Considering the high portion of income allocated to food by most people of this country, such a high percentage makes the City Councils actions unacceptable. As a result, by evicting the hawkers, the state is forcing consumers to pay more, as by making it difficult to access the hawkers by evicting them from the concentrated city centre. This is not in the public interest as it aids only large scale corporations, which as I have noted earlier do not have the peoples interests at heart.

The marginalization of small scale capital in this instance, something which is often tenuous to begin with, has far reaching effects which move beyond increases in grocery prices for Mitchells Plain inhabitants. By evicting the hawkers, the City of Cape Town is not only destroying the livelihoods of the hawkers and their suppliers, but also exerting unnecessary strain on the community as a whole. The dependents of the workers will find themselves without the constant stream of income which has in some cases been dependable for as long as 20 years and these individuals will become more vulnerable not only in regards to food security, but will find it increasingly easy to slip into what Seekings and Natrass have termed South Africa’s underclass.

The knock on effects will not only affect those depending on the income generated through hawking however, as the spatial restraints of the bylaw will mean that individuals who cannot afford the inflated prices of will have to either walk to an area where they can access food for cheaper, or buy less food of inferior quality for more money. This represents an unnecessary waste of time for mainly women who already are overworked and carry most of the burden in households. The safety issues of moving outside of the CBD also have implications mainly for women, and considering the long working hours of many individuals, create a completely unacceptable compromise of time and safety. Family dynamics will also come under strain the slowdown in the economic climate translates into stagnant or decreasing incomes. The person buying the food, in most cases the woman of the house will increasingly have to explain the sizable chunk of income devoted to food, and given our country’s appalling gender violence, chances are this will exacerbate already tense and oppressive situations.

Small scale capital is othered in economic dialogues, as are the workers. The effects of neo-colonialism and marginalization on the everyday life of individuals directly and indirectly impacted by profit mongering, are framed in language with delegitimizes these daily struggles for survival. This is especially clear when the individuals are described as facing obstacles or even worse are termed as obstacles, as the hawkers have been in this case. If we consider Ingrid Palmary’s work on Social Crime Prevention, the value of hawkers as ‘a crime prevention resource’ emphasizes the pivotal role hawkers play in urban areas, especially those of the periphery. In Mitchells Plains case they are not only offering cheaper goods, which are less likely to be irradiated or squashed and come from smaller suppliers, they are also performing a social function, as they interact and network with the community, supplying invaluable eyes on the street, a service Shoprite and co will never provide.

In conclusion it becomes clear that this is a case of the state working against the needs of individuals, and contrary to the electioneering rhetoric, that the poor are not only being marginalized but are being structurally exploited in favour of large scale capital. This action by the state should alert all consumers to begin demanding a country where this kind of thing isn’t allowed to happen, and solidarity with the Mitchells Plain Hawkers is an excellent way to begin to keep the authorities in check and ensure that democracy is not a complete farce.

What do we want? What do I want?

2009-04-14T04:10:25+00:00

One common way parsoc adherents describe their overall agenda is by saying that we're seeking to answer the question "What do we want and how do we get there?" But recently I've shifted that question into more personal terms.

APPS and the vacuum test

2009-04-10T06:01:59+00:00

When I was in debate in high school, one test a team could run to try to prove whether a plan did or did not fall under the year's topic resolution was called the vacuum test. I've recently been wondering whether APPS would pass some variation of this.

afk

2009-03-13T17:16:12+00:00

AFK for a week or so, as I’m here in beautiful Berkeley. Very important posts when I get back!

Talkin’ about a revolution…

2009-03-05T04:46:37+00:00

On Sunday, while driving back from seeing my folks, I talked to Joel Isaacs from Los Angeles for an hour and a half. It was great! He's thinking of getting a Los Angeles PPS group going and wanted to touch base. We talked about a bunch of different things.

