Slow and Steady…

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 the sort to tell us how much of each thing should be made and what price everything should be. The beauty of the market is that when you’ve got people making things and people wanting things, almost magically there emerges from this interaction a price, an agreement, about how much each thing is worth, which in turn determines the supply and demand of economic goods and services. At least, that’s how he put it.

While of course I disagree that the market represents an objective, accurate, or just arbiter of social cost and economic investment, I also don’t believe in any kind of central planning process, whether that be through boards, committees, or coordinators. What kind of a role, then, does that leave for planning in a good economy?

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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 care, we just know that the fight ain’t fair…”). The task is showing them that something better exists and that attaining it is feasible (”We just feel like we don’t have the means to rise above and beat it…”); in other words, overcoming cynicism.

Plus, it’s catchy Check it out (lyrics below the fold): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPOBMzMTP4U

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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 got over the slightly weird feeling you get when you see yourself on video (or is it just me?), I thought was actually pretty good. As we approach our second anniversary I wonder how a new interview might differ from the first.

Smaller version (ZSpace top page)

Large (permanent link)