Non-commodity producer-consumer relationships
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?
Marcus has just started a Z consumers’ council at Z, but the function of the consumers’ council. His vision, I believe, is that the consumers’ council can act as an advisory body for the staff at Z to help improve their site in a way that the consumers of the site would like. I think it’s worth noting that this is a departure (a welcome one, IMO) from the vision of a consumers’ council as strictly negotiating prices and quantities.
I think that this is an area some of us interested in Parecon have neglected–the feedback loop of IFB’s might be good enough to handle the sorts of feedback which consumers have become accustomed to giving over things that affect their lives. After all, a Z consumers’ council couldn’t well just say: we want to pay $500 and get an output of a marginally cleanly designed site vs. $750 and a very-cleanly designed site. The difference is that this consumers’ council is built to give constant, qualitative feedback about output decisions.