A counterproposal for a new IOPS

2009-02-26T16:52:00+00:00

A while back, Michael Albert wrote a piece arguing for the creation of a new International Organization for a Participatory Society. I reacted rather negatively to it when I heard about it, because I felt that it glossed over the important things, the things that individuals advocating a Participatory Society are currently struggling with in favor of hypothetical problems that nobody is currently struggling with (e.g. how to handle fissioning a larger PPS into multiple smaller PPS's). Today, I'd like to suggest an alternative.

accepting status, decoupling it from income and power

2009-02-18T16:01:42+00:00

One of the core topics that parecon takes on is the question: how much should people get paid in exchange for their hard work? We come up with an answer that we think is fair, yet often leaves people feeling a little ill at ease (that people should be rewarded with consumption power in proportion to their effort and sacrifice). One reason I think that people feel ill at ease with this answer is that, in capitalism, people's income stands for more than the direct things which people benefit from; it stands for status. But how can we live in a status-filled world?

Non-commodity producer-consumer relationships

2009-02-10T21:37:46+00:00

In parecon, we talk about relationships between producers and consumers under the rubric of production negotiations at the Iteration Facilitation Board. There, as the classic examples go, the consumers and producers make proposals for how much of what they will make. This makes a lot of sense for the production of commodities. But what about non-commodities?

They’re all gonna laugh at you

2009-02-10T06:03:18+00:00

I didn’t intend for this to look like a child’s rendition of how Z’s rollover menus might look if they were simplified. But, at the risk of being mocked incessantly, here it is: PS. 10 points if you get the reference in the title of this post PPS. I took a college drawing class

Skimp and save

2009-02-10T04:37:40+00:00

I don’t understand the big deal with reducing/simplifying the number of menu options Z has. It’s not about eliminating content, just reclassifying and re-categorizing it. Mike presses the point by asking how many we might go down to from the current 13- 10, 8, 5? But we could just as easily go in the other [...]

ZCC

2009-02-10T00:19:05+00:00

So I went ahead and created a Z Consumers Council ZSpace page: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/group/zcc I’ve posted a link to the Z forum section that addresses the site redesign and Z operations (”ZCom”), as well as links to Michael’s letter asking for more participation, Jonathan Schindler’s ”What’s Wrong With ZSpace?”, Chris Spannos’s “ZCom vs. Facebook”, and to Planet Parecon. [...]

Albert’s letter

2009-02-09T03:11:01+00:00

Since there has been a good deal of recent discussion about Z’s site redesign and their appeal for more participation, I am copying below the letter Michael Albert sent to sustainers on Monday, February 2nd, asking for them to contribute more to ZCom. Dear Marcus Denton, We want to ask your help. Not financial. Not even ideological. [...]

Oy

2009-02-09T00:08:34+00:00

So, write after posting about why I'm not happy about Z, I run across this blog post by Chris Spannos, staff at Z. Chris, in that post, seems to be trying to guilt-trip the entire left into using Z...

Rumblings at Z

2009-02-08T23:51:58+00:00

Z communications is one of the institutions at the heart of this community--the community centered around Participatory Society, and the community that broadly calls itself The Left. Michael Albert, one of the original creators of Participatory Economics, founded and continues to be one of the few (two?) paid employees of Z communications. It is the "home site" of many famous authors of the left. Unfortunately, it's been years since I've felt really connected with Z--since shortly before they announced the new ZSpace...

How large is ParSoc movement?

2009-02-08T14:41:07+00:00

How many people total are involved in ParSoc activism? On the one hand, Parecon: Life after Capitalism sold quite well and, at APPS, whenever we put out an open call for new members, we get people who have long been interested in the subject coming out of the woodwork to show up at our meetings. On the other hand, the active world of people participating in Parsoc activism seems almost vanishingly small, perhaps no more than 100 people worldwide--way smaller, say, than the number of people involved in neighborhood councils here in our little town of Austin. The same people write chapters in Real Utopia, show up on the IPPS mailing list, are Z sustainers, and show up at Z functions like the parecon/parsoc classes over the summer.

Working session tonight

2009-02-03T17:30:59+00:00

Hey everyone, We’re having an informal organizing session tonight at my place: 1234 Solidarity Dr. We’ll mostly work on the interview project, from about 6:30 until 9ish (come and go as you’re able). Nobody needs to bring anything: I’ve got chips, salsa, and beer. My cell is 867-5309 if you need to call. Hope to see you! best, Marcus PS. [...]

Minutes for 1/27/09 Meeting

2009-01-29T05:03:16+00:00

Here are the (rough) minutes of our meeting yesterday. This was our first open meeting in a good while and I’m glad to say it went quite well! We will also be getting together next Tuesday at my apartment around 6:30pm (or whenever) to do some work on the Interview Project. I will be supplying [...]

Planet Parecon: to Z or not to Z

2009-01-29T02:21:30+00:00

In trying to push Planet Parecon forward there is some debate as to whether we should remain at www.austinpps.org/blogs, move to another (new) site like WordPress or Blogspot, or use the already existing Z blog facilities. We also need someone to be an organizer on the project until it has enough momentum (aka content) to [...]

housekeeping

2009-01-28T23:46:46+00:00

APPS had our first public meeting in a long time last night. It was very cool; some lurkers who had been keeping tabs on us showed up for a low-key meeting. We’re looking at slow and steady, trying very hard to manage expectations to prevent burnout. As for Planet, I updated the config so that it [...]

Waiting

2009-01-22T07:20:27+00:00

The air has bristled with tension for the last few months. What stands out for me specifically was the overenthusiastic Obama furvour ,and people telling me ad nausea how it signals a dawn for African politics and me wincing unsurprisingly at the particularly technicolour repercussions they envisioned for Zimbabwe . The ‘hope’ dialogue that cascaded and continues to gush out of peoples souls is disarming. Some part of this listener responds by trying to see that some level of interest in the world is positive, and smile encouragingly, but my overwhelming response tends towards despair, as the rhetoric is so laden and seeped with nonsense that you can see how easy it is for them to flounder blindly ,with your chest tightening at the prospect of the less enjoyable next level in the ‘hope cycle’ for these misty eyed citizens of the world.

This ridiculous expectation is highlighted by the local interpretations of the Gaza situation which has taken on the intrigue of a soap opera. The Jewish community has been slightly divided but dominantly supportive of Israel while asking for local consumers not to let the situation colour their buying patterns. The Islamic community have responded in outrage as expected and issued a boycott of ‘Jewish business’ including Coke and our biggest supermarket chain Pick n Pay. Some individuals of the group which started the boycott were then photographed drinking Coke by our local tabloid, The Daily Voice, and this event in the saga has so satiated my appetite for satire that I haven’t been able to even ask my neighbours how they feel anymore, or even read the business paper without risking a fit of giggles.

During the writing of the last sentence I have been invited to a ‘Peace event’ this evening which ‘ is an opportunity to come together in collective spiritual resonance’ and once again my response is delighted at my friends for being able to desire contemplating the void in regards to conflict,but obviousloy slightly confused at how they think this will actually help anything. Parecon as a workable solution instead of white cotton draped whimsy holds much more solace then the idea of undefined collective positive consciousness and it would do us well to remember it.

And so I am once again awed, heartbroken, and entertained by my surrounds, and the importance of a realistic idealist tradition, especially one as wonderful as a libertarian socialist model, reasserts itself. 'Our patriotism is that of the man who loves a woman with open eyes. He is enchanted by her beauty, yet he sees her faults.'.and in the case of summer in Cape Town, even the streets are probably chuckling at their wonderfully strange inhabitants.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, Jan. 27th

2009-01-20T18:02:18+00:00

Hello Austin PPS! I’m happy to write that we will be having our first meeting of 2009 on Tuesday, January 27th at 7pm at the Austin Can! Academy (2406 Rosewood Ave. 78702; 1.5 miles east of I35, across from the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex) in room 108 (signs will be posted). Over the last several months [...]

Thinking Strategically: Austin’s Response to the Gaza Massacre

2009-01-12T08:17:44+00:00

Austin’s reaction to Israel’s ongoing massacre in the Gaza Strip has been impressive and shows a great deal of promise. Looked at through a participatory, strategic lens, we can see several positive elements worth highlighting, along with some areas for improvement and goals to aim for as we move forward. So far at least six protests [...]

Planning?!? (Part 1)

2008-12-18T15:46:56+00:00

Yep, planning indeed. Recently I had a conversation about parecon in which in passing I mentioned that the participatory planning process would be a way of, well, planning an economy. This set off an automatic alarm bell for my coworker. Plan an economy? According to him, we don’t need planning committees, planning boards, or anything of [...]

John Mayer: Waiting on the World to Change

2008-12-13T18:19:39+00:00

I think this song sums up a lot of what we’re trying to overcome through a focus on vision and strategy. It’s not that people don’t know the world is a mess (”Now we see everything that’s going wrong with the world and those who lead it…”), or don’t care (”It’s not that we don’t [...]

Video Short: Austin PPS

2008-12-10T19:38:53+00:00

In June 2007 I was interviewed at the U.S. Social Forum about the Austin Project for a Participatory Society — then in its 6th month – by Lydia Sargent of Z Communications. I had pretty much forgotten about it until today when, much to my surprise, I saw my name on the ZSpace top page. The clip is 11 minutes long and, after I [...]

Austin email update, 11/30/08

2008-11-30T19:30:18+00:00

Hey everybody, I know we’ve had a couple of spammers join the group in the last couple of weeks. I remove them immediately but I apologize for the inconvenience. Incidentally, we haven’t set a date for our next meeting yet — it may have to wait until after the holidays — but I’d like to get together and talk [...]

Vancouver Real Utopia Event

2008-11-22T02:00:53+00:00

I wanted to share this event announcement sent out by the Vancouver Participatory Economics Collective. Way to go guys! -mcd BOOK LAUNCH: Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, edited by Chris Spannos. Rhizome Cafe. Sunday, November 23, 5:30 pm Come celebrate the launch of Chris Spannos’ book, Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century (AK Press). [...]

Parsoc Primer

2008-11-20T21:13:10+00:00

I had an idea for an event. What if we did something that was sort of a primer to the whole participatory, parsoc stuff. We could give a brief background on the history and ideology of the new left and where these ideas came from, a brief overview of our social theory (totalism/complementary holism), the development [...]

security

2008-11-10T01:03:06+00:00

Living in one of the most unequal societies in the world while being chronically interested in scarcities has made me consider what Parecon has to offer by way of access to resources and offering security around them.

A very palatable example is food security. African cities are exploding and last week our CPI data was released for urban areas, reporting a 6 year high. While South African cities are expected to grow slightly less then others o the continent, the stress that high urban inflation will have on the urban poor, married with the horrible permutations which have been triggered by our new status as a net importer of agricultural products for the first time in more than 20 years, means that even more of our already chronically marginalized will continue to sidelined.

The rampant speculation on all commodity markets, including that of food, tends to have the effect of pushing those on the edge closer and closer to tragedy by the day. In Parecon this bullying is not only tempered but eliminated, as society demands its own demands. Shortages of basic commodities will therefore only occur if there is chaotically bad luck, which theoretically should be planned for, or if the society as a whole decides that life is not worth preserving, which while possible, seems slightly out of step with our experiences of human tenacity. All in all basic security should therefore be provided for, and unwanted fluctuations in supply can be relegated to fodder for dystopian science fiction stories.

Access to basic commodities, which I doubt will be interchangeable with the term scarcity, in a Parecon society, is not the only security that a Parecon society is capable of providing though. In South Africa, like many other fractured and heavily hierarchically structured societies, the idea of safety and the excessive paranoia which goes hand in hand can be seen locally, as gated communities and heavily fortified spaces have become normalized and cease to offend even those of us who hate them passionately.

By shifting what is valued by society and changing the way that organizations are structured, there will be no need for paranoia as hoarding ‘valuables’ will seem bizarre, especially if the valuables are ugly pieces of art which only ever has speculated value. The implications of this are huge and nearly impossible for me to imagine, as the idea of not having houses and malls and offices and schools where we are always ‘protecting’ is alien whilst implying a whole range of other positive changes.

Ways to apply these elements of Parecon to daily life are varied. By trying to create strategies which support and encourage structures which have Pareconish values, and being part of groups which are inspiring and hopeful, steering clear of martyr fueled disillusionment, and being involved in our communities, we can cement these elements of Parecon in our own minds and by that be catalysed into realizing new ways to reestablish the ways our societies deal with and respond to the idea of security.

obama election

2008-11-05T17:16:46+00:00

Well, the Democratic party won increased majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the presidency. After watching Obama turn a raucous crowd silent while he was here in Austin by saying "We're for capitalism", I don't expect that the Democrats are going to all of a sudden embrace the principles of Parecon really really close. But I do expect that there'll be room for some more good ideas that would have been non-starters before. (I haven't figured out how to do a "Read More" tag, so if you're reading this on the planet, click the byline to read more.)

2008-11-03T01:34:36+00:00

So here be....

This blog is a response to a call by those beings who make up IPPS...
I will try and grapple with a few things related to it and share vaguely inspiring things...

.. I might not be able to stick to topic always but will keep this blog as palatable as possible and steer clear of tirades as they can get a little dry after a while...

.. I am based in Cape Town and work in a variety of fields but am happy to answer questions vis policy and whatever else... as yet we havent got a real parsoc set up but that will come....

blessings

Speaking Truth to… ZZ Top?

2008-11-02T18:15:59+00:00

Halloween was a trip this year, literally. I had to fly to Dallas for a one day training on a software program my school uses. Luckily it was quick, actually helpful, and I met some good people. In fact, things went so smoothly I forgot it was Halloween. That is, until the shenanigans began. Like the good [...]

tools before rules

2008-11-01T22:06:40+00:00

In my last post, I discussed software that allows for efficient collaboration within lateral structures by partitioning the lateral structures into task-based small groups--software like Mediawiki (behind Wikipedia) and bugzilla. I think some of the lessons from this software could be used beyond the worlds of free software and free content, within participatory structures. Read below the fold for how.

Chicago Visitors

2008-10-29T13:07:07+00:00

Mitchell and Bree from the Chicago Area Participatory Economics Society (CAPES) came to Austin the weekend of October 10th. Mitchell was taking part in the FlowTV media conference, including moderating a panel discussion on the conversion to digital TV. Fortunately we found enough free time to hang out and chat about parecon and how we [...]

efficiency within lateral structures

2008-10-27T15:13:45+00:00

A persistent theme in discussions of alternative economic systems is a trade-off between democracy and efficiency, with lateral structures considered more democratic, vertical systems more efficient. There are, of course, some inefficiencies specific to vertical structures such as ineffective or corrupt leaders or a mismatch of priorities between the leaders and the led. However, it’s certainly [...]

Austin Coop Fest

2008-10-25T14:41:10+00:00

Last night, I went to a big party, Austin CoopFest, put on mostly by one of the housing coops, ICC. In attendance were consumer coops small (Wheatsville–groceries) and large (REI), as well as student and non-student housing coops, alternative economics institutions (Austin Time Exchange). And, of course, beer was provided by Black Star Coop, another [...]

Parecon and strategy

2008-10-21T15:40:58+00:00

One of the things I’ve been frustrated about recently about Parecon activism is that I feel totally unprepared to answer the question: “so what?” The reason, if I understood correctly, that most of us give for thinking about “end goals” is that having “end goals” helps point us in the right direction for the short [...]

My hopes for this blog and Planet Parecon

2008-10-21T15:31:42+00:00

There’s a lot of people out there in the world interested in Parecon. There have been various initiatives over the last year or so to bring people who are interested in it together, to work together. There is an International Project for a Participatory Society, consisting mostly of big thinkers writing magazine-style articles about how [...]